Keeping track of the good things

June 26, 2021| cometary| 0 Comment | 10:13 pm

Categories:

Blog

When I post on the front page of my site, it has to be temporary, but it’s often goodies that I don’t want to trash, so I’m beginning a little practice of shifting the “old” content to a NEW blog post, maybe with a little bit of extra commentary. Skip it if you want, or not, whatever. This is the blog part of this page, it’s my playground and as long as I’m not hurting anybody, I can do whatever I want, right?

Like, right now, I’m listening to Travis music videos on YouTube. There are official ones and unofficial ones, and these guys are so menschy, they don’t worry about the unofficial ones, because fans love them, right? Besides, what does it make me want to do? It makes me want to go see if there’s an album of theirs I maybe don’t have yet. Marketing, kids.

The funniest one is a concert video where whoever has the camera skips real fast past the audience members closer to the band’s age and lingers on the fresh-faced youngsters. Well, it’s nice that younger people have discovered them, isn’t it?

hehehe

Four music CD's scattered on top of a box with decorative printing. CD#1: a red eye between the words "Travis" and "Ode to J Smith". CD#2 four stylized black-and-white images of band members with text on edge "Travis", a cover of a digital-download CD with misty figures in a landscape and text "Travis The Man Who", CD#4 only text visible "Fran Healy" — A few of my Travis CD’s. And yeah one’s a (legit) digital download that was a gift with Keane music on it, too.

All right then, here’s a nostalgic look at the front page that’s going away today:

Greetings, fellow star travellers! Big news!

Paper Angel Press has launched a new imprint devoted to science fiction and fantasy.

I’ve been waiting for months to say: you’ll now find my book at Water Dragon Publishing. Click the dragon and explore their new site.

Meanwhile … my newsletter launched successfully last month! Thanks to all who signed up here and through StoryOrigin. The newsletter comes out mid-month, with science news, story previews, writer-life chat, and just a little gaming stuff.

Learning by doing! I ran an experiment: subscriber pop-up vs static subscribe-here form. The pop-up wins, hands, down. Apparently, it’s just way more convenient. However, I can flip a switch so it only asks every so often. And I’m keeping the static forms on the contact and blog pages, for those who prefer that. Remember, if you’re on gmail, Google will tend to pipeline emails from new people into preset folders like “Promotions,” until you tell it not to.

Subscribe Here

All That Was Asked

What would you say if someone said, “Will you take this alien creature home and be responsible for it.”?
Ansegwe says, “Yes.”
Get the story in digital, audio, softcover, or hardback!

At your favorite online store

Cover of book "All That Was Asked" with woman looking down and distant glowing object in the background.

Love your local bookstore by ordering online through bookshop.org (hardcover and paperback) or indiebound.org (both print editions).

You can also order signed copies direct from Water Dragon Publishing, and the audiobook is also available on iTunes.

This first-contact story explores the challenges of communication between species–when neither side has a universal translator to rely on, when the alien in question is so odd most people would consider it an animal–not a person, and when accidents and misunderstandings get in the way.

Ansegwe’s a tagalong, a wannabe poet, and the pampered offspring of a rich, powerful family. When faced with the choice of leaving an injured alien creature to fend for itself in the wilds of a strange world, he makes decisions that force him to contend with his own failings–but also help him discover his mission in life.

Official Safety Notice for Poetry-Averse Readers: There are no actual poems in this book.

Avoiding HyperboleAvoiding Hyperbole

OK, right, it’s been so long since the last post that even my backup program is writing me off as too far gone. Too bad, Updraft, back to work, you lazy batch of code.

True, some comets hare off to interstellar space on hyperbolic orbits. However, two or three things:
1) There’s much to be said for the sweet homey stability of an elliptical orbit.
2) On a hyperbola, there are two arms, and who’s to say if you’re on the right one?
3) My top speed is less than 2 m/sec whereas an escape trajectory on Earth demands moving at about 11,500 m/sec.
4) I’m not actually a comet, I’m a human being who is interested in comets both as astronomical objects and as metaphorical images.
5) That’s four or five things.

Redlining on a hyperbola. Aieeee!

Stuff happens, and it’s not exactly a huge crime to neglect a blog that no-one is reading. Last year, I whined about the inconveniences of having a broken arm. Well, there’s worse stuff than a broken arm. Besides, I needed time to read other people’s websites. Like catching up on the doings at Gunnerkrig Court. Like reading anything about robots that turns up on IEEE Spectrum. Or reliving grad school days on Jorge Chan’s Ph.D. comic. Or vacillating between reading Allie Brosh’s hardcopy book or her online stories at Hyperbole-and-a-Half.

In the meantime, I’ve managed to keep up a little better on the easier-to-maintain Facebook & twitter side of things, under the Pixel Gravity moniker.

