tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1116746300696241092024-02-20T03:43:55.617-08:00Dinosaurs, Robots and Other Awesome ThingsThe Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-37423593060148641922013-04-23T06:45:00.000-07:002013-04-23T07:55:51.515-07:00The Story Duel aka "Millie the Golden Lamb Goes to the Farm"...Twice<span style="font-size: large;">Hello hello, dear readers! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">You're in for a special treat today as my esteemed colleague, Ms. Samantha Barrett and I are currently participating in a story duel. During a conversation we had this past week, Ms. Barrett and I both became enamored with a story title and main character. To decide who could tell her story better, we each wrote our own and then agreed to post both of them, leaving our respective audiences to vote for their favorite. Here is my version of "Millie the Golden Lamb Goes to the Farm," and I shall provide a link to Ms. Barrett's version below.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you enjoy the story, please leave a comment here, or on my Facebook, or on my Twitter. I'd appreciate it. (<i><b>And be warned, this story is pretty creepy</b>.</i>)</span><br />
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<b><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Millie the Golden Lamb Goes to the Farm<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Once upon a time, there was a lamb named Millie. Her name was not “Ewe Spawn #7794,” nor was it “Walking Cutlet,” but rather “Millie.” Millie’s fleece was unlike any fleece the other sheep had ever seen. Instead of black or white or grey, or made of rusty wires or bleeding worms, Millie’s fleece was the softest, most lustrous gold.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> One day, Millie decided that she would go to a farm. She did not go because she was being abused at home, nor was she concerned about being slaughtered and eaten by a cannibalistic sheep that secretly ruled the flock with an iron hoof, but because Millie wanted to go on an adventure.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Millie said goodbye to her mother and father, because she had a mother and father, as opposed to being taken away from her mother at birth and forced to live in a small cage for the rest of her life, so small that her leg muscles atrophied and she could not stand. Instead, her family lived in a wide open meadow with luscious grass and colorful flowers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “Goodbye, Mother,” Millie said, nuzzling her soft nose against her mother’s. “I shall miss you terribly on my journey.” She did not say, “I hate you, Mother, for abandoning me to the wolves which ate my entrails,” nor did she say, “I wish you would not bite me, Mother, when I do not obey as quickly as you would like.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Then Millie turned to her father, the great ram, Rosiah, and bowed her head to him. “I ask for your blessing, Father,” she said, “as I travel through the woods to the farm.” Had things been different, she might have said, “Please stop striking me with your horns, Father, that hurts,” or “You are not my father, Rosiah. You killed him and have tried to take his place.” But things were not different, so she did not say these things.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Millie’s mother nuzzled her back and her father, the great ram Rosiah, gave her his blessing. Having just finished a hearty lunch of grass and clovers, not nails and broken glass or poisonous frogs, still twitching feebly as they slithered down her throat, she set off into the woods towards the farm.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> As night fell, Millie was not set upon by a group of bandits, starving, ill-mannered men that used Millie cruelly before slitting her throat and draining her blood. She was not flayed by their sharp knives nor was her bloody hide fashioned into a pillow so that the leader of the men might have a comfortable place to sleep that night. Her haunches were not roasted over a fire to be eaten by the bandits; her organs were not valued for the richness of their flavor; her intestines did not become sausages. None of these things happened, and Millie spent her first night in the forest in great peace.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Millie’s dreams were of her great adventure, not of the fear that she might never return home, nor was she concerned that the farm might not exist, that it might only be a story and a figment of the sheep’s imagination back in the meadow she called home. It never entered her mind that the elder sheep of her flock could have concocted a story about “a farm” to lure those sheep unsatisfied with their lives in the flock away into the dark forest so that their rebellious thoughts would not infect the orthodoxy of the other sheep. Such a thought did not occur to her, nor would such a thing have been true even if it had.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> When Millie awoke the next day she drank from a crisp, cool stream she found nearby. She did not have to walk the whole day without a drink of water, her throat slowly growing more and more parched as she grew wearier by the moment. Millie did not have to worry about growing dehydrated, nor was she concerned that when she finally found a sluggish brook and broke through its scummy surface to slurp the viscous water that she was ingesting heavy metals and toxins, waste products of a distant factory whose poisons would kill her, leaving a stiff carcass to rot in the forest, foam on its lips. She came upon her first stream just feet away from where she’d laid her head the night before, and the water that burbled merrily over the rocks was pure and clean.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> The grass on the stream’s banks was bright green and sweet on her tongue. It had not been colonized by an exotic species of spiders. No eggs would attach to the interior of her first stomach, dispensing their payload of immature arachnids. Mille didn’t have to worry about those spider larvae working their way through her bloodstream until they emerged in her cranial cavity, nor was she concerned about the spiders spinning webs over her brain, slowing her thoughts and making her woozy. She did not stumble after a few days of walking aimlessly, all thoughts of the farm forgotten, fall to the ground, and moan pitifully as the spiders assumed control of her brain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Millie did not then return to the other sheep of the meadow a brain-dead zombie, nor did she die there with her family gathered around her. An army of millions of spiders did not erupt from her corpse once she had died, nor did they go on to infect the rest of the sheep of the meadow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The grass that Millie ate was perfectly safe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Near the end of her first day in the forest, Millie heard a rustling sound in a bush. She was a little frightened as thoughts of bears and foxes did run through her mind, but then a large hare bounded out of the thick brush and came to a halt when he saw her. “Hello,” said the hare. “My name is Harold.” He did not curse Millie for being a stupid sheep wandering through the forest, nor did he curse her for her golden fleece, fearing her as an abomination or mutant. Instead, he marveled at her lustrous coat. “My goodness!” he said. “You’re beautiful!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Millie thanked Harold for the compliment and introduced herself. “I’m going to the farm on the other side of the woods,” she said, not, “I’m fleeing my responsibilities back in the meadow,” or “I hate my family and so I’m running away from them.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Harold, in turn, said, “That sounds like a wonderful adventure,” not “This seems like an incredibly foolish thing for a young lamb to do, especially one with a coat like yours. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb and predators will have eaten you by the end of the day.” Instead, Harold said, “I’ve never been to the farm. May I join you?”<br /> “Of course you can,” said Millie, as she did not shun Harold for being of a different species from herself. Nor did she find his large ears and teeth off-putting, nor the way he bounded along on his large back feet. Millie did not find his chatter annoying or the sound of his voice irritating. When they lay down to go to sleep that night, the lamb and the rabbit snuggled up close, neither one distrusting the unfamiliar scent of the other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On their journey the following day, Millie the golden lamb and Harold the hare came upon a large, placid river. Its banks were not sheer cliff faces leading to a turbulent torrent below, nor were they treacherous pits of quicksand and bubbling mud. Instead, smooth grass transitioned into soft sand the color of a lion’s hide, an image not in Millie or Harold’s mind at all as they began to swim.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tall fronds of thorny weeds did not wrap around their limbs as they swam through the water, plunging them below surface of the river to strike their heads on hidden rocks. Hungry piranha did not rend the flesh from their bones with sharp teeth, the lamb’s bleats mixing with the hare’s screams as they eventually succumbed to the shock of their wounds. A floating log did not reveal itself to be a crocodile that snatched Harold up in a single gulp leaving Millie to swim furiously for the opposite bank. The golden lamb was not forced to make the rest of the journey alone, her mind now scarred by the images of her newfound friend getting eaten alive, nor did she cry herself to sleep each night hearing the gaps he made just before he died.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Millie and Harold made it to the opposite bank safely and shook themselves off, the sun shining down on them to dry out their coats.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">After a few more days of walking, the golden lamb and the hare stepped through a line of trees to find themselves at a tall wooden gate. Harold was small enough to squeeze between two of the wooden slats, and rusty nails did not scratch him as he did so, giving him tetanus. Nor did jagged splinters work their ways into his tender paws as he figured out how to move the wooden peg keeping the gate latched shut. Eventually he managed to work it free, and the gate swung open, granting Millie access.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The pair walked up the dusty narrow lane and found themselves staring at a sign. The sign did not read, “Bazinville’s Institute for the Criminally Deranged” nor did it read “Poskon Slaughterhouse.” Instead, the sign read, “Welcome to Sunnvale Farm.” Neither Harold nor Millie the golden lamb knew how to read, of course, but then Millie heard a sound and knew she had brought them to the right place.