Heather Rose Jones's Blog, page 116
August 16, 2017
Traveling: Deventer NL
When I thought about what I wanted to do to extend my trip a little (because it seems silly to fly all the way to Europe and not do a bit of extra traveling), I decided that rather than focus on museums and castles and whatnot, I wanted to spend the time visiting people--especially people that I've known for quite some time and had never met in person. I met Irina way back during Usenet days on rec.arts.sf.composition, so that would be about 20 years ago or so. She's been a beta reader for a number of my stories and books, but up until last week we'd never been in the same time and place. So she was on the short-list of people I wanted to visit and here I am in Deventer, Netherlands.
Mind you, if I'd known that I'd get to stay in a building with a 12th century basement, I'd have been even more certain I wanted to visit! The picture above is the view from my (4th floor) bedroom. The basement and ground floor belong to the Russian Orthodox church that Irina belongs to, and she and her husband own the upper stories. The upper parts of the house are mostly 18-19th century with a few bits of older wall, but here's what the basement looks like:
Other than relaxing and chatting, I'm gotten to spend a lot of time wandering around with a personal tour of many of the older parts of the town. Deventer is a great example of integrating older buildings and newer construction into modern commercial and residential functions. Much of the older part of town has cobbled streets and restricted automobile access (though many bicycles!) so it has a slight feel of an extended pedestrian mall. Here's a random example--just an ordinary neighborhood.
I've been taking lots of notes and pictures relevant to early 19th century vernacular architecture and town layout. (I wonder why?) There will be more pictures and descriptions on facebook. And now, I'm going to go shopping for cheese...
Major category: TravelTags: travelWorldcon75
August 14, 2017
Worldcon Trip - Downwinding
I'm drafting this up while sitting in the Helsinki airport Monday morning but don't plan to post it until Tuesday (to avoid bumping the week's LHMP entry off the front page). But then, I don't figure much of interest will happen for the rest of the day except travel and convention recovery. Sunday morning, having no panels of interest until 11am, I stopped by the WSFS business meeting and helped skate through the remaining agenda items (mostly various housekeeping votes) in record time. The panel I wanted to attend was "Moving Beyond Orientalism in SFF" which was a good solid introduction to "why orientalism is bad". After that, I moved into the realm of "I'm too tired to do much except wander around vaguely." I did finally bump into Tero (whose wedding to my late friend Judy was the occasion of my previous trip to Finland) -- he'd been cosplaying most of the event, so I think I can be forgiven not saying hi earlier!
The panel on "using history for worldbuilding" that I was moderator for went smoothly, except that we had one mic for five people so we punted and begged anyone with hearing impairments to move to the front. I sincerely apologize for this divergence from policy, but try to pass a single mic around during a panel discussion does great damage to the discussion flow. Passing a single mic also would have made it more difficult to try to do turn-taking management--at which I was not as good as I aim for. I hadn't quite expected the conversation dominance to come from the direction it did and wasn't prepared to manage the reins in the way that was needed. (Folks: even very very nice, knowledgeable, entertaining panelists need to self-monitor for hogging the speaking time.)
I hung around for the closing ceremonies, mostly because I needed the psychological closure. (I dislike it when the con just sort of dribbles down to a stop.) Then dashed off to drop stuff at my hotel and join Phiala and Thorvaldr for a nice dinner at a restaurant that specialized in traditional Finnish food. I had the pike-perch with wild mushroom sauce, but we traded around bites, so I also got some sauted reindeer and pan-fried herring.
And then it was a matter of setting my alarm early enough to get to the airport for an 8am flight. Except that the flight was overbooked and they were asking for volunteers to get bumped. I volunteered, despite it meaning changing planes in Copenhagen and not getting in to Schiphol until 2pm. I'd actually considered that flight when originally making my reservations, but opted for the early non-stop instead. Honestly, if I'd had the choice between the 200-Euro compensation and sleeping later, I would have picked sleeping later! But I volunteered, in part, because I could. So here I am, having time to finally watch the YouTube video of the con's opening ceremonies and then type this up for later posting.
Postscript: Arriving in Schiphol, it turned out my luggage was lagging behind somewhere. It had to happen at least once on the trip. It will be delivered sometime this morning (Tuesday) so no harm, no foul. Tomorrow I will blog about Irina & Boudewijn's lovely house with pictures of the view from my bedroom window.
