Fantasist's Scroll

I have a lot I could write about.
If only I felt comfortable writing about it. Too much drama in my personal life and too many scary situations in my business life to really feel comfortable talking about here. (You can read more about that at The Diary of a Network Geek, if not now, soon.) So, why am I posting? I just can’t help myself.

I got an e-mail from The Writer’s Almanac this morning, as I do every morning, and it had two interesting birthdays in it. First, there was this about Hans Christian Anderson:

It’s the birthday of Hans Christian Anderson, (books by this author) born in Odense, Denmark (1805). Although he was most famous for his fairy tales, he never thought of himself as a children’s writer. He wrote novels, plays, poetry, and travel essays, many of which were at least as successful as the fairy tales. Although Europeans and Americans loved his work, he was scorned in his own country during his lifetime; Søren Kierkegaard once published a scathing essay about him. He never married, and when he became ill late in life, he went to live with a family on the coast near Copenhagen. He had breakfast in his room one morning, and was found in bed a little while later, dead, holding a love letter someone had written to him 45 years earlier.

That was interesting in and of itself, to me, because I never think of the writers of fairy tales as being “normal” people who might have had lives that included pain. In particular, when I think of Hans Christian Anderson, I think of the movie that starred Danny Kaye. How could you associate that with unrequited love?
But, what was really interesting was the birthday note that follow later in the e-mail:

It’s the birthday of the Italian writer Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, born in Venice (1725). He spent the final years of his life as a librarian in a cold and drafty castle in Bohemia, and he set out to write his memoirs because, he said, it was “the sole remedy I believed I possessed to avoid going mad or dying of sorrow.” He left 4,000 pages of manuscript behind, some of which was later published under the title The Story of My Life.

What an interesting contrast. Two lovers. Two very different lives. Two very different kinds of love. I never would have thought of these two very different men ending up the way they did. Perhaps it is my own life that makes these stories resonate so with my own life right now. I do not know.
To be honest, I feel lonely. I’m thankful that I have my dog back, because she eases some of that pain. But, it’s different. So different. Am I lonely enough to write 4,000 pages about unrequited love and loneliness? No, probably not. But, it is a feeling I understand these days.

(Yeah, okay, so I’m being a little lazy and I put this on my other blog, The Diary of a Network Geek, first. So sue me!)

My darling Hilda has returned to me.
It’s a long, complicated story, but I got my dog from the airport this evening. She was a little dehydrated and scared, but otherwise okay. I could barely restrain her from jumping out of the crate long enough to get a leash on her, but I did. She sat in the passenger’s seat and panted the whole way home, even though I had cool air blowing on her. As soon as we got home, I changed and got her bathed, because the trip had taken its toll on her. By the time I was drying her off, though, she was already getting back to being her playful self. As I type this, she’s laying at my feet, the absolute picture of a faithful companion.
As you might have guessed, I love my dog very much and I’ve missed her beyond belief these past several months. I’m beside myself with relief and joy to have her again.
Many thanks to everyone who was there encouraging me, placating me, and praying for me.
Now, you’ll have to excuse me while I go pet my dog.

Oh, yeah!
After a few bumps and bruises, we’ve upgraded to WordPress 1.5. It was a little touch and go for a bit there, but the upgrade is well worth it. You readers won’t see any difference, but all the backend stuff has changed. It’s very, very nice. And, it’s still free.

Does your writing have a sound track?
When you write, can you hear music in your head that matches the scene you’re writing? Frankly, I’d be suprised if you don’t. Maybe when you hit a stumbling block or a “tough scene”, the music fades away, but when things are rolling along, if you pay attention, I’ll bet there’s music up there. In a way, it’s almost inevitable, given how pervasive movies are in our culture. I know, for me, when I’m writing an action scene, I always hear music that matches the scene. And, what’s more, that musical score is influenced by movies that I’ve seen recently. For the longest time after seeing the Professional for the first time, every fight scene I saw in my mind’s eye was set to ethereal opera. And, then, after seeing some other movie, it was smooth jazz that provided the counter-point for all the action.
And, sometimes, when I need to capture a certain feel in my writing, I’ll put on a particular kind of music. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes slow, but almost always it’s different from how I’m feeling when I try to write and can’t quite get it. In my case, I know that music really effects my work because of my love for movies. Often, I’m trying to capture something with words that I can see in my head as clearly as if I’d seen it on a movie screen. One of the highest compliments I ever recieved was in writing class when the teacher told me that I had a very cinematic style of writing. (Though, in retrospect, I’m not sure he meant it as a compliment.)

