Gah... I don't think I'll ever understand computational genomics. They keep changing the rules on me! Spent twenty minutes calculating a semiglobal alignment matrix only to get an email saying I did it backwards.
/mini!rant
Edit: Turns out my TA was wrong. Just got an email reversing the previous email. This may get confusing soon.
The episode of Chuck tonight. Wow. It was originally supposed to be the series finale but NBC extended the show for at least 11 more episodes. It was PERFECT. I could have been totally fine if it ended right there.
Ribs, don't be so pessimistic. The thing with "literature" is that people forget what the intention is of the novelist when you work your way to a certain genre. That and people generally are pretentious with their pretentious words and pretentious tastes and shit. People can't bullshit me anymore when they say that they like Metal, because most of the time they somehow hate pop music, even though their idol might just like some form of pop music.
Also, it doesn't matter how much is made up. If I wrote a book about Puk and Charlie, and they had a wonderful adventure in Blargiskahn, but eventually some Blorthort from Arnomalostonbul comes in and kidnaps Puk, takes him to the Palace of Jhu, where it is assumed Puk will be executed, and Charlie comes to rescue him, only in the end to find that it was he who actually kidnapped Puk in the first place, and that the world around him was all his imagination and that Puk never liked Charlie at all and that Charlie actually raped Puk and Puk was actually rescued by these people, would it still be a bad book because I used made-up words and places? It's all a bunch of pretentious bullshit anyway, so why not write whatever the fuck we want?
I mean, I had a very realistic novel in my mind. It's about an autistic kid who in the end could only deal with it by fictionalizing his own life. But not only does the concept sound pretentious, it's boring. People on the internet don't want to read some bullshit story with some moral lesson or something. If I wanted to do that, I'd actually go out in a store and buy a book, not play fucking Braid or something.
Also, apparently, Cartoon Network does not deliver.
The problem with having a lot of made up words, as I see it, is that you just stop reading because you have no clue what's going on. And seriously that's how it works for me. If I read the first paragraph and I have no clue what it means I'm not going further. It might be an excellent book but it could be in a foreign language and I wouldn't have more trouble reading it.
The newly found fridge horror of Majora's Mask is gonna make it hard to sleep, not to mention the guy turning into a mummy is already ****ing creepy by itself .___.
Well, that was pretty much the most frustrating thing ever. I had to totally uninstall Firefox and do a clean install to get rid of a malware addon that couldn't be removed. I used FEBE, so my extensions, bookmarks, and most of my preferences were backed up, but I get the feeling it's still going to be quite some time before it feels right again.
On the subject of Garys book: You clearly have some high concepts going on, but explaining them would be a great help, you seem to be overestimating how intelligent readers like myself are. Case in point, I am a moron.
Ack, don't be sad, the city's not too shabby. It has culture and people and sex. And a costume shop called 'Lucy in Disguise'
I lived in England for a few years and got home sick and returned, I kind of regret it now. But the difference my home was only an hour away by plane, whereas yours is halfway around the world in THE BAD HEMISPHERE!
I actually am laughing at that here, because everything where I live is closed for the big blizzard, and it is currently very sunny.
Of course the warning itself starts in 2 hours, and I guess then, well see.
EDIT:Ok apparently I am currently at the start of the blizzard, and it is unbelievalbly bad.
So uh, If Im not online, for a while, the power may be out where I live.
It occurs to me now that... I might be being forgotten! I had all kinds of Interweb troubles. It was awful. Canadians have nothing on my Internet suffering.
I lived in England for a few years and got home sick and returned, I kind of regret it now.
You regret going back to Ireland? Nothing to stop you skedaddling again (except possibly money, work, study, family commitments, criminal records and/or total-body paralysis).
But the difference my home was only an hour away by plane, whereas yours is halfway around the world in THE BAD HEMISPHERE!
My home is like 28 hours travel away, but it's definitely in THE AWESOME HEMISPHERE, or at the very least in THE EQUALLY GOOD, MAYBE A BIT DIFFERENT, BUT STILL TOTALLY FINE HEMISPHERE. Allow me to illustrate...
