One habit I’d like to extend into this space more regularly is the venerable linkdump, because I read incessantly and I like sharing what I’ve found. (See also: my Tumblr and, to a lesser extent, which I really should fix, my Twitter.)
Before we get started, though: yes, that is a 1912 Howitzer cannon on the front lawn of a house in Wicker Park. Chicago is awesome, full stop, love, the end.
Do you love animals? Neko Case does too. (Also, I just really love Neko Case. I saw her live for the first time this past Friday, and I definitely need to write up my Hideout Block Party experience.)
You know, I think I could really get behind the idea of household deities. Not like lares or anything, I mean the little suckers for whom you leave out a tray of milk at night and you come home and all your dishes are done.
What have you found lately that really tickles your fancy? Flaunt your finds in the comments!
First things first, folks: I have every hope of posting Chapter 8 of Innogen and the Hungry Half this Tuesday. I am proceeding with this post as though that will be the case. There’s some personal stuff happening at the moment, though, and we expect to get some important news over the next day or two. If there’s another delay, it will be because I’m dealing with family things. As ever, I deeply appreciate your patience and support.
I have been having some frankly wonderful conversations lately with the fabulous Alexandra Kingsley, who is always doing a lot of really cool things with literature, theater, the BBC Sherlock and Americana. (Everything she does is excellent, so you should check out her work!) She told me that she enjoys reviewing these preview posts after the next chapter goes up and seeing what hints link up to the story. Does anyone else do that? I really enjoy writing these up, so it’s lovely to hear you all are enjoying them too.
Fun fact, as an aside: Nikola Tesla shares a birthday with me, along with Jessica Simpson, John Calvin, Marcel Proust and the State of Wyoming.
In The heavens must still work, Imogen wakes up to find the world has changed around her while she slept. She goes to confront the source of all this upheaval, but what Rigantona has to say shocks her. What’s coming? How will it all unfold? Read on and see what you think!
Ah, Poe. So great for so many reasons. This song and this album in particular have a lot of Shakespeare in them: Poe has threaded Hamlet throughout the album’s narrative, and here, bits of King Lear (“My heart will break before I cry”). I’m also delighted, now that I’ve read the lyrics, to discover that one line is “Hallways, always.” Right fitting all around.
Two links:
Rigantona’s device is not quite a Tesla coil, though they’re certainly closely related. One great thing about writing steampunk technology is you can play fast and loose with your skience, so long as you keep it believable/consistent. I do this with open eyes and hope my readers do too. However, this guy who works at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles (which you may recognize from Rebel Without a Cause) gives a great five-minute explanation of what a Tesla coil is really capable of, aside from emitting really cool, gigantic sparks.
And who knows how accurate this is, considering it’s from Tumblr, randomly, but I enjoyed this factoid about children and the age of most nightmares. Considering what’s coming, you may too.
Three lines:
Do you feel me right here? She pressed him to her shoulder as he gasped himself back to sleep. It was a problem to be worked out in the dark, the thin weight of him huddled against her side.
Big things are coming. Are you ready? New, game-changing chapter this Tuesday! As always, no knowledge of steampunk or Cymbeline is necessary to enjoy Innogen and the Hungry Half, but if you’d like to read the play, MIT has the full text available for free online.
At some point early on in the process of writing Innogen and the Hungry Half, I made an attempt at devising an ideal and reasonable production schedule, one that would more or less keep my usual stressors at bay. It’s so sensible, I’m amazed it came to me at all. The schedule looks like this:
Tuesday: Having published a chapter at 9 a.m., I may spend the day alerting readers of the update and taking notes to outline the next chapter.
Tuesday evening, Wednesday and Thursday: Write 1,000 words each day for a first draft. Each chapter tends to be about 3200 words, more or less. During this time I also bother Excellent Enabler with sections as they come, and she tells me what she likes and what could use improving.
Friday: After polishing the first pass, I then send the draft to First Beta, who gives incredibly helpful notes about structure, characterization, plot holes and other big picture issues.
Saturday: I write that week’s chapter preview, which I then schedule to post automatically sometime Sunday morning.
Saturday night or Sunday morning: I edit according to First Beta’s notes, and send the revised draft to Second Beta, who tackles word-by-word issues, smoothing out unclear passages, typos and other messy writing bits.
