NaNoWriMo Update

Posted on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 by Keith

So. yeah. How’s your novel going? Hope you’ve been working on it harder than I have on mine.

I had a little set back, in that i wasted the first ten days of National Novel Writing Month working on a project that didn’t go anywhere and now, the month is half way through and I’m just getting up to speed. So I’m behind by 2 weeks already.

But!

Since I wasn’t officially taking part in NaNoWriMo, just using it as a pace car for the novel in progress, it’s not the end of the game for me. I intend to extend my own personal Novel Writing month into December.

As for where I’m at in said novel, let’s go to word count death bar of doom:

As you can see, I’ve just broken the spine. I’ve revised the total word count down as well — now that the midpoint is in sight, I have a much more lucid estimate of the total length.

With a bit of perseverance and a few extra cups of coffee, I should be able to bring the first draft in by the New Year.

Alright, enough blather. Back to the keyboard!

Posted in National Novel Writing Month, Writing | Comments Off

The Skywalker Twin Delimma

Posted on Monday, November 7, 2011 by Keith

So I was mopping the kitchen floor this afternoon and got to thinking about the genealogy of Star Wars. As one does. It occurred to me that the prequels created not one but two plot holes in the story of the Skywalker twins upbringing.

The first is the well known and much griped about “Schrodinger’s Amadala” problem. Those of us who grew up with the original trilogy (ep. 4-6 for you younglings) know very well that, in a conversation during Return of the Jedi, Luke asks Leia if she remembers her real mother and she says, “Yes, in fact she was a mopey bitch and I never understood what Papa Organa saw in her.” Or words to that effect. Point is: Leia confirms in ep. 6 that Amadala was alive, presumably up until Gov. Tarkin used the Death Star to turn Alderan into space debris in Ep. 4.

The obvious problem here is that Amadala dies on screen in ep. 3, 20 years before that.[1] Meaning that either A) Leia sees dead people, or 2) Leia is in fact talking about Bale Organa’s wife, her step-mother, whom we’ve never met or even seen and so the conversation is pointless. We all know that the real answer is of course 3) George Lucus forgot his own story’s continuity and ripped a gaping hole in the space time continuum/plot.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to square this fuck up in the context of the prequals as they are filmed. Taking some license, we can add a few scenes and make some judicious edits in dialogue. To wit: Obi Wan convinces Anakin that Amadala was stepping out on him with suave prince of Alderan, Bale Organa and the twins are in fact Bale’s. Amadala did survive and for 20 years was living with a man she didn’t love but who would, for the safety of the rebellion and to save the galaxy, pretend to love her and her two kids, whom he would raise as his own.[2] What do you mean, two kids? wasn’t Luke raised on some backwater planet furthest from the galactic center of civilization (that everybody just happens across at some point in the story)?

Yeah, that brings us to the second and lesser known problem: “Uncle” Owen.

So, you’ve decided to split up the twins and hide the son of Darth Vader on a distant, backwater world (that everybody just happens across at some point in the story) where he will be safe from the prying eyes and legion of spies of his father.[3] So naturally, the man you want to raise the future savior of the Jedi order and the galaxy as a whole is Lord Vader’s step-brother. His only living relative. On the planet where his mother is buried and where he spent the first ten years of his life as a slave. The only way it would be easier to find him would be to have him raised by a live-in au pare on Corescant. (“Lord Vader, I apologize for the intrusion but your nanny is on the hologram. She says young master Luke is colicy.”)

Now, originally (that is, ignoring the prequels), there’s no reason for the audience to believe that Uncle Owen is actually Luke’s father’s brother. It’s just a signifying title, to show that he’s not Luke’s Pa. Now, if Star Wars were really as mythically themed as Lucus claims, Owen Lars would have turned out to be a trusted member of the army who fought with the Jedi and was a member, if  a minor one, of the nascent rebellion. He could easily have served the role of Captain Cody to Obi Wan, a lower ranking but trustworthy commander during the Clone Wars. When Amadala bears twins and they for some reason decide to hide one of them but not the other, Commander Owen retires and returns to his ancestral manse in the boondocks to raise a family that now includes a young foundling child who will grow up to be the squire to his natural born son. He will in short, play the role of Sir Hector to King Arthur.[4]

This of course all goes out the window with the prequals, who show you that in fact, Owen is just a moisture farmer and once gone from Tatooine, Darth Vader decides never to ever look at anything going on there ever again for 20 years. Despite the fact that Tatooine is the nexus point to much of the drama of his life and clearly a magnet for Force sensitive individuals (not to mention a hot bed of extra-empirial intrigue, seeing as how it’s the seat of one of the more nefarious gangsters in the galaxy), he and the Emperor are just going to ignore it. Too much sand. Icky.

