Assorted Nonsense

Okay, I’ll blog both here and there. Wildebear will be devoted to science fiction and fantasy and everything to do with Wildebear’s (almost complete!) memoirs. Assorted Nonsense will be for everything else.

Yes, I am a fool, to attempt blogging in two places at once.

You’d almost think I have free time on my hands. Alas, it has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with this cursed passion for writing, which only seems to get worse as I age.

Et maintenant je passe le coq au l’aine.

Something I’ve wanted to mention for some time is a new blog I’ve discovered. Up until today I’ve only ever checked it out on my Blackberry. One day I was waiting at Union Station for the Go Train to carry me home to a lovely home-made chicken broccoli casserole. The train stubbornly refused to come. Bored, I whipped out the Blackberry and did a random search for something, anything, I don’t even remember what. It may have been “something interesting.” And what should pop up but this blog entitled “It’s Our Time on the Edge.”

A young woman (Catherine, let’s call her, what with that being her name and all) blogging about random elements of her life. To me it has come to represent this odd time in our species’ history when we’re able to observe one another’s lives from afar, without ever actually knowing one another, without ever necessarily making contact, just checking in from time to time to see what we’re up to. And not uninvited, because although at times it feels a tad voyeuristic (although there is nothing in the content of her blog to warrant such a feeling), Catherine has explicitly invited me into her life to this limited extent (just the same as I have done here), deliberately sharing with me the circumstances of her single life (a little bit lonely), her subsequent engagement to a gentleman she had previously broken up with (a frequent characteristic of subsequently successful marriages, I’ve observed over the years), and now her young married life, pre- children (which perhaps will be the next thing, although let’s see how many blog posts she gets in then!).

If I’ve made poor Catherine’s blog sound a bit boring, it’s not. I keep coming back, often while waiting for the train, sometimes while waiting to pick my wife up from work. Always on my Blackberry. She is my Blackberry blog. My only Blackberry blog, I might add. I keep coming back because I like her writing. Never juvenile, always clear, usually thoughtful. Judging from the comments, read by a close circle of family and friends, and who knows how many lurkers, like me.

I wonder if Catherine monitors her traffic. Will she notice and wonder about this link that has suddenly appeared in her stats directing perhaps a handful of more potential readers to It’s Our Time on the Edge? Might it prompt her to increase her (recently erratic) blogging rate? Or will she continue to blog mercifully oblivious to the benign yet inane ramblings of this fan from afar?

We will see…

Well folks, while I’m not abandoning this blog entirely, I am redirecting my efforts to assist my good friend Barnabus J. Wildebear over at his new blog. He’s not much of a technophile so he’s going to need a lot of help for a while.

Barnabus plans to write specifically about his passion for all aspects of science fiction and fantasy, and also about certain recent exploits of his that, although difficult to believe, he insists are every bit as real as (ahem) he is.

So I hope you’ll join me in migrating over to Chez Wildebear for awhile.

He promises to post every single day, or at the very least, every eighteen days.

Good luck Barnabus!

And perhaps I’ll see the rest of you back here in the not-too-distant future.

So long…

The Easter Bunny worked hard last night preparing quests for the girls.

And this morning the girls got up bright and early at 4am to carry out their quests. Their father got up bright and early at 4:02am to shoo them back to bed, where they lay wide-eyed, wide awake and staring into the night until 5:30am when they got up once more, and knocked on their parent’s bedroom door to ask permission to finally carry out the Easter Bunny’s quests.

Voila, this year’s Easter Bunny Quest. Some of the clues are pretty silly, but you have to keep in mind that all sorts of children all over the world expect this sort of thing from the Easter Bunny. That poor Bunny’s creative well must get pretty dry after a few million households:

E Clue #1
Hello my friend E, it’s another Easter Year
Full of Easter Chocolate, and full of Easter Cheer
The cheer you can find easily, it should be part of life
For the chocolate look inside the shoes of Joseph’s wife

E Clue #2
Thank you for your note, my dear, I’m glad you think I’m cute
Flattery will get you lots of things, including Easter loot
But you still have to work for it, nothing is for free
Your next clue may cost you one hot cup of Pekoe Tea

E Clue #3
You don’t have to go too far to find the next big Easter clue
I promise not make you look inside another smelly shoe
You might get kind of frosty though, if chocolate is your dream
Because you’ll have to check out something kind of like ice cream

E Clue #4
I know a rabbit tall and furry, who once was short and sleek
He has ears that stick up straight with mannerisms meek
This poor old rabbit’s fraught with worry, he likes to whine and grouch
He likes nothing better than to hide beneath the couch

E Clue #5
Easter Bunny’s secret power is to fly quite fast
And when beneath the moonlight, no shadow doth he cast
The Easter Bunny’s breath is sweet because he likes his grapes
And he’s been known to nibble on the plants behind the drapes

E Clue #6
Have you ever had a dream you felt you could not share?
Have you ever danced a jig with Ferdinand the Bear?
Have you ever kissed a cat? Or pet a purple dog?
Have you ever found a clue beneath a smiling frog?

