Everytime another company is accused to IP infringement (and usually after they become aggressively defensive on the matter) someone will bring up a Disney character. I wasn't expecting is this time (in the H&E debate, for those who are intelligently staying away from the conversation,) honestly, because the subject has been gone over before. But, as it turns out, I was wrong.
So I'm talking about it here, for reasons I'll get to in a moment.
Basically, a refresher course in trademark law. When you introduce a product, the field that product falls into is critically important. Apple is the name of a computer company. They didn't run afoul of a problem with Apple Records (UK-based record company) until Apple Computers started selling music. You see? Same name, two different products.
So legally, Snow White the Ceramic Figure is a very different creature from Snow White the Perfume (and I know there are also copyright issues, rather than trademark issues, that come into play surrounding Snow White the Disney character that we won't go into right now because they mainly come into effect if you're writing a Snow White book or creating Snow White-themed art that does NOT look like the Disney stuff.) There is only a problem if Disney decides to start selling Snow White the Perfume. (Likely, in that case they would try to use their deep pockets and huge bank of lawyers to go after anyone else using the name irregardless of whether or not they had the original trademark, but that's the advantage being a mega-corporation gets you.) Point is, it's apples and oranges. Not the same type of product? No infringement.
And the truth is, Beth checks. I've seen her change the names of perfumes because she realized she would be infringing if she came out with something called X. Likewise, I've seen her pull a product after its release because she received a letter from someone she missed in her initial searches. There's at least one "unreleased" perfume I know of which will never see the light of day until Beth can find a replacement name for it she likes -- her original name is already being used. So yes, it does go both ways.
Beth tends to create her perfumes off of folktales, myths, and literature in the public domain (remember, Snow White is a fairy tale, not something Disney invented.) Does that mean that someone else can base their perfumes off the same fairy tale in the public domain? No. The law doesn't work that way. A competing product of the same name will cause confusion amongst customers -- that is precisely what trademark laws are designed to prevent. It does not matter if the origin of that name was something that was public domain originally or not.
I'm not a lawyer, of course, I'm an artist; but nothing I've said here can't be gleaned from the US copyright & trademark offices web site.
Now on to the reason I'm posting here, rather than putting this out over in the H&E forum where more people will see it and it would likely do more good. One, because a discussion of trademark law IS tangenty, and I've no desire to add to it, and Two, because of the perception that the mods "bully" through numbers. And yes, I am quoting Inanna9 here, although I don't personally believe that her opinion (as I have perceived it) is in the minority in any way.
It's difficult to go back and check, but if memory serves me correct, the last "kerfluffle" over on the H&E thread (before this business with Pilotkitten & BOMH) was the Thirteen debate, which was responded to by Scylla (a IP law clerk -- hard for her to resist,) Ivyandpeony (a lawyer, ditto) and Jenpo (who made a few comments before she realized she wasn't helping the discussion and bowed out.) Embezel (another laywer) finally responded after the tangent on IP law had been split into a different thread. So three mods, really, that made comments, and all of them with expert opinions and insight on the subject at hand. And yet, the number Inanna9 mentioned was twice that, and rather than point fingers at her or some such silliness I think that I'll simply say that I think her observation is a keen reflection of the problems of being a moderator, the metaphorical "space" we seem to take up on this forum, the tendency to group all mods into an amoeba like amalgam, and the perceived intimidation factor of knowing a dozen mods are watching a thread, even if they aren't participating.
Any forum member can go to the main forum page, hit "My Assistant" at the top, then "Top 10 Posters" and receive a list of the top 10 posters on the forum. Notice that 8 out of 10 of those are moderators? Why? Not because we're handing out that many "warnings" but because we are opinionated, chatty bitches. We always have been. In many cases, part of the whole reason we were asked to become moderators is because of our willingness to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into a debate and do so often. We are MORE than happy to throw our personal opinions into the mix. We are not automatons. We are not drones.
