mlerules

I sometimes wonder how many of the behaviors of successful authors are rooted in similar factors. I’ve often commented only partly in jest that I’m diagnosably hypergraphic as well as hypomaniac, not to mention scoring very high on ADHD self-assessments. I’m no clinician, and I’ve never asked my therapist or my doctor to comment formally on any of these conditions, but I certainly exhibit many of the traits of all three of them. Not to wretched excess — I don’t write on the bedsheets with bodily fluids, for example — but I definitely have those tendencies.

And really, someone who hyperfocuses, writes obsessively, and is persistently overenergetic and self-confident would seem a natural fit for being a writer. My day jobbe also has a work pattern optimized to that cluster of behaviors. Throw in strong verbal facility and a powerful sense of social ease and you pretty much have me. And I’ve optimized my life’s work around these behaviors.

So am I creature of my pathologies? Surely I am. Surely all of us are. But I do find myself wondering how deep the tendencies run. Could I have chosen to go into some quiet, meticulously detail-oriented field like accountancy? Could I succeed at an avocation where repetitive action is valued at a premium?

And does it matter, since I’m quite happy where I am in life? A few less pounds and a bit more money and my life would be ideal for me.

What about you? How does your personality and psychological profile fit what you do?

US-101 bridge, Wedderburn, OR. © 2007, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

A Month of General & Trauma Surgery — Excellent, moving short piece by doctor and author Blake Charlton.

What An Autopsy Looks Like — and Why You Need One — I plan to donate my cadaver to the medical school associated with the hospital where I receive my cancer treatments. (Via @marynmck.)

Tweet lightly: How social media could someday affect your credit score, insurance, and more — (Thanks to lillypond, a/k/a my sister.)

Jurassic cricket’s song recreated

Earth Station: The Afterlife of Technology at the End of the World — The Jamesburg Earth Station is a massive satellite receiver in a remote valley in California. It played a central role in satellite communications for three decades, but had been forgotten until the current owner put it up for sale, promoting it as a great place to spend the apocalypse. It stands feet from a trailer park and down the road from a Buddhist retreat. This is the story of one of the old, weird ties between Earth and space. (Via Curiosity Counts.)

Signs of Ancient Ocean on Mars Spotted by European Spacecraft

Upgrade eliminates Atlantis from Google Earth — Data glitch explanation won’t satisfy true believers.

Rabbi’s ‘Kosher Jesus’ book is denounced as heresy — Shmuley Boteach’s book focuses on Jesus’ Jewishness, portraying him as a hero who was not resurrected or divine. But some other rabbis express contempt for the book and forbid followers to read it.

Running Against America — Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Clint Eastwood Superbowl commercial. I just watched the ad seconds ago, after reading about the Republican freak-out, which I have to say is bizarre. This is the exact sort of gauzy nationalism (to paraphrase Jonathan Chait) that corporations have put out for years and Republicans have, themselves, often alluded to.

Why Mitt Romney should open up on Mormonism

Gingrich spokesman defends Wikipedia edits — While some of the changes were minor, Joe DeSantis has removed or asked to remove factual references to Gingrich’s three marriages as well as mentions of ethics charges brought against him while he served as speaker of the House. Remember kids, character counts! (At least it does if you’re a Democrat. Republicans appear to be immune to their own moralizing.)

The Citizens United catastrophe — In fact, this decision should be seen as part of a larger initiative by moneyed conservatives to rig the electoral system against their opponents. How else to explain conservative legislation in state after state to obstruct access to the ballot by lower-income voters — particularly members of minority groups — though voter identification laws, shortened voting periods and restrictions on voter registration campaigns? Nope, no activist judges in conservative America. No sirree, Bob. Move along, citizen, nothing to see here.

Tea Party ‘Is Dead’: How the Movement Fizzled in 2012’s GOP Primaries — Remember when we were being so loudly told by Your Liberal Media how the Tea Party was “independent” and “non-partisan.” Yeah. Uh huh. Funny how that worked out.

Why Romney is winning — Money.

?otd: How dark do you like your chocolate?

2/7/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
Weight: 230.8
Currently reading: n/a (between books)

For my own part, I think the best of these is my Sunspin novelette, “A Long Walk Home”, which has been selected for Year’s Best Science Fiction volume 29. If you’re a Hugo or Nebula voter, I hope you’ll give it consideration.

Anyway, here’s the list.

