Thursday, July 22
The visited countries map
create your own visited country map
It's not nearly enough.
(Nicked, incidentally, from Gord.)
Wednesday, July 21
Just out of curiousity:
If you were driving by a strip club and saw a sign advising you that "Thursday is Sports Bike Nite!", would you be disturbed?
'Cause I am.
Talk about some bad mental pictures.
If you were driving by a strip club and saw a sign advising you that "Thursday is Sports Bike Nite!", would you be disturbed?
'Cause I am.
Talk about some bad mental pictures.
Tuesday, July 20
So I've finally been introduced to the tv series Firefly and am about three-quarters of the way through it. I'm enjoying myself. It's a good show, a lot of fun, and there's some hysterical one-liners.
I can also see why it was cancelled; the show has a bad case of Letting The Characters Win.
I sympathize. I have a hard time with this one too. The problem is that it's difficult to diagnose, and easy to defend against it. New writers often complain that the characters are supposed to win, dammit, they're not writing a tragedy here. Intermediate writers - or those who have been infected with literature - try to fix the problem by doing really horrible stuff to their characters. Then they smugly brag about how much their characters hate them, and chastize others for being "too nice" to their characters.
The problem is that that both behaviors are symptoms of the same overall problem. Yes, if characters win every fight, argument, and poker game in the story, it's Letting The Characters Win; but if characters loose every fight, argument, and poker game, and are horribly tortured, and don't get the girl, and spend every moment that they aren't actually being beaten up talking about how much their life sucks... this is also Letting The Characters Win. Because it's still all about the characters. The characters have taken over the story.
The common excuse heard now - I've used it - is "But I'm a character writer. The story's all about characters for me, not plot or science or all that other stuff. And anyway it's the characters people want."
Well, yes... but no. A story is a fragile thing - and I'm talking about the story, not the plot. A story is the characters. It's also the plot, and the setting, and the science. For writers the story also means the writing, the words on the page, grammar and spelling and all that other stuff that beginning writers want to dismiss; for television and movies, it's the special effects and the acting and the lighting and, God help them, the budget, and many other things besides. And most of all, story is about timing. It's about hanging together all of the elements in that particular way that makes them a story.
Let one element get out of hand, and you throw the whole thing off kilter. Too many special effects, too many plot threads, too much exposition, not enough attention to grammar or too much time spent playing with the nifty words... some people will like the end result, of course; there are people that go to the movies just for the sfx, and people who read books just for the science. There are people who will hate it. And if you get it right, there's people who will like it and people who will hate it, and no particular guaruntee that you'll get more of the former.
But you won't have betrayed the story. Get the balance wrong, and you betray the story.
I enjoy watching Firefly. I'm a character sort of person; I don't mind having nine main characters. I love the character interplay, and I laugh my ass off at the fabulous one-liners. But I'm also a writer, and I pay closer attention than most. I can see that most of the episodes - especially the early episodes - have no central storyline. I can see that most of the show's scenes have been created just so the characters can deliver those fabulous one-liners, and that the plot is little more than a hasty fabrication for stringing the individual scenes together. I can see where the story has been bent out of shape or squeezed too small to make it fit all the nifty character bits in. The show's creators loved their characters too much; they've let them take central stage. They're good at it, but I can still see that the plot, the setting, the timing, everything, has been either created for or deformed to fit the characters, pushed aside to give the characters more room to grandstand.
I can see the seams.
There's a Mark Twain essay (which I sadly cannot find now) where he talks about how he used to be able to lean on the railing and think how beautiful the river was - until he became a pilot and learned to "read" the river, and then all he could see was the danger signs. Sometimes I feel that way about writing. On the other hand, if I'd watched Firefly five or six years ago before I began seriously writing, I might have just felt vaguely dissatisfied without knowing why. Who knows?
In the meantime, I've still got a few Firefly episodes to watch.
I can also see why it was cancelled; the show has a bad case of Letting The Characters Win.
I sympathize. I have a hard time with this one too. The problem is that it's difficult to diagnose, and easy to defend against it. New writers often complain that the characters are supposed to win, dammit, they're not writing a tragedy here. Intermediate writers - or those who have been infected with literature - try to fix the problem by doing really horrible stuff to their characters. Then they smugly brag about how much their characters hate them, and chastize others for being "too nice" to their characters.
