@golgaloth yes, tech changes very quickly but so do social attitudes. My books from 2012 seem dated now. And then there are international changes and Covid and natural disasters, impossible to keep up.
Yep. I love to use metaphors. Curiously, I use them more in the narration than in the actual dialogue. But some characters, like Laura, use them frequently. She likes to compare Our Hero to ridiculous things things, as in "This idiot's louder than an exploding orchestra", or "that dumbass eats more than a vegan castaway" =)
"Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts—only in the truth. You get the facts from outside. The truth you get from inside." –Ursula K. Le Guin
@wendypalmer@golgaloth@adaddinsane I used facebook ads to target mathematics teachers in our region to advertise a conference I organized at a CC it was really effective— but also creepy how deep I could tune that targeting. I don’t think I could bring myself to dirty my precious little hands like that ever again.
I use many metaphors. I often carefully rephrased JP metaphors so people who are unfamiliar with them will understand and people familiar with them catch the cultural reference.
I like the metaphor of the frog in the well only knowing the world it sees. I have used speaking into one's nose to indicate snottyness. The most recent one I used was referring to the house where my characters live as a "mouse house."
Even monkeys fall out of trees is one l like
I had a story where characters engaged in a verbal game of upping each other with feline metaphors.
When I run into new metaphors I note them and wait till I can use them.
2/2 a partial list of Japanese metaphors I have used.
A frog in a well does not know the great sea
Even monkeys fall from trees
Like gold coins to a cat
Even want to borrow a cat’s paw
Cat’s tongue
A cat’s forehead
If you don’t enter the tiger’s cave, you can’t catch its cub
All my LI's are creative people. Some write poems. Kao wants to be an author and Ume is an author. In terms of creative material that appears in my novels Kao and Shiro are tied with several Hiaku appearing in the text. Plot wise Ume is the most creative. Konbini Idol is her telling the story of Fukitsu, Tomo, Kan-chan, and herself.
Currently, Ume is busy writing three ongoing stories, "Konbini Idol," "The Handmaiden's Tears," and ghostwriting "My Undersea Harem."
Today, in my adventures in foolishly asking the internet general research questions:
The internet, shamelessly repeating the same factoid endlessly: throwing rice at weddings is an ancient tradition dating back to the Romans!
An anonymous old lady writing a cranky letter to the editor in 1895: this is a modern tradition that doesn't date back more than forty years and needs to stop before it takes a new bride’s eye out.
More than one, and in many of my stories. Loren is non-binary and genderfluid teen, with variable preferences depending on the hour of the day and how their brain wired (literally) at the moment. Maistro is everything-sexual (as long as there's consent and of legal age). The Still Unnamed Daughter might have done some non-het experimentation. And Our Hero learned to like women's clothing and shoes…>=)
It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” Joseph Heller, Catch-22 #Trump#Writing#josephheller#uspolitics#Politics
There are 3 books (Origins, Marathon, and Labyrinth, last is ongoing), links are pinned on my feed. First is a space road trip that runs into a conspiracy, second is sort of like the game "FTL: Faster Than Light", third is essentially a space dungeon crawl with cosmic horror elements.
As my books are free webnovels in a genre that is rare nowadays, I am desperate for publicity! Check them out if you like hard sci-fi!
I am Max, a hard sci-fi fan and amateur writer. Since 2 years ago or so, I have been making my own constructed world and novel series to go with it. It is semi-optimistic, a contrast to the recent flood of doomer sf, but mostly respects science and puts a lot of effort to worldbuilding and "realistic" alien designs. In effect the setting is a modernized and science-ized space-opera, though the books have somewhat unusual premises for this kind of sf.
—Who hasn't sometimes? But this is ridiculous! I got a fresh start with a new body included! I only wanted more money and job security, and I got more money than I can spend, but security is the only thing I can't have because of this damn body and this cursed job! And and di got a better understanding of the world. So damn better that I'd like to have a lobotomy by death ray or two almost every damned day!
Where I try to contribute every day (except when the universe is trying to kill me). I wish I had more time to pollute more hashtags with my ramblings…=)
And I also get inspired with the photos of SilentSunday and the (to some) infamous Caturday…>=)
#PennedPossibilities#Writing 331
Has your MC ever desired the feeling of a fresh start, or a better understanding of themselves and/or the world around them?
Per narrative character:
Saeki: "After my failed confession I wanted one. Not that I did anything about it. I can thank Arisu for the changes in my life." #Arisu (Arisu the Girl Who Saw Ghosts )
Shiro: "I didn't know I needed one until Kao came alone. Even then it took a while. I'm glad it happened though. When I think how dreary my life would have been if I had continued along the path I was going. #MyGirlfriend (My Girlfriend Almost Got Me Killed)
Ume: "Been there done that. And big time. The one I think you should ask is Shishi."
Shiomi: "They can read about it when you publish my life story."
Ume: "Working on it." #KonbiniIdol (For Love of a Konbini Idol)
#PennedPossibilities 31 Has your MC ever desired a better understanding of themselves?
When we land in the series in book one, Freya has nearly forgotten who she is. She is deep down in a numbing dark void and can not see the colour of the world anymore. She knows she's in there somewhere, in that blank, expressionless face in the mirror. At that point, she's tired of this dark murky limbo and pleads to the self she once had to get her out of it.
What really inspires me is writing #MagicMageMadness with @strangeseawolf We write the story in alternating toots, and it's really fun to have two captains on a ship in an ocean of absurdities. It forces you to directly see and work with very different approaches.
I've seen most of the hashtags mentioned here already, but last week, I noticed #fridaykiss which gives an insight into how other writers approach romance.
I am going down the rabbit hole with research for my new story. What I was originally planning to have as cosmic horror is becoming more and more eco-horror based on the history of New Brunswick. There’s so much going on here: expropriation for Base Gagetown and Mactaquac, huge amounts of DDT sprayed everywhere, rampant deforestation, and heavy testing of Agent Orange (and all the other rainbow herbicides). Who needs Cthulhu when there’s corporate/military/industrial poisoning on a grand scale? And that’s not even getting into the fracking. #Writing#Research#NewBrunswick#CanadianHistory
Writing about food. Japanese literature has so many food references. But nothing spells the characters getting comfortable with each other than discussing food. #Writing#Amwriting
Nabe, gyudon, soborodon, hayashi
Good thing I have some nice leftovers in the frig. Though I am tempted to make hayashi. Can't go wrong with that.
#PennedPossibilities 330 How does your MC go about expressing or not expressing their sexuality?
Any expression of sexuality is largely accidental. Whenever it is on purpose, she's not subtle about it and bluntly drops her clothes mid-conversation.
She accidentally reveals her attraction to Cedric by beating him in combat training and restraining him on his knees with a couple of ghost vines. The mutual blush on their faces was a little too obvious to ignore.