Yet if too many of us reply to a thread, we're viewed as bullying or intimidating or some such. And it seems like our detractors quite forget that we are people too, that we have opinions that are not the "party line" (whatever that is) and we came here to these forums to talk about perfume and politics and make-up along with everyone else. Go visit some of the other perfume threads and you'll likely notice mods enthusing over the products of Ave Lux, or DSL or Possets -- these are not "all other perfume companies besides BPAL are EVIL!" people. I was rather stunned by the suggestion that Michele over at H&E was within her rights to ban Laurin (Scylla) because she was a mod and obviously hostile to H&E. Can you imagine if we did things the same way here? Banned people just because they didn't like us or criticized BPAL? But it turns out that you actually have to break rules here to be kicked out -- "we don't like you" is not good enough.
After a while, it gets a bit hard to stay calm and unemotional about the whole situation, certainly. And maybe some day I'll get a thicker skin about the fact that no matter how fair or even-handed we try to be, we're still going to be labeled as tyrants.
I guess "Mod Censorship" means something very different to me.
So besides occassionally painting my character, I AM purely geeky enough to also come up with soundtracks for the novels. Wooboy, that's some good geek.
Ahem. Not even sure why I'm sharing this, except to give folks something to giggle at.
So let's see:
For the fantasy novel, a typical soundtrack looks like this —
1 — Boulevard of Broken Dreams — Greenday
2 — Candy Everybody Wants — 10,000 Maniacs
3 — Everybody Knows — Concrete Blonde
4 — Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) — Eurythmics
5 — Behind Blue Eyes — The Who
6 — The Stranger — Billy Joel
7 — The House of the Rising Sun — The Animals
8 — Control — Poe
9 — Shadowman — Brother
10 — The Game — Disturbed
11 — Walking on Broken Glass — Annie Lennox
12 — Revenge — K.M.F.D.M
13 — I'm Alive — Disturbed
14 — Twelve — Seven Nations
So it's a happy kind of book.
For the science-fiction novel, it doesn't get much cheerier:
1 — Hello (turn your radio on) — Shakespear's Sister
2 — Theme to a Fake Revolution — Powerman 5000
3 — Celebrity Skin — Hole
4 — Tom Sawyer — Deadsy
5 — Wild — Poe
6 — Knock a little harder — Yoko Kanno
7 — Last Things — K.M.F.D.M.
8 — Tear it up — Andrew W.K.
9 — Flaming Telepaths — Blue Oyster Cult
10 — Ask DNA — Yoko Kanno
11 — Out of Control — Hoobastank
12 — Epiphany — Bad Religion
13 — Veteran of the Psychic Wars — Blue Oyster Cult
14 — DOA — Foo Fighters
I was working in an antique building in Korea town, so old that I was in an office with a mottled glass panel set in the door and a transom on top. I always wanted to paint my name on the door in gold copperplate, with "graphic artist" underneath looking like it should say "private investigator." It was that kind of building. It wasn't the best neighborhood, about a block up from the Wiltern theatre, which I could see clearly from my window. I suppose it wasn't the worst either though. There was a Korean version of a greasy spoon downstairs that served up an amazingly tasty fried kimchee rice dish and all the noodle soup a girl could want for under $5.
There was a noise. Loud. Probably louder after being bounced off the sides of the buildings. Not nearly as quiet as a clap of thunder hitting the tree right next to you. No backfire from a car's exhaust pipe could be that loud.
I looked out the window, to the street corner, where I saw a group of Asian (given the neighborhood, probably Korean) teenagers standing. A few other kids—torn up jackets, blue jeans—running away caddy-corner across the construction site for the new Metro station. They looked Mexican-American, although they were not facing me, so I couldn't be certain.
The teenagers who remained had shocked expressions on their faces. Not scared exactly — this was numb shock. One boy had his hands to his stomach, and he stood there, for a long second, with hardly any expression on his face at all.
Then the blood seeped out from under his fingers, from where he had been shot.
I'd seen a lot of shootings in movies and TV shows. I have repeatedly been told that we are desensitized to it as a society. But I tell you that no blood I have ever seen in any movie looked as red, as horribly, terrifyingly crimson, as the red that spread out over his white t-shirt. I called 911 — I'm told over a hundred people in the surrounding offices called 911 — even as several of my coworkers raced out to try to help.
