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| Friday, May 25th, 2012 |
tinhuviel
|
5:18p |
God's Gardenias
From the now very hard to come by solo album by Barry Andrews. There's actually a Shriekback version of this song, but this acoustic version is the prettier of the two, in my opinion. I posted this to You Tube because it's a very pretty song. Don't judge it by the crap video. I just needed to put some sort of imagery to the song in order for You Tube to accept it. I hope whoever hears this and enjoys. And please pass it on, because good music should never be overshadowed by most of the hoo-ha out there. Current Mood:  peaceful |
jaylake
|
7:30a |
[conventions] World Steam Expo, Day Zero
Yesterday waa a fine day. I got up too early, to be driven to the airport by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=1) lillypond, a/k/a my sister. The flights to Detroit were uneventful, other than being about 40 minutes late getting into DTW. I was able to start digging in to revising the Going to Extremes outline on the plane, plus answering a ton of email. Also had several pleasant conversations with various fellow travelers. Arriving at World Steam Expo was an interesting experience. It's been years since I walked into a Con cold, not knowing anyone or anything. (I think I know maybe two or three people here.) So once I got settled, I hung out in the lobby and talked to various folks. Eventually I fell in with low persons (a/k/a The League of S.T.E.A.M.), who led me into bad ways (a/k/a Abney Park). Strong drink was consumed, and gutter language was used. A few regrettable incidents may have occurred. I went to bed highly entertained around 2 am, which is the latest I've stayed up in forever. Plus as a special bonus, I ran into @howardtayler, who in addition to being a brilliant cartoonist and storyteller, is also well on his way to becoming one of my favorite people anywhere, ever. My schedule today consists of a massage. Oh, how shall I cram it all in? See some, all or none of you around this joint. |
jaylake
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7:16a |
|
jaylake
|
7:15a |
[links] Link salad gets all steamed up
Brief reviews of several short stories, including my own "'Hello,' said the Gun"Writing Across Gender — A very interesting piece about gender, writers and fiction. Snurched from this blog post by beth_bernobich, who has some insightful comments on the topic. Calvin and Hobbes on creativity and inspiration — Heh. Cars That Fired Our Love-Hate Relationship With FuelVintage ice cream trucksAfrica and Australasia to share Square Kilometre Array — That's a mighty big kilometer. Where did dogs come from? It turns out we don't really knowCarbon in rocks from Mars comes from volcanoes, not life — Nearby minerals confirm a high-temperature origin deep within the planet.Accusations that climate science is money-driven reveal ignorance of how science is done — The government, the argument goes, is paying scientists specifically to demonstrate that carbon dioxide is the major culprit in recent climate change, and the money available to do so is exploding. Although the argument displays a profound misunderstanding of how science and science funding work, it's just not going away. Huh. Ignorance. Among science denialists. Inconceivable. Black Voters Evolving On Marriage Equality — Ta-Nehisi Coates on the intersection of race and gay issues. I'd really like to have lunch with this guy some day. CNN host probes Tony Perkins: ‘Why do homosexuals bother you so much?’ — Read this. The intellectual and moral bankruptcy of Perkins' illogical response neatly reflects the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the conservative anti-gay crusade as a whole. (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.) The Proposed Auction of Ronald Reagan's Blood Isn't Surprising — And lo, Republican hagiography becomes literalized. (Via threeoutside.) ?otd: Are you a little teapot, short and stout?
