Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:34 PM

For folks who missed the earlier posts on this topic, we and our tenants are hosting a party tonight. It's a combination day-after-Halloween/housewarming/we've-finally-got-the-space gettogether. The party officially started at 5 PM. Notice the time-stamp and length of this post?

I suppose it's better that I fell apart after getting everything together so the house looks great and everybody else can enjoy themselves, rather than beforehand leaving the downstairs a mess and making a bad impression.

And the sucky thing is, I really was holding up well and honestly looking forward to this up until I thought that I'd shortly have Ian beside me, and then those expectations were dashed with a forty minute delay.

Damn.

On the other hand, now that I'm not fit to join the party, I suppose this gives me a shot at getting the 2,000 NaNoWriMo words done today as I'd hoped. [Last count, 1410 as of 12:45 PM]

The phone just rang. Another of our friends looking for directions. Things seem much calmer downstairs than they were earlier; It doesn't look as loud or crowded as it hat; Ian and a circle of people are sitting on the floor playing Apples to Apples. Maybe I feel safe enough to be social; I don't know. We'll see...

Unrelated postscript:Sisyphus Shrugged did a majorly cool thing based on my post this morning. Thanks.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:35 PM

Is there a word meaning "edge of the woods"?

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:49 AM

I actually didn't notice the month had begun until about five minutes past midnight. After dithering and distracting myself for about a half-an-hour, I changed to a more comfortable shirt, picked up my notebooks, fed the cat, went to the bathroom, played my MP3 of "Make a man out of you" from Mulan and Bob the Builder's "Yes we can" and sat down and started to write.

I began with 486 words, starting a scene. After about ten minutes work, I think my wordcount actually dropped by about 50. Then, Ian phoned for a pickup. We got home somewhere close to 2, and after a bit of dithering whether I'd try to write more last night or try to get a good rest and work on it today, I put in about another hour. I'm now at 909 words, they've just finished yelling at one another, one stormed out of the room leaving the other in a dire emotional state for me to play with.

My goal is 2000 words per day, excluding Wednesdays, when I watch Smallville and Angel so won't have the writing time. That'll hit the wordcount in the days allotted. The question is, can I keep it up? For this scene, I knew many of the lines, just not how they fit together, and it still took me an hour for 400 words. Other scenes are much vague-r in my mind.

And, of course, here I am blogging about writing rather than writing itself...

Here's my NaNo profile, if you want to follow my progress...

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:20 AM

Shortly after waking this morning, I thought of the ultimate Halloween costume for... somebody...

If you're interested in pursuing this in any way (costume, illustration, storytelling), help yourself. I am so wrong, sometimes.

Postscript: Anybody else really like Alan Parsons Project's Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, their Poe-inspired concept album? Damn, but some of those songs are powerful. I was blasting it in the car driving Ian to work this morning. I think I may use it for background music at this afternoon's party (in rotation with other disks). If you haven't heard it yet, I strongly recommend "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "Cask of Amontillado" and "Tarr & Fether." Wicked fun music.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:25 PM

Well, just over one hour to go (at least, at the time I started writing this post. By the time I finish, there may be less.)

I'm not yet sure whether I'll start writing at midnight, or begin first thing in the morning (after driving Ian to work). Either way, earlier this evening I realized there were two more things about my writing process that I wanted to share. Two ways in which I may be making matters more difficult for myself. Or, maybe not.

First is in my format. I'm writing this story in raw HTML. Not using a word processor or any other Wysiwyg packages. Just me and my favorite text editor, NoteTab Light. It does complete the tags automatically, but I'll be doing all the rest by hand. Am I insane? Positive aspects to this are the end result will be posted to the web, so may as well stick to that format all the way through so I don't have to go back and undo any ugly or invalid tags that other programs <ahem>MSWord</ahem> tend to insert. Also, this is probably the most portable means of writing the story. Now that I'm no longer at school, this isn't as relevant, but I can write with a text editor anywhere on any platform (and I'm keeping my most recent versions hidden online so I can access them from any place I happen to be that has net access). Negatives include the intrusive nature of the tags while actually writing, and the fact that it's not Wysiwyg, meaning back-and-forthing with a browser.

