What to say...? or I keep changing things!!!

How does one go on after a silence of two months? A strange thing it is to disappear so abruptly - all I can say by way of some manner of compensation is that there has been A LOT of good work going on for the next Half-Continent story (rather than the much anticipated Harlequin romance set in outback Australia... sorry about that folks, I know you were all longing for it so :) - a synopsis written, various passages penned and muchas muchas muchas research and invention going on.

The upshot right now of this is that in going much deeper into the construction and function and crewing of a ram I have discovered that some of the information about gastrines and rams given in MBT is now revised. I must confess myself a tad perplexed: how am I to proceed?

The normal process is to present your world full-formed upon the world, an unshakable rock of continuity and consistency. Yet here I am tweaking and changing and - more properly - refining ideas all the time, as I have always done.

What concerns us here are gastrines and just how it is that they work. Here are the variations:

OLD IDEA AS PRESENTED IN MBT ~

• dog box & gears
• 5-20 year life span
• jointed leavers everywhere
• put into the vessel individually

NEW IDEA AS I WORK IT THROUGH MORE ~

• muscles work straight to screw; "gearing" is simply the amount of effort gastrines put in and the number of gastrines put to the screw
• 30-50 year life span - I like the idea of them living as long as a generation of vinegars (& notwithstanding death due to sickness or injury or being eaten whole and entire by a ravening kraulschwimmen)
• straight wooden beams and levers
• grown within the vessel (though this one I am not so sure about)

My thoughts are that none of this actually varies things too much, that the previous information can be easily incorporated into the revisions and vice versa - well that is what I hope anyway... Is it appropriate to simply alter things as I go and expect you all to just keep up? Is it actually a good thing for the whole process to be evolving right out there in publicland?

Where I will draw a line is at the total reversal of an idea: what I intend is only the kind of fluctuation that will occur as a I think an idea through all the more deeply, and discover some real-world fact that adds to the whole.

So, there, I am back, fretful as ever - if anyone is still reading :/

Most earnest mae culpa for so long a silence.

Oh, and just to speak into any suspense, my current project is (at this stage anyways) a new story with different characters set in HIR 1602 - the very next year after MBT. Events in MBT have an affect on it, are part of its own motion - because, verily, they are events more particularly in the Half-Continent - but it is its own tale.

Thank you for all your - well, "suggestions" is to little a word for the depth and passion of your thoughts but it will have to do... maybe "advice"? - it helps a whole heck of a lot, even if I seem to be going in some other direction, your thoughts and ideas go with me all the same.

Final inkling: I reckon this will be a stand alone story - no multiple volumes...

OK, this one really is the last thoughts: Rossamünd's story does go on, whether a write about it or not, so let your minds run free with that one; & Europe is indeed too "cool" to let go, but I reckon I need time to ponder just how to tell about her next... & I reckon, though I seem to "avoid" or digress for now, that the Half-Continent might indeed be working up to some kind of dissolution, though do not mistake the movements in one small part of the Sundergird (as seen in MBT) to equal a threat to the greater part of it - just see how small an area we cover in the story so far; I reckon folks in Hamlin or Gottingen could not give two hoots what happens in Brandenbrass (bar the impact on trade, I suppose.. hmmm...)

It must be said though that cataclysmic dissolution is a bit of a genre cliche, too, and though I keep finding myself in my inexperience committing them , I am trying not to do so, and all conquering baddies threatening the existence of everything seems an obvious one to avoid. The original premise of the Half-Continent was that the existing relationships were/are enough to generate stories without then needing to break the idea.

Apart from a certain LoTR, the few genre novels i have read always seemed their best at the start with the original concept of the world, before everything gets broken - it was where I wanted to stay, and I haven't and continue to put all this work into figuring just how the H-c works "now" to bust it all up again. That said, I do think there does need to be some manner of larger and obvious conflict... hmmm.

...& Aphrodine, expect to find "rumsibol" in some form in the next book too, if i may, simply brilliant!