5/25/2012 Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours ( Going to Extremes proposal) Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride Hours slept: 6.75 (solid) Weight: n/a Currently reading: Shattering the Ley by Benjamin Tate; Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht |
flameelf
|
7:35a |
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| Thursday, May 24th, 2012 |
jaylake
|
5:08a |
[personal] Miscellaneous this and thattery
I am off to Detroit this morning for World Steam Expo. My thanks to the good folks there for the invitation and the support. I did learn something while packing: Don't leave your top hat until last, after you've filled the suitcase. I hope this will be a relaxing weekend, but, heck, I don't know. I do know it will be a fun weekend. A bunch of Dad time yesterday, including homework as well as watching the first episode of Sherlock [ imdb ] with the_child and her mother. Then N— brought over a lovely strawberry-rhubarb pie for us all to share. Mmm. Life stuff going on otherwise which I need to process. Also, I had a recent severe bout of Impostor Syndrome, which is unusual for me. Still trying to frame that in my head, and whether it's worth discussing in detail here on the blog. More than one close friend was surprised that I have episodes of that very common writerly affliction. I've drafted a blog post about male sexuality and chemotherapy that I'm wrestling with how to put online. Of necessity it's very explicit, not to mention somewhat personally revealing. I don't have any particular discomfort in talking about that sort of thing publicly, but the editorial voice of this blog is usually PG-13 at most, plus or minus a few choice expletives. Even putting it under a cut won't keep me from being indexed by Google, for example, and I don't really want to show up in searches on certain sexual terms. I am torn between what I see as a critically important need to talk about rarely-discussed aspects of the cancer experience, and not wanting to alienate my audience by what will doubtless be seen by some as an over-the-top sexually explicitly discussion. So, thinking and editing. If I take too much out, it won't be as useful or impactful. If I leave too much in, it will violate the voice of this blog. Hmm. Meanwhile, I fly. |
jaylake
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4:59a |
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jaylake
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4:59a |
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jaylake
|
4:52a |
[links] Link salad flies back to Detroit
Naked Cavorts the Emperor — Scrivener's Error on the political and legal realities of author's organizations. Dragon to rendezvous with the space station — Another candidate for headline of the week. Top Ten Things I Would Do if I Were Jesus — Hahahah. From that vile apostate kenscholes. Charles L. Worley seems to be training others to be just a awful as he is — Slacktivist Fred Clark on that North Carolina Christianist rant against the gay community. Did the Catholic organizations have to sue over the health care mandate? — Objectively, no. This is religious meddling in politics. I've always believed that freedom of religion rests on freedom from religion. Millions of Americans obviously think otherwise. American Airlines Rejects Female Passenger Because Political Pro-Choice T-Shirt is "Inappropriate" — Or possibly because of the presence of the word "Fuck" on the shirt. Still, come on. (Snurched from Meg Turville-Heitz.) White Resentment, Obama, and Appalachia — Ta-Nehisi Coates on race and politics. Lunatics, Imbeciles and Saboteurs — Bruce Arthurs on the Arizona birthed idiocy. Of course, modifying the noun "birthed" with "idiocy" is wholly redundant. WaPo with more on this: In Arizona, more birther buffoonery. An Obama Spending Spree? Hardly — A dominant theme of the national political discourse has been the crushing spending spree the U.S. has ostensibly embarked on during the Obama presidency. That argument, ignited by Republicans and picked up by many elite opinion makers, has infused the national dialogue and shaped the public debate in nearly every major budget battle of the last thee years. But the numbers tell a different story. Your Liberal Media, of course, enables and abets the counterfactual conservative position on this question. Why Mitt Romney won't get specific — Simple answer: Because nobody likes conservative policies when applied to them personally. Not even conservatives. Ie, "Cut spending on all those lazy, entitled people over there, but not my essential social service." If he gets specific, he loses votes all over the political spectrum. ?otd: Steampunk much?