Second concern is how I'm going to write. I'm going to tell this story in order, writing it all down chronologically from the second half of Chapter Four (August 4th) until the dramatic conclusion (December 22nd) to the planned epilogue (sometime the following autumn).

This seems to me to be the best means to proceed, ensuring that everything fits in the proper context, and enabling me to see the ebb and flow of the narrative and maintain consistency. The downside of this is that I expect the groundwork and transitions are going to be the most boring and difficult parts of the whole process. And I'm setting myself up to get bogged down in them. In fact, the very first scene I have to write is one that I've been struggling with for months and have tossed out numerous versions of. I've tried setting it at breakfast, at dinner, while at work, while playing... I know what they have to discuss and reveal; I even know the climax of the fight and how it concludes. I just don't know where it happens.

But there are so many other scenes all over the story which I can visualize crystal clear. I could dash them off right now, downloading them from my brain as I see them unfolding. Some of them are so crisp that I worry that by waiting, I will forget that really witty line of dialog that feels so perfect to me right now.

And I could do that. Just write the "good parts" version. As a matter of fact, that's how I started. When I first conceived this story, I wrote out four scenes in full from various points in the story, because they just grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. I've already incorporated one into the narrative [The last scene of chapter 3, beginning with "Easy, mutt"]

But the problem with that is maintaining the right tone and keeping consistent. For example, I can perceive these characters being wary upon first meeting, I can picture their antagonism boiling over at the midpoint, and I know that by the end they may have a close mentoring relationship. And I can visualize all three of those scenes like I'm walking through them in a play. But how to make that flow, rather than feeling all jerky and abrupt? If tomorrow I write scene L, where he's angry, and three weeks later write the preceding scene K, and he's depressed -- that's just not going to work. It will require too much rewriting to bring those parts in order.

So, I know that I have to approach this methodically -- making sure I've got a well-balanced diet before indulging in dessert, actually climbing up the hills before coasting down them. It makes perfectly logical sense. It's better for me, and for the narrative. And yet, I know that approach is going to be a harder one for me, and may prevent me from reaching 50,000 words. We'll just have to see how it goes.

Comments from other writers on either of these practices (writing in HTML and the order of writing scenes) would be most welcome.

Finally, given that it's Halloween and my story involves magic and Divination, I decided to do a tarot reading for myself focused around NaNoWriMo. Here's what I came up with. And now, it's 35 minutes to go... I should clear off my desk.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:35 PM

Alas, I'm devolving. This turn from the political to the personal seems to be hurting my popularity.

A few short weeks ago, I made it as high as an Adorable Little Rodent in the Blogosphere Ecosystem, but I've since dropped two levels to become Slithering Reptile.

Not that this is going to actually change anything I post or don't post, but I find this kind of number crunching moderately interesting. I was warm-blooded when I talked about less personal matters...

Hm. On closer look, it seems that some of the drop may be attributable to the weekend the site was down. Something else to hold against She-Who-I-Don't-Feel-Like-Naming-Or-Explaining-Right-Now. Well, it's completely meaningless except in a high-school popularity contest kinda way, but nice to have yet another reason to hold a grudge against her. :) [No, I haven't yet shared this story; I may sometime soon.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:15 PM

I have to say, I'm absolutely loving the weather this week. Just about every day this week, I've spent my lunch hour taking a walk around the office complex (and we're talking about a good 45 minute walk, albeit at a leisurely pace).

I do wonder whether the health benefits of that exercise compensate for the fact that I haven't been eating any lunch. I mean, I want to make sure I have enough time to enjoy the walk, so I plan to walk first and eat afterwards (figuring I can eat at my desk between calls if the walk runs long, whereas I can't take calls when I'm a few buildings away) and then am just not terribly hungry or inspired by the food when I get back. My lunch has been sitting in the office fridge, pretty much untouched, since the start of the week. [It's just sandwich fixings, so it's not going bad or anything.]