Major category: ConventionsTags: conventionsWorldcon75
August 12, 2017
Worldcon Trip - Engagement
Two days at once! I had the podcast blog to post yesterday, so here you get caught up on both Friday and Saturday at the con. I've fallen in with a regular breakfast group at the hotel (some of them even came to my historic fantasy panel, though maybe they would have anyway), so that initial sense of disconnection is falling away. The first Friday panel I wanted to attend was at noon so I spent the first couple hours of the day participating in the business meeting. I have nothing but admiration for folks who dedicate much of their worldcon mornings to the business meetings--I spent a fair amount of time there last year to support various of the Hugo nomination reform initiatives, but it's hard to choose it over other programming. As it was, this time, I had to choose between staying long enough to be there to support ratification of the new YA book award, or leaving in time to get in line for the "Female Friendship in Fiction" panel. I stayed (and we ratified) and then found the panel had maxed out, so I hung around to slip in when someone else left. A good panel, though it's hard to sit on your hands when panelists are bemoaning how hard it is to find books that feature friendships between women and you want to stand up and wave your own books around. (I was good. I just subtweeted about it.)
I hung around after the panel to introduce myself to one of the panelists (Navah Wolfe) whom I know from a social media space and who will be on the same flight to Amsterdam tomorrow morning. I wanted to introduce myself to Amal El-Mohtar who was also on the panel and who I've interacted with on Twitter occasionally (and who did the introduction for my Podcastle story), but she was deep in conversation with some other folks and I had to run to my signing. I probably won't get another shot at this con because her short story "Seasons of Glass and Iron" won a Hugo and I imagine she's being overwhelmed by people who want to talk to her.
Anyway, I'd primed the pump sufficiently for my signing session that several friends came to hang out and keep me company, but I also had half a dozen people come by either with books to sign (wow!) or interested in taking one of the "Mazarinette and the Musketeer" chapbooks that I'd brought so I'd have something to sign. So a group of us adjourned to lunch afterward. I figured a sizeable lunch was in order since my later panel rolled directly into the Hugo Award ceremony slot and there's be no time then.
That later panel provides today's photo: ALien Language in Science Fiction featuring (from left to right in the picture) Lawrence M. Schoen (involved with the Klingon Language Institute), David J. Peterson (alien language consultant to Hollywood, including for Game of Thrones, and incidentally a student of mine back in my grad school days which gives us content for some amusing banter on panels--a great guy), Stephen W. Potts (author of academic and critical writing on SFF), me, and Cora Buhlert (German translator and writer of SFF). It was a longer panel slot than most, which gave us scope for a lot of interesting discussion about just how alien a language can be before it takes over the plot, how to handle the question of translation in portraying multi-species linguistic interactions, and some of the dynamics of interacting with television and movie producers as a language consultant. There was a general sense that Hollywood is becoming more interested in and more willing to take languages seriously in portraying SFF-nal societies, though there's always the pressure not to drive away audience attention.
Since the panel slot ran until 7:30 (though it gets out a little earlier) and the Hugo ceremonies were scheduled to begin at 7:30, I'd lost all chance of meeting up to sit with any of my default groups. And though I scanned the bleachers for quite a while looking for a seat, I couldn't find anyone until I'd given up and went off to sit by myself and then ran into Kathryn Sullivan who I'd been chatting with in several contexts over the several previous days. So that was nice. The ceremony was very enjoyable and fortunately this year there wasn't any anxiety that the atmosphere would be hijacked by Puppy hijinx. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it.)
After the ceremony, I wandered around a bit looking for someone to have a spot of dinner with and found Anna Feruglio Dal Dan was of a similar mind, so I finally enjoyed a bowl of the famous Helsinki "creamy salmon soup" that all the cafes advertise, which just hit the spot. So far, I haven't done any "evening parties" as such. Due to the venue restrictions, all the bid parties and the like are in a large common space in the convention center, which means the noise levels are even worse than a hotel suite would be. And since everyone's spread out across many hotels, there isn't an obvious place to go for a bar-con. The third element is that every evening except this one I've ended up back downtown for dinner, and simply didn't feel like taking the train back to the convention center on the off chance that I might find congenial company. This has been good for my sleep, and I've been having plenty of social time otherwise, so I'm ok about it.
