 Reality-Skimming |
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The Okal Rel Universe in evolution (with sundry reflections, ruminations and curmudgeonations on the intrusion on reality into science fiction) 
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Saturday, November 10, 2001
In the am, an editorial paring job on Far Arena chapter 11 - taking out nearly 2000 words. I hope you're still talking to me, Lynda. Though with "track changes" you have the option of putting them all back in. Then to the library, and I've come home with "Ornament: an illustrated handbook of motifs", and "Tiles in architecture" and "The Art of Glass: Integrating architecture and glass", all of which will help with building cities. I need to be able to visualize, or I feel as though I'm describing with my specs off. It's all coloured fuzz. I hate coloured fuzz in descriptions. Gorgeous pictures in all of them, a feast for the eyes. I have to remember, though, whose eyes I'm looking through. Those tiles are going to mean something different to everyone. I was rereading - or reskimming Marge Piercy's "Braided Lives", which is probably my favourite of her mainstream (as opposed to SF or historical) novels. I regret the plot-compulsion of genre at times, since I rather like the Bildungsromane and the social novel (at least the contemporary social novel) as forms. In Piercy's "Small Changes" there's a street party scene, depicting the multiple overlapping threads of various lives; I tried to capture that flavour in the opening section of a never-to-be-finished prequel to Legacies, years ago. That and "Children of Paradise". Never mind romantic triangles, I had at least a pentangle. Something dawned upon me about my writing a few days ago. I have my sense of drama from a love of drama. And I don't mean film, I mean drama: Shakesphere, Shaw, Bolt, Osborne, Synge, Miller, Williams ... those guys. And from opera. I find argument inherently dramatic. Storytelling is suspenseful. I like speeches and arias. I don't have a modern genre mindset AT ALL. No wonder I'm accused of slow pacing and talkiness. If I didn't love the worldbuilding, the thought experiments and the opportunity to write about politics, morality and creative passion on a large scale, I'd give up SF and take up a form in which the love of drama and argument was an asset rather than a liability. But then there are nights like tonight when, after I had beat upon the scene futilely (neither sleep nor swimming having inspired), repeating arguments in different voices, realising I'd repeated myself, cutting out the repeats ... My protagonist suddenly obliged me with a great big whopper of a lie! Bless his black heart. So now I'm off to pick up the scene (already mostly written) in which the graveyard gets dug up. The Law of Dramatic Economy demands that there be Consequences to the GBW, and that those arrive at the most inopportune moment. But that shall be relegated to mental composting. Friday, November 09, 2001
The night turned out unexpectedly productive, since I sat sulking at the screen about one and a half hours ago wondering what the point was getting into something tonight. But I got a decent 1332 words, with one character unexpectedly revealing his origins, a streak of poetry and a coat of fur (!!). I love it when unexpected things happen! I'm not entirely sure my protagonists are going to get permission for their forensic archaology; the other side are being robustly suspicious. It's the price of me for writing them that way. I will turn it over to the unconscious or whatever higher or lower power operates to get writers out of self-generated fixes, sleep on it overnight, and take it to the pool in the morning. Take your point about the dropped threads. As we discussed on the phone, we'll need to mention the fate of POV characters from the "perspectives on Amel" side of the narrative. I'll do a better job of that scrap I sent you by e-mail on the Reetion process question. Maybe I'll work it up into something suitable for the ORU website as a reference article. Complete with flash animation of -- well. Maybe not. Day dreaming again. Was a time I wanted to model Reetion voting in a simple program. You know, the kind of diagram that illustrates a single complication's impact on a basic process without really touching the complexity of the beast. Recently bought James Gleick's Chaos because a few copies made it to Books & Company's $10 shelf. But I won't get it read in any timely fashion and I don't view the arbiter net as chaotic, exactly, except in the sense of small changes potentially having large effects. Like weather. Mm. Is that right? You may be interested to know a google "I Feel Lucky" search for "Throne Price" fetches up your page Thursday, November 08, 2001
As a writer, there are questions I'd love to ask other writers, but don't think I should. I don't want to make them conscious of their unconscious, if it is their unconscious working - in this instance, I'd love to ask Lois McMaster Bujold about the source of the metaphors she uses for the sacred: pouring, filling up, overflowing. It's particularly prominent in the Curse of Chalion, because of the involvement of gods and goddesses but remember at the end of Shards of Honor when Aral likens Cordelia to a fountain, giving out honor (which is his idea of the sacred), and again at the end of Warrior's Apprentice when Miles asks Bothari to spare him some forgiveness, when his cup runs over ... I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere in her works. Presbyterian-raised, I focus on the overflowing cup - the Christian metaphor - but I'm not sure that's it. A cup or chalice is a prominent pagan symbol as well; Marie (Jakober) used it. Bujold's fiction is moral and deist, but not overtly Christian. Love to know. Having fixed my printer (after 10 days in the shop they gave it back to me with the problem "verified" so I could then go and get the new part and install it myself ...) I have printed out the first eighteen chapters of Far Arena. The total words to date are just shy of 180 000. We need to cut, quite drastically, to bring it down below 150 000 total, because there's missing information needs adding throughout. We need to sort out the progress of the politics. Reetion politics is complex, neat and alien, and it deserves to be foregrounded; it's just difficult to dramatize a political process that is collective and impersonal. Putting human faces on it works dramatically but undermines the idea; it's economical to have the same people show up again and again, but the Reetion process might not necessarily have that so. The roles are the same, the people differ. How to anchor. And there are a number of dropped threads, with the kaleidoscopic points of view (aside from Erien, there are eleven other points of view, maybe 12), characters seen once and not again; they need a mention later, to close their stories.
