tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53181871710745553382024-03-05T19:56:46.384-07:00Jenn's WorldA SFF Writer/Reader's paradiseUnrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.comBlogger234125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-52139959263544463882013-08-08T13:52:00.001-06:002013-08-08T14:12:26.045-06:00MarriageI got married!<br />
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I also bought a house!<br />
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My blog's been dark for awhile, I haven't had the time or energy to put into it. Plus, my life's been turning to the intensely personal lately. There are some things you don't want to share with the world (unlike weddings)<br />
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All in all, I think I'll save updates for when I'm actually getting published and have something to say. I will mention that after months of work I'm finally getting back into swing of things. Revisions on White War are humming along at the 10,000 words per day range, in no small part because of my loving best friend and husband, Jeremy, who is so very supportive and creative. Love never seemed real to me until I found it with him. I want to spend a part of every day crying in joy because I have found the other half to my soul.<br />
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Now, I just have to accept the idea that being deliriously happy is okay. Otherwise, I'll screw it up myself with my endless neuroses.<br />
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Anyway, I can't post wedding pictures on facebook until I show the family, but I thought I'd put a few of my favorites up here. Because why not? What bride doesn't love to show off her work?<br />
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We got married in the Provo temple on June 15, 2013. (Not as cool as our engagement date -- 2/13/2013-- but oh well.)<br />
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We were joined by friends, family, and a ridiculous 9-foot-long lace veil that my grandmother got married in.<br />
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We ate lunch at Chef's Table (where they whipped something special up for my vegan mom) and then had a ring ceremony and a reception in my grandparents' backyard. We were lucky that the roses were in bloom.<br />
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My bouquet was by Macey's (the grocery store) tired with ribbons and lace stolen my grandma's stash. So were the boutonnieres, which my aunt whipped up for us at the last minute (I'd wanted to do them the night before, but I was so tired from all the prep that I just fell asleep. Am I the only bride in the history of the universe who slept like a baby the night before her wedding? Maybe).<br />
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My sister-in-law, Lindsay Putnam of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/VanillaHouseBakery">Vanilla House Bakery</a>, did our gorgeous cake and our lovely cake buffet.<br />
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I found the cake toppers on etsy, though we made stand. I bought the mini-blackboards there, too.<br />
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I also found our leaf-stamp guest tree there. To save money, I only booked our awesome photographers (Dave and April from <a href="http://pointedigital.com/">Pointe Digital</a>, who did photo and video) for the first part of the reception. So they left before our stamp tree was full.<br />
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I did our centerpieces out of silk flowers from Hobby Lobby, weighted down by ball bearings found my grandpa's basement. They have the best silk flowers, but if you want to buy them, wait until they have a 50%-off sale on floral stems. One happens every month or so. My mom made foam board cutouts that looked like bride and groom 'meeples'--a reference to the fact that Jeremy and I love board gaming.<br />
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The pictures are kind of small, but you may have noticed the paper cranes. Jeremy did those. We hid one in each boutonniere and two in each centerpiece.<br />
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Silly crane, how do you think you'll be able to fly with our rings perched on your back?<br />
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And here the rings are on the tablecloths my grandmother sewed for me out of $3-a-yard fabric I dug up at a store in Layton. Boy, those rings do get around! The diamond is recycled and belonged to my great-great-grandfather. The bands are from Losee's Jewelers. I had mine custom-made with rose gold. (The original design was white gold only.)<br />
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But we all know the true star of the show wasn't the rings or the flowers. It was ME!!!!!!!!!<br />
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And my shoes.<br />
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No, I'm kidding. It was actually the cake. OM NOM NOM.<br />
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What I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't have had such a wonderful day without the special people in my life who volunteered their time and their love. Some of them worked right up to the last minute.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">THANK YOU, EVERYONE!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!</span></b></div>
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(they're cheering because it's almost over.)</div>
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Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-42238403856141514222013-01-14T00:05:00.001-07:002013-01-14T00:05:23.303-07:00Random LinesThis came to me tonight while my friends were playing Persona 4. I don't know if I'll ever be able to use this line since I mostly write fantasy/sci-fi, but here it is:<br />
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"If Cruella DeVille had wanted a speedo instead of a fur coat, this is what it would have looked like."<br />
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The weirdest things come to me when I'm tired.Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-2375332208636800752013-01-09T16:02:00.001-07:002013-01-09T16:02:50.354-07:00Memory of Light (Two Reviews--One Spoiler-free and One Spoiler-filled)<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #660000;">January 9, 2013 -- 3:29 p.m. </span></h4>
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(Two Reviews instead of Two Rivers. Geddit? This is the spoiler-free part.) </div>
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I camped out at the BYU book signing and got the #58th copy of Memory of Light. A large part of me felt insane for doing it--it was, after all, -2 degree whether, and by the end of the night, the inside my tent walls had so much ice on them that they looked like frosted glass--but the Wheel of Time has been my go-to comfort read for some 16 years now, and I wanted to end things in style.</div>
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<span style="color: #660000;">Speaking of ending things with style...Wow. I finished the book this morning at 4 a.m. After 7 books of waiting (for me)</span>, I have an ending to the story I first started reading when I was 13 years old. And it was an awesome ending.</div>
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I don't know how Brandon Sanderson did it. There were so many threads to be juggled, so many characters, so many plot-points, and he managed to pull them together in a satisfying fashion. Before, I've said his style grated on me, but while I still noted the differences between him and Robert Jordan in this book--this was the first book where I really, truly didn't care. I could tell that the majority of it was his, but it didn't matter because things were so good. I'm glad Team Jordan put the extra time into it, because I think it shows in the book's quality.</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
If any of the last books bugged you, be they the pacing issues of Crossroads of Twilight or the painful rendition of Mat in Gathering Storm, I say--skip ahead. Just read this book. It's worth it, especially if you like battle scenes. Because this book is like 700-pages of non-stop battles. And since this book feels like it's going back to the roots of the series (appropriate for the wheel theme), you won't actually have missed too much.</div>
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And the stakes get high. People we've known and loved since the first book die. Characters make heroic sacrifices. There are callbacks to things earlier in the series that I'd pretty much forgotten.</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
****SPOILER-REVIEW****</div>
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(Seriously, spoilers. Don't read this until you're at the end of AMOL). </div>
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Speaking of callbacks and deaths, I almost wish there had been more dying. Lan's fight with Demandred might be one of the top moments of the entire series for me. But you can't SHEAVE THE SWORD and then walk away after. That's cheating. My favorite actual death was either Egwene's or Siuan's. Even if Siuan's is only a couple lines, you got to admire someone who heroically goes to their death, even if they aren't sure it will accomplish anything. That's true heroism. I wish we'd had one last Bryne POV as he went beserking to his death to accompany it, or that they'd found his body later with 90 dead trollocs around it, but you can't have everything even in a 900-page novel, I guess.<br />
<br />
I liked the male/female working-together dynamic that was running through everywhere (Andol/Pevara, Elayne/her generals, Rand/NynaRaine). That was a cool pay-off of the series' philosophy. It was cool to see the flaws in Callandor be intentional. That was great.<br />
<br />
At the same time, I was disappointed by how useless Moiraine and Nynaeve turned out to be. What did Moiraine do that was so important for saving the world? Alivia could have come in her place and nothing would have changed. Mat sacrificed his eye so that, what, Moiraine could tell Egwene she needed to break the seals when she got her hands on them? I guess coming to a truce between them was good, but I wasn't sure Moiraine was the only one capable of doing that. I had really hoped she'd get to do something awesomely dramatic. And she did, at the very end with exploiting the flaw, but that was Rand's idea, so she only gets partial credit with it.<br />
<br />
Ditto with Nynaeve. Alanna could have released the stupid bond at any time. So Nynaeve actually knowing how to do stuff without the power (a theme repeatedly hashed on this whole time) didn't actually turn out to matter. It also brings up the question: Moiraine knew she was going to die, why didn't she release Lan and save him a little suicidal angst? Not good on you, girlfriend. I always assumed she didn't because it was some complicated weave that could only be done with time/effort. Nope!<br />
<br />
And all the stuff we had to slog through with how many books with the Windfinders? Did it pay off? Nope. Not that I wanted to spend time with a culture that beats up its teachers. WTF was that???<br />
<br />
Padan Fain was the biggest letdown. He's been screwing things up for our heroes ever since the first book and he barely gets a mention (except for two obvious 'help remind the reader that's he's still out there' moments by Perrin) until he's suddenly a mini-roaming Mashadar who gets two pages and then gets offed. Thanks for wasting our book space for however many years only to give Mat something to do at the bore for thirty seconds!<br />
<br />
Speaking of Mat, how great was it that the Hornsounder didn't end up sounding the horn after all. Great thing or greatest thing? (TEAM OLVER 4EVAH!!!) <br />
<br />
***END SPOILERS***<br />
<br />
Overall, even though I was annoyed at some little things, I loved the ending. You can't have a book series go on for so long with so many things being juggled without there being a few disappointments, and I'm in awe that Brandon Sanderson managed to complete such a daunting task.<br />
<br />
So bravo, team Jordan, bravo. A part of my life feels...empty, now. Good thing GRRM's still writing books for me to obsess about. If he finishes a Song of Ice and Fire, I won't know what to do with myself :)Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-7456068305295845832012-12-04T07:25:00.003-07:002012-12-04T07:29:46.564-07:00How to Make Your Own NaNoWriMo Word Count Tracker Using Microsoft Excel<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #990000;">December 4, 2012 -- 6:39 a.m.</span></h2>
Since I found the NaNoWriMo website's tracker to be such a helpful motivator, I decided to create my own using Microsoft Excel. This is what it looks like:<br />
