Wednesday, 5 December 2012
Gluten-Free Adventures
I may...or may not...have recently experienced my first full blown gluten reaction. This, kids, is why you listen to the doctors and nutritionists when they tell you that you're going to go off of gluten for 4-6 weeks and then expose yourself and see what happens. That last step is, in fact, important as it turns out. Otherwise when you abruptly experience abdominal pains that last for days, people tend to panic and say things like "it could be all sorts of things" "appendicitis" and "we need a CT scan."
Suffice to say, I have recovered. My insides appear not to have exploded. I even avoided expensive exposure to radiation. But my doctors and I are none the wiser about precisely what happened. If, as I suspect, this was a gluten reaction then my entire side trip into an episode of some medical drama could have been avoided had I actually purposefully exposed myself under more controlled conditions. Now I shall have to wait a sufficient length of time to allay any fears that I am suffering a "relapse" and then go back to the plan of purposefully exposing myself so that I can compare symptoms and find out for sure. There is just some part of the mind that revolts against the concept of penciling into one's calendar "abdominal cramps: 3-7 days" no matter how logical one knows it to be.
On a side issue of the gluten-free adventures--admittedly a more trivial one, I suppose, I've been trying to decide how risky I feel like being about the Scottish oats question. Oats grown in the US are almost always cross-contaminated with wheat unless they come from specific dedicated gluten-free farms & processing plants. Scotland doesn't grow hardly any wheat. So there is far less cross-contamination. And yet people in the gluten-free community get really edgy about actually considering them "safe".
I know that in Scotland there is now certified gluten-free haggis. But you can't import it. US Food Safety gets really touchy about things like ground up sheep lungs for some strange reason. The favored American producer of haggis doesn't do a gluten-free one. But they *do* import their oats from Scotland. So, that makes them a lot less risky than Quaker, but still more risky than Red Mill Gluten-Free Oats. Sigh.
Well, once I actually expose myself to gluten and see once and for all what my reaction is going to be, then I can just try things that are hopefully safe and know afterward whether they were or not. There aren't a lot of foods that I would risk three days of misery and four more of discomfort for, but haggis may well be one of them. What does it say about me that I would rather role the dice on that one than learn to make haggis? Well, if you knew anything about making haggis, you might understand.
Monday, 23 July 2012
Fiction Progress
I'm writing again. That shouldn't be such an accomplishment, but life, other creative commitments (of the more poetic and musical variety) and then writer's block conspired against me for a while. So I re-read the entire thing to date in the hopes that would get me back in the mindset. And it worked! I finished off a partial chapter. I'm splitting another into two and expanding the halves.
I've now passed 60,000 words where I'd been stuck a bit about 50,000 for the past 6 months.
For the curious, it needs to be around 100,000 to be novel sized. Whether it will be "done" at 100,000 is another matter entirely. I've known for a while now that, by the "shape" of the story, this will either be a rather massive novel or it will be two volumes. I think I know where the breaking point could reasonably be in the story. But I may not get there until around 120,000 wds or more at this rate. I'll just have to see.
In the plotter vs. pantser debate (do you plot everything out or fly by the seat of your pants?) I definitely land more among the pantsers, though I've done more than usual plotting on this book. But even so, I view my outlines more like guidelines. If I spend too much time going "how on earth am I going to get that character over there?!" then perhaps the character wasn't meant to go "over there" after all.
On a funny note, I've found my weak spot when it comes to research for fiction. The topic I was researching for the book last week made me squirm more than anything else I can think of, more than my research on poisons and what they would do to people, more than burial rituals--even the creepy ones. What was I researching? Varieties of mosquitoes, midges, and other biting insects in cold wet climates. Yeeick. I really could have done without the inevitable close-up pictures of mosquitoe-with-proboscis-in-skin. Blech. Now I'm all paranoid and twitchy though mostly we've had flies this season rather than mosquitoes. Touch wood.
I've now passed 60,000 words where I'd been stuck a bit about 50,000 for the past 6 months.
For the curious, it needs to be around 100,000 to be novel sized. Whether it will be "done" at 100,000 is another matter entirely. I've known for a while now that, by the "shape" of the story, this will either be a rather massive novel or it will be two volumes. I think I know where the breaking point could reasonably be in the story. But I may not get there until around 120,000 wds or more at this rate. I'll just have to see.