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The sound was not a pneumatic rod being driven into the skull of a cow, nor was it rifle bullet ripping through the air. It was the bleat of a happy sheep. “I know that sound!” said Millie, starting to run toward where she thought it had come from. When Millie turned the corner of a large red building, she saw a large meadow like the one she’d left in the woods. “Look,” she said to Harold. “That ram there looks like my father, the great ram Rosiah.” She did not say that she was desperately lonely and wished she’d never come to the farm, nor did Harold say that he found all sheep incredibly ugly and he could not bear to meet another one.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Millie led Harold to the fence where all the sheep were standing and said, “Hello! My name is Millie and I come from the meadow in the woods.” At that point the farmer did not come out of his farmhouse and see the golden-fleeced lamb. He did not take a shotgun and shoot her, not understanding what she was, nor did he grab her and place her within his fence so that she might never return home. The farmer did not kill and eat Harold for his dinner and he did not breed Millie against her will when she grew up in order that he might get more golden-fleeced lambs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Instead, Millie spoke with the sheep of Sunnyvale Farm for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, the farmer’s children let Millie eat the same forbs they planted for their own sheep. When Millie had eaten her full, she lay down on the ground next to Harold and slept, where she did not have bad dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When Millie returned home to her family, she did not hoard the story of her adventure, selfishly keeping what had happened to herself, nor did she make up lies to increase her stock in the minds of the flock. Her mother and father and the other sheep did not disbelieve her story of the forest and the river and the farm, then call her names and ostracize her out of jealousy. No, Millie the golden lamb went to the farm and no ill befell her. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You can read Sam's story <a href="http://samanthalbarrett.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/dueling-stories-millie-the-golden-lamb-goes-to-the-farm-vs-millie-the-golden-lamb-goes-to-the-farm/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-10370452255887440102013-04-06T06:34:00.001-07:002013-04-06T06:34:34.002-07:00Birthday Report<span style="font-size: large;">Well, it was my birthday yesterday and it was pretty delightful. I wrote an article about a show I'm trying to support on Kickstarter called "Job Hunters," (which is really great and you can help <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/132781320/job-hunters-season-two-web-series" target="_blank">here</a>;</span><span style="font-size: large;"> I worked on <a href="http://geeksmash.com/video-games/5-bestworst-pokemon-original-generation682" target="_blank">another article</a> that just went up today on Geek Smash</span><span style="font-size: large;">; I got a hair cut; I had sushi for lunch, played some Bioshock Infinite during the afternoon, had pizza for dinner (from Pizza Hut!), went with my friend Grizzly to watch "Jurassic Park" in 3D at the movie theater, and all in all, had a great day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I was lucky to have the day off from work, but now I have to get back into the swing of things. Five days straight until my next day off :/ Bleh. At least I'm reading a good <a href="http://www.amazon.com/River-Stars-Guy-Gavriel-Kay/dp/0451464974/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365255163&sr=8-1&keywords=river+of+stars" target="_blank">book</a> called "River of Stars," which I'll be reviewing on Geek Smash soon. (It's one of my free ones!)</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-34097723751946788172013-03-06T13:14:00.001-08:002013-03-06T13:14:29.392-08:00Who Doesn't Love Free Books?<span style="font-size: large;">Recently, I've been able to get my hands on free copies of <i>Encounters of <a href="http://geeksmash.com/books/review-encounters-of-sherlock-holmes176" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes</a> </i>and <a href="http://geeksmash.com/books/book-review-ex-heroes221" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Ex-Heroes</a>, and no, I didn't use the five-finger discount.</span><div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As you may or may not (but probably do) know, I've been writing reviews and articles for <a href="http://geeksmash.com/" target="_blank">Geek Smash</a>, which has been awesome. I get my name out there, get articles published, good times. What's even more cool is that people in the industry are starting to pay attention to me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It began with my review on Ernest Cline's <i><a href="http://geeksmash.com/books/review-ready-player-one-791" target="_blank">Ready Player One</a></i>. Someone recommended it to me so I picked up a copy and enjoyed what I read. I published a review and then got an email from a PR firm that worked on RPO when it came out. They had another book coming out, <i>Ex-Heroes</i>, and they wanted to know if I'd be willing to write a review on it if they gave me a copy. My thoughts were as follows: "Free book? YAY!" So I wrote my review.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Around the same time my boss at Geek Smash gave me a press copy of <i>Encounters of Sherlock Holmes</i>, an anthology of new Sherlock Holmes stories. One that I liked in particular was called "Woman's Work," and was a re-imagining of the Watsonian narrative through the eyes of Mrs. Hudson, the famous duo's housekeeper. The guy who wrote that story, David Barnett (@davidmbarnett) tweeted about my review, and I got to talking/tweeting with him about how I liked the story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It seems he has a new book coming out this year, so he gave me the contact info for his publisher to get a copy of it. Also, after my <i>Ex-Heroes </i>review, the PR company wanted to know if I'd be interested in doing another review for them later in the year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So these people are willing to give me free books for writing, something I love to do already. My life is awesome. (Now if only I could figure out how to get paid to do all this...)</span></div>
The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-51179557976423893382013-02-21T06:23:00.001-08:002013-02-21T06:23:08.329-08:00Language of the Dying Earth<span style="font-size: large;">Lately I've been on a Jack Vance kick, specifically his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dying_Earth" target="_blank">Dying Earth</a> stories. They are delightful. Like Walter Moer's <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/series/89206-zamonia" target="_blank">Zamonia</a> stories, Vance's Dying Earth stories are picaresque--following the rather meandering adventures of roguish characters with great attention paid to seemingly irrelevant details.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But really "irrelevant" is only applicable if one subscribes to the notion that everything within a story must serve the plot or characterization. And I do not. Nor does Jack Vance, as Mr. Vance is more than willing to spend long sections of his story carefully describing in close detail minutiae of his world, from the history of the singing fish swimming in the pond passed by the protagonist, or the specific series and color taken on by a stream of wine as it pours from the mouth of an enchanted wine ewer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Plus the words he uses...I love reading Vance on my Kindle because I can move its cursor to hover over a word and give me the definition. I consider myself to have a rather wide vocabulary, so I probably only use it once or twice in a given novel. With Vance's work, I use it at least once a page, sometimes more. Vance uses old, archaic words, many of which can be deciphered from context, but by no means all of them. But that's one of the reasons I like reading his work. I know know that "brummagem" is a dismissive word akin to "gewgaw," and "badinage" means "idle chatter." They're not words I'd use in everyday conversation, sure, but I like to spice up my own writing now and then with some fun words, and Vance is a great place to get them.</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-4787497485079326342013-02-12T18:51:00.004-08:002013-02-12T18:51:59.079-08:00What Will be on Geek Smash Soon<span style="font-size: large;">Just finished reading a good book recently called <i>Ready Player One</i> by Ernest Cline. I don't want to give too much away since I'm planning on doing an official review of it on <a href="http://geeksmash.com/" target="_blank">Geek Smash</a> pretty soon (though you could check out some </span><span style="font-size: large;">of my </span><span style="font-size: large;">other stuff there if you wanted to...) All in all, I enjoyed it. Lots of 80's references from every medium, plus some awesome virtual reality video game stuff. A good read.</span><div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Currently I'm reading <i>Encounters of Sherlock Holmes</i>, (though I'm almost done) a collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories edited by George Mann. I'm also going to be reviewing it on Geek Smash soon, as well as interviewing Mr. Mann, which is cool. (I've never interviewed anybody before. It's like I'm an official member of the Press and everything.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I might also have some exciting news, but I'll have to wait for a few days to see if it pans out. If it does, I'll be sure to post again.</span></div>