There is of course another solution to the Amidala Problem: make Luke and Leia not related. This also has the side benefit of cleaning up a clumsy bit of story telling.

Leia really is Bale Organa’s daughter by his nameless, unmentioned wife. Amidala dies in ep. 3 and the discussion between Luke and Leia in ep. 6 about mothers becomes just a symbolic discussion about family and duty. The only reason Laia is Luke’s sister anyway is as a way to defuse the love triangle between her, Han and Luke. And there’s no reason to do this. Having sexual tension would add subtext and nuance to the story. And then you can resolve the issue later by killing Luke when the Death Star 2 blows up. Or better yet: have everyone think he’s dead. Luke escapes, has a funeral for Anakin and then becomes a hermit on some far away moon, biding his time until the Galaxy needs him once more. Han and Laia become the President and first Man of the New Republic. Cue fireworks and dancing teddy bears.
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1. or 20 years later. When talking about these movies, shit gets Timey Wimey, fast.

2. Which begs the question of why it took Darth Vader, galactic bad ass, 20 years to get around to nuking Alderan and then let Gov. Tarkin do the actual dirty work. This is a man who sits at the right hand of the Emperor of the frickin’ galaxy and force chokes admirals for fun. Your telling me he wouldn’t send bounty hunters after his ex wife for cheating on him and having another man’s kids?

3. I guess Force Sensitivity is a gene carried on the Y chromosome. It would explain why there aren’t many female Jedi, as it’s a recessive trait in women.

4. And if we overlay the well-know inspiration for Tatooine that is Dune, this of course makes Luke into Feyd-Routha Harkonnen.

Posted in Geek, Movies, Science Fiction, Star Wars | 1 Comment

Children (and Parents) of the Night

Posted on Saturday, October 29, 2011 by Keith

This Guardian article about grown-up Goths has been making the rounds:

What happens when a teenage goth grows up? Gets a job, takes on a mortgage, has a couple of kids…? Can you combine elaborate Frankenstein make-up and a lace-up bustier with getting a toddler ready for nursery and yourself to work on time?

Dr Paul Hodkinson, deputy head of Surrey University’s sociology department and an expert in youth music subcultures, has been re-interviewing a group of goths he first studied in the late 1990s to find out. “They were teenagers and in their early 20s then, and I thought it would be interesting to go back because a number of people do stay involved in the goth scene,” he explains.

Though many people who belong to youth subcultures such as punk and rave tend to drift away in their 20s, Hodkinson says it’s more likely that older goths will want to remain involved in the scene, even though it may become harder to combine with the responsibilities that come with age.

To outsiders, it’s the visual markers of being a goth – long, dyed-black hair, black clothes, pale faces contrasted with dark, dramatic eye make-up –that stand out. Taken on their own, these characteristics might be reasonably easy to cast off. However, Hodkinson says that although the aesthetic and clothing are important, the primary tenets of involvement in this subculture mean being “thoroughly passionate about goth music and style, and some goths would tell you they have an interest in the dark side of life, and a natural tendency towards a degree of angst”.

This means a level of commitment to the goth scene, and friendship groups and identity that develop around being a goth, which result in social lives that “are so intertwined that it would feel very odd to leave it,” he says.

Continuing with education and getting a decent job while staying involved isn’t as hard for goths as it may be for those involved in other youth subcultures, some of which promote disengagement with school to the point that academic failure is all but inevitable.

“It’s a relatively middle-class subculture, so despite … all the going out and being into the music, goths have always had a fairly positive view of people who are also achieving academically.”

What’s most fascinating about the article is something that goes unmentioned. Namely, the contrasting attitude about Goths. Back in the day, we were portrayed as morbid delinquents obsessed with death, if not out-right Satanists. We were blamed for the Columbine Shooting and mocked for being friendless losers who write bad poetry.

Now, we’re the bastion of Middle Class values, hard workers, flexible and friendly, easily adaptable (hey, we recently discovered the color brown!) and, unlike other subcultures from the 80s and 90s, we stuck around and had kids. Some of us, anyway.

