Fantasist's Scroll

I’m not really a writer anymore.

When I noticed that Joe Clifford Faust had listed my website under “Resources” instead of “Writer’s Blogs” I was, well, a little miffed. Don’t I have free fiction on my site? Haven’t I submitted to magazines? And even been accepted?! Well, yes, I had one story accepted by a magazine that promptly shut down. More than ten years ago.

More than ten years ago.

Gah! What have I been doing with myself? Not enough writing, that’s for sure. So, I have to reluctantly admit that I am NOT, in fact, a writer anymore. I’m just a “wannabe”. So, now, after not really writing in quite some time. How do I start again? Well, I guess, I’ll start by reading a book by Damon Knight on short story writing. I have it right by my bed. It’s called Creating Short Fiction : The Classic Guide to Writing Short Fiction. And, then, I guess, I’ll have to actually make time to write!

I finished Iron Council by China Mi�ville last week.

It was good, but not quite as good as his last two.
This one dealt with an attempt to run a transcontinental railroad across Bas Lag, home of New Crobuzon. Something goes wrong and the people building the railroad rebel and become their own, moving, city. While the idea is interesting, and the descriptions of magic and struggle are compelling, the book focuses elsewhere. Specifically, it seems as if Mr. Mi�ville has a social message to impart to us. A rather anti-capitalist, socialist message.
While there’s nothing wrong with that, per se, it does take away from the story in this case. The book seems less about exploring the world of Bas Lag than either Perdido Street Station or The Scar . It is not, by any means, his best effort.
However, it was a good book. I certainly enjoyed the previous two more, but I was not sorry that I bought Iron Council and read it.

If you’re already a fan, Iron Council will be worth it. But, if you’re new to China Mi�ville, it would be better to start with either Perdido Street Station or The Scar .

And, for that matter, gaming.

One of my favorite constructed worlds, or “conworld”, is Tékumel, which is an ongoing project of M.A.R. Barker. One of Professor Barker’s assertions is that religous belief is very important to a created world, but often overlooked or done poorly. In games, we find poorly understood real-world religons being “modernized” or otherwise adapted to the game world in a very surface-level way. Or, religions are simply motions that people go through with little thought or belief behind it. And, while such things often occur in our own world, more people actually believe in a religion of some kind than simply take it as a set of rituals to perform. In any case, it is usually quite a bit more complicated than the way most folks represent. Professor Barker wrote an article about it which you can find in the Blue Room Archives at Tékumel.com It’s worth reading if you’re thinking about integrating a “real” religion into your work.

Oh, my stars, yes, loads of fun!

I first saw the Ghyll Encyclopedia, then the blog post that inspired it. So, I came to understand this glory in a ’round about fashion. Still, it seems like loads of fun. I have no idea how many readers this sad blog draws, but I hope they all go to discover the joys of this game. In fact, I like it so much, I may just set up one of my own! Yes, it’s that inventive.

Oh, for Heaven’s sake, it’s Friday, go see!
(And, yes, I am, in fact, the alter ego of “Doctor” Phineas Crank.)

Freshly added to the conlang word generator.

Yep, that’s right, now you can generate words, and names, based on languge files torn from the pages of Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone series. I’ve very carefully entered in loads of words and proper names from the series by hand from several different sources. The beauty of it is, no one could tell if I’d made any spelling errors! These are some seriously crazy names.
Oh, that reminds me, they’re also available in the proper name generator, too. And, just because it strikes me as funny, I’ve also added Melnibonean combined with Latin to both of these. And, I have to admit, it really works fairly well! (Though, the straight Melnibonean occasionally coughs up a little too much data in the name generator. There must be a hidden character somewhere in the file that’s messing things up. Oh, well, no one’s perfect!)

So, go have fun with them!

For pity’s sake, READ THE POST!

Okay, now I’ve gotten a whole bunch of people asking me to help them write out Elvish words or phrases in one of Tolkien’s various Elvish scripts. I’m going to say this one more time for you all: I do not know how to write in any elvish script whatsoever! I only care about Tolkien’s languages for the fact that he made them himself and used them to create an amazing world about which he wrote wonderful stories. I do not know how to speak or write in any form of Sindarin, Quenya, Tengwar or any other of his langauges. What’s more, I have no desire to do so. I will not write them in a box. I will not speak them for a fox!

However, if you do want help, the fine purveyor of many things Elvish at Gildor’s Page seems fairly willing to help. You can see some of the work done already at this page: Tengwar in Reality. So, go ask them!

And, that’s all I’m going to mention on that subject again. (I hope!)

Everyone knows there’s only 36 plots.

Now you can learn them at Calihoo Writing Idea Generators! This mildly interactive page brings you through all 36(+1) plots, highlighting the characters, tensions and motivations involved in each one. So, if you’re like me and have problems with simple things, like plot, you may just find that this little gem of a site helps you get started on that story you’ve always wanted to write. Go check it out!

Well, I’m making a bit.

After a couple of exchanges on the Conlang List this week, I realized that I’m growing as a person, and a writer. As the reference to conlanging suggests, I’ve been thinking about created languages again. I was originall inspired by an article in the Dragon Magazine in the days of my youth. It was a very simplistic article aimed at a simple person, namely me and my kind. It was followed by another article which was much more linguistically challenging and completely over my head. That was almost 20 years ago. Just three years ago, that second article was still over my head.
But, then I started reading. I read the conlang list and several groups on Yahoo. I read LangMaker.com and The Metaverse. More importantly, I got several books on linguistics and read them, too. I reread that article which had flummoxed me so many years ago this weekend and the whole damn thing made sense. I’m finally ready to start conlanging again after 20 years.

Look out, Johnny, here I come!