On and on I go...

First, I want to point you to an interview (yes, another one!) with Drew Bittner over at SFRevu for your perusal. There is also a glowing review at selfsame site also written by Mister Bittner, (WARNING: this is a little spoilery, so, if you have NOT read Factotum head over there at you own peril.)

Now, the following was caused by but has only some connection with the comments previous about art being work or reaction. On I go...

Dare I admit I actually have very little truck for the whole post-modern, "It's all the the eye of the beholder/ reader interpretation is supreme" thing.

Reader reaction/participation is vital: I write very much to create a particular set of reactions in you all - of brand new vistas, of wonder, of adventure on an adult scale, of (I hope and strive) some small portion of the life-changing wonder I had when first reading LotR as a 12 year old.
As an illustrator it always struck me that the intent of the creator and the reaction they are looking to provoke was/is the primary point. Heck, half the time I was just filling the requirements of a brief, but then would have folks insisting to me all these wondrous "artistic" notions in my work that I never meant, nor knowingly put in.

The counter to this is, obviously, the "Freudian" one, that I could not help put deeper elements into my work. While this may be - and is probably - true, the alchemy of my "stuff" with theirs seems to also bring about an element of fiction within my viewers reaction too, an attributing to me things not necessarily so. Yet who am I to deny such response?! Without the reader/viewer what is the point? What is MBT without your participation? A bunch of ideas rolling about my head. For years I tried to show people H-c stuff, to which the common response was bemusement or boredom. Though i might have been making stuff up for the fun of it - for myself - I was clearly looking for an audience, for participation, reaction, validation.

So I suppose we find ourselves with a synthesis. Creations are made to be participated in, reader/viewer response is vital (unavoidable, indeed, sought after!), yet the creator's intent surely has a place, surely what I wanted to make deserves some respect, some consideration?

Oftentimes I have not (and I quote from Amazon):

"that was the worst book i have ever read. dm cornish is a hack. never read this book. " (the author's punctuation/capitalisation)

OR

"Someone please tell me how anyone (ANYONE!) can get past the truly awful title. And after you achieve that monumental goal, how can you navigate the vinegar seas and bleeble blabble names that are intended to justify this as a truly unique creation and world? I, for one, couldn't manage the feat."

So who is right here?

The post-modern response would go something along the lines of, "well, for these readers that is what MBT is..." i.e. rubbish. But IS MBT rubbish just because they say it is. Again, p-m thought will assert that for these too folk it is. Indeed, my stories are not perfect (despite the flarings of my ego insisting otherwise) and I can understand how they might not be everyone's cup o' tea, but surely my intent in penning rates some contemplation and even merit from even the harshest critic?

So who is right?

There seems to me to be another factor at play here, one very hard to fix down, even dangerous to do so: the notion of something having merit in and of itself regardless of opinion. Yet what/who(!) arbitrates such a reckoning? Are not humans the deciders of such things? Yet - for example - as we see with the Amazon quotes, there are those who revile MBT, though many of you here think it worthy. Who is correct? Is it the majority voice? Is it that if we get enough saying it is "good" then it is, and the few who did/do not like it are free to their opinion? In a way this works, but what if the majority say that something bad is good, as in the citizens of the Haacobin empire holding all monsters as bad? There are only a few who dare to acknowledge otherwise, yet we find that the majority are not in line with what is actually the case, but the minority.

So what happens then?

Our majority model has collapsed.

Who arbitrates what is so here?

The issue maybe, in the end, is that we in this age of pluralism, dare not say another's sentiment or notion is wrong for genuine fear that we ourselves might be subject to such a charge; that in some close held idea, we too might be wrong, and this is intolerable (I sure don't like holding the thought for too long!). So rather than let this dread event occur we say instead everyone is right, formulate theories to maintain the same, and remain in our cocoon of "rightness"...

There seems to me something going on here that is beyond neat theories.

My word I bake my own noodle sometimes... :\
(I have probably made no sense at all... ACK!)