The reason for this is mentioned in the article: Goth’s value culture. Specifically those outdated fashions like literacy, appreciation for the arts and the craftsmanship of things that were built to last beyond the owner’s lifetime, let alone just for a season. The punks wanted to destroy the culture that was hindering them and the Preppies eventually got their fondest wish, and were absorbed into the collective, but the Goths remain because we adapt, borrow and create anew. It may be the motto of the Addams Family, but it serves just as well as a Goth raison d’etre:

Sic gorgiamus allos subiectatos nunc

“We gladly feast on those who would subdue us.”

Posted in Goth Christmas, Hauntology, Marital Bliss | Comments Off

Space Suit

Posted on Monday, October 24, 2011 by Keith

At Wired, they have a great little slide show covering the history of the space suit. I especially like the anecdote form Yuri Gagarin:

After reentry, Gagarin had to eject from his spacecraft and parachute down to the ground. He landed in a field, where a farmer and her daughter spotted the strange sight of a man clad in a bright orange suit with a large white helmet. Gagarin later recalled, “When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don’t be afraid, I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!”

You better believe that’s going in the book.

Posted in Belonging To The Emperor | Comments Off

Countdown to NaNoWriMo

Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 by Keith

Just a reminder that National Novel Writing Month starts 2 weeks form today.

I alas will not be participating this year, at least officially, as I’m already about half way through a novel and don’t want to stop just to start another. However, I will be unofficially participating in that during the month of November, my goal is to write the last 50K words of my novel-in-progress, so I’ll be updating my progress towards that goal here on the blog.

But this shouldn’t stop you, no sir (or ma’am). Grab a notebook and a pencil, your favorite word processing or novel writing software and start preparing your notes or just start staring out the window and day dreaming about what story you want to tell during the month of November. Whatever method works for you.

Update:

I’ll be using the word count death bar provided by writertopia. Here’s my progress on the Novel so far:

As you can see, I have a set goal of 125K words, a total I reached by the mathematically exact method of guessing about how far into the novel I am and adding up all the bits and pieces I’ve written so far. I’m estimating about a 2-3K margin of error.

And since I’ve still got ten days before NaNoWriMo officially starts, there’s a chance of finishing the first draft by Thanksgiving. A slim one, but a doable one. At the very least, I’ll get most of the way there, Stay tuned to see how close i can get!

Posted in National Novel Writing Month, Writers, Writing | Comments Off

Crime and Punishment

Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 by Keith

While doing some research this morning, I came across this fascinating story about Russian poet and Novelist, Boris Pasternak, and his best known work, Doctor Zhivago:

After his own novel was denied publication by the journal Novy Mir, Pasternak arranged for Doctor Zhivago to be smuggled abroad by Sir Isaiah Berlin. In 1957, the novel was printed by the multi-billionaire Italian publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. To the outrage of the Politburo, the novel became an instant sensation throughout the non-Communist world. As retaliation for his role in Doctor Zhivago’s publication, Feltrinelli was expelled in disgrace from the Italian Communist Party.

[...] The first English translation of Doctor Zhivago was hastily produced by Max Hayward and Manya Harari in order to coincide with Pasternak’s Nobel victory. It was released in August 1958, and remained the only edition available for more than fifty years.

Between 1958 and 1959, the English language edition spent 26 weeks at the top of The New York Times’ bestseller list. Although none of his Soviet critics had the chance to read the proscribed novel, several officials of the Writer’s Union publicly demanded, “kick the pig out of our kitchen-garden,” i.e., expel Pasternak from the USSR. This led to a humorous Russian saying, “I did not read Pasternak, but I condemn him”.

Meanwhile, as the novel topped international bestseller lists, the British MI6 and the American CIA commenced an operation to ensure that Doctor Zhivago was correctly submitted to the Nobel Committee. This was done because it was known that a Nobel Prize for Boris Pasternak would seriously harm the international credibility of the Soviet Union. As a result, British and American operatives intercepted and photographed a manuscript of the novel and secretly printed a small number of books in the Russian language. These were submitted to the Nobel Committee’s surprised judges just ahead of the deadline.

Spies waging a covert cultural war with literature, using the Nobel Committee as a proxy agent. I’m not sure what form it will take, but that is going into a future novel, somehow.

Posted in Books, Culture War, History, Politics, Things That Are Awesome, Writers | Comments Off

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

Posted on Friday, October 7, 2011 by Keith

Over at Gawker there’s a piece on the Democratic Party’s reaction (or lack thereof) to Occupy Wall Street:

There are several drawbacks to engaging with Occupy Wall Street, the Democratic sources said. One is the movement could blow up in everyone’s face, embarrassing all involved. Another is it fades as quickly and mostly mysteriously as it appeared, making it little more than several cable news cycles in the long run.

