Book 3 - still being written

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hgladney
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songs like the trigger of a gun

Post by hgladney »

Probably as a result of all these great conversations we've had all round the forum here, for which I must thank you from the bottom of my heart, I got a ton of work done over the weekend.
Stayed up waaay too late working on it, in fact.

Had a horrible Monday at work, and--mostly by main virtue--managed to beat it back into submission. It's not even my *job* to handle hysterical members of the public bursting into tears on the phone. For heaven's sake, I don't even work at a Help Desk position!!

Anyway, hey, not all that big a deal, some folks would just shrug it off as Not My Problem, They Haven't Rocked My Little World, What'fu' do I care?
I haven't reached that stage of zenlike cruel indifference, thank you.
Calm, all is calm, we can haaaandle this...with a bit of an edge there...

Went to the gym and swam, lovely, first time I've had a chance in months. Relaxed. Probably just as well I got muscles well-worked-out.

But on the way home, folks played Sarah MacLaughlin's old song Angel for us.

I don't think they expected it to hit the rest of us the way it did.

If I had a clearer idea of what various crises and sublimations may go into fueling these particular Furies, I would probably do something more effective about it.

Some folks would explain that things like this never used to upset them so much, that it never used to be real to them. Friend of mine says, "Oh, don't worry about me, I cry at everything. I cry at grass."
Which I find I have all the more respect for, the older I myself get.
It's light, and funny, and reassuring, and incredibly civilized, refusing to pass on pain, refusing to let it ruin other people's day. It's also true.

Aside from outright anxiety issues, like the movie character who wouldn't touch glass doorknobs or cook food or light a stove, old ladies get nervous about all kinds of odd things, you know, because they've seen it happen to real people they cared about. Stupid things. Unfair things. Crazy out of the blue things. "Don't run with scissors!!"

Perhaps because of the internet, places a long way away are real to *me*. I don't have experience of bombings in Kabul or in Egyptian hotels. Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Pakistan--and before that, Kosovo--and Kuwait before that. Those were real enough to me. This war, it's real to me, from the start of the whole mess.

Sarah Mac's song has nothing to do with any wars. It was a hit long before this war of Mr. Rove's and Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's. Oh yeah, long before Mr. Nameless Halliburton Executive and Mr. Nameless Energy Company and Mr. Nameless Saudi Oil Minister ever cooked up a need to go bomb peasants in several countries--possibly as a convenient way to help Mr. Bush hoist up badly sagging approval ratings, but that would be a guess on my part.
And yes, a snarky one at that.
I understand that it was supposed to be profitable, in some arcane manner, too, but that doesn't seem to have worked out the way they quite planned. They may be incredibly corrupt--I can give you links, if you want, over on the appropriate forum, but not tonight, I'm tired--but they just don't give me the impression of riches swept hastily out of sight. More like the dumb cat who's never quite grasped there isn't a mouse, there never was one, and never will be one.
This perception does not help me forgive what's been done by people who took their orders and thought they were doing what they were supposed to.
That song was never written to cover such a broad agenda as all that. It's just supposed to be a song about sitting alone in a dark hotel room. Maybe a song whispering to a would-be suicide, somewhere deep in the dark night of all our souls.
I probably won't ever be able to listen to it calmly.
Thinking about it is plenty.

The words don't even fit.
The video in my head doesn't care.
Just...doesn't care.

This song wasn't intended to be about helicopters going down, and young men yelling in slow-mo sepia fades, and long, patient shots of their monthers just *screaming* in pain, standing in crowds, together, with banners, shouting. Or their fathers, each of them alone, with a picture.
Alone.
I don't think I'll ever hear the soaring, painfully clear pure soprano melody ever again without thinking of black trucks bombed upside down and dead journalists and murdered prisoners and dirty young medics tired somewhere far beyond fear. Oh yeah, and Londoners walking away from news people dazedly, with red bandages on their faces. And later on, Brits posting icons that show Hitler with text that says, "We've been bombed by professionals."

There's days when I don't much like the furniture in my head.
Other folks would toss the lot, scrub off that horrid wallpaper, remove all that strange mess in the spare room, and start *over*.