Novels
Endurance (Green, volume 2), Tor Books

Novelettes
“A Long Walk Home“, Subterranean Online
“The Decaying Mansions of Memory”, Untold Adventures

Short Fiction

“The Blade of His Plow”, Human for a Day, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Jennifer Brozek
“A Critical Examination of Stigmata’s Print Taking the Rats to Riga” The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists, ed. Jeff and Anne VanderMeer
“‘Hello,’ Said the Gun“, Daily Science Fiction
“A Place to Come Home To” (with Shannon Page), When the Hero Comes Home, ed. Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood
“They Are Forgotten Until They Come Again”, River, ed. Alma Alexander
“Unchambered Heart”, ChiZine
“You Know What Hunts You“, The Edge of Propinquity

Night Shade sent me this book to read for blurb. I’m still chewing on how to blurb it, so I figure writing a quick pocket review will help. This is Salyards’ debut novel, and its the first in a series (though I don’t know how many volumes the series is slated to be). It’s quest fantasy, of a sort, narrated by a confused scribe named Arkamondos. He is hired to follow and document the activities of a small band of soldiers on extended foreign assignment, led by one Captain Braylar Killcoin. The book started slowly, and I had some trouble getting into the story, but once it caught for me, it was a lot of fun.

I’ve been trying to figure out why the book didn’t take off well for me. I believe the problem is inherent in the set up. The initial confusion and naiveté of the narrator makes it hard for the novel to come into focus early on. In a sense, Salyards has done his job a little too well — the “what’s going on here?” issues that Arkamondos struggles with become the reader’s struggles as well. The problem with a quest fantasy narrated by someone in ignorance of the point of the quest is that you wind up fairly literally driving to the story.

My other frustration was that I wasn’t expecting this to be a book one of a multivolume story, so I was quite surprised when the manuscript ended without resolution. The story just stopped. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I really want to read the next book.

The Man in the Moone and Other Lunar Fantasies, ed. Faith Pizor and T. Allan Comp, Praeger Publishers, January 1971 [ AbeBooks | BN ]

This is a collection of fiction about voyages to the moon, ranging from 1638 to 1841, with an introduction by Isaac Asimov. I bought it because I was interested in reading some very early science fiction. This is very much in parallel with my project last year to read nineteenth century proto-steampunk, in the original Klingon, as it were.

The oldest of these pieces is written with the very curious diction and spelling of 17th century literature. If you can handle Shakespeare, you can handle this, but there is definitely no skimming here. Other stories range from a fantasy by Edgar Allan Poe to a weird little piece about a steam powered duck. The editors provide an introduction to each selection which gives literary, social and political context, and offer occasional footnotes elucidating obscure points within the text. That’s especially helpful in the case of the older works.

Of course this work was not self-consciously written as either science fiction or fantasy, as neither of those genres existed when the pieces were published. Most of them are social satire, in fact. Still, it’s fascinating to read these premodern visions of how human beings might reach the moon. This is special interest reading, in my opinion. The entertainment value is there, but the going is fairly challenging. On the other hand, I really enjoyed exploring one of the roots of our contemporary genre.

Sunken ship, Wedderburn, OR. © 2007, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Christopher Walken reads Where The Wild Things Are

Antarctica – Fantastical World without Borders — An Antarctica travelog, relevant to one of my future projects. (Via bravado111.)

Avería: The Average Font — Interpolative typography. Huh. Fascinating. (Thanks to kshandra.)

Washington Park: 1907 — Detroit’s “moon towers”, as depicted here, later were sold to the City of Austin, where most of them still survive.

One’s A Crowd — The trend toward living alone?

garyomaha on working lunches, or not

Neurocinematic comparison of monkeys and humans — Spaghetti western reveals differences between human and monkey brain. Mmm, neurocinematic. I loved this bit: Like most other films, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a complex multisensory stimulus, filled with rich, operatic imagery and, of course, Ennio Morricone’s unforgettable score. It is, however, fairly safe to assume that humans and monkeys will interpret the film quite differently. (Via danjite.)

Path Is Found for the Spread of Alzheimer’s — The headline is slightly misleading, as the story refers to Alzheimer’s progression within an individual rather than to transmission between individuals. Interesting stuff.

The Komen Controversy: Planned Parenthood Claims a New Kind of Victory in the Culture War — I am baffled by the conservative charge that Planned Parenthood “bullied” Komen. What is the Right’s treatment of Planned Parenthood but bullying, if you want to frame it in those terms? More to the point, for decades the entire forced pregnancy movement is about bullying desperate, vulnerable young women and their medical providers. What else is a clinic blockade or a doctor target list but sheer, awful bullying in the name of what? The god of love? Decency? Conservative bigotry and “morals”? Can you imagine the reaction if liberal-progressives blockaded churches and targeted pastors? Project much, guys? The Right can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

A Puritan’s ‘war against religion’ — Roger Williams, the Puritan who founded Rhode Island, insisted on the state refraining from intervening in the relationship between humans and God. Freedom of religion absolutely means freedom from religion. That is the best protection any church has against persecution. Despite the modern GOP interpretation, freedom of religion doesn’t mean the freedom to exercise oppressive bigotry, narrow-minded judgmenentalism, or tear down educational and cultural standards in favor of silly mythmaking.

