[links] Link salad for a travel day
Living in Plato’s Cave — Tom Morris on the relationship between Plato’s Cave and Wall Street
Building a Brain on a Silicon Chip — A chip developed by European scientists simulates the learning capabilities of the human brain.
Statistics, seals and sea monsters in the technical literature — Mmm. Cryptids.
Twins Suspected in Spectacular Jewelry Heist Set Free — Saved by their indistinguishable DNA, identical twins suspected in a massive jewelry heist have been set free. Neither could be exclusively linked to the DNA evidence.
?otD: When you look down from the jet, don’t you get that magic feeling?
3/25/2009
Body movement: n/a (travel day)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (travel day)
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville; Push of the Sky by Camille Alexa
Tags: Cool, Politics, Science, Tech
Posted: 1:14 am Wed March 25 2009 | Comments(0) |
[personal] Open dinner in Dallas, TX March 25th (repost)
Barring a last minute change in business travel plans, I will be free for dinner in Dallas tonight, Wednesday, March 25th. I plan to be at:
Chuy's Dallas
4544 McKinney Ave at Knox-Henderson [ Google Maps ]
Dallas, TX 75205
(214) 559-2489
I should be there around 6:00 pm that day. It’ll be a JayCon Lite — open dinner, if you’re around and interested, come on by. Probably it would help if I had tentative RSVPs here in comments or via email, so if it gets bigger than 4-6 people I can be properly prepared to annoy the host.
Tags: Food, Personal, Texas, Travel
Posted: 12:52 am Wed March 25 2009 | Comments(1) |
[photos] Cars of Winter Park, FL; dept. of nasty-ass Detroit iron
As I noted on Twitter yesterday, I’ve seen more Bentleys here in Winter Park, FL than I’ve ever seen before in my life outside a dealership. However, today while on a (failed) run to buy a present for , I ran across some seriously nasty-ass Detroit iron.
As usual, more at the Flickr set.
(And yes, I did manage to score for both and — unfortunately, in neither case does it involve a Bentley or an old Detroit monster.)
Tags: Calendula, cars, Child, Florida, Photos
Posted: 12:21 pm Tue March 24 2009 | Comments(0) |
[photos] My morning at Trinity Prep
Spent this morning in a four-hour workshop with some of the A/P English kids from Trinity Prep. The kids were talented, thoughtful and very engaged, and quite good sports about putting up with me for half a day.
A few photos…
The sign which greeted me on my way in
Dr. Robert Boerth, my faculty host and sponsor
Dr. Boerth and me in front of one of the campus lakes
Workshop session
More of the workshop session
Me with the students
As usual, more at the Flickr set.
Tags: Florida, Photos
Posted: 12:01 pm Tue March 24 2009 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad’s dime dancing is through
SF Signal’s 10 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Author Blogs — This is cool: I’m on the list!
For Whom Do We Write? — Aidan Moher with some fascinating reflections.
Blue Tyson reviews my story “Last Plane to Heaven” — Funniest review I’ve ever gotten. For the win!
Andrew Wheeler talks about Other Earths
Print Goes Out of Style — The MLA is changing reference standards for Internet citations. (Snurched from Scrivener’s Error.)
A new preposition is born
Portraits of musicians done in cassette tape
1930s Art Deco ad for Blaupunkt radios — Seriously cool.
Brain Images Reveal the Secret to Higher IQ — The integrity of neural wiring is a big factor in determining intelligence. It’s also inheritable.
Life’s Left-Handed Secret — Twenty different amino acids go into making up the vast variety of proteins so essential to life. But why does life on Earth use only left-handed versions of amino acids to build them? Some more cool stuff about amino acids in space. (Facts do not apply if you are a Creationist.)
?otD: Where is that Chinese music?
3/24/2009
Body movement: 45 minute suburban walk
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (travel day)
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville; Push of the Sky by Camille Alexa
Tags: Art, Cool, Culture, Language, Links, Personal, Process, reviews, Science, Writing
Posted: 2:38 am Tue March 24 2009 | Comments(1) |
[personal] Winter Parking in Florida
Had a lovely day at the school today. Guest-taught three A/P English classes, and lunched with some of the faculty. The kids were smart, engaged and interested, and the faculty were terrific people.
Back tomorrow to do a half-day workshop for a selected group of the A/P kids. I’m going to cover business, craft and technique, focusing ultimately on openings. Then a reading tomorrow evening at 7 pm — a public event at the school, which ought to be interesting.
This afternoon I came back to my room and worked on the Endurance outline for several hours. Right now I find I’ve overthought the process (this happens to me on occasion) and so am in effect getting in my own way. Nonetheless, experienced some good insights and got an outline of the outline, so to speak, onto the page.