On the subject of my novel, the thing is, there are only three made up words commonly used, spirets, baptmis and ruvis. The rest are all just names, be it names of characters or locations, or just terms that will rarely be seen again. Chapter two even starts out by explaining too much, with words you will literally won't see much, if anytime at all during the rest of the novel.
And it's not like I didn't try to explain it, I mean, fuck, Pryansotgemetis, the Gardens of the Goddess, it's quite literally next to the name. Belcyrrein, the Underworld. You don't have to be a genius to get that. Ertar, "our" world. The world the story is all about.
Some words are even self-explanatory and actually existing words. A cycle is nothing more than what it says, a cycle. In this case it's a solar cycle, something we also call a year. It doesn't really require rocket science to get that. Respawning, the only word I needed to translate in Dutch instead of the other way around, is exactly what it says.
Also, everything has a meaning. I didn't randomly put some letters next to each other and call it a new word.
Seriously, just tell me how many words you don't understand from the first chapter, list them all. I'll explain them all, and if needed, add some quotes to show you how you could just get it from context.
On the subject of my novel, the thing is, there are only three made up words commonly used, spirets, baptmis and ruvis. The rest are all just names, be it names of characters or locations, or just terms that will rarely be seen again. Chapter two even starts out by explaining too much, with words you will literally won't see much, if anytime at all during the rest of the novel.
And it's not like I didn't try to explain it, I mean, fuck, Pryansotgemetis, the Gardens of the Goddess, it's quite literally next to the name. Belcyrrein, the Underworld. You don't have to be a genius to get that. Ertar, "our" world. The world the story is all about.
Some words are even self-explanatory and actually existing words. A cycle is nothing more than what it says, a cycle. In this case it's a solar cycle, something we also call a year. It doesn't really require rocket science to get that. Respawning, the only word I needed to translate in Dutch instead of the other way around, is exactly what it says.
Also, everything has a meaning. I didn't randomly put some letters next to each other and call it a new word.
Seriously, just tell me how many words you don't understand from the first chapter, list them all. I'll explain them all, and if needed, add some quotes to show you how you could just get it from context.
So whats the book about?
Also, whats this? Everything will be closed tomarrow on account of the blizzard, Sweet that means I can stay up tonight, and watch Whose Line, and just sleep in.
After booking all my timetable slots for uni, and finally getting quite close to being prepared for semester B, I find out just now that one of my subjects had a "error" and now I have to re-allocate.
This is not as simple as it seems because:
1. The only slot I could have booked is full, and the others slots clash with the other tutorials I set on that day. (Which is a tight day anyway due to point 2)
2.I commute. Not a short 30 mins commute, no. It takes me 3 hours to travel to uni, (and 3 hours back!). I had set my timetable up just fine so that I'd only need to go in for two days, and I am not going to unallocate because if I do, I am afraid my other slots may "dissappear" (i.e. someone will take my slot...), and the other pickings will be worse.
Not only that, but commuting costs me quite a bit. For each day I go there, thats £10 added to travelling fees (and also 6 hours taken off my personal time! >:/).
Seriously, just tell me how many words you don't understand from the first chapter, list them all. I'll explain them all, and if needed, add some quotes to show you how you could just get it from context.
I realise it's frustrating, man, and it's hard when you're an author and it's all so personal to you. But the fact is that most people will stop easily at first. Note, at first. Once people are hooked in a book, they'll have no problem with additional words and they'll understand them better from the context, because there will be more of a context.
Also, many people don't like explanations. They don't want to read "weird word - word definition" they want to read "weird word" and already know what it means. It doesn't mean that you don't explain it, just that it doesn't read like an explanation. I find it works best through dialogue for me. For instance, Ertar is the planet? Have someone mention both the name and the word "planet". I don't know, you could have someone say "this planet sucks" and someone else say "are you kidding? Ertar rocks!" or whatever. Obviously, I just pulled that out of my... er... brain, let's say, but you see what I mean?
Then, although you want to introduce everything and it might seem counter-intuitive to you, I'd suggest not introducing the words too fast or too early.
