A good point and another reason I like steampunk

So there's this blog I recently found out about called Xerposa, where they gather all kinds of wonderful steampunk things together for your reading pleasure. For example, they have a list of steampunk bands (I only knew about Abney Park, Unextraordinary Gentlemen, Prof. Elemental, and Vernian Process), a continuing debate about hydrogen versus helium in airships (obviously in a steampunk setting hydrogen is best, but some people can't be reasoned with - I mean, helium wasn't even discovered until 1903!) and short articles on various crafts/fashions/items to lust after (including cufflinks made by yours truly! I feel so famous!) They even gathered up a few handy steampunk-looking fonts. They're so helpful.

There are also articles about steampunk itself, as a subculture, and as a literary movement. I like this one especially. It's about time. And I have found this to be the case in a lot of steampunk writing - I think it's because they are trying to tell the story of a world and the setting and characters are detailed enough that they are pretty realistic. Also, steampunks tend to be geeks, and so are their characters, and they have too much cool shiny explody stuff to tell you about to waste time moping about abuse in their backstories.

The Way to a Woman's Heart

(well, mine anyway)

Skywriting! I'm just putting it out there that any man who proposes to me in skywriting will win my hand in marriage*. If he is the pilot who does the writing, that gives him a bunch of bonus points.

Having gone to the airshow on a windy day and a not windy day, I was thinking about smoke and aerobatics. Which led me to think about skywriting. I think this is a fantastic craft, which apparetnly is making a bit of a comeback! I was informed today that I missed seeing some skywriting over my own town a couple of days ago. It's just as well, since the prop wash from my saffron-colored airship would mess up the letters....

Here is an educational film strip from 1935 about skywriting.




*Some exclusions may apply.

Who the heck are these people?!?!

So my brother has this writing style analyzer on his blog, and let's just say I got a bit carried away......

The problem is, it says I write like a bunch of people I've never heard of. It's not that this offends my ego (for real!), it's just that I have no frame of reference, so I don't know what to think of the results. It's quite annoying. I did get some famous authors, one of which made sense, and the other did not.

I pasted this story I did for a class, and it said I write like Ray Bradbury. I guess I can see that. But how about this: I pasted in my review of one of the Ideal Husband movies from this blog, and it said I write like H.P. Lovecraft. Now, I'd love to believe that's true, but I just don't see it in that review. I guess it has really long sentences.....?

Then I pasted in the prologue from a story I'm working on and it said I write like David Foster Wallace. Who is that? Apparently he's some kind of vaguely comedic well-reviewed person. One or two of his titles on Amazon look familiar.....

Most of my reviews from this blog came up as Cory Doctorow. I guess he writes sci-fi...? No idea. I assume the program just looks at sentence structure, maybe some word choices. Obviously not content.

Oh, well. I'll be going with this one:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

NANOWRIMO is here again!!!

It's been, well, several months since I last posted, and here we are in November again. I need to get writing! Ack. I'm stuck, but I'm determined. Like this:

I promise I'll write a real post this week!

NANOWRIMO words finished right on schedule...

... My schedule, that is.

I predicted it would take six months, rather than just the one for me to write fifty thousand words, and here we are. As of right now, I have 50596 words, most of which make sense and sound good, or about 99 pages. My book will end up being not quite 300 pages, as near as I can tell. Here is how I feel right now:

Couldn't have said it better myself - really, I couldn't.

My far better-read brother emailed me this article some time ago, after I posted my first rant about World War I films. I finally read it (I know, shameful). It's a piece by G.K. Chesterton about the sort of stories people were writing about the Great War, and it pretty much said a lot of what I said, but in a more organized fashion. I particularly like this paragraph:

"Lastly, let us remember as a general principle that opinions should be stated as opinions and convictions as convictions. We must not be impatient because these statements are called abstract. Whereas some charming romance about mud and blood and disemboweled horses is in comparison beautifully concrete. We are not savages, to express ourselves only in picture-writing. We are civilised men, acquainted with mathematics and metaphysics, and presumably capable of thinking in terms of thought. Certainly if we ever lose that power, it will be a worse relapse into barbarism than the worst war in the world."

It almost makes me want to take a creative writing class just so I can tell them that when they get all "show don't tell" on me. Not that I don't think there is a place for description - Chesterton was an unparalleled master at describing how things looked, right down to lighting and "camera" angles!