5/24/2012 Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (travel logistics, dad time) Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come) Hours slept: 5.25 (solid) Weight: 239.6 Currently reading: Lightbreaker by Mark Teppo |
| Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 |
jaylake
|
5:44a |
[process] Reality, realism and synchronicity
Sometime this past week (it's all something of a blur now), I was having a conversation about realism in fiction. I think this was with @madge707. We weren't talking about realism as a literary movement, but rather the more plain meaning of the word. Specifically, the balance between enough detail and too much detail. As they say, you can't fool all of the people all of the time. It's simply not possible. Someone with special knowledge is going to be a much more critical reader of fiction in their knowledge domain. The amount and precision of medical information I would have to put into a short story about doctors in order to satisfy a medically-trained reader is far greater and more demanding than what I would have to put in to satisfy a general reader. On the other hand, there are a lot of doctors and nurses and med techs and so forth out there, so this is probably worth getting right. Another example of this is a short story I read some years ago, possibly in a Writers of the Future volume. In it, the protagonist is time traveling, and flips through a series of historical vignettes. At one point, the arrive atop a yurt in Genghis Khan's horde, and climb down the central tent pole to take some action. This threw me out of the story, first of all because "yurt" is a Russian word, and to Mongolians, it's a "ger". Second of all, gers don't have a central tent pole. They have a pair of offset poles supporting a central ring. Why do I know this? Because I've spent time in Outer Mongolia, including visiting and sleeping in actual Mongolian gers. However, this is a knowledge domain that I share with about seven of the people who ever read that story. One of the challenges of being a writer is knowing where to set that dial. When does reality trump realism? Sometimes the actual details really are less believable than the fictional details. The example that had generated the conversation was that @madge707 was working on a story about a San Francisco police detective. In the SFPD, detectives are titled as "inspectors". Someone in her critique group at the conference was confused by this, not realizing this bit of San Francisco detail. So the question was, did she go for the reality, which was confusing, or the realism, which was erroneous. (Obviously, there are fairly simple ways to resolve this, it's just an example.) I provided a similar example from living in Portland. While Portland has a police department, just like virtually every other city or town in the United States, the Portland police department is formally known as the Portland Police Bureau. (The fire department is the Portland Fire Bureau, etc.) I'm not even sure most people in Portland realize this. It's not prominently painted on the police cars or anything. Almost certainly no one outside Portland knows this unless they have special Portland knowledge. So, as I said to @madge707, if writing about crime in Portland, would it be confusing to refer to the Police Bureau, or the PPB? Because that would look odd to most American readers, who expect the term "Police Department". A couple of days later, I'm reading Mark Teppo's excellent and gripping novel Lightbreaker [ Powells | BN ] (which I have since left on an airplane, forty pages from the end, grrr) and what do I find but a reference to the Portland Police Department, being used by a character who is a cop from the Seattle Police Department. The reference is in initial caps, i.e., the proper name, which is of course, not correct. Something the character in question would absolutely know better than to do, insofar as real life goes. I cracked up hard. Ah, the magic of synchronicity. |
jaylake
|
5:23a |
[food|cheese] The cheese spread at Paradise Lost II
