Binti by Nnedi Okorafor and Language creation with David Peterson

My head is stuffed. 

Finished Binti by Nnedi Okorafor,  and am halfway through The Art of Language Invention by David J. Peterson.

The novel--novella? it felt short -- was a trip, literally, across a curious universe with a fascinating but relatable character, Binti. She's a teenager who can "tree" fractal equations in her head, a common enough skill that she and her friends compete playfully, but Binti is also a harmonizer. I loved the peoples of her universe, even the few we only see for a sentence or two in a crowded academic scene from across a room. I would love to see more of this world. 

Binti is more of a straightforward plot story that other recent reads, so those who dislike parsing complicated layers of worlds and reams of description might prefer this to, say, Jemisin's novel. This reads more like a young adult book, albeit a powerful one.

Despite the lighter touch, Okorafor manages to create the sense of a vast, many-peopled universe. She both directly addresses and evokes that sense of "being the only one of my kind" in a new unfamiliar place (Binti's people do not travel or leave their planet, as she has chosen to do, but she keeps to her traditional ways, which aids her), as well as the terror and rage that come from being judged and ruled by those who deem you inferior. Binti's solution is a powerful one.

Okorafor also does a good job creating that sense of desperately wanting to stretch and learn and be more, and the wall one hits when you've been stretched too far and there is no relief in sight. The novel left me feeling a little sad but good, and wondering if there would be a sequel. 

Shifting gears...

Today I'm working with my own aliens and my own universe, back to revising the space opera. I turned to Peterson for advice on how to make my dialogue feel more alien, a trick when my primary characters are in fact aliens. I plan to write their dialogue in English with the occasional alien word, but in order to do that I need to think a a bit about their language, how they'd sound to humans, what sounds they could and couldn't make and how that would affect their language. 

In other words, I'm geeking out in my own little universe and it's kinda fun, but there's a whole language to discussing language (who knew? Linguistics geeks feel free to laugh now) and my head is stuffed with new words like velar and phonotactics and register tone and anapest (never was a poet). 

It feels like a dozen different areas of study and all the jargon associated with them are crammed in this little tome, and my head hurts, in a good way, but it's still overwhelming. Pronunciation guide should help me with my French studies, however, an overlap aid I wasn't expecting. I'll take it.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

 Sept. 19, 2015

A set of sliding puzzles, a fascinating species or two, a braid of a storyline. The Fifth Season has all of that, and stakes that made my heart race -- an unfair world, children forced to adulthood too soon, murderous fear and a hideous form of servitude. Characters I cared deeply about, and a rich fully developed culture, full of history (if not much potential future). 

Two-thirds of the way through, I set it down. I needed to know what happens, but the characters had been given a respite of sorts.  I knew it wasn't over, couldn't be over, and had some idea of what might be coming. I didn't want to go there yet. 

After a rough morning, I decided the book's ending might at least give me an "at least I ain't them" moment (to say the least) so I finished it. Had to go back and re-read the climactic scene, even though I knew what would happen, what had to happen, and why ... and yet she surprised me even there, but pulled no punches.

I love complicated stories, ones that respect the reader, and this book left me satisfied. Ms. Jemisin wove three story lines together without explanation -- I figured the first out last, but never would have guessed who the narrator was. 

And evil eating Earth, as her characters say, the story's not done yet. 

(Wrote this and the previous post some time ago and just realized I hadn't published either). 

Worldcon memories

Late August, 2015

Are you ready for a mostly canine-free discussion of Worldcon? I am.

Sasquan was my first Worldcon. I had expected it to be more like Norwescon or Orycon; more costumes, more panels on costuming and art and vastly more merchants. I was naively surprised by how much the focus was on writing, although that "focus" might be more a result of the panels I chose to attend. It was quite cool and massive; I missed nine-tenths of the possible events but there is only one of me, and a introverted one at that.

Wednesday night I started with Ruby: the Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe, which turned out to be merely a playing of the radio show (I didn't look closely enough at the description and had hoped to meet one or two of the voice actors.) But it was shows I had not heard, so that made up for it. RUBY!

