Kyanobenthes' scratchpad

Squib #4: How much do you invest in your work?

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:42:49 GMT

Here

Castigation #2: Constructive Criticism

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:25:41 GMT

Castigation #2

Chapter 1.11

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:09:15 GMT

1.11 is up

Readability

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:45:57 GMT

Readability, reading level scores, musings

Migration

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:30:28 GMT

Well, Wordpress 2.8 was released, and I've been slowly figuring out how to migrate to an actual domain URL. I have to figure out themes, importing stuff, formatting, and plugin compatibility, and other crazy things I haven't tried before. Great fun. Maybe.

It would be great if I could just convert my current LJ "theme" and plop it in there, but it's never that easy.

Moving to: http://kyanobenthes.com/

"What Japan thinks"

Mon, 18 May 2009 21:49:26 GMT

Collection of basic information from Japanese opinion polls/surveys on various topics: http://whatjapanthinks.com/

Chapter 1.11, in the works...

Sat, 16 May 2009 14:37:06 GMT

I figured out my problem with the "lunch" bit in 1.10, so I plan on fixing some things there when I post 1.11.

But 1.11 won't be posted until after Wordpress 2.8 is released. ^_^ I found out that that new version will have a pretty decent Livejournal-importer, so I'd like to move everything onto my own server with a little more control over content and layout. Hopefully the Wordpress installation and LJ importer won't be too buggy.

It's fair to say these last two chapters of Part I are going to be quite long (by my standards).

Uh oh.

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 22:26:19 GMT

No job now.

I also know one other friend who was laid off this year, one laid off last year, and a bunch of people whose job searches have been empty since late last year. My priorities are shifting a bit, so that's fair warning that chapter 1.11 probably won't be released this month.

I mean, you wouldn't want me to hurriedly put together some half-assed shet for Haruka-Shizuru conversation, right? Not that Haruka's side takes a particular amount of finesse... Well, maybe her talky bits take a totally different kind of finesse.

[si~~~~~~igh] Economy, please get fixed soon. kthx

Livejournal

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:01:41 GMT

LJ may be having problems since they cut a good chunk of their workforce and has difficulty making a profit.

I've bought my own domain and intend to host "Syncope" there among other things, but I'll have to figure out how to mirror and stuff later. Maybe I'll set up Wordpress? We'll see. I don't think I'll be moving completely off LJ anytime soon until the winds clearly point to the business failing or changing hands or something.

And a happy new year.

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:31:46 GMT

2009 is going to be interesting. I mean, 2008 was pretty demn interesting already, but I expect 2009 to take the cake in terms of international attention span for a lot of people. One can only hope, anyway.

I don't have any particular new year resolutions, though. I'd like to say that I'm going to continue consistently with Syncope and finish this year, but I'd rather not jinx it given how Life likes to throw curve balls when one least expects it. ^_^;

Aw, and it seems I have the beginning symptoms of a cold. How unlucky.

Happy holidays

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:58:52 GMT

Happy end-of-2008 holidays!

Dear Suzushiro Haruka:

I hate you, Mrs. Malaprop.

With fist-shaking love,
Ky

P.S.: Muse-chan isn't terribly amused either.

1.10 NOTES

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:08:22 GMT

Reminder: Don't read the Notes before reading the actual fic chapter.
*Please comment only on this and previous chapters to avoid spoiling.

A sincere thanks to those people who stuck with me through the dry spell, cheered on the silly process, and helped me with research. I'll allot extra fermenting time since this is a bit of a mess and I'm posting right now without an edit. Warning: Ridiculous note length ahead.

In my attempt to write a garden onion, I hope I don't end up with just a clove of garlic.

Well. I expect maybe only three-ish people to become aware of this teeheehee update, and I don't intend on advertising (since I've forgotten where one normally would anyway and still don't intend on joining FF.net). ^_^; If those of you who find this think others would be interested, feel free to advertise with a link to this journal. I still appreciate detailed critical reviews, so do pick things apart, especially plot inconsistencies, questions on psychology, and language issues. I'll love you lots. My style has changed a bit since the beginning, I'm sure. Also, I didn't double-check the references to KYA, so there may be inconsistencies at this point; I'll let it ferment for a bit so I can figure that out. *Someone sent me my original Shoujoai forum link, so I guess I'll just bump that once after all...