It had happened in broad daylight, on a busy street, and it had taken just a moment. I never found out what happened to the teenager — if he survived. The ambulance arrived quickly, so I'd like to think he did, but truthfully, I don't know. It didn't even make the papers, which I guess means he probably lived. I don't know why he was shot. I'm quite sure it's in an LAPD file somewhere listed as a "gangland shooting." It's Korea town, right? That sort of thing happens in Korea town. And in Inglewood and in Compton and anyplace else in Los Angeles, it seems.
Yesterday, it was Venice.
I found out while waiting for the bus this morning, when a man sat down next to me and started chatting in a friendly fashion. (It is, honestly, one of the things I love about living in Inglewood — that men and women will sit down next to you and start chatting as if you grew up together.) He had a copy of the LA Times with him, and he started telling me about a boy in Venice who was killed trying to keep gang members from stealing his brother's silver cross. The fight spilled out into the parking lot of the school, and one of the gang members had pulled out a gun and shot the young man once, in the chest, killing him. The victim had not been a member of any gangs; he was only trying to protect his little brother.
"Why would they do that?" The man said, clearly mystified. "Why would anyone kill someone else over a cross? Don't they realize what the cross means?" He was trying to make sense of it, and failing.
And I had no words with which to comfort him. Can there be explanations for something like this? Can one make sense of it? The papers are already saying it was racially motivated. The attackers were African-American and the victim was Mexican-American, after all. The local police are making preparations for the expected counter-attacks by rival Latino gangs, which will, in all probability end in more shootings and the deaths of more innocent people.
And all I can think is everyone's blood is the same color red.
done!
(sorry, you can't see it yet.)
But I'm very happy with it. And may I give a brief nod to the drama-loving, bitter and spiteful folks over at the LJ BPAL anonymeme? Thanks to them, I had a healthy dose of hate and malice to channel into my art, and I'd like to think this shirt design reflects that.
What good is being an artist if you can't turn lemons into lemonade, right?
I took the bus to work this morning, because my sweetheart is out of town for a while, and I can't drive (for a variety of reasons....it's a long story.) I used to take the bus every day to work, and it was fine, although occassionally a bit scary. And this morning was about textbook, save that the bus was a little less crowded than it can be, and there were no strange encounters of any kind.
But they had a TV on the bus. A nice big flatscreen tucked into the corner, playing a highly condensced version of Reuter's headlines.
Now I've seen this before — but generally in nicer neighborhoods (I live in the 'hood) and while I must admit that I could see the appeal, it was a bit chilling. That was, as I recall, also my reaction to first seeing telelvision monitors in the check-out lines of supermarkets. Not a sense of "hey, that's cool!" but more of a sense of unease.
I can still remember, when, as a teenager, I first realized that society was embracing the cautionary tales of cyberpunk science-fiction with open arms, that there were people who, far from being outraged or repulsed by William Gibson's societies of corporate control and vast inequity, thought that the idea of the continual survellianced society was cool. I've never met one of these people, but they must exist, because I keep seeing their handiwork, like flatscreens on grocery story check-out lines and in cars and on buses. This Max Headroom-esque idea that we should live in a society where it is impossible to escape a television screen — when did that become the rule of the day?
I've been writing two books simultaneously for the longest time, perhaps because doing any serious world-building on one setting will inevitably send me screaming into the arms of another for a time. So it was no suprise to me that after doing quite a bit of work on linguistics for the fantasy book I found myself itching to finish a couple scenes for the sci-fi book. And since I'm both writer and artist, I took a yearning to do some sketching.
So a brief sketch of the main character of my sci-fi book. She had very short hair for the longest time, but uh...she insisted. Does she look like a woman it's healthy to say no to?
Bard (whose presence I most definitely miss on the forums) and some other folks helped me out with a lot of my early concerns about invented language. Like the map-making, it's something I'm doing because it seems necessary — because the world just reads false if too much in it is easily identifiable as German or French or what-have-you.