In the plotter vs. pantser debate (do you plot everything out or fly by the seat of your pants?) I definitely land more among the pantsers, though I've done more than usual plotting on this book. But even so, I view my outlines more like guidelines. If I spend too much time going "how on earth am I going to get that character over there?!" then perhaps the character wasn't meant to go "over there" after all.
On a funny note, I've found my weak spot when it comes to research for fiction. The topic I was researching for the book last week made me squirm more than anything else I can think of, more than my research on poisons and what they would do to people, more than burial rituals--even the creepy ones. What was I researching? Varieties of mosquitoes, midges, and other biting insects in cold wet climates. Yeeick. I really could have done without the inevitable close-up pictures of mosquitoe-with-proboscis-in-skin. Blech. Now I'm all paranoid and twitchy though mostly we've had flies this season rather than mosquitoes. Touch wood.
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Gluten-Free Time
Gluten free meal of the day:
1 Adele's sausage - chopped into half-circles
1-2 large leaf(s) of chard - torn to bits
1/3 small can of Bush's Baked Beans
1 slice cheddar cheese
Put the sausage & chard in a pan and cook (browning the sausage and wilting down the chard). If too dry add small amounts of water. Once browned add beans. Once hot add cheese to get melty. Serve.
It might be a little high in fat & calories for some people's tastes. But it is fast (5-8 min.), yummy, and anything with chard can't be that bad for you, right?
And yes, for those who haven't heard yet, I'm currently eating gluten-free. Probably forever. Sometime after Pennsic (so mid-August) I will probably eat a bite to confirm whether I react now that it's out of my system. But I think yesterday's adventures confirm that I do.
Yesterday there was some drama surrounding getting milk to put in my coffee. I have completely forsaken sweetener in my coffee and even, more dramatic and eccentric, from my chocolate beverages. So it's very important to me to have good milk to put in.
Anyway, at last, at my lunch break, I obtained milk to bring back to the office to put in my coffee. Full of blissful anticipation I took a sip. My mouth felt...strange. Kind of dry even while it was wet. Kind of tight. Well, freakish things happen to me all the time so I didn't worry overmuch. I swallowed my coffee. I had another swallow, turning my attention back to work. Except by the fourth swallow my throat was starting to throb painfully and my mouth felt even more tight and strange.
I stopped drinking the coffee, had some water and food and in time the sensation faded. Just to confirm the correlation--lest denial eat at me later--I took the coffee to the sink once I no longer had symptoms, took a mouthful and swished it around my mouth...and felt that odd tight-dry feeling returning. I rinsed my mouth and resigned myself.
You see, the thing that was different about this coffee was that we'd run out of regular so my co-worker had made Vanilla. And I'd been warned that many flavored coffees use a little gluten as part of their "natural and artificial flavorings" to help the flavor adhere to the coffee beans. The only reason I can think of why I would suddenly react to Vanilla coffee--the exact brand of Vanilla coffee I've had dozens of times before without any reaction back before I went gluten-free--is that they must in fact use gluten and I must in fact react to it.
What's interesting is that this is not at all the expected reaction. Stomach cramps, bloating, headaches, vagueness, even hormone-like emotional wonkiness...I've heard all these reactions to gluten from the gluten-intolerant. But this? Odd.
At any rate, it looks like I'd better settle in for the long haul of gluten-free living. So, recipes!
My philosophy is definitely primarily towards eating foods that never really wanted gluten to begin with. There are some exceptions. There is a gluten-free bread that's not bad for when I really really want toast (so 2 or 3 times in the last month). And I have done some substitutions. I'd been making turmeric quinoa to eat with other things and then discovered last weekend that it goes rather beautifully with fresh-made pesto. Yum.
But I've also been in a total bannocks craze. For those who are less familiar with Scottish cuisine, bannocks are oatcakes. I've been making them with combinations of bacon and/or cheese and/or pine nuts. Very tasty. Making the bacon is the most time consuming part so I may have to try them with butter or oil or some other source for the fat. Made plain, you'd really want to eat them with something else. But they are solid and filling and tasty.
