yonmei

10:41 pm: Nanowrimo and other writing issues
I have been working pretty bloody solidy on the Event. TS#1, who normally reflexively provides support, is on holiday. So he should be. I'm tired of it, and yet feeling at least in control/on top of it because things I knew should get done, are getting done. So. There's that. But there's a stack of for-work writing which I should be getting done and am not as a direct result of doing Event work.

I'm just going to pretend that Nanowrimo starts officially at midnight 14th November.

Tags: nanowrimo, work, writing

11:23 am: Bob's story
Consider this a literary exercise, and don't be too judgy. (A bit judgy is OK, it is awfully sweet.) This site was inviting interesting cat stories, so I wrote down Bob's for them, and I did it in the format of Cute Sad Cat Story With Happy Ending, Told From Cat's Actual Point Of View.

(In point of fact, I remain firmly convinced, the idea that cats have a point of view falls squarely into the realm of Fantasy Cat, though see item 15 on the list.)

( Bob's story )


Tags: bob, cats, writing

09:49 pm: 1682 words
I have written 1682 words of my Yuletide story. Whee.

Tags: writing

09:20 pm: A thought for Nanowrimo
I have had what may be an idea for Nanowrimo this year.

Supposing that a native of the 21st century were cast back fifteen hundred years or so: what, in all seriousness (if one was not a Connecticut Yankee) would constitute your superiority over the time locals?

Most modern education and training would be dependent on modern science and technology. A doctor trained in the 21st century who was landed back in the 6th would probably find most useful a basic knowledge of germ theory - not something you actually have to be a doctor to know. How many doctors could manufacture a general or a local anaesthetic from 6th century technology? How many people trained in modern surgery could operate when they had no anaesthetic to use on their patients? How much modern medicine is mostly about learning the modern pharmacology - and how many 21st-century doctors could recognise anything useful in 6th century materials?

I know how to make bread in a gas or electric and have an idea of how to raise a wild yeast so that the bread rises. (I've never made sourdough leaven from scratch, but in principle I know how that works.) But most 6th century people didn't eat much bread because it required an oven to bake it in, and in any case I know enough to know that baking bread in a wood-fired oven was a skill in itself - given the properly made oven I'd probably be able to learn how, but I have no notion how I'd make one. I can make the most basic kind of bread quite well - mix ground wheat or buckwheat or oatmeal or corn, cook over an even heat on a flat griddle - but even that I've only made on a gas flame and a (relatively) modern cast iron griddle, which provides a steady heat and an even surface. Virtually everything else I know how to make is much more dependent on modern gadgets or supplies.

Gardening? Well, given a modern iron spade and a supply of good earth and seeds from packets, I can grow things, sometimes.

I'm literate, which would be a useful skill in the 6th century, assuming anyone could get over my being female: but although I could probably learn to understand Old English, I would need to learn all over again how to write it. And any other part of the world would be even worse. Being literate isn't much use if no one else can read what you can write. I could teach children how to read and write modern English, of course....

...but the one skill I have which could potentially be worldchanging (and would certainly be an highly-employable skill) is arithmetic. It's not that I'm that good at arithmetic by 21st-century standards: but being able to use (what we call) the Arabic system of numerals to do calculations, at a time when the invention of zero was still being discussed philosophically in Hindustan, would give me an advantage - and knowing the techniques of calculation which either no one did yet or only a few mathematical scholars, would be an advantage that no one could beat until, well... either I taught other people or they learned from me.

How fast would Arabic numerals catch on if one rather odd clerk was using them? It took two or three centuries for the system to filter into Europe via Arabia, and a couple of centuries before it got out of Hindustan. But everywhere it's gone, it's taken over eventually. How fast would it take over when it was just being used?

Anyway. That's my thought. Hapless 21st-century-ist in 6th-century island, attempting to earn a living as a secular clerk... or possibly deciding to become a nun, atheist or not.

Tags: nanowrimo, writing

07:19 pm: Story exercise
Give me a word and I'll write you flashfic.

Tags: flashfic, meme, writing

09:03 am: Suddenly, I have this urge
...to mock badfic.

Supply links. I will mock.

Edited Update: Ah well. abundantlyqueer got tired of having people discuss the issue she'd raised in her journal with her and with others and deleted/disabled all comments.

( Further thoughts )

Tags: fannish snark, fannishness, writing

12:19 pm: Some questions troubling my mind
1. If both your eardrums are ruptured, what - if anything - can you still hear?

2. If you can lip-read, can you lip-read from someone's face reflected in a mirror?

3. If you were looking to get hired as a teacher by a New York public school in the 1950s, what qualifications would you need?