Thursday morning I did the Stroll with the Stars thing which was about 100 attendees clomping along with various notables from the convention mixed in among us. Walked behind David Gerrold being interviewed for a bit. Very gracious man. It was a nice morning in Spokane, the last we'd have before the smoke came in hard, and a good walk. The bridge we were to take on the way back (Spokane has a fantastic trail system along the river) was closed with ambulance, police and rescue personnel focused on something below them. A few rescue folk had rappelled down onto a rock formation above a small set of rapids and were focused on something (or someone) above them I couldn't see. Eventually a few rescue personnel put inflatable kayaks in the water below the rapids. The stories I heard: guy was trying to retrieve a bike and fell; guy had put a rope around his neck and was threatening to jump; guy had fallen and they couldn't get to him. So, I can say that I'm pretty sure there was a guy on the rocks below the bridge. Other than that, notsomuch. Felt sorry for all involved but I was amused by the inadvertent game of telephone/gossip running up and down the group, and how I obliged I felt to play.

First presentation I attended was one on Australian astrology, which was disappointing in that it was taught by a guy who'd visited--hadn't lived there, wasn't Australian, kept referring to the aborigines as "them," gave a few factoids that I seriously doubt, and shut down his delayed slide show the instant the tech got it started. However, he did teach me a number of things I did not know, so it was not a loss. 

Writing Diverse Characters had an excellent panel of presenters. That one was harder to sum up but basically came down to: be real with your worlds: write more than just white people, recognize you're going to screw up writing POVs you're not familiar with but try anyway, be willing to learn and be open to advice, and treat people with respect. 

The presentation by Book View Cafe, a cooperative, was fascinating to me because of a venture some colleagues are considering; would a cooperative work better than an LLC? They specifically did not want an LLC, they wanted something where everyone, not just an officer or two, was responsible for the work and profit of the group. And it seems to be working for them; they have about 50 members and do their own website, ebooks, covers and marketing and presumably handle the accounting and related business details.  They do contract with Audible for audio books. They clearly aren't all agreed on every decision and there are areas of expertise they still feel they need, but they've found a workable process with trial and error. I'm not sure I could handle the necessary processing involved; you have a book for launch, you ask for a team to help you: a cover person, a formatting/ebook person, etc. Author gets 95 percent of the profit (or proceeds, my notes aren't clear) and the co-op gets five to pay for the website and other costs.

That evening we went to the Girl Genius Ball, which was fun. I've forgotten how to waltz. 

Friday started well. I went to Afrofuturism in Comics and Science Fiction. Was mostly about superheros of color and the comic books that feature them, with a smattering of black culture. I was a horrified at how few I'd even heard about, let alone recognized. 

Also attended Build an Empire on the Fly. It was fun watching the panelists construct a world, but it was so heavily based on old earth cultures and assumptions that it quickly bored me. I left to attend another panel, thinking they'd left out the essential bit, which was the "So what? Why should I care?" factor. I want my fantasy fiction (the world they were building was not going to be Sci Fi) to be *interesting,* something more than basic Civilization 101. Hardly fair to ask of a group-created world in 60 minutes, I suppose.

I tried to go to a silk-dying workshop but someone moved it across the conference to a black-box-curtained area near the art show. And then didn't put up any signs. Couldn't find it, thought the screened-off area was convention business because it was behind the registration  area. Shrugged, went to the art show -- half an hour later, I realize there is a class going on there. *headdesk* HERALDRY, PEOPLE. Signage is a Good Idea.

Chinese Myths and Traditions was a letdown because the moderator didn't moderate, and one of them had a presentation that had technical issues and delayed the entire panel. The thesis of one of the panelists, who dominated the discussion, was that China is an evolving culture just like all cultures and to focus on old traditions was to try to force the culture to stand still. I get the idea, but people can still be interested in Chinese folklore and grok that China is an evolving modern nation, and the panel was on CHINESE MYTHS AND TRADITIONS.  Two of the panelists barely got to speak beyond their introductions, and another was so obviously awed by being on the panel with the oxygen-taker (whose written work I admire and therefore am not naming) that she kept returning the conversation to that panelist. It was annoying.