The problem is that that both behaviors are symptoms of the same overall problem. Yes, if characters win every fight, argument, and poker game in the story, it's Letting The Characters Win; but if characters loose every fight, argument, and poker game, and are horribly tortured, and don't get the girl, and spend every moment that they aren't actually being beaten up talking about how much their life sucks... this is also Letting The Characters Win. Because it's still all about the characters. The characters have taken over the story.
The common excuse heard now - I've used it - is "But I'm a character writer. The story's all about characters for me, not plot or science or all that other stuff. And anyway it's the characters people want."
Well, yes... but no. A story is a fragile thing - and I'm talking about the story, not the plot. A story is the characters. It's also the plot, and the setting, and the science. For writers the story also means the writing, the words on the page, grammar and spelling and all that other stuff that beginning writers want to dismiss; for television and movies, it's the special effects and the acting and the lighting and, God help them, the budget, and many other things besides. And most of all, story is about timing. It's about hanging together all of the elements in that particular way that makes them a story.
Let one element get out of hand, and you throw the whole thing off kilter. Too many special effects, too many plot threads, too much exposition, not enough attention to grammar or too much time spent playing with the nifty words... some people will like the end result, of course; there are people that go to the movies just for the sfx, and people who read books just for the science. There are people who will hate it. And if you get it right, there's people who will like it and people who will hate it, and no particular guaruntee that you'll get more of the former.
But you won't have betrayed the story. Get the balance wrong, and you betray the story.
I enjoy watching Firefly. I'm a character sort of person; I don't mind having nine main characters. I love the character interplay, and I laugh my ass off at the fabulous one-liners. But I'm also a writer, and I pay closer attention than most. I can see that most of the episodes - especially the early episodes - have no central storyline. I can see that most of the show's scenes have been created just so the characters can deliver those fabulous one-liners, and that the plot is little more than a hasty fabrication for stringing the individual scenes together. I can see where the story has been bent out of shape or squeezed too small to make it fit all the nifty character bits in. The show's creators loved their characters too much; they've let them take central stage. They're good at it, but I can still see that the plot, the setting, the timing, everything, has been either created for or deformed to fit the characters, pushed aside to give the characters more room to grandstand.
I can see the seams.
There's a Mark Twain essay (which I sadly cannot find now) where he talks about how he used to be able to lean on the railing and think how beautiful the river was - until he became a pilot and learned to "read" the river, and then all he could see was the danger signs. Sometimes I feel that way about writing. On the other hand, if I'd watched Firefly five or six years ago before I began seriously writing, I might have just felt vaguely dissatisfied without knowing why. Who knows?
In the meantime, I've still got a few Firefly episodes to watch.
Monday, July 12
The weekend got et up again, this time by a camping trip to Craigleith Provencial Park. It was enjoyable and educational - not so much the trip itself as the journey, which was the first time I had really left the Waterloo-Toronto corner of Canada. It didn't take long, either; less than half an hour driving and I was suddenly in the midst of beautiful farmland, small roads, and little Amish guys driving horse-and-buggies.
Needless to say, we got lost, and spent several hours wandering around on aforesaid small roads with a worthless map destroying gender stereotypes (I refuse to ask for directions; Dan always does.) And the roads went on forever, too; sometimes flat, sometimes up and down, but almost always straight and always, always really long, absolute MMBC (Miles and Miles of Bloody Canada.) I spent a lot of time straining to read roadsigns so I could figure out where the hell I was, while Dan alternately gave directions and sang "Canada is Really Big" at me.
Eventually we found the place and had the joyous experience of setting up a tent in the dark, but hey, it wasn't too bad. The people we were camping with turned out to be parts of the college drama club, aka FASS, which I did not know beforehand. As far as I was concerned I was just playing "Grab Bag O'Dan's Friends" again, but as it turned out he didn't know most of them either, which was a change. They were fun people to camp with, full of stories and really good with the camp food.