The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-86945914916254832972013-02-07T07:23:00.001-08:002013-02-07T07:23:02.662-08:00Teleportation = Death?<span style="font-size: large;">After reading some science fiction, I've found myself pondering the ethical ramifications of teleportation, specifically teleportation by use of a "<a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Twinmaker">Twinmaker machine</a>." A Twinmaker is a device that scans the person standing within it, sends a signal to a second machine--which creates a copy of the first--and then the original is destroyed. In this case, none of the atoms that make "you" up are present in the second booth, and yet from the perspective of the "you" in the second booth, you're still you. Both copies would be atomically identical, more alike than any twin or clone. It would be, essentially, you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Or would it? Obviously there are a number of reasons why such a device could not/cannot be created as far as the laws of the universe are concerned (as we currently understand them). First, the ability to measure the position and velocity of every atom within your body (in order to create a duplicate) would violate the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle">Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Secondly, even if we could measure every single atom that makes up a person, the amount of energy necessary to rebuild them on the other end would be crazy high. I'm not hip to the physics, but I think it'd be something on the magnitude of a medium-sized star per person (but don't quote me on that). An enormous amount of energy in any case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thirdly, to make sure that the person on the other end would be "you," or at least, have all your thoughts, feelings, and memories, you'd have to figure out a way to A) retrieve that information from the person's brain, B)</span><span style="font-size: large;"> store that information, C) send that information to the second booth, and C) download that information into the new brain, all of which have a host of problems.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But let's ignore all that. One of the advantages of science fiction is that you don't have to solve those technical issues. You can just say that they have been solved. So imagine that I can step into a booth and press a button. I close my eyes, and when I open them, I step out of the booth somewhere else, like Mars. Everything that makes me "me," the way I react to things, my memories, etc. remain the same. While it's true that the atoms I'd be made of at that point aren't the same ones that made me up a minute ago, it's also true that I no longer possess any of the same atoms I did when I was born.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The way I interpret the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus" style="font-size: x-large;">Ship of Theseus</a><span style="font-size: large;"> is that consciousness is selfhood, not the body. If I lose a limb, I am not less myself. If I replace that limb with a prosthetic, I'm not "partly" Colin. I am all-Colin. My body is not what makes me me. However, what happens if I'm not the only Colin around?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Let's go back to the Twinmaker for a moment. Essentially, the Twinmaker teleporter moves people like a combination fax-and-shredder. The piece of paper you fax to someone doesn't <i>really</i> travel to them. The original is still in your machine. They have a copy. The same information, but not the original. Now imagine that all fax machines had shredders built into them. The fax goes through, it prints out on the other end, your version gets destroyed. The information is the important part, right? That's basically how a Twinmaker works. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But if it worked like a regular fax, if I step in the booth on Earth, close my eyes, open them and find myself still on Earth, what happens when I find out there's a me on Mars? I'm the "original," sure, but we've said before that the original doesn't really matter. I know my gut reaction to this issue is to say that the "real" me is the on on Earth, but why? If the process had worked I'd say the real me was the one on Mars. That me has all the same thoughts and feelings as the Earth me does, after all.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And even if the Twinmaker always works perfectly, copying the original before destroying it, what happens if you believe in a soul? When the original is destroyed, do they die? If they do, does their soul go on to the afterlife while a soulless automaton is created? Or does the "new" person get a new soul? Or does the soul transfer over?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I realize teleporation is a pipe dream now, and even if it ever comes to be, it might not work this way, but if it does, I advise you to think carefully before stepping into the booth on your way to the stars.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As for me? I'll see you on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_Mons">Olympus Mons</a>.</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-62908327120372156472013-01-29T06:53:00.002-08:002013-07-08T17:19:38.925-07:00Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality<span style="font-size: large;">I don't think it'd surprise anyone if I said I love the <i>Harry Potter</i> books. I started reading them when I was eleven and lived in Switzerland (so you can imagine my disappointment when I didn't receive my owl-delivered letter to Hogwarts. [England was <i>right there!</i>]) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">They were great. Plus, I've heard (so I'm not sure how true this is, though it makes sense to me) that one of Rowling's goals in creating the series was to start talking to a generation of kids, and then keep talking to them for the next several years. Obviously she didn't come out with a book every year (seven books over a decade), but that's pretty close. If you were eleven when the first books came out, you were around seventeen-ish when the last one did. Events that went on in Harry's life were roughly analogous to things going on in your own.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But the series ended. The supplementary books (<i>Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,</i> <i>Quidditch Through the Ages, </i>and <i>The Tales of Beadle the Bard)</i> were all pretty short. Even with all the stuff on Rowling's website, Pottermore, and the world of the movies, once all that stuff came out, Harry Potter was over. We weren't going to ride the train to Hogwarts any more. Rowling is moving on as an author, and she has the right to do so. Still, haven't you always wanted to go back there, to Magical Britain? I know I have. That's why a book that I read this past weekend grabbed my attention so strongly. It's a piece of fanfiction called <i>Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I loved this book. Not since the original HP series has a book grabbed my attention so firmly and refused to let go. I actually spent all of Friday night reading it (nine solid hours). It is in turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, filled with moments that make you want to stand up and cheer as well as ponder the new scientific concept this version of Harry has brought up.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Written by a researcher of Artificial Intelligence (a very smart fellow), <i>HP&TMOR</i> asks the question, "How would Harry's life have been different if his Aunt Petunia had A) married someone who loved Harry, and B) raised him to think as a scientist?" In this book, the author (Eliezer Yudkowsky) creates a world where Harry doesn't just accept the way wizardry works. He actively seeks to understand it through experimentation and gathering results. Why can't you Transfigure part of an object and not the whole? Do ghosts prove the existence of a soul? Why didn't Voldemort make a Horcrux out of </span><span style="font-size: large;">an extrasolar space probe</span><span style="font-size: large;">? And so forth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The book is a wonderful read, and I enjoyed it as much as a young Colin did in his bedroom in Switzerland, staying up all night just to read one...more...chapter...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's the link to the page to read it online (or you could download the MOBI file to read it on your Kindle as I did: http://hpmor.com/)</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-12023447421843904502013-01-21T15:57:00.003-08:002013-01-21T15:57:50.460-08:00Not as Bad as I Thought it'd Be<span style="font-size: large;">So I've been editing my novel(la), <i>On the Horizon</i>, as of late, what with that whole "it needs to be finished so that I can receive this degree I've spent lots of time and money on getting" thing, and it hasn't been as terrible as I expected.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Not a stunning declaration of my everlasting love for the editing process, to be sure, but coming from me that's saying something. I was about to say "I'm not sure what it is I don't like about editing," but that's not true. I do know what it is I dislike: I have only so much motivational capital (i.e. the drive to perform a task) </span><span style="font-size: large;">available to me at one time. If I spend that capital on editing, it is not available to spend on writing new stories. I love writing new stories, but if I am editing, I cannot do something I love.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's sort of like exercising versus reading a book. They're both positive things, but the former is kinda painful and takes a lot of effort. The latter is fun and absorbing. I realize that I need to exercise (or edit) but it takes so much work to make a noticeable difference that, at times, I just avoid it all together.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That being said, I'm starting to thaw toward editing this novel(la) a tad. I'm going to have to make some major changes in the original draft to get something I can be proud of, but the idea of doing so is marginally less terrifying. It's not fun, by any means, but I've seen visible improvement in the first few chapters I've altered.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(That being said, if you'd like to read my novel, drop me a line. I'm going to need a <i>lot</i> of readers.)</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-39264963385008533672013-01-16T07:16:00.001-08:002013-01-16T07:16:21.639-08:00Introducing...Webcomics!<span style="font-size: large;">Sorry about the late post, raptor fans. I've been busy lately. Some exciting news though. I now have a position as "article contributor" at Geeksmash.com, so you should start checking out that site regularly. It's basically a website devoted to getting you your Geeky news and reviews on TV shows, movies, video games, comics, and more. And now (thanks to yours truly) it will be covering webcomics as well, which is pretty awesome.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When I interviewed for the position, the guy I was talking to asked what I'd be interested in reviewing, and I said books and video games and that sort of stuff, but in prepping for my interview I wanted to make sure that I could bring something to the table, so I asked him about webcomics. I noticed they weren't already on the site, but they seemed like something that should be. Plus the really good ones (Girl Genius, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Schlock Mercenary, and Gunnerkrigg Court) would </span><span style="font-size: large;">easily </span><span style="font-size: large;">fit into the rating rubric already set up for graphic novels.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It seemed that while the guy I spoke to hadn't heard of webcomics, my telling him about them intrigued him. Some of those aforementioned comics have big fanbases, and their websites are really highly visited. Webcomics are also nice (compared to regular comics, let's say) because if you start getting into one, you can go back to the very beginning very easily and without spending dollar one.