Then we watched the masquerade on a big screen in Guinan's, where we could have beer and cider, and life got considerably rosier.

Saturday I went to "The Alien Among Us, The Fiction of CJ Cherryh," which had Ann Leckie saying her work was far more influenced by Cherryh than Ian Banks, who everyone compares it to, and Jo Walton said Banks had told her over drinks that HE was heavily influenced by Cherryh, so it would be more proper to say both Banks and Leckie had been influenced by Cherryh. That seemed to make people happy. Cherryh's treatment of the alien perspective struck many on the panel as one of the influential aspects of her work.

Alien Linguistics was an interesting panel that told me I know next to nothing about linguistics and that if I wanted, I could *hire* someone to come up with a language for my worlds. Which is sooo tempting.

The rest of Saturday afternoon was eaten up by trying to pay for the art I'd bid on at the art show, and then the art auction, because one of the pieces I'd bid on went to auction. The auction was fun and raised money for a literacy program in Spokane, so that was cool.

Then there was the Hugo Awards, which was handled deftly but also made better by alcohol.

Sunday I went to What New Pros Need to Know, which was about the new set of problems you get after your first serious sales. First bit of advice: after that first sale, you feel great....for about 10 minutes. You need to generate supportive friends but more importantly ways to feel your own confidence, because that's what will carry you through the bad reviews and the bad times. Speaking of which, it doesn't matter if someone is saying something factually incorrect or even lying about you; do not interact with reviewers. Don't worry about your reputation in the writing community being hurt by such reviewers; nobody else is reading your reviews.  Everyone tells you not to read them and they know you will anyway; the good news is that your obsession with them will fade. One woman has no problem with poor reviews because she can imagine worse ones in her head.  Someone else views them as eavesdropping because in her world it would be rude to bring attention to the fact that she's been listening in. Also, do not fall into the trap of believing that reviews/ratings and sales are connected -- someone said your 3-4 star reviews are better for you than fives because they are NEW PEOPLE reading your work. That means your readership is growing, and that's good for sales. Protect your creative bubble; find a routine that works for you. "Day jobs get a bad rap," said one panelist, but hers gets her out of the house, forces her to interact with humans and allows her a piece of her life where effort leads to reward, a relationship in writing that is neither short nor straight.  Practice reading aloud (Mary Robinett Kowal's videos on the subject were recommended). 

and finally, 

Colleagues as Family, which was a lovely way to end... Vonda Macintyre, GRR Martin, Connie Willis and David Gerrold talking about the long-view of controversy, conflict and colleagues in the writing community. David pointed out how even being nominated to a slate with fantastic writers on it was a huge honor. GRR Martin said something profound about friendship. He and Connie batted back and forth about the Hugos they'd "stolen" from one another. And Vonda sat back and watched the three of them rattle on, with what *looked* like bemusement. At one point they all stopped and looked at her and she said, "Are we done?" She recommended Ursula LeGuin's experiment in online Q and A.

Things I missed: 

A. I will forever kick myself for missing the Discworld exhibit, especially since I walked past it five times going someplace else. 

B. I wanted my asterisk signed by Jim Wright, and I only saw him once, when I didn't have it on me.

Things I didn't miss: 

1. the parties. I'm delighted people had a great time at the various parties but putting me in a room full of partying, talking people is like throwing a hissing stray cat into a room full of well-fed chihuahuas. Nobody thinks I'm much fun and I just want out of there. Even on the rare occasions I can be up for such an event, I don't last long. 

2. the rabid/sad puppy kerfluffle. Having just watched people's homes and the heart of my county go up in smoke, I had a hard time giving a shit about a literary squabble. I do care, and I understand why it's important, but I had it firmly wedged into a petty political pigeonhole by the time I arrived in Spokane. Other people have done a magnificent job of writing about it, I don't have to.

Onward!

Disaster and distraction

Canyon Mountain symbolizes home to me. It changes every hour of the day, depending on how the sun hits it. Its silhouette can conjure up memories from most of my childhood. 

Its very heart is burning.