I finally got the hang of getting a long night's sleep Friday night, which contributed to not getting a blog written yesterday morning. (I also didn't want to bump the podcast blog off the front page while everyone back in the states was still asleep.) So I rolled into the convention center just in time to get a good seat for the "Gender and 'Realistic History'" panel, which didn't tell me anything new, but it's nice to hear other people saying the same things I rant about. A chance encounter in the hallway after that panel had me helping track down a program schedule for a local fan/press-person who was attending his first big convention. He treated me to coffee in thanks and we joined Cathering Lundoff who was also enjoying a cup right next to where we got ours, so who knows, she and I may end up in some local article. Then I stood in line to get into "Feminist and Queer Readings of Fantasy Tropes" which was enjoyable although I no longer remember anything specific that was said. After that, my brain kind of went on strike and I decided to just sit with a cup of coffee outside the Fazer Cafe (in the main cross-roads of convention center traffic) and watch people go by.
I had a dinner date set up with (pseudonym =) Praisegod Barebones and daughter, to which I'd added @jennygadget who I hadn't seen since we had lunch together in Berkeley a couple years ago when she was jobhunting. Our initial ideas about restaurants were pre-empted by a sudden violent rainstorm just as we were passing by an Indian restaurant--a fortuitous chance. It is just possible that I have developed the knack for putting together congenial dinner groups because we had just a great conversation that we stayed until closing time, talking about libraries, and schools, and books, and all sorts of things.
And so, now we're here at the last day of the con. I have one more panel to moderate this afternoon, and no doubt the pangs of watching people dash off for flights and trains. My own flight is at 8am tomorrow, and Monday is my LHMP day in any event, so expect the final wrap-up on Tuesday when I'm ensconsed in Deventer, Netherlands enjoying a visit with Irina.
(Image credit: Melanie Marttila, used with permission)
Major category: ConventionsTags: conventionsWorldcon75
August 10, 2017
Worldcon Trip - Empanelment
The photo is of the Belge Cafe where I had dinner in company with a number of other denizens of the File 770 blog, once more including my first face-to-face meeting with someone I've known online since Usenet days (Anna Feruglio Dal Dan). The cafe has a "library" theme, which was part of the attraction, though the food was also excellent. But I get ahead of myself.
I had a 10am panel (Historical Fantasy) which was the first time-slot of the day's programming. So of course I headed off to the convention center with plenty of time, not noting that the doors didn't even open until 9am. And the food vendors inside the center weren't planning to open until 10, which would have been less of an issue regarding my second cup of coffee of the day if the Green Room had been open and set up. But although it opened about five minutes before the panel started, so we panelists managed to touch base there, but coffee carafe did not yet have contents. Whimper. The panel went off well, I think (supported by some later audience feedback). It still felt a bit stiff with the "you will all take turns answering this question" format, but I can cope with a variety of styles. We basically did some stabs at definitional principles for historical fantasy, examples of what we considered success and failure, and a few additional topics.
The room was completely filled, though I don't think anyone was turned away from our particular panel. They're rearranged some of the programming space to move the more popular tracks into larger spaces for the rest of the convention and even yesterday before they'd done that, there were fewer grumbles about not being able to get into events. (Though there were always lines waiting to get in.) The waiting-on-line aspect is something I'd hate to see become a feature of worldcons--it's something I associate with media conventions and not to be imitated.
Lunch was yet another meet-up of one of my online social groups. Social media can often feel like a one-way glass window, where if I'm not constantly actively participating, it feels like I stop being real. But the face-to-face meet-ups go a long way toward making it feel more like an actual circle of friends. It's funny, there are people that I feel like I'm part of a friend-group with, where I realize that they may not actually "know" me at all, because I'm seeing them reflected off mutual friends. So it can be strange to approach someone at a con and try to remember whether this is someone I "know" or simply someone I "know of".
After lunch I dropped by to give moral support to Catherine Lundoff at her signing. The row of signing tables was basically half a dozen people looking rather lonely, and then the table where George R R Martin was going to be an hour later, which had a line of waiting people that numbered in the hundreds. See above comment about waiting on lines. The big name authors usually have significant lines for signings at Worldcon, but not usually ones that line up hours in advance. (I saw a comment that someone said they'd spent 4 hours in line for him.) Again, I hope this doesn't become a feature, and I don't know that it was necessary. But if you have a line-standing expectation, it's easy for line-standing to become necessary.