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It doesn't look as pretty as the NaNoWriMo version, but it only took me ten or fifteen minutes to do. It's been a while since my linear programming classes, so there's probably a simpler way to do this, but here's the instructions if you want to copy what I did. I tried to keep the instructions really simple for those of you who aren't as familiar with excel:<br />
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You'll need four columns.<br />
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1) The first is for days of the month. If you don't manually want to type in the numbers, you can type 1 in the first box. Then, in the next box down, write =A2+1 (or whatever box you used). Select that box. You should see a little black square in the lower right corner, almost like one of the dark pixels from one of the old video games. Click on that square and drag down to fill your column up with your formula. If you've done it correctly, each box should have numbers rising consecutively (day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) etc. Stop when you've reached the appropriate number of days in the month.<br />
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2) The second column is your daily word count. I like being able to see how much I write a day besides how much my total word count is, so I can monitor whether I'm being consistent and look for patterns that might help me figure out how to increase my productivity. Leave this column blank for now.<br />
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3) The next column will be your total word count for the month. It's a running total. If you're writing all in one document, you could just be recording this yourself using Word's automatic word count feature, but I like to write every chapter in a new document so I'm less tempted into endless revisions on my book. This can make keeping track of total word count a little difficult, since you're looking at totals over multiple documents.<br />
<br />
For that reason, my total word count is going to be a sum of all my daily wordcounts. To create this, I start by setting the first box of column C to =B2. In this case, that's zero, because I took a break after NaNoWriMo to celebrate finishing a winner. For the next box down, you want to sum the old total (zero) with the new total (anything you added in day two.) So, an easy way to do this is to type a formula summing the two cells. In this case, SUM(C2, B3).<br />
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Now click on the corner of the cell and drag the formula down the column. Excel will automatically change the cell number for you, so that cell 3 (C4 in this example) will automatically read SUM(C3, B4).<br />
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4) The final column is your daily target. You don't have to follow NaNoWriMo's 50,000 word target. This can be anything you want. But I figured I might as well stick with 50,000. 50,000 divided by 31 (the days in December) means I should be approximately doing 1613 words a day. So for these cells, you start with 1613 in the first cell, and every cell thereafter should be +1613. In this case, I wrote =D2+1613. Click and drag down.<br />
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5) Test to make sure everything's working by putting random numbers in the daily word count boxes. If your word count total changes appropriately, you've done everything you needed to do.<br />
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Voila! You have a bunch of columns with numbers in them. If you don't want the graph, you can stop now.<br />
<br />
But you want the graph, don't you? I decided to use a scatterplot graph because it's easy to make and easy to read.<br />
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1) Highlight columns A, C, and D. You don't need column B for this one. To highlight multiple, non-adjoining columns, hold the control key down and click on the column letter at the top. This should highlight the entire column.<br />
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2) Go to the tab menu at the top and click "Insert." In the middle of the menu, there will be a variety of graphs to choose from. I chose a scatterplot with smooth lines. If you chose the right columns to highlight, it should create a graph with days on the bottom and number of words running up the side with a smooth slope of your goal in the middle and another line with your progress.<br />
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3) The default this produces is an ugly graph. I like mine neater, so I right clicked on the axis and hit "format axis", then used it to format the maximum on each side (so I wouldn't have extra days or words along the sides) and also set my word count axis to thousands. If you get to the axis format menu, that stuff's fairly self-explanatory, so I'm not going to walk through the steps with you. I also changed the graph's format from the default to one with axis titles and a main titles, but your personal preference may vary. I deleted the axis title on the left by clicking it and hitting backspace because I wanted the graph nice and big instead of wasting space on a redundant label.<br />
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Like I said, this is not especially pretty or fancy, but it's functional. The graph looks wonky now since the total's so flat, but by the end of the month, my plateau should be more of a jagged blue mountain. And it's really easy to do. My instructions probably make things look way more complicated then it actually is. And if you want to make it cooler, you can make every column a different color, or use the conditional formatting button in the home tab to make your boxes red when you're below your goal and green when you're above it. (Hmm, that's a good idea. I'll go do that now. *Click*)<br />
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If you run into any problems or have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. There's a moderator queue to stop the spambots, but I do glance and sort through the comments every once in awhile. I'll do my best to help.<br />
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Edit: Oh, I just remembered. If you want to make copies of your sheet for next month, make sure to do it now, while the sheet is clean. If you try to copy the sheet at the end of December, you'll have to delete all your word counts. Easier to do it now while your cell values are still blank.Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-73719520251586141532012-11-30T18:30:00.000-07:002012-12-04T06:38:18.624-07:00NaNoWriMo<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #990000;">November 30, 2012 -- 6:29 P.M.</span></h4>
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<br />Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-91969347702183443682012-10-28T16:03:00.002-06:002012-12-04T06:38:41.845-07:00Update, NaNoWriMo, And Bragging About Wordcount<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #cc0000;">October 28, 2012 -- 2:25 p.m.</span></div>
<br />
Well, it's been awhile since I posted. Life has been hectic. My laptop got bathed in soup and I ended up in Seattle for a family emergency. Otherwise, things are going pretty well. The school I was going to decided to discontinue the grad program I quit, so I'm definitely not going back. Which means I have to decide to do new things. If I'm going to try for another grad degree, I'm going to try to find one that lets me move slowly. The bottom line is that writing is my first love. Any program that asks me to spend 50-60 hours doing something else is just going to make me miserable. I'm not sure how many part-time statistics masters degrees are available, but since I need to do some undergrad work to brush up my math skills, I'm not going to worry about that right now.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, Utah doesn't consider me a resident because I never bothered to get my vote registered. I know I should have for the local voting even if the bigger elections go straight R, but the local decisions Provo's city council and mayor have made depress me so much. Not only the actions they've made, but the willingness to make actions without considering their costs. When they decided to build a rec center, they only consulted biased sources. Nowhere in any of their presentations did you see comparisons to other local rec centers. No figures on how much the Orem one ended up costing and how much it would be used. From my calculations, it would have been cheaper to buy everyone in Provo passes to the Orem center for the next ten years or so than to build one in Provo. Or buy them a Gold's Gym pass. The local gyms were afraid that the rec center would cut into their business--which it will--and so the Provo city council promised that they wouldn't have things that would compete with the gym. So what does that leave the rec center with, other than an over-sized swimming pool? The marketing was also really shady. "Your taxes won't rise!" No, but they won't drop either. And to build the center, they demolished both the city's teen and senior centers, which, from the plans, they intend to include inside the senior center as one room. (Teenagers + old people. Best combo ever!) I didn't hear any comments from the administrators of the teen center in the process about how their stuff would be positively/negatively affected by the change.<br />
<br />
Maybe the whole thing will turn out to be a big success instead of another iProvo. But even if it is a good idea, the process was really crappy. It points to the quality of the Daily Herald, Provo's newspaper, that the reporters never questioned any of the data. My grandfather was particularly incensed because the city council claimed 80 percent of Provo residents would use it at least once a week (based on a mail survey *SMACK!*) but the plans included a parking lot that wouldn't accommodate nearly that many people. That suggested to him that the Provo city council knew their numbers were absolute bunk but presented them as fact anyway.<br />
<br />
Oh well, I shouldn't be fighting old battles. Especially since the battles are old enough that I might be misremembering the facts. (Huh--spell-checker doesn't consider misremember a word? Who programmed this thing?)<br />
<br />
All my family crises seem to be mostly averted. The first draft of the two-year behemoth I was calling "Wyrmborn" is almost finished. The name of the book is "White War" for now, which is a much better title. Over August-October, I've broken out of my rut and written some 62,000 words. Not too shabby at all. At this rate, I should finish draft 1 by the end of November. I've signed up for nanowrimo under the user name 'Vegetathalas' (don't ask, it's a long boring story.) to help me in my quest. Not sure how long the book is total, since I've discovered the secret to productivity is to store my chapters in different documents so I don't go back and endlessly rewrite stuff. This means it's going to be quite a pain to put everything together. But that means I should have a draft I can bear to show people out by January. Yay!<br />
<br />
After that, my tentative plan is to give Skin Farm one final revision and then start writing grouping/querying it. I know the YA post-apocalyptic market is pretty oversaturated, but I like Skin Farm enough that I can't bear to let it sit in a trunk without even trying to get it out there. I wish I had understood more about writing plot and my own personal writing process when I started that thing. I could have had it done ages ago.<br />
<br />
After that, it's time to start on a new book. I've plotted out a YA superhero book about a girl mechanic who suddenly gains the power to control vehicle engines, but I'm sort of reluctant to write it because I know nothing about cars and it would mean a lot of research and finding someone with mechanic-y know-how to alpha read and point out all my mistakes. Either that, or I could go back to my first book and re-write it as a YA fantasy with a stronger plot, keeping the same characters but giving them clearer motivations, making the magic system more understandable, and starting out with one main conflict instead of the, like, thousands I introduced. Basically, simplifying. Also, making the Empire more hateful and the rebellion more effective. Or I could write something entirely new. I could even try my hand at short fiction.<br />
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We'll see what I feel like after I get the other two books in order. It's always possible that I'll have a book contract by then and so I'll need to start writing sequels. (Hey, a girl can hope!)Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-42749694994656508072012-07-23T12:34:00.002-06:002012-07-23T12:36:37.098-06:00Fanciful Modeling (Scam!)<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>July 23, 2012 -- 12:19 p.m.</b></span></div>