On Saturday at Paradise Lost II in San Antonio this past weekend, we took up a collection to fund a cheese spread. @dratz, @itsaJuliasaurus, @gwenthing and I then hied ourselves over to pillage Central Market on Broadway. We did pretty well by it. Unfortunately, due to the impending hunger of the crowd upon our return, I did not have time to photograph the spread in detail as is my wont. I did, however, keep the receipt. Forthwith, here is the photo and an accounting of the fruits of land and cattle therein.  From the top, clockwise: Mortadella with pistachios It's my understanding that true mortadella is illegal to import into the U.S. The bologna from hell, basically. I like it grilled.Sopressata citerio The closest thing to a basic salami in this spread. A flavorful cured meat that isn't particularly challenging to most carnivorous palates.Proscuitto di Parma (30 months) One of my perennial favorites, though not everyone enjoys the slight muskiness of this Italian ham.Hot capicolla As @psursi said, this is salami for grown-ups. Assuming that by "grown ups" you mean people who like their lips to tingle when they eat meat.Jamon Iberico A very rich, smooth Spanish ham with some similarities to proscuitto.Affidelice au chablis A blended triple creme with a chablis-soaked rind. Quite tasty and rich as expected.Chimay Not the grand cru cheese, but their regular cheese. A good inclusion for the less adventurous cheese eater, as it is creamy and smooth and doesn't get into fistfights with one's tastebuds.Delice de Bourgogne Another triple creme. If you're not familiar with that kind of cheese, think of this as what Philly Cream Cheese gets to be if it eats its Wheaties and says its prayers and goes to cheese heaven when it dies.Eiffel Tower cremeux triple creme A third triple creme, because how much rich smoothness is too much?Mimolette (12 months) A hard, aged cheese that is rather bright orange, with a sprightly tang.Manchego (4 months) Young manchego runs a bit bitter and zingy, but without the oily, crumbly texture of aged manchego. Sottocenere al tartuffo My personal favorite cheese, a mellow Italian with truffle oil in the milk and truffle inclusions whose flavor has a complex finish much in the fashion of a good wine.Valdeon bleu A mixed milk Spanish blue that kicks ass, takes name and starts fights in your mouth. Not for the faint of heart, but awesome if you're a blue cheese fan.Epoisses A cheese whose rind is an offense against nature, but once you get past the stinky feet smell, tastes like butter on steroids.Barkids moon A new cheese we tried on a flier. Didn't impress me, seemed serviceable enough in a middle of the road way. Flavorful.Cantal (6 months) Somewhat parmigiana-like French cheese that was also new to me.Plus duck rilettes, avocados, artichoke hearts, garlic stuffed olives, salad and bread. And wine. And beer. And more wine.
Photo © 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.  This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. |
oldcharliebrown
|
8:19a |
World Fantasy Award Nominations: Need Suggestions!
Lifetime Achievement
Susan Cooper
Samuel Delany
Tanith Lee
Hayao Miyazaki
Joyce Carol Oates
Novel
Mechanique, Genevieve Valentine (Prime Books)
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday)
The Tiger's Wife: A Novel, by Téa Obreht (Random House)
Mr. Fox, Helen Oyeyemi (Riverhead)
Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor (Viking) Novella
Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA Press / Clarkesworld Magazine)
“The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s 10-11/11)
“The Summer People” by Kelly Link (Tin House: The Ecstatic/Steampunk!)
“The Adakian Eagle” by Bradley Denton (Down These Strange Streets)
“Near Zennor” by Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors) Short Story
“The Sandal-Bride” by Genevieve Valentine (Fantasy 3/11)
“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld 4/11)
“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (F&SF 3-4/11)
“Trickster” by Mari Ness (Clarkesworld 6/11)
“Of Men and Wolves” by An Owomoyela (Fantasy 2/11) Anthology
Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant, eds. (Candlewick)
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, Ann VanderMeer & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (HarperVoyager)
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, Ann VanderMeer & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Corvus)
Blood and Other Cravings, Ellen Datlow (Tor Books)
Steam-Powered I: Lesbian Steampunk Stories & Steam-Powered II: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories, Joselle Vanderhooft (Torquere Press)