Went off to a panel on magical libraries and archives in fiction, which was entertaining, though perhaps a bit too fixed on talking about real-world library systems. I'd wanted to go to Amal El Mohtar's reading immediately after that but figured there was no point given the crowding issues, and only heard later that there were still spaces at the time I would have shown up. Ah well.
Finished off the evening with a long chatty dinner with the File 770 crowd, for which see above photo.
Major category: ConventionsTags: conventionsWorldcon75
August 9, 2017
Worldcon Trip - Gathering
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I don't seem to have taken any pictures yesterday -- need to remember to do that today. The convention officially opened, though I had something else opposite the opening ceremonies so I can't report on them. There is evidently a certain amount of "victims of their own success" going on with much higher at-con membership sales than expected, so the popular events and panels are jam packed. So maybe I wouldn't have gotten in to the opening ceremonies anyway. The main "large panel" space has four breakout rooms, and originally the largest panels were going to be in a the combined A/B section, but for the one thing I attended there -- the Tea & Jeopardy podcast live interview with George R R Martin -- they'd opened up the entire A/B/C/D combined space. (Back before the convention, the podcast had arranged for podcast Patreon supporters to sign up for special reserved seating, which I did, but when I got there it was clear that any plans of that sort had gone out the window. Or at least none of the crowd control folks knew anything about it.) The convention has put out announcements that they're scrambling to arrange for more function space with the convention center, and they've had to close down one-day memberships. I've heard bits of grumbling about basically not being able to attend anything back-to-back both because of traffic flow issues and the need to queue up well in advance to get into anything. It will be interesting to see if things settle out or escalate.
I didn't have any programming yesterday, and no must-do events other than the initial File770 social meetup and the Escape Artists meet-up (Escape Artists runs a series of fiction podcasts, including Podcastle.org which has bought two of my "Merchinogi" short stories.) The layout of the convention center is great for sitting down in one of the cafe areas and watching people go by (or wandering by people hanging out in the cafe areas), which is how I immediately ran into Irina Rempt (also on my list to visit after the con) and her friend Eleanor, then later once again bumped into Praisegod Barebones & The-Girl-from-Ankyra (with whom I'd had coffee the day before) at which we exchanged gifts (I brought a stack of chapbooks of "The Mazarinette and the Musketeer" for gifts), and others who are slipping my mind. Briefly bumped into Kari Sperring (whose schedule didn't work out for an after-con visit) and dropped by the Accessibility Point to wave hi to a couple friends who were staffing it.
As noted, I did got to the Tea & Jeopardy live recording, which worked very well as a stage presentation (including the singing chickens...who were simply too shy to come out from behind the curtain). Good audience participation schtick too. Then I went to a panel on "The Medieval Mind and Fantasy Literature" looking at contrasts between actual medieval history and culture, and the version that tends to show up in fantasy. (Generally good, though marred slightly by one of the panelists have a problem with taking 100 words to present a 5-word thought.)
In the mean time, thanks to the wonders of social media, I'd responded to a dinner-fishing post from Catherine Lundoff and her wife Jana with a suggestion to merge in my existing dinner plans with Sarah Goslee and husband Thorvaldr (I'm going to mix names from different spheres based on what I can remember most easily), to which Catherine had added Paul Weimer, Charlie Stross, and oh-crap-I'm-blanking-on-Charlie's-partner's-name-sorry! Dietary specifications landed us in a tiny vegan Vietnamese place where our moderate-sized party took up half the tables. Lovely conversation that wasn't all politics (though politics featured significantly), nor all about writing (though writing featured significantly), with most of us continuing on to a brew pub that it turns out was just a block away from my hotel.
This morning's hotel breakfast landed me with a group I'd seen yesterday, where I valiantly struggled to hold up my end of a discussion of current SFF television and movies. And now, in addition to writing this up, I'm reviewing my notes for my morning panel on historic fantasy (for which the moderator has sent out a somewhat over-structured outline for the discussion, but I'm sure it will go fine). Other than that, the fixed items on my schedule are three more social meet-ups (two of which conflict, so I may have to triage, since one is at the convention center and the other downtown for a loose dinner group). And beyond that, whatever programming I can squeeze myself into. See you on the flip side!