Here, your first three paragraphs each start with a new word. Give people time to get used to one word, especially before throwing something like "Pryansotgemetis" at them. I mean, I keep reading that word and I'm still not sure how to pronounce it. I guess I should have taken up Greek after all.
Also, you didn't write "cycles", you wrote "cycli". My reaction: "why the hell did he change a perfectly valid word?" Just use the word "cycle". You can even say "sun cycle" the first time and then just cycle, to make it even clearer you mean a year, although people might still think you mean a day.
Now, that's what's been keeping me from reading a lot of Sci-fi and Fantasy, and as a result I guess Fantasy and Sci-fi fans might be more used to this kind of things and actually expect it. So I don't claim to be a specialist here, but I'll repeat that you need people to be gripped by the beginning if you want them to keep going. Otherwise they might only reach the part when they're interested because they worked through the beginning for various reasons (they know you and want to be nice, they were bored, they were in the bathroom, etc). And that would be a shame.
You can tell us what everything means, but you can't do that for every reader. And pointing out that it's already in the text isn't that helpful. I mean, obviously, that would be frustrating for you as an author. But ultimately, if most readers aren't getting it, then the problem is with the text, and you gotta change it. Believe me, I have spent days writing detailed descriptions only to have people think that a male character was a female, despite the numerous "he"s and the obviously male description. You scratch your head a lot when that happens, but still if you can find a way to fix it, do it.
I've always liked what I did better after changing it due to feedback. Sometimes you're just too close to see little things. And at any rate, don't save over your old work when you edit it. You never know.
My thoughts are very similar to Avi's here. I know pretty much nothing about writing, but maybe it would be helpful to take a look at other books that have fantasy settings and see how they gradually build up a picture of a strange world.
The thing about your opening is that it's kind of dense for me, it's difficult to get into. It presents me with strange names and a couple of unfamiliar terms right off the bat. It's like opening a textbook. It's daunting. I don't know what's going on. I have nothing to relate to, nothing I can get a handle on that will let me into this world. It's all just a bit foreign and too much effort to comprehend.
You understand exactly what's going on, and obviously have a very detailed mental picture of how this world works and where this story is going to take us. But I don't. This is completely new to me, and I need to be eased into it gradually.
Compare your opening with The Fellowship of the Ring. The events of that book take place in an incredibly rich and diverse fantasy world, full of wonderful and terrible creatures. But look at how it starts:
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return. The riches he had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged vigour to marvel at. Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on Mr. Baggins. At ninety he was much the same as at fifty. At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved, but unchanged would have been nearer the mark. There were some that shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good thing; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth. It will have to be paid for, they said. It isnt natural, and trouble will come of it! But so far trouble had not come; and as Mr. Baggins was generous with his money, most people were willing to forgive him his oddities and his good fortune.
We're being introduced to this guy called Bilbo. He sounds like an intriguing guy, he's having a birthday party, there's plenty of stuff I can grasp and relate to in there. The place names are a bit strange, but there aren't any terms/words I don't understand yet (except maybe eleventy-first, but that's easy to figure out). There's nothing to scare me off. It's all quite normal, and it's hooked me in - I want to know what the dealy-o is with the Bilbo dude.
Fellowship doesn't start by trying to explain the whole world. I just get to understand that slowly and naturally as the events of the book progress.
I am so tired, but I wont rest until Tales chapter 4 is downloaded, so I at least have most of Tales downloaded, if the power does go out and I need something to do that requires batterys.
At least I have whose line to keep me company.
We got a little snow yesterday, but the real problem we're having is that it only got up to 5 degrees F today, and tonight it's already -8 and supposed to get down to -15.
Comments
In other news, my head's pounding and I don't seem to be able to do anything about it.
Oh christ, he'll be back telling us how brilliant he is because he's been banned and back!
I move to keep him banned!!
That's funny. I seem to have misplaced my pants.
I'm stuck already. Room description's lazy, but stuff it, i'll get ideas as I go along
/mini!rant
Edit: Turns out my TA was wrong. Just got an email reversing the previous email. This may get confusing soon.