Come to think of it, I should probably take my lunch break soon, before it gets dark out^[*]. I'm not actually hungry, but (a) want the walk, and (b) I have finally come to grips with the corporate culture difference. Standard start and end times are nine hours apart, but they only pay me for eight hours. So I try to make sure I actually take a one-hour lunch every day. Don't always succeed (especially since we don't actually have phone schedules, so lunchtime tends to be decided by a flurry of IMs shortly before noon) but I try.

Ooh! I just noticed there's a big bowl of Halloween candy near the admin staff. Yum. I just want to say that I really like Smarties. Not the British candy that resembles M&Ms^[*], but those little rolls of chalky pastels^[*]. [Oh cool! A match the color to the flavor quiz! And I'm amused by several of the items in their FAQ.]

Anyway, just rambling right now. Hope your Halloween is a good one, however you celebrate it.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:00 PM

I'm feeling a bit more ready for NaNoWriMo now. After exorcising that other character this morning, I thought I'd see if I couldn't reach out to the characters of this story, and ask them for their help and compliance in telling it. Utter silence -- not even a feeling of "I'm ignoring you" but more like I'm just talking to myself and there's nobody else there. I'll just consider it a personal prayer, then, and yet one more way that character is unique. [Besides, I'm not entirely sure I want these characters to talk back. Particularly the lead, to whom I had to say: "Hi, please behave as I put you through five months of hell. Don't worry; it'll be worth it in the end." I really can't expect a polite answer to that, so maybe it's for the best that he remains subservient to my will for the duration of the story.]

At any rate, I've been debating with myself for the last couple weeks whether to share the completed first 3.5 chapters of the story. I migrated them to another file so they wouldn't affect my official NaNo wordcount.

I've been wavering about putting this forward for public consumption. I mean, nobody actually responded, when I made the offer, last week. And I just finished advising a friend against making similar pre-gestial-oval fowl numeration commitments.

More problematic, imo, is that these chapters really just set the stage for the action. And the more people who read it, the more people left hanging, interested in finding out what happens next and waiting for a resolution. The more people who want to read the rest of the story, the more pressure on me to turn the darned thing into something finished and polished, which I can be proud to put my name on.

So, that's a pretty powerful disincentive towards sharing the story opener with more people. On the other hand, I actually am rather proud of what I've written so far, and barring changes based upon subsequent chapters, they're in a pretty final state.

Ah, what the hey. Here's the first 3.5 chapters of the story. Read it if you want. If it honestly seems like I won't finish writing the whole thing, I can always share my detailed plot summary (20 pages long) with anybody who really wants to know how the story ends.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:25 AM

Well, I'm feeling better this morning.

I'm not sure exactly how, but this morning while I was still half-asleep, I think I came up with a ritual that I feel may... contain... that rebellious character. And, since waking from that dreams, his presence has been... diminished. He's so quiet, I keep wanting to poke at that part of my brain to make sure he's alright, but I also don't want to disturb or undo whatever the hell it is that I did. Thanks for your advice, those who responded; it actually was helpful. [I feel really uncomfortable and silly talking about all this seriously, as if explaining it all will make me sound insane and in need of psychiatric help. But of all the characters I've created in RPGs and storytelling, he's the only one who's affected me in this way.]

Also, if I wanted to feel any more pathetic about our Halloween party invitation, get a load of the invite to Overland Estate's Halloween Party, complete with trailer in Quicktime (small and large) and Windows Media versions... Wow. [via Oliver Willis]

BTW, for everyone who's asked, I'll provide directions to the party around lunchtime.

And speaking of lame, how about the DoJ employee who redacted the diversity report? They released the report in PDF format, with nearly half of it blacked out. Unfortunately they only blacked out the viewable image -- they didn't touch the underlying text, which remains readable. Go to the Memory Hole to see the full text, with redacted parts highlighted in yellow (instead of obscured by black). Via CalPundit. The commentary makes some interesting points that the redacted portions are merely embarrassing or critical, but aren't hiding anything truly secret. It sounds like the DOJ is abusing the FOIA exemptions, as described by Ficus. [The comments by wcw, VJ, and Michael Ravnitzky are also worth reading.]