Major category: ConventionsTags: conventionsWorldcon75
August 8, 2017
Worldcon Trip - Reception
"Reception" is meant in several senses. The picture is not the official Worldcon reception at City Hall (which was a bit too washed out to make a good image)...but I get ahead of myself. One of the fascinating things about online culture, is that not only am I meeting people that I've known for years but have never seen face to face, but in some cases I'm meeting people I've known for years and realize I have no idea what their real names are. In the case of yesterday's coffee meet-up there's an objective reason for this (he's an ex-pat teaching in a country with touchy politics and doesn't want to connect his online and real life identities), but often it's just a matter of knowing someone through the nickname they use in a particular online space. That's who they are, as much as any name is "who you are". I joke that the first time I went to the medieval studies conference at Kalamazoo, between people I knew through SCA, people I knew through academia, people I knew through LiveJournal, people I knew through Usenet, and people I knew through other people talking about them, I had a vision of quite how many people I was likely to run into that I already knew...and then discovered that, due to redundancy, the actual number of discrete individuals was much smaller.
In any case, I had coffee with someone I know as Praisegod Barebones and with his daughter (just about to go off to college) who has become a charter member of the unofficial official Alpennia fan club. And because the next thing on their agenda was wandering around the farmers' market/tourist market at the harbor, we ended up spending several hours together. Checked out the interior of the Orthodox cathedral, shared a basket of billberries from the market, and then split up with they went off to do a ferry tour of several islands.
I headed back to my room for a bit of a rest (valiently struggling to not nap), and then eventually headed off to the Worldcon reception at City Hall (evidently they did a random pick of people who were participating in programming--or at least that's what I heard, which caused a bit of a wave of consternation when people tried to figure out why some people got invited and others didn't, without knowing about the random factor). A bit of speechifying, a light buffet of cocktail food, and a lot of milling about struggling to socialize. Within two minutes I was at the point of "I recognize six people in this room and they're all in the middle of knots of friends", so I shifted gears into "walk up and introduce myself to people who are standing all by themselves and break the ice by saying that that's what I'm doing." Eventually bumped into several people I actually did already know, but cocktail parties are always about survival mode.
Expecting (accurately) that the reception wouldn't be anything resembling a real meal, I'd hoped to hook up with people planning to go off to dinner afterward, but failed to make any connections. Since I had a phone call to make I went back to my room (I thought I needed to sort out something with my ATM card, but it turned out I'd just happened to hit the one malfunctioning ATM in all Helsinki and thought it was my account that was the problem). Still needed dinner after that and made some connection attempts on social media but nothing panned out with the right timing so I ate by myself at a pasta place with some nice patio seating on the main square. I always feel like a failure when I eat by myself at conventions. I failed again at breakfast this morning despite the hotel filling up with con goers, and me wandering through the (open seating) dining room hopefully trying for eye contact. My game isn't getting off the ground so far, but half the dinners from here on are already scheduled, so that should get better.
I've packed my backpack with essential supplies (business cards, Alpennia badge ribbons, sample books, a change of shirt) since the hotel is a train stop away from the convention center. Helsinki doesn't have a single big convention space + hotel so we're scattered throughout the downtown area. I'm assuming I won't be coming back to my room until evening most nights.
Major category: ConventionsTags: Worldcon75
August 7, 2017
Worldcon Trip - Arrivals
This will be an irregular chronicle of My Summer Vacation, beginning in Helsinki, Finland. Seeing all sorts of online friends reporting late planes and missed connections, I have to count myself lucky at getting a non-stop flight (though we were delayed an hour taking off, so good thing I didn't have a connection to miss). I spotted several other Worldcon-bound fans in the waiting room for my flight, in some cases due to strategic use of the "Helsinki 2017" bright blue t-shirts, but in some cases because it was someone I actually knew (waves at David Peterson). The flight was wonderfully non-full, and far more comfortable than economy class typically is. (I swear that the seats reclined farther than usual, but this may be an illusion because they certainly weren't any farther apart than usual.) By a judicious use of half a sleeping pill and my audiobooks, I managed as much sleep as I normally do, which meant I woke up just about when they were serving breakfast, a couple hours out from landing.
Of course, landing was at 4pm local time. It's possible I would have done better to get less sleep on the plane and been more tired last night, but I'm not going to complain. I navigated the airport, customs, and catching the train into the city as if I knew what I were doing. The one glitch so far is that my planned roommate (Liz Bourke) called in sick, having come down with something at the conference on Byzantium in SF last week. (The tweets coming out of that conference made me a bit envious of those who attended, but one can't do everything.) I'm a bit sad, because I like using room sharing at cons as a way to get to know people I might not have spent time with before. It's always awkward offering up room space for those in last minute need because of issues around being choosy.