Went back to work at 5 pm capable of enjoying the experience of meeting an elder from Ft. St. James who drives in to Prince George every Wednesday night to teach the FNST 133 - the Carrier language. We'd set up a WebCT shell for her to use and a student had already sent her an e-mail message. She dictated the response - in Carrier. Many and strange are the challenges of those who work in ed tech. Makes you appreciate the nature and quality of the flip side, though, when she is learning how to use a mouse. Picked it up quickly enough and has a daughter, she told me, who can help her figure out where she might get access to a machine in Ft. St. James. Got a good night's sleep after some R&R watching Enterprise (The one where the Vulcan monastery turns out to be a major spy installation). Tegan fell asleep cuddled in my lap and I retired with David after plucking Angie off the kitchen chair where she was watching Jenny working on an Xmas present she is crafting and managing to keep her in bed long enough to give sleeping a fair chance by lieing with her. Necessary family contact hours. Guess I know where Amel's need for skin contact comes from. Think I was also book deprived. I felt a bit grumpy about your commentaries because I wasn't reading anything! Well, I read a couple of stories in the Fall 2000 issues of On Spec. Derryl Murphy's Last Call was an admirable example of short length, big impact. One idea clothed in characters, but they felt alive. Tuesday, November 06, 2001
Now, this gives me a perfect forum for book-notes, of which I have quite a few fragments on my hard drive, plus others rattling around in my head. Currently, Hellspark, by the wonderful Janet Kagan who does not write enough. What in particular struck me on reading Hellspark was what a great namer she is. Her ill-assorted survey team have names as diverse as the cultures they represent: Swift-Kalat twis Jalakat, Oloitokitok, layli layli calulan (which is not a name, but a title), Timosie Megeve, Ruurd van Zoveel, Tinling Alfvaen, Buntecrieh, Rav Kejesli, Om im Chdeayne, John the Smith and Edge-of-Dark. They're barely functioning as a team because they're constantly putting each other's backs up with inadvertant (or not so inadvertent) obscenities, unintended aggressions and discourtesies, and it isn't until they learn to see each other as "civilized people" that they are able to perceive the sentience of one of the native species (another marvellous name) the sprookjes.The Hellspark trader who is drawn into the situation is Tocohl Susumo and her ship's "extrapolative computer" is Lord Maggy Lynn. In contrast to the Galactic standard language. Gal'Ling, which seeks to become a common denominator, Hellspark is an all inclusive language; therefore Hellsparks are traders, interpreters, intermediaries and judges. Tocohl has to start by interpreting the team members to each other. There's a mob of characters, a great whirl of manners and linguistics, some wonderful descriptions, and of course the names. The last writer who struck me that way was Orson Scott Card (eg ramen, varelse - for his classes of sentients). In contrast to George Lucas, who has a fabulous visual imagination and a tin ear. Kagan is also the author of Mirabile which is sheer fun for any molecular biologist with its linked stories of a fire-fighting (sometimes literally) geneticist who has inherited someone else's bright idea. And Uhura's Song in which she got the woman who would fascinate Spock just right. In the Globe and Mail today, a polished example of medical writing that swept one from the Sorrows of Celebs to the nucleus accumbens in two and a half columns. Go G&M go! The writer was Rebecca Caldwell, and in her two 2/3 pages she managed to summarize current thinking about addiction and dopamine reward pathways, addiction susceptibility, the distinction between addiction and dependence, and current understanding of chronic pain undertreatment and treatment. The article is at the Globe and Mail website (http://www.globeandmail.com - under Health), at least for the next 7 days. Also in the G&M today was an article on the memorial to Mordecai Richler: he has had a font created for, and named after, him. Henceforth the Giller prize correspondence and announcements will be in "Richler". As his books are re-released, they will be set in his own font. So, the creators hope, will others. I like that idea. Have singularly failed this AM to leave the SF writer at home. Hence post at the end of a lunch-hour spent (1) trying to find the drug store that was advertising 'flu shots (2) scrawling notes on a scene (3) posting off copies of TP to people I promised them to (4) booking an eye-test. But I have a lot of noise in the mental attic this afternoon. Yesterday's word, by the way, is fretwork. The saw is a fretsaw. And Charous being Charous, I doubt she would let go of pain immunity; it makes the 'relpul scarier and more powerful. Monday, November 05, 2001
