WritingPosted by Pelotard 2010-06-08 11:00:19I actually think I've pestered everyone I know about this, but I really ought to have a link here too, right?
Litopia's e-zine is out, and I've got a story in it! "That's the Ticket", on page 21. It's not a "real" publication history, since I didn't get paid for it, but it's really as close as you can get - it looks absolutely professional, the editor
John Quirk knows a thing or three about publishing, and the estimable
Peter Cox expects a circulation of about 20,000.
Yeah, I'm pretty pleased :)
NewsPosted by Pelotard 2010-06-03 15:40:18We've bought a grill. Or maybe that should be written Grill, since it's apparently not just any old grill, but one that requires extensive care and a user manual heavier than the one that came with my computer. It's also too picky to be fed any old coal—it needs a special kind that's been pressed to resemble small pillows, probably held together with some chemical going by a 24-syllable name.
It's American. That probably tells us something, although I'll be buggered if I can figure out what.
The user manual taught me something unexpected.
As I was flipping through it to see how long the freakin' spare ribs should be cooked, given the amount of coal pillows I planned to use, something caught my eye: the recommendations for steaks. They were probably quite reasonable - I rarely do steaks, and I happily eat them as long as the blood is properly coagulated so it doesn't dribble down my chin as I eat. (Not that I'd care a whole lot for myself, but I expect it would present a rather unnerving sight to the kids.)
But they didn't just recommend a cooking time. They invoked an authority.
"Medium rare, according to the definition given by the U. S. Department of Agriculture."
I was, as they say, bowled over. A hitherto obscured facet of the American psyche suddenly became transparent to me. The U. S. Department of Agriculture considers it a useful way to spend their time, and by extension the U. S. taxpayers' money, to tell Americans how to cook their steaks.
I had gaped at the complexities involved in renting a car in Seattle, and developed a migraine trying to return it in New Orleans. I had tried, with watering eyes, to decipher the runes that the IRS torture said taxpayers with. I had tried my very best to fill out the various forms our U. S. clients have to file with various authorities; our European and Asian clients never ask for anything more complicated than a bank account number so they can pay our invoices. I had finally resigned to the fact that while Communism is gone, its spirit lives on in American bureaucracy—something at complete odds with how the U. S. is normally portrayed by their European friends, but quite consistent with my own experiences of the country. But this was simply too much.
And now, I understand why so many Americans are profoundly suspicious of anything that comes out of the federal government, or any government at all for that matter. Europeans are normally more at ease with their governments, seeing it as their bl**dy job to keep us happy, and ourselves as their employers who can sack them whenever we feel their performance isn't quite up to expectations, or sometimes just to make sure all politicians are kept on their toes. (Not having very strong political convictions myself, I consider it perfectly reasonable to vote for the opposition for no other reason than that you can.) A point in case was the bloke who, in 1993, commented on the employment policies of then Prime Minister Carl Bildt by hitting him over the head with his lunch box.
If they tell you how to cook your steaks, they have too much time on their hands. This is not something you want to happen to the people in charge. Over here, we even invented a special club for over-enthusiastic politicians to prevent this from ever happening.
After having thought about all this, and after the spare ribs predictably became black all over, I went on to drink all the beer in the house, in a fit of depression. (OK, so we only had one can, but hey.)
WritingPosted by Pelotard 2010-05-28 14:29:44Reading a book called The Genesis Secret by Tom Knox, I was surprised to see that he knew the story about the Finnish and Swedish drinking buddies. It goes something like this:
A Swede and a Finn had agreed to drink together one night. They showed up at the Swede's place after work, each carrying a bottle of Koskenkorva, and the Swede proceeded to put glasses on the table and pour them full to the brim. As they raised their glasses, the Swede said "Skål!" The Finn put his glass down, frowning, and said "Are we going to drink or are we going to talk?"
In Knox' book, this story is told by a Finn (although the terseness of the Finn's reply is impossible to capture in English, especially since the distinctive Finnish accent doesn't come through the same way). And actually, I first heard it from a Finn. It appears to be one of the Stories We Tell About Ourselves.
These stories are interesting in their own right, even if they are often not true. A good example is the story of lagom - a word we like to think is uniquely Swedish. The Wikipedia entry I linked to has a number of translations for the word, but none capture the essential lagom-ness of the original: the translations lack the overtones of being exactly the right size, of fitting in with its environment, of safety and security, of being exactly what you desired.
And we tell ourselves a story about the word: the Vikings, when drinking, would have one cup that they passed around the table. You were supposed to drink exactly the amount necessary for the drink to last around the table, to every member of the team - lag om, "around the team". While the story is patently untrue (the Wikipedia etymology is correct: it's a form of the word lag, meaning more "in accordance with the law"), it's interesting to see that we like this story, because it tells us about the characteristics we find in ourselves. Or possibly want to find in ourselves.
