BICHOK, Exile, Warbreaker

Redraft: Chapter 6 of 33

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My progress on the redraft has been slow going as of late, in part due to a writer's blockish road hazard that required the scrapping and rewriting of the last scene of chapter 5, and in larger part due to a deadline for a prof's research assignment. It ended up taking far more time that I would have liked, but I managed to get it done by the deadline I'd promised, though it screwed up my neck something fierce to be planted in front of the computer for hours at a time. (Despite the magic of BICHOK--butt in chair, hands on keyboard--as advocated by the crew at Writing Excuses, my neck problems demand that I take periodic breaks from that position. Not taking those breaks inevitably ends with me flat on my back, as I rediscovered yesterday.) I still have another active project for the other prof, but I'm going to try to work in more redrafting time, at least a couple of hours each day.

October 31st won't wait forever, after all.

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Visiting OSC's Hatrack website today, I noticed a banner that announced the November release of Ender in Exile, the long-awaited direct sequel to Ender's Game (i.e. the one that I wanted to read back in the ninth grade, but had to settle for the Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind triumvirate--which weren't bad, per se, but certainly a far cry from what I'd been longing for). I hope that OSC has successfully chanelled at least a spark of the old 80s-era Card magic, as I've grown increasingly convinced that he reached the apex of his writerly prowess before the turn of the 21st century. (One only need compare his earlier work--Hart's Hope, Songmaster, Ender's Game, etc.--with his most recent--Magic Street, Empire--to realize that his style has shifted noticably over the years, and not entirely for the better.)

Inevitably, however, returning to the Enderverse after three years (or, if one discounts the Enderless Shadow books, almost ten) will prove somewhat painful to me, I fear. Back when I first read Ender's Game, it was the gold standard against which all other fiction had to be measured, and found lacking. I really couldn't find anything to critique about it, even if I tried. I still occasionally go back to it, as a portrait artist might refer to the Mona Lisa, to give me insight into the way that a novel should be paced, how a story should flow from point to point.

As of late, however, I've begun to see certain flaws in the story--not so much a reflection of the writing or craft OSC employed, but a reflection, I think, of the potential flaws in the propensities of the author himself. Card has established a career on crafting intelligent, often times genius-level characters, and while he generally succeeds in humanizing them to the point of drawing a reader's empathy, some of the character traits he infuses them with I suspect are ones that he himself shares; and they are traits that serve, as far as I can tell, to alienate them from the reader. Perhaps that could be justified in Game; the whole plot turns on Ender's isolation from his peers, his loved ones, his superiors, and even, to a certain extent, the enemies he is destined to fight. That isolation closely parallels the estrangement many pubescents experience from the world and others around them, a link that may have in no small part contributed to the popularity of the novel, and its retroactive label as a "young adult" work. But I see strains of that alienation--something deep inside of me suspects its roots are in some nascent sense of elitism--pervade practically every character that Card has created since the new millennium. In this respect, there is a danger in borrowing too much from my first writerly shisho when modeling my own fiction.

Fortunately, I've come to know many more shisho in my time, all of whom bring with them their own distinct sets of strengths and weaknesses, both of which have helped me to respectively foster and compensate for my own. Flewelling--her consumate insights into human relationships and immersive world buidling. Sanderson--his immaculate plotting and astounding depth of his milieus. Jordan--perhaps one of the greatest milieu-smiths since Tolkien himself. And now George R.R. Martin--whose strength of prose I noted within the first page of the Prologue to A Game of Thrones, and whose character craft and turns of phrase I'm happily savoring at the moment. There are many more I've yet to look into: Vernor Vinge, Robin Hobb, Tad Williams, James Maxey, to name just a few. The gifts I've received are legion; yet the gifts I still stand to gain outnumber them. I only hope I learn enough to produce works that might serve the same purpose for another in the future that theirs has served for me.

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On the subject of Brandon Sanderson, his online novel project Warbreaker provides fans and would-be writers alike a unique opportunity for insight into his editing processes, one that I hope may aid my own. He's graciously made available the first complete draft of the novel, along with each subsequent redraft all the way up to the current one--version 6.1. The novel will go through a few more rounds of edits that won't make it to the electronic page, and then be released in final form around the same time that A Memory of Light hits bookstores--sometime in the first quarter of 2009. Sanderson's hope is that if people like what they see on their computer screens, they won't hesistate to purchase the print volume when it becomes available.

I haven't read enough of the online drafts to be 100% sure, but given the lessons his drafts are likely to teach me about my own, I'd say I'll be one of those who gladly picks up the novel from the bookstore when it finally arrives.