Monday evening: I edit the chapter with Second Beta’s notes, and schedule the post to go up the next morning. Then I kick back and congratulate myself for managing my time and resources so well.
Sadly, this has yet to actually happen: the real process involves a lot more procrastinating, obsessive outlining, endless and obscure note-taking and scrambling to make deadlines. Things are always finished much closer to posting than is comfortable. Weirdly, though, I like it, and miraculously, so do my friends, for which I am very, very grateful. And each week is an opportunity to get better! This entry is dedicated to anyone who has ever received a frantic last-minute email from me promising that this is the last time this will happen.
Last time, Imogen and Posthumus had a night on the town that anyone would want to sleep off somewhere private. Too bad that’s never an option when you’re the daughter of the king. What’s waiting for them on the other side of the alarm clock? Check back Tuesday to find out — for now, some hints and clues!
One song
“The White Queen Sleeps/The White Palace,” Iain Ballamy, Mirrormask
Do yourself a favor and see this movie if you can; it’s not actually as dated as this trailer makes it look. Imogen is going to wake up in a world that’s askew. This track unnerves me every time I hear it; it’s just off and just eerie enough.
I’m also not going to deny that there’s any of Hedy Lamarr in Rigantona; it’s too neat a fit.
Three lines
I see the corner of his mouth quirk, but his shoulders are tight. “It came out, though, that I changed when I was eight. He just thought I was living up to my potential.”
All right, we’re off to the races now. Come back on Tuesday to see how it falls together! As always, no knowledge of steampunk or Cymbeline is necessary to enjoy Innogen and the Hungry Half, but if you’d like to read the play, MIT has the full text available for free online.
One of my very dearest friends is in Chicago for a quarter, doing wonderful and enviable things at our alma mater. We met up yesterday and instantly started rambling about all the writing projects we have in the air. Being able to talk about story and craft and influences and all the tricksy bits of writing is one of the many reasons I’m so deeply happy she’s here. I began telling her about the series (!!) I want to start (“You want to write not-urban urban fantasy!”), and she told me all about her plans to submit short fiction to paying markets.
“Where does one find out about that?” I asked. “Because all these people I know find out about all these neat anthologies, and I can’t ever seem to keep on top of it!”
“Duotrope,” she said, and I said, “Ooooooh.”
I bookmarked Duotrope once upon a time, but it was buried in a browser I hardly use anymore, and being concerned with other stages of my writing career, I forgot about it. Now, of course, I’m getting that feeling: this is the year. This is when I’m going to buck up and start submitting. This is when I’m going to see my name in print, so to speak. I’ve got all sorts of plans and ideas, and I feel terrifically energized, especially now that Innogen and the Hungry Half is approaching the “one-third of the story” mark, which I honestly kind of never thought would happen. (New chapter this Tuesday, by the way! My computer seems to not be dying yet, thank goodness, and if it does, I’ve wised up and have my external hard drive to save me.)
At the beginnings and ends of calendar years, we often wind up taking stock and making plans. I’m generally less good at the latter, but I found my most recent bout of the former yielded some pretty good results. As it happens, today is the one-year anniversary of my first post to Magpie & Whale. It’s basically a filler entry–it even retains the “Hello world!” subject line–but it’s amazing how far this site has come since then.
We’re also nearing my half-birthday (five more days!), and being 27 and a half gives me a good deal of thoughts. This past birthday, I started to feel like it was time to get my life together in a more directed way. About a year ago, I made up a list of things I wanted to do before I was 50 (see July 10, 2034); I’m actually able to cross some of those off today, to my great delight. I know what I want to do for graduate study, and I know where I want my career to take me, which is farther along than I’ve ever been before. (I’ve also got some big trips and excursions planned: stay tuned for the fun times as well!)
I’m so proud of the work of the past year, and particularly of the past several months. Thank you, all of you, who have read and commented on and shared this project. Thank you to my wonderful friends, who have made this conversation so quality and so interesting. Thank you to my family, who stays interested and cheers me on. I think 2012 is going to be a good one. Much love, and let’s make it come true.