A story which is very different in contents, but also shows this culture-bearing idea, is the story of Ragnvald Knaphövde. After being elected King of the Svea tribe in 1126, or thereabouts, he embarked on a traditional tour of the Svea and Geatha territory called an eriksgata, in order to be hailed as the new king. (The tradition still exists, only now it's more a reason to hire extra people for local newspapers and manufacturers of small Swedish flags.) But when he arrived at the border to Västergötland, he suddenly refused to exchange hostages with his hosts, as the law demanded. (In English, you see the etymological connection, in Swedish you don't.) The Western Geats promptly put him to death and sent his entourage back to Uppsala, with the message to please elect a better-behaved king.
Again, the story might not be exactly true. In all likelihood, the Western Geats favoured a Danish king, and the easiest solution was to get rid of the Svea king permanently. But this hostage tradition is what survived in Swedish history books for centuries, and it showed everyone - including, of course, Swedish princes - that the king was never above the law.
So even if the stories aren't exactly true, in the trivial sense of the word, we confer on them a deeper "truth": we change the stories to contain our culture, and pass them on, perpetuating that culture. As Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen would have it: we aren't Homo Sapiens - we are Pan Narrans, the story-telling ape.
Web bitesPosted by Pelotard 2010-05-20 11:45:46When I was a student, the Department of Physics had exchange programs with the Uni of Sussex and the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. I went to Brighton, but I visited the people in Amsterdam. (This was when I was first introduced to Indonesian food. This has no bearing on today's post, I just happen to remember the sensation on the taste buds.)
Only the week before, they had been visited by last year's exchange students. They decided to go down to the local pub, and when Anders showed his face in the door - having first spent six months in A'dam as an exchange student, and then having returned home some nine months before this particular visit - the bartender immediately commented "You've been away".
I've been away from this blog. Sorry. Life intervened.
In the meanwhile, I've managed to find what is possibly the most useless activity on the planet. I presume that my readers are familiar with the phenomenon of people dedicated to re-enacting various historical moments, usually having to do with warfare - the U.S. Civil War is very popular, as is, apparently, the Battle of Pearl Harbor. I've always considered this to be a pastime quite on a level with the ones I lauded in my post on useless things.
And now, there exists such a thing as the Cold War Re-enactment Society. If it gets more irrational than that, I've never heard about it.
WritingPosted by Pelotard 2010-02-15 00:49:47There's been quite a discussion at Litopia over the wretched subject of drug-induced creativity. Timothy Leary has been mentioned, as well as Beatles and Syd Barrett, which tells you something about what sort of discussion it's been (it's only a matter of time before they go on to William Burroughs). Despite the outraged claims by some posters, though, nobody has come out in favour.
There's a reason for this, too.
Most writers have to maintain some sort of doublethink in regard to their writing. All writers will be familiar with some variation of the concepts of an "Inner Writer" and an "Inner Editor". When it's written, they have to believe it's absolutely brilliant: too much critical thinking will stop the writing dead, the well of ideas will run dry, the sparkle will go out of the drink. When it's edited, critical thinking is indispensable. Every word will have to withstand close scrutiny and defend its place on the page. Good writing, naturally, depends on a good balance between the two: enough creativity to keep the words flowing, enough criticism to let only the good ones through.
So, what does a drug do to this balance?
I know of no drug that enhances critical thinking. Most, if not all, tend to remove inhibitions of one sort or another, up to psychedelic drugs which remove such inhibitions as "logic" and "cause and effect". So the Inner Writer gets free reign, while the Inner Editor is on vacation, or possibly hospitalised.
I'm following a number of blogs by editors, publishers, agents and slush pile readers. Their opinions, ideas, and anecdotes very strongly suggest that upwards of 99% of all writers suffer from a more or less pronounced lack of Inner Editor. An over-enthusiastic Inner Editor which needs to be sent on vacation is simply not a problem most people have. A handful, possibly. Say one in a million. And one characteristic they would share is that they, in the normal course of events, do not feature in slush piles, by virtue of never managing to put words onto paper. To them, maybe, drugs might be of some help, provided they get someone to edit the stuff afterwards. The Beatles, f'rinstance, had George Martin. Burroughs had... OK, Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac, but at least they were someone who wasn't him to help him out.
For the rest of us, blowing our minds is only a shortcut to having our minds blown. Until they develop a drug which puts the steering wheel in the hands of our Inner Editor.
WritingPosted by Pelotard 2010-02-03 15:13:59I seem to have had another 15 minutes, having inspired a post on the Behler Blog. After reading that (and when I had stopped laughing), I thought there were two issues that I could clarify.
1) My mother does love me. Not only does she praise my writing, which I'm reliably told is the job of mothers everywhere, but she also equipped me with a name that is truly as common as muck. This is a blessing when you're a child; I feel sorry for all those walking around with names like "Odin Gotobed". (Oh, I'm sure my father had a say, too.) The phone directory for the greater Stockholm area lists no less than 264 people with the same name, and unless my knowledge of statistics have fallen prey to the ravages of time, the entire country probably contains about 1023 further namesakes. (Source: Statistics Sweden's name search, and some quick calculations.) This led me to the conclusion that if I ever get published, I'll need a pen name.