And I've found language is often a quandry in fantasy literature. It is, by its very nature, a suspension of disbelief. So many words in the English language derrive from distinct cultural identity — the word "tawdry" could not exist without medieval Catholicism, and both "platinum" and "cannibal" would not exist without the Spanish conquest in the New World. It's an almost endless list. I've seen plenty of writers caution beginners not to use anachronistic words in their fantasy works. But...it's ALL a bit anachronistic, isn't it? Unless your fantasy world is set in 17th century England (which has happened of course) it's unlikely that they're speaking English. Any time we pick up a fantasy book set in some truly "fantasy" land, whether it be Middle-Earth, or Earthsea, etc., we have to accept that we are reading an approximation, and not the "native tongue." Sure, there are some missteps which should be obvious (we know not to use "freeway" or "airplane" unless there is a reason such things would exist) but most people wouldn't think not to use loan-words like "sabotage" or "juggernaut." Am I to avoid those words because they wouldn't be "correct?" They're such good words! Useful, sturdy words that do their job beautifully. I like them.
Steven Brust has a lot of fun with his languages, such as the tendency of every sentient race in his Dragaeran books to call themselves something that translates in English as "Human" or his place names. I remember one that, when broken down and translated, was revealed to mean "Ford Ford Ford Ford Ford" as each race who conquered the region kept the old ruler's name for the ford and then tacked on "ford" in their own language for clarity. The absurdity of it is brilliantly real.
So, after some thought on the matter, I decided that I would mess around with the language when 1)it would prove more poetic and unique than the English equivalent, such as for proper nouns, or 2)when using the English word would be jarring. For example, there is a race in my fantasy world that uses titanium as their metal of choice, using magic to reach the absurdly high temperatures required to work with it. But I can't call it titanium, can I? Not without my reader giving me a very strange look. And if I think titanium would be a bit too anachronistic in tone, what about aluminium? Oh boy. So clearly there was some need for an invented language, if only to give the reader a word that is unfamiliar rather than a word that seems wrong.
Many years ago, Jeffrey Henning (over at Langmaker.com) uploaded a very interesting little excel spreadsheet that allowed you to enter 400 root words and used that to derrive a vocabulary of 4,000 final words — more than enough for any language you might ever need. But I was never entirely happy with it. For one thing, it organized its vocabulary alphabetically by the sample language "Duplex" used in the spreadsheet, which meant that you were stuck using Excel's find feature if you wanted look up a specific word (and if you sorted by a different method to make the English words alphabetical you screwed up the spreadsheet.) Many of the vocabulary was clunky or unnecessary for a fantasy novel — a lot of the vocabulary attemped to come up with new words for technology or countries or advanced science terms. So I took the idea and recreated it. I ended up with 450 root words, but so far I'm very, very happy with the results.
Which is good...because now that I have my map done, I need to go back and name everything
So someone pointed me towards some LJ forum someone started up for the purpose of allowing people to anonymously vent their true feelings about the LJ Black Phoenix forum (and as it turned out, about bpal.org.) I read for a few entries before I had to stop, feeling absolutely sick to my stomach.
Who thought this was a good idea?
In my experience, anytime people can hide under a cloak of anonymity, the majority transform almost immediately into assholes. It's like passing notes in the back of the class in 7th grade or whispering to each other about how fat Susie is (and making sure Susie can hear them) — the desire to impress their peers with their capacity for cruel and malicious behavior manifests as the most horrifying vitriol. It all goes straight to "Lord of the Flies" island, because somehow, the people we meet on the internet aren't "real" people and so what we do to them smacks of the hypothetical. We don't have to be there and say these things to them face to face and deal with the chance that we might make them angry or make them cry — that we might actually have to face the consequences of our behavior first hand. It's all Unreal. We're all turned into sociopaths, because our audience comes pre-objectified for our convenience.
Are there people on these forums I don't like? Of course there are! There are even people I loathe, and people who are engaged in behaviors which I find self-destructive and/or unethical, and I want to throttle them. But you know what? That's okay. I know I'm not loved by everyone myself. I can be an insufferable know-it-all bitch (hey, even my Chinese horoscope says so) and I'm not always the easiest person to get along with. I know there are people on these forums who do not like me. I'm cool with that. They don't have to like me. And — and I LOVE this — we can continue to be civil with each other, because these forums are an atmosphere where its been made abundantly clear that civil manners and behavior are the rule of the day. As such, I try not call those people names or be nasty to them — one does not DO that in polite society. My reward is that sometimes these people I once disliked become friends I really love and enjoy — because I gave myself the chance to get to know them.