4. How long does it take to become fluent in ASL, if you begin as an adult?

5. Where could I find a good history of the New York School for the Deaf?

6. Is anyone reading this a Catholic with a familiarity with pre-Vatican II Catholicism who wouldn't mind reading a story I'm writing and telling me what's wrong with it?

Tags: m*a*s*h, writing

07:45 pm: Why is it
that a laptop will always crash at a point when I have not (unusually for me) saved my work for over an hour?

I always, always, always stop and hit Save. I've done it ever since I was using my word-processor in a flat with electricity on a 50p coin-op meter.

Except today.

Bastardly laptop.

Tags: laptop, writing

12:02 pm: That puts a wet sock on my happiness
This morning I walked to work through the dew-laden grass of Victoria Park.

I haven't sprayed my trainers with the waterproofing stuff (why not? you ask. Because I didn't think about it, I mutter grumpily: we were having lovely hot weather when I bought them) and anyway the fabric upper has already worn into a tiny hole, which is an utter pain since the damn things cost £60 and are less than six months old. No, I didn't keep the receipt. Yes, I should have done.

Anyway. As a result, when I got to work, my socks were wet. Damp. Icky. So were my shoes, but stuffed with newspaper (I stopped at a newsagent on my way up the road and bought a copy of the Guardian - for once, yes, for the sports section, though I do plan to read the news-and-views part over lunch) they have pretty much dried out.

The socks, though: Ack. The radiators are switched off (well, it's summer). We are not high-tec enough to have hand-dryers. I have been wandering around the office barefoot because I cannot bear the thought of putting my tootsies back into those cold, disgusting socks.

I shall have to, though. Pity Poundstretchers on Elm Row is closed down: they sold reliably cheap socks. It will have to be the hiking shop or the army-and-navy surplus: I can't think of any other sock shops within handy walking distance. And I really would rather buy dry socks to wear than walk around in damp socks for the rest of the day. [But I didn't have to, because the wonderful brandnewgun nicked a pair of socks from her girlfriend to lend to me. Happy dry feet!]

But I made chewy gingerbread cookies last night, and I wrote 500 words or so of "Out and Far Tonight", and another 500 words or so this morning when I got up, and am feeling indecently happy, altogether, apart from those disgusting damp socks that I shall have to put on in fifteen minutes or so.

Tags: friendship, m*a*s*h, weather, writing

03:07 pm: Two questions about the 1950s for my flist
1. How would a bi man in the early 1950s have identified himself? Would he have called himself bisexual?

2. How long would it have taken a letter to get from the US to an American army base in Korea during the Korean war?

Tags: m*a*s*h, writing

07:23 pm: The interview meme, part II
The ravens muninnhuginn croaked questions, ( and I answered. )

You know the rules: if you want me to interview you, post here!

Tags: food politics, fred, journal housekeeping, writing

12:07 pm: On truth and writing
lexin wrote something I responded to that I feel like reposting here:

What I hate worst is when I am told "But I wrote this story for myself" (ie, your opinion of it is irrelevant). Because, dammit, if you wrote this story for yourself, and you didn't want anyone else's opinion, then don't publish it.

I have (to date) only actually lost one friend because she got angry with my opinion of her story. And as this wasn't very long ago, I am rather hoping that in the long run she will realise that it's not that much of a crime for me to be honest about what I think about her writing and get over it. (It may take some time. Her position is that she wants criticism, but that I was being dictatorial, and she won't tolerate that.) There have been other hiatuses in friendship in the past, for similiar reasons. And I don't know how many people officially hate me (various sock puppets have said they hate me on various crit-friendly mailing lists, but I don't know how many people they actually represent) for being honest about what I think about people's writing.

And yet, it is easier just to say nothing. But it's more fun to jump right in. But just because it's fun doesn't make it wrong. (People keep telling me that it's wrong to criticise because fanfiction is written for the love of it. Well, then it's wrong to criticise me for criticising fanfiction because I write criticism for the love of it. Hah.)

And though I have had nasty e-mails from people accusing me of being a mean and spiteful person, I've also had nice e-mails from people who said they liked what I had to say. And the nice e-mails are usually much more warming than the nasty e-mails are chilling, because mostly the nasty e-mails are just plain silly.

Gosh, this is a lot of egotistic rambling. It is a problem. The source of the problem is, though, not so much intellectual dishonesty - or even inability to discriminate - but the feeling that it's nice to be nice: that you mustn't be mean to people who are trying to do nice things for you like writing fanfiction. So if you do write "This story sucks" this is interpreted not as a short criticism of the story itself, but a meanspirited attack on the writer. If I could have one fannish wish it would be to tear up this notion root and branch: criticising the story is not identical with or even close to attacking the writer. Suggesting how the writer could make the story better is not the same thing as telling the writer what to write.

Tags: fannishness, writing