You just have to make sure to use gluten-free oats. Oats don't naturally have gluten but crop rotation wisdom says that alternating oats versus wheat every other year does good things for the field productivity...and means that you get miniscule amounts of stray wheat gathered in the oats and likewise trace amounts of oats in the wheat. If you have an allergy that reacts to trace amounts of things, this can be a problem. So gluten-free oats are simply oats that are grown in fields that only grow oats (or that only grow gluten-free grains I suppose, but I think in practice they just grow oats in general). Scottish oats are often gluten-free because oats grow a lot better than wheat in the Scottish climate. But we've been getting certified gluten-free ones at the house.
I had a recipe for the bannocks at first, but we've lost it and it's become rather arbitrary.
Take quick oats. Add some fat (bacon grease is our fat of choice). And add enough hot water to stir up the oats to a dough-like consistency (the dry end of oatmeal). Add any other mix-ins you'd like (bits of bacon, grated cheese, pine-nuts etc. Or you could use a more neutral fat and go in fruity directions instead....though I've not actually tried this, wanting bannocks for meals not desert). Mix well. Take a clump of oat-dough and form it in a ball and squish it to about 1/3 inch thick. Put in pan and cook on medium heat until just begining to brown. The edges will just begin to curl up subtly. If you use non-stick pans and perhaps even if you don't you shouldn't need to grease the pan at all. Once browned, flip. The second side will brown more quickly. Repeat until you've cooked up all the dough. Eat hot or cold. Enjoy!
The original recipe called for either baking powder or baking soda. Whichever it was we used the wrong one and it didn't seem to matter so then I tried cutting it out entirely and that didn't seem to matter either. Simple is best.
1 Adele's sausage - chopped into half-circles
1-2 large leaf(s) of chard - torn to bits
1/3 small can of Bush's Baked Beans
1 slice cheddar cheese
Put the sausage & chard in a pan and cook (browning the sausage and wilting down the chard). If too dry add small amounts of water. Once browned add beans. Once hot add cheese to get melty. Serve.
It might be a little high in fat & calories for some people's tastes. But it is fast (5-8 min.), yummy, and anything with chard can't be that bad for you, right?
And yes, for those who haven't heard yet, I'm currently eating gluten-free. Probably forever. Sometime after Pennsic (so mid-August) I will probably eat a bite to confirm whether I react now that it's out of my system. But I think yesterday's adventures confirm that I do.
Yesterday there was some drama surrounding getting milk to put in my coffee. I have completely forsaken sweetener in my coffee and even, more dramatic and eccentric, from my chocolate beverages. So it's very important to me to have good milk to put in.
Anyway, at last, at my lunch break, I obtained milk to bring back to the office to put in my coffee. Full of blissful anticipation I took a sip. My mouth felt...strange. Kind of dry even while it was wet. Kind of tight. Well, freakish things happen to me all the time so I didn't worry overmuch. I swallowed my coffee. I had another swallow, turning my attention back to work. Except by the fourth swallow my throat was starting to throb painfully and my mouth felt even more tight and strange.
I stopped drinking the coffee, had some water and food and in time the sensation faded. Just to confirm the correlation--lest denial eat at me later--I took the coffee to the sink once I no longer had symptoms, took a mouthful and swished it around my mouth...and felt that odd tight-dry feeling returning. I rinsed my mouth and resigned myself.
You see, the thing that was different about this coffee was that we'd run out of regular so my co-worker had made Vanilla. And I'd been warned that many flavored coffees use a little gluten as part of their "natural and artificial flavorings" to help the flavor adhere to the coffee beans. The only reason I can think of why I would suddenly react to Vanilla coffee--the exact brand of Vanilla coffee I've had dozens of times before without any reaction back before I went gluten-free--is that they must in fact use gluten and I must in fact react to it.
What's interesting is that this is not at all the expected reaction. Stomach cramps, bloating, headaches, vagueness, even hormone-like emotional wonkiness...I've heard all these reactions to gluten from the gluten-intolerant. But this? Odd.
At any rate, it looks like I'd better settle in for the long haul of gluten-free living. So, recipes!
My philosophy is definitely primarily towards eating foods that never really wanted gluten to begin with. There are some exceptions. There is a gluten-free bread that's not bad for when I really really want toast (so 2 or 3 times in the last month). And I have done some substitutions. I'd been making turmeric quinoa to eat with other things and then discovered last weekend that it goes rather beautifully with fresh-made pesto. Yum.