<br />
Oi! It's been a long time since I've written anything. I've mostly decided that blogging takes up energy that could be better used on my book, so I'm focusing on that. So don't expect many updates from me. I thought of reviewing the Dark Knight Rises--which I very much enjoyed--but lost my enthusiasm after the shootings. And the comments boards of articles that deal with the shootings. Some people have no respect. My heart goes out to all those poor people in Colorado. My prayers are with you.<br />
<br />
So why am I posting? Because I got an email this morning. I couldn't find any Google hits on the subject, so I'm putting up a warning just in case something like this wends it way into a gullible person's inbox:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;">Hello!</span></i><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;">We're emailing you to let you know that we're currently looking for new <span style="border-bottom-color: rgb(54, 99, 136); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 2px; color: #366388;">models</span>. We noticed that you have expressed interest before in becoming a model. Our agency is the perfect place to get your start into the modeling world!</span></i><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;">If you're interested in applying to model with our agency, please send us a brief description of yourself - your hobbies, why you want to get into modeling, etc. - along with information to contact you should you be accepted. Also, please send photos with your application. We would appreciate it if you sent a few photos in a modeling type style. Please send us at least one photo from at least one of the following: nude, swimwear (both one-piece and two-piece is acceptable), or underwear(lingere is preferred, but not required).</span></i><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;"></span></i><i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;">If interested, please reply to <a href="mailto:fancifulmodeling@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #234786; outline: 0px;" target="_blank">fancifulmodeling@yahoo.com</a>, with the required information and photos. Also, all of our models must be 18 or older. If you do not meet this age requirement, please disregard this message. </span></i><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;">Thank you,</span></i><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;">Loriane Varner</span></i><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;">Modeling Agent Coordinator</span></i></blockquote>
Obviously this is a scam. The agency is asking for nude pictures instead of head shots, there's some sloppy grammar (ie, 'into' instead of 'in' in the first paragraph), I got this out of nowhere (I'm 28--not exactly a prime demographic for new models), and Fanciful Modeling has no website and operates out of a yahoo address. All this makes me believe that Fanciful Modeling is, well, fanciful.<br />
<br />
The question is: What do the people doing this want? Are they in it just out for free amateur pornography? Or after the photos are sent, are they pushing pay-for-hire services? I am half curious enough that I almost want to send them a fake photo and see what happens, but my email is on too many other spammer's lists already. Ah well, I suppose stuff like this is more interesting than Viagra ads.<br />
<br />
I'd recommend anyone who is contacted by a modelling agency by email check out this scam warning from the<a href="http://www.blogger.com/Hello!%20%20We're%20emailing%20you%20to%20let%20you%20know%20that%20we're%20currently%20looking%20for%20new%20models.%20We%20noticed%20that%20you%20have%20expressed%20interest%20before%20in%20becoming%20a%20model.%20Our%20agency%20is%20the%20perfect%20place%20to%20get%20your%20start%20into%20the%20modeling%20world!%20%20If%20you're%20interested%20in%20applying%20to%20model%20with%20our%20agency,%20please%20send%20us%20a%20brief%20description%20of%20yourself%20-%20your%20hobbies,%20why%20you%20want%20to%20get%20into%20modeling,%20etc.%20-%20along%20with%20information%20to%20contact%20you%20should%20you%20be%20accepted.%20Also,%20please%20send%20photos%20with%20your%20application.%20We%20would%20appreciate%20it%20if%20you%20sent%20a%20few%20photos%20in%20a%20modeling%20type%20style.%20Please%20send%20us%20at%20least%20one%20photo%20from%20at%20least%20one%20of%20the%20following:%20nude,%20swimwear%20(both%20one-piece%20and%20two-piece%20is%20acceptable),%20or%20underwear(lingere%20is%20preferred,%20but%20not%20required).%20%20If%20interested,%20please%20reply%20to%20fancifulmodeling@yahoo.com,%20with%20the%20required%20information%20and%20photos.%20Also,%20all%20of%20our%20models%20must%20be%2018%20or%20older.%20If%20you%20do%20not%20meet%20this%20age%20requirement,%20please%20disregard%20this%20message.%20%20%20Thank%20you,%20%20Loriane%20Varner%20Modeling%20Agent%20Coordinator"> federal trade commission</a>.Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-51285071576594412632012-05-27T22:10:00.002-06:002012-05-27T22:10:48.091-06:00Avengers Avenge (Minor Spoilers)<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #cc0000;">May 27, 2012 -- 10:00 p.m.</span></h3>
Just went and saw Avengers Friday. I loved it. It was a lot of fun. It was very Whedon. I don't think it's possible to handle an ensemble movie more deftly. I wish they'd give him X-men. I liked the subtlety of some parts of it (subtlety not being the usual operative word when it comes to big explode-y things) and the character interactions. The actors were all awesome. Loki was lovin' it. The action shots were cool. Everyone felt like a defined character, even if that meant they had to scream out what trope they were representing. "LOOK AT ME, I'M A MAVERICK PLAYBOY WHO HAS TO LEARN HOW TO BE ABLE TO OPERATE WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF A TEAM!" It was done in a good way, playing on conventions audiences know and love.<br />
<br />
But...what was up with the Hulk's internal character arc? It was built up that the Hulk doing his Hulkin' was going to be this huge, dangerous, horrible thing. And then it was a horrible thing, because he put his beatdown on the damsel in distress. But then at the end of the movie, he can somehow control his greener self? Why? What was the turning point? Or does the magic wand of Robert Downey Jr.'s charm just heal all ills?<br />
<br />
Maybe it's explained in the canon material. I'm not very familiar with the Hulk, though the movie's Bruce Banner made me want to be.<br />
<br />
Anyway, it was a fun movie, partly because it never took itself to seriously. Probably my third or fourth favorite comic book movie ever (I'd have to rewatch the Spidermans). But with all the hype around it, I expected another Dark Knight. Instead, I got a superlong Buffy episode. With superheroes. Which is a good thing.<br />
<br />
Hmm...superlong Buffy episode with Superheroes SINGING. Hmm. (*Calls Hollywood*).<br />
<br />
PS: It's funny how Scarlett Johansson managed to get herself pinned by wreckage in such a way that her butt shows off to best advantage. Curious how falling rubble is selective that way.Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-5269774613027350732012-05-24T02:42:00.004-06:002012-05-24T02:46:39.503-06:00There and Back Again<h2 style="text-align: center;">
May 24, 2012 -- 4:19 A.M. </h2>
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Not much news. I got back from a trip to Washington D.C. for my younger brother's graduation a few days ago. I'm still recovering from travel and from the fact that I was spending eight to ten hours on my feet every day, which is not something I'm used to. We took my grandmother, who is disabled on a trip, in a wheelchair. It's the first time we've used it, and I gained a whole lot more sympathy for the disabled rights movement. I didn't consider myself particularly unsympathetic before, but I certainly was unaware. To all the conservative articles complaining about small businesses losing money because they had to sand their ramps down an eighth of an inch, I say SCREW YOU. Because sometimes that eighth of an inch matters. There were several times where pedestrians had to stop and help me push my grandmother up a sidewalk because I was literally not strong enough to get her up over a crack. And the steep grades constantly made me afraid that my, err, rather full-bodied grandmother was going to roll over the top of me if I lost my balance. It was nice that so many people were willing to help, or go out of their way to make sure my grandmother had good opportunities. It was a really fun visit. I especially loved the Library of Congress, which had fantastic architecture and some really cool Aztec and Incan artifacts.</div>
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The real tragedy of the trip is that, after going through a security checkpoint at one of the Smithsonians, I was looking for a bench to sit down and redo my camera case properly, but I couldn't find one on my level and so I went down the stairs and my camera slipped out.</div>
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There are few things so discouraging in life as hearing your thousand-dollar camera going BOINK-BOINK-BOINK down uncarpeted marble stairs. My lens broke, but the camera itself seems okay. I'm pretty sad about it. The lens will probably cost $300 or $400 to replace. You'd think they'd realize the need for benches after security checkpoints.</div>
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I'm trying to pick up momentum on my book again after the trip and managed to write 3000 words today, which is something, but I'm finding it hard to find my enthusiasm. The main characters are good, but the side characters are...problematic. I realized that *VAGUE SPOILERS* I'm using a disabled character as a throwaway sacrifice to further an abled character's storyline and one of my other side character's story arcs can be reduced to "you need to accept child abuse because it's for everybody's good!" The trouble is, I intentionally was playing around with tropes here--IE, 'the women who is stuffed into the refrigerator is a man this time' and 'how much free will does a hero who sacrifices himself for the community ala Harry Potter and every other fantasy messiah out there actually have?'--but there's a rough line between undermining/reversing a trope and just feeding into it. Then again, how much time/word space can you devote to every idea? It's tough, really. It's easy to criticize, but a lot harder to produce work that responds thoughtfully to criticism. Over-analysis of one's own work can be quite paralyzing, but I don't see how it's possible to produce something that's high quality in terms of intellectual stimulus without this kind of thought.</div>
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I'm hoping all this will iron itself out in the narrative if I just force myself through. I've seen a lot of blog posts offering criticism on works, and authors' responses to criticism, but I've never seen a post by an author about how to write while keeping criticism in mind. Oh, there's the "be more aware," which is all very well, but there has to be some stepping stone between awareness and producing strong work.<br />
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I don't really know what to do about it. And I think the "ignore it because someone will be offended no matter what you do" argument is intellectually and morally bankrupt, so that's not good advice.</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-37508676253097506872012-04-07T19:54:00.003-06:002013-08-08T14:06:32.322-06:00Updates<div style="text-align: center;">
April 7, 2012 -- 7:56 p.m.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">The good news is that I found out what was making me sick. The bad news is that I didn't figure it out soon enough. I got so far behind on homework, I felt like I couldn't make it up and decided that I wasn't happy anyway so I dropped out of my program. I'm too emotionally stressed right now to deal with school.</span><br />
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So what was making me throw up and giving me horrible rashes? It turns out that the oil cap on my engine had come off and soaked everything in oil. Those fumes have been burning intto my car vents and my sinuses every semester. So every time I drove anywhere: to school, to the doctor's, to anywhere, I was making myself sicker without realizing it. It wasn't until I went from fine to throwing up after five minutes on the road that I put two and two together and realized I was only getting sick in my car.</div>
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So why didn't I smell the burning fumes? F*** if I know.</div>
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It took me longer than it should have to figure it out because I had the flu beforehand, and I managed to skip a period and so when the next one hit, I was swept away in a monthlong tidal wave of blood, stomach cramps, and bits of chunky flesh being puked out of my sensitive areas. So it's not as if I was particularly healthy even outside of the car.</div>