So, here are three creativity exercises to try:
First, randomly pick a piece of music, play it and try to write what you feel when you listen to the music.
Second, pull out a story or scene that has given you trouble in the past. Now, put on some music, or different music than what you normally play while writing, and try to rework the piece with the different music setting the tone.
Third, as you write, or plan, your story, plan what music should be playing if someone were to make the story into a movie. Write, or rewrite, with that in mind.

But, most of all, keep writing!

I know a few things about human nature.
It may only be a few things, but they can be important, especially in fiction writing. When I was in high school an English teacher told me that the most dangerous people are those who feel they have nothing to lose. Think about that for a minute. It really makes sense. If a person feels like they have nothing left to lose by taking an extreme measure, of whatever kind, then what would stop them from doing it? What’s left to lose? Nothing, so there’s everything to gain.
And, anyone backed into a corner is libel to fight. That’s a two edged sword, though. First of all, it seems obvious that a person will fight if they’re forced into it. Nothing all that remarkable there, right? Well, take that with the other statement and you’ll see that a combination of these two things can make for a deadly opponent. Secondly, can you imagine a person who would NOT fight when backed into a corner? Why would they not fight? What could make them so deviate from the “normal” response?

In both cases, you have potential for great characters. Imagine a tragic hero who loses everything and feels that they must strike back. Surely they will make a formidable foe who will not rest until justice is served. Or, suppose that it’s a villain. Truly, an understandable, possibly likeable, antagonist who will devil the hero endlessly. Great plots there.
But, the more interesting is the “hero” with a learned helplessness syndrome. How can they win with so much going against them? What makes them panic and how do they go about avoiding it or dealing with it? Lots of room for character development there.

So, enough about human nature, go forth and write!

I got the strangest e-mail last week.
I’m not sure if it was failed spam or if it was someone trying to communicate to me in their conlang or what. Here, take a look:

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ….
That which brings the highest happiness!!

Interesting, isn’t it? Well, if anyone recognizes what the devil this means, let me know, okay?

Finally!
Well, after all the requests I’ve gotten for translating someone’s name into Tengwar, Sindarin or Quenya, finally someone has come up with an automatic transliterator. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to explain to someone in e-mail that I don’t know how to speak any form of Elvish and, therefore, cannot translate their favorite [Insert Relative Here]’s name into said language. So, imagine my reliefe and delight when I saw the Elvish Transliterator at 17 Web Place!
Now, I can just send everyone there. Of course, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of their application, but, frankly, I don’t care. I’m just overjoyed to have somewhere to send everyone who wants an Elvish name for their tattoo or boat or whatever, but doesn’t care quite enough to actually learn how to write in Tengwar themselves.

Besides, it’s Friday and an Elvish Transliterator has got to count as fun! So, go ahead, click the link and check it out.

This is the coolest book since the first encyclopedia!
To me, it is, anyway. I’ve been borrowing a friend’s copy of Facts About The World’s Languages and really enjoying it. I saw it on the shelf at his house back around Thanksgiving time and fell in love with it. It’s a little rich for my blood, right now, but I know that I’ll eventually get a copy. In a nutshell, Facts About The World’s Languages has basic phological and morphological thumbnails of virtually all the world’s known languages. It is super, super cool to see the phonogical analysis of major languages all laid out in easy-to-read tables and summarized in neat, little paragraphs. For one thing, it pretty well shows people making up their own languages how to layout such a description. For another, it’s providing me fodder for my own ideas about language creation. Best of all, it’s helping me do the hard parts, choosing a phonology and displaying it for others to read! That, for some reason, is the hardest damn thing for me. I just have a really hard time getting my head around the different labels for the syllabic descriptors. Frankly, I just can’t remember the difference between a labiodental consonant and a straight labial consonant and all that sort of thing. I guess it doesn’t really matter that much, but it bothers me.
In any case, this is the coolest bit of language-related inspiration that I’ve seen in a very long time. It neatly lays out complicated morphological systems in a way that makes sense to me. And, the short histories of the various languages are fascinating, as well. But, these thumbnails go into fairly good detail. For instance, they include influences from other languages, the probable evolution of the language, as well as the geographical history of the language. Really, it’s completely captivating.
In short, Facts About The World’s Languages is a great book that will be the object of lust and envy of every conlanger who sees it on your shelf. Go buy one!