Lots of folks don't write the way they'd expected, or the way they think they ought to. I did post elsewhere a link to comments about writing differently than whatever genres fit your own tastes, or what you always wanted to be able to do. Here t'is, lots of interesting comments.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/misia/827783.html

I did not pause there long enough to read all the comments carefully enough to reply civilly. I was not in a civil mood. If I was, I might say politely something like, "You know, the really odd part is that, for me, writing fight scenes is easy. Writing one-sided rants where passionate fury is thundering and howling about your ears, that's easy."
I would not explain that it's somehow easy to write scenes where the good guys can do such awful things to their fellow human beings. I don't say there isn't a cost, there isn't repercussions, but there they are, killing people, many of them background cardboard cutouts with no names.

I find it's a little hard to explain that I can write such violently hostile physical assaults and war sequences. I hope I don't smirk, at least, the way Quentin Tarantino seems to do when his movies show lovingly pornographic sprays of blood. But it's relatively easy for me to think in the same sorts of obscene slow-mo.

The last thing I'd wish is to leave the reader with the sneaking hunch that going to war is noble, fun, glorious, and a really great way to pick up girls. But it'd be easy to do. I might be doing it already, unless I spell it out in flashing neon letters ten feet high: Bad Puppy! No widdling on the carpet, no chewing the shoes, and no beating up the postman Just Because.

This is the kind of cognitive dissonance which concerns me a bit more than whether One Ought to be True to One's Natural Self and give oneself permission to dump the corny romantic ideal of writing the Great American Novel in order to do competent articles on woodworking or crocheting or interest rates and new banking practices in the Middle East.

My Great American Novels are full of people getting decapitated, defenestrated, exploded, burnt alive, and squashed.

Well, not defenestrated. Yet. And I don't think I've drowned anybody or thrown them off tall buildings yet, but I may get around to it, one of these days. Haven't so far, that seems a little more manic and silly and too much of a Jackie Chan movie instead of a Jet Li movie. Jackie Chan-mode might be quite a humane improvement, come to think.

It makes me suspect my work ought to make all those nice New Age believers in reincarnation rather nervous.

Little quavering notes, inquiring, "Erm, do we have a slight problem with our anger management techniques, perhaps?"

Maybe it ought to make me nervous, too.

I personally believe that it is wrong, in real life, to use anything approaching such skills except under the most stringest need, the most honorable dedication to the law, and probably some damnded good proofs that you can be trusted with this kind of stuff.

If this is an unconscious attitude I picked up from my limited experience in martial arts, I think my senseis would be pleased about that. If I could convey it to others, they would be even better pleased.

In the meantime, Sarah Mac's melody howls in my head like Greek Goddesses in pursuit of justice.

It makes it quite hard for me to think about editing some of the less subtle forms of interrogation used by the Tannese, let alone writing more about it. Especially, work on a whole new surprising chapter in this book where a party of Osa come as envoys with the kind of calling card that makes even Caladrunan the judge wash his hands of them and hand them over to Naga--even though it may not be right, it may not be just, and it may not be at all the most productive course to take.

And possibly, that little, tiny, fatal mistake committed by so many silly Greeks. You know, those three-hankie weeper plays, where the wife ends up murdering everybody, or they burn the place down around their ears. Well, eventually.

To be honest, this is the kind of cognitive dissonance that will really make your head ring.
It's been building up for awhile.
I have no idea how it will resolve.
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
hgladney
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Post by hgladney »

Ya know, I jist haaaate bein' right.
Some of those moms have started camping out by the ranch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/opini ... ?th&emc=th

later:
more info on how that vigil is going.
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/0 ... 05277.html
Last edited by hgladney on Tue Aug 09, 2005 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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Post by wolfspirit »

heather:

You do know the clock is ticking....it you don't get teh book finished by November, I'm going to have to strong-arm you into doing the Nation Novel Writing Month, and tehn you'll have to churn out 50,000 words in one month.....

Of course, gettin my hands on the first two books is still a problem, I still won't succumb to the prices for shipping charged by Abebooks or Amazon.com

wolfspirit
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Post by hgladney »

Oh dear yes, wolfspirit! That fiction-writing clock!
Worse than Bavarian cuckoo woodworking exhibitions.
Arrrghh.
And you know the worst bit?
When the alarm goes off at oh-dark-thirty...
Who set the bloody alarm, anyway?
Groan!
Shuffle, shuffle, clatter, bang. Ouch, ouch, ouch.... well, there's a fine start on 50,000 words, I must say--all of them rude.
No, that's not a raccoon who wandered in, it's just me with no sleep and no leaded tea and no cacao.
It's just sad.
Hey, where you going?
Wolfie?
Hey?
I was gonna ask about the novel-writing thingie...month...not the same thing as the Nanowrimowringer thingie, is it?
Wringer-rammer? Rimmer raided gazunders? I forget.
Am I gonna need laundry soap?