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So, since people on the site might not be familiar with these webcomics, my first few articles are going to be "catchup" reviews to make sure everyone's on a level playing field when I do regular reviews of the latest collections. It's a little daunting, as some of these comics have been on the Web for many years, so there's a lot of material to work with, but at the same time, pretty exciting.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm not sure when the article is going to get posted, but I'll let you know.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Bye for now!</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-88496500077835410542013-01-08T06:06:00.001-08:002013-01-08T06:06:26.685-08:00Editing<span style="font-size: large;">I don't really like editing.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Sure, I see the <i>point</i> of it. I just don't like doing it. It's akin to my view on exercise: a painful process that gradually results in something looking better.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But by the end of the year I'll have to have my manuscript in tip-top shape for grad school, the same manuscript I wrote in 19 days this past November.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Rough" doesn't begin to describe it. But I have a plan. A shaky, hole-filled plan that I'm sure I'll have to revise (and believe me, I see the irony), but a plan nonetheless.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If you're at all interested in reading a novella about smugglers aboard a flying pirate ship, do not hesitate to drop me a line. I'd love to send it to you. The more eyes I can get on this thing the better.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Well, I should probably get started on it (I'd like to get through a draft a month until my deadline).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">New York Time's Best Sellers list, here I come!</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-77955508996302956282013-01-02T05:31:00.004-08:002013-01-02T05:31:58.828-08:00Back in the New Year<span style="font-size: large;">Happy New Year, everybody!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What's that? I'm a little late on that one?...I'm a <i>couple</i> of days late? Oh, well, happy New Year's anyway, spoilsport.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Let's see, it's been a little while since I posted last, Christmas and the aforementioned ending of the year happened. I hope yours were delightful. I got to spend the Christmas holiday in Michigan with my family which is always enjoyable. New Year's wasn't anything too spectacular. I worked the 31st and the 1st so I pretty much stuck to my routine.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Otherwise I've been playing quite a bit of a videogame I got (myself) for Christmas called "Borderlands 2," which is very enjoyable, and I've already read my way through the novels I got as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm headed to Pittsburgh this weekend to hang out with my Carlow friends, so I'm really looking forward to that. I got a Barnes and Noble gift card from my uncle, and I'm planning on picking up a physical book to read on the plane ride up there.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Other than that, nothing too exciting going on in my neck of the woods. I'll be switching gears here pretty soon to focus on my novel for school (the magic pirate one), getting it ready to be looked at when I go back in...August, I think.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Hope things have been going smoothly for you since last I posted.</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-70539109206712998072012-12-18T06:39:00.001-08:002012-12-18T06:39:42.552-08:00Video Game Novelizations<span style="font-size: large;">I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Video Games are art." Like all forms of art, not every single game (or book or movie) is a great example of it, but as a medium, video games deserve respect as an art form.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In no other way can someone experience a story the way one can in a game. They are <i>interactive</i> experiences, and nothing else can hold a candle to how involved in a story a well-made game can make you feel, or force you to ask yourself questions because <i>you're</i> the one making the decision.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That being said, sometimes works are transferred from one medium to another with varying degrees of success. <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> were books that got made into movies. There are only six Star Wars movies (right now, anyway) but the Expanded Universe fleshes out that world with hundreds of books.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Obviously, a story owes much of its power to the medium in which it's told. Movies utilize lighting, music, and images to make the audience feel like they're there in the action. Books allow the audience access to the innermost lives and feelings of main characters. Video games give the player the ability to control how the story is told. So what happens when a video game story is adapted into a book?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Really, I can only think of one example I've read personally, and that's <i>Halo:Combat Evolved</i>. Essentially a strict novelization of the events of the video game, reading it was like watching someone play the game in my head. That's neither a criticism nor a selling point, just a fact. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This whole blog post comes from the fact that I am a novelist that plays video games. When I got to the end of Bioshock 2, I was disappointed the story was over. "How neat would it be," I wondered, "to wander the halls of Rapture, to see it through the eyes of one of its inhabitants, to make an attempt to see it as a real place, rather than just a set piece which my character moved through?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The same goes with Portal 2. How thrilled would I be to get a call from Valve asking me to create a novelization of their game? The answer: Super thrilled. I love these games because I love the worlds they allow me to inhabit for a little while. Writing a novel about them would grant me the chance to live in that world for much longer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And true, I could write fanfiction. But I get antsy about writing things I know I cannot sell. Writing is writing, sure, but I want to be a professional writer, I want to make a living off the words I put to paper (or more realistically--to screen).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So I wait, and hope, and dream. Maybe one day I'll be a big enough name that somebody will want me to create the novel tie-in for their property. Meanwhile, I'm waiting for that email, Valve. Any day now...</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-61485264343374357842012-12-11T07:57:00.002-08:002012-12-11T07:57:27.184-08:00The Mayans and the Apocalypse <span style="font-size: large;">Just to get this out of the way: THE MAYANS DID <i>NOT</i> PREDICT THE WORLD WOULD END ON DEC. 21, 2012.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Sorry for the all caps, but I've been seeing this misinformation a lot lately and felt like I really had to say something about it. The 13th baktun (a unit of the Mayan calendar) <i>does</i> end on December 21st, 2012, but then the 14th baktun starts. How the notion that the Mayans predicted that day would be the end of the world, I don't know.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">They did have a predictive calender, one that talks about events that are "supposed" to happen a <i>hundred thousand years</i> from now. So even if we say that Mayan predictions are (for some reason) accurate, we still have a few millenia at least.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Let's say, though, that the Mayans <i>did</i> predict the world was going to end in ten days. Who cares? Why is this something people are worried about? Because people <i>are</i> worried about it. NASA had an hour-long thing the other day to answer any questions people might have about end of the world scenarios, and recently members of Russian parliament wrote to their country's three biggest television networks asking them to stop airing things about the 2012 apocalypse because people were getting so nervous.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Why?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">People have been predicting the end of the world almost as long as we've been people. Comets have come and gone. Y2K, not a thing. The Rapture didn't happen. <i>The world's still spinning people</i>. A part of me just doesn't get why people are saying, "OK, I know that every other time the end of the world has been predicted, it didn't happen, but I have a good/bad feeling about this one."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Then again, I feel like some people get this end of the world mindset because articles, TV shows, etc. keep talking about it, especially when their titles are something like, "What did the Mayans know about the End of the World?" The answer is, of course, <i>nothing</i>, but someone who only sees the title of the article or watches the first few minutes of the show doesn't get that. All they take away is that people are concerned about this, and so they should be too.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's one of those weird things about human psychology. Sometimes, if a bunch of people are concerned about something, you should be too. If you were parked in traffic on the highway, and then suddenly a wave of people came towards you from the cars ahead, running as fast as they could, you'd probably get out of your car and start running too. You'd go along with what everybody else is doing because they probably know something you don't.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In this case, though, don't worry. There are no planets or asteroids getting ready to hit the Earth (if there were, they'd be the brightest objects in the sky behind the sun and moon). Solar storms are actually predicted to be relatively calm for a while. The Earth's magnetic pole, while due for a shift, isn't going to flip overnight. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In short, I'll see you all on December 22nd.</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-37938901868982849092012-12-04T08:22:00.004-08:002012-12-04T08:22:36.699-08:00Colin O'Boyle: Creative Director<span style="font-size: large;">Hello, hello, oh friends o'mine! And how are you all upon this fine day? I'm quite excited because my pal, Chris "Grizzly" Dorn," and I are going to be working on creating a video game over the course of the next seven months (and probably longer).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Essentially, it will be a digital version of my card game "Gloves and Goggles." Players will play as mad scientists and do their best to smash all opponents into little pieces by way of digital cards. The cards represent armor, weapons, robots, mutated squirrels, and other mad sciencey creations. The game is pretty fun so far, but I feel like converting it into digital format will be helpful for a number of reasons.