On Saturday we went hiking; on Sunday we went to the Bluesfest at Wasaga Beach, a half-hour drive away, which was a blast. The beach itself was gorgeous, and the performers were really good; I got to see Rory Block, who was fabulous. The main stage event, though, the Tragically Hip, were a bit of a disappointment. For one thing they were an hour and a bit late, which meant that Dan and I, who had to be back in Waterloo by midnight for his night shift, couldn't have stayed for the whole anyway. For another the main stage was rigged so that you could clearly hear the music a mile off. Up close the effect was devistating. I had earplugs, but still, feeling my breastbone vibrate everytime someone hit the bass string was disturbing. The crowd, after over an hour's wait, was rambunctious and tended to trample; and the band itself was nothing special, as far as I was concerned. The main singer seemed to be on some kind of ego trip, I couldn't hear most of the lyrics, and the music lacked energy. We left a few songs into the set, deciding that they weren't worth being late getting home.
The trip back was less eventful. Dan, after rigorous map consultation, put me on a road and told me to go straight until *mumbled town which I promptly forgot the name of*, a really long way, at least 40 minutes. Then he went to sleep. An hour later, finally freaked by the endless road and the endless farms and the endless little towns that weren't on the map, I woke him up, but it turned out that we were more or less on the right road still, and with only a few minor detours in the vicinity of Guelph we made it home to Waterloo. I fell into bed exhausted; Dan, poor sod, went pedalling off to work on his bike. I've never been more happy to be jobless.
Needless to say, we got lost, and spent several hours wandering around on aforesaid small roads with a worthless map destroying gender stereotypes (I refuse to ask for directions; Dan always does.) And the roads went on forever, too; sometimes flat, sometimes up and down, but almost always straight and always, always really long, absolute MMBC (Miles and Miles of Bloody Canada.) I spent a lot of time straining to read roadsigns so I could figure out where the hell I was, while Dan alternately gave directions and sang "Canada is Really Big" at me.
Eventually we found the place and had the joyous experience of setting up a tent in the dark, but hey, it wasn't too bad. The people we were camping with turned out to be parts of the college drama club, aka FASS, which I did not know beforehand. As far as I was concerned I was just playing "Grab Bag O'Dan's Friends" again, but as it turned out he didn't know most of them either, which was a change. They were fun people to camp with, full of stories and really good with the camp food.
On Saturday we went hiking; on Sunday we went to the Bluesfest at Wasaga Beach, a half-hour drive away, which was a blast. The beach itself was gorgeous, and the performers were really good; I got to see Rory Block, who was fabulous. The main stage event, though, the Tragically Hip, were a bit of a disappointment. For one thing they were an hour and a bit late, which meant that Dan and I, who had to be back in Waterloo by midnight for his night shift, couldn't have stayed for the whole anyway. For another the main stage was rigged so that you could clearly hear the music a mile off. Up close the effect was devistating. I had earplugs, but still, feeling my breastbone vibrate everytime someone hit the bass string was disturbing. The crowd, after over an hour's wait, was rambunctious and tended to trample; and the band itself was nothing special, as far as I was concerned. The main singer seemed to be on some kind of ego trip, I couldn't hear most of the lyrics, and the music lacked energy. We left a few songs into the set, deciding that they weren't worth being late getting home.
The trip back was less eventful. Dan, after rigorous map consultation, put me on a road and told me to go straight until *mumbled town which I promptly forgot the name of*, a really long way, at least 40 minutes. Then he went to sleep. An hour later, finally freaked by the endless road and the endless farms and the endless little towns that weren't on the map, I woke him up, but it turned out that we were more or less on the right road still, and with only a few minor detours in the vicinity of Guelph we made it home to Waterloo. I fell into bed exhausted; Dan, poor sod, went pedalling off to work on his bike. I've never been more happy to be jobless.
Wednesday, July 07
Two things:
First, when I came to Canada a few weeks back, Dan told me that there were four seasons here: nearly winter, winter, still winter, and construction. At the time, I thought he was joking.
Not now.
And boy, when they say "Road Closed" around here, they mean it. Back in the States "Road Closed" usually means a couple of cones out, a parked machine, and a few guys in hardhats taking a coffee break and waving you through. Not here. Here "Road Closed" means THERE IS NO ASPHALT, because they had ripped it up, and no, you're not getting through there unless your SUV is the extra-special version with not just four-wheel drive but wings for getting over those piles of dirt and big honkin' holes.