E Clue #7
Some houses can be dangerous because of all the cats
Cat’s do not like rabbits and we sometimes have our spats
Like the time two cats chased me out the door and then they locked it
A story that has nothing to do with the clue inside your pocket

E Clue #8
Are you getting tired of all this running around the house?
I hope you liked this game and that you don’t think I’m a louse
Take care my friend, and if by chance you go for a drive this Sunday
I hope you like what you discover inside your parent’s Hyundai

K Clue #1
Hello my friend K; thanks for your kind note
You should know I will not freeze because I have a coat
My coat is warm and fuzzy; it’s actually my fur
Now go and find a clue downstairs where kitty cats do purr

K Clue #2

The clues are getting harder because you my girl are smart
I cannot make them easy lest you get a big head start
If the next clue you can find beneath something that heats
One step closer you will be to yummy Easter treats

K Clue #3
I’ve heard that you’re a fan of music sung in many keys
Like Lady Gaga, Owl City and the Black Eyed Peas
I think a clue to do with music we can well afford
You might find just such a clue on a black keyboard

K Clue #4
Once I knew a rabbit who was friendly but not wise
This rabbit he ate nothing except hamburgers and fries
He grew so roly-poly I could roll him down the street
And there’s a clue inside a shoe that couldn’t fit upon his feet

K Clue #5
They say that nothing’s free in life; I suppose that this is true
Some things cost so much that it can make you kind of blue
But Easter treats are great because they’re almost free you see
If, that is, you figure out the clue beside the Wii

K Clue #6
Have you ever loved someone that made your heart go all a-flutter?
Have you ever sailed upon a sea of peanut butter?
Have you ever climbed upon an angry whomping willow?
Have you ever found a clue beneath a sofa pillow?

K Clue #7
Easter Bunny’s secret power is a fuzzy smile
Easter Bunny’s second cousin is a guy named Lyle
Easter Bunnies rarely give out any kind of jewels
But they’ve been known to hide their clues right next to father’s tools

K Clue #8
I hope you’ve liked this game my friend, and that you’ve found it fun
And that you’re not too sad my friend to find it almost done
Here’s a thought to cheer you up; the treats are not too far
You have but to look inside a certain silver car!

Alfred Hitchcock used to call people who cared too much about logic in stories the Plausibles.  He thought the Plausibles were looking for the wrong thing in his movies, that instead of looking for flawless narrative logic, they should yield to the narrative.  And it was the job of the storyteller to give the narrative sufficient momentum to compel the audience to do that.

A while back I finished reading the first Harry Potter book to my kids.  Afterwards I thought, wow, that was some really solid plotting on Rowling’s part.  In my opinion she really set up the ending nicely. 

A couple of months later I sat down and rewatched the end of the movie with the girls.  And I thought, okay wait a minute.  How did Quirrel get through the chess match?  It was completely intact when Hermione, Ron and Harry came across it.

The movie doesn’t say how, and neither (I believe) does  the book (I haven’t gone back to check yet). 

This, of course, makes me a Plausible.

But Rowling produced sufficient narrative momentum that I didn’t notice this logical gap until well after I read the book and saw the film.  And I must confess that it wasn’t until after I’d read the book for a second time, and seen the film for a third time that I gave this omission any thought (perhaps I’m not a Plausible after all).

I know that some people probably don’t care.  They assume that Voldemort must have helped Quirrel somehow, or because Quirrel was a professor he must have known some secret backdoor or the like.  But I find it interesting that Rowling doesn’t make any attempt whatsoever to cross this particular T.  (I will have to reread that portion of the book to confirm this, but the movie certainly doesn’t make any attempt.)  And this omission on her part (or the filmmaker’s part) has done nothing to dampen audience enjoyment or diminish sales.

What does this mean?  It means a few things.  It means Hitchcock was right, for one thing.  Absolute narrative logic is beside the point.  Entertainment value, suspense and narrative momentum trump narrative logic hands down.  It means storytellers don’t have to dot every i and cross every t.

