posted
This page might help. The diagrams are pretty complete, although the site uses frames. Some of the diagrams are sort of sketchy, too.
Any particular brand of old motorcycle?
Edit: And this site has a humongeous number of links, some of which are to parts and assembly guides for specific motorcycles. Having a hard time finding a basic, how-to "this is your motorcycle" page, though.
posted
Sent 'Mouse and Elephant' off to Analog; I'm not sure how it will do there. . . Analog has a reputation for using lots of hard sci-fi, and M&E doesn't really have a strong science element.
The good news, however, is that I've trimmed it to just under 9000 words, and I can submit it to Strange Horizons if it gets dumped by Analog.
I have finally taken kat's advice, and submitted poetry-- to Strongverse. Three poems-- 'Train Window Prophet,' 'Post McDonald's Epiphany,' and 'The Porch Swing Sings.' It's a start. I have to be in a special mood to write poetry, and lately that mood hasn't fallen on me at all.
As for projects (sigh):
'Lead Kindly Light:' Short story about a Mormon werewolf who tries to fight off the monthly change through renovating vintage motorcycles.
'Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth:' Short story about a xeno-linguist who has left her family for work on a distant planet.
'Soft Touch:' Short story about a telepath who falls in love with a man who has had his sense of touch removed.
'Wizard Gizzard:' Short stoy about a thief who must get out of a geas placed on him by Asmodean.
'The Lord of All Fools:' Big fat fantasy trilogy (that I've barely begun) about death, revenge, magic, and the nature of God in a universe of suffering and malice. Light reading. . . really.
'Patriarch:' Another fantasy novel (stand alone-- hurrah!) about a boy and a girl who fall in love, defy the queen of the land, and suffer horrendously.
See the problem? Too many projects. Gurrgg.
[ April 27, 2005, 07:53 AM: Message edited by: Scott R ]
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quote:Dear Mr. Roberts, We have accepted your poems "Train Window Prophet," "Pie Fight on the Way to Hell," "Song of the Rivelaunt," and "Joogled by Broogles" for publication.
And from Analog (for Mouse and Elephant):
quote: . . .doesn't suit our needs
HOOORAY! And ALAS!
Already sent M&E to Strange Horizons, this time within their word count parameters. Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Congrats on the acceptances and the quick turnaround on the rejection.
I know what it's like to have too many projects, so I've pretty much tabled everything right now until I finish this semester. Of course, then another semester will start....
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posted
I'm hearing rumors that the Writers of the Future workshop and awards ceremony will be held at the Sci-fi museum in Seattle, rather than in LA.
Which kind of sucks. . . I was looking forward to inviting all the CA Jatraqueros to the book signing. I had even toyed with proposing a 'Con, as out of character as that may seem.
posted
Oh, yeah-- Strange Horizons rejected M&E with the following note:
"This story had a great narrative voice and a lot of interesting elements, but I didn't feel that the plot quite made sense, and overall the piece felt kind of jumbled and unfocused."
Ouch. :wince:
Flesh and Blood emailed that they were closed to subs until 9/1/05. Which was really odd, because their website said they were newly opened to subs.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I'm hearing rumors that the Writers of the Future workshop and awards ceremony will be held at the Sci-fi museum in Seattle, rather than in LA.
Which kind of sucks. . . I was looking forward to inviting all the CA Jatraqueros to the book signing. I had even toyed with proposing a 'Con, as out of character as that may seem.
posted
This is the guy who is going to be doing the illustration for 'Blackberry Witch' in Writer's of the future.
Cool. I dig the artwork, man. I can't wait to see what he's imagined for BW; I don't think I gave him a lot to work with. . .
Got the finalized version of BW this morning, along with my bio. I'm going to seem very. . . um. . .folksy.
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posted
Cool -- congrats. So is it true that you gave props to all of us in your acceptance speech and that they had to cue the music because you were taking so long? Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
For all you writers-- Eric James Stone takes better notes than me. So if you're looking for advice, I suggest going to his website, www.ericjamesstone.com, and reading his blog. Currently, he's posted this from NASFICCon
posted
Sold 'Eviction Notice' to Intergalactic Medicine Show.