After that, dinner with and her husband. Went to a local slightly alternativo pizza joint which was actually pretty good, even if the waitress didn’t think I was the least bit funny. Flirt fail!
Back to the school tomorrow, off to Dallas on Wednesday, home on Thursday, then San Francisco on Friday to hang out with (who lives across town from me) and spend a few days with (who does not live across town from me).
Tags: Calendula, Florida, Personal, Portland, Texas, Travel, Writing
Posted: 5:05 pm Mon March 23 2009 | Comments(0) |
[photos] Twisting by the pool at ICFA
A few photos from the ICFA poolside Dead Dog on Sunday, March 22nd.
Liz Hand
John Clute
Charles N. Brown
Peter Straub
Rob Sawyer
Amelia Beamer
Gary K. Wolfe
Judith Clute, Gay Haldeman, Joe Haldeman
Graham Sleight
Gary K. Wolfe and Farah Mendlesohn
As usual, more at the Flickr set.
Tags: Conventions, Florida, Photos
Posted: 12:14 pm Mon March 23 2009 | Comments(0) |
[photos] Flying Saucer at Skycraft Surplus
Photos of the flying saucer at Skycraft Surplus in Winter Park, FL [ Mapquest ]
As usual, more at the Flickr set.
Tags: Art, Cool, Culture, Florida, Photos
Posted: 12:05 pm Mon March 23 2009 | Comments(0) |
[process] The antimagic of crutch words
Since I mentioned “crutch words” while talking about Pinion [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ], both and have asked me about them, and about mine in particular.
A “crutch word” is a word, or phrase, which is used so often that it becomes intrusive in the text.
Some words are by definition pretty much invisible unless grossly overused. “The”, “and”, “said”, “was”, “her” and so on. These are the connective tissue of any narrative, simply because they’re required for the whole monster to lurch into motion in the first place.
Some words are intrusive but necessary — character and place names, for example. They stand out, but they have to be there.
Some words are intrusive by their nature, but this is on something of a sliding scale. For example, if a writer uses the word “eleemosynary” even once, the reader will notice it. Use it more than once in a novel and the reader will probably object. On the other hand, “house” is pretty inoffensive, but it’s not invisible. If it occurs three times in the same paragraph, “house” will become intrusive.
There are a couple of different artefacts in my writing which I collectively refer to as “crutch words”, though properly I should use a larger critical term.
A true crutch word can fall anywhere on this scale, but specifically refers a word which the writer keeps re-using, probably because it’s stuck in their head, or it feels familiar. I will often find this in stories and novels (or sections of novels) where a certain turn of phrase or slightly unusual adjective recurs often enough to become intrusive. It’s the equivalent of having conversational phrases, things most of us do, to provide stock verbiage in certain situations. “Oh, I’ll bet,” as a generic reply is an example.
My actual crutch words vary from project to project, and depend a lot on the project content, the state of affairs in my head when I was writing the piece, and so forth.
I also tend to perseverate on words such as “some” and “something”, as well as phrases such as “some kind of”, “at all”, “in truth.” Also certain constructions such as “was [verb]ing” instead of “[verb]ed”, or “made their way toward” instead of “went to”. Beginning sentences with “And” and “So” is another of these tics. Notice these are mostly passive words and constructions, that temporize the action or description, soften it to a generic impact, and stall for time. Pretty much the written equivalent of “um, um.”
Sometimes these words and constructions are important, depending on the tone and emphasis of the passage. For me, though, 80% or more of them are just textual static, fillers as I typed while my writing brain lagged slightly behind my working fingers. Likewise the crutch words — same phenomenon at a slightly higher level of function, a sort of stuttering at the paragraph or scene level, or within the plot process itself.
I’m more than a little obsessed with clean style. I comb through my work at a level of detail that probably is irrelevant to many readers. One of the reasons for a longer revision cycle, both in terms of time-in-the-drawer and time-at-keyboard, is that these bits and pieces tend to be invisible to me as I’m reviewing my own work. I need both distance from the drafting process and tight focus on the text to find them.
This textual static is a style-killer to both my writing eye and my reading eye. But it’s important to me, and I think it makes for stronger, more direct story telling.
Tags: Language, Process, Writing
Posted: 2:47 am Mon March 23 2009 | Comments(5) |
[writing] Teaching in Winter Park
Today and tomorrow I’ll be writer-in-residence at Trinity Preparatory School here in Winter Park, Florida. They have very generously invited me to come and speak to the AP English classes, as well as conduct a workshop for selected upper division students, and a public reading Tuesday night. This is going to be a lot of fun.
Tags: Travel, Writing
Posted: 2:36 am Mon March 23 2009 | Comments(0) |
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