The day after the next installment of Innogen and the Hungry Half goes up (or is supposed to go up — more on that in a minute), I’m flying to Columbus, Ohio, for Thanksgiving with the fam. The only sensible way to ensure that I enjoy my vacation and you enjoy the next chapter is for me to take a breather, so FYI, we’re going on hiatus for two weeks starting this Tuesday. I promise that means there won’t too much of a cliffhanger. Wait, what? No, sorry, I think I mean the opposite of that.
In all seriousness, it’s going to be a good spot for a break. I charged into writing this story on fairly little notice. There’s a larger outline planned, and I know the ending in as exquisite detail as I knew the opening, but it’ll be good to step back and get a little more strategic about where we’re going in the more immediate future. We’ve had a lot of character- and world-building so far; in long-form improv, or at least in the Harold that they teach at iO, this is the first beat of the show, from which you extrapolate the rest and go in wild and new directions. Personally, I’m looking forward to the action, capers, skience and intrigue that’s coming — and I thank you all for staying with the story, whether you’ve just arrived or read since the beginning!
Magpie & Whale won’t be totally quiet, though. I’ll be posting some tidbits to tide us over, and — if you’re curious — answering questions. Actually, I would love to answer your questions about the story — where the idea came from, what a detail means, how I envision something, whatever you can come up with! Please feel free to send me a Tweet or a DM on @magpiewhale, to submit an Ask on my Tumblr or to leave a comment here. Queries about the future of the story will be as cryptic and misleading as I see fit, which I hope will be to our mutual entertainment.
On a separate note, Chapter 6 has turned out to be more work than I anticipated. Given the rest of my workload, I’m going to try and get it out by Tuesday or Wednesday morning, but in the interests of having a good chapter rather than an on-schedule chapter, it may be a little later than normal. Thanks for your patience.
Last week, after being thwarted from every corner, Imogen decided to hell with it and broke out, only to find that the dream team was, somewhat conditionally, together again. Now she and Posthumus are on the hunt for Cloten, somewhere in the public houses of Londinium. That can’t possibly go wrong in any way, right?
If you were alive in 1998, you probably have this song burned into your ears forevermore. It is a stupid, stupid song, and also incredibly catchy. I don’t have a lot of pub crawl music, but Flogging Molly was too political for what I was looking for: a theme song for Cloten’s night out on the town. I feel like he would be pretty laddish offstage, given what we see in polite company. (Obviously the oeuvre isn’t confined to Chumbawamba by any stretch of the imagination, but despite the track’s commercialism, it gets the job done well enough for our purposes.)
In conclusion, this can only end well. Tune in this week to watch it unfold! Don’t forget, I’ll be answering your questions about Innogen over the hiatus, so send ’em in wherever you’re happiest. As always, no knowledge of steampunk or Cymbeline is necessary to enjoy Innogen and the Hungry Half, but if you’d like to read the play, MIT has the full text available for free online.
I write this from the futon at a friend’s place in another state. Another friend drove us down here, and we’ve been marveling at how gorgeous her apartment is and rending our hair at the low, low rent. It’s been a great opportunity to get out of Chicago and hang out with people I adore, but unfortunately work, like a Prohibition-era G-man chasing down bootleggers, will always cross state lines and stay on my tail. I’m pleased to report that I’ve made my way through all the chapters of my Kaplan GRE test prep workbook, and that high school math is finally fun for me. However, it did require that my two friends leave me at the apartment for a few hours yesterday. Not exactly the mini-vacation it could have been, but I know I won’t go into full-on panic mode later.
All this prioritizing and pacing of competing and equally pressing needs feels very like college again. In theory, I’m older and wiser now, and not given to all-nighter weekends. That’s borne out less than I would like, but I have been congratulating myself a little for keeping Innogen on schedule for a whole month. That’s certainly an improvement over college-aged Esther, and I hope it bodes well for throwing myself back into school again.
Last week, Imogen took a huge risk and revealed the full extent of her suspicions about her nightmares. The risk seems to have isolated her, though — and as a woman of politics, she can’t let her emotional life interfere with teasing out this undercurrent of rebellion against Rome in Britain. Not being able to talk to Posthumus has thrown her off-kilter, though, and one or the other needs to be resolved as soon as possible.
Which will it be, and how? Tune in Tuesday to see it for yourself. For now, some preview material!