Anyway, after checking in at the Hotel Arthur, I went out for a long walk to get acquainted with the downtown, find something to eat (a light smoked salmon sandwith at the Kappeli cafe in the esplanade park), and generally get in enough physical activity to reset my body a little. It was one of those times where it would have been nice to bump into other fans and do some socializing, but I wasn't up to figuring out how I would manage that. Sleep was decent enough that I think I'm well on track to get through the jet lag.
The hotel has a complimentary breakfast buffet with some interesting (and occasionally cryptic) choices. I mostly settled on muesli with yogurt-like-substance and fresh mixed berries. Then took in a walk through the botanic gardens which back up on the hotel. I have a 10:30 date to meet some online friends for coffee, and after that I'll improvise. Maybe even take some time to put together notes for the panels I'm on, which I haven't had the brainspace to do yet.
Major category: ConventionsTags: Worldcon75travel
July 30, 2017
My Worldcon Schedule
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I confess I'm only now getting around to posting my Worldcon schedule because, dear reader, you're either going to be there or you aren't, and if you're going, you're going to pick your program items to attend based on topic and triaging all the wonderful possibilities, not based on whether I'm on the panel. The only plea I have is that if you're at Worldcon and haven't bumped into me yet, consider swinging by my "signing" session Friday at 1:00 to say hi. I'd be extremely surprised if any of the book dealers at the convention have my books, so I expect it to be a long lonely hour. I'm also proposing that if anyone expresses interest, I'll make myself available for a completely unofficial informal get-together immediately after my signing slot (i.e., Friday at 2:00). If you're interested, let me know.
Here's the very brief overview -- check out the link above for full details:
Thurs Aug 10 10AM - A Stitch in Time: Historical Fantasy
Friday Aug 11 1PM - Book signing
(Friday Aug 11 2PM - unofficial get-together)
Friday Aug 11 6PM - Alien Language in Science Fiction
Sunday Aug 13 3PM - History as World Building
Major category: ConventionsTags: conventionsWorldcon
July 25, 2017
Taking Dictation
Alpennia Logo
I have a list of blog prompts that people have suggested, and though I always mean to address them first in/first out, usually some other intersection causes one to pop up to the top. In this case, when I mentioned dictating stories during my commute, Sara Uckelman asked: When you dictate, do you write like you talk? Do you edit a lot when transcribing or is it faithful? How much is it "these are the ideas I want to convey" and how much "these are the words I want to convey the ideas with?"
I love this question, because in fact I had to train myself laboriously how to dictate fiction. I tried it a few times when I was writing the first draft of Daughter of Mystery--especially after I’d found out how well MacSpeech works to convert speech to text. But faced with a live microphone, my brain utterly emptied itself of story. Nothing would come out.
In part, I think it was because my story composition process was so thoroughly tied up with text and the physical act of writing. At that point, I was still doing all my initial drafts longhand and then transcribing to the computer. Trying to create story by speaking was like the difference between being able to write a foreign language and being able to talk in it.
Another part of my block was what I tend to think of as a “buffering problem”. One of the reasons writing longhand worked better for me than typing was because it more closely matched the speed at which I could actually compose in my head. So if I wrote longhand, I’d always have the next sentence buffered in my brain and ready to come out, whereas if I typed, my typing might outpace my composition. And dictation would seriously outpace my composition.
But I clearly remember the first time that dictation did work for me, though I don’t recall exactly which scene it was. I think it must have been during my last push to finish the first draft of Daughter of Mystery, because it was Christmas time and I was at my brother’s house in Maine and I was simultaneously focused entirely on getting the story down and too fidgety to just sit and write. So I got out the cross-country skis and skied over to the nearby college campus that had a big network of cross-country trails, and I’d ski and think up the next sentence, then pull out my iPhone and dictate it, then ski and think up the next sentence, then pull out my iPhone and dictate it, and so on until the scene was done.
And that’s not a bad outline of how it still works for me. The pause button is my friend. I still can’t manage to just turn the recorder on and spin a tale, but I can jerk through it sentence by sentence. (I’ll digress a moment and note that I had much better luck dictating ideas for blog posts, because I can blather on about process and structure and ideas at great length without pausing for breath.) And I still can't use MacSpeech for transcribing, because I do my dictation on a little tiny handheld recorder and the file format isn't compatible. (I can't dictate on my iPhone while driving, not only because there are laws against interacting with a phone while driving, but because I need tactile controls for the pause/continue function.)