This is frustrating. I'm still learning to drive in this town. I can't even count the number of times I've pulled out my map, painstakingly plotted my course from wherever I am to wherever I wanted to be, and set out to brave left turns and traffic, only to discover halfway through that my master plan was as nought because the Construction Fairy has magicked away my asphalt.
An additional frustration, at the moment, is my housemates. They keep parking in my bloody parking spot. Okay, I don't really live at the house I pay rent at, I live at Dan's, and these folks are getting all the benefits of a housemate (like rent money) with none of the problems. All I really use there is the parking spot. Which is no longer there.
Die.
Second, it's interesting, and sometimes frustrating, to have a boyfriend who works odd hours. Today, for example, Dan worked from midnight to eight am. He came home and passed out. I, on the other hand, am most awake, and have been wandering around writing, eating, working, et cetera, for many hours. I'm bored now. I want Dan to wake up. Not that I want him for anything in particular; it just nags at me to have him laying right there, dead to the world, when he could be awake and alive and spending time with me.
But if I go bounce on him I'm going to get my ass kicked.
Decisions, decisions....
First, when I came to Canada a few weeks back, Dan told me that there were four seasons here: nearly winter, winter, still winter, and construction. At the time, I thought he was joking.
Not now.
And boy, when they say "Road Closed" around here, they mean it. Back in the States "Road Closed" usually means a couple of cones out, a parked machine, and a few guys in hardhats taking a coffee break and waving you through. Not here. Here "Road Closed" means THERE IS NO ASPHALT, because they had ripped it up, and no, you're not getting through there unless your SUV is the extra-special version with not just four-wheel drive but wings for getting over those piles of dirt and big honkin' holes.
This is frustrating. I'm still learning to drive in this town. I can't even count the number of times I've pulled out my map, painstakingly plotted my course from wherever I am to wherever I wanted to be, and set out to brave left turns and traffic, only to discover halfway through that my master plan was as nought because the Construction Fairy has magicked away my asphalt.
An additional frustration, at the moment, is my housemates. They keep parking in my bloody parking spot. Okay, I don't really live at the house I pay rent at, I live at Dan's, and these folks are getting all the benefits of a housemate (like rent money) with none of the problems. All I really use there is the parking spot. Which is no longer there.
Die.
Second, it's interesting, and sometimes frustrating, to have a boyfriend who works odd hours. Today, for example, Dan worked from midnight to eight am. He came home and passed out. I, on the other hand, am most awake, and have been wandering around writing, eating, working, et cetera, for many hours. I'm bored now. I want Dan to wake up. Not that I want him for anything in particular; it just nags at me to have him laying right there, dead to the world, when he could be awake and alive and spending time with me.
But if I go bounce on him I'm going to get my ass kicked.
Decisions, decisions....
Tuesday, July 06
I spent the past weekend at Toronto Trek 18. It was my second time really attending a sci-fi convention, and my first time being involved in one - I was volunteering and a panelist, so I was working before the con started and helping break down after the closing ceremonies. It was a blast, and I had almost no spare time, which meant that I barely visited the dealer's room and spent far, far less money than I've ever spent at a con. That it was a media con and had almost no books in the dealer's room probably helped.
Highlights:
Volunteering. This was great fun, although not in the sense of "wow, what a cool job." The first day I was helping out by the handicapped lift, which might have been interesting, except that as a volunteer I wasn't allowed to know the code that opened the lift. The hotel said that only very specific convention staff could know that code. I guess they thought we were going to take the lift for joyrides, which was amusing, considering that it was the slowest friggin' lift in the history of mankind (No. Really. I could have carried people up the stairs faster.) So my job was to sit there and tell anyone who showed up while the authorized staff were sloooowly riding the lift up that they would be right back. I did this for four hours. Fun.
The next day I spent an hour working the autograph line. My job was to stand at what appeared to be the end of the line and explain to people that this was not, in fact, the end of the line. The end of the line was down there.
After that I worked Ten-Forward, the lounge area, where my job was giving out free drinks to the other volunteers and panelists. More specifically, I sat behind a table and opened their drinks for them and removed the little metal tabs, because the hotel had decided, in its intriguing hotel way, that an unopened drink was being sold, which they couldn't allow (only the hotel proper being allowed to exhort money from people), but an open drink was a gift.