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At any rate, I seem to be fine now, and without school, I now have more time to devote on my writing. Which I've naturally frittered away on playing computer games, reading tons of books, and catching up on my podcasts. I saw Hunger Games and thought it was very well done, although they screwed up the bittersweetness of the ending. Woody Harrelson made an excellent Haymitch, and Jennifer Lawrence did with her face what it took Suzanne Collins pages of words to do. Hunger Games is going through the traditional internet joy curve where a bunch of people talk about how awesome it is and then wave two of critics say, "nah, it's not that awesome." But I think it was just about as good as can be expected of any translation from book to screen. And for the people complaining it's not violent enough, I wonder: what movie did you see? Blood spurting everywhere a la HBO's Game of Thrones is much less disturbing than the suggestiveness of the camerawork, which leaves the grisly details up to your imagination.</div>
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I would feel better at condemning the idiots who were annoyed at <a href="http://jezebel.com/5896408/racist-hunger-games-fans-dont-care-how-much-money-the-movie-made?popular=true">Rue's race</a> if I didn't recognize my own weakness in that area. I didn't catch that Rue was black until the second read through. I'm not sure how much of that can be attributed to 1) the book's tendency to rip you through at thriller speed and not linger on any detail for very long, 2) My own internal tendency to think of every fictional character is like me (white and blonde) unless otherwise noted, 3) Collins' repeated mentions that Rue = Prim, and since Prim = blonde/white, Rue = blonde/white. But I thought the actress playing her was freaking adorable. I wanted to pull her out of the screen and play with her hair. (In a sisterly way! Not in the weird I-wanna-touch-black-people-without-permission way that NK Jeminisin reports some people seem to do at sci-fi conventions)</div>
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The other Hunger Games-related kerfuffle is the documentary "Bully" R-rating compared to Hunger Game's PG-13 (how they will be able to keep that rating for books two and three, I don't know). Apparently killing kids is okay, but swearing means "mature only."</div>
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Granted, movie ratings have always been on the arbitrary side, but you got to admire Bully's marketers. If they'd bleeped a couple of words and released the movie as it was, it probably would have gone the same way as most documentaries--largely unwatched. But by generating a controversy, they get articles on it everywhere, politicians speak up about it, and it probably ends up with an enlarged audience share. Free publicity is always good.</div>
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Am I cynical? Yes. Am I right? Probably. </div>
Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-6697405488851612512012-03-11T19:20:00.007-06:002012-03-11T19:39:17.992-06:00Hugo Nominees<div style="text-align: center; "><span >March 11, 2012 -- 7:33 p.m.</span></div><div style="font-size: 100%; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">I'm still feeling sick. But my scab thingy is gone, at least.</span></div><div style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></div><span style="font-size: 100%;">As a member of last year's worldcon, I got to nominate for this year's Hugos. I'm not going to go into all the entries, but if you're looking for a good set of stories to read, here are links to ones I nominated.</span><div style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; "><a href="http://a1018.g.akamai.net/f/1018/19022/1d/randomhouse1.download.akamai.com/19022/pdf/Paper_Menagerie.pdf">The Paper Menagerie</a>, by Ken Liu. A short story about a Chinese mother and her Americanized son's relationship, illustrated with the help of magic origami. Made me bawl like a baby.</div><div style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; "><a href="http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/summer-2011/fiction-younger-women-by-karen-joy-fowler/">Younger Women</a>, by Karen Joy Fowler. A short story that hilariously asks, "Why would a vampire fall for a teenage girl, anyway?" This one is really short so GO. READ. NOW.</div><div style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; "><a href="http://kenliu.name/binary/liu_the_man_who_ended_history.pdf">The Man Who Ended History</a>, by Ken Liu. Again. The man's a writing machine. He's already got a double-Nebula nomination in two categories, and I can't see how he doesn't get at least two nominations for the Hugo as well. How often does that happen? This novella is another WWII time-travel-ish story (there's that time-sucking nexus again...) but instead of visiting Hitler, this story is about Japanese atrocities, such as the "Asian Auschwitz". It's written in the style of a movie script, which I think is awesome.</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-21766211314996113112012-03-02T23:16:00.005-07:002012-03-02T23:25:42.173-07:00Blah.<div style="text-align: center; "><b>March 2, 2012 -- 11:23 p.m.</b></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMafcDeroTP8ZtA9M_xpCfYRhvVlduVo1fD5vYKeDcnFfDRlsuJTusF5blOAhmAG7K_45EICdLbzfVdvHZaKjeExSFfKtAp2uTmie2XHjVAPtdRJsyi6FtajmD_3COLATtMNKjH_srpbZZ/s1600/IMG_0367.JPG" style="font-weight: normal; "><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMafcDeroTP8ZtA9M_xpCfYRhvVlduVo1fD5vYKeDcnFfDRlsuJTusF5blOAhmAG7K_45EICdLbzfVdvHZaKjeExSFfKtAp2uTmie2XHjVAPtdRJsyi6FtajmD_3COLATtMNKjH_srpbZZ/s200/IMG_0367.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715552552921858850" /></a><br />I'm having a bad day. I failed a midterm. Not surprising really, since the computer deleted five hours of my work and I didn't find out it'd gone missing until a half-hour before the test was due. But still, so frustrating. You can spend thirty hours on a project and still fail...<div style="font-weight: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-weight: normal; ">I had three midterms in the past week and a half. My body is breaking down. My stomach is cramping all the time, and a mysterious, six-inch long scab developed on the underside of my arm. (See the lovely image to the left) Isn't it ucky? It hurts to move my arm. Hurts to type. <span style="font-size: 100%; ">Ironic, that if I quit school, I lose my medical insurance, but if I continue, I might get sicker if my ailments are due to stress. I don't know if they are. Probably. And the sicker I get, the further and further I get behind...</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">Happy thoughts. The semester is almost over, and then it's summer break and maybe I won't have to constantly be disappointed in myself. Happy thoughts.</span></div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-21008695087365481012012-02-13T14:11:00.009-07:002012-02-13T15:29:20.507-07:00Mathematical Representation of a Good First Chapter<div style="text-align: center;">February 13, 2012 -- 2:28 p.m.</div><div><br /></div>I ditched homework and went to LTUE this weekend. It might have been a mistake for my GPA (I completely failed to put together proper spider charts for my linear programming class) but it was still fun. Mostly, I listened to authors reading excerpts from their work because I thought the opportunity to network with other authors in a less-crowded format would be a better career investment than hearing more from panelists that may or may not be specific to me as an individual.<div><br /><div>The highlight of the reading for me was, surprisingly, hearing <a href="http://betweenfactandfiction.blogspot.com/">Natalie Whipple's</a> excerpt from her upcoming YA book, <i>Transparent</i>. Very good stuff. I liked the other excerpts I heard, but for some reason, this one just hit all my buttons. Maybe it was the mention of having chocolate-smelling breath as a super-powered mutation :)<div><br /></div><div>I sat down afterward and tried to figure out why it engaged my interest. Usually, when I read the opening of a book I like, I've had it in front of me so I can point to specific paragraphs I like. But <i>Transparent </i>isn't due out until 2013, so I couldn't do that. But in a way, that makes things better, because certain things stuck out in my memory, making it VERY clear what hooked me.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since I was also focused on my upcoming data analysis (statistics) midterm, I automatically created an interest equation that represents my own personal hook regression. In other words, this is the mathematical representation of whether the first chapter of a book hooks me or not. Pretend that I know how to make blogger do Greek letters coefficients:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>B1</i>symapthiccharacter+<i>B2</i>UpFrontConflict+<i>B3</i>CoolSettingDetails + <i>u = </i>Y</div><div><br /></div><div>Where Y is a dependent variable (outcome) which equals my own personal hooked-ness. If you want, you can record it as a binary with a 1 of hooked and 0 of non-hooked, or you can just consider it a continuous number with the higher outcomes equaling greater hookedness.</div><div><br /></div><div>OR, in less math-speak: having a high Y is good for a book. And the higher the factors inside the equation, the higher the Y.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let's break down the independent variables one by one.</div><div><br /></div><div>1) The sympathetic character variable. It's an index made up (roughly) of the following components. Everyone's personal sympathetic character index will assign different weights to each part of the index, but I think, in general, each person will have a significant number of the following factors involved in their unconscious enjoyment of a character:</div><div><br /></div><div>a. Competence at something cool (in this case, robbing stuff while being invisible). Note: if the character is incompetent/unintelligent, this will end up being the only negative number in the index, since all other variables are strictly positive/zero. And what is one negative number multiplied by x positive numbers? A negative number! In non-math speak, it doesn't matter how awesome your character is in all other qualities, if she's stupid or incapable, I will have a low Y. In fact, I will end up hating the book MORE the higher the other numbers. An author will actually be worse off if an otherwise awesome character is incompetent than if a mediocre character is mediocre.</div><div><br /></div><div>b. Character's "outsider" quotient. This includes the character's is emotional/unusual physical pain and their relationship to society and its authority figures. So, characters who don't fit in well will generate more sympathy.</div><div><br /></div><div>c. Character's sex. While I first thought about this as a binary o=male, 1=female variable, I realized that, in reality, it's going to be an index of feminity/masculinity with characters that fall into the masculine stereotype being harder for me to sympathize with. This indicator may be reversed for male readers, esp. if they're into action novels. I strongly suspect that my own personal utility equation involves a positive interactive variable of female*competence, which means the effect of female competence is drastically higher than the components of either femaleness or competency on their own terms.</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Other components of the index that weren't as present in <i>Transparency's </i>case (or at least not in as great quantities) but would definitely add to my enjoyment:</div><div><br /></div><div>d. Character's sense of humor (This was minimally present in the reference of chocolate breath as a super-power).</div><div><br /></div><div>f. Character's "sameness" w/ reader's self (i.e., how much is this character like me? Is she a bookworm? A gamer? A math geek? I guess there was a little of this going on, but it mostly is absorbed by the "outsider" variable.)</div><div><br /></div><div>g. Some mystery about character or their history. (Again, I don't think there was much of that here, except that I wondered about the scientific rationale for turning invisible.)</div><div><br /></div><div>So, those are the factors that go into the sympathetic character index. The variable UpfrontConflict is less complicated. In this case, the conflict was twofold:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) The first chapter involved a robbery, which included conflict with the people being robbed. </div><div><br /></div><div>2) The chapter hinted at future conflict w/ the character's father--a promise fulfilled later in the excerpt when the father uses his own superpower to manipulate the protagonist into doing something she didn't want to do.