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Thursday, January 7th, 2010
dmmaus
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8:38p
Note that...
[Note that] I'm getting more and more annoyed with the apparent explosion of writing being perpetrated with the words "Note that" being used to introduce sentences. [Note that] This is superfluous verbiage that adds no meaning.
[Note that] To pick an example more or less at random: Wikipedia's page on Western dress code contains the following sentences:
- Note that the local interpretation of casual codes may look very little as illustrated.
- Note that the definitions listed above are the strict, traditional definitions, which may not be followed in common use.
- Note that the use of white tie and morning dress has become fairly rare in some countries [...]
- (note that the term morning dress is fairly undescriptive and has not always meant our modern morning dress)
[Note that] Every one of these sentences can be written more simply and succinctly as follows:
- The local interpretation of casual codes may look very little as illustrated. (Let's leave aside the other grammatical weirdness in this sentence.)
- The definitions listed above are the strict, traditional definitions, which may not be followed in common use.
- The use of white tie and morning dress has become fairly rare in some countries [...]
- (the term morning dress is fairly undescriptive and has not always meant our modern morning dress)
[Note that] It is never necessary to say "note that" at the front of a sentence. [Note that] The very fact that you are writing it down means that the reader should be paying attention and noting everything that you're writing.
[Note that] If you're writing "Note that" at the front of a sentence, you're wasting your time and the reader's time. [Note that] If you really want the reader to pay particular attention to a point you're making in a specific sentence, there are better, and more specifically informative ways to do so.
[Note that] If you ever find yourself introducing a sentence with "Note that", remove it. [Note that] Your writing will be improved markedly.
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stwish
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12:50a
7,890 words on the alt hist, got two basses in the spray room, still not feeling real good.
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(comment on this) Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
matociquala
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10:16p
the order of the counting shall be... aieee!
2010, and why I will not be attending many conventions this year. My deadline dance:
"The Unicorn Evils" -- immediately, more or less
The White City and attendant chapbook: March 15
Grail: April 15
"Spell 81a": April 15
"Uniform": June 15
A Reckoning of Men: July 1
untitled noir objective stuntwriting thingy: July 1
untitled vampire thingy: July 1
"Ligature": July 15
The Steles of the Sky: November 2
No fixed deadline:
space opera thingy
"The Romance"
Karen Memory
Smile
Singularity Rent novel
current mood:  crazy
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stillsostrange
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3:02p
I hate it when they ain't been shaved.
I bought this today.
Let's take a moment now to mock this cover.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
How many seconds would the Cullens last against Jesse and the gang, I wonder?
In other exciting news, my story "The Garden, The Moon, The Wall", originally published in Ideomancer, will be reprinted in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) squirrel_monkey's Running With The Pack anthology.
This doesn't make up for the fact that I haven't written any new short fiction in two years, but is very pleasing none-the-less.
current mood:  happy
current music: Portishead - Elysium
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mirandamai
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12:11p
Reading List
Finally got around to looking at the "top mystries" list from shesingsnow. There were only two I've never heard of before and a few I've been meaning to read. A few I have no interest in and a few that I know I've read, but please don't ask me for details abou them since I've forgotten them over the years. LOL
Anyway, for a list of what I've read, ( you can click here ). I have to admit that I always knew I read a lot, especially growing up, but I never really appreciated how much I read until I started trying to remember what books I read and when I read them. Some of these date back to junior high (ages 12-14). It might be interesting to go back and read some of those again to see if I feel differently about them now.
Ah well, I have enough reading yet to do. I wonder how I'd match up on some other "top book" lists... hmmm...
current mood:  contemplative
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matociquala
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11:04a
lord i need forgiveness for the methods i use
This is such a Stephen Reyes song.
I'm serenaded by a chorus of a thousand burning cigarettes
You've been taking chances, mama
While I've been placing bets
So tell it to the ashes, they know we served
It may be good for the soul but it's hard on the nerves
The very thing that drives you, can drive you insane
Got a head full of thought crimes and a number with no name
Got an eleventh hour Jesus and a mouth full of blame
A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name
There's nowhere to run
I've got no one to tell
My face has become a mask and I'm not wearing it well
For five days straight
I've been breathing fire
Don't have room on my body
For another scar
The very thing that drives you, can drive you insane
Got a head full of thought crimes and a number with no name
Got an eleventh hour Jesus and a mouth full of blame
A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name
current mood:  amused
current music: Ben Harper and Relentless7 - Number With No Name
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matociquala
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10:26a
stuff it up the hole in your culture
Aliete de Bodard (aliettedb), Campbell Award nominee and all-around hoopy frood, is doing a really interesting series of historical posts about the setting of her new fantasy series, Obsidian and Blood. (I have read the first book, Servant of the Underworld, and it was good. Bloody, but good.)
