Fantasist's Scroll

Whew! Have I been busy the past couple of weeks!

Readers may notice that I’ve been rather lax in posting any new entries here for several weeks. Well, there are some good reasons. For one, I’ve been waiting for almost that entire time for my old ISP/Web Host to get a couple of problems straightened out. They never did, so I moved to a new home. That meant backing up all my hard work, exporting my Fantasist’s Scroll, signing up for the new ISP, and getting everything reinstalled and moved to the new home. Which I have, almost, finished doing. I hope that will let me get caught up on my other websites, too. Of course, I’ll be moving them soon as well. The new place has such better support and I get a discount for multiple accounts!

In any case, my blog was looking sad and under appreciated, so I thought I should put in some kind of update. Mainly, out of guilt.

More soon. Honest. Really, I mean it this time.

Well, for those of you who noticed, or cared, we’ve moved to a new home!

That’s right, Fantasist.net has changed ISPs, more or less successfully! Yea! It took a little doing, but I think it was worth it. Certainly, MovableType was easy enough to move. I can’t say enough about how relieved I am in that regard. It’s really a great product. I’m glad I chose it as my WebLog.

Stay tuned for more!

Well, I had a close call with the blog last night.
I was trying to set up a test blog and experiement around with adding some functionality to the blog system for my own site. Naturally, I set up a second blog, just for testing. Well, I didn’t like how that turned out, so I deleted it. Except, somehow, I didn’t delete it. Instead, I deleted the main blog, the Fantasist’s Scroll. Yikes!
So, thinking quickly, I pulled the contents out of my firewall’s cache and was able to recreate the majority of the blog. I had a couple of articles saved for a rainy day that are lost forever, though. It was a close call and had me all freaked out last night. For a little bit, until I realized that I had copies of everything, I actually had gotten the shakes! That mellowed into a headache as I did the mind-numbing work of rebuilding the blog, one entry at a time.

In any case, it’s up again, in case anyone noticed!

I was watching Dune, the motion picture not the mini-series, today and got to thinking, which usually means trouble.

See, I liked the movie. That’s a kind of Dune fan heresy, because the movie really isn’t the book hardly at all. Oh, the characters are all there and they do most of the same things, but it’s not really the book. The movie adds in all kinds of weird extras, like the “wierding modules” and the freaky Harkonnen heart=plugs and junk. But, I saw the movie and sort of distanced it from the book. I see them as totally different things.
The book was a sweeping epic of socio-political commentary, military action, and religious exploration. It was to science-fiction what the Lord of the Rings was to fantasy. I read the book at least a dozen times and the rest of the trilogy at least three times, as well. Everytime I read it, Dune became something more. There was a new layer revealed or a new insight gained. The first time I read Dune, I missed the fact that Baron Harkonnen was homosexual, for instance. I caught subtleties in the writing about religion that I totally missed the first time, too. It’s one of the few books that I used to like to read on a regular basis. In fact, the book is so powerful and important to me that the fact my wife read it more than once was one of the things that made me want to marry her. I’ve met a very few women who interested me that have read Dune, but she’s the only one that I know ever read it more than once.
But, the movie is a very, very different story. The sets and atmosphere are lovely, but not at all what I imagined when I read the book. The juxtaposition of far future technology with Victorian design really made a wonderfully rich visual statement. For instance, the “glow globes” that Frank Herbert described are not at all what I saw in the film. I pictured glowing spheres with a control ring around the center. What David Lynch pictured was a glowing lozenge with stylized, Victorian wings done in a kind of wrought iron. Very, very different look and feel alltogether. Also, the uniforms are very much like the World War I British Navy uniforms that I’ve seen from old movies and costume books. Very different from the more modern military uniforms that I felt Frank Herbert described in his book.
There are other significant differences, but they only seem to bother people who know the book intimately and expect the movie to follow their vision of Dune faithfully. I rather expected that the movie would be nothing like the book, so I had no such expectations. In fact, I was telling my wife just this afternoon that I saw the book and the movie as two totally different stories. They may share characters and themes and even plot, but they differ significantly enough that they just seem totally different to me. And that’s okay! If I want to relive the book, I’ll go read it again. But, if I want to be entertained by some good sci-fi, I’ll go watch the movie. On the other hand, if I want to see something very close to what I pictured when I read Dune, I’ll go watch the mini-series.
In my opinion, the mini-series came much, much closer to the book than the movie. I wish Frank Herbert had been around to see it. I think he would have been pleased. Though, I did think they cleaned up a lot of the “naughty bits” for TV. The Baron, in particular, was more accurate and much more subtle in the mini-series than in the movie. I had a much easier time believing that he could be the devlish mastermind that Herbert described in his book than that movie Baron. In fact, in the movie the characters pretty much seemed like characatures while in the mini-series, they seemed more realistic. The mini-series characters certainly seemed more like what Herbert described. It’s too bad, really, that we’ll never know how Herbert felt about the mini-series. I really would have liked to know with which he was more pleased.