But I've also been in a total bannocks craze. For those who are less familiar with Scottish cuisine, bannocks are oatcakes. I've been making them with combinations of bacon and/or cheese and/or pine nuts. Very tasty. Making the bacon is the most time consuming part so I may have to try them with butter or oil or some other source for the fat. Made plain, you'd really want to eat them with something else. But they are solid and filling and tasty.
You just have to make sure to use gluten-free oats. Oats don't naturally have gluten but crop rotation wisdom says that alternating oats versus wheat every other year does good things for the field productivity...and means that you get miniscule amounts of stray wheat gathered in the oats and likewise trace amounts of oats in the wheat. If you have an allergy that reacts to trace amounts of things, this can be a problem. So gluten-free oats are simply oats that are grown in fields that only grow oats (or that only grow gluten-free grains I suppose, but I think in practice they just grow oats in general). Scottish oats are often gluten-free because oats grow a lot better than wheat in the Scottish climate. But we've been getting certified gluten-free ones at the house.
I had a recipe for the bannocks at first, but we've lost it and it's become rather arbitrary.
Take quick oats. Add some fat (bacon grease is our fat of choice). And add enough hot water to stir up the oats to a dough-like consistency (the dry end of oatmeal). Add any other mix-ins you'd like (bits of bacon, grated cheese, pine-nuts etc. Or you could use a more neutral fat and go in fruity directions instead....though I've not actually tried this, wanting bannocks for meals not desert). Mix well. Take a clump of oat-dough and form it in a ball and squish it to about 1/3 inch thick. Put in pan and cook on medium heat until just begining to brown. The edges will just begin to curl up subtly. If you use non-stick pans and perhaps even if you don't you shouldn't need to grease the pan at all. Once browned, flip. The second side will brown more quickly. Repeat until you've cooked up all the dough. Eat hot or cold. Enjoy!
The original recipe called for either baking powder or baking soda. Whichever it was we used the wrong one and it didn't seem to matter so then I tried cutting it out entirely and that didn't seem to matter either. Simple is best.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Books
For those of you who can stand being held in suspense for years at a time, I'd highly recommend The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It is, as far as I know, his first and only novel. All I can say is he better hurry up and write more. Only don't hurry too much--I wouldn't want him to slide one hair below the bar he's set himself with this marvelous debut.
NPR has recently put out a list of the top 100 sci fi and fantasy books, with a fantastically funny flowchart to go with it. The Name of the Wind made the list, as did several others that have me held in suspense: George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series and, somewhat paradoxically, the stand alone novel Sunshine by Robin McKinley. McKinley doesn't write sequels. The closest she ever came was to write two books in the same world...about 1000 years apart. So our chances of a sequel to Sunshine seem low. But I want one. It leaves so much unsaid. It is brilliant and beautiful and mesmerizing. I read it by flashlight, an annoying flashlight that would stutter out every few minutes and I would have to wind it up again and give it a shake. I was exhausted, camping, at Pensic for the first time, and still I read by flashlight deep into the night every night. And then it left me hanging with a thousand questions unanswered.
I think about my own muses, the muses for my novels, the muses for my SCA composing of poetry and songs, even the muses for my clamorous rpg characters. I have cried out for inspiration many a time and will many more times, especially this year. But for once, I would like to petition the muses on someone else's behalf: go give Robin McKinley the inspiration she needs for a brilliant beautiful sequel to Sunshine.
All told, I've read 32 of those top 100 sff books, and am familiar with another 26 or so through movies and articles about them. A few of those 32 are cheats: I've read Dune and heard through oral tradition much of the rest of the series and watched the miniseries covering the next 2 or 3 books, but by no means have I read the whole series. But I think even most fans of the series would agree that the original Dune is the core of it, the best.
I've been thinking about how I would go about judging the "best" books in a given catagory. I think my criteria would have to include: intelligence of the writing, emotional pull of the tale/characters, style points, and that entirely subjective element of whether I ultimately "liked" it. For example, I read China Mieville's The Scar which is intelligent, tightly written, and has some emotional pull, but mixed thickly with the emotional pull is emotional repulsion which is ultimately the stronger force. After I finished, I felt that I had read a "good" book, but that I didn't "like" it. Much as I feel repulsed by the intelligent beautifully written Othello or the Changeling from Renaissance literature.