For your delectation:
1) The Valley of Mexico
2) Tenochtitlan
3) The Sacred Precinct
She has, to all appearances, done her research. ;-)
I have eaten cottage cheese (how come I never remember how much I like cottage cheese until I buy it because it's on sale?) and am about to make tea. Then I will go watch TV and think about Grail (I am confident in my deadline, even though it's only three months off. This worries me a little. Can I possibly be becoming innured to the damned things?) and brush the dog for a while, before resuming my Editorial Functions for truepenny.
Poor dog, he doesn't know about this yet.
Climbing tonight. And guacamole tacos for lunch, about which I am already ridiculously excited. I really like guacamole tacos.
current mood:  relaxed
current music: Leonard Cohen - The Future
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stwish
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2:21a
Teslagrad
6,661 words on this mess, got a bass on ebay, ran errands and played a set in King. May have done a lot of good on the ws-shuffle project, don't know.
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matociquala
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12:24a
won't make trouble. don't need no fuss. but i'm wounded, old, and i'm treacherous.
A funny thing happened on the way to the--
no, wait, that's not how the story goes.
At some point in the past couple of years, I've lost control of my stories. I mean, not--not like I had no control over them when I started writing, and just did things in any way I could because I didn't have the toolkit to choose how I was going to try to accomplish any given task. It was all brute force and ignorance, and not a lot of technique.
No, I still remember how to write. I still have all the tools in my toolkit, and I know how to use them. It's not the writing I've lost control of.
It's the stories. They've gotten... well, all the tidy has come out of them, and some of the calculation, and some of the rigid adherence to structure. They feel kind of wobbly and loose and ambiguous in my head. It's been scaring me, because I've been getting this sense that what I'm writing these days is not just not under control, but not controllable at all. Like there's bottom down there I can't see.
But based on the reactions I'm getting to them, that's working out okay somehow.
See, I used to know what the structures did, what they were there for, what work every piece did and how it affected the balance of the whole. I was a watchmaker. I had figured out how to build these machines and I could speed them up or slow them down. They didn't control time, but they were excellent devices for measuring it, quantifying it, making it observable and maybe even comprehensible.
And then suddenly I couldn't do that anymore, couldn't make those approximations that make something incredibly complex and contradictory more easily apprehensible.
I was panicky about it. I felt like they were all wrong. They were broken; they weren't working.
And then I started looking at some of the stuff other people are saying about my newer stories--"The Horrid Glory of Its Wings," "Sonny Liston takes the Fall," etc--and I realized something. They were working. They were working in ways I couldn't explain or quantify or set out on the dust cloth on the desk and move around with tweezers. They were working in messing, organic ways. These were not machines: these were organisms.
You don't own an organism. You negotiate with it.
These days the damned things are less like fine-geared pocketwatches and more like TARDISes--full of mysterious clankings and familiar spirits. Quite possibly possessed, a little bit random and out of control, never quite doing what I expect when I expect it. But actually in tune with something nexpressible about the nature of time, rather than just measuring each second ticking past.
And bigger on the inside than on the outside.
They seem to have taken on a life of their own.
That's really nifty.
I guess I have to start thinking of them as partners rather than tools now. That should be interesting.
current mood:  cheerful
current music: snoring cats
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(58 comments | comment on this) Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
matociquala
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8:46p
keep the blind down on the window. keep the pain on the inside.
Can you find the cat in this picture?
Apparently, the Presumptuous Cat approves of the new addition to our nest. In other news, the Fearless Kitten met his first snow:
and the depredations of the smouse continue:
Now that's hubris. He also made a raid on my walnuts, the little bastard. Our cats are lazy layabout goldbricks.
I, on the other paw, am made of virtue. Today I went to the gym and the bakery, adhered to The Discipline, spent the entire remainder of the day working on a critique for stillsostrange (Why yes, I do have the draft of The Bone Palace, and why yes, it is made of awesome.), and then took the garbage out and came upstairs and made my bed and cleaned my bedroom. With my girly new pink-and-purple wool blanket.
The downstairs is a pile, the office is a pit, the Christmas tree needs to come down, the bathroom is all but invisible under the mildew, and the kitchen is an indistinguishable heap of winter coats and surface clutter... but my bedroom is clean!
And now I am going to finish reading Amanda's manuscript. I was going to watch Mythbusters and Hustle tonight, but this is better.
current mood:  busy
current music: Jim Carroll Band - People Who Died
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stillsostrange
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1:22p
Oops
So to everyone that I should have sent something too last week for that hand-made-stuff meme, I have not forgotten about it, I just suck. I also have not made anything by hand (not counting words) since my deadline got crunchy. I will endeavor to go on a stuff-making spree as soon as the final draft of Bone Palace is turned in.
current mood:  cold
current music: the dishwasher
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sore