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">1). Chris and I don't exactly have a lot of money. Therefore, it's not like we can print, package, and ship physical cards.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">2). The game is (slightly) complicated and by having a computer do some of the heavy lifting for the player, things will go more smoothly. It's like if you were hazy on the rules of chess and so played a digital version. If you try to make a wrong move with a piece, the computer corrects you.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So...yeah. Pretty excited. They'll be some challenges (Chris is going to have to figure out how to program an AI so that players can go up against a computer opponent), but I'm confident about our abilities. In the meantime, I've got my hands full in creating all sorts of cool cards to input into the game.</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-46822624521819701402012-11-27T09:08:00.002-08:002012-11-27T09:08:50.980-08:00Treat Yo Self (With Words!)<span style="font-size: large;">Recently, a work friend of mine offered to lend me a book of his that he thought I might enjoy. It's called, <u>The City of Dreaming Books</u>. He described it to me and since it sounded pretty cool, I took him up on his offer. As it turned out, the world of TCDB is one I'd been in before, although I'd not read that particular novel. The story takes place in a place called Zamonia, a fantastic isle where strange and sundry creatures live, and is the creation of a German man and illustrator, Walter Moers. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've read two other books by Moers, <u>The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear</u><i>, </i>and <u>Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures</u>. Both of these novels, like TCDB, are what is knows as "picaresque" novels, a word whose meaning I had to look up. A picaresque novel is one that is characterized by an adventurous main character, usually of low social status (but not always) who journeys through a corrupt society having all sorts of adventures. Moers's books are also known as "random event plots" in which much of the story just sort of happens.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But don't get me wrong and think that last sentence is a criticism of the plots of Herr Moers's stories. Far from it. By focusing in intense detail on his richly-embroidered world, Moers makes Zamonia come alive, in some cases, the world seems more real than our own.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">On almost every other page, a reader of Moers's works is treated to descriptions of wondrous things, whether its Bee Bread--warm bread spread with honey and roasted bees (not always de-stinged), or Trombonphone music--a scientific form of music created by blowing through the discarded shell of a specific crustacean that can interact with the brain and cause listeners to experience intense hallucinations.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In short, Moers has firmly established himself in my Hall of Literary Heroes. I often hear that one (an author) should ask oneself with every section of a story, "Is this relevant?" "Does the story make sense if I remove this?" (Whatever <i>this</i> may be.) Essentially, editing as pruning--removal of extraneous literary branches so that the whole might thrive. And I see the value in this idea. Getting too bogged down in perfectly describing something completely irrelevant to the plot essentially wastes the reader's time. If they are forced to expend serious mental energy only to realize what they've been pondering is basically fluff, the author has irritated his reader.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">However, "fluff" is almost the <i>point</i> of a picaresque novel. Focusing on vast numbers of strange things in the course of a normal story is not a good strategy, I admit this. If the core of the story is the plot, then anything that supports the plot must stay. Everything else (to a degree) must go. Just look at Hemingway. That man made a career, almost a complete literary school, out of cutting his stories to the bone. They remind me of those Zen paintings where the artist is able to capture the essence of a forest in only a handful of strokes from his brush.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I am not a Zen painter, though. Stories like Hemingway's are not what I aspire to create. I aspire to be like Walter Moers or Jack Vance, writers whose work is full of richly embroidered details that aren't necessary to the plot, because some of the best things in life <i>aren't necessary</i>. Cushions on couches aren't necessary. Fine wines aren't necessary. Pampering yourself, with physical objects, delicious food, or magnificent words, isn't necessary. <i>But it's delightful</i>. And I think we could all use a little a bit more delight in our lives, don't you?</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-25776691050582344222012-11-20T12:02:00.003-08:002012-11-20T12:02:43.137-08:00Stressed Out (but Feeling Better)<span style="font-size: large;">Well, <i>I</i> had a bit of a stressful day yesterday. I feel much better about it now, but at the time I was pretty freaked out.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As you may or may not know, I'm getting my master's in creative writing. I just finished my last regular semester (passing with distinction, no less) which leaves me with one semester to go before I get my degree. Unlike a normal semester in which I'd go to the residency and then spend the practicum exchanging work with my mentor, all one does in the manuscript semester is (you guessed it) work on a manuscript.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When I got into my program, the guidelines for a fiction manuscript specified that it had to be longer than 150 pages, which is nothing, really. I'd say most kids books are around 200-250 pages. 150 is a pretty low bar to get over. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Also, I was even more prepared in that I came into my program knowing what book I wanted to use as my manuscript, <i>For My First Trick...</i>, a novel I wrote a few years back. It's (currently) 308 pages, and needs a fair amount of editing to get it to publishable quality, but I had a plan.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">You see, if, at the end of the manuscript semester, the mentor you're working with doesn't feel like the work is ready, then you come back for another semester. This also means you <i>pay</i> for another semester. Knowing this, I've been doing a lot of work to get my book ready so that I could get it done in one semester: I chose a work I'd already written and felt confident about, I'm taking a leave of absence from school next semester to polish said book and to save up enough money to actually pay for that semester.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But a friend of mine warned me earlier this week that something was brewing, something that might affect me and my plans. This friend is also in my program and is working on a fantasy novel of about 500 pages. She explained that her mentor was concerned they weren't going to be able to get it finished one semester, which is understandable. Our mentors are mostly professors who have jobs besides their duties to our program, among other obligations. They can only read (and intelligently comment on) so many pages in a given period of time. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Then I received an email from my program saying that from now on, all fiction manuscripts have to be between 150-250 pages in order to be done in one semester. Anything over 250 pages will also have to be pre-approved by the mentor before beginning the semester. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Now, I understand why this happened. As I said before, our mentors are doing their darndest to make sure the works that we give them get polished to a glossy, publishable sheen. They want to help our work become as good as it can be.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It still irks me, though, to find out that the novel I've been planning on using as my thesis for the last two years will no longer work. It is a solid 308 pages. If the limit was 275, I might, <i>might</i> be able to cut it down a bit, but that's 308 pages with scenes that still need to be added to give the book emotional depth. I cannot add those and cut out 58 pages and still have this book make sense.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So that leaves me with a few options. I could stick with this novel, knowing that it will take a minimum of two semesters to work on (thus doubling the amount of tuition I was planning on paying), I could polish the book during my upcoming LOA, do a manuscript semester, then take another LOA, polish and save money, then go back for another manuscript semester, (doubling the amount of time before I get my degree), or I could choose a different manuscript altogether, one that's under the 250 pages limit.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've decided to go with the last option, knowing full well that I might get to the end of that semester with my mentor only to find out that he/she thinks I need to work on the story more, but I see this as the most palatable option. I've just finished (for a given value of "finished") a manuscript I enjoyed working on for NaNoWriMo about smugglers on a magical flying pirate ship. It stands at 39,000 words now and the minimum for the manuscript is 45K, but I don't see a big problem about expanding sections of it. I skipped parts this month that will definitely need to go in there.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">True, this novella is probably the <i>least</i> polished of all my work, seeing as how I wrote it in nineteen days, but fixing it will certainly be an adventure. As was pointed out to me yesterday, my manuscript semester is still a ways away, and I have time to edit until then.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm planning on finishing out NaNoWriMO by writing another story I've been pondering lately, and then it looks like I'll have quite a bit of work to do.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Time to get to it, I guess.</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-79323525894724927142012-11-13T14:13:00.003-08:002012-11-13T14:13:55.865-08:00Can't Blog, Must Write.<span style="font-size: large;">Sorry for the brevity today, folks, but self-imposed NaNoWriMo goals are swift approaching and my story is progressing more slowly than I would like. Luckily, I have today and Thursday off (thinking about going to a write-in) so I'm working on it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Colin away!</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-49682868794864289142012-11-06T06:23:00.001-08:002012-11-06T06:23:42.380-08:00The NaNoWriMo Ship has Set Sail!