Why was he screaming as he fell out the door?
I mean, that was before he fell down the steps, ya know.

Erm, no, really, I haven't loaned any space to store monsters for Forrie Ackerman, why do you ask?

Well, heck, I knew I looked like roadkill warmed over, but really...
Where's the water tap--and the mirror--is that the mirror?
Squint.
EEEEEEEeeeek! Run awaaay!!
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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monster in the box

Post by JOEY112 »

So I did find you. Got a screen name and password and now am poised to start doing reviews you talked about.

But wanted to poke you for not having the 3rd to 8th book out. Joan and I are waiting. Have you sent her any part of the mss yet. I mean besides the monster in the box? since apparently you aren't going to use the monster.
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Post by hgladney »

Oh, lovely to see you here, Joey! Welcome to the forum!
Curt, say hi to a long-time fellow fan who pimps books and stories and movies with the best of them, and gives the kind of review that makes *you* want to go out and read it. And Joey picks up reccies from friends and makes judicious suggestions on who might like this particular read or that one.
A yenta arranges marriages in Yiddish, right?
It just needed doing. Book List, meet Joey. Joey, meet Book List. And close the door when you get going hot and heavy, okay?
I'll let Joey explain what sorts of things induce a book passion strong enough to put in that kind of work on a review...
The other day, I posted the mundane form of one of those memes where you answer questions about what color you like in your upholstery fabrics and what kind of excuses your domestic entanglements might allow you at work, and what food you announce as your favorite to people who wouldn't sit still for a simple explanation of haggis or paella (let alone what you really like). You know, what kind or car you like, and divers other mundanties of corporeal existence.
I mean, as if there *was* any question where chocolate or vanilla is concerned!
Joey understands the deep consideration of how much sweetness will be a leeetle too much if you're mixing the chocolate and the fresh farmer's market raspberries, for instance. Or decent arch support in proper shoes for walking. And how much serious work a really good editing job entails, such as checking for British usage if you're writing in a Brit series universe when you're going to post your fan fiction on the net, not to mention proper research on issues of plain fact.
Not just arcane world-building stuff like the declination of the orbit of Mars, but simple things anyody can look up. Who was Prime Minister of Israel in 1987, for instance. Getting it right, if you insist on mentioning such tiresome items as who was on the US Joint Chiefs of Staff at the same time.
And so on.
Now, some of my other friends would probably say, to the car question, something like, "Tardis", or "Firefly" or "My little pony", or snarky things like, "I won't have one, I walk everywhere and use transit and I advise the rest of the planet to do likewise, thank you!"
:wink:
Me? "Something with legroom, suggestions welcomed."
Well, Joey knows me and my various boring answers-- including the ones where I refused to answer on the grounds that I'd have borrow Joey's MIB shades and that little pen thing.
Now, that's a fun little toy. What's it called again? An Obliviator, isn't it? Now how's this thing work again? You twist this little ring thing here, right?
Well, darn, I shoulda told ya to put on your shades first.
Oops.
:butter:
Hey, Joey, where can I order one of these things? They're really cool. 8)
Darn, did I aim that thing at Joan accidentally too?
Last edited by hgladney on Wed Aug 10, 2005 9:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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Post by JOEY112 »

Well ya know, I probably couldn't answered those unanswerable ones anyway.

I'd drive a vette. c'mon we know i'm a car ho.
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pristine copies of book 1 and 2

Post by JOEY112 »

Believe it or not I got like new copies of Teot's War and Bloodstorm on ebay. I know it's an evil place, but what can ya do.
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Post by hgladney »

wolfspirit wrote:heather:

You do know the clock is ticking....it you don't get teh book finished by November, I'm going to have to strong-arm you into doing the Nation Novel Writing Month, and tehn you'll have to churn out 50,000 words in one month.....

Of course, gettin my hands on the first two books is still a problem, I still won't succumb to the prices for shipping charged by Abebooks or Amazon.com

wolfspirit
hey, Wolfspirit, Joey knows where to find book copies!
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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Post by hgladney »

JOEY112 wrote:Well ya know, I probably couldn't answered those unanswerable ones anyway.