Getting back to some of the specific questions: When you dictate, do you write like you talk?
I try. Because one of the things I worry about most is that specific wordings and turns of phrase will come to me only once and they fly away forever. So when I dictate I try very hard to capture those exact expressions as they come to me, whether or not I keep them. But it doesn’t resemble ordinary talking. And the clearest way I know that is because in the middle of dictating story, I may drop in a note about needing to explain something earlier, or changing my mind about something in light of the bit I’m dictating, or simply a footnote about needing to come up with some name or backstory or other detail. I drop into my ordinary voice for those things and when I’m transcribing, they’re instantly recognizable even if I’m not paying attention to the words.
Do you edit a lot when transcribing or is it faithful?
I definitely edit as I transcribe. For one thing, once I see it on the page, I’ll realize that I was repetitive, or used the same word or phrase twice in close proximity, or I’ll know that I shifting things later in the dictation session, and will go ahead and modify them as I type.
How much is it "these are the ideas I want to convey" and how much "these are the words I want to convey the ideas with?"
I’d say about 30:70. Sometimes I’ll shift into summary mode, especially if I know I have detailed thoughts for the next scene. But mostly I’m trying to get down the specific words I want to use. If I dictate summary, then it’s going to get transcribed as summary and I’ll have to expand it later. I don’t want too much of that to deal with on the first serious editing pass.
One of the reasons I decided to pull this topic up to blog about, is that I had an interesting dictation experience this week. I mentioned above that I worry a lot about catching the perfect words and then losing them if I don’t get them down. Well, maybe that doesn’t need to be as much of a worry as I think it does.
Back in March, I had an inspiration for a Beauty and the Beast reworking. It came to me in a bit of a wholistic flash, and I laid out a basic outline with various plot and character notes in a Scrivener file. And then I set it aside to ripen while I worked on Floodtide. Now, having finished that ugly first draft of Floodtide and having decided to let it sit until I get back from Worldcon (and adjacent travels), I found myself casting about for a writing project to spend my commute-dictation time on. And I dictated the opening scene of “The Language of Roses”.
When I opened up the Scrivener file to transcribe it, I discovered that I’d already drafted up the same exact scene and forgotten I’d done so. Four months between the two compositions, and here is how they compare. (Please excuse the occasional *placeholder*. That’s just part of my process.) There are things that are entirely different, but it's striking how many of the details (and even exact phrases) were "sticky".
Draft 1 (March 2017)
She wore white—the white of the snow that lay thick at the sides of the castle steps as she picked her way slowly down into the garden. The white of the ice that hung from the eaves of the copper roofs and overflowed the tiers of the fountain at the center of the paths. It was not the white silks and laces of a bride, but the white of frozen winter that covered all the castle and the land around in a blanket of silence and waiting.
She pulled the hood of her cloak over her head so that the pale fox fur framed her even paler face. Her white-booted feet crunched on the path that wound past the sleeping outlines of the formal beds, past the dormant fruit trees, and toward a small iron gate set into the stone wall. A gate to the outside. There: just to the right of the path, a mere handspan from the latched gate that would have meant freedom, a briar grew, trembling under the weight of the ice that rimed every leaf.
One thorny limb stretched out toward the scrolling ironwork, pointing the way. Straining for release. The only message came in the form of a frost-touched bud, new-sprung since the day before. Since the last time the White Lady had come to visit.
“What is it, Rose?” she asked. She stretched a hand clad in white kidskin out to cup the bud gently and leaned closely and breathed on the tightly folded petals to coax them into revealing their message. Her breath, too, was cold. Cold enough that no vapor hung in the air, but warm enough to stir the bud to life. It shifted within her fingers and unfurled halfway, releasing just the faintest trace of perfume.
“*Color*,” the White Lady breathed. “A visitor, then. We haven’t had one of those in years.”
There was nothing of hope or anticipation in her voice. She released the *color* bloom that was already wilting and curling around the edges. But as she did, she saw a second bud, larger and swollen with blushed meaning. This time the White Lady’s hand trembled as she lifted it to her lips and breathed out. It opened eagerly: the deepest crimson, almost black. The color of heart’s blood. No frost rimmed the edges of those petals. The scent they offered up was deep and intoxicating. The Lady brushed her lips against the velvet softness of the petals. The rose was warm. A single crystal tear crossed her cheek and she whispered, “And I.”