<span style="font-size: large;">Hello, hello, oh readers of mine! And how are you all today? Good, I hope. I'm getting ready to put in my day's worth of words for NaNoWriMo. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">For those of you who don't know, November is <b>Na</b>tional <b>No</b>vel <b>Wr</b>iting <b>Mo</b>nth (thus the abbreviation) in which people are challenged to write a 50,000 words novel (about 220 pages) in the month of November. That's thirty days at about 1,667 words a day. A challenge, certainly, but not impossible.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I started NNWM a few years back, when I was still in school at the University of Georgia. I knew I wanted to be a writer by that point, and I'd even heard about NNWM in one of my creative writing classes the year before I started, but wasn't sure it was for me. I mean, <i>50,000</i> words in only <i>30</i> days? It seemed impossible.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'd written but a few stories up to that point, and my only novel took a good fifteen months to get down on the page. Doing all that work in one month seemed the height of madness. But, as some feats are apt to happen, my girlfriend of the time broke up with me in early October of that year, leaving me with much more time on my hands than I'd had lately. Suddenly, NNWM seemed possible. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So I found a friend who was interested in doing it too, found a kickoff party that doubled as a Halloween gathering, brought a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola, and got to writing. I don't remember how many words I got down before we all started asking each other about our stories, but I remember it was more than almost everyone at the party combined.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Before that, I didn't think of myself as a very fast writer. After all, <i>fifteen months</i>. But at that moment, when people were saying they'd gotten a few hundred words down, and I'd already passed 2K, I felt good.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I know that quantity isn't the same as quality, and I bet at least one person's hundred words was better than my thousands, but it's a first draft. There will be time for "a hundred visions and revisions" later. First, the words have to get out on the page. And I am <b>good</b> at that. Why not be proud of what you're good at?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I ended up writing five thousand words by the time we called it quits for the night, and since I had that day off of work, I went home, slept, and went to Starbucks that afternoon, where I wrote another 5K. And that day is still my all-time record. Ten thousand words in twenty-four hours, a bit more than 30 pages.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I didn't break my record this year, getting in a little bit more than 3K, but I've been keeping up a fairly steady level of output, which makes me happy. I do so enjoy this time of year, when I don't have to care about what my final product will look like, if what I'm writing makes sense, if whatever my characters are doing fits with what I just had them talking about.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">NaNoWriMo is my chance to just <i>write for fun</i>. Writers put so much effort into making our stories look effortless (and believe me, they are not), as though they just flowed out of our head and onto the page. And that work can be tiresome, even dreadfully boring. I don't particularly like editing, personally. But during NaNoWriMo, I lock up my Internal Editor and hide the key until December. Right now, all I need to worry about is filling up my word-count meter.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And I'm <i>off!</i></span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-49527848030415575702012-10-30T07:14:00.001-07:002012-10-30T07:14:25.322-07:00The Star Wars Lesson<span style="font-size: large;">A question, dear readers: If I asked you, "Would you consider the world of <i>Star Wars</i> to be futuristic, what would you say?" I'm confident that most would answer, "Yes." Star Wars contains, after all, space ships, lasers, and robots, hallmarks of classic science fiction. And yet...If one pays close attention to the beginning of Episode IV: A New Hope, one sees the words, "A <i>long time ago</i>, in a galaxy far, far away..."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Star Wars is set explicitly in the past. This seems strange, doesn't it? Science fiction stories, by virtue of having advanced technology (compared to our own, in any case) feel as though they should be set in the future. Technology advances over time, doesn't it? If everybody in a work of fiction drives flying cars, then the audience seems justified in saying, "Ah, OK. Future."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But the Star Wars lesson says this is a dangerous assumption. If a piece of fiction (a book, movie, or video game) does not <i>explicitly</i> state that it takes place in our universe, <b>do not assume that it does so</b>. This is one of my pet peeves.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The same holds true for fantasy. While classic high fantasy (think Tolkien) takes place in an era of sword-wielding men riding on horseback, people using siege engines against castles, and other tropes of long-ago eras, this does not necessarily mean that a work is set long ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The flipside of the Star Wars example is Anne McCaffery's <i>The Dragonriders of Pern</i> books. I mean, right off the bat we have people riding around on dragons. Classic fantasy trope. There are people living in villages and holds (essentially fortresses). There are bards, even. And yet... </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The Dragonriders of Pern </i><span style="font-size: large;">take place thousands of years in the future, after people colonized the planet Pern. Using genetic engineering, they modify a species of semi-intelligent lizard and turn them into the eponymous fire-breathing dragons. Every so often, a micro-organism called the "Thread" falls from the sky, dissolving all organic matter (including people). The dragonriders use the dragons' fire to burn the thread before it has a chance to eat people. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">While the science in the novel is shaky, it is science fiction, and it's set in the future. Conversely, Star Wars features space-wizards with laser-swords whose story happened "a long time ago."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The moral of today's blog? Dig deeper, pay attention, and make no assumptions.</span>The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-56768158843247688942012-10-23T06:15:00.001-07:002012-10-23T06:15:28.344-07:00Word Counts? Boon (Mostly)My dear friend, Maeve Murray, recently blogged about the importance (or lack thereof) of word counts to a writer. You can check out her post here: <a href="http://maevemcmurray.com/2012/10/19/word-counts-boon-or-bane/">http://maevemcmurray.com/2012/10/19/word-counts-boon-or-bane</a>/<br />
<br />
I agree with Maeve, to a degree. Just because a writer works more quickly or has more words in a story, does not make that writer/story better than others. Quantity, after all, is <i>not </i>quality. But when I'm working on a first draft, all I care about is getting words on the page. They probably aren't going to be the same words that will be there in my final draft, but I have to get the first draft done before I can worry about any other draft.<br />
<br />
I like word counts because they give me a concrete and easily measurable goal. I can say to myself, "By the end of the month (or three months, or whatever) I will have written X number of words." Now, as Maeve points out, there's no guarantee that those words will be any good. In fact, they probably won't be. But it's a first draft. I'm not concerned with that yet. Hemingway said, "The first draft of anything is shit," and I believe that. Short of Mozart, nobody comes writes something perfect the first time. Stories go through countless drafts and rewrites and revisions. But if I don't get that first draft down on paper, I can't fix it. Word counts give me a way to motivate myself to get that first draft done.<br />
<br />
Without them, I flounder. If I don't have a deadline, if I don't know approximately how long my story is going to be, it doesn't get done. Even if the deadline is a self-imposed one, even if the story ends up needing to be longer or shorter, by giving myself a structure, I give myself a way to plan. "That's 2000 words a day," I say. "But I have plans this weekend, so I need to spread those words around ahead of time, etc. etc."<br />
<br />
True, needing to fill up words and not finding inspiration, I have a tendency to go on long tangents and talk about nothing in particular. My first drafts feature long (often longer than I'd like) sections of filler that I end up having to pare down or even cut entirely.<br />
<br />
And I'm fine with that.<br />
<br />
While it's true that a NaNoWriMo novel (50,000 words in the month of November), or any other novel written in that mode, probably isn't going to be any good (I know mine aren't), that's OK. I hate to harp on this, but it's only a first draft. No one ever has to see it. But it still needs to get written. As Nora Roberts once said, "I can fix a bad page. I can't fix a blank page."<br />
<br />
So those are my thoughts. Even if the NNWM structure doesn't work for anybody else, it works for me. I need a concrete, quantifiable goal in order to get my first draft onto the page.<br />
<br />
If only they had something like that for for the second draft...(and the ones after that...)The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-62897576708175216812012-10-16T07:32:00.001-07:002012-10-16T07:32:05.148-07:00After the End (with a small digression in the middle)Arthur C. Clarke once said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So if I whisper to a small crystal ring on my finger, then disappear, it could be magic (an enchanted ring, for example) or it could be really advanced technology (some sort of light-bending force field). It's difficult--if not impossible--for an outside observer to know for sure.<br />
<br />
This also applies to the real world, even without magic. Bring a Medieval French peasant to the modern world, and see if he doesn't think half the things you show him are of the Devil. Clearly planes are roaring demons. Clearly televisions have captured people's souls inside little boxes. And so on. Our tech, to him, is so advanced as to be incomprehensible.<br />
<br />
Ah, so what happens if everyone forgets how technology works? A post-apocalyptic scenario, for example. In Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, Max encounters a group of feral children. They tell him their story, about flying on a giant metal bird that died, several of the children telling him this through a wooden frame they made out of sticks, complete with bunny ear antennae. They were remembering TV, but didn't have a way to talk about it beside "magic box." And that was something they'd directly experienced. Imagine if Mad Max was set a thousand years after the end of the world. What would the world look like then? How would people talk about the things they'd found, the remains of cities, nuclear dumping grounds?<br />