The fire started last week; lightening. It was burning hard, dangerous, but seemed controllable. Friday the wind caught it and drove it faster than I've seen a fire move in my life. Embers were falling and starting fires two miles ahead of the fire line. It roared up the canyon, destroying at least 26 homes. The next day the winds shifted, turning the fastest edge back on itself but driving the other edge toward Canyon City and John Day.

Thankfully no one died, but I knock on wood as I say that; it's  nowhere near contained and another high wind could change everything.

A major artery in this county has been closed for four days; my uncle and aunt live out that way.  Power lines serving the area were burned by this fire and another to the east, which closed another highway. We've power here, but many don't. In the high desert, if you have no electricity you have no water -- most rural homes are on wells. 

We took up some needed items for the burned-out families, and now we wait to find out what else they might need. Community generosity was instantaneous. Offers of places to graze livestock, places to live and eat, food for animals poured in. Today the radio asked people to not bring any more clothes or food or other material items; the fair pavilion where donations are being accepted has been completely swamped. Yesterday they were asking families who'd been burned out to come get things they might need, and it occurred to me in this area that it would be hard for some people to do that -- even families who'd lost everything, to show up and ask for help would be hard. Self-reliance, pride and resiliency run strong.

I find it a helpless and nearly despairing thing, to sit and watch smoke pour from the trees, unable to fight fire, unable to reach loved ones, unable to do much of anything but worry. But this isn't a community that sits on its hands. Most people here have done what they could and then picked up and gotten back to work. Yesterday I did the same; sorted through my short stories and organized my short stories and re-read several to decide if they were worth revising, then started working on one. It pulled me out of the depression that I was dragging me southward.

I'll note it's odd to rely on an AM radio for the most up-to-date news, supplementing it with websites that are updated less frequently.

Bits of knowledge rise to the surface; at one point my partner asked what the announcer meant when he said the river was at 1880 priority. I looked at him like he was nuts. 

"Water rights," I said. "If you don't have a water right dating back to 1880, you no longer have a right to pull water from the river." My response was automatic, and I was stunned he didn't know. Then wondered why I thought he would. He hails from the wet side. 

It seems most of the west is on fire. Highways have been closed right and left. Even I-84 was closed for awhile, so tanker planes could land and load/deliver water.  Drought, high winds and thunderstorms are dangerous combinations, especially when added to years of beetle infestation. 

As a writer.  I wonder how the peoples of my worlds would respond to such a conflagration, how different communities would take care or take advantage of one another. What disasters would cause those responses? What long-term issues might worsen the situation, and who would add to them?  Would my characters would sit on their hands and despair, dive in and help, or go about their daily business?  How would they respond to offers of help? 

If nothing else, it keeps me obsessing about the forest fires I can't extinguish, the world that seems determined to burn.

 

Wildfire, urgency and importance

My sweetie and I took a working vacation to the house I grew up in this week, with the intent of fixing things I'd noticed were a problem last visit. There were some fire safety issues and the fact that the washing machine was, drip by drip, filling with water when not in use. Figured in the down hours we'd relax and do some reading and writing, given it was going to be upwards of 100 during the days.

We arrived in the midst of a thunderstorm that started two wildfires in the foothills across the river valley, and several others elsewhere. Watched emergency vehicles arrive and circle the two blazes. Couldn't see the firefighting for distance and dark, but they doused one pretty much overnight and the other by the end of the next day. I can't imagine fighting fire in the dark; I'm grateful to those who take on such dangerous work. 

Now three large fires, two in difficult (cliff and steep ravine) countryside, remain burning just in this county.  Most were lightening-ignited, but at least one was human-caused. 

The plants may look green, but it is bone dry out there. Last year we had a fire that burned for three months. Very little snowpack this winter and more than usual spring rain meant fast grass growth but little groundwater.

(Safety lecture: Habitat and homes and livelihoods are more important than noisemakers. No fireworks this year. Campfires only if you're ten times as careful as usual, and even then, only if the location is safe. Don't drive off the gravel; mufflers and catalytic converters (basically, the undercarriage of a car) and even the friction of spinning tires can ignite tinder-dry grass. End safety lecture).

We got our hands on a cordless weed eater and my partner whacked the ankle-to-knee-high grass from the center of the driveway and from the parking area. I turned on the water and washed windows.  