Collection
The Monkey’s Wedding and Other Stories, Joan Aiken (Small Beer Press)
After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer Press)
Yellowcake, Margo Lanagan (Unwin)
The Corn Maiden, Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)
Unpossible and Other Stories, Daryl Gregory (Fairwood)
Artist
n/a (I simply don't know enough to evaluate this category) Professional
SJ Chambers and Jeff VanderMeer, for The Steampunk Bible
Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi, for ChiZine
Devi Pillai, for Orbit Books
Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, for Small Beer Press
Jacob Weisman, for Tachyon Publications Nonprofessional
Kate Baker, Neil Clarke, and Sean Wallace, for Clarkesworld Magazine
Cat Rambo, for editing and managing Fantasy Magazine
Charles Tan, for Bibliophile Stalker
Lavie Tidhar, for The World SF blog
Ann VanderMeer, for editing Weird Tales |
jaylake
|
5:18a |
|
jaylake
|
5:17a |
[links] Link salad is identical cousins with Linkee-poo
Just What the (Bleep) Do I Think I’m Doing? – Redux — Richard Parks Is Wise on process. The Oatmeal responds to a Forbes article criticizing the recent Tesla comic — This is freaking hilarious. A really striking Absolut ad masquerading as a short film — This is a lot of fun. (Via willyumtx.) Italy earthquake hits parmesan production — Cheese producers near quake's epicentre fear for 300,000 parmesan wheels that crashed to the ground in warehouses. Epic cheese disaster! (Thanks to Scrivener's Error.) Gotthard Girl's Pioneering Intestine — Headline of the week. Do you even care what the story is about? (A historical map of European railroads, btw.) Can a Surfboard-Sized Watercraft Cross the Pacific on Wave Power Alone?News flash: Congresscritters using slightly shorter words and sentences — Language Log deconstructs a current, somewhat idiotic political meme. Career Prospects in the Pain Business — Interesting bit of political media theater. (Thanks to danjite.) North Carolina Pastor: Pen In ‘All The Lesbians And Queers’ With An Electrified Fence, Wait For Them To ‘Die Out’ — Man, I can really feel the enlightening warmth of that Christian love for their fellow man from all the way over here on the West Coast. NBC, Fox, CBS etc. Protest transparency requirement on Political Advertising — Yeah. Because why would any citizen ever want or need to know that stuff? I should think no matter what your politics, this seems like an issue. It’s Official: Watching Fox Makes You Stupider — According to a new study by Farleigh Dickinson University, Fox viewers are the least knowledgeable audience of any outlet, and they know even less about politics and current events than people who watch no news at all. But isn't that the whole point of Fox News, to foster a cohort of angry, low information Republican voters? The Conservative Fantasy History of Civil Rights — Once you endorse counterfactual beliefs in any area (i.e., evolution denial), you enable them in every area. In historical terms, this may be the besetting sin of the conservative movement as it has developed in my lifetime. I can remember when conservatives were realists, but those days are long gone. (Thanks to shsilver.) Bennett Backs Off Birther Threat, Apologizes To Arizona — I wonder what this is about? I mean, it's not like Republicans have ever had any shame regarding even their most blatant distortions of truth. And btw, this guy was the Romney campaign chair for Arizona. Did you know that? Any guesses on how Your Liberal Media would have reacted to an Obama campaign chair threatening to keep Romney off a state ballot? ?otd: Patty Duke or Jerry Mathers?
5/23/2012 Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (WRPA) Body movement: 55 minute suburban walk Hours slept: 6.25 (solid) Weight: n/a (forgot) Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo (except I've lost the darned book) |
oldcharliebrown
|
7:41a |
World Fantasy Award Nominations: Susan Cooper, for Lifetime Achievement
Susan Cooper is obviously well known for The Dark Is Rising sequence,
but she's also on the Board of the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance,
a U.S. nonprofit organization that advocates for literacy, literature, and libraries.
It seems an oversight that she hasn't been given a Lifetime Achievement already.