Oh, and oh noes Fawful got banned and stuff.
It's 4:40 AM by the way.
By the way, a little preview of my free novel project.
[Download]
It's the English translation of the first chapter. I first need to let it spell-check before I'll release it along with the Dutch original.
Also, it doesn't matter how much is made up. If I wrote a book about Puk and Charlie, and they had a wonderful adventure in Blargiskahn, but eventually some Blorthort from Arnomalostonbul comes in and kidnaps Puk, takes him to the Palace of Jhu, where it is assumed Puk will be executed, and Charlie comes to rescue him, only in the end to find that it was he who actually kidnapped Puk in the first place, and that the world around him was all his imagination and that Puk never liked Charlie at all and that Charlie actually raped Puk and Puk was actually rescued by these people, would it still be a bad book because I used made-up words and places? It's all a bunch of pretentious bullshit anyway, so why not write whatever the fuck we want?
I mean, I had a very realistic novel in my mind. It's about an autistic kid who in the end could only deal with it by fictionalizing his own life. But not only does the concept sound pretentious, it's boring. People on the internet don't want to read some bullshit story with some moral lesson or something. If I wanted to do that, I'd actually go out in a store and buy a book, not play fucking Braid or something.
Also, apparently, Cartoon Network does not deliver.
how bad it sucks i can only get a paperback version of the sam and max comics and not a hardcover...
really would like the hardcover lol
Fine with me.
New Jersey has had 7+ inches of Snow on the ground at any given time for the past 6 weeks.
Yeah, my parents in Jersey told me they're fed up with it. X____X
Ack, don't be sad, the city's not too shabby. It has culture and people and sex. And a costume shop called 'Lucy in Disguise'
I lived in England for a few years and got home sick and returned, I kind of regret it now. But the difference my home was only an hour away by plane, whereas yours is halfway around the world in THE BAD HEMISPHERE!
I actually am laughing at that here, because everything where I live is closed for the big blizzard, and it is currently very sunny.
Of course the warning itself starts in 2 hours, and I guess then, well see.
EDIT:Ok apparently I am currently at the start of the blizzard, and it is unbelievalbly bad.
So uh, If Im not online, for a while, the power may be out where I live.
But at least I didn't have to pay postage for it!
umad, Canada? Eh?
And I daresay occasionally all four at once!
You regret going back to Ireland? Nothing to stop you skedaddling again (except possibly money, work, study, family commitments, criminal records and/or total-body paralysis).
My home is like 28 hours travel away, but it's definitely in THE AWESOME HEMISPHERE, or at the very least in THE EQUALLY GOOD, MAYBE A BIT DIFFERENT, BUT STILL TOTALLY FINE HEMISPHERE. Allow me to illustrate...
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
I actually am preparing for a blackout.
And it's not like I didn't try to explain it, I mean, fuck, Pryansotgemetis, the Gardens of the Goddess, it's quite literally next to the name. Belcyrrein, the Underworld. You don't have to be a genius to get that. Ertar, "our" world. The world the story is all about.
Some words are even self-explanatory and actually existing words. A cycle is nothing more than what it says, a cycle. In this case it's a solar cycle, something we also call a year. It doesn't really require rocket science to get that. Respawning, the only word I needed to translate in Dutch instead of the other way around, is exactly what it says.
Also, everything has a meaning. I didn't randomly put some letters next to each other and call it a new word.
Seriously, just tell me how many words you don't understand from the first chapter, list them all. I'll explain them all, and if needed, add some quotes to show you how you could just get it from context.
So whats the book about?
Also, whats this? Everything will be closed tomarrow on account of the blizzard, Sweet that means I can stay up tonight, and watch Whose Line, and just sleep in.
This is not as simple as it seems because:
1. The only slot I could have booked is full, and the others slots clash with the other tutorials I set on that day. (Which is a tight day anyway due to point 2)
2.I commute. Not a short 30 mins commute, no. It takes me 3 hours to travel to uni, (and 3 hours back!). I had set my timetable up just fine so that I'd only need to go in for two days, and I am not going to unallocate because if I do, I am afraid my other slots may "dissappear" (i.e. someone will take my slot...), and the other pickings will be worse.