And, I'll close this Halloween morning post with a few scary quotes:

George W. Bush:

"The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the -- the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice."

    -- via Slate Bushisms

Trent Lott, on Iraq:

"If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You?re dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be very aggressive in taking them out."

    -- via Billmon, among other places

This administration spends enough time and money on nasty tricks. I think I'd like my treats, now, please.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:20 PM

I so do not feel ready for the start of NaNoWriMo on Saturday...

Among other things, several years back I created a very... intrusive... roleplaying character. Or maybe I channelled him; I don't know. He's one of those characters who becomes scarily real and very possessive. At times it felt like he was trying to take over my life.

I left that game ages ago, and over time, I drifted away from the character. Then this week, all of a sudden, out of the blue, he reappeared in my head, fully formed and annoyingly obtrusive. I think he may be jealous that I'm writing a story that doesn't include him. And suddenly he's preoccupying my thoughts, trying to come up with a story in which he can be the star, and distracting me every which way from working on my actual NaNoWriMo story. In some respects, I've been spending time this week on his narrative in hopes that if I can wrap it up quickly, he'll go away and leave me alone to write what I want/need to.

I know he's the kind of character who feels no shame about being selfish and monopolizing, but as weird as it sounds, I'm hoping that maybe by posting about this... Well, I know he won't catch a hint, but I know other authors have gone through similar things with obnoxious characters, and maybe y'all have some tips for banishing him or stuffing him back into the closet for the next month or so?

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:25 PM

For those friends in the Boston area, we're holding a Halloween party on Saturday. Ian's got the details. If you need directions, post comments with your email address (it's hidden to all but me), and I'll get them to you.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:35 AM

Don't know how I almost missed it, but our President has declared this Protection From Pornography Week.

I could write volumes on how stupid and misguided this is. About the way the proclamation misleadingly blurs the lines from what consenting adults do to child abduction to all kinds of completely irrelevant crap shovelled in. [Although this Fisking does a pretty good job of it.] About the benefits people have experienced through pornography, and the harms caused by sex-negative attitudes, overbroad laws and overzealous prosecutors.

I could spend ages writing about this, using both published studies by experts and my own personal experience, but I really don't want to delve into all that right now.

I liked a friend's suggestion "declaring next week, Nov. 2 - Nov. 8, 2003, as National Protect-Porn-From-Prudes Week." He recommends using that time to support your local pornographer or produce some pornography yourself.

But why wait? Why not stock up on porn, now, during "Protection of Pornography Week" for the perverse pleasure of subverting the bluenoses? After all, the proclamation does call upon "all the people of the United States to observe this week with appropriate programs and activities. " And exercising our First Amendment rights to support constitutionally legal forms of speech seems entirely appropriate.

Forget that old demure triplet: "I read erotica. You read smut. He reads porn/filth." Well, I don't glow, I sweat. And, also:

Are you brave enough to make that statement?

^*Post title courtesy of Tom Lehrer, in a song definitely worth listening to.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:30 PM

One of the current hooplas in the news and blogosphere is that the President said yesterday:

The "Mission Accomplished" sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished. I know it was attributed some how to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way.

Anyway... Get a load of this explanation from today's White House press briefing:

MR. McCLELLAN: The mission for those people on board the ship was accomplished.

R-i-i-i-ight. Way to pass the buck, there, Scott! [Other portions of the press briefing are also worth reading, as what one reporter dubs "bannergate" gets quite a few questions.]

