Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 50

Sunlight burns the street.

Sunlight burns the street.

Valerian and chestnuts

Cast soothing shadows.

Follycon notebook 4+5

(back to pages 2 and 3)

Then I actually went to a Follycon panel! It was called (I think) “How to Put Science in your Fiction,” and that thing at the top is my wife’s snarky correction.

The following are some unhelpful notes to myself. “Science journals”? Thanks, Dan. Great advice.

I did manage to record the name of Antonio Demasio, who apparently has interesting things to say about neurology.

The panel continued with Tyrants Rex by Clint Wastling, which is about post-apocalyptic GM animal-people. I haven’t read it, but it turned out later that Clint stayed in the same B&B as me, so he’s got good taste in accommodations. I also got told about Ben Aaronovich’s Rivers of London series, which I already know is excellent, and Paul Cornell’s Shadow Police series, which I haven’t read, but want to.

There are also some in between notes featuring me figuring out how to get science into science fiction. These include such gems as “the scientific process as plot” and “Characters work their way back through the chain of worldbuilding.”

It’s actually an interesting idea, but I have no idea what to do with it. Any suggestions?

Follycon Notebook pages 2 + 3

Page 2 of my Follycon notebook is quite a bit blurrier than page 1, but don’t worry, I have some blurry memories to supplement it!

Uh, so I think this is still from that first conversation with Georgina Kamsika, Sarah Dodd, and Micaiah Huw Evans. And I think these recommendations are mostly from Sarah: The Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan, the works of Xia Jia, Mary Rosenblum, and Rant, by Chuck Palahniuk.

I think by the time we were on Palahniuk, we’d switched topics from Chinese sci-fi to writing advice, and I made a resolution for my next book: Research for 1 month, then start writing. Write bad scenes and then do another round of research focusing in on what I need to know to make those bad scenes work.

As…somebody? says “I knew that, but I didn’t know that.”

Oh, also one more Chinese sci-fi author recommendation: Chi Hui

 

Follycon Notebook page 1

Yeah yeah, I know Eastercon Follycon was a month ago. It’s been a busy month, and I’m just now typing up my notes. I hope to get them all online, hopefully before I go to Worldcon in August.

You might remember that before I went to the convention, I read Captivate. So you can guess I went in there with plans. How could I show vulnerability and highlight what we shared? What would the people I met want to talk about? Their books, I thought the success of old ones or the formation of upcoming ones. Tourism things like where they’d eaten out or the places they’d seen or were going to see. Panels they’d seen or people they’d met or plans for same.

These turned out to be good conversation starters, but what I’d add to the list now is “fields of expertise.” People like to talk about what they know about, and as an author, I want to listen. I accidentally stumbled into conversations about Bose-Einstein condensates, the Uncertainty Principle, and beach erosion, which stand out as some of the con’s most interesting and inspirational conversations. Seriously, a book might come out of one of them.

So if I meet you at a con and want to know all about your job, that’s why. Anyway, on to the notebook!

Page one of my FollyCon Notebook contains the cream of my first conversation with Georgina Kamsika, Sarah Dodd, and Micaiah Huw Evans. They suggest you watch Books and Pieces and read The Ninefox Gambit, Ancillary Justice, and the Book of Phoenix.

Sarah is also looking for non-English-language speculative fiction short stories  for Samovar, a project of Strange Horizons Magazine. So hit her up if you have written something and want to translate it into English.

Huw didn’t want to toot his own horn, but I did manage to extract from him that his work is available from Giganotosaurus:  “Nine Instances of Rain.”

And Georgina has a book out soon: Goddess of the North.

Vitosha’s White Peaks

Vitosha’s white peaks.

While I look up at that snow

I’m sweating down here.

Expanding my Base

A brief thank you to slatestarscratchpad, who made a post a month or two ago about “expanding your base” (or “increasing your foundation” or something) – that is using your ability to get things done to learn how to get things done better.

This morning I had a bit of extra energy and time and I used it to read a bit in a book about how to write and another about how to have conversations. Both helped me with current projects and made me feel good about myself, which gave me more energy. Let the positive feedback loop continue!

Beset by Discord

Beset by discord

I stop and look around me

A lilac upwind

The Days of the Week

Bounce Nakmara Three-Five-Four turned north and piloted her cradle up the ramp of the grand old university building. Where had Professor Japaljarri said he’d be? Go up the ramp and turn east, then south, then east again down the corridor. Third office to the south. Ah, there it was.

Bounce brought her cradle to a hovering stop north of the door, smoothing down her hair-clay and adjusting the computer around her neck. They had communicated over the internet for months, but this would be Bounce’s first face-to-face meeting with her adviser on Anglophone tribal law.

Officially, of course, there was no such thing as Anglophone law. The Native Eurasians were supposed to be civilized, governed by the same system as everyone else. In fact, Anglophones mostly huddled in their enclave, following customs older than anything from the Southern Hemisphere.

“Hello, Bounce,” said Japaljarri as she piloted her cradle through the door, “where are you coming from?”

“North-north-east about 11 miles.” The Anglophone enclave, in other words.

“Excellent,” said Japaljarri. “Back to the enclave! And how are the Anglophones?”

Bounce had a list of questions for her adviser, mostly words in the Anglophone language, which Japaljarri did his best to answer. Anything he couldn’t, she’d just have to figure out herself. There was no higher authority on English in the world.

They compared notes as the sunlight tracked across the window to the south. “I’m also curious about this leave-taking formula,” said Bounce eventually. She highlighted the phrase shining from the projector on her computer.