</div><div><br /></div><div>Probably, the variables should be separated out into internal and external conflicts, but I don't necessarily think the coefficients would have any statistically significant difference from one other, and most of the time, a good author will layer both into the same situation. This would make it hard to detect whether one or the other would be sufficient on its own, because in books where you only have one or the other, you are also likely to have a confounder present (the dreaded variable BADWRITING). Hmm, could you strip that out with some sort of instrumental variable? I'll have to think about that.</div><div><br /></div><div>The third and final factor going into the overall equation is Cool Setting Details. This is pretty self-explanatory. This is what draws me to genre work. Maybe other people read for the characters, but I'm all: "Give me more about the evolutionary history of that man-eating shrub you mentioned on page 41, BITCHES." </div><div><br /></div><div>I also think this variable is what distinguishes the medium-level-novice from the expert-level-novice, both of whom are in the pre-published, larval state. People who are past the beginner-novice stage can usually create characters who tick off some of the traits on the character interest index in their first chapter, as well as produce some kind of conflict. But very frequently, they forget the setting details that make me hunger to read more. In other worlds, the intermediate novice will begin their book with a fight scene using an outsider character that has a sympathy-inducing DARK and TRAGIC past. But the focus of the scene will be on the sword-fight, which will be generic enough that it could appear in any book from Conan to Game of Thrones, with a little tweaking.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, in other words, great sympathetic characters + conflict + good setting details=great hook.</div><div><br /></div><div>...wow...</div><div><br /></div><div>DO YOU SEE WHAT GRAD SCHOOL/DATA ANALYSIS HAS DONE TO MY BRAIN, PEOPLE?????</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-18912446892539960622011-12-29T18:55:00.000-07:002011-12-29T18:56:39.329-07:00PassI passed all my classes with a B+ average. Phew.<br /><br />Now to do it all over again...Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-82962322111513105582011-12-17T00:02:00.003-07:002011-12-17T00:14:23.683-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">December 17, 2011</div><div><br /></div>Ugh. What a semester. In the past two weeks, I have completed three twenty-page papers and one eleven page paper and done four finals, which included two take-home exams (one of which ended up being twenty pages long) and two in-class (one of which had eighty questions). I don't think I've ever worked so hard or learned so much in a scant few months. On the other hand, I've never tried so hard only to fail either. I failed my data analysis final. I wasn't the only one--two other people (about a quarter of the class) got Fs or D-s. Which tells you something about the class, when three grad students can't pass the test and no one gets an A. The highest anyone scored on the final was a B-. It's possible I won't fail, if the teacher has mercy and moves us all up twenty points.<div><br /></div><div>I don't know how everyone else in my program held up through finals week. Maybe because they're younger, maybe they're more driven and willing to sacrifice to meet their goal while I'm jaded and cynical. But I want to cry. I gave up so much writing time and potential opportunity only to fail and probably have to take a course again. I think this is the first time in my life where I've actually tried so hard to learn something but apparently been incapable of learning it. I'm used to being smart but this stuff just seems to be over my head, I guess.</div><div><br /></div><div>I may drop out instead of trying again. Or I may try a program that doesn't demand I spend 30 hours a week on homework.</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh well, I'm taking my cousin to a book signing with Brandon Sanderson tomorrow. Hopefully that will cheer me up.</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-90224993422755577702011-09-18T14:07:00.005-06:002011-09-18T15:27:00.683-06:00Feed (pretty hefty spoilers follow)<a href="http://www.professorbeej.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/FeedbyMiraGrant_thumb.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 229px; height: 366px;" src="http://www.professorbeej.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/FeedbyMiraGrant_thumb.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-size: large; ">September 18, 2011 -- 2:08 p.m.</span></div>Been awhile since I've posted a book review. I haven't been able to find my camera with the Worldcon pictures in it. My mother must have put it somewhere strange when she unpacked the suitcase I borrowed.<div><br /></div><div>Anyway, I've read several books lately that I think merit a mention. First off, there's Feed by Mira Grant. Up for a Hugo, but lost to Connie Willis. Full of zombies. This review is full of spoilers, so if those bother you, stop reading now.</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the cool things about this book is that it isn't really about the zombie holocaust. Most zombie books take place during an outbreak, and don't really look at the aftermath because its anti-climactic. Don't get me wrong, I loved World War Z and its ilk, but it's nice to see a zombie book that focuses on human beings getting on with their lives after seeing their world get taken apart.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the aftermath of a cancer/cold-curing retro-virus gone wrong, a brother-sister blogger team gets invited to follow a presidential campaign. The candidate is trying to take things back to normal with real campaigns stops and 'press the flesh' visits, despite the fact contact with the live virus can turn you into a zombie. </div><div><br /></div><div>I liked the female protagonist especially, and enjoyed the banter. This is an excellent study for writers on how to write characters with great quirks and great voices. Also, on how to get background info dumps across without being boring. </div><div><br /></div><div>Still, the heavy exposition makes the beginning go fairly slow. Unfortunately, there's a lot of repetition, some of it intentional by the author (you'll be as sick of the finger-prick tests as the characters before the end). I think you could easily have trimmed out 50 pages and not have missed anything. Did we really need the eye-rollingly mustache-twirling parents, for example?</div><div><br /></div><div>But the flip side of so much exposition is that the worldbuilding is fabulous. The society the characters are operating in feels intensely, hauntingly real. Mira Grant's put a lot of thought into both the science and the social implications of her world.</div><div><br /></div><div>I wish Grant had put the same time into the motives of her antagonists, who are evil just for the point of evilness. Oh sure, there's some gloss of rationality put on their villainy. For example, the aforementioned parents--who adopt the twin protagonists for a ratings boost--supposedly are unable to form any close bonds with the children they've been living with for more than ten years because they're busy grieving for the loss of their original biological child. I just don't buy it, or buy that the protagonists would be such well adjusted people if they're basically living in a paparazzi-centered fish tank. We all know how messed-up the British royal family are, and this sounds almost as bad.</div><div><br /></div><div>The book's other antagonists don't even get token glosses of rationality. Even when he's doing his wind-up speech, the main villain doesn't point to anything specific when he's explaining why he felt the need to get his megalomania on. If we'd seen just one concrete example of what he was so pissed-off about, it might have made it all feel less comic-book monologue to me. Especially since his machinations never seemed necessary, since we never got a sense that the events swirling around him would justify his dastardly plan. A close presidential race doesn't feel very close to the reader if we never see the other side.</div><div><br /></div><div>The vagueness of the antagonist's motives was possibly intentional, modelling modern politico's tendency to get take in by empty-yet-powerful rhetoric. But at the end of the day, I felt the villain character was an overly-generalized swipe at a certain segment of the population. Satire looses its sting if it's too easy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also, plotwise, all the characters seem to do a lot of holding the idiot ball. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Sure! I'll totally take orders from a guy who doesn't let me see his face or tell me his name! I'll totally trust that he'll take America back to the state it needs to be, even though I have no clue who he is or how he's going to do it!"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yeah, there was an assassination attempt on the presidential candidate a few weeks ago, but after one member of his family dies, we're not going to check and see if this death might have something sinister behind it. Even when the evidence is out where a reporter can conveniently step on it and we've been inside, cleaning the facility anyway..."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Ooh, I'm an evil henchman rigging a bomb to explode in a hero's trailer. And after I do that, I'm going to kill the occupant's pet and leave it right where he can see it. If he finds a dead animal corpse, he'll totally stick around while the trailer explodes around him, right? It's not like EVIL HENCHMAN 101 teaches us about leaving everything the way we found it if we want our victim to get properly caught up in an explosion..."</div><div><br /></div><div>The other issue that annoyed me was the book's treatment of the blogger/traditional media divide. I feel like this book came out of an atmosphere that's five, ten years old. I don't think there's the antagonism there once was, especially since print/web journalists make the hop back and forth all the time. The idea that all the Presidential campaigns but one would not include bloggers seems bizarrely retro. The idea that there will still be newspapers in thirty years in itself seems bizarrely retro, especially since going outside in this world is a hazard. What would the insurance premium be for a paper boy?</div><div><br /></div><div>Even if I do buy the idea that the zombie apocalypse causes all the old flare-ups between reporters and bloggers to surface, I couldn't possibly think it would cause future presidential candidates to ignore online media. There are some things--including publicity seeking--that won't change, even if the world is ending.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ah well. These are small pet peeves, and almost got me to stop reading, but I'm glad I didn't. After a slow-fuse start, the book ends with an explosive bang. Feed has a lot of great action, great humor, and great fun. I got the rug completely yanked out from under me twice by fantastic plot twists that had me jumping around in my seat. I'd totally recommend this book to people, especially people who love zombies. I would never have written about so many of my negative comments with this book if it hadn't been nominated (and almost won) a Hugo. It just wasn't on that level for me.</div><div><br /></div><div>The frustrating thing is that this book could so easily have moved from 'good' to fantastic with a more believable antagonist and a few more red herrings. I think, in another few years, this author's books are going to be at the top of my wishlist every year. But it's not in that category yet. </div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-34242741526587276152011-08-31T18:24:00.003-06:002011-08-31T18:40:47.219-06:00Ten Minute Poem<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Aug. 31, 2011 -- 6:31 p.m.</span></span>
<br /></div>
<br />Well, grad school is more time-consuming than I expected. It's a little daunting to be surrounded by A-students who've been in the full-immersion class environment more recently than I. I'm used to competing with other slackers, not younger, more mathematically gifted versions of myself. I'm used to being at the top of the class, not the back. It doesn't help that everyone else attended BYU and so already seems to know everything about the campus while I'm stumbling around lost wondering what big hunk of brown brick I'm supposed to be going to. I wish there was a shuttle from one end of campus to the other. Getting from parking to my classes is pretty intense in the heat/humidity (yes, Utah does have a little of that.)