Draft 2 (July 2017)
Grace picked her way along the graveled path that led toward the small wrought-iron gate at the back of the garden. With an effort that she felt, but no longer considered, the invisible ones trailed behind her, sweeping the path free of leaves in her wake. Erasing the traces of her visit. She felt the effort like an ache in her bones—an ache like the weight of the curse that hung over the manor.
Dawn was the best time to walk in the garden, when her limbs felt less heavy, less stiff. When there was no chance that he would be watching. Even so, caution led her along a roundabout path, past the low hedges of the maze and the beds where the kitchen garden had once been, the silent fountains. She could have asked the invisible ones to tend the gardens, but what was the use? He provided food for the table with an effortless gesture. Why should she spend her hoarded strength just to have some small bit of sustenance that didn’t rely on his pleasure?
She came to the briar that grew beside the gate as if by chance. Caution was a long habit. The rose twisted up from its roots, stretching thorny branches in two directions: one toward the gaps between the iron bars, seeking escape, one reaching toward the manor house, pleading for release. Here and there on the brambles, leaves trembled in the breeze. But only one unexpected bud swelled at the tip of a stem.
Grace reached out to cup stiff fingers around the bud and breathed a kiss of warm air across it. “Hello Rose,” she said. She looked anxiously over her shoulder at the upper windows of the house. They still showed shuttered against the light. He didn’t care for light in the morning. She returned to the rose. She had no skill to work with matter. That was his domain: the transformations, forcing one thing into another. She had only the invisible ones.
“What is it, Rose?” she asked softly. “What message wakes you?”
The bud swelled between her hands, cracking the sepals apart. The petals unfurled: half-blown, then just enough more to show the colors within. *Description of colors*
A tremor fluttered through her heart. Not hope, not precisely. She didn’t dare to hope.
“It has been long and long since you showed that message,” Grace said.
She hadn’t counted the years. And the last time—that had not gone well. But any change brought…curiosity. That was the safe thing to call it.
“Thank you,” she whispered and brushed her lips gently across the petals. In response, a crimson blush suffused the bloom before it faded back to *original colors*. “And I, too,” she said.
Major category: Writing ProcessTags: Language of Roses
July 24, 2017
Book Review: Walking on Knives by Maya Chhabra
There are two approaches to fairy tale retellings: ones that re-map the original story as a whole into a new setting that shifts the reader’s vision to a different angle, and ones that take the original premise as a jumping-off point then map entirely new territory thereafter. Walking on Knives by Maya Chhabra is definitely of the second type. The jumping-off point is not one of the more sanitized versions of The Little Mermaid, but something much closer to Hans Christian Andersen’s original, complete with hazard to one’s immortal soul and the virtues of physical suffering. Readers who expect a feel-good romance rather than a hard-edged tale of impossible moral choices and unbreakable magical contracts may find themselves off balance.
We have, as a given, the unexplained desire of the mermaid for the prince whose life she saved—a desire so strong she is willing to face enormous risks, sacrifices, and suffering for the merest chance of success. We have the foreign princess who is willing to take credit for the prince’s rescue. But throw into the mix a sister to the sea witch, who has her own goals and desires and is willing to make her own ruthless bargains to achieve them. And crucially, we have a tacit acceptance of same-sex attraction that needs no special pleading or justification.
The story is not about romance, but about working through misunderstandings and barriers to communication. It’s about negotiating your way out of a maze of bad alternatives and choosing which consequences you’re willing to accept. And it’s about the pain that comes from forcing consequences on other people when there is no clean way out. I found the plot delightfully unexpected and challenging. Once it diverged from Andersen’s road map, I had no idea where it was going to take me, but I was satisfied with where I ended up.
The prose style is ambitious, though not always successfully so. There is a wavering between a more formal fairy-tale style and unexpected shifts into colloquial language. Flights of description sometimes veer into excess and I occasionally stumbled over words being used outside their expected meanings. The story has the substance of a fresh and individual voice and I expect that, with practice and maturity, that voice should come into its own.
Walking on Knives may be ordered from Less Than Three Press.
Major category: ReviewsTags: Reviews: Books