Of course, I suppose I could always log on somewhere anonymously and rant and rave and call people names, but honestly, what is to be gained from that?
So sooner or later, in the process of writing a fantasy novel, I find that I have to figure out where the hell my hero IS. And I will admit, I can be a bit pedantic about the whole thing. I like my maps. I like to know exactly how long it takes my hero to go from point A to point B to point C. If I don't have maps, I tend to make fairly simple but devestating errors in the geography. It's just easier for me when I have it all laid out.
Over the course of my writing, I have gradually come to the realization that I like it when my maps make sense. They don't have to of course. In a world where magic and gods exist (as they do in mine) "because I want it that way" IS a possible answer to "why is that piece of terrain filled with jungle when it logically receives no rainfall?" But it's not really very satisfying and it feels exactly like the cheat it is. I would much rather have that piece of land be filled with jungle because its near the equator and it DOES receive rainfall, and lots of it, due to the large ocean current offshore that pulls in all the really fun storms.
So last night I sat down with a friend of mine, who is a marine biologist (okay, he has a degree in marine biology...quite naturally he works in IT administration,) and we looked over my maps. *sigh* Quite, quite unworkable. Areas that I want to be warm would in fact be very cold, areas that I want to be stormy would be anything but. Some of it I can live with, but some changes — like the idea that the Capital City would not experience a monsoon season — are simply unacceptable. It's a major plot point!
So there's nothing to be done but redo the maps. Fortunately, other than the relationships between certain countries (the Manol, the Scar, and Khorvesh must all border each other) and geographical features (the Argoná plains should be...well..plains) a lot of it is very flexible.
I'm just thankful I figured this out now, before I'd spent too much time figuring out the identities of the ancient God-Kings, something that is very much tied into geography.
She was a Missouri girl who grew up on tornados and married far too young to a man who knew only how to be cruel. It took her years to tear herself away from him, running -- always running. I did not understand, as a child, why we were always moving.
But once she found the Ocean she could never leave its side again. She loved roses and irises and the great wide Pacific, and she was wise enough to know when to teach me and when to leave me to discover the truth on my own. She was always there for me, though, when I really needed her. She was, always, so beautiful, with enough love in her to fill all the oceans of the world.
We scattered her ashes out at sea, just off the Catalina islands into the Ocean that she loved so much, and sometimes, on days like Mother's Day or the anniversery of her death, I will go down to the waves and toss her a bouquet of roses, although the waves always toss them back, laughing, as it to say "you silly girl, flowers are for the living."
I miss her.
I can hardly go into a bookstore these days. It's too heartbreaking; a reminder of things I have not finished.
In this case, I haven't just not-finished one book — I haven't finished TWO.
Ah, isn't it nice to be self-indulgent and whiny?
Seriously though...I really need to shake these birds lose. Both books are dear to my heart, and both were begun almost a decade ago, when my ex-husband and I wanted to do something to 'bond' together and thought 'hey, we could always write a novel...'
Both novels were written, and both novels were even finished — and both novels were absolute, unmitigated crap. Plot holes so big they could have been used as fallout shelters, themes and characters that were borrowed from RPGs (orcs, elves, etc.) for no other reason than because we'd always played RPGs: the best thing I could say about those books is that they were, for the most part, well-paced.
So after the divorce, intellectual property copyrights in hand — I decided to re-write them. And that's where I've been ever since — rewriting. A whole lot of world-building, and a whole lot of self-editing, of "this isn't good enough." Now I'm stuck in both books, in almost the same place, with solid first halfs and good endings, but a little fuzzy on the last third.
Guess it's time to break out the the notes and go back over things. I'm going to finish these, damnit.
Wearing today: Obatala (creamy, milky goodness)
How the heck did I miss Determination from the last update?
Hmm...
Anyway, my tentative wish list goes something like:
1. Blessing of Isis
2. Anthelion
3. Blockbuster
4. Hymn to Pan
5. Lionheart
6. Mantle of Venus
7. Road Opener (for my boyfriend)
8. Foundation of Fortune
9. Haitian Gambler
10. King Solomon's
11. Lady Luck
12 Perpetuum Bonum
13. Snake Eyes
14. Aegis
15. Determination
16. Energy
Himm...that's what...$400 worth of oils? Ahem...might need to pare that down a bit.