It also means I’ve spent way too much time sorting out the intricacies of the labyrinthine plot of my work in progress…

David Hartwell is the Senior Editor at Tor/Forge Books, and one of the people I very much wanted to meet at WorldCon. He is the editor of many well known, well regarded Tor/Forge authors such as Robert J. Sawyer and Karl Schroeder and a great deal many more. He’s the man responsible for putting Guy Gavriel Kay on the map (to name just one) and I have the perception that he knows a great deal about publishing, writing and editing. I wanted the opportunity to extract as much information out of this man as possible.

Plus he seems like a nice guy.

I didn’t get to meet him one on one, but I did attend a panel which, although called a panel, consisted only of him facing an audience of perhaps twenty-five interested souls. I would call them aspiring writers, but the questions they asked did not indicate that writing or editing was of any particular interest to them. Because those subjects are my chief interest, I don’t really remember any of the questions or answers not related to writing or editing.

That’s what the panel consisted of: people lobbing questions at Hartwell, all of which he answered gamely and at some length. I got two questions in. The first was something along the lines of: “I’m interested in your work as an editor. Specifically, you edit the manuscripts of highly accomplished writers. What do you typically find wrong with such manuscripts, and how do you fix them?”

He said (and I am of course paraphrasing): “That question is just specific enough that I can answer it in something less than half an hour.” (Which got a chuckle.) “Most of the manuscripts that we receive have too many things wrong with them, so they don’t get published. Of the ones that we do publish, the single most common problem of professional writers is setting. The writers don’t spend enough time on setting.”

I found this really interesting. Naturally you might think that professional writers get most things right, maybe they might screw up continuity or make the odd grammatical error, but setting? I’ve spent a lot of time on setting in my (darned near completed) novel, so this response gave me hope, though that doesn’t mean that I’ve necessarily gotten it right.

Hartwell provided this example of a writer getting it right. There’s a sentence in a Heinlein novel (Fergus Heywood later told me which novel, but I forget) that goes like this: The door dilated. That sentence (according to Hartwell, and I agree) packs quite a punch as far as setting goes. Instantly you know you’re in the future (doors don’t typically dilate in this day and age).

Later I got to ask Hartwell another question. That morning, I told him, listening to Neil Gaiman speak, Neil had spoken of his quest to learn how to write a compelling story, one that keeps you engaged. One day events conspired to teach him this. It was after watching a Peter Greenaway movie, I believe, which lacked a compelling plot, yet that nevertheless kept his eyes riveted to the screen. I apologize to Gaiman if I have this wrong. But the point is the plot itself didn’t keep Gaiman engaged, it was other factors in the movie. Gaiman decided all that was necessary to write an effective story was to write a sentence that compelled the reader to move on to the next sentence, which compelled the reader onto the next sentence, and so on.

I related a portion of the above to Hartwell and asked for his opinion on writing a compelling story. He said, more or less, that it was up to each individual writer to find the secret of telling a compelling story for themselves. And it was different for each writer. Some writers use the interesting sentence after interesting sentence method, others painstakingly plot things out, others make it up as they go along, others use a sketchy outline, and so on.

I prefaced this last question with the remark that I had a thousand questions for Hartwell, but I would limit it to one this time.

He replied, “One for now.”

Here’s hoping I get to ask him many more in the not-too-distant future.

BEST NOVEL: The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)

BEST NOVELLA: “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis (Asimov’s Dec. 2007, Subterranean Press) [See SF Signal review]

BEST NOVELETTE: “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang (F&SF Sept. 2007) [See SF Signal review]

BEST SHORT STORY: “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s June 2007) [See SF Signal review]

BEST RELATED BOOK: Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press) [See SF Signal review]

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM: Stardust Written by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Paramount Pictures)

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, SHORT FORM: Doctor Who “Blink” Written by Stephen Moffat Directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)

BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR, SHORT FORM: Gordon Van Gelder

BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR, LONG FORM: David G. Hartwell

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST: Stephan Martiniere

BEST SEMIPROZINE: Locus

BEST FANZINE: File 770 edited by Mike Glyer

BEST FAN WRITER: John Scalzi

BEST FAN ARTIST: Brad Foster

JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER: Mary Robinette Kowal

There’s lots of things I oughta be doing.

I oughta be flossing more.  Eating less.  Exercising more.  Sitting around less.  I oughta be putting on more sunscreen, driving slower, working harder, writing more, watching TV less.  If I had any brains at all I’d be reading better books, writing better fiction.  Getting my kids outside to play more, taking them to more fun things.  I should call my folks more, and my sisters, and my friends.  I should be making more money, wearing better clothes, cracking more jokes, thinking more, cleaning up after myself better.  I should pet my cats more often, donate more to charity, volunteer more.  I should be making more music.  Complimenting my wife more, taking her out more, holding her more. 