<br />
<br />Anyway, first assignment due this weekend. We'll see if my writing/analysis ability is still any good. I've forgotten how to do simple things, like citations and mathematical proofs.
<br />
<br />I'll try to post pics from Worldcon this weekend. It was awesome, but the kind of awesome that's hard to form into words. Mostly a sense of community. You can wander over to someone and strike up a conversation with people who share your loves, instead of looking at you with confusion and pity. And so many of my idols. E.G., I hung out at the Tor Party before the claustrophobia got to me and someone walked up and started talking to me and it was <span style="font-style: italic;">Lois Bujold. Lois Freaking Bujold </span>just started talking to me like she's an ordinary person and not a goddess of awesome. In my own personal pantheon of Gods, anyone with a wheel-barrel full of literary awards is certainly able to pull a fiat lux out of nowhere and make it bright enough to blind my ass.
<br />
<br />All the authors/editors had the same advice for breaking in. Write. Write some more. Write a lot more. Don't follow trends. I keep hoping if I collect enough chips of wisdom, I can cash in for a book deal, but it doesn't work like that. I understand, but I still can dream that someone somewhere will have the magic word that I need to hear.
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<br />The writing group with Louise Marley and N.K. Jemisin went well. Both of the pros had some hard things to say, but they were good hard things that I needed to hear. I'll take some of their advice and ignore the rest, but it was cool talking to them. Louise Marley grew up in one of the towns I used to cover with the newspaper I edited. Small world.
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<br />Anyway, until I post pics of me sitting in the Iron Throne, here's a poem I wrote in ten minutes, because that's all the time for writing I've had this week. I'll try to lock myself in a closet this weekend, where considerations of calculus don't tread on my creative synapses.
<br />
<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">TEN MINUTE POEM</span>
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unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Subtle Reference"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="32" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Intense Reference"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="33" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Book Title"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="37" name="Bibliography"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="39" qformat="true" name="TOC Heading"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">The pencil of Black Moods</p> <p class="MsoNormal">is scribbling in my ear.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It makes thick, jagged lines</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Whispering as it carves straight into </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The pink lining of my cochlea.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">From above, its scratches look like</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yarn after the cat’s been in the crochet drawer.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Or maybe letters formed by a two-year-old,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Who abandons things midway to go chasing after orange Jello.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Half-formed memories flow, twisted and taunting,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Belched out by the tip of the dark lead</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Pressed against my eardrum-- </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The next-door neighbor to my brain.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The pencil of Black Moods</p> <p class="MsoNormal">is scribbling in my ear.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Scribbling, scribbling…</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Good thing I have an eraser.</p> Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-30481928466156439612011-08-06T20:55:00.004-06:002011-08-12T22:11:43.942-06:00Playboy Feminism<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span">August 6, 2011 -- 7:55 p.m.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div><div>I enjoyed reading Linda Holmes' <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/08/02/138924658/the-bizarre-pitch-for-the-playboy-club-its-all-about-female-empowerment">takedown </a>of producer's attempts to sell the new show 'The Playboy Club' as 'female empowerment'.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I hate the fact some people conflate 'low neckline' with 'female empowerment'. There is a distinction. Female empowerment is the right to be able to do what you want with your breasts. If you want to be celibate? Sure, if it makes your life happier and more fulfilling. Wanna be a stripper? Sure, if it makes your life happier and more fulfilling. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>(And I have met some very smart, well-adjusted strippers. And some not-so-well adjusted ones.) </div><div>
<br /></div><div>The point is, it's every woman's decision, and you have the right to make it for yourself, hopefully for the right reasons. I feel like a lot of teenage girls let themselves get pressured into doing dumb things because there's this assumption that you have to do something to satisfy a man's expectations. That if you flirt or let someone take you out to a really expensive restaurant, then he's entitled to kiss you, to f*** you. That's not the case. Your sexuality is your own, nobody else's, and you don't owe anybody anything.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>But in and of itself, sexuality is not necessarily empowering. It's especially not empowering if it perpetuates the idea that a woman's value is determined solely on the basis of her bra size. Appearance is only one facet of a person's personality, male or female. It's a big, important part in terms of dating and your professional life, but you bring more to the far more to the table, even if you're only a 34B.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Of course, maybe the Playboy Club was counting on the publicity generated by their stupid marketing techniques to drum up bigger ratings. If so, I think it's a failure, since the people who pay attention to feminist blogs probably aren't going to watch it anyway.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>(Read an excerpt from Gloria Steinum's expose on the Bunny Clubs <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5c51b41e-602c-11dd-805e-000077b07658.html#axzz1UJEoCwcL">here</a>.)</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-62433326952786117772011-08-03T13:31:00.004-06:002011-08-03T13:44:17.375-06:00Sickness and Health<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >August 3, 2011 -- 12:33 p.m.</span></div><div><br /></div>Ugh. It's amazing how the end of writing a book can leave you so frustrated, tired and depressed. It's like reaching the end of a marathon without the runner's high. There's the brief moment of joy and then...thud. <div><br /></div><div>I can't bear to begin revising it at the moment. I'm bursting with creative energy though, even if I'm lethargic. Maybe I'll churn out another short story. </div><div><br /></div><div>What I really want to do is start working on an epic fantasy about a city made entirely of mist but I probably ought to go back to the one I was working on during Brandon Sanderson's class, since it's already partially finished. New shiny ideas always seem to win out over dull old ones in terms of distraction.<div><br /></div><div>It's also interesting how illness can strike two similar people in different ways. Monday, I woke up so dizzy I was barely able to stand up, so I spent the day napping and felt better after the sea-sickness passed. I wanted to nail the room down and say YOU! SIT! STAY!</div><div><br /></div><div>But a family member of mine who works at a law firm felt fine...until he passed out in the middle of a deposition, banging his head a face times on the way down. The red scabs on his face looks like he got in a bloody beer brawl instead of a brawl with a table. He felt fine, afterward. Refused to let them take him to the hospital. I joked that he was the beginning of a House episode.</div><div><br /></div><div>I figure we had the same illness and it just manifested in two different ways. Perhaps another symptom is me not particularly feeling like writing about the rest of my Hugo votes, though I did get them in on time. Oh well, maybe later.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime, in honor of all the Doctor Who nominees, here's the 1960s classic, 'I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas with a Dalek...'</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GuBJ5H9m3Sc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><br /></div></div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-61813210113110227862011-07-30T14:14:00.004-06:002011-07-30T15:46:18.975-06:00Hugo Voting (Graphic Novels, Related Works, Fan Artists)<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >July 30, 2011 -- !:15 p.m.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><div><i>" 'I think he's saying we have to keep talking to to ourself for the sake of exposition.' "</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>" 'That's going to kill efficiency.' "</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>" 'It'll be hard on the fourth wall, too.' "</i></div></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>-- </i>Dialogue from <i>Schlock Mercenary</i></div><div><br /></div>Since I put so much time into writing last month, I won't have time to review all the Hugo categories, unfortunately. I'm trying to stuff what I can into the last few days.<div><br /></div><div>GRAPHIC NOVELS:</div><div><br /></div><div>My favorites:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) The Unwritten</div><div>2) Grandville Mon Amour</div><div>3) Schlock Mercenary</div><div>4) Fables</div><div>5) Girl Genius</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not a graphic novel reader per se--I've read the high watermarks of the genre, such as Watchman and some of Frank Miller, but other than that, my background mostly consists of manga. Compared to manga, American comic books are surprisingly dense, word-wise. I was surprised to also see some of the art wasn't as fantastic as I was expecting. It was definitely better than I can do, just not what I was expecting.</div><div><br /></div><div>Despite my vote, the clear consensus favorite in this category is Girl Genius, which has won every year since the graphic novel category was introduced. But I like a little variety in my winners. This was the first sample of Girl Genius I've ever read, so I got dropped into the middle, but the characters were vivid and I like the art. The colors really pop and there are some nice moments. That is one high-quality web comic. Still, the lack of ability for a n00b like me to get in immediately would have tucked this one lower down on my list anyway, though maybe not quite so low down.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other side of the coin, I was surprised to find myself really enjoying The Unwritten. From page 1, I was practically set against it. You have a really pretentious (in my eyes) literary introduction talking about how the book is a groundbreaking look at the way we tell stories, and that we should consider it more of an anthology because the stories weren't intensely related plotwise but we shouldn't worry about that and we don't even need the mystery solved because the ideas are so awesome...