08 November, 2006
Religion confronts science (fiction)
I don't think I've ever heard religious wackos use multi-syllable words, much less attempt to explain terraforming and sail-based space propulsion. Well, today I ran across this gem. What is wrong with these people? They seem like such frightened, ignorant children, mewling from under their papal mitre in a dark, safe corner of the universe, where God Really Exists. Christianity has such a fucking complex. Sheesh.
Near term fiction being untenable as a genre
Charlie has complained about this before. It happened to me once, in a different way. When Accelerando came out, I had written a few chapters that were vaguely reminiscent of what Charlie was doing. In this case, I've laid out the aftermath of the Bush administration (some years down the line, mind you). However, the longer I sit on this book and don't publish it, the sooner what I write will come true. Rumsfeld "resigning" isn't exactly monumental and important to me. Who Bush picked is important. I won't go into details because at this point, it really would spoil the book (I could tell you all the precise trajectory of the book, and it wouldn't make a difference. It's the details of the book that make it special. The message is just one I plucked from history, rather than something revelational).
Must finish book. Soon I'm not going to have anything to write about. Maybe what I should do is set it a little further in the future. The problem with doing this is that you go even further out on a limb, and it makes your writing look either speculative (read: fanciful) or just plain wrong (in the case of reading, in 2020, a book set in 2010, and looking back on what actually happened after the book was written). And I don't want to write science fiction. It's just not appropriate. But, if I finish the book in December, and I wind up getting it published some time next year, that will almost be the end of the Bush administration, and the Dems will have had enough time to start some ripples in government. So I'll be even further off the mark. Perhaps what I need to do instead, is to finish the book, reflect on it, and then set it a little bit further in the future right before I rush it off to be published.
Or, maybe, I could turn the tables around a little. I suppose if I really wanted to, I could turn back the clock a couple decades (that makes using Real People easier on me). The message is roughly the same. Nobody gets the impression that I'm writing SF. But the look-and-feel of the book is decidedly not Korea/Viet Nam/Cold War. It's definitely a 4GW kind of book. It would be a pain in the ass, at this point, to take either approach. It has to feel real in the readers' hands, or the message won't have anywhere near the kind of punch it needs.
Fret, fret.
Must finish book. Soon I'm not going to have anything to write about. Maybe what I should do is set it a little further in the future. The problem with doing this is that you go even further out on a limb, and it makes your writing look either speculative (read: fanciful) or just plain wrong (in the case of reading, in 2020, a book set in 2010, and looking back on what actually happened after the book was written). And I don't want to write science fiction. It's just not appropriate. But, if I finish the book in December, and I wind up getting it published some time next year, that will almost be the end of the Bush administration, and the Dems will have had enough time to start some ripples in government. So I'll be even further off the mark. Perhaps what I need to do instead, is to finish the book, reflect on it, and then set it a little bit further in the future right before I rush it off to be published.
Or, maybe, I could turn the tables around a little. I suppose if I really wanted to, I could turn back the clock a couple decades (that makes using Real People easier on me). The message is roughly the same. Nobody gets the impression that I'm writing SF. But the look-and-feel of the book is decidedly not Korea/Viet Nam/Cold War. It's definitely a 4GW kind of book. It would be a pain in the ass, at this point, to take either approach. It has to feel real in the readers' hands, or the message won't have anywhere near the kind of punch it needs.
Fret, fret.
06 November, 2006
Photography and more
Took a class last night on photo composition from one of the local photographers. He's pretty gifted, and I like his work, so it was a treat to have him both share his techniques and critique our photos. We were tasked with coming up with an ad to sell an Apple product. We were "suggested" a new Shuffle. I wanted to try and sell Apple Pants, but that was deemed inappropriate. Pants are just so much more interesting a subject than a Shuffle, especially with a macro (60/2.8, nice and sharp) lens. The guy teaching the class had a neat lens to show us, a 17-50/2.8 which doesn't quite reach as far as the 18-70 (f/3.8) that comes with the camera, but it's a lot faster. Pretty cool lens. I suspect we'll want something like that, the Nikkor 105mm macro, and maybe a 100-300 telephoto (hopefully with the image stabilization stuff). Between those lenses, we could shoot just about everything we come across.
One interesting thing that showed up last night is something we already knew: I am right-handed, but left eye dominant (we learned this during our training on rifles). This means that when I wind up offsetting lines into a photo, like a perspective or horizon, I usually wind up biasing towards the left. It just "feels" right for me. But if I'm not careful, I wind up doing it all the time and my photos look boring. So I need to be cautious about how I approach composition. Not just paying attention to what "feels" right, but what actually looks right as well.
Anyways, Sandy is much better with the 60/2.8 and macro in general. Her product shots were better than what I would have come up with. I really ought to get her a D200 or a D80.
One interesting thing that showed up last night is something we already knew: I am right-handed, but left eye dominant (we learned this during our training on rifles). This means that when I wind up offsetting lines into a photo, like a perspective or horizon, I usually wind up biasing towards the left. It just "feels" right for me. But if I'm not careful, I wind up doing it all the time and my photos look boring. So I need to be cautious about how I approach composition. Not just paying attention to what "feels" right, but what actually looks right as well.
Anyways, Sandy is much better with the 60/2.8 and macro in general. Her product shots were better than what I would have come up with. I really ought to get her a D200 or a D80.