A little known fact, incidentally, was the Frank Herbert knew that he was dying of cancer by the time the movie was being filmed. In fact, I read in an interview that it was one of the main motiviations he had for doing the movie. See, writers don’t have retirement or death benefits, so he didn’t have much to leave his family. Dune the movie let him leave them something. And, now, of course, his son, Brian, is making quite a bit of money off his father’s creation by writing novels in the Dune universe. Maybe I’ll share my views on that some other time….

When I get an idea for a constructed world, or “conworld”, it’s usually based on something I’ve read. That usually happens because I try to make as much of my “fun” non-fiction reading do double-time as research. Now, that’s easier than it sounds! I usually like reading the research I’m doing. For instance, I’m reading a book about Japanese history and culture during the Edo period called Edo Culture: Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600-1868 by Nishiyama Matsunosuke. I’ve also read similar books about China right before the Mongol invasion. And, don’t rule out kids books, either. They do a fairly good job of giving a snapshot of a society or time-period.

I didn’t always do research, though. I used to just write. (Some days, I think that way was better!) But, one day while talking to a friend who also wrote, he asked me how I did my research. Research? I write fantasy fiction, why would I do research? Well, that got me thinking about what I knew and didn’t know about the time-periods and places I wrote about. Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t know anywhere near enough about how culture and society works. So, I started to do research.
I try to take a page from Musashi’s A Book of Five Rings, though, and “Learn from one thing, five-thousand things”. For instance, when I read historical fiction, like Laura Joh Rowland’s books about Sano Ichiro, I learn about Edo-period Japan. And, I hardly even notice that I’m learning. Ms. Rowland has done a bunch of research for me and integrated it quite nicely into an engaging story. But, then, I’ll follow that up with my own research, like the book I mentioned in the opening of this blog entry.
I also try to research technology and science in general. And, I mean all science, too, not just chemistry and physics. Biology, in particular, is useful to me in creating fantasy worlds. If I want to build a better dragon, I need to know all about lizards of all kinds, not to mention general large-animal physiology and biomechanics. Also, if they’re going to fly, I need to understand the rudiments of aerodynamics. Really, the list goes on and on.

My point here is that research can be never ending, so the trick is to make it fun. Write about things that you wouldn’t mind doing research about. Find creative ways to teach yourself what you need to know. Never pass up a novel experience that might help your writing seem more real.

And, most of all, keep writing!

I haven’t been so good at keeping this site updated lately, I know. That’s due mainly to RealLife interfering. I started a new job last week and it takes up most of my day. See, I do this for fun, not profit. And, I have two other websites besides this one. I try to work on my writing, but with the reading I want to get done and family and all, there’s not much time.

So, I try to make the best of it. For instance, this update is being done from work during lunch. The first half of lunch, I just read some in a rather dry book, which I’ll mention in another update. Then, I talked to the Boss a little and now I’m doing a quick update.
I’m not sure how other people manage to maintain a family and a job and still find time to write. Maybe it’ll be easier as I get used to the schedule I’m on right now, but I’m getting 6 hours, or less, of sleep a night as it is! Well, maybe writing when I’m tired will let me tap into my subconscious more than I do. God knows, my writing needs all the help it can get.