</div><div><br /></div><div>Anytime someone has 1) a plot with a mystery 2) has someone saying the mystery doesn't need solving in the intro is always going to get my danders up.</div><div><br /></div><div>So between that and the poor scan quality that makes it difficult to read the blog posts which are mixed with the comics in a Watchman-like combo, I was prepared to give this graphic novel its thirty pages and then give it a miss.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the thing is--I couldn't. The premise is interesting, the idea is interesting, the dialogue is great, and when I put the book down, this was the only graphic novel I was itching to see the sequel too. Mostly because the story ends on a cliffhanger, unfortunately. It gets minus marks for that. But I love the mix of surreality (is that a word?) and banality, adult humor and childlike enchantment. It's very meta and interesting.</div><div><br /></div><div>So what's it about? Well, picture if J.K. Rowling had one son and named him Harry Potter. And little Harry Potter has to grow up in the shadow of the books, especially after his father disappeared. And little Harry Potter gets stuffed in jail after he mass-murders a house full of people. Only he claims he was framed, but the prison warden doesn't believe him and sets Potter up to be killed because he feels like Potter ruined his children's childhood by bloodying the Potter name.</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, but all the weird fantasy stuff? Yeah, it might be real.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bet you didn't see that coming (rolls eyes.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, so maybe some of the twists aren't the most original. (Visiting the Third Reich? There goes that whole Nazi time vortex thing again)...but I'm all for comics that have little girls shouting the latin phrase for eye-poke while eye-poking a boy who just told her to come sit on his wand.</div><div><br /></div><div>Naturally, adult content warning. It's wonderful, the way the author managed to capture the different narrative styles whenever it starts a character in another world/book. The flashes of the fake Harry Potter narrative feel a lot like Harry Potter, just like the narrative voice for the Beatrix Potter/Winnie the Pooh parody at the end is also spot-on-awesome. It reminded me of the South Park Christmas Critter episode, with less Jew-baiting.</div><div><br /></div><div>My second favorite graphic novel was Grandville, which boosts my favorite art of the bunch. Some people might look at the animals and bright colors and call it cartoonish, but I like a little color in my art.</div><div><br /></div><div>Grandville one features an alternative history where humans are (mostly) replaced by humanlike animals. A detective starts looking for a dangerous terrorist who has a Jack-the-Ripper penchant for killing prostitutes. So it's like Sherlock Holmes...if Sherlock Holmes was a giant badger. A mystery, shootouts, damaged damsels and political connivance -- this is pulpy, good fun. While the Unwritten shoots for great heights and sometimes misses, Grandville Mon Amour delivers exactly what I wanted. This is one I wouldn't mind owning in paper, and I'll have to look for it next time I'm at my local comics shop. Check out the youtube ad for it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdBnXHD3j7Q">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>I like Howard Taylor, and Schlock Mercenary makes me laugh (not to mention be impressed by the sheer content--I'm 400 pages in and still not finished), but Grandville and the Unwritten appealed to me more this time around. Maybe another year.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fables has gotten really good critical reviews, and it has an interesting concept, but I couldn't get into it, perhaps because this is another one where I was dropped mid-series. I'll try to read it again when I have more time.</div><div><br /></div><div>BEST RELATED WORK</div><div><br /></div><div>This is a really tricky category, because its so wide open. How do you compare a set of book reviews to a biography of Heinlein to a podcast on writing? It's like evaluating apples and orangutans.</div><div><br /></div><div>I looked for criteria to judge on but found diddly-squat. We're just supposed to pick the best, whatever that means.</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, two of the entries specialized in offering advice to new writers, which is great, but I wasn't sure that's what the Hugo celebrates, so sorry, Writing Excuses. We'll kiss and make-up in the morning.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the end, I'm going with 'Chicks Dig Timelords', which is a collection of female voices dealing with Who and Who fandom. It contains many different voices--from new fans to old fans, costumers to voice actors--but all of them share a love of the campy, wonderfulness of Dr. Who. But I found it interesting beyond Who-dom, because it was also about carving out a female space in a male-world, one which (according to some of the writers) were full of 'Get Rid Of Slimy girlS' society, especially since the shippers were polluting their pure Who with romance.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, I don't have much of a dog in this fight, but I enjoyed the discussion, the reminiscences, and the spunky voices of the essayists kept me turning the pages. The collection contains entries from several other Hugo-nominated authors too (such as Mary Robinette Kowal and one of the authors of <i>Feed</i>) so it's not just fem and queer-lit professors.</div><div><br /></div><div>It hits my sweet spots (feminism and science fiction) as well as capturing an interesting moment in pop culture history about a silly, bubble-wrap and tinfoil show that managed to capture the imagination of a generation.</div><div><br /></div><div>My doctor is still Tom Baker though. You just can't beat that scarf. His fashion sense shaped my fierceness into what it is today. ^_^</div><div><br /></div><div>FAN ARTIST</div><div><br /></div><div>I thought about skipping this category. I'm probably skipping the fan writing one just because I don't have enough awareness of the community to know what offers the most merit. But the artist who drew xkcd is nominated, and I don't think people who live off their art count as non-professional, so I figure I'll try and counter the legion of fans who will vote for him, even though I like xkcd.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I liked Maureen Starkey's stuff, and some of the other artists too. Though some of the scantily clad females look very cold.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, that's my first round of Hugo pics. Now I'm working through the short stories, novelettes, novellas and other vision stuff. More later.</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-88292104614928646342011-07-29T19:18:00.004-06:002011-07-29T19:21:22.311-06:00Skin Farm<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span">July 29, 2011 -- 6:18 p.m.</span></div><div>Draft v. 1.0 is...</div><div><br /></div><div>DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</div><div><br /></div><div>If that's not worth a few extra exclamation marks, I'm not sure what is.</div><div><br /></div><div>I need to iron out some inconsistencies, esp. in the ending, then it's off to alpha readers, followed by query time.</div><div><br /></div><div>And then the merry-go-round starts all over again. A writer's life, eh?</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-69575179006214616642011-07-21T14:34:00.004-06:002011-07-21T15:33:31.473-06:00One Hundred Thousand Kingdoms Review (Hugo Reading)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIYSwBbHvQ7yxVnKA-2TAVN9TkAWwn8azJMpIcXpB_9sgfFVTBp1ouo1iYeLKtPh1jetu2yvN289hyphenhyphenBd8N024eOnMFAb66yDPMsLAk5wQJM868TCrtiTmXC7UqMlnTgb1rofoPbZbLOmA/s1600/TheHundredThousandKingdoms.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 163px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIYSwBbHvQ7yxVnKA-2TAVN9TkAWwn8azJMpIcXpB_9sgfFVTBp1ouo1iYeLKtPh1jetu2yvN289hyphenhyphenBd8N024eOnMFAb66yDPMsLAk5wQJM868TCrtiTmXC7UqMlnTgb1rofoPbZbLOmA/s1600/TheHundredThousandKingdoms.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span">July 21, 2011 -- 1:35 p.m.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div>I just got cool news. I signed up for the writing workshops at Worldcon and one of my workshop leaders is going to be N.K. Nemisin, which makes the timing of this review fun. It will be interesting to see what she has to say about my work, because while she's an awesome author, from what little I've read of her work, our styles will be completely, entirely different. It made me wish I'd submitted something a little more surreal/descriptive than Skin Farm, which is fun but very...well, plain-spoken. Purposefully so, since the main character is illiterate.<div><div><div><div><br /></div><div>The other writer working with our group is <a href="http://www.louisemarley.com/">Louise Marley</a>, who I've never heard of before, but her body of work looks interesting. I'll have to pick on up before I go.</div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, onto The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms: (shouldn't be any spoilers)</div><div><br /></div><div>HTK came out with more hype for any debut fantasy novel I've seen than Name of the Wind. Because of all the news swirling around it (and because the name made me expect Hundred Thousand Kingdoms = hundred thousand potential novels...), I was expecting some new sword and sorcery along the release of a new NoTW or a new Scott R. Bakker series sort of thing.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I got was entirely different.</div><div><br /></div><div>From the get-go, there's conflict. A child whose own mother even never wanted her born. A dangerous new world floating above the crowds, full of people who titter behind their hands at the protagonist, Yeine, who seems to have been brought only to serve as a sacrificial lamb on a chain. A lamb who might not even survive the day, for as night falls, she's being chased by a ravenous half-man, half-beast through glowing corridors, some of which will respond to her very thoughts.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the back of the book, Nemisin lists her influences. Octivia Butler is among them, which doesn't surprise me, because this book reminds me of Butler's Patternist series in terms of style. The plot also strikes me as Butler-ian. Black girl from 'barbaric' (ironic air quotes applied) matriarchal backwater gets invited to rich white people's court by her maternal grandfather after her mother (who fled the court to marry the protagonist's mother) is murdered.</div><div><br /></div><div>I point it out the race because it's there, but it's subtle. It's more about the characters than race/class politics.</div><div><br /></div><div>I like how Nemisin manages to blend a lot of elements into one, not-too-big book. There's a mystery (who killed the protag's mom and why?) politics (need to manipulate one faction against the other) and religion. That last is especially intriguing, and builds the backbone of the work. If John Milton's Lucifer and a few of his angels were kicked out of heaven, confined inside mortal bodies and given to one hierarchical family to be used as weapons, it would be a bit like this book.