A post at last! (Would you believe it?)

So much commenting goodness with the last post! I was going to respond there but thought maybe it might work just as well here... (given I am feeling a tad stuck with post ideas right now because a certain 3rd book has most of my attention).

Amongst all the excellent ideas batted forth and back I wanted to answer two things:

Firstly, to fulgars using swords: well, the idea is feasible - it has certainly crossed my addled thoughts (especially the reverse, ie. the dangers of using a metal weapon against a fulgar). The conclusion I am running with is that most fulgars would regard to use of a sword as some kind of admission of weakness - that their ability with their eclatics is not quite up to rigours of the stouche. It also strikes me that the more sword using pugnators (sagaars, sabrine adepts) might look a little darkly on such a practice - a kind of "demarcation dispute", that's our technique! Get your own! - and in return a fulgar would never stoop to admitting that another profession's technique might be worthy of use... Note that I say most, not all... I am trying not to be painful, but, you know, I have been thinking about how the H-C works for a little while now...

As to wire-swords (barbed or otherwise) well there is a concept though aforementioned demarcation would still be a problem here, and as far as "charged" bullets go, well the nature of electricity is that once the source of the current is no longer present then there is no current = once the ball had left the firelock it would no longer be charged (am I being annoying yet?) Having said that, it certainly is a snazzy idea, though I reckon you've got to allow pistoleers and scourges and the like their own specialty.

This leads rather niftily into my second topic of choice, technicality v fastasticality (is that even a word?). Some rules from our own world are fun to break (we cannot even do with all our technology what the transmogrifers do with lahzars or the masacaars with gudgeons), others I like to adhere to (certain laws of physics, for example). What I think makes for good ideation is not the consistency with our own world but the internal consistency of all the ideas together. Unfortunately I am no genius so I live in a fairly continuous concern that I am not being as internally consistent as I could be with the H-c - but I do try. Probably my main guiding factor is feel - does this idea feel like it could work? Does if feel right? Does it fit the feel of the H-c overall?

Part of that feel is the sense (I hope) of plausibility within the construct of the H-c itself. After years and years of laying down layers on layer of ideas I have begun to develop a kind of "box" of rules, a space - a vibe - in which it becomes easier to fashion ideas that fit well within the whole. This I reckon is the best thing to aim for (if world building is your thing of course) to take your time and let your ideas collect and meld and create their own distinct feel that is your own.

MBT Professions-gluttony Query

Well MooseGuy was wanting to be a scourge-leer-pistoleer-strivener and I said I would come up with a name for such a person/profession. Well... I came up with everything but:

• scourge-pistoleer = flagrant, orspirator/orspiratine
• scourge-wit = severine
• scourge-leer = staide, austerine
• skold-leer = scryer, saltscry, saltstrait
• skold-pistoleer = locksalt (though really, such a person is really a skold with a penchant for delivering potives from a firelock)
• leer-pistoleer = scrylock, lockstrait, straitlock
• wit-leer = looksooth, straitsooth

...and I could go on. Now, it must be said at any such combinations are not as common as you might think, especially as true pistoleers - like sagaars - see themselves as a set apart, with secret knowledge and dedication to a singular expertise in a single skill. Indeed, sagaars are even more rigourous about this; for them it is all about the purity of the Dance with out taints, cheats or augmentations . A person might gain some fundamental moves of the dance (akin to basic and more intermediate martial arts), but if you call yourself a sagaar it is because you have committed to a way off living, to a higher plan of existence. (sorry, giantfan)

As for Mr Guy-of-Moose's combination, well I was thinking, sir, you might want to have a go at coming up with your own name, for such a combination would be most probably unique to you and therefore have no common name in the Half-Continent. FYI - messing about with highly unstable and dangerous potives whilst wrestling with the instability of you mimeotes (foreign organs) you could expect to have a rather short life span, even without the ubiquitous threat of a terrible gashing end.