|
| Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012 |
steamfashion
[ ekoh ]
|
9:20p |
Hello! This is a great community here! I hope it is okay to advertise for my eBay account, where I sell high quality authentic steel boned corsets and some lovely skirts!  My eBay Store | dressupeveryday |
tinhuviel
|
10:23p |
The Fuck that Echoed Round the World
So, this conversation, or a pretty close approximation, was had earlier today after I showed Diane my 10 Epic Seconds of Liam Neeson I'd been saving for her. She cackled. "See?" I said. "This should prove that I really do love Liam Neeson. I just like to see him get his giant arse kicked by men smaller than him." "What? Darth Maul ain't small." "He's about a head shorter than Liam Neeson, with the horns and the hood." "What? No way." "Way." "Show me." I pull up my Kicking Giant Arse music weedio. She watches. "Damn! You're right! Well, what does he really look like?" "You've never seen Ray Park?" I asked, disbelieving what I thought I was hearing. I was hearing right. "No!" "Ohhhh, let me show you him!" And I played for her the Wushu Goodness video that I keep on tap, thanks to some kind soul who compiled all the footage. But it never really shows his face. So, I told her I'd show her my favourite pic of him sans the Maul make-up. I show her. "Okay," she said. "Stop joking around. I know you're on about Tim Roth, but I want to see Ray." "That is Ray." "You just let me borrow Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Tracy. That's Tim Roth." "No," I said. "What are you on about?" And I pull up a R&GRD picture. And put it beside my Ray picture. And... Well. ( just look ) Current Mood:  WTF? |
tinhuviel
|
8:54p |
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oldcharliebrown
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2:09p |
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tinhuviel
|
11:28a |
Brain Tapeworms...
The horror that is our existence has increased a hundrefold. Theodore Nash sees only a few dozen patients a year in his clinic at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. That’s pretty small as medical practices go, but what his patients lack in number they make up for in the intensity of their symptoms. Some fall into comas. Some are paralyzed down one side of their body. Others can’t walk a straight line. Still others come to Nash partially blind, or with so much fluid in their brain that they need shunts implanted to relieve the pressure. Some lose the ability to speak; many fall into violent seizures. More here if you're stupid enough to click, like I did. Even if you weren't hoping for the Alpaca Lips before, I bet you are now. I'd rather be blown into extinction than to find out I had brainworms. Current Mood:  indescribable |
oldcharliebrown
|
8:37a |
Support: Nightmare Magazine
 Nightmare Magazine is a monthly magazine of horror and dark fantasy short fiction which will be published both online and in ebook format. This Kickstarter is intended to help fund the first issue and to get the magazine off the ground. |
jaylake
|
3:25a |
[process] My copy editor comments in response
Kalimpura's copy editor and I have had a very nice email exchange arising in response to my recent post about copy edits and manuals of style. [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] With their kind permission, I am reprinting excerpts from that email exchange here, as I found it pretty interesting. On eccentric spelling issues: I thought I'd share a little bit about how British/Canadian spellings can come across to a copy editor.
Basically, the first time I see words like "storey" and "colour," I'm on alert wondering if the author just went English for a second or what else might be going on. It gets harder again, when later "flavor" and "harbor" might go by as is. (And I'm not even sure why, or if the author has a strong reason why "colour" and "neighbor" might inhabit the same sentence.) Textually, it can read like the narrative has mysteriously decided to affect a brief accent that is just as quickly dropped again. At this point, I am noting what the prevailing style is and if there perhaps might be some narrative logic to a quick switch in voice/dialect/geography—yet only for certain words.
I don't greatly prefer American over British spelling, and have had no problem when enough of the latter crops up, then going back and reconciling grey, kerb, spiralling, harbour, draught, neighbour, til, and so forth--all in. Before the tipover point, I'm writing down hundreds of words and instances in my notes, work that's often needless when it turns out the author just quickly tried out a dialect and backed off from it. Those hours never feel wasted, just part of the job.
I am thinking that where many, many readers (and editors) see/hear an inconsistent regionalism in what an author spells, the author might just be trying to encode a quick flavor of nostalgia, sprinkled where they most prefer it with a spelling device. That's the point at which the author's stet is so stylistically priceless. In my case, when I do this, I am trying to convey a flavor with certain spellings. So, "storey", "despatch" and "draught", for example. It looks right for what I'm wanting to do in the book. I'm not deliberately being Anglophilic or otherwise, just working within a certain context that feels right to me. They go on to say: I'm glad you're keen on preserving your intentions when they might be invisible to someone farther along in the process. With 900 books behind me, I've witnessed that most often textual quirk is not the result of care or deliberation, but accident and inattention, and now and then forgotten indecision. You do your best as a CE to come across as an aide-de-camp rather than an adversary, giving the author more YES/NO choices than they might first have had in mind. Maybe 1 percent of authors are as good about process and design as you are (no lie), which makes the mighty stet such a blessing for everyone involved in the making of the best book possible. I appreciated the kind words, but that's also an important point. The copy editor has to distinguish between auctorial intention and textual errors, generally with very little context to work from. In my response to them, I mentioned that I had developed a stylesheet for the Sunspin books, to address certain items of usage and so forth. My copy editor replied: A style sheet specific to each title could be helpful for you and for the other hands and eyes involved in the next books, sure.