The fridge wasn't working; the power outage caused by the storm apparently was the last straw for the compressor that had been dying for years.  I dealt with that by going shopping, for which I'm currently feeling guilty. No, we didn't really have time to schedule a repair call but it probably could have been fixed. My father certainly would have insisted on that. But that fridge had been dying for years and I *hated* the noisy thing; it would bring me out of a sound sleep night after night chugging on and off. So, new fridge. Blissfully quiet new fridge.

Shortly after that we discovered the air conditioning wasn't working, so that had to be diagnosed. (It still isn't. Needs a $30 part. Fans are our friend).

After the new fridge was in, the shut-off-valve for the water to the ice maker in the old fridge started leaking. I tried fixing it by finding a plug so we could just leave the valve open, but it leaked no matter what position it was in. So this evening we shut the house water off and drained the tank. He took the valve apart, cleaned it (mineral build-up appeared to be the issue), put it back together .... and we turned the water back on, because that's the only way to test it. So far so good. 

*knocks on wood* 

I should have cleaned the water filter while the tank was empty and the water was off, AND looked at the washing machine. But the filter was actually in pretty good shape. And I'd forgotten about the washing machine at that point. Frankly, if I had suggested another project to my sweetie, who handles 90 percent of the plumbing and was seriously overheated at that point, I'm not sure we'd be speaking on the way home. 

Which we do tomorrow. 

The washing machine remains undiagnosed and unfixed, two sprinkler heads remain undealt-with, and a massive weeding project remains undone. Sigh.  

There's a saying about not letting the urgent tasks overwhelm the important ones, but sometimes all the "fires" need to be put out at once.  

Willingness is an unwieldy thing.

Willingness is an unpredictable and unwieldy thing. 

Almost as unwieldy as a vacuum cleaner on the stairs. Ah, the dust bunnies have been banished, finally. They were approaching the age and mass necessary to simulate sentience. All the downstairs litter boxes have been emptied, washed, dried and refilled. 

(If you have a good filter on your vacuum, sucking up cat litter is very useful; it packs down the cat fur so the vacuum can breathe again and you don't have to change the bag so often. Yes, I'm that lazy. You're welcome. )

All of this has needed doing for some time (and much more; the list of to-dos is as long as my arm). I have had no motivation to do much of anything lately. Depressed, I suppose. But I chose today, the beginning of a warning-filled heat wave, to do the actual sweaty stuff. Why? 

I don't know. Maybe I (unintentionally) bribed myself sufficiently yesterday; maybe the filth reached the critical mass of "I can't stand this anymore," maybe my hormones reached a tipping point; maybe I wanted to do something nice for myself; maybe the grey is lifting. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

Whatever the cause, the house is much nicer smelling and less oppressive in many ways. Just hot. I intend to treat myself to a milkshake for my efforts (and as a sop because I'm going to the store even though I'd been determined not to leave the house today).

In addition to fighting depression, I lack actual ambition. There are things I want to do in my life, but I have no burning need to DO anything for myself to leave my mark on the world. I'd just like to leave it better than I found it. 

And the whole "motivational" industry leaves me slightly bothered and relatively unmoved. (Sometimes even depressed; when I see the amazing things people have accomplished despite setbacks, I see myself as *even more* of useless self-absorbed slacker, and ... well, once that self-flagellation train heats up, it can run for weeks.) 

In order to get myself to do things for me alone, I look to willingness instead. It's easier for me to get my head around, an easier tool to use to pry and dig my way through the morass of thoughts and emotions that periodically set my life in concrete. My willingness is also, as I said above, unwieldy and unpredictable. Bribery, sadly, works well. (Chocolate is my friend). Trades work. Starting small works. Occasionally trickery or even Tequila works. "Just give it a try" works if I haven't done it before. 

But sometimes I surprise myself; I *initiated* conversation with three different strangers yesterday and kept it going past when I normally would have lapsed into silence, letting them be the sole food for the interaction. I didn't even have to pump myself up to do it, and I didn't beat myself up for a single sentence afterwards. 