Dredging through the sludge of words which seems to live just below consciousness, looking for the term that describes thin wood with a pattern cut out of it. There's a type of saw specific to the purpose - I even have one, with blades for cutting silver - but I could not find the blasted word. I have quite precise ideas about the decor of this particular civilization, which is a consequence of the environment. But I don't have the terminology. A lunchtime trip might be in order to the library - two blocks away from work - to find a short, economical book on furnishings, decor, etc. Meanwhile my character (non OR universe) is lying in bed planning to take over the world. I gave up on the description of the shutters on his bedroom window and let him have his way. He hasn't yet decided how much of the world he wants to take over, but his aspirations are disconcerting to a novelist who wants to remain in control of her plot. Response from Lynda
I've just hauled out my Harrison's Internal Medicine to look up "Charcot's joint", which is severe osteoarthritis associated with loss of pain sensation in the joints, or proprioception (sense of position) or both. Lacking pain and position sense, joints get repeatedly traumatized and can be rapidly destroyed (eg weeks to months to a very unstable joint filled with bone fragments). Causes are various - syphilis was one, leprosy, congenital malformations of the spinal cord, and congenital indifference to pain among them. I'd always thought the 'relpul were conditioned at a higher level than the nerve endings, since pain does have a protective function. It is just useful not to be preoccupied with it or terrified by the fear of mutilation. But then the pain training/conscience bonding of 'relpul is another holdover from an earlier stage of evolution. Would we come up with the same idea now? Response from Lynda Good point. If and when we get around to the Charous novella dealing with how she became Royal Relpul, we might tackle it in terms of an historical left over. That is, cast the ORU's creative evolution, fictionally, as its historical evolution. There was a time at court when all the best gorarelpul were torture proof. Probably a rather nasty time, like the period in which dresu bondage hardened attitudes. Maybe it even predated the conscience bond. But pain training was never subtracted as a precaution even when no longer meaningful. Tradition. Perhaps one of Charous' issues in the novella will be getting that reviewed.
Speaking of that class I am taking - do you dream in multiple personalities? Glenda (instructor) was doing sleep today, including dreaming. Occurred to me, listening, that while I am not sure it is lucid dreaming in the sense the Pinel text intended, I used to very clearly be aware of / remember dreams in which I might not be able to control everything but felt I should be able to, and most definitely switched characters in the the dream - usually 3 or more times. Wonder if those sort of habits are to blame for the difficulty I have maintaining a single POV while writing. Ain't it lovely to be young at heart. Speaking of which, I see you've managed to make the style sheet entry for DATE color red. Next contribution to design: where should I link the blog to in the www.okalrel.org site's structure? And I would have made my night's wordcount, packaged up Throne Price, paid my phone bill, read Locus _and_ gone to bed at a decent hour. So there.  You realize of course, if you hadn't discovered this blogger thing on Holly Lisle's web portal, I'd have put up the character bios you sent me on the week end. AND be working on the peanut butter scene in Far Arena.Shades of hours spent shoving scrawled on pieces of paper back and forth across cafeteria tables, when the Universe was primordial soup. We're at our respective computers - in the same time zone for a change - on either end of a telephone line. Lynda's working out how to post pictures and I'm just working out how to post. It's that bilingual problem again. Macintosh, unfortunately, does not rule.  A blog is born. Looks like one can put up pictures using complete URLs in the HTML. I'll go add it to the Okal Rel Universe web site as ... news? Research and commentary? Mmm. |
Nearly lost my grip yesterday. Felt so lousy I went home for a nap about 3 pm and decided, yes, sleep deprivation undermines my motive for living. I can keep going without sleep. I just feel like an overflown pilot. 
By the way ... read a section in my Pinel text for Biopsychology over supper tonight that sparked a thought concerning gorarelpul. It was the bit about the emotional response to pain being localized in - I think it was in an anterior bit of the parietal lobe? A bit that tended to get trashed in slap dab prefrontal lobotomies anyway. The point of interest was that sensory awareness of pain need not be removed by pain training in order to mute or nix the emotional reaction to it in a non-regenerative commoner. I suppose that begs the question, though, of whether awareness or emotional reaction is the thing with the survival value. The text cites a case history of a Canadian university student who had no pain of any sort and died of it. Not immediately, but by about 30 years of age. I always thought there would be risks - remember our bits and pieces in which Shatenous has acid burns on his hands? - but hadn't thought of the one that the text cited. Apparently she suffered terribly from skeleto-muscular problems because she did not shift while sleeping to get comfortable, switch legs when standing, etc. Never felt discomfort.