“‘See you’?” read Japaljarri. “Yes, it’s a contraction of see you later.”

“Or see you tomorrow, yes,“ said Bounce. “But look at these attestations: See you on Monday. See you on Thursday. I’ve counted seven of these nonsense words — ”

“They’re not nonsense,” said Japaljarri. “The seven days of the week,” he used the English word, “are named after the seven celestial bodies of the Native Eurasian superstitious calendar. The zodiac.”

“Well, the Anglophones don’t know that,” Bounce told him. “I asked them. They just said ‘Wednesday means Wednesday,’ or something equally unhelpful.”

“Well — ”

Bounce raised a hand to stop him. “But here’s the thing I noticed: the days of the week are always in the same order. Monday always comes after Sunday and Tuesday always comes after Monday. After Saturday comes Sunday again.”

“Interesting.” Japaljarri twisted his fingers north of his computer. “You ought to read Napangardi Six-Six-One on the symbolism of The Circle in Sub-Himalayan Eurasia. I have the link somewhere…” He turned to his shelf of codeces on the western wall of his office. “Or was it in hard copy?”

“I still haven’t gotten to the weird part,” said Bounce.

His eyes focused back on her. “Oh?”

“The days of the week map on to actual days,” said Bounce. “Today is Thursday. Two days ago, my host brother left, saying ‘see you Thursday,’ and today he came back. That got me thinking, so I asked him when he left. He answered ‘Tuesday.'” She counted off on her fingers. “Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.”

“He was right!” exclaimed Japaljarri.

Bounce spoke faster. “I asked him more questions. When will the next Sunday be? He said ‘in two days,’ without any pause to calculate. I asked him to tell me when he’d last gone away on business, and he said ‘last Tuesday.’ I asked him when I first came to his house and he said Monday three weeks ago.”

Japaljarri raised his eyebrows. “Maybe the boy just has a very good memory.”

“Except it wasn’t three Mondays ago,” said Bounce. She rocked east and west in her cradle. “I checked and it was four! 31 days, not twenty 24! He was wrong about the actual amount of time, but he was right about the day of the week.”

“Fascinating,” said Japaljarri. “You’re telling me that in order to tell someone when you did or plan to do something in English — even in situations as basic as saying ‘goodbye’ —  you have to keep track of this arbitrary seven day cycle?”

“An arbitrary cycle that extends to every surviving West-Eurasian community around the world that I could find, and which goes back to the dawn of time,” said Bounce. “The Anglophones tell me that their God deity created the universe on a Sunday.”

Japaljarri smiled. “Well, they would say that.”

“But even if we’re just going by history, if this week or zodiac system goes back to before the Cult of Jesus, that would make it almost 15 hundred years old.”

“A cycle of seven days,” mused Japaljarri, “kept turning all the time. From the fall of the Roman Empire, to when Jangala Nine discovered the Northern Hemisphere, to now.”

“It makes you wonder,” said Bounce. “This week thing is embedded so deeply in Anglophone language and superstition. What does this mean for the way they think?”

“Yes, I do seem to recall that Anglophones get very lazy every seven days or so.”

“But it could be a good thing, too!” Bounce insisted. “What if we teach English to people recovering from injuries? Will that improve their mental health? ‘I’ll be fully recovered by Monday,‘ or whatever.”

Japaljarri signed agreement. “Yes, they do seem more impervious to discomfort than we are. More in touch with their own bodies. Perhaps this week thing is why.” He shook his head. “But if you’re right, then it will do more good to make them speak Gondwanan all the time. What use is it to know what day of the week it is when you have a computer to remind you of appointments? And their language is literally keeping then out of synch with us.”

Bounce looked down. “So speaking English isn’t a skill, its a handicap.”

“Well,” Japaljarri sighed. “There are linguists who don’t believe that language affects thought at all. They’d tell you that this week thing is just a harmless quirk of expression like the Gondwanan skin names system or, I don’t know, the four directions.”

“How can it be?” said Bounce. “Anyone can tell which way East is, but can you point to a Thursday? Something as big and complex and artificial as the week system must have a profound effect on Anglophone culture.”

“Well then, our responsibility is to report on it,” said Japaljarri. “Tell everyone, let them decide whether the concept of week is a good idea or a bad one, and let them take action one way or the other.”

The professor sighed, looking up and to the east. Perhaps he was thinking of the Russians with their lack of future markers, the Spanish with their rigid system of gender, and all the other dead cultures of the northern hemisphere.

He shook himself. “Well. That’s probably enough for a first meeting. You said you were going east-south-east, Nakmara? How will you get there?”

“Two north/wests and a south,” said Bounce, “then East to the lake, north-northwest along the shore, and a short north-east-south.”

“West-north-east might be faster for the middle part,” said Japaljarri, “at this time of day.”

“Thanks, professor,” said Bounce. And in English, “I will see you…” what was it now? She’d done the calculation while rattling off those directions, “next Tuesday.”

“If today is Thursday…” Japaljarri counted and laughed. “You’re right. What a cute system.” His face fell. “It would be a pity if we lost it.”

(This story is somewhat connected to The World’s Other Side. Don’t worry, the Anglophones are okay in the end.)

When the Lilacs Bloom

 

When the lilacs bloom

And horse chestnut leaves unfold

Forget the Discourse

Baby Birds Cry Out

Baby birds cry out.

The dried worms on the concrete

will help them grow wings.