The Wordsmith's Forge

The story "Marketing Day" by dialecticdreamer picks up after "Urgent Business," and comes before my poem "The Cold of the Winter."  It's a swap for my poem "That Resurrection of Hope."  

I'm sorry that stuff is coming out of sequence.  I posted the cash-sponsored content before the barter-swapped content.  Also I am fey, the timespace continuum has at best a weak grasp on me, and I often get inspiration out of order.  However, I think I have the poems lined up properly on the series page.  Extras by dialecticdreamer appear at the bottom.

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
BINGO: row
How to Avoid Blisters from Yardening
Today's Yardening: Firebuilding
Poll: Salvaging as Canon
Read "Salvaging" by Dialecticdreamer
Savory Bread Pudding Algorithm
When Everything Is Awful
Ephemeral Histories
Negative Impacts of GamerGate
Abortion as an Option
A Comic About Closets
Gender Neutrality in Sweden
Hidden Disabilities


I posted a triptych in Frankenstein's Family for barter, which follows the trot-line incident:
"The Cold of the Winter"
"The Heat of the Fever"
"That Resurrection of Hope"


Poetry in Microfunding:
"Often Buried Deep" belongs to the series An Army of One and is now complete.  Follow Astin back to Trunnion for a discussion of trade opportunities.  "Settled" is the third piece of the Polychrome Heroics triptych about the fight at SPOON.  There are 10 new verses, in which Danso and Aidan discuss what went awry with Danso's talent.

Torn World writing update:
Approved as canon: "Unicorns on Parade" "Spruce Deer" "Wandering the Heights" (poetry).  Back to me for edits: "Cutting Cords and Clasping Hands (Parts 1-4)," "Winterheart" (parts 2-3), "Stinging Like Nettles"  "Off the Clock" (poetry).  Currently in front of the canon board: "Ghost Bat" (nonfiction). Drafted: "Like Ash Before the Wind," "From Dark to Bright," "The Inappropriate But Useful Disposal of Lettuce" "A Thin Red Trail" (fiction), "Changes in the Wind" (poetry), "Southern Breads" "Tangleweed Article" (articles), Jularei (character sheet).  In revision at home: "Water Dance," "When the Wind's Teeth Sing," "Raining Kittens," "Finding the Holes," "Broken Hopes," "Brewing Beauty," "Little Paws in the Licenses" (fiction), "The Smallest Invaders," "Raising the Future" "Beach Pies" "Unsolid Ground" (poetry).  Currently writing: "Catch of the Day," "A Cold Clear Night" (fiction).


The weather here is warm and delightful.  The first snow crocus are blooming.  Buds are swelling on maples and lilacs.  Seen at the birdfeeders this week: sparrows, a few mourning doves, dark-eyed juncos. 

Here's an essay about what it's like to be a conservative in F&SF. 

Yeah so, I have some conservative friends.  Mostly my politics lean liberal, but on some issues, my stance aligns with conservatives (although I rarely hold it for the same reasons as others).  That essay?  Is the kind of thing that contributed to me not going back to WisCon, because I don't like when people pick on my friends.  I want fandom and publishing to be inclusive.  If they're not, then I get pissy and don't want to go to those parties.  I mean if I wanted to do the clique thing I would hang out with mundanes. :/

The instigating topic, awards ... meh.  I haven't been impressed with Hugos and Nebulas.  Rhysling, Lambda, and Tiptree are more likely to have something with higher literary merit in my observation.  But it's easy for people to get into arguments over awards, and I'm just not into the drama llama race.  I would rather read books than pick fights over them.

I had fun looking at these because one of the things that distinguishes Terramagne is its very nice public transportation system.  (You get what you pay for.)   I was intrigued to see that several cities had a very clear imprint of the classic city designs that actually work well.  For example, you can see echoes of London's square-grid system, while Paris and Moscow have more of a spiderweb.  Chicago has a fan, which is basically part of a spiderweb with radials but no lateral connections. New York is just a mess, what's sometimes called a spaghetti map, and Tokyo is just as bad.  Helsinki, Calgary, and Glasgow have all opted for very simple routes that work for them because so many of their major points are in a convenient order.

In Terramagne, local lines do a very good job of meshing together the important places in each municipality -- things like museums and restaurants for tourists, housing and shopping or work for residents.  Most places, you can hop a bus every few minutes.  Use coins for occasional trips, but you can get a better deal on tokens or a MUCH better deal on a swipe card if you travel regularly.  In addition to the regular routes, many places also offer point-to-point shuttles at certain times.  Groundhog lives in the Skylark Apartment Building in Onion City, which has some great perks but one of the downsides is a lack of easy transit access.  On weekends the apartment's shuttle goes somewhere interesting like the beach or a museum.  Town-to-town routes are well-served by buses and trains.  High-speed trains connect places that are farther apart.  The metroplexes are defined based on the coverage of their mass-transit system.  New York in Eastbord had the first Fleer, which is a super-gizmotronic train; Westbord has one, and Onion City's is in construction.  The inventor has been actively trying to teach other people how to build the engines, but so far with no real luck.

This is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, April 7, 2015 Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "language shaping thought." I'll be soliciting ideas for linguists, translators, philosophers, social engineers, making decisions, being unable to make decisions, describing ideas, debating what to do, framing options, manipulating people with words, solving problems with language, plot twists, libraries, schools, offices, halls of government, writer garrets, other places where people work with language, misconceptions, truths and falsehoods, dire warnings, inspiration, catchphrases, linguistic oppression or rebellion, invented languages, rare languages, dormant languages, vocabulary words, and poetic forms in particular.

I have a linkback poem, "Silken Dreams" (25 verses, Dragonsilk).

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week.  (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts.)  Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.

( Collapse )

It being after sunset, my partner Doug gave me my birthday present.  He actually managed to acquire a set of the solar system glasses from ThinkGeek, which were restocked and only lasted a couple days before selling right out again.  *GLEE*  So now I have a lovely set of personally-relevant glasses to use when we have company or for ritual purposes.  *Numfar does the Dance of Joy*