It's not that they have to end well. I loved Jacqueline Carey's Sundering duology, which did for Tolkien's tropes what Paradise Lost did for Genesis. It is epic tragedy by genre; you know it can't end well. She twists the dagger again and again. But it is intelligent, the emotion draw is superb, the style is exquisite...and I can't help but love it despite the inevitable tears. I'm more likely to reread the Kushiel books, where the tears are in the middle more than the ends of the books, but I can't not love the Sundering books for all that.
And there are books that score highly enough in other categories that I can forgive a dip in one. Snow Crash never had me terribly emotionally engaged. I didn't dislike Hero Protagonist or YT, but nor was I terribly attached to them. Nevertheless, it was a tightly written witty well-crafted romp and I enjoyed it immensely. I can't help but agree with its placement in the top 100 despite my usual preference for character-driven books.
But the books that didn't make their list that would make mine would be Martha Wells (Fall of Ile-Rien series as well as pretty much anything she's written), Elizabeth Hayden's Symphony of Ages (that first trilogy was great; the later books still good though not quite as much so.). And I'd have to put in Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country. Doesn't the title just say it all?
ss
NPR has recently put out a list of the top 100 sci fi and fantasy books, with a fantastically funny flowchart to go with it. The Name of the Wind made the list, as did several others that have me held in suspense: George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series and, somewhat paradoxically, the stand alone novel Sunshine by Robin McKinley. McKinley doesn't write sequels. The closest she ever came was to write two books in the same world...about 1000 years apart. So our chances of a sequel to Sunshine seem low. But I want one. It leaves so much unsaid. It is brilliant and beautiful and mesmerizing. I read it by flashlight, an annoying flashlight that would stutter out every few minutes and I would have to wind it up again and give it a shake. I was exhausted, camping, at Pensic for the first time, and still I read by flashlight deep into the night every night. And then it left me hanging with a thousand questions unanswered.
I think about my own muses, the muses for my novels, the muses for my SCA composing of poetry and songs, even the muses for my clamorous rpg characters. I have cried out for inspiration many a time and will many more times, especially this year. But for once, I would like to petition the muses on someone else's behalf: go give Robin McKinley the inspiration she needs for a brilliant beautiful sequel to Sunshine.
All told, I've read 32 of those top 100 sff books, and am familiar with another 26 or so through movies and articles about them. A few of those 32 are cheats: I've read Dune and heard through oral tradition much of the rest of the series and watched the miniseries covering the next 2 or 3 books, but by no means have I read the whole series. But I think even most fans of the series would agree that the original Dune is the core of it, the best.
I've been thinking about how I would go about judging the "best" books in a given catagory. I think my criteria would have to include: intelligence of the writing, emotional pull of the tale/characters, style points, and that entirely subjective element of whether I ultimately "liked" it. For example, I read China Mieville's The Scar which is intelligent, tightly written, and has some emotional pull, but mixed thickly with the emotional pull is emotional repulsion which is ultimately the stronger force. After I finished, I felt that I had read a "good" book, but that I didn't "like" it. Much as I feel repulsed by the intelligent beautifully written Othello or the Changeling from Renaissance literature.
It's not that they have to end well. I loved Jacqueline Carey's Sundering duology, which did for Tolkien's tropes what Paradise Lost did for Genesis. It is epic tragedy by genre; you know it can't end well. She twists the dagger again and again. But it is intelligent, the emotion draw is superb, the style is exquisite...and I can't help but love it despite the inevitable tears. I'm more likely to reread the Kushiel books, where the tears are in the middle more than the ends of the books, but I can't not love the Sundering books for all that.
And there are books that score highly enough in other categories that I can forgive a dip in one. Snow Crash never had me terribly emotionally engaged. I didn't dislike Hero Protagonist or YT, but nor was I terribly attached to them. Nevertheless, it was a tightly written witty well-crafted romp and I enjoyed it immensely. I can't help but agree with its placement in the top 100 despite my usual preference for character-driven books.
But the books that didn't make their list that would make mine would be Martha Wells (Fall of Ile-Rien series as well as pretty much anything she's written), Elizabeth Hayden's Symphony of Ages (that first trilogy was great; the later books still good though not quite as much so.). And I'd have to put in Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country. Doesn't the title just say it all?
ss
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Mistress Music
Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.