I was introduced to this song by an incredible fan video about Dean Winchester and his mother, characters from the CW series Supernatural. I love the restlessness of the track, and the conflict. Sage Francis is just blisteringly intelligent too, and there’s a vividness about his music that really works for me. In certain ways (not all of them obvious yet, but that’s on me), “Sea Lion” could speak for Imogen or Posthumus right now; certainly “a healthy distrust” is good advice for them both.
Two links I need to give a well-deserved shout-out to Cambridge University, alma mater of my future husband and also home of the incredibly useful Celtic Personal Names of Roman Britain. Seriously: this thing is the best of the best, as far as this story is concerned.
Sorry, this is a short one this week, since at this point, large swathes of Chapter 5 still need to be written.
Three lines
“Doctor, where is Posthumus now?”
He frowns, and makes an aimless gesture toward the palace. “She was on her way to inspect the walls, and he wanted to go along. Physics,” he adds, with a shrug.
Curious? Given my schedule, so am I! Swing back on Tuesday to see where it all leads. As always, no knowledge of steampunk or Cymbeline is necessary to enjoy Innogen and the Hungry Half, but if you’d like to read the play, MIT has the full text available for free online.
Clearly this whole “time management” thing and I need to sit down and have a long talk about priorities. I promise you that if I go off on how much I have to accomplish this month (or this week) one more time, you’re all going to throw your hands up and walk away. Or thwack me with something. Trust me, I’m as frustrated as you are. (Thankfully the GRE, at least, has been sweetened with a few carrots to keep me studying.)
This is going to be a short one. I’m all out of juice at the moment, but that’s only because I’m saving it for edits tomorrow.
I don’t know what, precisely, the Koi of Constant Distraction are, but you know as well as I do that they’re real.
Last week was the world’s most awkward dinner party. It’s hard to enjoy yourself when you can’t figure out why one guest is your best friend’s evil twin and whether the other is trying to overthrow the government. How will Imogen and Posthumus come through that? (Bonus: If you liked the previous chapter’s title, this is the source. That whole scene is pretty golden, but then, I have a terrible soft spot for Cloten, wretch that he is.)
Not only is this the song that got me through the last 900 words on repeat, but to a certain extent it also captures the shivery feel of the wrongness of Imogen’s nightmare. And now that I’ve read the lyrics, they seem appropriate too.
Two links It’s easy to get caught up in atmosphere and details when the history behind them is so engrossing. My newest time-suck is MapsOf.net, which, very handily, has a simple map of Roman Britain around 410 CE. That’s much later than the historical Cunobelinus lived, but, like Shakespeare, I embrace rampant anachronism with open arms.
We can’t, of course, forget the whole steampunk side of things. At precisely the right moment, as I was stuck over figuring out what, exactly, the Hall of Public Records looked like in my Londinium, Tumblr came through and supplied one doozy of a visual reference.
Three lines
Posthumus contemplates the remains of his breakfast. “You can’t bribe me with picnics, and you can’t bribe me with pie. I can definitely be bought for libraries, though.”
I will catch you on the flip side, my friends. If this all makes you wonder what these have to do with the story, check back on Tuesday for the next chapter. As always, no knowledge of steampunk or Cymbeline is necessary to enjoy Innogen and the Hungry Half, but if you’d like to read the play, MIT has the full text available for free online.
If a protagonist has only one problem to sort through, there isn’t much of a plot. It’s by layering demands on our heroine that a story becomes interesting, especially if they’re in competition with each other. Apparently I am taking this formula to heart, because in addition to work, in addition to this project and in addition to trying not to become a hermit who can’t cook for herself, this week I accidentally signed up for the GRE.
“Accidentally” is a strong word, but it’s nearly accurate. One minute I was reading about application deadlines, the next I was giving my credit card to ETS. To put that in context, I’ve been resisting grad school since about 2005. I’ve always known I wanted to go, but I don’t want to be in academia, and I knew I couldn’t justify more school (and more debt) unless I was certain the degree would steer me toward a real career. Thanks to a recent graduate school fair organized by Idealist.org, I think I’ve finally found it — or rather, I’ve now got the name for the thing I’ve wanted to do all along. Which is great — a huge relief! I finally have a path, a plan, a set of options to pursue.