Finally managed to get the Dragon Moon design to Beth last night. Of course, what I didn't realize at the time was that I probably sent it about 5 minutes after Ted's computer had its meltdown. Fortunately I was able to resend the art, and *crosses fingers* with luck it should go up soon.
But the way the Lab goes through computers, I'm not taking bets or anything. *wince*
As far as the shirt goes...I'm quite happy with it, and I'm a bit dragon obsessed, so there ya go. (I can vividly remember being an absolutely incensed twelve-year-old who, upon being asked to tone down my mural of Tiamat fighting Bahamut for the Girl's Club Tea Party, put my hands on hips and said "Tiamat is not CUTE!") Ahem. Not sure what that has to do with anything, except that I was quite a dragon-loving geek then, and still am.
Oh, and am counting the seconds until Beth comes out with that Tiamat blend she mentioned, obviously.
Anyway, Dragon Moon. I likie. Oh, and it just went live here.
As far as the actual lunacy perfumes go, I anticipate that this will (likely) be my least favorite, since Lotus and I don't get along. On the other hand, as an artistic endeavor, the lotus is rife with some wonderful sexy symbolism. And I think I know just what I'm going to do....*cue evil theme music*....BWAHAHAHAHA...err....ahem.
Sorry about that. I get carried away.
Something a little different than the normal style. And my goal is to have it so the boys can wear it too. May not be possible...must play...
(At this stage, of course, I have no clue what the perfume itself will smell like. That's pretty normal.)
I snagged a bottle of Tarot:the Star a while back and promptly forgot about it. (I keep my 10ml bottles in a different container than my 5mls, so I don't tend to "see" them in the morning when I'm deciding what to wear, and out of sight, out of mind, as the saying goes.)
Damn, but this is pretty. It's a delightful sweet, creamy lime, and reminds me a bit of the lime Italian sodas I've been making lately by adding sugar-free vanilla syrup to lime-infused soda water. I could truly dump this stuff on me...just spectacular.
I now understand what all the fuss is about.
Grabbed Saturn this morning on a lark...don't think it's agreeing with me.
It's very dark, very strong, woodsy with a vetiver kick. Extremely masculine, but not in a sexy sweaty fun way. I don't necessarily have a problem with vetiver (it's not an automatic deal breaker for me) but that said, there is many a vetiver blend that would not be my first, fifth or fiftieth choice in the morning, and I suspect Saturn is one of those.
Does a wonderful job of encapsulating the idea of Saturn though...
I suspected that this might be the case, so I snagged a bottle of Benghal on my way out the door as my safety net. Needless to say, it's going to be used.
Apologies for the pun. I just couldn't help myself.
So I have found that the hardest part of writing (for me, anyway) is world building. It wasn't something that I gave any appreciable thought to when I first started these novels. I just wrote in generic "fantasyland" (if you've read any fantasy or played an RPG, you know the place.) Everyone speaks a common language in fantasyland, and there are orcs and elves and a lot of heaving bodices and knights in shiny armor with big swords and wizards wear robes because...well...because. It's all the bastard step-child of Tolkien and Gygax and whatever else was sort of smushed together to make these stories. Elves are very pretty and very arrogant. Orcs are very savage and very tough. Magic exists, although it seems to have virtually no effect on the structures of societies, except maybe in as much as the villain usually is one, and maybe the hero too (or at least his mentor.)
And it is SO extraordinarily difficult to stop playing in fantasyland. There are so many tropes that are simply taken for granted, especially for a dyed-in-the-wool DnD geek like myself. For a long time, I didn't even realize what I was trying to rebel against. I simply felt this vague sense of dissatisfaction with the writing.
