Every place you see AI, replace it with ‘doing math quickly.’
Pelosi’s Trip to Taiwan
Good on her. This was well done. Pelosi has been a strong supporter of Taiwan and critic of the CCP, and she handled this right.
She had an op-ed in WaPo laying out her reasons, and that was cogent, nonprovocative but firm, and aware of the realities of the situation.
There are people doing good things on both sides if you look for them.
World Building vs Setting
I got about 60k words into something before really internalizing that setting and world aren’t the same.
The setting is the scene. It’s the hotel, the dragon’s lair, battlefield, or bar. The world is the connection between settings. The world dictates whether the hotel takes payment in dollars, doubloons, or credits. It determines the species of dragon, whether they are multitude or singular. Why are the armies battling? What kind of people are in the bar?
The best way to get to the world is through settings. If the hotel has some people, those people tell the readers concrete specifics about who lives in the world. If the old guys at the bar are complaining about passage rates to Alpha Proxima or the recent profusion of dragons, we know even more.
But the setting tells us more, things that can be in any world. Are A and B having a relationship argument? That’s common to all worlds with people as we know them. Their specifics are useful to the world, but we can’t have their argument about forces of nature, light speed, and good versus evil. They need to be mad about needs, who keeps eating the leftover cake, and why A keeps looking at C. Your story is based on setting. It takes place in the world.
They’re close but not the same.
NPC
Dragon that speaks in Zapp Brannigan quotes.
Games
When I’m feeling run down and sleepy, ready for bed, but need to wake up and work for a little while, I play this game.
I go to bed.
Fifteen minutes later I’m wired, wide awake, and ready for the day. It works every time, provided that time is night time.
Kubla Khan
I’m quite taken with Coleridge’s Kubla Khan. I wonder why.
6 Weeks
I read somewhere that stress can be turned to excitement and vice versa largely through mental activity. The claim seems a little excessive, but the cost of trying it is low. Changing my internal monologue from ‘This is going to be rough’ to ‘This is going to be exciting’ is a low-cost activity, and if it works, even a little, good.
Of course I’m not really expecting this to do a whole lot by itself, but I compare it to drinking more water. If you need water, just drink more water (provided you can, yadda yadda). There’s low cost.
Anyway, I’ve got 6 weeks before things get crazy again. 6 weeks. I’m really going to try to knock out my Kindle Vella project and make some progress on the research. With luck I can get the first done and out my door, and if I can finish the FPGA work and segue into the physical detector, the latter will have made big gains.
6 weeks.
This is going to be exciting.
Editting/Cutting for Length
Some cuts from LotR obviously had to be made for the movies. Tom Bombadil is the one people mention, and it’s obviously. He and Goldberry just wouldn’t translate, and the mystery of them would be lost. Those two characters wouldn’t work in film.
But another area that should be cut is the ride from Minas Tirith to the Morannon. That just wouldn’t work in a movie as long as it is in a book, because movies need a bit more focus. That long sequence of exploration and travel is world building. It’s development. It’s character. It’s way too long, and should be cut down to two or three short cuts, like in the movies. If you want more of that, the books are the place for it.
P Jackson did that right.
Bikes
I foreswore Hondas, but I kinda want a VFR 1200.
.
It’s going to be okay.