Revolution, HHKB2, Das, Kensington

Watched: Slayers Revolution #4
Reading: A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin

Slayers Revolution is like coming home for someone like me, who cut his otaku teeth on the original Slayers anime, more than ten years ago. (Astroboy, of course, was my very first. But its profound age puts it in a different class than the 1990s-era anime series that my otaku sense was weaned on.) I've always viewed Slayers NEXT as the pinnacle of the series, though I appreciated TRY's attempts to expand the milieu. It's too early for me to say whether Revolution will come to rival NEXT for Slayers supremacy, but after roughly ten years of Slayers withdrawal, it is certainly good to be back in the thick of things again.

I am, however, still awaiting the reappearance of my favorite character with bated breath. Fortunately, the preview for the fifth episode indicated that Xellos will be making an appearance next week. Otanoshimi ni!

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With a vow that its purchase would herald the beginning of the end, as far as my keyboard collection goes, I bit the bullet and ordered a Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional 2 from beNippon a few weeks ago.



The diminuative, capacitive-switch keyboard didn't do much to impress me when I tried one out at Cleverly 2 in Akihabara. But to be fair, the display models looked to have been put through more than their fair share of abuse, and back then, I still considered the buckling spring keyboard to be the pinnacle of typing nirvana. Now, it's a toss-up between the Cherry brown tactiles in my Filco Majestouch, or the capacitive switches in the newly acquired HHKB2. The Filco, with its full layout, is still my mainstay keyboard of choice, while the HHKB2 is the one I'll turn to when it's time to type out my finals this 3L year. (Would it be too much to beseech the legal gods to allow would-be lawyers to type out their Bar essays this upcoming year? If not, then at least I know of one or two fountain pens that should serve me well, if I am forced to put pen to paper one last time.)

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The third iteration of the Das Keyboard looked promising enough for me to pre-order it, with the belief that I would simply return it for the guaranteed refund if it failed to bunk the Filco from its pole position.


The keyboard utilizes Cherry blue tactile keyswitches, the very ones that I've heard many "clicky" keyboard enthusiasts on the geekhack.org forums describe as their favorite, besting even the renowned buckling spring switches in certain circles. My experience with the Das was mixed, however. The acoustic quality of the key clicks seemed hollow, perhaps due to the unique construction of the keyboard (I've heard reports that the previous iteration, the Das II, was far louder, and therefore, I assume, more acoustically satisfying). But worse than that, the clicks themselves seemed to throw off the natural typing tempo that I so easily maintain with the quieter cherry browns in the Filco. As a result, after a single day of experimentation, I packed up the Das and sent word back to the manufacturer for a refund.

I soon realized, however, that I would have to pay an exhorbitant amount of money to send the keyboard back, a shipping investment that the manufacturer would not reimburse. As a result, I decided to sell the practically new keyboard on eBay, assuming that I would probably be able to get a better rate of return from whatever the final bid ends up being--especially considering that, with the $99.99 preorders done with, the Das currently goes for a MSRP of $129. Better still, the winner of the auction will be the one who has to bite the shipping bullet.

All of this serves only to reinforce the consumer goods stereotype that I have come to recognize as being more of an ironclad rule than an overgeneralization: all other things being equal, a product made in Japan for the Japanese market will always be manufactured to a higher degree of quality and satisfaction than a nigh identical product made in the U.S. for the U.S. market.

The only exception to this rule--which may very well prove its veracity--follows below.

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For years now, I've used a Microsoft Optical Trackball mouse as my pointing device of choice. It began in college, where desk space was at a premium, and once I switched to a trackball-type mouse, I couldn't go back to the more traditional style. However, I soon found that the thumb-reliant trackball setup exacerbated my carpel tunnel ailment, and I started a slow search for a worthy replacement.

I quickly discovered that the Kensington Expert Trackball mouse was widely regarded as the gold standard, as far as trackball-type mice go. Even on Japanese webisites, the finest--and most expensive--keyboards were always sold beside the Kensington.



Amazon provided a significant discount on the Kensington, though the wait for it to arrive via free super-saver shipping was excruciating. It does, however, live up to its expectations, and makes mousing tasks between the two screens I currently use noticably easier to boot.

Horrible (SPOILERS)

I began this post moments after watching the final part of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, but decided to postpone publishing it until the 20th, to minimize unintentional spoilage.

At first, the climax of Part III seemed a bit incongruous with the tone set by the first two acts. Perhaps the musical medium and witty humor lulled me into a false sense of security, as far as the plot goes. But the pathos of the conclusion--its sheer cathartic power--seems to redefine the first two acts, tempering the silliness of the first act and the comedic and emotional crescendo of the second with a hauntingly chill resonance. The ultimate effect on the viewer is both, well, horrible and beautiful at the same time.