Noting points of usage and style is valuable, as is delineating the reason and pattern behind, say, the narrative "speaking" in "storey" and "draught" but not "dialled" and "programme," for example. Sharing your overarching scheme helps immensely and aids the CE with the gist of your spelling gimmicks and similar storytelling choices.
On the other hand, if it's just as much of a time sink to create a comprehensive style sheet as it is to click "reject change" later on, then I'd say put the time in at whatever point in the process you can best spare it: front or back. I'm increasingly coming to believe that an author-generated stylesheet can be critical. Of course, I only know what a stylesheet is from experience with prior copy edits. I don't believe I'm free to share those here, as they are Tor's work product, but at the bottom of this post, I'll append part of my Sunspin style sheet as an example, since at this point that's still my own work product. A bit later, I received a third email from my copy editor, adding another interesting comment. [S]omething else that might be valuable if you're continuing to write in genres that use sometimes exalted, formal, studious, or ceremonial speech between characters is to let the CE know that despite the tone, you're purposely leaving out the "whom" or similar constructions in either the dialogue or running text. A careful CE is generally trying to extrapolate and fill in from a mosaic of other hints--if you have an issue that contrasts rather than coheres, that's the sort of thing to flag. I want to thank my copy editor for their frankness, and their willingness to be quoted herein. And also for the terrific copy edit.
Sunspin stylesheet notes follow. In addition to these explications of usage, I have lists of people and place names, as well as a list of starship names. I still need to create a list of nonstandard words in deliberate use. Titles or ranks are capitalized when they are part of names or used in direct address in lieu of a name. They are uncapitalized when being referenced without the name or otherwise in indirect use. These include father, father superior, sergeant, lieutenant, lieutenant-commander, commander, captain, admiral, baron, count, earl, duke, prince and princess. The only exceptions are Before, Library, Interlocutrix, Patriarch and Imperator, which are always capitalized, even in their adjectival forms. ("Before" does not have an adjectival form.)
The prefix "go" when applied to an officer's rank (i.e., Go-Captain Alvarez) is specific to the Navisparliamentary service, and is reserved for those officers trained and certified for starship command. Note that some starship captains do not have a "go" prefix. These are either captains from outside the Navisparliamentary service (i.e., Captain Kinman), or more rarely, Navisparliamentary officers in a command role without the formal certification. The "go" prefix may be omitted in casual address, much as lieutenant colonels are often referred to simply as "colonel".
The suffix "praetor" when applied to an officer's rank (i.e., Lieutenant-Praetor Shinka) is specific to the Imperatorial Guards (also sometimes referred to as the Household Guards -- the two terms are interchangeable). "Praetor" is reserved for those officers permitted to carry weapons in the Imperator's presence, or to command troops carrying weapons in the Imperator's presence. The "praetor" prefix may be omitted in casual address, much as lieutenant colonels are often referred to simply as "colonel".
Starships are always formally referred to with their pair count, so "Third Rectification {58 pairs}" in narrative or written references, but "Third Rectification, fifty-eight pairs" in dialog. This formal reference should be used the first time a starship's name is introduced in narrative or dialog, but can be omitted in immediately subsequent uses. If the starship is not referred to for a while, the reintroduction of the name should again be with the formal reference on initial occurrence.