Yeah I should do all that stuff.  But I don’t and probably never will.  Probably there are lots of guys out there who do manage to do all that stuff; who look great, make a lot of money, and are tons of fun to be with.  But let’s face it: they’re all assholes, and I’d never want to be like them.  

Of all the things I ought to be doing that I’m not, there are really only a handful of things I’d really like to be doing, if only I could muster the damned will.

One of them is sporting a set of six pack abs.

Oh yeah baby.

Now, I’m not a complete loser, and I’ve been doing a lot of push-ups this past year.  Sometimes I manage two or three a day.  I was at the beach this summer, and I was looking forward to it.  I thought, I’ve been doing a lot of push-ups and damned if I don’t look pretty good for my age; I have never been more ready for the dunes. 

Sadly, what I think I look like and the hideous reality of my actual bod are not quite the same thing.   So there I was at the beach and I take off my shirt and some damned fool snaps a picture.  These days of course with new-fangled digital camera jobbies you can see the results right away and I made the awful, ego-crushing mistake of looking at the picture. 

Let’s just say my transverse abdominal could use some work. 

Not a problem.  The heck with everything else.  Kids, wife and teeth can wait, but six pack abs?  Here we come!  Hey, if Dara Torres can do it, so can I (he wrote, conveniently ignoring the vast gulf between a human with actual strength of character and one without…) 

I bet she doesn’t floss.

The Easter Rabbit is happy enough to bring our girls treats, it seems, but he makes them work hard for those treats.  This morning the girls got up at five o’clock and discovered the following notes outside their door (the first one to K is partially a response to a note K wrote the Easter Rabbit):

Dearest K,

You asked me if your bunny

was my very own cute honey

I do hope you are not frustrated,

but we’re not at all related

You’ll probably notice that I took

your gift, it’s such a nice phone book

To business now: if for a treat

you’d like to eat something that’s sweet

You should hop on your hind feet

to a place that sees the street

***  

K’s Clue Number Two:

Did you think to find treats here?

Then you’ll be disappointed dear

I’m sorry to be teasy

but finding treats is not that easy!

Careful: don’t become a grouch

Instead, go down and look beneath a couch!

*** 

K’s Clue Number Three:

Of course the treats won’t fit down here

There’s far too much of it I fear

Now to read the next sweet clue

You have but to find a shoe

*** 

K’s Clue Number Four:

Are you getting tired now?

Perhaps you’d like to ride a cow

But I don’t have a cow to ride

Instead I have a place to hide

Yet another Easter Clue

Inside the sometimes stinky loo

Where you go to have a poo!

*** 

K’s Clue Number Five:

This is the last clue my friend

after this will be the end

But if I may just kindly posit:

tooth decay: chocolate can cause it

when you eat your treats don’t rush

Afterwards be sure to brush

Now to find some real sweet deals

Go to where you cook your meals!

*** 

Dearest E:

Such a pretty, friendly girl

Like your sister, quite a pearl

Because you’re both so nice and sweet

I have brought for you a treat

But first a clue you understand

Underneath a great big can

*** 

E’s Clue Number Two:

With the treats a furry friend

If you make it to the end

To find the next clue go downstairs

And look beneath a great big bear

*** 

E’s Clue Number Three:

Congratulations!  You are now

One step closer to a cow

I beg your pardon! That’s not true

I meant to say that if you moo…

Wait a sec!  That’s not it either

Just find a cow and look beside ‘er

*** 

E’s Clue Number Four:

Now you’re getting really near

And if you listen you might hear

Something chocolate calling dear

Don’t go shedding any tears,

One more clue awaits, I fear

If you want your special stash

Go and look beside the trash!

*** 

E’s Clue Number Five:

Because you’re like a shining star,

and you’ve found your way this far,

I shall make you wait no more

Look behind a closet door!

Thank you both for playing this game

Next year we shall do the same!

*** 

You’ve got to like a rabbit not afraid of including the odd scatalogical clue.  It took the girls all of fifteen minutes to find every clue and baskets full of chocolate and fuzzy animals at the end of the trail.  Did they go back to bed after that?  Of course not.  Am I ready to go back to bed?  You bet.  And I’ll get to go back to bed, too… in another fourteen hours.

Ah, to have the energy of an eight year old again…

Happy Easter Everyone!

Courtesy of XKCD…

Gary Gygax, creater of Dungeons and Dragons, and named by Sync magazine as the single biggest nerd of all time, has passed away at the age of sixty-nine.

“I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.”

That’s how I’ll remember you, Gary.