As the incipient Bard of the Mists and one who is already not getting enough sleep, I admit this quote filled me with a sort of resonant horror.
Thursday, 5 May 2011
How Many Words
So, as I begin to chug along towards some real goals with my novel, (approaching the 1/3 mark next), I took a moment to question the round 100,000 words mark I'd used as my "goal" for numerical purposes. It is certainly useful since however many thousand words I have written translates directly into what "percent" I am towards "done" -- with a first draft anyway. I always knew this was rather artificial, and that the story might demand more or less than that. But I began to be curious what the industry norms really were.
Here is what Urban Fantasy Writers has to say about it (very very abridged, taking only their word count quotes).
After all, I've taken for my write-a-complete-novel project my most classic quest adventure coming of age story of all my story ideas. Not that that's all there is to it. But still, it certainly seems like it could be one of those ones that straddles the line like Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study books or Trudi Canavan's books (but not so much like the Harry Potter books, before you ask, or perhaps more accurately, a bit like the later books but not the early ones).
It's hard to actually find the word count for published fiction, but there was an article from an industry insider of sorts that mentioned Poison Study as "normal" length and who mentioned 90k words as the "norm" people shoot for.
With all of that to mull over, I wonder if I should be aiming for the 80-90k range for a novel that will straddle the mainstream fantasy/YA fantasy line.
I know, I know. I shouldn't worry about it. I should just write the darn book. But this is my novel to put the craft of novel writing first...not so much "over" the demands of the story, but to think about how to build a satisfying novel-length story. So, I'm allowed. On the next book, I promise I'll throw rules and norms to the wind and write it however it wants to be. ;)
Here is what Urban Fantasy Writers has to say about it (very very abridged, taking only their word count quotes).
So, it occurs to me that while I often think of this book (still title-less. I'm playing with something relating to "Water Fall" ... and a dozen other things. Meh. That's neither here nor there. Some books start with a title. I suspect this one will end with one.) as Fantasy, I've also referred to it as potentially YA.Fantasy novels can contain between 80,000 and 150,000 words (approximately). Fantasy novels can be a little longer than other novels, and they are sometimes serialized.
A stand-alone romance novel is normally between 80,000 and 100,000 words. A category romance novel (like those published by Harlequin) is generally shorter
A stand-alone historical book may be 85,000 to 100,000 words. Publishing a book longer than 100,000 words is difficult (especially for first-timers), but historical novels are sometimes longer.
Mysteries vary in length. Stand-alone mysteries (which may have some overlap with thrillers) may be between 75,000 and 100,000 words. Cozy mysteries, like those in a series, are often on the shorter side.
Thriller novels generally run between 90,000 to 100,000 words (loosely), but they can be a little longer as well.
Horror novels vary in length and are generally between 80,000 and 100,000 words.
Generally, YA books run between 40,000 and 75,000 words, depending on the target age group.
Westerns tend to be on the shorter side, anywhere from 45,000 to 75,000 words (loosely).
After all, I've taken for my write-a-complete-novel project my most classic quest adventure coming of age story of all my story ideas. Not that that's all there is to it. But still, it certainly seems like it could be one of those ones that straddles the line like Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study books or Trudi Canavan's books (but not so much like the Harry Potter books, before you ask, or perhaps more accurately, a bit like the later books but not the early ones).
It's hard to actually find the word count for published fiction, but there was an article from an industry insider of sorts that mentioned Poison Study as "normal" length and who mentioned 90k words as the "norm" people shoot for.
With all of that to mull over, I wonder if I should be aiming for the 80-90k range for a novel that will straddle the mainstream fantasy/YA fantasy line.
I know, I know. I shouldn't worry about it. I should just write the darn book. But this is my novel to put the craft of novel writing first...not so much "over" the demands of the story, but to think about how to build a satisfying novel-length story. So, I'm allowed. On the next book, I promise I'll throw rules and norms to the wind and write it however it wants to be. ;)
Monday, 18 April 2011
Not Dead Yet
I think I'm actually fighting off a cold, rather than succumbing to it. Day 3 and I'm feeling better rather than worse. Amazing. That's what lots of rest and vitamins will do...and having been well for the 2 weeks previous actually allowing my poor overworked immune system a vacation. I feel like I've been press-ganged into a part time job as a virus host--I certainly spend enough time at it! But I'm getting better this time, so all good.