I think it's slated to appear in the first issue...
Also got a rejection from Intergalactic Medicine Show for 'Mouse and Elephant.' Alas. But I know WHY it was rejected, and that makes things better.
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posted
Congratulations Scott! I was already planning to subscribe, but if I hadn't been before I would be now.
So is "Mouse and Elephant" just not quite the right story for the magazine, or did you get some advice on how to change the story?
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posted
The dialect interferes with the story too much. Honestly, I've gotten the same critique from a number of editors and readers-- so I'll probably wind up changing it.
It's doing me no good unsold...
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posted
By 'dialect,' this is what I mean. These are the opening lines to 'Mouse and Elephant.'
quote: A jenny were screaming outside Anthem's shanty.
Weren’t no mind to him. He lay on his mat and tried not to hear her none, nor the men what botherated her. Anthem bit his lip there in the darkness, tapped his fingers on the floor. She weren’t naught to him. Little timmy like he, what could he do to help her ‘gainst growed men? Pssh. So he lay in the stuffy darkness and listened as she moaned and whined. One of the men spoke most harsh, and he heard a slap. The wall of his shanty shook a bit as a body fell ‘gainst it.
Enough of that. Anthem pulled on his trousers and shoes, and slipped out the shanty. He’d get on to the Bodegas, shack up there with Ojo, or maybe track down to Minor Joe’s. He could’ve lit out to Monique’s, but Theo were with her this week. Theo didn’t like him none, didn’t like being reminded that Monique weren’t no glitz. Didn’t like that Anthem called Monique momma in his sleep. Monique didn’t like that none neither— glitz were her life now, and wasn’t no glitzes what had timmies. So they paid up for him to get his own shanty, away from them. Theo liked that even less, but Anthem’d swore that he’d set the pikes on to them otherwise. So he paid.
posted
Yeah, i see what you mean. I really like the dialect, but maybe it's too much for a short story? Sort of Clockwork Orangesque, neh?
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posted
I definitely hope you change it, because I would never read a story that starts out like that. I'm not a fan of dialect at all, Hagrid's speech bothers me in Harry Potter even.
Tell the story in standard English, I say. You can give us a flavor of dialect without getting too immersed in it.
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I'm sorry but I think that this insistence on some relentlessly opaque style is silly. It's an overreaction to the literary elite's stupid preoccupation with style.
Now -- that said -- it is incredibly difficult to do dialect well. To make it so that what you gain from using it is worth the trouble you give to readers.
I haven't read Scott's piece so I don't know if he carries it off -- but the excerpt works with one exception.
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posted
I'd have to say as far as the excerpt goes, it does make reading it difficult. If I came upon this story in a literary magazine, I'd probably leave it for last to read, if I read it at all.
On the other hand, it does lend a certain tone and flavor to the story, which would certainly be lost if you took it out.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't, seems like.
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posted
I think less is more. If you want to convey that your characters aren't that smart, or are backwards hillfolk, just pick a couple of words to misspell or something. Or structure your sentences so they match the rhythym of speech, but spell everything right.
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As far as dialect goes, too often it can seem like author conceit. It's not that it's difficult to read, but rather that it's difficult to surrender to the story.The Beach in King's Skeleton Crew is a good example of this. Similarly, "Black House" was atrociously hard to get into. Present tense makes it hard to suspend disbelief.
I can't judge the effect the dialect would have across the whole story in this case. But it is fraught with peril.
Again, though, congratulations on the sale!
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posted
The author is a storyteller, and he is relaying a story to me in a language that I can understand. A little bit of flavor and color is fine (Hagrid is not too terribly bad, I can read it, but there are times I think it's overdone) but I don't want my storyteller speaking in a dialect that's not my own. I want to be able to understand the story, and this interferes with my ability to understand the story. If wanting my storyteller to tell me a story in my own language makes me lazy, well then I'm lazy I suppose.
But it would appear that at least the editors Scott has queried agree with me, so I might be on to something.
Edit: You know, I haven't said congrats to Scott on the sale.
Congrats, Scott!
[ October 06, 2005, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: Belle ]
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posted
Nope. Those editors are short-sighted and their attitudes are reflective of the biases of a genre that doesn't rise to the heights that it has promised and too often become mired in its own devices (the resurgence in fantasy in the past decade is a notable exception).