“I was thinking about this this morning-the local Fox affiliate had some guy from the ‘movement’ on to talk about it,” one operative said, “and his rhetoric was strongly reminiscent of the tea party, to my ear. Different goals, obviously, and the rhetoric was less, um, violent and vitriolic. But the same dissatisfaction with the current ‘system’ is there.”

“[So] this could end up being good for Dems the way the tea party was good for Republicans,” the operative said. “Or it could end up scaring the crap out of folks.”

And this is the problem with Democrats (says a life long Democrat). They’re so afraid of offending Republicans and the mythical Moderate Swing Voter that they’ve adopted this middle of the road, lukewarm porridge philosophy that is completely uninspiring. The GOP is not afraid to handle a few snakes in order to show that at least they stand for something (even if that something is racism, bigotry, greed and class warfare). What do the Democrats stand for? Tepid hedged bets, capitulation to extremism on the right and an inability to grow a pair and get in a shouting match with some lunatics.

The point of contention seems to rest n the fact that everyone in the media keeps comparing the OWS movement to the Tea Baggers. The problem with this comparison is that it’s absolutely false. The Tea Baggers are now and always have been a GOP Astroturf outfit. They’re funded buy the fucking Koch Bros. and organized from the top down by FreedomWorks, the conservative action group led by Dick Armey, a former Republican Representative form Texas. Meanwhile the OWS movement isn’t funded. By anyone. It’s actually what the Tea Party claimed to be in the early days: a grassroots movement created by citizens fed up with the current failed system.

What the Democrats should do is embrace Occupy Wall Street. Start a few shouting matches on capitol hill (calling John Bohner a dick would be nice but let’s not hold our breath). Anything that shows they actually give a fuck about this country and the direction it’s going in. Otherwise, they’ll be remembered as the party sitting in the passenger seat as the GOP drove the country off a cliff, refusing to grab the steering wheel and make a last ditch effort to steer us clear of disaster for fear of being impolite.

Posted in Occupy Wall Street, Politics | Comments Off

RIP, Steve

Posted on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 by Keith

Steve Jobs has died.

I’m writing these words of a Mac. But whatever platform you use, you owe the ability to do so to this man. His innovative thinking reached far and wide, from Pixar to John Hopkins medical research to a thousand tiny aspects of our modern world that we take for granted.

He changed the world and gave others the tools to change it for the better as well.

Posted in Belonging To The Emperor, Mac Evangelism, Technology, The Grim Spector | Comments Off

Observations from the Audience

Posted on Friday, September 23, 2011 by Keith

Elvira and I saw Neal Stephenson speak at the Bagdad theater last night here in Portland. We’ve been to several author events hosted by Powell’s over the last few months and without exception they were fun and enlightening. This was the biggest event we’ve been to so far. The Bagdad, for you non-Portland residents, is a beautiful old restored theater run by McMenimen’s and they often host speakers and show second run and old movies. Besides being a lavishly restored classic theater with all the decor and atmosphere that entails, they also sell beer from local craft breweries and pizza from a local restaurant, so it’s pretty much one of the greatest places on Earth.

We’ve been to enough of these author events now to see a pattern of reoccurring motifs emerge, worth commenting on:

The Standard Questions. “Where do you get your ideas?” seems to have fallen out of fashion, thankfully. Now, it’s all about tips to young and aspiring writers. You can tell that this is a popular question because so far, every author we’ve seen speak has a tidy payload of a response ready to be deployed and done so with aplomb. It’s usually your standard writing wisdom (write 10,000 pages and throw them away, write every day, write what you want to read, etc.) wrapped up in an anecdote they or some other writer has told a hundred times. This is one of those rhetorical flourishes that, if you’re going to be a traveling writer doing signings and speaking engagements, you must be able to handle. Stephenson did a bang up job, and even handled the PoMo “How do you know what you experience is the same as what I experience?” question with grace.*

The Response to Fannish Enthusiasm. This is always the hardest to watch from the audience, because there are some fans who are so very, very enthusiastic about one particular aspect of  an author’s oeuvre that it overshadows all rational thought and colors their interactions with the author in a way that can be downright uncomfortable for a bystander to witness. Stephenson wins mucho points in this area, since the overwhelming majority of the Fannish questions he fielded were either directly or indirectly related to his book, Snow Crash.

I imagine every author is thrilled to know that they’ve written something that resonates so profoundly with their audience and part of a book tour is geared towards promoting not just the new book but your work in general. Still, having people come up to you and say, “I love what you wrote 20 years ago, when will you do more of that?” has got to get old real quick.