Note that both Third Rectification and Joyous Strength have varying pair counts within the manuscript of Calamity of So Long a Life. This is because of the new pair master built at NSN.411-e. AA. Characters unaware of the return of the two starships will refer to them by their previous pair counts, Third Rectification {58 pairs} and Joyous Strength {21 pairs}. Characters who have become aware of their returns will refer to them as Third Rectification {59 pairs} and Joyous Strength {22 pairs}. This creates an apparent inconsistency in the text, as for much of the book, not everyone is aware of their return, so both references are being used. However, any given character will be consistent according to their knowledge of the situation.
Polite address for persons without title or rank is "Ser" or "Sera". This corresponds to "Sir" or "Ma'am", and also to "Mr." or "Mrs./Ms./Miss". However, in a very few cases the older, archaic forms of address are used, exclusively by Befores, and usually under stress or in a moment of thoughtlessness. Likewise, a common expletive is “hells”, except for the Befores who will often use the older, singular form. (I.e., “what the hells?” vs “what the hell?”)
This culture does not make a strong distinction between the name of a star and the name of the primary inhabited planet in any given solar system. Hence "Salton" for both the star and the planet. Often the star will have a different name or survey number for technical or scientific use, but in Calamity of So Long a Life this rarely occurs explicitly in the text.
In starship operations, generally speaking a "cruise" is a voyage between destinations which or may not include multiple distinct transits between pair masters. A "transit" is more specifically the process of traveling between any two pair masters. This language is not used with precision, and so there may be occasional inconsistencies depending on the speaker, dialect or stylistic concerns of the text. |
jaylake
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3:21a |
[personal] Miscellaneous miscellany
Yesterday was a long, good day. Day Jobbery went well, even better than normal. We had a terrific Open Dinner here in Austin, with @dratz, @itsaJuliasaurus (a/k/a Mrs. @dratz), stillsostrange, @StevenBrust, Skyler White, D—, old Austin Slug Tribe friends Jn4 and CH, jess_ka, E—, sophielandon and Mr. sophielandon. I got to talk with everyone but E—, to whom I regretfully didn't even manage to say good-bye. Afterwards, we rolled back to chez @dratz where I wound up interviewing @StevenBrust and Skyler White on camera.  This was a cold interview, from my perspective, in that I hadn't known I'd be conducting it until about a minute before the interview started, and I'd done none of my usual interview preparation. Nonetheless, Steve and Skyler were gracious and cooperative interview subjects. Oddly, I went to bed feeling a bad attack of imposter syndrome post-interview. That's mostly a measure of how tired I was, given my usual bullet-resistant writerly ego. Now I'm heading back to Portland, rather underslept and feeling more than a bit behind on my writing. The latter is not in fact true, this is just my psychotically persistent writerself talking, so I'll be fine. After lunch with mlerules, I'll be working Day Jobbery this afternoon, then photographing the_child's lacrosse team, and spending the evening with her. More Day Jobbery tomorrow and (hopefully) lunch with kenscholes. Then off to Detroit on Thursday. I do owe a couple of blog posts, time and mental focus permitting. Among other things, I want to document last Saturday's cheesefest at Paradise Lost II. Also of note, a dream from a couple of nights ago. I was watching television (in my dream). It was a nature documentary about a family of manta rays that had adopted a kitten. That was all very sweet and adorbz until at one point in the documentary, the manta rays turned on their kitten. As they began slashing at the animal, taking bites out of it, I felt the stinging, tearing pain of each bite in my body. I got wrapped up in wondering how the documentary crew had managed to capture then broadcast the pain to me, the viewer. Interpretation of the meaning of this dream is left as an exercise for the reader. At any rate, I'm off. Be well.
Photo © 2012 Donnie Reynolds and Waterloo Productions. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission. |
jaylake
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3:18a |
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jaylake
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3:17a |
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