I'd drive a vette. c'mon we know i'm a car ho.
Well, one of my friends is rather fond of the description of the custom-built Ferrari that's got armor-plated sides, bullet-proof tires and glass, gold taps and padded bar, and a gun mount on the top, protected-intake fans adequate for a/c in the Saudi desert, a range of 800 miles in heavy dunes, and extra bullet loops for the bodyguards. I think the sticker shock was about $ 8 million, in 1990 terms.
Well, folks, it didn't look like a car, that's all I've got to say. About the same relation as shoals of sardines are to a horsehoe crab.
It sure didn't look much like an Abrams tank, either, but it was somewhere closer to that than a *car*.
I recall saying you were just doing something wrong if you blew that much money and you still had to have the bodyguards in the car with you.

Oh yeah--nope, Joey, I haven't sent off any of the new monster to Joan as yet. I do want to, though. The monster in the box is still getting used, it's just the second half of this monster.
This one ate that one, y'see.
(hand waving is occuring in front of your very eyes.)
Darn, am I gonna have to borrow that Obliviator thing again?
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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Post by wolfspirit »

hgladney wrote:
wolfspirit wrote:heather:

You do know the clock is ticking....it you don't get teh book finished by November, I'm going to have to strong-arm you into doing the Nation Novel Writing Month, and tehn you'll have to churn out 50,000 words in one month.....

Of course, gettin my hands on the first two books is still a problem, I still won't succumb to the prices for shipping charged by Abebooks or Amazon.com

wolfspirit
hey, Wolfspirit, Joey knows where to find book copies!
man...now I have to register for that evil site....


Doesn't Abebooks show how to contact individual booksellers?
But of course then you might not have all the protection of major site, credit card merchant, etc.
Sigh.
I wish I had boxes of 'em to hand out, but I don't, sorry...

You could also try talking to used book dealer in your local area, they might be able to find something reasonable for you.

Or you could talk to Powell's Books in Portland. My stuff is "request copy, they'll notify you when it comes in."
I'd try emailing or calling them about it.
http://www.powells.com/

They're great people, great stores where they have regular writer readings, very writer-friendly. And they're not union-busters like Amazon is. Given a choice, I always want to buy from them. They don't have all the review info out on their website that Amazon does, which is a shame, but they give *really* great short reviews in their regular email newsletters.
Hmmm... wondering if we can get their permission to post those reviews, or psosibly links to them? (with their permission) over here? Curt, watcha think? I've no idea if this has come up before, or what the resolution might have been, if so.
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Post by hgladney »

This is one of those posts that could certainly go over in the Soapbox as well.
But this is where I talk about how our current political life influences and informs how I write. Or am unable to write at all for sheer force of rage, when I am struggling with the ethics of the kind of writing I am putting together just now.
That was up in this same thread, here.

viewtopic.php?p=1759461#1759461

Remember a bit back there where I said I'd post some more on PTSD when I had permission? That was here, over on another thread.

viewtopic.php?p=1759528#1759528

I'm posting the info on PTSD here, and not in Soapbox, and not on the Book One thread, because it conects so strongly with my post above, about writing violence when I seriously don't approve of "violence is the answer in real life."
Side note: To be honest, I suspect much garlic in repeated bowls of good chicken soup, lots of real good long talks with somebody who knows what they're doing, and much chocolate, is probably a much better answer. It won't be enough, but it's better than losing it completely and turning into a raving Ranger-trained werewolf in the middle of the grocery store.
Back to the point... I requested permission to quote another person's comments about PTSD, which is very likely a major component in the problems that one of my lead characters has to deal with, and possibly the the other one in future, as well.

I wasn't doing it to be topical at all, since I was writing this series--and even parts of this manuscript, a long time before this war reared its obscene head. I think I was writing it before Saddam Hussein ever reared *his* ugly head significantly, either, come to think. And no, I didn't like his sorry monstrous regime either.

Side note: I try to always remember to ask crosspost permission first, and remind me, folks, if you find that I haven't. Civility, yes.