But it’s time to dump more stuff out on the world and see if anyone who isn’t a spammer notices.

Here’s the deal: I’ve got a year’s worth of science projects for kids that I want to share. Maybe they’ll be a book too, some day. (Insert self-knowing laugh here.) I’m a year behind on delivering my Grand Canyon stories & pictures, which I promised my fellow-travellers would be “up” by the end of last summer. But there’s other stuff I want to address as well. So there will be a little discipline applied, in a way that would help any of my imaginary readers look ahead for the next entry in a category of interest.

First week of the month: One “Messy Monday” project

Second week: One “Grand Canyon” entry–either a half-day of storytelling or a photo album.

Third week: Science & fiction stuff–the science fairly topical, the fiction

Fourth week: An extra week to play catch up, first on the Grand Canyon, and later on Messy Monday, but also a piece of flexible time for interesting stuff of the moment. For instance, Memorial Day Weekend will yield four days of BayCon 2014.

Next up: Comets in orbit…

Lessons of a BayCon Gofer: Jill of All TradesLessons of a BayCon Gofer: Jill of All Trades

In 2014, BayCon had its traditional four days to work with, and Friday was an ease-into-the event day. This was a great time to turn up at the Gofer Hole and ask if they needed help. “Yes!” being the inevitable answer. Warning: if you try this, there ARE forms! If you are a kid, there are parental signatures required. So I signed away liability for the horrific injuries and possible death that might occur as a result of my participation in the duties of a fetch-and-carry helper in a nice hotel constructed to meet modern building codes. More likely: infection by a zombie virus, but ha on them, they didn’t mention zombie viruses in the release form.

The reward for filling out forms: my first badge ribbon of the Con. Yes, this means I am Gofer #18. Shades of Caddy Shack.

Meet Gofer #18

So what does a Gofer do? Take a deep breath, plunge in. Oh, it is soooooo difficult.

Job #1: Go to the Big Ballroom, to help set up for some event tonight. No idea what the event is. The person who called for help? He’s not there. No one knows what he wanted done. But the guy hanging lights at the Art Show needs an assistant.

Job #2: Help hang lights at the Art Show. Now, actually hanging the lights is a Skilled Job, not a Gofer job. My job is to hand cable ties to the exhausted electrical tech, whose ladder-climbs for the weekend have already gone into the triple digits. And to help spot weak links in the chain of power-strips and extension cords feeding electrons to the downlamps positioned to light the display boards for the art. Artists are already checking in, placing their work, jockeying for prime display spots in the venue. Still, we proceed up and down rows with a stepladder and a bundle of cable ties.

Job #3: The original person who wanted help is back. He needs a banner snapped onto a big framework thingy. It’s a multi-gofer job that takes some cooperation, especially amusing as none of us assisting with this thing have any idea what it’s for. My engineering brain helps with figuring out the layout itself, and we get the fabric stretched out nicely, but my partner gets to actually do most of the actual attachment, since there is a power element to the task.

Job #4: Hang around in the Gofer Hole, being On Call. Seriously, being available counts as working. Yes, indeed, this is even better than counting billable hours in my consulting practice. Dang, if only I could bill clients for time I’m home & my phone and email connections are working. There are snacks here—bagels, mmmm. And electrical outlets, so I can plug in my netbook & work on a Messy Monday project.

Job #5: Schlep groceries for a party. Some longtime VIP staffers are having a private party. Their goodies for the party are stowed in the Gofer Hole. We On-Call Gofers have the hugely easy job of carrying the goodies a hundred feet down the hall. [Hint: helping with a party does entitle one to partake of the party. Generally speaking. I did not take part, having a prior engagement with a soda machine.]

Job #6: Load sodas into the Charity Soda Machine. This is a magical device in the Games Room that converts geeks’ need for carbonated sugar- or aspartame-water into monies for this year’s charity fundraising. I was briefly concerned that I would run into difficulties with my limited weight-lifting capabilities. But the job soon devolves into a three-stage process free of excessive lifting:

Stage A: Wander about looking for the Keeper of the Soda-Machine Keys.

Stage B: Wait for the Individual Authorized to Use the Humungous Hand Truck

Stage C: Leave when Keeper of the Machine appears and disavows any need for help

Job #7: Build a LARP set. Someone has created a live-action role-playing version of a card-based game called “Kill Dr. Lucky”. This is a game I have never heard of, but someone has gone to great lengths to build an accurate, room-sized playing field that live humans can walk about on as if they are playing pieces in the game. Our mission: assist this charismatic lunatic by moving chairs out of the way, laying out the sheets his friend has carefully marked out with lines and labels, getting each in proper orientation to the other and smoothing out the boundaries with tape. By the time we are done, I’m determined to show up and try out this LARPing thing.