I would like to think I've broken through that brick lack-of-motivation wall in my writing as well. Two days ago I finally wrote a new short story, the first I've written in a month. It's still on paper, long-hand, because I woke up in the wee hours with the first sentence. I've got a couple of ideas to improve it and questions to brainstorm before I type it in, so that's encouraging as well. 

And I'm willing to try. This itself is huge.

Progress. I'll take that.

Time, time, time, time, time.

Next time I write anything of any length with three interlinked plots, a host of characters doing things on three different planets over the course of two years with history that goes back to the beginning of the species ... I'm doing the timeline FIRST.

A. Train. Wreck. Would need less cleanup than this morass.

Spent all afternoon creating a workable timeline that I can post on the wall, using the timeline draft I'd made awhile back and making some tweaks and changes to increase the pressure on characters while leaving enough wriggle room for me to make things happen. We'll see if I was successful as I move forward.

Really. I mean, I love writing seat-of-the-pants, but fixing event loops (the trigger for something happening turns out to be something that hasn't happened yet) is not my idea of a good time.

Revision practice

Took a fantastic four-day writing workshop from Eric Witchey last month. Nearly a dozen of us listening to him expound on writing at high-speed for six hours a day. My head still feels full.  I'm still processing and trying to work what I learned into my writing and revision practice.

Eric believes strongly in practicing your writing skills daily -- a minimum of 15 minutes a day just for practice, not on any current work in progress. I don't do that daily, but I've been doing it far more often since the workshop, and it really does help train your brain to write better.

While I was creating a template to help with my daily setup for that, it occurred to me my biggest obstacle has been revision.  It's really hard for me to focus on overalls and specific issues -- I tend to slip into making the sentences pretty -- which is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic if the entire scene needs to be cut or doesn't make sense as written. So I've added a daily revision practice as well.

I'm still toying with the setup for it. You can't revise something you haven't written, so it requires I pull out a short story I've started. Thanks to the daily writing practice, I have plenty of unfinished shorts.

First I  try to find a core for the story, a reason for telling it. Sometimes that doesn't come until I've done some of the work below.

I look at the characters and jot down what I need to know about them to strengthen the story (which frequently translates into ramping up the conflict), and if their behavior and emotional reactions are  realistic, consistent and flow naturally from the events and thoughts given.

 I look at characters' emotional arcs and see if they're working properly. If the story isn't finished, or is broken as written, I brainstorm different possible reactions given what I know about the characters, or make notes on what I need to know about them in order to do that brainstorming.

I look at the setting and note what it could contain that would add or what it has that detracts from the story's intent, tone or theme.

That's frequently as far as I can get in 15 minutes, so I'll stop there and jot down any ideas about what the process has brought up for me about the story. Genre ideas, perhaps, or page numbers in Eric's workshop book for exercises I could do that might help the story. Then I go do something else.

Later when I have a number of those partial revisions I'll be able to start alternating that process with picking one of them up to do the actual rewriting. That will need its own setup and I haven't ironed that out yet -- it might vary from story to story.

Daily revision practice is something I'm still tinkering with. So far I like it; I get done with it and the daily writing practice and I am pumped to start on my work in progress. It's too early to see if it will actually help me focus when revising larger works, but it should.  I can't expect a capability to just plop into my brain -- every skill requires practice.

Different stories for different folks

Been reading quite a bit surreal and "weird" fiction, mostly of the science fiction variety. Some of it works for me and I enjoy it. Some of it ... leaves me cold and wondering What The Fandango I just read. Literally said that aloud at one point.

It's the emotional experience the story leaves me with, I think. If I'm amused by the turns of phrase or twists of bizarre, or if the emotion evoked is one I understand (even if getting there was by way of flying chocolate water bottle) then I can accept the story. But if the emotion evoked is mixed, there is no familiar ground, the references and allusions pass over my head (assuming they're there) and/or the story seems just ... pointless ... then I balk.  I get irritated because I want to understand and I can't. So I decide that it's not a story, it's not a mystery, it's not a puzzle, it's just a waste of my time.

WTF stories resonate with others or they wouldn't have been published. And that's a good thing.

After all, if we all preferred to wear green, clothing would get pretty boring after awhile.