Marie Brennan's Blog, page 249

Fascinating Title Goes Here

The Internet has this magical ability to cough up stuff on whatever topic you're thinking about, even when you aren't looking for it*. At the moment, that's this post by Jay Lake, which led me through daisy-chain of other posts by Seanan McGuire, Edmund Schubert, Misty Massey, and David Coe, all on the topic of titles.

I have titles on the brain right now for two reasons:

1) I just sent my crit group the most recent Driftwood story, which doesn't really have a name yet, though my tongue-in-che...

you brought this on yourself, you know

What's harder than trying to write wacky made-up faerie science?

Writing wacky made-up faerie science from the point of view of a character who doesn't know the first bloody thing about it. Especially when the education of your other major protagonist pretty much stops at her knowing how to read.

There are days when I really, really wish I'd constructed this story in a fashion that made Wrain or somebody the faerie protagonist, in Dead Rick's place.

on reflection

Oh, that's why I couldn't figure out how to end the scene last night.

Because it wasn't time to end it yet; we needed about eight hundred more words of Eliza having that epiphany I thought was going to happen later. And now it's clear which of the next several bits of story needs to happen first, before we move along to the others. So if you'll pardon me, I'll get back to the book.

more Podcastle fun

If you're the sort of person who likes audio fiction, "Kingspeaker" has gone up at Podcastle. (There's a download link at the bottom of that entry, or you can subscribe to the whole podcast via iTunes, etc.)

kitsune_den, thank you for "Owlsight"

Okay, it's painfully obvious I had no idea how to end the scene when I finally got to it, but right now that doesn't matter. I have, at last, written the scene that's been in my head since before I started writing this book: since I pitched the proposal to Tor, at least. And probably earlier than that. If I had to guess, I'd say 2008, but it might be as far back as 2007.

Eliza ended up getting pov on it, which meant she got to do something unexpectedly cool. And Dead Rick got what he wante...

120K! Actually, 122K!

I keep going backwards and forwards in this book, mucking around with crap in earlier scenes, then slapping words onto the end, and that's why I've netted more than 2K today, not counting the words replacing the ones I cut. I think I FINALLY have a working version of Hodge's Academy scene, which will be a bloody miracle if it's true. And the thing in there is paying off on the back end with the new scene I added tonight. We're getting into the Thrilling Climax now -- if I can just wrangle ...

I love the questions I ask for research

I need some kind of yardstick by which to gauge the destructive potential of one stick of dynamite. Presuming it was jammed into a device built largely of sturdy wood nailed together, how large of a device could the dynamite effectively destroy? (For values of "destroy" that equal "render it completely inoperable, such that the thing can't really be repaired.")

I know that's a very imprecise description, and I'll be getting imprecise answers, but it would be nice to know if one stick would b...

rounding up the week

More collated linky, and then maybe next week I'll get around to posting about Ada Lovelace and her wings.

Another guest-blog: me at Tiffany Trent's LJ, talking about researching in order to get things wrong.

More "And Blow Them at the Moon": the giveaway is ended (Scott will be picking a winner soon), but if you'd like to listen to the story, the podcast version is now available. I enjoyed this recording immensely -- like, meant to just check it out, but ended up listening to the whole thing ...

The Littlest White Belt Is Still a Ballet Dancer at Heart

In kobudo, I have begun learning bo (staff) kata. Shihan randomly had one of the senpai teach me the second bo kata last week; I'm trying to hold onto that sequence in my head just 'cause I don't want to forget it, but today one of the sensei mercifully retreated a step and taught me the much less complicated first kata.

But they both begin with the same preparatory movement, and this is where my ballet training reasserts itself with a vengeance. It's a bit complicated to describe, but there...

Charles Babbage and the Devil

Maybe I don't have enough brain to be sparing any for posting some of this stuff, but dangit, I want the change of pace.

So, Charles Babbage, who I mentioned last post. Difference Engine yeah yeah Analytical Engine sure we've all heard about those things. If you read 2D Goggles, you've also heard about his one-man war against street musicians, which is a bit less well-known.

Did you know that as a kid, he tried to summon the Devil?

True story, at least according to his autobiography (which is ...