I also now have the GRE to study for, applications to compile, essays to compose, visits to arrange, decisions to make. This on top of work, friends, family, freelancing and Innogen. It was the right decision, but my timing is hilarious. Onward!
Last week Imogen got quite the suckerpunch, meeting Cloten, who looks just like her best friend and acts nothing like him. Let’s see how she’s going to deal with that!
One song
“Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” by Nancy Sinatra [lyrics]
Hey, remember that time when your certainty in the most solid thing in your life got yanked out from under you? Man, that was rough. Poor Imogen. Now she has to spend an entire dinner party with it.
Two links I’ve mentioned before that most of my knowledge about the Roman Empire comes from the Asterix comics, which means my general idea of what food in Ancient Rome looks like is something close to this:
From Asterix in Helvetia
Luckily there are scholars who disabuse us of hilarious, parodic simplifications, and who publish cookbooks of actual recipes from imperial Rome! I’ll never be embarrassed by my ignorance of how to properly cook an ostrich again. By Toutatis, I’m relieved.
“Even Argus wasn’t invincible when Mercury came to play him to sleep.”
Rigantona smiles. “The Romans have gods, stories and much else, Lady Imogen, but I assure you, they do not have this.”
That’s it for now. Swing back Tuesday to see how it all comes together! As always, no knowledge of steampunk or Cymbeline is necessary to enjoy Innogen and the Hungry Half, but if you’d like to read the play, MIT has the full text available for free online.
Confession time: I’m not sure what’s going to happen next week.
Sorry, that’s a bit of a fake-out. I know where Innogen is going. I’m just not certain how it’s going to get done. See, this has been an odd month for me; there have been a lot of holidays at work, and several times now I’ve had the luxury of spending four straight days pounding out a draft or gnawing away at notes or obsessively line-editing. But that’s all in the past now: my next weekday break will be Thanksgiving, which presents its own delights and challenges. (I get to see my parents! My dog! My nieces from Seattle! I… don’t know when I’ll have two minutes to myself!)
There’s time yet to set up a routine, as I tell myself, and that’s my goal for the coming month. If I can cut out my Tuesday activity (obsessively checking stats after posting a new installment) and replace it with planning and outlining, that means three or four days for drafting and two or three days for honing. One thing I admire about web comic creators is their ability to produce on a consistent — and quick — schedule. That’s discipline. Fingers crossed, I can follow their example.
Second confession: I am so grateful and thrilled and overwhelmed at the response to the first chapter of Innogen and the Hungry Half. To all who have read, and commented, and contacted me over Twitter and email and Tumblr, thank you. I can’t tell you how much your words mean to me. To those who have shared this story with your friends, loved ones and readerships, my undying gratitude! There will be more — if you’re digging the story, please keep spreading the word. (If you’d like to recommend this story to your network of choice, please know that it is one of several ways straight to my heart. I so appreciate any and all word of mouth. If you don’t like it, tell your enemies!)
“Not imagined, felt” was a big day for Imogen and co. (For the curious, this is the source of the chapter title.) Here’s a hint at what’s coming for her next.
One song
This week I’ve been thinking a lot about Aaron Sorkin. I’m stealing some key components of this story from The West Wing, and recently had the revelation that if Imogen is a much politer Josh Lyman, then Posthumus is clearly Donna Moss. That pleased me. But my first Sorkin show was Studio 60, and early in that run, Matt Albie, head (and sole) writer of a 90-minute comedy revue, realizes he has to repeat his feat every week. At first it’s exciting. Then he turns to pills and self-pity.
Maybe I shouldn’t think about Studio 60 right now.
Two links This was not intentional, but it’s been a heck of a week to do searches on Libya. I poked around and found a stunning slideshow of Roman ruins in the old city of Leptis Magna. They were published in the context of whether they might survive the war for independence, which has just taken a rather stunning turn with Gaddafi’s death.
In less charged news, I’ve been learning a lot about starfish lately — including the fact that we’re supposed to call them sea stars, as they’re not fish. Either way… just saying.
Three lines
Dr. Cornelius advises the king on scientific matters, while the king funds his research, the shape of which seems Protean. At present, it involves open tubs of briny water, and a half-finished dissection somewhere close by. He looks somewhat shyly toward the mess.