It is worth noting that these names might change over time and with further thinking and revision; just like most other things H-c, I am constantly reworking and adding and subtracting to ideas - especially as I get deeper and deeper into the world with each novel. It can be a tad disconcerting to discover in writing a story that something I thought pretty well thought out over many years of natural accretion plus solid hours of think-time proves to be just barely enough to start with, that I need to go much further into notions and inventions than I had ever anticipated.

It is a good problem to have, I reckon.

(Oh! I have realised it is April Fools today, but I cannot think of anything funny - though plenty that is foolish)

And the winner is...

... well not Monster-blood Tattoo anyway. The top dog in the Childrens' Literature section of the 2008 Festival Awards for Literature was actually (the roll of drums - or "flams and parradiddles" as Craumpalin would call them):

Don't Call Me Ishmael by Michael Bauer, published by Omnibus Books (my own publisher BTW)

CONGRATULATIONS!

Worthy worthy worthy.

It is a funny feeling when another gets the prize; certainly no bitterness or rage or any such thing, just a honest yet muted disappointment overborne by delight a/ just to have been shortlisted & b/ that someone has one - everyone likes a winner - in this case a someone I very much admire.

Truly it is just amazing to me that a 'fantasy' book (I used the term loosely) was even allowed to inhabit the shortlist of a literary prize, that not just you and I believe that the genre does not only have to be thin and/or derivative but can be done to a higher level.

It also struck me recently that it is a most Providential thing that I am a part of the YA scene where eyes and minds are wide open and hearts ready to receive what ever innovations authors care to cunjour. I do not think ol' MBT might have received quite the same attention had it been released through the more usual adult channels. How things can work out, even from the depths I found myself in during 2003 still amaze me. Halelujah! All those years of fuddling about with book after book of obscure little ideas only a very few understood, like some nerdy Jekyll suddenly, with the insight of one woman (Dyan Blacklock, Omnibis Books) I am propelled to bigger better things.

So to all of you, fellow Jekyll fuddlers, fuddle on - who knows where it will take us!

A happy holiday

Well, I am back from a break in Sydney-town - should anyone be asking where I have been you may say I have been there, with my wife, re-energizing.

But now I have returned.

So there we go...

Given that I was born and raised on the south central coast of Australia (and that I am an indoorsy kind of fellow) I have never seen the marvel I saw on Foresters Beach on the New South Wales central coast. There had been a storm a few days before (or so we - my wife and I - were told by a stranger - a fellow walker - along the strand) and washed up on the whole length of the beach were dead, sun-dried blue bottle jellyfish. Their air-sacs were like brittle plastic, that popped loudly when trodden underfoot.

Later we found more recently washed specimens still firm and rubbery, spasming and curling in on themselves when touched. The largest would have been no bigger than an apricot, fitting neatly in the palm of hand, yet their bright blue stinger stretched out across the sand for three feet or so.

Nature-nerd that I am, I was astounded and amazed and immediately inspired as to what such things might be in the Half-Continent: small mucosa spawn, living, mindless buds released from their "parent". Storms wash them ashore where, depending on the species, some might wither and die; others dry and become dormant - waiting to be washed into the vinegar seas again some other storming night, revive and grow into terrors. Yet others might actually take up home on the shore, slowly burrowing to make treacherous toothy or sucking pits of themselves to trap crabs and gulls and the occasional careless limb (this might be too Star Warsy, hmm...)

I have visions in my head of some story of such a wash-up of these gelatinous spawn. I see the local fishers and sea-side village folk come down to the beach to squash and hack and burn the little, defenseless jellies, wishing to destroy at least some of the sea-monsters while they are vulnerable and spare later griefs. This might all get written down someday. Hmm... again.

Meanwhile, I have to pop off to spend the afternoon with my editor as we go over some of the last tweaks to MBT 2, Lamplighter. Almost there folks, almost there. As to the excellent questions posed last post, they have really got me thinking (and indeed one of them is answered in Book 2) and I shall get to them.