Precision, as well. Iraq was not a fun place before we got there, either. I wanted Saddam out. I just didn't think the public forum was offering any decent alternatives for our consideration, and nobody else seemed to be coming up with any decent good answers for how to do it. At the time that was purely a humanitarian issue to me, long before invented misleading speeches were made about 9/11 terrorists. It had *nothing* to do with chasing down Al Qaeda links in Afghanistan and the border with Pakistan.
Nobody seemed to have a good answer for stopping Saddam's incursions and his human rights abuses and his arrogance.
I didn't approve of any of the offers on the table at all, certainly not a secret "removal". My objection to that is pragmatic as well as based on my bias in favor of civil law. If you murder the leader of a country from outside, in a top-down regime like Saddam, who kept a very tight leash on any possible threat, there has been no orderly succession set up. Those people have not been involved in the struggle to organize and decide what they want to do. They haven't agreed to be led by somebody else. *They* need to fight it out on their leadership. I think that's what you're seeing now, in the absence of adequate civil authority to keep order. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The only thing more disruptive would be *invading* them. Gee...

Apparently somebody tried many various clumsy assassinations over the years, but nobody managed to pull that off. (I had a hard time believing all that fancy black budget training couldn't manage it against a bunch of Republican Guards, no matter how well-equipped the Guards were.)
In light of later events, that still seems extremely odd.
For those who don't remember why the liberals bought into the removal of Hussein in the first place, Saddam was an offense unto his own God for the way he treated his prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and worse yet for the poison he had bombed onto the Kurds. Since he'd murdered any possible opposition long since, there weren't a lot of local resources to stop him doing whatever he liked, let alone to remove him and replace him with someone with more refined instincts.
I can't help but think this mess should have been handled quite differently, and ended up quite differently (probably with Saddam on trial, but not with us bombing neighborhoods in Kabul), but it amounts to second-guessing what must have happened inside our own security agencies. Now there's some cognitive dissonance for you.

To put it another way, plenty of people over there have been busy acquiring PTSD for years.
Back to the point...again...I learned some more about the disorder from this link. If you want some facts, as well as some totally enraging truths about what's happening to our folks getting this disorder these days, here's a link to a live journal entry that you probably ought to read, especially if you know *anybody* coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan.
Read down into the comments as well, where other people who live with it also comment. These folks are going to need serious help.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/robkai ... ml?#cutid1

Robkaiote says, in part:
The U.S. government is reviewing 72,000 cases in which veterans have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, claiming that misdiagnosis and fraud have inflated the numbers. Outraged vets say the plan is a callous attempt to cut the costs of an increasingly expensive war.

What'd I tell you? What'd I say about a week into this war? I said "oooh boy, this is gonna suck when the PTSD chickens come home to roost." This is not a condition that's easy to treat and the circumstances under which our troops are currently laboring are just -prime- for this sort of thing.

I knew this was coming and I knew, also, that our government would have a big conniption fit about how much it was going to cost to treat it. I figured, based on the way insurance companies treat PTSD diagnoses, that that the government (the VA administration) was going to start nickle and diming our returning veterans regarding their mental health benefits. According to my insurance company, PTSD diagnosis gets you 8 paid visits with a therapist. -8- Not nine. Not twelve. No "as many as you need until you stop shoulder rolling in the supermarket because someone two aisles over dropped a jar of pickles".


Yeeesss, does any of this sound familiar to fans of the books, hhhmmm?

Down in the comments is a particularly strong statement from
Crossfire, here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/robkai ... 7#t3287227
When I asked Crossfire's permission to crosspost, he said yes, and also commented:
I should probably point out that the "metally walk and chew gum at the
same time" metaphor is from Bill Maher. It is remarkably effective in
silencing the "either you're with Bush or you're against our troops"
crowd.


His comment on Rob's posting is so strong that I will just close with it.
Crossfire said:

DON'T get me started. Don't EVEN get me started.

The idea that you can't support the troops without supporting the war? I am SICK of people who can't mentally walk and chew gum at the same time.

Bush and his cronies have been using our soldiers with little more regard than toilet paper, squandering their skills, refusing to equip them properly, coercing and forcing them to stay on active duty long after their time is up, and not taking care of them when they finally are allowed to return home. There are already veterans of Operation Lie To America homeless on the streets.

Let's say that again: Veterans homeless.

Those two words should NEVER go together. Ever.

The Neocons want to do away with most forms of government welfare, including VA benefits. They say that those things should be handled by local organizations, specifically churches.

