A Far Sun: Alive and going well ... I guess

It's been a few months since I posted about my current story, A Far Sun. Since then I've written about 30K words (bringing the word count to just about 191K). Though I've said this before, I'm definitely into the third act. There's a risk of bogging down in a lot of complicated sub-plots, but I'm aware of the danger and I'm taking steps to minimize the confusion. This means there are a few things that will no doubt have to be cut. That's fine. I know what has to happen to finish this thing, and I'm well on the way.

There's a whole set of scenes where one of my minor characters tries to warn my heroes and breaks her arm falling off the 4-meter-tall keep wall. While I like the perspective gained through the girl's eyes (she's 15), it's not terribly relevant to the plot--yet. It just supports the idea that people care about my heroes, and are willing to risk things for them. I think it's about 2-3 chapters, including her father's reaction and the set up with the doctor, but it can very likely go.

There are also a couple good chapters where one of my heroes finds out some important news. While this series of scenes isn't necessarily important to the plot, it certainly strengthens my hero's resolve: it raises the stakes for her in a very real and significant way. This part I will very likely keep.

Of course, in June I was saying I thought I needed another 40K words to finish the story, and here I am 30K later and I'm still saying I need about 40K more. Well, maybe only 25K, but it certainly sounds as though I haven't made much progress in getting to the finish though I've put down a bunch of words. That could be correct. I guess when I finally get it done I'll look back and laugh.

I tend to get off track because at heart I'm a story teller, and there are a million stories to tell. I always know my characters and their histories and motivations intimately, so it's not hard to talk about what they do and say. I just start writing and they tell me where to go. The challenge is knowing which stories need to be told, and which are only fluff. Since I'm a discovery writer, I never know which new stories will add to the plot, and which ones will not. At least, not ahead of time. So I tell them and then decide if they need to stay.

There is so much more to my world than I've been able to tell. It's really a model universe, where things are fairly black and white, and where everything is painted with primary colors. I like it that way, because for the intended audience it keeps things from becoming too ambiguous or nuanced. I could have written for adults, but it would have been a rather different story.

Meanwhile, as I have time, I write.

I was worried I was being harsh on Dan Brown

I wrote some stuff the other day, and wondered if I was being overly critical. Then I read this. And this.

Nah. I'm right in the middle.

Methinks whitey doth protest too much

Remember the other day I commented about racism in the South? I lived in and around Atlanta, and DeKalb County (they pronounce it "deh-CAB"--no "L") is one of the counties that comprise the metro area.

Now we have some white guy saying "I learned about slavery in history" when all he really needed to do was fucking look around. They got monuments to the "noble ideas of the South," most of which included the notion that one man could be owned by another. Let's not forget to mention that the owning men were white, like this particular journalist, and the owned men were Obama's color. Slater also says: "Racism is a very sensitive subject, and I don’t like being associated with it." Huh. Too bad. I say get over it. Rise above it if you can. But if the shoe fits ...

Just don't go on about how offended you are because a notable former president (and other perhaps equally notable personages) thinks you are the racist you are, and isn't afraid to say it. Apparently in this new world it's appropriate to show such utter disrespect to a sitting president. And if you can't somehow keep a civil tongue (yeah, Obama: he's the ultimate uppity n*****) it's not racism--it's ideology?

I said it before: Don't even try to bullshit me. I know the pejorative definition of MARTA (the Metropolitan Atlanta Transit Authority) it's "moving Africans rapidly through Atlanta." If you don't want to be thought a racist, then shut your fucking mouth.

A good time to start would be now.

Commentary on the 20 Worst Dan Brown Sentences

I read this article (it's not long, but if you have a writer's bent, very funny) discussing the stilted prose of World-Famous Best-Selling Auther Dan Brown. And yes, I meant to say "Auther."

I've only struggled through--er, read one Dan Brown novel, Digital Fortress. Whoof. He is certainly a Famous Auther, but boy is he a crappy writer. I'm sure he laughs all the way to the bank, and I still have to tip my hat that someone with such mundane talent has made it to Stardom. But with all that popularity, couldn't he afford to take writing lessons, maybe?

OK, this does sound like sour grapes, but surely he can afford a good editor and/or fact-checker. It couldn't hurt, and it just might help. I'm in the book, BTW.

My biggest problem with Digital Fortress, among many (read the Widipedia article for some errors) was that he didn't apparently know the difference between bits and bytes. Cripes! Even in the late 1990's we had libraries with books on computer technology. My other big issue was with the encryption algorithm he had the bad guys using. Determining the key used for a given cipher text is predicated on knowing the algorithm. Otherwise, you might as well brute-force the cipher text directly without knowing either the algorithm or the key. That's non-trivial to impossible. (Let me give you a random string of bits, and you tell me what I'm saying.) So therefore the algorithm has to be known, and the key (which had to be longer than what could be engraved on someone's ring--about 32 characters, IIRC) would have to be long, strong, and virtually unguessable. That is, the number of crack attempts (via a brute-force method) had to be really large and unattainable. A weak passphrase is nothing but a weak passphrase. A much better take-down of the flawed math and cryptography is posted here. The money quote FTA:

More importantly, it doesn't matter how powerful your computer is, you can't decrypt a message with a key if you don't know the algorithm.

My assessment of Dan Brown is that he's not a terribly talented writer, and not very bright, either. But he's Internationally Known, and we all know you don't have to be good to be Famous. It just helps.

But yeah, this is all sour grapes. I can write like him, I just choose not to.

Right concludes: everyone who doesn't agree with them is a Leftist

I looked at this headline, "Left Concludes: We're All Racists"

It's the lowest common denominator, folks. I am not a "leftist" though I suppose I have liberal views on social issues. I believe in public education and that we really need a better solution for healthcare. I don't think either of those positions makes me a leftist; centrist is fairly accurate, along with about 70% of all Americans.

I believe much of the right wing is racist, particularly the Southerners. I lived in Atlanta 18 years, though I am from (and currently live in) Ohio. Don't even try to bullshit me about racism--that is at the heart of this controversy, so calling it something else is disingenuous.

No one wants to be branded a racist, though we all are. The essential difference is that some of us are actually trying not to act like racists. Personally, I try to look at people as individuals, and see beyond their "labels." Because we all have some label that can be plastered on us to diminish us in others' eyes.