Yes, I had to dissect starfish/sea stars in high school biology. My teacher didn’t give us any directions: we just came into the classroom and there they all were in a bucket, waiting for us. I made a complete hash of it, and felt awful for years after that I had turned what had formerly been a living, eating, probably sentient creature into an indiscriminate pile of mush.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these teasers. Come back Tuesday to see what they all mean!
Hi! You don’t have to know anything about steampunk or Cymbeline to enjoy Innogen and the Hungry Half, though of course, if you’d like to read the play, MIT has the full text available for free online. For a lighter, quick summary, you can watch the short video linked at the bottom of this post. I assure you the original text is exactly that ridiculous, wonderful and strange.
To date, I have attempted five rounds of National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been a winner twice, which came at the heels of a solid month of no socializing; even my parents know I’m usually doing something that requires alone time during Thanksgiving. Last year I decided to stop, because while quickly writing 50,000 or more words of a story you’ve been idly dreaming up is incredibly satisfying, it’s also a recipe for six months of burnout, at least for me.
However, I will always be grateful to NaNo for slapping my fear of the blank page out of me. It’s done marvels for pushing me to stare down a new document and put some words on it. One of the reasons I started “Innogen and the Hungry Half” was because I wanted a big project, something that’s been thin on the ground for me this year. I’m thrilled to share that the first chapter should, barring catastrophic edits, be up for your delectation early next week. (Even if the edits are catastrophic, I’m one of those nerds who lives for editing. I love it. It’s like a puzzle for me.)
As I geared up for putting those first sentences on the page, I could feel NaNo roaring away in the back of my head. It sounded like Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”: Valhalla, I am coming! I’d spent weeks thrashing out reams of notes, going in circles, unable to get the shape of the thing. I tried starting in about three different places, none of them right. In the end, it meant sitting in my chair and telling myself over and over and over again that it didn’t have to be perfect, not yet. On the first day, I got about 500 good words (which became 700 around bedtime, because naturally that’s when lines start to flow); on the second, 700 more. Yesterday, I did a full-on 1700. NaNo has trained me well.
Now, of course, the real work comes, because while I’ve had the beginning minutely envisioned for a while, the lumpy middle now stretches before me. Now comes the fun part! (She says, semi-wretchedly, laughing as she does so.)
In the spirit of experimentation, and also of my love for previews, teasers and trailers, I’m kicking off what should be a weekly feature, in which you all get a glimpse of what’s going into the writing and — oh yes — the seat-of-my-pants research. (Wikipedia, let me love you.)
I worked at a student coffee shop in college, and a group on constant rotation with one particular cohort was Sleater-Kinney. I hated them as much as they hated my Bjork, but this track redeemed the shift every time. It’s fierce and beautiful and it’s either about nuclear energy or fractal geometry. Either way, it’s a great thematic pace-setter, which I hope, in a story about Shakespeare, makes you curious!
Two links I’m a nerd, but I have some big gaps in my knowledge base. The largest of these is anything to do with Ancient Rome. I’ll blame learning to read on Asterix comics: I could never root for the empire! Luckily for me, I not only have Classics-nerd friends to pester for help, if it comes to that, but I also have Roman-Britain.org. It’s not snazzy, but it is informative. I came for the Latin abbreviations (which I find fascinating!), I stayed for the lifeline to world-building.
Another gap in my knowledge base: steampunk everything. I’m skimming through a lot on Tesla coils and the Great Exhibition of 1851, but one of the neatest sidetracks has been learning about early animation — specifically, the praxinoscope. It’s a one-off detail in the story, but I really like how it looks. There’s something sort of eerie and dreamlike and lovely about it.
“But is that life? The most vital connections come to us by speech, which cannot be touched, even if it can be felt.
“I propose a future cut like the Gordian knot.”
So that’s that! Intrigued? I very much hope so. Again, barring catastrophe or natural disaster, the first chapter should be up early next week. You don’t have to know anything about steampunk or Cymbeline to enjoy the story, though of course, if you’d like to read the play, MIT has the full text available for free online. For a lighter, quick summary, you can watch the short video linked at the bottom of this post. I assure you the original text is exactly that ridiculous, wonderful and strange.
Hope you all have a marvelous weekend — catch on the flip side, chapter in hand!
Magpie & Whale 