I wonder how many homeless veterans George Bush and his fellow Neocons have gone and rounded up and helped. I'm guessing that'd be a big fat zero.

Of all of the terrible things Bush and his cronies have done, the most shameful, the darkest, is what they've done to our soldiers.
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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Post by elaine.q »

wolfspirit wrote: Of course, gettin my hands on the first two books is still a problem, I still won't succumb to the prices for shipping charged by Abebooks or Amazon.com

wolfspirit
Simple solution: Prioritize. Don't eat for a few days.

Of course, I'm still jealous of Cygnet because she got a nicer copy of Bloodstorm for her $15.

Elaine
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Real Violence...

Post by elaine.q »

Real violence is bad. TW & BS are good. Cognitive dissonance...

Violence, whether we like it or not, is a part of life. Reading and writing helps me (and others) deal with violence. However, not everyone deals with it. Some people use fictional violence as inspiration for real violence. However, censorship is also dangerous.

Ultimately, mental health problems cause violence. A good way to prevent mental health problems is for people who have them to not have/raise children. There are already too many people on the planet anyway. Another way is for people to raise children with lots of love and respect, so kids recognize clear benefits from their family/society and don't want to lose them by acting out violently.

Lastly, we need more Naga sequels, so I can continue to deal with my issues in a healthful way. :)

Elaine

P.S. That wasn't nagging, Heather. I didn't even mention your name!
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Post by hgladney »

I have this horrible feeling I need to do more of them, for my mental health!
So yeah, that's one reason why Naga sequels=good thing for society in general.

This weekend's work helped, though there's still aspects that concern me.
I felt I was starting to get a handle on doing that upper story character work I was talking about awhile back. More of the kind of thing folks want to see, bits of interaction, in such a way that the lower story pillars are assumed, without having to do a lot of details about it.
Since it hit me in about a fouteen-hour streak like a bolt outta the blue, and is pretty strong stuff, and then I got bushwhacked by Sarah Mac's melody line, (as I mentioned the other night), I haven't had a chance to go back and think about the ethical ramifications, or the sort of violence going on there. In this case, all of it is implied, but I think a lot of people won't even stop to realize that. I'll have to think about it.
Also, got a passing glimpse of Reti in there in a reasonable manner.
Sometimes I was editing out previous efforts at that as leaden and boring.
It wasn't quite the same as saying *nice* things because you feel you ought to--this was factual, not dressing up the reality, but it came across very flat and uninvolved, very distant. It just wasn't live enough for someone as fast-moving and unpredictable as Reti would have been, to stay ahead of a kid like Naga. That flat tone might be okay if I'm showing Naga as so divorced from his emotional past that there's no reasonable feeling there, but at some point there's got to be that connection there between Reti and his pupil, and also between the person Naga lost as a sensei and mentor, and his present tutoring of others, his bodyguard and military work for Drin, and his connection to other military men, like Pitar.
And there's lightning imagery all over this book.
Umm, yeah, I'm being careful about GFCI sockets and ground fault probes on my aquarium and how I handle all the plugs and power bars on it, why do you ask?? For the sake of safety, I just removed one of the compact flourescent fixtures on it for starting to fail in such a way it was tripping the GFCI plug.

I'm fairly sensitive to the idea that if you significantly wallow in various kinds of imagery in your fiction, if you work on it as long and in as much detail as I've been doing, then some of that steam is going to crystallize out in wierd formations all over your real life, too.

That's more than reason enough to show the good guys winning in a just and fair manner, IMHO. And also IMHE, too.

One of the more interesting side effects, for me, is that if I stop writing for a week or more, I start encountering all kinds of strangers--and I never see them again later, they aren't regulars on the trains or anything like that--but people who look exactly like they belong in the books.

Not necessarily the *fun* ones, you understand. But one of those unmistakable reminders.

Oh, I'd notice if I saw folks like this on an ordinary day, too, because I'm interested, but that just never happens when I've been writing away (when it might be useful prod toward more work!!).

I'm recalling one of the more vivid of these sorts of giant boots happened maybe a year or more ago.