Academics
My academic publication has appeared in print at long last. It'll put you back about $120 if you actually wanted to buy the darn thing (and keep in mind I only wrote 1 chapter, though I'm looking forward to reading everyone elses chapters!). But with luck it will be coming soon to a library near you. Since I've in fact managed to keep my full name off this blog in general, to keep it for friends and family rather than people trying to track me through web searches, I'll refrain from giving you the full info here. But anyone interested in Shakespeare or Platonic influences or just what I've spent a fair chunk of the last, er, 6 years doing (though very little in the last couple years; that's just been waiting), feel free to drop me a line and I'll send details.
Fiction
So, my book has now reached 10 chapters, only one of which is out of order (it will probably be chapter 12) and 26,600 words which is more than a quarter of the way through a normal fantasy novel. But I realized something today. It's a bit of a spoiler for my readers, but I won't tell you what timelines are involved....If you combine the story lines from the the different drafts (but not overlapping scenes) of the two books involved (yup, two), Geirrøth's character has the most story written involving a single character I've ever written thus far with right about 60,000 words. The next biggest would be Nirym with 34,000 words...although Nirym's stories are about 95% her viewpoint whereas Geirrøth is largely in the background.
It's kind of odd to me. I've got so many books-in-progress with female main characters. It's funny that I settled on Johan and Geirrøth's book (though Gynna is gaining importance steadily) to be my finish a book project, and that thus Geirrøth would take the lead as longest running character.
Well, only if you don't count the immortal demi-gods that feature even earlier in the same time line. But since the later books aren't about them in any way, I have to feel that they don't count.
Media
Game of Thrones premiered last night. It was beautiful and mesmerizing. I think the pilot would be a bit confusing for those who hadn't read the books, or at least studied the cheat sheet to the families they helpfully put on the show's website (there's a map too). I was a little confused just trying to match faces to the characters I knew had to be there! After all we had, at least 5 or so teenage boys who are plot important and a couple on screen that aren't really important. To say nothing of the grownups and younger children. The two teenage girls were at least crystal clear. That said, I think the casting was fantastic. I loved how with Joffrey and Arya in particular they got their characters across vividly and perfectly...without either saying a single line! Dead on.
Jon isn't quite as I imagined him. In fact, the whole set of teenagers seemed cast a little old...though I can see why. They have to cast the girls a little older, because a TV audience doesn't want to see 13 year old girls put in sexual situations. They're still said to be 13, but they look more like 15 or 16. And having done that, you can't use actual 15 boys to play the 15 year old boys...they have to look several years older than the 13 year old girls...so inevitably, the boys end up looking about 18. But while it means few in that set of characters match my mental image of them, I think it was a wise decision overall.
I'd have to get my hands on a copy of the book to know just how many chapters they clipped through in their 65 minute pilot--all the library copies are out with about 12 holds on each copy; no surprise there--but they're moving at a pretty fast pace. It seems they're going to stick to unfolding the whole arc of book 1 in season 1, not slowing down to do more episodic sub-stories. I think in the end that will be to the best, and far more intense, though I think that may make it harder for non-readers of the books to grab hold in the first couple episodes. Information comes hard and fast, and the political situation is already beginning to shift and change. Although you have to pay attention to catch it, I'm pretty sure they cover at least a month's time, if not a bit more all in that first hour!
Anyway, I think it was a mouthwatering intro to things to come. Red house is going to have a weekly ritual of watching together, about the only thing we watch on TV live. We had, oh, 11 people over watching!
But if they're going to go through one book a season, Martin had better hurry up and write the last books! He'd better hurry up anyway. I was fit to be tied when I got to the end of book 4 and realized I would have to wait till book 6 to find out what was going to happen to half the characters!! Ok, yes, I'm looking forward to finding out what's happened to the other half the character list in book 5, but good gracious! And then, will the story lines sync up again in book 6 or will we be leap frogging for the rest of the series? (I place no faith in the projection of finishing in 7 books...though however long it ends up being, I'm sure it will be worth it, unlike a few other massive series I could mention.)