Joss Whedon has acquired a reputation for plots laden with gut-punching twists, doing the surprising so often that, ironically, it's become something of a calling card for his productions, and therefore, Whedonesquely predictable. Nevertheless, his mould-breaking writerly ways has got me to thinking about my own. I cannot get too comfortable with the usual formula; to be poignant, events must deviate from the predicted path in a way that the reader does not expect, but finds to be utterly inevitable, once all is said and done. The writer's task is to ensure that seeds are sown well early on, and watered and tended so that the plot will reach its full fruition by the conclusion. For me, that's often a backwards process; it's not until I get to the end that I know--at least for sure--whether a main character lives or dies, or exactly how the end result I'm striving for will be attained. As a result, after I write the end, I inevitably have to go back and reincorporate the underlying elements into the earlier portions of the story. The boon is that, in the process of reincorporation, I often discover other elements that need incorporation, elements that lend a richness and depth to the story that it lacked in the first telling.

THIS WEEK ONLY: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

I typically gravitate toward writing longer, more substantial entries than this, but time is of the essence, and I'd like to help spread the word as much as I can.

Joss Whedon, creator of all things shiny (read: Firefly, Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, etc.) is releasing, for FREE, during this week only, a three-part musical comedy featuring a wannabe mad scientist named Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris), his superhero archnemesis Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion, and the girl who makes it all a love triangle, Penny (Felicia Day). Words really don't do it justice, so its best if you simply check it out, here:

As you can see from the site, Part I was just released yesterday. Part II comes on Thursday, July 17th. Part III on Saturday, July 19th. The episodes are also available for download on iTunes; simply search for "Dr. Horrible."

Everything disappears on the 20th, so check it out ASAP!

Slayers & Monitor

On July 2, the Slayers anime series (one of my first, and a permanent fixture in my top ten list of anime) began its fourth season with Slayers Revolution, after more than ten years in hiatus. The original vocal cast returns, including the inestimable Megumi Hayashibara as the protagonist Lina Inverse, and while the animation style remains true to the series that came before, the quality has clearly been updated for 21st century standards.


It couldn't have come at a better time. The anime series that comprise my active watch list nowadays don't seem to satiate in the way they used to. The last great series I can recall was Fullmetal Alchemist, which was nearly three years ago; the others that have sprouted up to claim its place have lacked the depth of plot and character necessary to achieve a sufficient level of catharsis, and some popular series appear to garner their popularity even while troding upon the most time-honored principles of good storytelling. (I think of the absolute lack of peril to the godlike protagonist of Heroic Age as a prime example. No crisis, no interest, no story.)

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Some readers may feel like paraphrasing C-3PO from Return of the Jedi, shortly after viewing this post: "I'm afraid Tensai's gone and done something rather rash."


Yes, I switched the layout of the desk since the last time I photographed it, but that wasn't the rash part.


The new Gateway FHD 2400 24" LCD monitor is. It's a widescreen, but I bought it for use in portrait aspect. Here's why:


It helps with web browsing, but when viewing documents in Word, the entire margin-to-margin page fits easily within the screen, and a single tap of the page down button actually does what it says--cycles down to show the next page, in entirety. Best of all, after an update to my Vaio's graphics chipset (and a little cursing, fist shaking, and configuring), I managed to increase the output resolution from 900x1440 to 1050x1680.

It was a bit more than I meant to spend, but freeing myself from the eyestrain of the previous 15" monitor was worth it.

Redirection, Retrograde, Hunt, Who, & Robots

Watched: The Stolen Earth, Doctor Who, Series 4, Episode 12; WALL-E
Reading: The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time, Book 3)
Redraft: Chapter 6 of 31

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As you can see from recent updates to the wordmeter, I wanted to push myself to commit to at least 1000 new words a day for the rest of the summer. It's a tactic Stephen King suggests in his On Writing, with a warning--from personal experience, no less--that not coming up with those words each and every day have a tendency to make a story go stale, so that you'll have to spend extra time trying to get back into the flow of things. As I've been floundering around, redrafting the preliminary chapters, I've learned on my own just how much King's warning rings true. Thus, damning all other demands on my time, I've resolved to commit to the 1000-words-per-diem requirement, at least for the duration of the summer.

Which may still be biting off more than I can chew, as you'll see below.

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You see, as I've been making my way through Chapter 5 and now into the beginning of Chapter 6, I realize that I need a clearer vision of my story's milieu, and a firmer hold on the characters I'm introducing at this juncture. There is an elegance to the milieus and minor character development in my favorite books that is sorely lacking in mine, and I suspect the reason may be simple: I haven't thought things through well enough. It's a falling that links up with my weakness in developing settings, one that I'm slowly overcoming, though slowly be the operative word.

After wrestling with my 1000-word goal on Sunday for six to eight hours, I finally relented on Monday and returned to Chapters 3-4 for revamps. By early Tuesday morning, I had made some headway cleaning up the plot progression, and I felt compelled to write what I'd like to call a "retrograde" outline. Retrograde, in that it is being written after the complete text, instead of the reverse. I've only filled in summaries of the first two chapters, and the chapter titles for the other chapters, but already something seems to have fallen in place. I discovered a brand new plot element that I'll need to introduce in Chapter 1. I see a connection between two characters that heretofore had no link between them. I may not have written 1000 new words, but my efforts have broken through the inertia. To borrow an image from Robert Jordan: the Wheel turns, and the Pattern weaves what it will.