Dunno about other folks, but my transit day doesn't usually include drunken belligerant Apache veterans with service tattoos, the kind of cart packed with camping gear that a homeless guy uses, and a real bad attitude, along with his equally vet-looking Irish-looking buddy who's trying to keep him calmed down, ya know? And yeah, he was telling people he was Apache, he had the kind of bone choker necklace you usually associate with Plains tribes, and a red headband and long hair with gray in it, and all in all, pretty convincing.
Also, those two men just didn't look at other people the way regular denizens ever do. They deliberately stared down each person in turn, especially the men, as if demanding any challenge be issued out in the open, and they could deal with sneaky, too, but they'd be nastier about putting it down. I've run across varieties of gang-banger stare that say, "I can kick your ass". Well, no big deal. The general nonverbal response I have to use is something like, "Probably. Fine by me. I'm here, I'm staying here, but you don't have to prove anything. I'm not challenging you."
This was something a lot more serious, and they weren't giving the women an easy pass. They weren't leering, either, which would be the stereotype-- they were regarding the women as dangerous as well.

While martial arts guys can project that "I can remove your throat" too, I've only seen it in flickers, not solid ongoing threat like this. It was creepy as hell. Various people departed in haste who normally stay on until later stops. And *nobody* met their eyes.
There's something at the back in my monkey-brain that recognizes that kind of flat regard. And says, don't blink, don't flinch, don't speak to them, don't pretend you're asleep, but don't stare, either.

I'm not sure why they were on edge so much as to feel threatened, to feel they had to flatten the surrounding humanoids like that, but it might have been a bad combination of things, and the partly-drunk didn't help.

The other vets I know do exactly the opposite. They go out of their way to project calm reassurance--hey, we're all easy, things are fine, no problem, it's all small stuff.
Like cops who want to defuse the situation.

So these scruffy skinny homeless guys, as I'm thinking back, were acting very much the way Robkiote described PTSD problems. It would have been easy for somebody to set them off in a major way. I was just hoping very strongly, at the time, that they wouldn't run afoul of some swaggering fool who felt the need to prove something, as I'm not sure that anybody could have even got in the way, let alone said anything to defuse it in time.

As I recall, there were a couple of guys there who normally do that sort of aggressive stuff, but they just folded in their horns and faded out onto the next stop as if they were melting. Just vanished.
A couple of security guards showed up out of nowhere, stood nearby and spoke to them guys briefly--I think asked their old unit, and got a fairly complex answer--and the guards sort of deflated too. The guards stayed maybe two more silent minutes, but they just seemed to make the vets more keyed-up and agitated. By the look of it, the guards decided they were making it all worse, and they kind of sidled off without ever turning their backs, and left.
It was interesting.

I hesitate to say this is just the universe at large giving you a huge boot in the tailbone, as I don't assume that the universe is arranged with my particular quirks in such total and adoring focus (I know, I know, it's hard to believe that I think that way, writing does take a certain egotism) but it sure felt like it.

I don't know if this is true for other writers, but it'd be interesting to ask.
Last edited by hgladney on Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:14 am, edited 5 times in total.
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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clong
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Post by clong »

hgladney wrote:Oh, lovely to see you here, Joey! Welcome to the forum!
Curt, say hi to a long-time fellow fan who pimps books and stories and movies with the best of them, and gives the kind of review that makes *you* want to go out and read it. And Joey picks up reccies from friends and makes judicious suggestions on who might like this particular read or that one.
Welcome Joey! I hope you'll take some time to explore the site(s) and share some of your thoughts about books with the rest of us!
hgaldney wrote:Hmmm... wondering if we can get their permission to post those reviews, or possibly links to them? (with their permission) over here? Curt, watcha think? I've no idea if this has come up before, or what the resolution might have been, if so.
This is an area where the two sites may have differences of opinion. For iblist, the answer is clearly "no" for two reasons: (1) we don't want reviews taken from anyone who is trying to sell a book, amd (2) we don't accept third party reviews (due to copyright concerns). Note, however, that we have a "buy this book from Powell's" link on every book page. And that's not to say that it wouldn't be great if we could recruit a few of those "great people" to post some of their own thoughts here.