2) So, I chose the name Pelotard. It's from a series of books, written between 1905 and 1935 by the Swedish author Frank Heller. (Some of them were translated into English: he was Sweden's first internationally successful thriller writer.) They're about the gentleman-thief Filip Collin, who has a series of unlikely adventures across Europe, helped by his side-kicks Lavertisse, French safe-cracker and general mechanic, and Graham, an Englishman of considerable physical strength and appetite. Occasionally, a British detective named Kenyon tries to stop him, usually with hilarious results. Collin, in common with others of his profession, is a master of disguise, and often assumes the persona of the elderly, absent-minded Professor Pelotard.
The name itself doesn't, as someone suggested, mean "late mud". It's never explained in the stories, but from context, the "-ard" ending must mean a person: someone who makes a pelot, a ball of yarn, out of a tangled skein. The Swedish word that Heller was thinking of was almost certainly "Nystaren"; the word carries connotations of someone who solves complicated problems. An English rendition might be "The Unraveller".
I do plan to unravel a historical mystery or two in my writing, even if my explanations will sometimes verge on the fantastic. But above all, this pen name is a homage to Frank Heller, one of my favourite authors.
WritingPosted by Pelotard 2010-01-18 12:42:18Over at Litopia, there are three distinct levels of membership. You have the "Member" level, which is basically anyone who's interested enough to think of a user name. Lots of good stuff, interesting discussions and whatnot. Then there's the "Full Member": you post a piece of writing, and if it's good enough, you're admitted. It doesn't have to be stellar, but it has to demonstrate that you've mastered the basics. Full membership means that you are entitled to give and receive crits, and can ask specific questions to the resident Agent (Peter Cox) and Editor (Lynn Price). There's a reasoning behind this: this sort of thing is probably not going to be hugely useful to someone who is still learning the basics. Then, after you've been around for a while and learned a lot and had your work thoroughly critted by others, you're allowed to pitch your work to Mr. Cox himself (covering letter, 30 pages, and synopsis), who will then record a 15-minute video explaining what you did wrong.
If this seems like an odd thing to have as a coveted prize at the end of the rainbow, you need to head to Litopia immediately, because there's a lot to learn. Most people in the business are too busy to give aspiring writers the time of day. Having a successful agent go on at length about your manuscript is something that cannot be had for money.
My work is up there now for Mr. Cox to dissect. He's still a very busy person, and it's been there for a month or so. Still, every time I log on to Litopia, I check out whether he's dissected me yet. It's like checking your mail for rejections. You desperately want to have a message, still, there's a definite Oh my God what if he talks to me feeling over it.
Seems familiar?
I remember feeling like that all the time, more or less, when I was a teenager in love. You dread the message because it's most likely going to be a rejection, still, hey, you're not going to get anything unless you ask the question. Of course, a pitch for a novel is a bit like sending out a love letter to someone you don't know, hoping that the reader will fall in love with your writing and want to marry you. Sign a contract, I mean. And they each get about 20 of these proposals every day.
Now, over the weekend, Mr. Cox unexpectedly had some time on his hands. He went through the Pitch forum and commented on quite a lot of the pitches, except in a few cases where the actual attachments got mislaid in a change of servers a few months back.
And except for me.
This can mean three things. Either it's no news at all: I was the last one to post in there, so I should be the last to get a reply. It could be good news: he might have read every page with rapt attention, and just hasn't had the time to ask for the full manuscript. It could be bad news: he has tried to record a dissection, but was laughing so hard that he failed to produce anything coherent.
Either way, I think I'll have to send the pitch out to a few other agents, just so there's still something to hope for when Mr. Cox finally pulls himself together for long enough to say "No" with a straight face.
NewsPosted by Pelotard 2010-01-05 15:03:25Sorry about the lull in posting. There's been a bit of a thingymajig at home over the holiday season: we currently have a mobile Internet connection at home. But it's not the one they advertise about...
The thing is, we decided to go single source for as much communications as we could. Normal phone, mobile phone, Internet, TV. The Internet was a bit of a puzzler, since we first needed to find the master socket. An afternoon of running around with a small piece of plastic confirmed our suspicions: we had no such thing as a master socket. The previous owner, whom we have compared to Gyro Gearloose, had hotwired the entire house in order to have sockets in every room (excluding the bathroom, thankfully).
But we did find where the leads went into the house, which turned out to be in the basement. It was the work of a moment, once we figured out what was going on, to cut the leads and install a socket, and then to lay a wire from that one up to the computer. Winding through the stairs, fastened with a whole lotta duct tape, and having all phones in the house disconnected except the one next to the computer.
Next was the digital TV. Worked like a charm. The only problem was, we have to get the TV in via the same modem as the broadband. There's a 3-feet wire to the computer. And a 3-feet wire to the TV. And they're some 20 feet apart.
The only solution is to, whenever you want to surf the Net, disconnect the TV, carry the Internet connection into the study and connect the computer.
Fortunately, the kids spend all day using the TV as a screen for their Wii.