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The second book in The Wheel of Time series is shorter and--I think--stronger than the first. I still stand by my belief that Jordan used the first to grow into the writer who eventually garnered such a devoted following, and a little bit of his journey remains in the first part of The Eye of the World, lodged there, perhaps unintentionally. But it taught me more in the past few weeks than a learner could reasonably expect from a mentor he will never meet in person, from a lesson begun only after the teacher had passed from this world. As Brandon Sanderson observes, there is an amazing depth of fore-planning at work in Jordan's epic; details that seem cryptic in The Eye come to the fore in latter volumes, I'm told. Now, I realize it is likely that some of those things were written before their ultimate significance could be cemented in Jordan's mind, just as others may have been intentional from start to finish. But his example has shown me the depth of vision I must aspire to--via design and serendipity alike--and my sight as a storyteller has grown deeper in the process.

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I've been religiously watching the new Doctor Who ever since David Tennant took up his Time Lord mattle, despite the fact that the series has never achieved even the barest suspension of disbelief, at least to me. It's camp, but neo-camp, a kind of pulp audio-visual medium with the fit and finish of a modern dramedy series, but lacking any real internal consistency. The penulitmate episode in season 4, The Stolen Earth, is a great example. Without spoiling much, a great master plan is put into action, jeopardizing the Earth and twenty-something other "stolen" planets--and, ostensibly, the entire universe, once the plan reaches fruition--but the cliffhanger ending hinges on the fact that the Doctor is grazed by the "extermination" ray of a passing Dalek soldier, and about to undergo a regeneration.

I should pause here to explain to the uninitiated: the Time Lord "regeneration" ploy is a wonderful device used to allow the smooth passage of the Doctor's mantle from one actor to the next. Essentially, it is said that his race, the Time Lords, are capable of spontaneous regeneration when mortally wounded--the old rule of thumb was up to 13 regenerations per individual, but that rule has been breached in the past--in which they are revived in a different body, complete with its own new set of character quirks. This has allowed ten different actors to take on the role and make it their own, and given the legions of fans a plethora of reasons to argue about which doctor is "their" doctor.

Therein lies the problem with using the crisis of a "regeneration" as the episode cliffhanger. First of all, the sequence in which the Doctor is wounded is one of the most hackneyed of melodramatic shots: the slow-motion, lovers-running-across-the-expanse into-each-other's-waiting-arms sequence, which inevitably ends with one or the other being shot or otherwise intercepted before the sequence can be completed. Second, the Daleks have established a nearly mind-numbing inability to act on their strident impulses to "Exterminate!" the Doctor in the past. (Seasons 1-2 are replete with examples.) Nevertheless, this lone soldier finds his trigger (assuming that the weapon has one to pull) just in time to graze the Doctor and initiate the cliffhanger scenario.

But worst of all, besides the fact that the Doctor's feelings for Rose might change with his next regeneration (which, at this point, after said love interest has been MIA for the better part of two seasons, has the emotional potency of tepid water), the central crisis seems to eminate from the assumption, on the viewer's part, that David Tennant will no longer be playing the Doctor after the regeneration--that is, that the current actor will be replaced by the eleventh. (That is the underlying crisis; however, I believe the writers will find some convoluted means by which to keep Tennant in the role, no doubt at the expense of further compromising an already broken plot mechanism.)

It is a sad state of affairs where one of the most popular shows on BBC1 has to rely upon a matter of casting rather than plot to captivate its viewers. It's reasons such as this that Doctor Who remains a very guilty pleasure of mine--though if it continues to degenerate, who knows--it may not even remain that for very long.

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The first time I laid eyes on the trailer for Pixar's WALL-E, I knew I'd have to see it during the opening weekend. I have always harbored an inexplicable affinity for robots, and so this animated movie seemed tailor made for me. (It also helped, hot on the heels of my Doctor Who rant, that Pixar has established a reputation for solid plotting along with its spectacular computer-generated visuals.) WALL-E skirts the wonderful balance that allows a movie to transcend audiences--delightful for kids, thought-provoking for adolescents, and satisfying for adults both young and old. Profundity and humor. Darkness and hope. And that thing which is often so purely distilled in dramatic representations of robots--which may be the reason they move me so: the unbridled luminescence of the human spirit, a light that we ourselves tend to forget. I was moved to tears more times that I'd care to admit during the movie, but they were tears of joy rather than sadness--bursts of kinship with thoughts and behaviors that make the experiences of our lives uniquely human.