Revision

I’ve started revising my first Nanowrimo book.  I expect it to be a long process, but I think there’s some worthwhile stuff there that I really want to unlock.

Teach Yourself Japanese

I’m thinking about writing a book to sell.

The topic would be about teaching yourself Japanese, with both language content and methodology inside.

Free culture, yes or no?

I love free culture.  Free is an ambiguous word in English in a way that it isn’t ambiguous in many other languages.  Our word “free” encompasses the meanings of freedom, rights, and a price tag of $0.00.  Some people in the free culture movement like to distinguish these two meanings, but I see no problem in conflating them.

Airport Limbo

I dunno if anyone else feels this way, but whenever I do a long series of connecting flights, I feel like I enter time-culture limbo the moment I step into the airport.

Script Frenzy 2012

As many of you know I’ve participated in the online novel writing competition called Nanowrimo for the past three years and finished my novel drafts two of those three times.  This year I’m going to attempt the sister competition, Script Frenzy, that happens in April.

Nanowrimo Almost There!

I’m on the downhill slide of my 3rd Nanowrimo attempt.  Less than 10,000 words to go.  On a good day I can do 6000 words in one wild frenzy of typing.  Hopefully I can distribute those 10,000 out to the rest of the month and make ‘em count.

Improved quality of life

So it appears that I am losing body fat based on my measurements so far, even considering how often I lapse.  My actual net weight hasn’t really gone down particularly much, though that is actually quite optimal assuming the weight is being made up for by muscle mass.  But anyway, even if not I’ve decided to stick with the diet and exercise plan because my quality of life has improved a bit.

A view of the world through Japanese ears

I think I’d like to write a short story using the linguistic world view of the Japanese language. The sheer contrast in the way things are phrased and the polite/casual, and humble/honorific spectrums are somewhat alien in English. So the challenge then is, how do I represent these things paying due to the Japanese without using Japanese? Well, that is the challenge, and I’m usually up for a good challenge. Let’s see if I can give you a taste of the sort of flavor this short story might have.

「山下さんの荷物を運ばせてください。」

“If you would lower it to my level, let me carry Mr. Undermountain’s baggage.”

「どうも、助かります。馬場さんは元気でしょうか？」

“How much so, I’m helped. Would Mr. Horsegrounds be lively?”

「おかげさまで。これからもよろしくお願い致します」

“Only under your shadow I am. I put forward my good will from now on and hope you will extend the same to me.

Basically what I did was translate the meaning of the words as directly as possible while being a bit loose in terms of grammar and phrasing. The use of names in this case is meant to represent how the Japanese usually refer to their people they’re talking to by their last name rather than a second person pronoun. I didn’t stick to that throughout though since subjects aren’t required in Japanese. So in the cases where I needed to fill in a subject for grammaticality in English I did use a pronoun. I’m happy to hear your comments, feelings, and corrections, though keep in mind I’m taking liberties with both languages here.

Bookshelf, Beer, and a Bed

Lapse in blogging is due to being rather busy towards the end of the year last year, things going really well in my social life, and a two week vacation back in Virginia.  I may pick back up again, I have a wealth of topics to discuss again, I will introduce.

NaNoWriMo tips for next time

Well, as I pass the 75% mark of my novel and start realizing the need to wind down the story and tie up all my plot and such I also realized that I need to write down some of the things I discovered along the way. It would be a waste to go through all this, have a bad 50,000 word novel, and forgotten all of what I learned up to now. So here’s a brief list of some of the stuff I thought about while I was writing.

-50,000 Words really isn’t that much, especially if you have a lot of characters you want to describe.

-It would have helped a lot if I had known all the major conflicts I wanted to put in so that I could story board them ahead of time.

-I find my characters magically progressing through the plot rather than experiencing any interpersonal conflicts that would make it interesting.  I kind of pretend like they happened anyway and write about what I wanted to have happened later on.

-I think it’s better to introduce most of the characters fairly early, only 1 or 2 to come in later.  I just didn’t get a chance to really flesh them out so they end up just being tag-a-longs.

-I have no idea what a subplot is.

-My characters need more motivation for their weird actions, I’m having to figure that out as I go and it doesn’t always seem genuine.

-A running tab of the characters and their background info would be a useful reference sheet so I wouldn’t have to scout back through and see what I wrote 20,000 words prior.

-Consistency would have been good, I think I lacked that when I drastically changed the way my protagonist acted without much of a clear catalyst.  Dynamics are fine if they make sense…