This is not to defend literary fiction -- note that many literary writers have turned to the devices of speculative fiction in order to revitalize their work after having painted themselves into the two (sometimes opposing) corners of postmodern play and literary realism (and many of them fall flat on their face when they do so -- although I'm about 70 pages in to Roth's alternate history _The Plot Against America_ and he may just pull it off).
Language is at the base of literature; speculation is at the base of speculative fiction.
The use of speculative linguistics -- esp. futuristic dialects -- in speculative fiction should be encouraged as part of the grand, wonderful experiment that is the genre. The speculation can happen on both a plot level and a grammatical level.
Of course it needs to be done right -- thus my comments above.
Speculative fiction readers need to work a little more; literary fiction readers need to drop their pretensions and angsty-ness; and both sets of readers (and writers) need to get over themselves and be open to works that are new -- but not 'avant garde' (in the calcified sense of the word).
The response to _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_ heartens me in this regard.
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posted
I can't believe I'm going to argue against myself...
The thing with 'Jonathan Strange. . .' that makes the pseudo-high language acceptable is that it IS a fantasy, and set in an alternate England. If you read the book jacket, you are primed to understand the novel. It references things that are in most readers' vocabularies, though they'll have to dust off some memes to make it through.
'Mouse and Elephant,' and all my Anthem stories have no such reference. It's science fiction-- What's a timmy? What's a jennie? A glitz? Those are all words, and we're supposed to get definition from context, but none is really provided.
I DON'T want to make the audience work harder. Writing is about communication, and if something interferes with that communication, then it should be reexamined and eliminated or clarified. I've always, always believed this.
EXCEPT when it comes to my Anthem stories. I don't know why. The narrative voice just. . . flows for me. I've tried changing it to first person (OSC suggested this back in Boot Camp '03), but it doesn't feel right. I've recently begun trying to clear up the narrative and differentiate between the 3rd person limited ominiscient narrator, and Anthem's own thoughts. We'll see how it goes.
It may be that the Anthem stories (which I happen to love-- warts and all) will have to be released in an anthology after I become famous and a money-making machine. Then, they'll brand me an elitist, stylistic literati, and I'll never be able to write speculative fiction ever again.
I'll have to write :understated shudder: magical realism.
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posted
>>But it would appear that at least the editors Scott has queried agree with me, so I might be on to something.<<
MOST of them do. Strange Horizons, Asimov's, and Sci-fiction all had problems with the weak plot, not necessarily the dialect.
But hey-- I got personal rejections from every market I sent this to (except F&SF-- rejections from them, I've decided, don't count), and they've all requested to see more.
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posted
I can read the dialect if I try hard, but it feels a little like reading Chaucer's Middle English. It's hard to hold the plot and translate at the same time! Kudos to you for actually writing it like that, and make sure you keep a copy ( ) but I can see that many people might see it and skip right over it, missing your great story... and that would be sad.
quote:I'll have to write :understated shudder: magical realism.
<grin>.
------
It's always a trade off -- the question is: is what is gained by writing in that style more valuable than what is lost in reader patience. I generally agree with OSC's remonstrations in both of his books on writing -- esp. his observation that writing in first person is rarely done well and when employed by beginning writers is often the result of laziness (because it's easier to evoke stuff and have a distinct style if you are writing in one person's voice).
My only point is that I think it's perfectly valid for speculative fiction writers to engage in specuative linguistics and that readers should exhibit some patience with them and work at it a bit.
Look. I find that after I read a lot of speculative fiction it is then more difficult for me to read literary fiction or literary criticism or philosophy. It's because I've grown lazier as a reader -- I've become too used to the easy style, fun plotting and emotional payoffs of most works of qood speculative fiction (all good qualities that I am happy to defend against literary snobs).
I suppose I could choose to not read more difficult stuff -- but then I miss out some good (and, imo, needed) reading experiences.
The point -- and I think that most of you would agree with me on this (I'm not looking for a fight -- just to make myself understood) -- is that it's good to be omnivorous in your reading and to challenge yourself every once in a while.
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