<br />
I've been thinking about these things because I'm working on an after-the-end type story, but I'm not interested in setting it on Earth. I don't intend to have a giant green statue of a crowned woman with a torch mentioned in passing and the reader goes, "Oh, Statue of Liberty. I got it." I'm not going to do that because that's not what the story is about. It doesn't need to be anchored in the real world, or our current age. I don't know what planet it's set on but it's irrelevant.<br />
<br />
<b>Digression:</b> I find a lot of times that people who read one of my fantasy stories, but who don't normally read that genre, tend to ask certain questions that irk me. I understand why they ask those questions, but they're usually a non-issue. For example, one I heard back in college was essentially, "This thing [word, school, social structure, etc.] wouldn't make sense <i>back then</i>." I italicize <i>back then</i> because that makes it clear to me that the reader hasn't understood my story. Sure, there are knights attacking a castle. Similar things happened during our Medieval period. That's true. It's also true that I haven't had anything explicitly magical take place, so one can't see a wizard and go, "Oh, clearly this isn't taking place on Earth." But I never said it was taking place on Earth. I constructed a world with knights and castles in it because I wanted to have knights attack as castle. I didn't set it in the real world or in our history because I didn't want to step on anybody's toes. The issue my reader had was the mention of an "Academy" that a knight had attended. It seemed that such an idea was too modern a construct to fit into my story (not even the world that I'd constructed, but the "real world"). Of course, the word "academy" comes from Plato's school of philosophy in about 300 BC, so it's been around for a while.<br />
<br />
What irked me was that they thought I'd made an error. Rather than thinking, "Hmm, here's a medieval-type world <i>and</i> someone is talking about a [modern] Academy. I want to learn more about this world," they thought, "Medieval world, okay. What's that? Academy? Oh, this is wrong."<br />
<br />
With fiction, especially fantasy and scifi, one isn't constrained to the real world, to actual historical events. If one wants to create a world with more advanced technology than Earth <b>and</b> have governments settle their dispute by sending platemail-wearing, horse-riding, battle-axe-wielding soldiers into combat against each other, <i>that's fine</i>. (In fact, there are a number of stories that use that idea.)<br />
<br />
<b>Back to my original topic:</b> My current story is set far in the ruined future of a once technologically-advanced people. Their city still stands, as it was mostly self-maintaining, and many of their artifacts still function, although no one knows how they work. Imagine a room-sized microwave with an eternal power supply. I'm not sure why one would use something like that--to cook man-sized hotdogs, perhaps--but say such a thing exists. But then the people who built it and know what it is vanish. Other people stumble upon it. Maybe somebody dies in it. Imagine what those people would think about such a thing: Their fellow stumbles into it, somebody pushes some buttons or says something the computer interprets as the "On" command. Maybe it had a safety-circuit, but a thousand years have corroded it. The thing starts beeping, lights come on, and then their friend starts screaming, dying horribly, but not from anything they can see. Clearly the machine is a demon, or a god, or something incomprehensible. Can't you picture the Cult of the Microwave?<br />
<br />
So I see the story having three main characters. The first is a guy from outside the city. He's heard stories about it, but the inhabitants--mutated remnants of the original city-dwellers' servants--are cannibalistic homicidal maniacs, so he doesn't know much. The second character is one of the mutated creatures, something part-rat, part-cockroach, and part-human. Originally designed by the city-dwellers to work in the sewers, the mutants have had thousands of years to themselves in the city, and through garbled oral histories, they know how to use a lot of the technology that's there (what isn't too complex or corrupted, anyway). Finally, we have one of the city-dwellers, just out of a thousand years of hibernation. He knows how things in the city should work, but a lot of its broken and mutated. He's not quite as lost as the villager, the outsider, but it's close.<br />
<br />
So...yeah, that's what I'm working on/thinking about currently. Hopefully it goes well.The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-78826994540281900862012-10-09T06:06:00.000-07:002012-10-09T06:06:48.549-07:00The Liebster Award<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Recently I received an award (YAY!) from my friend Maeve
Murray (<a href="http://maevemcmurray.com/"><span style="color: blue;">http://maevemcmurray.com</span></a>)
called the Liebster Award, which is given to blogs with less than 200
subscribers. She posed eleven questions to me, which I shall now answer. Enjoy! (Also, I'm not sure what's up with the formatting of this thing. It got really screwy after number two. Sorry about that.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1. What is the biggest recurring problem
you have when writing?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My biggest problem while writing is keeping
myself excited about whatever piece I'm working on. If I'm excited, (and
disciplined), I can write thousands of words a day. If I'm not excited, if I
view getting in my daily word count as just that-- getting in my word
count--rather than <i>getting</i> to work on my story, then it can be
hard to write more than a sentence or two. I think of it as riding a bicycle up
and down hills. If I'm excited, that's like having someone give me a boost up
the hill. I still have to pedal, but it's fun. If I'm not excited, it's like
having to work against gravity and my own aching muscles, struggling for every
inch until I pick up enough momentum to keep going, or fall over.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">2. What is your method of editing?</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Heh. I'm almost never excited about editing, so
I end up relying on other people probably more than I should. one of the things
that makes a good writer an excellent one is the number of times they're
willing to redraft their work. For me it's not so much a matter of being
willing to do that, is that I'm so close to my work, I can't see why certain
parts strike me as not working. I can tell they're not working--I don't thing
everything I write is awesome from the very first draft--but I have trouble
seeing, "Oh, this part doesn't work because he resolves the tension too
easily," or "this part is very interesting, but doesn't actually do
anything for the story," etc. If I can have someone who's not read the
story read it, they're mote likely to see these big picture issues than I am.
So, short version, I write, edit once or twice or spelling/awkward sentences,
etc. then send it to someone I trust. Getting back those comments, I work on
big picture things, then rinse and repeat.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
<span style="background: white;">3. If you could write one novel, and ONLY one,
what would it be about?</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Oh dear, that is a tough
one. As much as I force myself to work on short stories, I consider myself to
be a novelist at heart, so I'm not sure I could limit myself to just one. I
guess if I had to choose, I'd pick my perfect prison idea, a science fiction
story that would require a lot of research into America's prisons, and (at
least I think) have a lot of literary merit. That'd be pretty cool.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">4. What
passions did you have before you knew you wanted to be a writer?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’ve
always been a story-teller. It’s only in the past few years that I’ve actually
written them down. Plus I’ve always had an active imagination. I can remember
staging elaborate battles between my toys, and I’d always bring one of them
with me wherever I went, interacting with the world, somehow tying it into the
narrative I’d already created.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">5.
Have you ever read something that took your breath away? What was it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Songs of the Dying Earth. It’s a collection of short stories in Jack Vance’s
world “The Dying Earth,” but they’re all written in Vance’s style, which is
extremely elaborate and intricate. The whole book is incredibly beautiful and
the idea of so many people (including writers like George RR Martin and Neil
Gaiman) liking your style so much that they want to write like you too, in your
world, it just inspires me. That could be me one day. People might want to
write in one of my worlds. And that would be <i>awesome</i>. Also, Jack Vance's short story, "Moon Moth," which includes a line that describes him perfectly, "Intricacy in all things."</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">6. If
you could design the cover to your debut novel, what would it look like?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m
thinking my debut novel will be my thesis novel, <i>For My First Trick…</i> but I’m not a visually inclined person, so I’d
have to say playing cards would need to be involved somewhere. It is about a
stage magician after all. Probably a top hat as well.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">7.
Have you ever written something you immediately erased or otherwise destroyed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don’t
think I have, truth be told. I have plenty of things I’ve never shown anybody,
but nothing I’ve put work into and then demolished.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">8.
What is your favorite thing about being a writer – that doesn’t have to do with
the actual writing itself?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">World-building.
It’s probably one of my favorite things to do. Coming up with cultures,
geography, international relationships, magic systems (where relevant)…It’s
like a giant puzzle, and when all the pieces fall into place, it’s very
satisfying. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">9. Your book is going to be published!
But the day before it’s due to come out, the stock market crashes and
your publisher goes out of business. Your reaction?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That…would…not be good. Honestly, I’m not sure
what I’d do. Cry, probably.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">10.