I was, at least at first, working with intellectual property started by my ex-husband, a brilliant man, but not necessarily a man who cared to think through the ramifications of his decisions on a meta level. You see, we had decided to write our first novel in his RPG game universe, because we thought that would make our job easier — the world building already done. Quickly though, details began to nag at me. Why did the seemingly vestigal royal houses of the Empire still persist when they did nothing and ruled no one? Because he liked it that way. Why was there a mysterious Emperor who roamed around incognito and messed around with the heroes? Because...and this one was a hard one for me to deal with once I realized it...he really liked the Emperor in the Saberhagen books, and so he introduced his equivalent in ours. Why the monotheistic God vs. Satan overtones to the books? Because my ex-husband was, at heart, still a Catholic, and he could not picture a universe that was not dualistic. Why were all the names FRENCH?
It did not bother him at all that he referenced anachronistic terms and ideas that did not just shatter suspension of disbelief but often crushed it into a fine paste and used it as spackling compound.
I know it sounds like I'm being very hard on my ex-husband. Perhaps I am. He was damn good with tricky plot complications, and a genius at pacing, but when it came to world building, he just didn't care. Not a bit. If it was good enough for Eddings or Salvatore, it was good enough for him.
I quickly found it was not good enough for me.
I began...changing things. Let's come up with an explanation for the Royal families, first of all, and why is the military structure set up like that anyway? He would complain and we would have these little catfights over details, and finally he relented and I starting making modifications in greater earnest. And then came the divorce and I insisted on the copyrights, and then well, then I could really start disassembling the whole universe and putting it back together again, a process that has been ongoing.
In the meantime, I'd come across a few authors who had a rather profound impact on me: Steven Brust and Glen Cook. Steven Brust had taken the common clichés and turned them on their ears — he made little secret that the Draegarans were "elves" (the "humans" to the East even called them that) but he plays delightfully with language (the word the Draegarans use for themselves translates as "human" which the humans think is rediculous because THEY are clearly the "humans" which the Draegarans think is rediculous because THEY...) and because he never calls any race by some stale generic noun, it all feels very fresh (perhaps it would not have, however, had I been more familiar with the nuances of Hungarian culture.) Brust also showed me the inverse of Clark's Law — that in any society, sufficient magical ability would be indistinguishable from technology. Sure, people would use magic to blast their enemies, but they would also use it for the most prosaic means if it was possible to do so — fireballs are nice, but instant communication and good lighting is better. Cook showed me that with any advance in technology, magical or not, any sufficiently organized ruling power of the land will be quick to move to control that power, and if they don't, they will quickly be replaced by someone who did. Only if that authority feels it is safe to do so will the advance be allowed for non-military uses. Plus, Cook's lands just didn't FEEL like anything in this world (at least not until later books with that somewhat transparent overlay of India.) Language barriers were often a problem, the monsters felt unique...tasty stuff.
But constructing a complex society from scratch is HARD. Excruciatingly hard -- it is a daily example of how imaginative one ISN'T. I can understand, I really can, why both Brust and Cook fell back on the easy out by using reflections of Earth cultures (Brust using Hungary and Cook using India later in his Black Company series.) I wasn't, I admit, very happy with that solution. It does have the advantage of feeling very complex and real (because it is modeled on things that are complex and real) and it is, on a base level if nothing else, easy to identify with. You rarely need to be told, for example, that an Indian-like society with a death goddess is going to have assassins. It's understood before the first cultist ever shows his strangling cord. I started up a free wiki (because it is an excellent way of seeing what you have figured out and what you haven't) and began to write down information, encyclopedia-style, about my world. I wondered if I was putting far too much time and effort into something that might get a passing sentence. Maybe.
Then my boyfriend bought me a book by some fellow named Steven Erickson. Now if you want to see what really taking the time to do your worldbuilding before you ever set pen to paper or fingers to keyboard can do for you...this man is the one to check. out. An anthropologist who evidentally started doing the fantasy novel thing as a bit of a lark, his skill at crafting societies, cultures and the broad sweep of history is really what makes these books shine with extraordinary brilliance. I won't say his work is "original" (at least three of his races very neatly fall into the categories of "dark elves," "shadow elves," and "light elves" and Mother of Darkness/Dragons is named Tiam) but these are really minor quibbles, and the unwillingness to do without elves is a faux pas I've unapologetically committed myself. Erickson's inspiration came from his example of how thorough world-building could support a story and provide it with power, scope, richness, and meaning. It's been so hard to work on the worldbuilding when I could be getting into the writing, mucking about with words and sentences, getting my hands dirty, but Erickson's books have given me an excellent lesson in the rewards of patience.