As to the question "how can I write/read about violent characters when I don't think violence is the answer?" . . . It seems to me that most of us fall into the "evil must be watched, and when all else has failed battles against evil must be fought" camp. And fantasy makes it easy to see who is "evil," and when "all else" has failed. Who could possibly assert that Frodo and Gandalf should have just said "make love, not war" and negotiated "peace in our time" with Sauron's minions? It would be much easier to live in a world where such decisions were so easy.
Last edited by clong on Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
hgladney
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Post by hgladney »

Ahh, thanks, Curt, that makes a great deal of sense on the review idea.
Also, yep, you're right about the clearer choices being attractive in the fictional world.
I should also not forget that SF & F is considered a classic jumping-off point for folks who have just come out of YA and kid's books, too. A clear ethical choice with unambiguous consequences and bluntly stated morals are a major part of the story for much of the genre's history.
We do introduce more problematic issues when we do dystopias and warning tales, scaling on up to grand tragedy in some cases, but that's more demanding stuff, both for writer and readers.
I mean, huge thundering drama, if done badly, is like muffing something on the Romantics--Wagner or Beethoven or Rachmaninoff--boy, if it messes up, it dopesn't just trip over its own feet onstage. It does a huge somersault and swandives right flat on its face into the orchestra pit, taking the piano down with it, with the kind of noises you might associate with the Last Trump. And not Donald, either.
Wince.
.
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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Post by wolfspirit »

clong wrote:
wolfspirit wrote:Hmmm... wondering if we can get their permission to post those reviews, or possibly links to them? (with their permission) over here? Curt, watcha think? I've no idea if this has come up before, or what the resolution might have been, if so.
This wasn't me!

heather must have hit edit instead of quote!

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Post by clong »

wolfspirit wrote:
clong wrote:
wolfspirit wrote:Hmmm... wondering if we can get their permission to post those reviews, or possibly links to them? (with their permission) over here? Curt, watcha think? I've no idea if this has come up before, or what the resolution might have been, if so.
This wasn't me!

heather must have hit edit instead of quote!

wolfspirit
I thought that sounded more like her than you. I'll edit the quote citation.
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Post by hgladney »

This is bizarre. That original bit of text was mine, directed to Curt, asking if we could link to Powell's reviews. I really don't know how it got restated as if it was clong's or Wolfspirit.
I certainly didn't mean to, if that's what happened--my apologies!
I never needed to grab that section as a quote, but I was grabbing different posting addresses on things here and there, so perhaps me straying clumsy confused mouse hit something else compleeeetely.
Make me feel like an ijit...
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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Post by hgladney »

Further link, from BBC, about PTSD study completed recently, and groups of vets talking to other vets.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4635075.stm
They're saying that *we're* throwing all kinds of resources at it, compared to what the UK is doing for *their* vets.
Oh boy...
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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a new folder?

Post by Asseri »

Hellllloooooo I'm Hommmmmeeeee.
but children boy am I lost .. Might i please suggest we start a topic drift folder of subjects that are not book related persay . Its hard to keep up but Heather Dearheart I promised you I would speak up when it got off track .

Im about 5 shade browner then when i left .. it was damnable hot .. with heat indexes over a 100 and most days it was 102 by noon. We are talking tent city and for my group a tree free plain we call the Serengeti for good reason !

I can expound how what it would take to live in those conditions . I felt very much a refuge by the harsh sun . But then I was resonsable for the morning food and dinner. it was far too hot for much appitite. But come dark the night was a blast of course! Lots of parties and well even more parties lol .

those that had trees were very prized locations. Need i mention the wonders of shade!

I managed to take 452 shots and now am having computer problems with a site i had hoped to use for them. *sigh* but i got some great shots of battles and folks in general .. as soon as i get the phots issues figured out I will share.
" Where fate is not kind it is generous"
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Post by mccormack44 »

Was Michael Longcor (Moonwulf) there? If this year's Pennsic was that bad, there should be another ballad to match Pennsic War IV. (No, I'm not SCA, but I've had several friends that were.) I'm an SF fan; and many of Michael's songs are SF. My Pennsic War IV recording is on one of his mostly SF recordings called "Kitchen Junk Drawer."

Sue
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Post by hgladney »

asseri, I know some folks with lots of graphics use flicker to post them, here.
http://www.flickr.com/
plus, hey, free.
But not for dinking with the graphics themselves, just posting.
Glad to se you back!
And yep, mccorkmick, more filkers on the march!!
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
---Plutarch
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Post by clong »

Heather it sounds like you have been making progress on your book(s) recently. Do you feel like you can see the light at the end of the tunnel? Do you have some sense that you know how much work is left before you'll be ready to say "it's done"? Would it help if we constantly harrassed you and reminded you that you need to be making progress (Kvetch is good at that, and so nice about it, too!).
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