I think I'm actually fighting off a cold, rather than succumbing to it. Day 3 and I'm feeling better rather than worse. Amazing. That's what lots of rest and vitamins will do...and having been well for the 2 weeks previous actually allowing my poor overworked immune system a vacation. I feel like I've been press-ganged into a part time job as a virus host--I certainly spend enough time at it! But I'm getting better this time, so all good.
Academics
My academic publication has appeared in print at long last. It'll put you back about $120 if you actually wanted to buy the darn thing (and keep in mind I only wrote 1 chapter, though I'm looking forward to reading everyone elses chapters!). But with luck it will be coming soon to a library near you. Since I've in fact managed to keep my full name off this blog in general, to keep it for friends and family rather than people trying to track me through web searches, I'll refrain from giving you the full info here. But anyone interested in Shakespeare or Platonic influences or just what I've spent a fair chunk of the last, er, 6 years doing (though very little in the last couple years; that's just been waiting), feel free to drop me a line and I'll send details.
Fiction
So, my book has now reached 10 chapters, only one of which is out of order (it will probably be chapter 12) and 26,600 words which is more than a quarter of the way through a normal fantasy novel. But I realized something today. It's a bit of a spoiler for my readers, but I won't tell you what timelines are involved....If you combine the story lines from the the different drafts (but not overlapping scenes) of the two books involved (yup, two), Geirrøth's character has the most story written involving a single character I've ever written thus far with right about 60,000 words. The next biggest would be Nirym with 34,000 words...although Nirym's stories are about 95% her viewpoint whereas Geirrøth is largely in the background.
It's kind of odd to me. I've got so many books-in-progress with female main characters. It's funny that I settled on Johan and Geirrøth's book (though Gynna is gaining importance steadily) to be my finish a book project, and that thus Geirrøth would take the lead as longest running character.
Well, only if you don't count the immortal demi-gods that feature even earlier in the same time line. But since the later books aren't about them in any way, I have to feel that they don't count.
Media
Game of Thrones premiered last night. It was beautiful and mesmerizing. I think the pilot would be a bit confusing for those who hadn't read the books, or at least studied the cheat sheet to the families they helpfully put on the show's website (there's a map too). I was a little confused just trying to match faces to the characters I knew had to be there! After all we had, at least 5 or so teenage boys who are plot important and a couple on screen that aren't really important. To say nothing of the grownups and younger children. The two teenage girls were at least crystal clear. That said, I think the casting was fantastic. I loved how with Joffrey and Arya in particular they got their characters across vividly and perfectly...without either saying a single line! Dead on.
Jon isn't quite as I imagined him. In fact, the whole set of teenagers seemed cast a little old...though I can see why. They have to cast the girls a little older, because a TV audience doesn't want to see 13 year old girls put in sexual situations. They're still said to be 13, but they look more like 15 or 16. And having done that, you can't use actual 15 boys to play the 15 year old boys...they have to look several years older than the 13 year old girls...so inevitably, the boys end up looking about 18. But while it means few in that set of characters match my mental image of them, I think it was a wise decision overall.
I'd have to get my hands on a copy of the book to know just how many chapters they clipped through in their 65 minute pilot--all the library copies are out with about 12 holds on each copy; no surprise there--but they're moving at a pretty fast pace. It seems they're going to stick to unfolding the whole arc of book 1 in season 1, not slowing down to do more episodic sub-stories. I think in the end that will be to the best, and far more intense, though I think that may make it harder for non-readers of the books to grab hold in the first couple episodes. Information comes hard and fast, and the political situation is already beginning to shift and change. Although you have to pay attention to catch it, I'm pretty sure they cover at least a month's time, if not a bit more all in that first hour!
Anyway, I think it was a mouthwatering intro to things to come. Red house is going to have a weekly ritual of watching together, about the only thing we watch on TV live. We had, oh, 11 people over watching!
But if they're going to go through one book a season, Martin had better hurry up and write the last books! He'd better hurry up anyway. I was fit to be tied when I got to the end of book 4 and realized I would have to wait till book 6 to find out what was going to happen to half the characters!! Ok, yes, I'm looking forward to finding out what's happened to the other half the character list in book 5, but good gracious! And then, will the story lines sync up again in book 6 or will we be leap frogging for the rest of the series? (I place no faith in the projection of finishing in 7 books...though however long it ends up being, I'm sure it will be worth it, unlike a few other massive series I could mention.)
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