Is there anything you would NEVER write for money?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m
sure there is, probably something really depraved.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">11. Are you working on or do you ever plan to
write a memoir?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m not planning on it. Nonfiction isn’t really
my thing. But I might one day. (I should probably journal a lot more than I do,
though.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Thanks again to Ms Murray for sending me these questions, and for the award.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br />
The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-49818594402418810952012-10-02T09:23:00.002-07:002012-10-27T19:12:21.330-07:00The Diamond Age: A Book ReviewI'm not sure if you've ever read anything by Neal Stephenson, and that's fine. I'd certainly recommend him, but his brand of science fiction isn't everyone's cup of tea. That being said, his books, <i>The Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer</i>, is fantastic.<br />
<br />
It's primarily about nanotechnology, technology that deals with the manipulation of atoms to create tiny machines, smaller than the width of a human hair, to do all sorts of neat things. With nanotechnology (and Mr. Stephenson's imagination) the world gains access to the Feed. Like our houses of today have gas hookups and water pipes and electrical wiring connecting our home to the sources of those utilities, houses in this story have access to the Feed. What is the Feed, though?<br />
<br />
The Feed is nanotechnology, like the replicators from Star Trek. Depending on how big of an aperture you have and the size of your Matter Converter, you can create almost anything you can think of. The Feed provides you with the elements necessary to create whatever it is that you are trying to make, and the MC provides the nanobots (tiny machines) that manipulate those atoms into the proper shape.<br />
<br />
So people can make food, clothing, medicine, etc. from their own little magic box. Now, the Feed is controlled so that people can't just start making big piles of plutonium or arsenic or what have you, but it's still pretty freeing.<br />
<br />
I haven't read a lot of Stephenson's other works (although I intend to, since I enjoy his style so much), but an idea of his that occurs both in <i>The Diamond Age</i> and <i>Snow Crash</i> (which is to virtual reality what the former is to nanotechnology) is that nation-states no longer exist. Instead, people organize themselves into tribes or phyles. Sometimes they are constructed along religious lines, like Mormons. Sometimes ethnic ones, like the Ashanti of Ghana. There is CrypNet, essentially a phyle of hackers and crackers, and New Atlantis who consider themselves "neo-Victorians." We'd call them Steampunks.<br />
<br />
In a world where nanotechnology is readily available, it's easy to mass-produce goods, or any specific good in question. If I want the Mona Lisa, I can just punch up the code for it in my MC and boom. I have my own Renaissance masterpiece to hang on my wall. Or I can print out a bunch of them and go skeet shooting.<br />
<br />
The thing is, if one places value on an object's originality or uniqueness, then my copies of the Mona Lisa <i>aren't</i> as good as the real thing. They're just copies. Neo-Victorians are people who place value on unique things and hand-made crafts.Take for example, Merkle Hall, one of the main buildings used by a nanotechnology company of neo-Victorians. Stephenson describes it like this:<br />
<br />
It was Gothic and very large, like most of the Design Works. Its vaulted ceiling was decorated with a hard fresco consisting of paint on plaster. Since this entire building, except for the fresco, had been grown straight from the Feed, it would have been easier to build a mediatron [a type of screen] into the ceiling and set it to display a soft fresco, which could have been changed from time to time. But neo-Victorians almost never used mediatrons. Hard art demanded commitment from the artist. It could only be done once, and if you screwed it up, you had to live with the consequences.<br />
<br />
That sentiment appeals to me, even as I type this on my laptop, frequently going back and changing sections, copy-pasting the word "nanotechnology" because I don't like typing it over and over again. But hand-made things feel a little bit more "real" than copied things, don't they?<br />
<br />
Funnily enough, the neo-Victorians tend to make most of their money on creating things with the Feed, that is, things created with nanotechnology. And it is their vast amounts of money that allows them to afford the services of craftsmen and women who make things like paper by hand.<br />
<br />
Anywho, there are a number of other things I enjoy about Mr. Stephenson's work, like the fact that he goes off on long educational tangents that read like really interesting textbooks, and I actually like that. I enjoy learning. There are also sword fights, which I feel like many literary works are lacking. Throw in a good knife-fight into <i>The Scarlet Letter</i> and I might pick it up again.The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-65414502186443478752012-09-27T13:20:00.005-07:002013-06-09T16:44:12.293-07:00I'm an Author (and I'm Not Dead)<span style="font-size: large;">Recently, I read T. H. White's book, "The Once and Future King" about King Arthur (which I enjoyed). In its first book, Merlyn changes young Arthur into a bird of prey and puts him in the mews (the section of a castle where one houses birds of prey) to learn from the birds as they talk at night. The birds are described as being like military men and women, and one of them, a goshawk, is said to be half-mad. When Arthur encounters him, he spouts off random racial slurs and vague aspersions about "the government." In reading this, I thought Cully the goshawk was supposed to represent a Vietnam war vet with PTSD, someone who's seen terrible things and no longer quite "all there." But then I thought, no, that doesn't work. White wrote the first part of this book in the '30s, long before even WWII. He couldn't have been alluding to after the Vietnam War. And that brings me to New Criticism and the Death of the Author.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Now, I get (or at least, think that I get) what these schools of criticism are trying to say. If an author is dead or unable to be contacted, how is an audience supposed to understand the "true" meaning of a work? And isn't the interpretation of every reader just as valid as that of the author? If I read <i>Fahrenheit 451 </i>and see it as a critique of censorship, shouldn't I be allowed to do that?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I say, "Sure." Every reader's interpretation of a work is as valid as everyone else's, even the authors, but <i>that's only because of how one defines the word "<b>validity</b>."</i> When I say "validity" or that an interpretation is "valid," I mean that the opinion has been formed with a clear understanding of events. I read a work of literature. I understand what has happened in the story. I form an opinion of what it means. That opinion would be as valid as anyone else's, even if our opinions are different from each other.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So if we go back to White's work and do what the Death of the Author would have us do: view the work as a self-contained piece of art, paying no attention to the person who wrote it, when it was written, etc. All we have is the text. Then my interpretation of Cully the Goshawk as representing a Vietnam war vet would be valid. Based on the evidence of the text (and only the text), my view makes sense.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But surely we can't say that we must view all texts as whole in-and-of-themselves, can we? How then can satire function? Every work of satire, after all, works on two levels: the story being told, and that which the story is satirizing. Without understanding the time in which Jonathon Swift lived, for example, how can one gain the fullest interpretation of <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>? If one didn't know or refused to be aware of the animosity with which Protestants and Catholics of his time viewed the Eucharist, how could one understand that the war fought between Lilliput and Blefusuc wasn't fought merely over which end of an egg should be cracked first? How can one find the deeper meaning in satire without looking beyond the work?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Let us set satire aside for a moment, though, and return to "regular" fiction. No symbolism here, at least not explicitly. Things merely represent themselves. Still New Criticism would have us ignore the author, to look merely at the text, and as an author, that upsets me. I put countless hours into the construction of my worlds, but to write everything in an individual story would result in the creation of encyclopedias or textbooks, not stories. So I restrain myself, I pare down my work, I keep (or try to keep) only what is necessary to make the story function. Thus, by necessity, details get left out. Now I know that the reader has only my words, not access to my vast stores of knowledge about the inner and outer worlds of my characters, but anyone who tells me that they know better than I about what is going on in my stories will be upset me greatly.</span><br />
<br />The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111674630069624109.post-1655805036800971932012-09-18T05:47:00.000-07:002012-09-18T05:47:12.787-07:00Slight Delay in Our Publishing ScheduleAlrighty, as you may or may not know already, I'm not going to be publishing any more episodes of Professor Jack's adventures besides the one at the end of the month. I've been running into too much trouble with getting these things edited in such a short time period, but I feel like I've been pretty successful in what I set out to do.<br />
<br />
I wanted to learn how to publish on Amazon, and I've done that. I wanted to get myself somewhat inured to editing things on a regular basis as training for my thesis manuscript, and I've done that too.<br />
<br />
I will write the rest of Professor Jack's book by the end of the year, but the next thing I'm going to publish will be the whole book, after I've edited the whole thing.<br />
<br />
I sincerely appreciate everyone who's been on this adventure with me, and your support has been really encouraging.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I'm working on some short stories (mostly forcing myself to stick to a word limit of 5k, which is hard), both to send to my mentor at Carlow, as well as to try and get something I like and can send to magazines.<br />
<br />
I'm also going to be working on my thesis manuscript to send to HarperCollins open submission period in a few weeks. And if you have a manuscript, I encourage you to get it ready too.The Ravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04410407734438375421noreply@blogger.com1