Not only that, but commuting costs me quite a bit. For each day I go there, thats £10 added to travelling fees (and also 6 hours taken off my personal time! >:/).
FAWFUL WAS BANNED!?
What kind of world is this? It's not a world I want any part in, I tell you that much.
I may be up the whole night.
Well, you should find another world to live in for the next week or something then.
NO! That means this world is ripe for conquest!
I realise it's frustrating, man, and it's hard when you're an author and it's all so personal to you. But the fact is that most people will stop easily at first. Note, at first. Once people are hooked in a book, they'll have no problem with additional words and they'll understand them better from the context, because there will be more of a context.
Also, many people don't like explanations. They don't want to read "weird word - word definition" they want to read "weird word" and already know what it means. It doesn't mean that you don't explain it, just that it doesn't read like an explanation. I find it works best through dialogue for me. For instance, Ertar is the planet? Have someone mention both the name and the word "planet". I don't know, you could have someone say "this planet sucks" and someone else say "are you kidding? Ertar rocks!" or whatever. Obviously, I just pulled that out of my... er... brain, let's say, but you see what I mean?
Then, although you want to introduce everything and it might seem counter-intuitive to you, I'd suggest not introducing the words too fast or too early.
Here, your first three paragraphs each start with a new word. Give people time to get used to one word, especially before throwing something like "Pryansotgemetis" at them. I mean, I keep reading that word and I'm still not sure how to pronounce it. I guess I should have taken up Greek after all.
Also, you didn't write "cycles", you wrote "cycli". My reaction: "why the hell did he change a perfectly valid word?" Just use the word "cycle". You can even say "sun cycle" the first time and then just cycle, to make it even clearer you mean a year, although people might still think you mean a day.
Now, that's what's been keeping me from reading a lot of Sci-fi and Fantasy, and as a result I guess Fantasy and Sci-fi fans might be more used to this kind of things and actually expect it. So I don't claim to be a specialist here, but I'll repeat that you need people to be gripped by the beginning if you want them to keep going. Otherwise they might only reach the part when they're interested because they worked through the beginning for various reasons (they know you and want to be nice, they were bored, they were in the bathroom, etc). And that would be a shame.
You can tell us what everything means, but you can't do that for every reader. And pointing out that it's already in the text isn't that helpful. I mean, obviously, that would be frustrating for you as an author. But ultimately, if most readers aren't getting it, then the problem is with the text, and you gotta change it. Believe me, I have spent days writing detailed descriptions only to have people think that a male character was a female, despite the numerous "he"s and the obviously male description. You scratch your head a lot when that happens, but still if you can find a way to fix it, do it.
I've always liked what I did better after changing it due to feedback. Sometimes you're just too close to see little things. And at any rate, don't save over your old work when you edit it. You never know.
The thing about your opening is that it's kind of dense for me, it's difficult to get into. It presents me with strange names and a couple of unfamiliar terms right off the bat. It's like opening a textbook. It's daunting. I don't know what's going on. I have nothing to relate to, nothing I can get a handle on that will let me into this world. It's all just a bit foreign and too much effort to comprehend.
You understand exactly what's going on, and obviously have a very detailed mental picture of how this world works and where this story is going to take us. But I don't. This is completely new to me, and I need to be eased into it gradually.
Compare your opening with The Fellowship of the Ring. The events of that book take place in an incredibly rich and diverse fantasy world, full of wonderful and terrible creatures. But look at how it starts:
We're being introduced to this guy called Bilbo. He sounds like an intriguing guy, he's having a birthday party, there's plenty of stuff I can grasp and relate to in there. The place names are a bit strange, but there aren't any terms/words I don't understand yet (except maybe eleventy-first, but that's easy to figure out). There's nothing to scare me off. It's all quite normal, and it's hooked me in - I want to know what the dealy-o is with the Bilbo dude.
Fellowship doesn't start by trying to explain the whole world. I just get to understand that slowly and naturally as the events of the book progress.
At least I have whose line to keep me company.