Fantasist's Scroll

Okay, this is a little scary.
You know that old urban legend about the guy being murdered or killed with an icicle? Well, now someone has created a mold that you can use to make an ice push-dagger. No, I am not kidding. Is it the ultimate murder weapon? Use it once and then let it melt away. No fuss, no muss, no evidence. Hmm, somehow I think a TV detective could figure it out and get a conviction… Still, the idea has a lot of fictional possibilities. Well, check out Objects of Violence and decide for yourself.

Yes, it’s a little morbid for a Friday Fun Link, but, dammit, it is fun in a sick twisted way. So, go click on the link! (Please note that I do not advocate killing anyone, outside of a just war, and this post has been presented for informational and educational purposes only!)

Not my usual fare.
I finished On Death and Dying by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross last night. It is NOT my usual fare, nor am I dying. But, with the divorce, a part of my life is dying so my father suggested that I might find some benefit from reading it. And, since my father was involved with some of the base research for the book, I gave it a go. It was, at times, quite hard to read. Not because it was a bad book by any means, but because I’m just too keyed up to read much non-fiction. In fact, it was helpful and would be very helpful to someone dealing with an actual death. It details, among other things, the five stages of death and dying, or grief, namely; denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and acceptance. They’re not always followed in strict order and the tend to overlap quite a bit, but sooner or later, we all go through those five stages. (Personally, I’m in the anger stage, but I’m trying to get past that now.)

So, all in all, not a bad book, but not a good choice for me right now, either.
You can see more of what I’ve been up to while making myself read this book at my other blog: Diary of a Network Geek.

This is a very cool website.
In the Hall of Mountain Kings, that is. It’s an inside look at a sumo stable and the life of the sumotori who live there. It’s written in a very comfortable style and is a great way to look at sumo, not to mention Japanese culture in general.
I haven’t watched sumo in a very long time, but there should be a basho coming up soon. Maybe I can catch it on ESPN2. If not, I’ll just have to read In the Hall of Mountain Kings and dream of watching sumo in person.

Ah, well, it’s Friday and I did a bunch of work last night, so, humor me and click on the link and check it out.

Hey, I made my decision!
Clearly, we’ve gone with WordPress. But, also, I decided to combine the two blogs into one. Frankly, my fiction blog was rather sparse anyway, so I figured there wasn’t any harm in combining them into one.

Okay, so I’m at a bit of a cross-roads…

I have a couple of choices here. I want to move to Word Press for my blogging system, because I like it better than MovableType. And, no, not just because of the MT pricing structure, either. I like the interface and how easy it is to code up plugins for WP. The only problem is WP only supports one blog per installation. In other words, I’d have to install WP twice to host two blogs. Not a big deal, I guess, but I have this blog and a fiction blog and an idea for another blog. Of course, the fiction blog has languished somewhat, so I suppose I could just roll it into this one. I mean, I only have three or four stories and a couple of haiku. Then, I could install WP a second time for my third blog experiment, which is logical in a way…

Well, I’m not sure what I want to do, but I want to do something and soon.

Well, not quite that bad…
Still, having read a plethora of fiction set in a variety of time periods, I can tell you, one of the biggest mistakes modern writers make is using modern language in historical settings. Or, worse, completely misusing historical language. This seems to be an especially large problem for new or amatuer writers of fantasy or historicals set in the pre-1900’s. Luckily, C. J. Cherryh has an answer for those poor unfortunate souls: Pre- and Post-1900’s Language. It’s far from complete, which she admits herself, but it’s certainly better than nothing and it is a great place to start.
Also, anyone looking at creating their own world, with its own linguistic twists on English, would do well to look through this file. It’s a great look at ways that English usage has changed, especially in terms of slang and common usage.

New Year = New Categories

Yep, I decided it was time for a bit of a change here at the Fantasist’s Scroll. So, some of the old categories have changed their stripes and I’ve added at least one new one: Advice from the Fantasist.
Why, you ask? Well, because it’s time for this to be a little bit more fun, for one thing. And, for another… Aw, just because. Stop asking so many questions!