Anyway, I highly recommend you pick him up. He's a hell of a good read.
Oh believe me, it exists.
Some of it, you may yet see — one day. There is a t-shirt design that's been hanging out in the wings for about five months now while we sort out color and t-shirt styles and the fact that the company that we usually use for the shirts doesn't make the kind of shirt we really want. Hopefully it will get sorted out fairly soon — I want this shirt to see daylight. Then there are the label designs that were, for one reason or another, rejected — or simply haven't been used yet because the Lab is in too much chaos. Sometimes I know far in advance what will be in an update, and sometimes I don't know until it's up on the web site. There is plenty of artwork that just wasn't quite right, and so wasn't used.
So on to the BPAL art that you hopefully WILL see:
Right now I'm starting to work on the Carnival Diabolique art, because although I don't yet know what the individual scents will be, I can start work on the look and feel (and this time I'm going to do a better job of making sure the posters are made, and that the artwork will make an easy transition to t-shirts and maybe *crossing fingers* some cool hoodies.) Beth has mentioned another artist she knows for making some different poster designs, and I'm very excited about that possibility. (I know my limitations, and although I CAN do twisted freakshow art, this other person is without doubt so much better at it I can only applaud them.) I started some portraits of lab staff before Convergance, and am planning on finishing them in time for the summer. (They are very easy to paint, being an exceptionally pretty group of people.)
Of course, what I am REALLY looking forward to is the Lacuna series. I don't know exactly what Beth has planned, but I wants to do the labels...oh yes...
It should be a very lovely summer.
Sorry, I don't have any insider information to share — just wanted to talk about my recent movie purchases. In a fit of wishful thinking and "isn't Neil Gaiman swell?" euphoria, I went down to my local video store and bought DVDs of the English TV series Neverwhere and last year's movie Mirrormask.
I really liked Neverwhere (the book.) It was witty and engaging and a bit weird and very, very...well...very Neil Gaiman. A good strong stock Neil Gaiman-esque protagonist (humble, slightly befuddled, generally unaware of cute he is, thoroughly well-intentioned, and just so damn nice) and enough interesting and different characters and places to really fire the imagination.
The TV series though? Oh dear. I kept watching and thinking to myself: "the poor lambs...if only they'd had a real budget this could have been really good." Enough money for sets and props and actors who could act (they weren't all bad, but those who were walked right past "bad" and didn't stop until they'd reached "awful.") It wasn't a terrible show (although I probably gave it considerable lee-way because I was so enchanted with the book) but Lord, it wasn't good either.
After 3 shows, I stopped watching and put in Mirrormask instead.
Just the thing to cleanse the palate, as it turns out.
I think Neil Gaiman is most on top of his game when he throws mythology into the mix. More specifically, I really do think he is the master of the modern fairy tale. "Modern fairy tale." Hmmph. Sounds like something that came out of a marketing brainstorming session on how to sell the latest remake of "Three Little Pigs."
What I mean by "modern fairy tale" is that some of Gaiman's work (Mirrormask and the coming-soon-to-a-theatre-near-you Stardust) has the quality of fairy tales that might have been written down by the Brothers Grimm three centuries ago, but weren't. There is that sense of wonder and excitement and internal rules that are not expected to be exactly the same as our rules, although they are damned familiar. Magical lands, and magical figures, and I am not quite doing these stories justice when I say that in Gaiman's hands "magical" is fresh and new, and not a word that's been used to describe so many things, from Pagan to Hogworts, that it has ceased to have much meaning.
Anyway, I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know: Gaiman has a loyal and devoted presence here on the forum, and a lot of people here had the chance to oooh! and aaah! over Mirrormask when it was still in the theatre. But if you haven't had the chance, I highly recommend you pick up the DVD. It's truly a beautiful movie.
Well, no one is ever going to see wank removed entirely, but I hear the anonymeme has been shut down by Live Journal because it overstepped the terms of the Live Journal service agreemeent: turns out that Life Journal WILL remove a site that seems to exist only as a means of harassment.
Good for them.