ericjamesstone points out that I am wrong in characterizing Romney as saying he won’t have a Muslim in his cabinet — This in connection to my comment that I thought making an issue of Romney’ religion was a red herring, until he made an issue of Islam as a religion. Speaking as an atheist, there is nothing more or less at issue with Romney’s LDS membership than there is with Newt’s Catholicism or Clinton’s Southern Baptist faith. To me, the religion of the candidates would only be an issue if there were a straightforward atheist running on a major party ticket. Which won’t likely happen in my lifetime…

Senate GOP: Activist Federal Judges Wanted — The hypocrisy of a group of Republicans who are supporting the lawsuit against Obama’s recess appointments. Republicans being hypocritical? That’s as inconceivable as the idea of Newt Gingrich cheating on his wife.

The true conservative alternative: Ron Paul? — It’s sad that conservatism has become a race to the bottom to display the most ignorance, bigotry and sheer foolishness.

?otd: Dream much??

2/6/2012
Writing time yesterday: 5.5 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
Weight: 229.4
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

(Note this is first draft, the raw stuff, and because of the decision to cut it, I haven’t cleaned it up at all.)

Queen Margot of Bourgoigne

My son is a fool.

I will not say this, of course, because servants repeat everything they hear, especially those ill-chosen words that even a person of my quality might utter in a moment of extraordinary frustration. My husband’s courtiers are worse, more dreadful gossips than the starlings that swarm in the rafters of our great halls.

For this foolish boy, I have labored to give him every advantage, every possible assistance to make his way to his way to his father’s throne. I would not have it said that he profited only from the circumstances of his birth. I myself rose from humble, tainted beginnings to one of the great thrones of Europe by dint of sheer force. My young prince should be honored and feared just as much as I, not laughed at behind disloyal hands for toddling to a crown and scepter he had not earned.

Nothing but the best for him, and I made sure everyone around Puissant knew his worth before the child himself had come to any such realization. I gave him everything, paved his way to self-reliance and strength on the whipped backs of a hundred servants, the carefully secured loyalties of dozens of courtiers.

And how does he repay me? By leaving the court, by making mock of my rightful ambitions for him. By becoming a hedge knight lurking in the slums of the sun-raddled south.

I was borne in a bothy high in the Pyrenees. I was raised in my earliest years amid the shit of sheep and the foolishness of a mother too stupid to understand who had raped her into pregnancy and what a gift he had given her. When my father in his blood-dyed cap had come calling in my seventh year, to lay claim to his child, people fought and were slain out of sheer, ignorant terror.

He claimed me, and took me to the caves where ancient forges still made weapons that had won battles in the morning of the world. The fae knew the secrets of steam and iron long before the Romans or the Arabs had begun to unlock those doors of knowledge. Once my father’s people and their lesser kin had held dominion over the fields and hills of Europe, binding my mother’s people like cattle and driving them to their masters’ will.

From my mother I had learned how to shear sheep and make bad mutton stew. From my father I learned the history and ways of power, and the tale of how the fae lost their power and became creatures of shadow and night, hiding among leaf and branch when the clatter of horses’ hooves arises.

I learned that we could and would be greater than that once more. I resolved that I would do my part to bring our power back to the days of its glorious zenith.

At fourteen I set out, a girl who had been raised in a cave by monsters and was herself already the height of most ordinary men, to find my way to the top of this world we all must live in.

And I succeeded.

Think you how many mothers would covet a king’s marriage bed for their daughter. Imagine the fierce competitions waged in ballrooms and salons and behind the curtains of women’s quarters the length and breadth of this continent for the sake of putting a girl within seduction’s distance of a crown prince. I, with no one to sponsor me, no family or monied connections or favors from aunties and old friends from boarding school, climbed that mountain surely as any conqueror of old atop his hill of skulls.

All of this to produce my son, to bring into the world his bright smile and broad shoulders and ogre’s blood, that one of the Old People might rule again, and so crack open those doors of opportunity and power that our cattle had slammed in our face a hundred generations past.

I married and mated with one of those cattle to produce that son.

And the fool betrayed me for the life of a knight errant, bedroll and hard tack and bandit arrows his lot.

What a waste. Could any sane man want this for himself, when he had waiting for him everything I had prepared?

Yet there is another chance. A small kingdom, doomed by fae jealousy and the petty scheming of the seasons, soon to fall prey to a curse that such a one as my son fancies himself to be could hardly resist riding toward in hopes of winning honor by succoring the needy.

If he is anything, Prince Puissant is a romantic. I will make sure when the time comes that he learns of the unfortunate fall of Talos, and I shall use that to draw him back to his rightful place in life.

And my father, his grandfather, shall see his own seed rise to the highest places a man – or fae – can go in this modern world.

Talk about a screaming nightmare…

Curry County courthouse, Crescent City, CA. © 2007, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.