In any case, that’s what’s been keeping me from updates on this site. Look for more entries soon!!
In the meantime, keep writing!

Well, I’ve been a busy bee this week. I have a couple of updates, both on and off Fantasist.net.

On this site, I’ve updated the Cartography page. I added in a neat map that illustrates an idea I had for a world creation myth. I imagined a god stamping out evil, in a way, by smashing the chief evil spirit into the world-covering ocean. Where the god’s hand pressed into the ocean floor, mud stuck to his hand and was pulled up through the ocean to form continents and islands. Then, the evil spirit tried to force his way back into the world, forming a volcano. So, to keep the source of all evil in check, the god creates human kind to guard over the breach in the world. In response to that, the source of evil creates his own race to fight the humans. Viola! A creation myth for a fantasy world!
In any case, to illustrate that, I did up a map. It’s free of any labels, but the basic idea is pretty well displayed. The map and idea, incidentally, were inspired by the cover of a game called Kahuna, which is a strategy card-game set in a fictional Hawaii.

Off this site, I have posted two constructed language templates. They’re geared toward creating phrasebooks for a conlang. The first, which I actually did some time ago, is a sort of “phrasebook for tourists”. It covers all the basics like simple greetings, small-talk, how to order in a restaurant, and getting directions. All the kinds of things one might find in a tourist guidebook.
The second phrasebook is meant to jumpstart some ideas about slang in a conlang. Of course, slang is very culturally specific, but I threw out some fun ideas. I hit things like street “jive”, cool vs. uncool, gambling and crime, and sex. Believe it or not, most conlangs don’t actually seem to include stuff like that. I guess because most of us take an acedemic approach. So, I laid out some basic topics, suggested a meaning, added in a literal translation and left a blank for a conlang translation. We’ll see what the reaction is, if there is any reaction at all.
The files have been posted to the Yahoo!Groups LangMaker2 list, which is available here. Unfortunately, you will have to sign up for Yahoo!Groups, and the LangMaker2 Group itself, to get the files. Eventually, I’ll put up conlang page here on Fantasist.net and post them for download there.

Until next time, keep creating new stuff!

Well, I heard from Rob Kuntz over at Pied Piper Pubishing. The snag was really just another project that took temporary precedence over the one I was working on. It’s hard to figure stuff like that out when you’re freelancing sometimes. Of course, the fact that I’m in Houston and Pied Piper is in Wisconson doesn’t help much either! Regardless, we’re up to date on what’s going on now, so I’m sure it won’t be too much longer that I’m working on the next set of maps. I’ll make sure to have an update when the product is ready to go.

On other mapping fronts, I’ve been messing around with the Campaign Cartographer 2 / Hârn Mapping Project, or the CHMP for short. It’s a toolkit designed to work with Campaign Cartographer by ProFantasy Software. It’s really cool, even if Hârn isn’t your “thing”. (Though, if you’re a role-playing gamer and haven’t looked at Hârn, it’s worth your time.) This toolkit was put together by dedicated fans who wanted a unified look and feel for their maps that faithfully recreated the look and feel of Columbia Games Hârn. They did a great job and it’s a great tool! Currently, I’m trying to create a decent gargun lodge. (Garguns are Hârnish orks.) I’ve actually gotten one, but the map is so slow to load that I’m not satisifed with the end result. So, I’m still working on it.

In still other areas, I’ve been doing some hand-drawn mapping as well. I have a world concept that needs a map. The kicker is that I’ve been having a hard time doing this directly in a digital format, so I’ve gone back to paper for “inspiration”. It hasn’t quite worked out yet, but I haven’t given up either! Some of the maps if penciled actually look pretty good. When I get one I like enough, I’ll scan it in and make a Campaign Cartographer map out of it. Then, I’ll have some blog entries about world building!

Until next time, keep writing!