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since family conflict and religious conflict are two of what I love to see most in fantasy literature, this one hits most of my sweet spots. My only quibble was that I'd like to see more try-fail from the protagonist, who has gods at her beck and call. It seems like, with all that power, she could try to do something more. I understood that she was a) in a new place, b) limited by the fact everyone else around her also could command the gods and c) that none of her scurrilous family could be fatally harmed by said god-weapons, but still, I would have liked to see her try more, even if it meant failing. One scene in particular would have resonated more if the villain had caught a god-weapon spying on her instead of just singling him out because she wanted to hurt someone. </div><div><br /></div><div>That passivity reminded me a little of Butler as well. In books like Dawn, she'd put the characters in situations where they were completely helpless (or only had the illusion of free will) and make her readers squirm. I loved that style when I first read it, but am a little less enamored of it now, maybe because I feel far too helpless sometimes in my own life and I read (like the blog says) for escape. For the belief/illusion that one person can be powerful and potent. And the protagonist in this book is powerful--but not because of her choices, but because of what others made her.</div><div><br /></div><div>The obligatory romance also wasn't my cup of tea. Since being sexually assaulted, I don't have much truck with women falling in love with men who could violently hurt them even if, theoretically, the men 'didn't mean to.' But I understand that my taste is not everyone's. Also, I wished I could have seen a little more of the female gods.</div><div><br /></div><div>That said, this book was tremendously awesome. I enjoyed the book a lot and thought it was beautifully written. The setting was fantastic fun. From the first pages, I was hurtling through, hungry for more. I almost started reading it again from the beginning as soon as I put it down. </div><div><br /></div><div>The style is definitely on the literary side, which I love to see in fantasy, because as much as my own style is pretty simple, I like to see variation in a genre. One of the interesting things Nemisin does is, instead of a straight narrative, the character is constantly engaging in asides--sometimes from her present self, sometimes from her future self looking back--very complicated, but it never lost me as a reader even though Nemisin's juggling so many balls. </div><div><br /></div><div>I especially enjoyed the conversations the protagonists had with 'herself.' You'll understand what I mean if you read the book.</div><div><br /></div><div>For a sample of her style, take this excerpt from one of my favorite scenes (Minor spoiler, naturally. Well, kind of, since it's out of context):</div><div><br /></div><div><div><i>[I]n that sliver of time, I felt the power around me coalesce, malice-hard and sharp as crystal.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>* * *</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>That this analogy occurred to me should have been a warning.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>* * *</i></div><div><i>Rish swung. I held still, tense for the blow. Three inches from my face Rish’s fist seemed to glance off something no one could see—and when it did, there was a high hard clacking sound, like stone striking stone.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Rish drew his hand away, startled and perhaps puzzled by his failure to put me in my place. He looked at his fist, on which a patch of shining, faceted black had appeared about the knuckles. I was close enough to see the flesh around this patch blistering, beading with moisture like meat cooked over a flame. Except it was not burning, but freezing; I could feel the waft of cold air </i><i>from where I stood. The effect was the same, however, and as the flesh withered and crisped away as if it had been charred, what appeared underneath was not raw flesh, but stone.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div></div><div>If that bit made you want to read more, go pick up Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I don't think you'll be disappointed.</div><div><br /></div><div>I can tell already that choosing Hugos is going to be like picking teeth out of my spine. I also watched Doctor Who's version of the Christmas Carol, nominated as a short, and loved it, even though the science was complete bunk. (Proper frequency, my foot...) I thought it was a new twist on an old classic, and who doesn't like seeing Dumbledore as Scrooge? Or a shark pulling a sleigh? This is must-see Christmas watching, along with Futurama's X-mas episode and the Grinch Who Stole Christmas (the cartoon, not the Jim Carrey version).</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-64773165148603328442011-07-18T17:23:00.005-06:002011-07-18T17:38:18.026-06:00Hugo Reading!<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span">June 18, 2011 -- 4:28 p.m.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div>So I've finally had time to begin my Hugo reading.<div><div><br /></div><div>I haven't actually read any of the previous books by this year's <a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/04/25/hugo-nominees-2011.html">Hugo nominees</a>, so it's exciting and kind of disorienting for those books that plop me down mid-series. From discussion boards, Ian McDonald seems to be the inside favorite, but Connie Willis won the Nebula, so I wouldn't count her out yet. </div><div><br /></div><div>Though seeing a WWII travel book made me feel like writing a story where a history professor comments: "You know, why do time travelers never seem to end up in Africa? Isn't that a little weird?" And then having it turn out there's some sort of time-nexus that will automatically draw all time travelers to WWII where they will be given the opportunity to kill Hitler only to a) have something go terribly wrong or b) alter their own futures in a horrible way. And the time travel nexus was created by aliens who wanted to mock us.</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, what else could explain how the time travelers ALWAYS end up there, except when they're going to assist with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikka_to_Ride">assassination </a>of J.F.K. instead...</div></div><div><br /></div><div>As a postscript, apparently <a href="http://techland.time.com/2011/04/13/china-decides-to-ban-time-travel/">China </a>banned shows about Time Travel. Odd.</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-22061458764312715672011-07-14T20:15:00.005-06:002011-07-14T20:45:11.635-06:00(Spoiler-Free) Review of A Dance with Dragons<a 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" 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" border="0" alt="" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">July 14, 2011 -- 7:17 p.m.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Woo! It finally came. In my younger years, I would have read this book straight through in one day, 1000 pages or no, but now I'm made of less stern stuff. I had to fit it into two. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The hardcover is beautiful. I just liked holding the book. I almost didn't want to read it, because it looks so pristine.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So what about the contents?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As always, George R.R. Martin is a fantastic worldbuilder and storyteller. It's easy to get swept away into Westoros. Between the return of old favorites characters, the addition of new favorites and the thickening of the plot, there was a lot here to love. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On the other hand, if you're new to Martin, just picking up his books after seeing the TV series, this probably isn't the place to start. Because this is dense, and the pacing can be a little frustrating. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Like its brother, Feast of Crows, this is a turning point in the series. This feels like it's going away from the mystery/political conflict that drove the first few books and becomes more of a travelogue. So there's a heavy heaping of wonder--I appreciated the idea of a medieval/magic leper type camp especially--along with lots of legends to unravel, but I think fans may miss the tightly wound plot of the first few books. Earlier, most of the storylines took place on the same continent and you could see more direct reactions on how characters' decisions affected one another. This time around, the threads here feel more spaced out. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There's definitely also a sense of 'darkest before the dawn.' We're hitting the middle of the series, which means that characters are going to suffer. And some of them suffer hard. There are no good choices, and some of the bright spots that used to lighten the tortured characters' souls are missing. Maybe fewer heads roll here, but it felt to me that this book offered fewer servings of hope than any other book in the series. And pretty much every plot ends on a cliffhanger, so don't expect too much satisfaction on that score. Though, since I've been studying G.R.R.M. for years and know his tricks well, I'm pretty sure I know where 90 percent of those cliffhangers are going to end. Yet he does manage to keep me guessing.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">With all that said, would I still recommend A Dance with Dragons? Absolutely, if you don't mind dark fantasy. I feel it was worth the wait. While I may not see where everything is going now, the skill with which Martin handles his twists and turns convinces me that we are in capable hands. This book is a page-turner. About 400 in, I found myself struggling to put the book down. It kept calling, even when I had better things to do. I may not have liked this one as much as <i>Storm of Swords</i>, despite their comparable length, but it's still George R.R. Martin. And he's still fantastic. And some things are best savored slowly.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Still, I think the next book will be a test of fire. I think everyone was expecting more character convergences, but there wasn't much of that. If G.R.R.M. truly intends to end it all in two more books more, everything needs to be turned up a notch.</div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5318187171074555338.post-86101295561483852272011-07-12T10:49:00.003-06:002011-07-12T10:54:06.204-06:00Neil Gaiman Interview<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >July 12, 2011 -- 9:51 a.m.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div>There's a great Neil Gaiman interview over at <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/neil-gaiman,58730/">A.V. Club</a>. You should go read it, if you liked American Gods. Go on. I'll wait.<div><br /></div><div>"'<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; ">[B]estseller' can be a publishing category as much as it can be anything else. It means that the book is going to be on certain shelves, pushed a certain way. Back then, it mattered. I don’t honestly know that it matters anymore. The whole shape of bookselling has changed. Back then, it meant that your publisher would pay for your book to be on the table by the door when you went into a Barnes & Noble or a Borders. There would be those tables, and the publisher is paying for it to be stacked on those tables, rather than back in a particular area. So I knew that because I was being published as a bestseller, I could be a lot more cavalier with my genre distinctions. And I hoped that people who would like it would find it. And I think eventually they did."</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; "><br /></span></div><div> While you're reading that, I'll be watching this awesome fake movie trailer.</div><div><br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_BMgegut3UM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unrepentant Escapisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14084297041989860942noreply@blogger.com1