Meanwhile, further evidence accumulates that what the White House says ain't necessarily so:

May 3rd Washington Post editorial:

Aides say the slogan was chosen in part to mark a presidential turn toward domestic affairs as his campaign for reelection approaches. [seen on Media Whores Online]

May 15th New York Times:

Media strategists noted afterward that Mr. Sforza and his aides had choreographed every aspect of the event, even down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated shirt colors over Mr. Bush's right shoulder and the "Mission Accomplished" banner placed to perfectly capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single shot. [via DailyKos]

Yesterday's Navy Times:

President George W. Bush?s staff played more of a role in the ?Mission Accomplished? sign that hung on the carrier Abraham Lincoln than the president suggested yesterday in a Rose Garden press conference.

And the Democratic candidates are having a field day with it:

Wesley Clark

I guess that next thing we are going to hear is that the sailors told him to wear the flight suit and prance around on the aircraft carrier.

Joe Lieberman

Today was another banner day in George Bush's quest to bring honor and integrity to the White House," Lieberman said. "If he wanted to prove he has trouble leveling with the American people, mission accomplished. [seen on Interesting Times]

Shortly after the carrier stunt, which actually delayed the sailors homecoming in order to stage, I recall some congressional calls for an investigation into how much the whole thing cost. I wonder whether that's turned up anything on the source of the banner...

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:25 AM

So, NaNoWriMo starts on Saturday. I'm trying to take my big ol' plot summary (20 pages, including several scene snippets) and turn it into an outline so I can get some things in order and see what elements need fleshing out (transitional scenes, names & descriptions for minor characters, that kind of thing)...

The writing process hasn't even started yet, so why the frink am I being hit with writers' block already!? I'm getting this odd fear reaction over a task as basic as cutting apart my pre-existing written summary into scene-sized chunks, and I find myself desperately hunting for distractions to avoid dealing with it.

Not good. Not fun. As a matter of fact, it's really honking annoying, particularly because I can't come up with any rational reasons why I might be having this emotional response in my gut and the back of my head. But I don't like it.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:30 AM

Yes, yes, I know, the site has been down. I'm thinking terribly vengeful thoughts towards the one(s) responsible.

One of the movies I'm looking forward to this fall is the new big-budget live-action Peter Pan, coming out for X-Mas. The filmmakers' stated goal is to be as authentic as possible. I've been intrigued by it since I first read Moriarty's rave review of the script last year on AICN. And, it's going to star Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter movies) as both Hook and the children's father.

The trailers and stills look absolutely gorgeous, and I hope the finished product lives up to them.

At any rate, I realized that I have never in my life actually read the original J.M. Barrie Peter Pan. I know there are many copies of the book available online through Project Gutenberg and elsewhere (although the book isn't actually public domain. Barrie donated all rights to a children's hospital, and after copyright expired, a "unique Act of Parliament" restored royalty payments in perpetuity to the hospital), this is a book I wanted to curl up and read in bed. So, I bought a cheap unabridged paperback edition.

I haven't finished yet, but it's a fascinating book, and if you haven't read it as an adult, I highly recommend it -- at the very least, the first two chapters, set in the Darling house. It has a terribly subversive feel to it, that honestly surprised me. I mean, I expected subversion in Neverland, but not in the London scenes. In several places, I feel sure there's a broader societal joke that I'm missing because the Victorian culture is so distant from our own. Has anybody annotated Peter Pan the way Martin Gardner has Alice in Wonderland?

At any rate, the other astonishing thing I'm discovering about Peter Pan is just what a fascinating character Captain Hook really is. Just within the text, there's a certain richness of detail that begs for further exploration:

     His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different caste from his crew.

and

     The man was not wholly evil; he loved flowers (I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on the harpsichord); and, let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of the scene stirred him profoundly.

and

     Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school; and its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed they are largely concerned. Thus it was offensive to him even now to board a ship in the same dress in which he grappled her; and he still adhered in his walk to the school's distinguished slouch. But above all he retained the passion for good form.
     Good form! However much he may have degenerated, he still knew that this is all that really matters.

I mean, is it just me? How can you resist such a description?
Although I haven't read any of his books, I rather wish Gregory Maguire (Wicked, Confessions of an ugly stepsister) would take on Hook for a future book.

At any rate, I really hope P.J. Hogan et al succeed with Peter Pan. I'm looking forward to it.