And by this time, I’ve put in totally enough time as a Gofer for one day, while the activities I’m least interested in on the program are conveniently over.

My Very Own Ray Gun

I have time to dash up to the DIY room before dinnertime and make myself a cool ray gun by artistically decorating a plastic gun with gold and silver and red and purple and green Sharpies. It is my favorite toy already. So shiny.

And I wouldn’t want anyone to think one has to devote the entire day just Gofering about. I did skip an hour of possible On-Call credit for a panel on the relative merits of James Bond and Doctor Who. And regretted it. There is no contest. Doctor Who is way, way cooler than James Bond, but the panel was mostly a bunch of guys keen on car chases in movies.

Finally, yes, I did get to play Kill Dr. Lucky. It was super fun, and while I cannot claim to be the One Who Did the Deed, the evil Dr. L was indeed assassinated. Here is our team’s creative enactment of the impending demise of the successful assassin.

Let’s Get Doctor Lucky’s Killer

Gofer Lesson of the Day: Sign up early & there will be lots of easy jobs to do while the con is barely getting started. There’s never a dull moment, or if there is, you can get credit for working by napping while On Call. And don’t leave home without a suitable weapon.

Have Ray Gun, Will LARP

Translations In the Real World
(Photo by Tflanagan at KSU, Saudi Arabia,
Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)

One of the first things people ask me when they read certain of my stories is “What’s the right way to pronounce all these weird words?” My stock answer is: “However you like! It’s all made up, whatever sounds right inside your head is fine by me.”

Starting the process of doing an audio book for All That Was Asked has forced me to face the fact that, well, really there is a “right” way. For one thing, the story centers on language–in fact, the working title of the book was “Translations by Ansegwe.” In general, for the stories where I have a made-up culture with their own language or an “evolved” culture that’s grown from more-or-less familiar cultures but uses a language other than English as their root language, I do know how those words should be pronounced. I’m that wonky sort that blows off an entire afternoon at Worldcon to attend a linguistics workshop, so, well, that’s where I’m coming from.

In the real world, I know French pretty well, I watch a lot of foreign-language TV (though of course I’m relying on subtitles), I live in place where I hear Spanish and Russian regularly, and I have technical-world acquaintances with a great variety of language “homes” from India to Europe to Africa to both Chinas. I’ve struggled to learn a smattering of my culture-base language–Gaelic. And I grew up being hauled around to various places in the U.S. and England. I even still “hear” (and alas for spell-checkers, spell) most English as Brit-style. End result: I love the interplay of languages and the way everyone talks. I do not claim to be a polyglot, but I’m a diligent researcher and I just love all those sounds.

In my writing, most of the problematic words are names, because I think of such stories as having been “translated” from the alien/alternate history language set. Names tend to get left over after a translation, because even if I’m translating a story from French to English, I wouldn’t change “Tourenne” to “Terence” or “Gervais” to Gerald, because a) the names aren’t really the same and b) the sounds of names add the flavor of a language without requiring a reader to actually know a foreign tongue directly. Spoiler? My current work-in-progress has characters named Tourenne and Gervais, and they live in a francophone culture that doesn’t exist anywhere in the real world.

In the made-up language base for All That Was Asked, I have lots of names for people, place-names from more than one country in the alternate-universe world, and a few name-based terms. (The academic types in the story have dreams of winning their version of the Nobel prize, so they talk about it a lot. The Nobel prize is named for a person, but . . . it’s a thing.) I wanted the central names to make sense, to have relateable sounds, and to have some commonalities. For instance, in English we have a lot of names that end in ‘-y’. I selected some sound elements that would fit into different names and tried to make them sound like they came from a distinct self-contained culture–except for a few names I made up specifically to sound like another culture, in the same world.

I decided on a family-personal naming order that made sense for the culture–Family first, Personal second, and most people refer to each other and address each other by their personal names, because everyone knows what family everyone else belongs to. And I made names longer than we’re used to in English. In our culture “power names” tend to be short, in theirs, most people have multisyllable names, and powerful people tend to have longer names.

For other sets of words in this story, ones that are “translated” to English, I “hear” the words in British/European English rather than American English, because that fits better with the social style of the people and gives it a little bit of distance for American readers. It may sound really fussy–especially for such a short little book–but I think having a clear auditory sense going into it helped me with building the alien culture. I just have to hope it carries through to readers and listeners–not a burden to cope with but an added feature of the story.

In my next post, I’ll give you a blow-by-blow pronunciation guide for All That Was Asked, with a few background bits to liven it up a bit.

Keeping track of the good things

All That Was Asked

You might also like to read:

Avoiding HyperboleAvoiding Hyperbole

Lessons of a BayCon Gofer: Jill of All TradesLessons of a BayCon Gofer: Jill of All Trades

What’s with the weird words?What’s with the weird words?