This is a sub variety of “I love how you do X, you should do Y”. You could tell Neal Stephenson has been getting this one a lot this book tour. His new book, Reamde is a thriller, ostensibly concerning the developer of a popular MMO. Now, it’s obvious that Mr. Stephenson is not nearly as big of a geek as his fans wish he were. While he may be fascinated by emerging technology and hackers and the Internet and MMOs, he clearly does not spend his free time playing World of Warcraft. And yet a significant portion of the Snow Crash fans implored him to write an MMO, either based on Snow Crash or just in general. Keep in mind, this is a guy who writes long, complex, thoughtful digressive and expansive 1000 page novels for a living. And he just finished telling the person who asked the question before you that the promise of the free and open Internet never came to fruition and it’s now mostly full of lies and bullshit. The closest he got to openly mocking someone was when they asked if he was ever going to use his twitter account (apparently someone is on twitter as Neal Stephenson but it ain’t him).

This is part of a larger cultural trend I’ve noticed, concerning the undervalued status of novels as merely rough drafts for movies or some other multimedia franchise (like MMOs) but that’s a rant for another time. Suffice it to say, Neal Stephenson enjoys writing big honking novels, and makes a decent living at it. Why would he want to get into that feverish snake pit that is the gaming industry when he can hang out in Seattle, writing  novels on his laptop?

The Soapbox Questions. These are tricky. Some authors avoid answering them, because they’re invitations to rant and they obviously don’t want to offend the portion of their audience who may not agree with their peculiar stance on a given issue. But at the same time, authors end up with a shortlist of topics near and dear to their heart, mostly because they tend to feature repeatedly in their work, so obviously you want to listen rapturously as your favorite author extemporizes on the latest development in said area of interest. Stephenson managed to address the Libertarian question without it derailing the discussion into a political shooting match, which really takes some skill.

(The short version of what he said: he sympathizes with some of the hacker/libertarian ideals but recognizes that in modern American politics, Libertarianism that has been coopted by people whose goal is decidedly not making more people free.)

All in all it was a fun evening (though note to the Bagdad theater lighting crew: there’s an author on stage who is going to read and talk for the better part of 2 hours and all you can think to light him with are red and blue spotlights? really?) If you get a chance to see Neal Stephenson on this or any other tour, I highly recommend it.

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*On a somewhat related note, because it did come up as a topic last night, “Write what you know” is the single worst piece of writing advice to ever get such universal dispersal. Every writer I’ve seen speak has had to deal with someone in the crowd presenting this moldy chestnut in one way or another. The problem is, it’s not a piece of advice, so much as a pithy aphorism that sounds like advice. Taken literally, it unleashes a plague of autobiographical fiction on the land, leading to meandering, navel gazing prose that replaces any sort of real internal examination with a string of pointless sentences beginning with “I”. A less aphoristic but more accurate bit of advice would be, “let your life experiences and personal skill set inform your writing.” Borrow details from your life but don’t drop people and experiences from the real world into your book with just a name change and wink.

Posted in Writers, Writing | Comments Off

The Wars That Never Was

Posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 by Keith

In honor of George Lucus picking your pocket again releasing the Star Wars films on Blue Ray, I thought I’d reprint this old essay, where I took the liberty of re-plotting the Star Wars prequels so they didn’t suck. I wrote this originally back in 2003. It’s geeky as hell and still pretty much holds up, eight years later (keep this in mind when you get to my summary of Episode III, because Revenge of the Sith hadn’t even begun shooting yet).

***

As someone who grew up watching the Original Star Wars Trilogy (I triple underline the word Original, lest you think I’m referring to that lifeless mess Lucas passes off these days, the Special Edition [edit 2011: Let's go ahead and add a few more underscores there for the newly revised, super extra special Blue Ray editions. Crap, this guy just wont quit.]) I can’t help but feel a little let down by the prequels. While I realize this is a waste of time, here’s how I would have plotted the story, fixing all the holes and characterization. These are merely suggestions of course. I don’t expect anyone to agree with all my changes or any of them. I fully realize that to some I’m tampering with scripture. So put a fatwa on my head and call me Salmon. I simply offer these ideas as an alternative text, maybe one that a filmmaker, fifty years from now will consider when remaking the Star Wars films (hopefully taking a cue from Peter Jackson). Continue reading →

Posted in Geek, Star Wars, Writing | Comments Off