Hey. I don't have to understand. I just open the damned drinks.
On Sunday I helped with the breakdown, which was probably the least boring job I got, and learned all kinds of interesting ways to coil cable and fold curtains.
But luckily the real enjoyment of volunteering wasn't the work, but the other volunteers, who were, with rare exceptions, funny, interesting, intelligent, and enjoyable people. I had a lot of fun.
Panels. I was on three, none of which I had the knowledge or authority to be on. Nevertheless I had a great time and Dan insists that I didn't make an idiot of myself. I came away from each with a lot to think about. The best was probably the artificial intellgence panel, which stayed mostly on topic, had an unusally cooperative audience, and had fantastic panelists. I had fun, and even got a real laugh out of the audience at one point ("Do we really want sentience in slaves? No. It's inconvenient.")
People. I am not even going to attempt to list the people I met over the weekend: it would take too damned long, and my ever-unstable memory has already lost half their names. Suffice to say that between volunteering, panels, being dragged around to meet Dan's friends (who, at a conservative estimate, make up half the friggin' universe), parties, more panels, more volunteering, random people who I collided with in the hallways, roomates, more parties, and general con-ness, I met a lot of people, all of whom were great fun. By Sunday I was too sleep-deprived to even be surprised when I ended up in a hot tub with a bunch of them. And they all seemed to like me back, which was... enjoyably novel.
That barely even begins to cover the con, much less the other stuff that's been happening, but hey, I had to start catching up somewhere. Further postage will occur. I promise. (Yes, George, you can stop poking me now....)
Highlights:
Volunteering. This was great fun, although not in the sense of "wow, what a cool job." The first day I was helping out by the handicapped lift, which might have been interesting, except that as a volunteer I wasn't allowed to know the code that opened the lift. The hotel said that only very specific convention staff could know that code. I guess they thought we were going to take the lift for joyrides, which was amusing, considering that it was the slowest friggin' lift in the history of mankind (No. Really. I could have carried people up the stairs faster.) So my job was to sit there and tell anyone who showed up while the authorized staff were sloooowly riding the lift up that they would be right back. I did this for four hours. Fun.
The next day I spent an hour working the autograph line. My job was to stand at what appeared to be the end of the line and explain to people that this was not, in fact, the end of the line. The end of the line was down there.
After that I worked Ten-Forward, the lounge area, where my job was giving out free drinks to the other volunteers and panelists. More specifically, I sat behind a table and opened their drinks for them and removed the little metal tabs, because the hotel had decided, in its intriguing hotel way, that an unopened drink was being sold, which they couldn't allow (only the hotel proper being allowed to exhort money from people), but an open drink was a gift.
Hey. I don't have to understand. I just open the damned drinks.
On Sunday I helped with the breakdown, which was probably the least boring job I got, and learned all kinds of interesting ways to coil cable and fold curtains.
But luckily the real enjoyment of volunteering wasn't the work, but the other volunteers, who were, with rare exceptions, funny, interesting, intelligent, and enjoyable people. I had a lot of fun.
Panels. I was on three, none of which I had the knowledge or authority to be on. Nevertheless I had a great time and Dan insists that I didn't make an idiot of myself. I came away from each with a lot to think about. The best was probably the artificial intellgence panel, which stayed mostly on topic, had an unusally cooperative audience, and had fantastic panelists. I had fun, and even got a real laugh out of the audience at one point ("Do we really want sentience in slaves? No. It's inconvenient.")
People. I am not even going to attempt to list the people I met over the weekend: it would take too damned long, and my ever-unstable memory has already lost half their names. Suffice to say that between volunteering, panels, being dragged around to meet Dan's friends (who, at a conservative estimate, make up half the friggin' universe), parties, more panels, more volunteering, random people who I collided with in the hallways, roomates, more parties, and general con-ness, I met a lot of people, all of whom were great fun. By Sunday I was too sleep-deprived to even be surprised when I ended up in a hot tub with a bunch of them. And they all seemed to like me back, which was... enjoyably novel.
That barely even begins to cover the con, much less the other stuff that's been happening, but hey, I had to start catching up somewhere. Further postage will occur. I promise. (Yes, George, you can stop poking me now....)
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