Here's a long chapter, mostly thanks to Natsuki and Nao, since I wanted to give them a good shove in the development department. I'm not entirely sure that everything is convincing, but we'll see. I ended up moving a substantial chunk to 1.12 due to arbitrary space (although it turns out I'm nowhere near hitting the character limit in a Livejournal post). The most difficult part of writing this chapter was ... (wait for it) ... talky bits! No, it never gets old. I'd be more worried if the talky bits come too easily, honestly. Pronoun variety still annoys me. Eh, it was okay.

I might have mentioned this before, but motorcycle helmets are absolutely required by law in Japan (last I checked). According to the Japan Guide, the direct nozomi trains take about 140 minutes from Tokyo to Kyoto while the slower hikari trains take an additional 20 minutes. I'm just randomly making up a time there, of course.

Serious Shizuru fans should recognize (somewhat) the Shin Kokinshu poem by Shikishi; I studied two very different translations that give an obvious sense of how there are two ways to translate poetry: literal or intended meaning. Having written poetry myself, I understand how the former could lead to serious deficiency of interpretation and how the latter essentially removes the subtle art (which I felt was the biggest problem with the translation on the Sunrise character page--it was too direct and unpretty). So I ended up creating a third version of the poem between the translations by Geoffrey Bownas and Thomas McAuley. Obviously, I took liberties with my Syncope version, but, well, there you have it. Here's the original Japanese version (I hope it shows up):

玉の緒よ
絶えなば絶えね
ながらへば、
忍ぶることの
弱りもぞする

OH, SNAP! That's right. Shizuru has a big brother (in my world, anyway).

I was hung up on the Nao/Natsuki scene for a long time mainly because I couldn't visualize the setting. Since I couldn't figure out where to put Natsuki and Nao, I couldn't imagine their body language and what sorts of things they would do and say in that setting, even if I don't end up writing out every detail. This private outdoor scenario, for example, is quite different from a public park or a café. Muse-chan finally hit me on the head, though, and I hope their conversation turned out believable since it could have gone any number of ways. Creative freedom can sure be intimidating. Yes, I arbitrarily named Nao's mom Yuuki Kumiko. Let's hope I remember that!

Now, I was originally planning on replacing the entire Nao/Shizuru flashback with straight narration due to length and complexity, but I don't have anywhere else to put it, really, and I feel it's very important to the plot and backstory so I didn't want to make it an omake chapter. And of course, straight "tell" narration over a "show" flashback generally sucks. So I tried to break it up and weave it through present interaction between Nao/Natsuki; I did something new with the first two parts of the Nao/Shizuru flashback. Did it work? I hope so. You'll let me know, right? I feel like I'm forgetting something regarding "lunch," though.

Oh look, a sentence fragment! Or three. On another random research note, I don't know if Japanese students can/do take multiple college entrance exams for different colleges/universities; the last research I found was supposedly outdated, but I don't know how so (if students still take two exams for a given national university).

There are only two planned chapters left for Part 1 (1.11-12) and maaaybe an omake chapter. In any case, I'll be picking through previous chapters and applying some minor fixes at the completion of Part 1 before uploading a "final" version of the entire Part 1 somewhere (I'm even toying with the idea of getting illustrations in there, haha?). And onto Part 2 eventually. I don't plan on starting 1.11 until around Christmas-New Year's, though. It really shouldn't take another two-odd years to finish this time. Reeeaaaaally.

I've decided at this point that I don't like the online version of paragraph breaking, which is just applying an extra line space after each paragraph. I much prefer the book-style paragraphs with NO line spaces and only indents for each paragraph/line of dialogue, especially because multiple lines of dialogue end up looking super spread out up there. Waste of space. For the final PDF/online version of Part 1, I'll have to figure out how to properly apply paragraph indents in HTML.

Since I haven't leisurely written in a while, I feel even more inclined to babble incoherently in the notes. [cough] Anyway, getting obsessed over statistics is a bad thing, but this chapter officially pushes Syncope over the lowest-end word count minimum for an American "novel," at least from what I can remember on some sites, which is supposedly 40,000 words. Granted, I'm going by Microsoft Word's suspicious methodology, but... "Hey, ma, I wrote a (creppy) book!" It feels like a nice little personal milestone--though I'm fully aware that it's easy to add fluffy, pointless words for a count (students do it all the time especially). I wouldn't know how to separate the grain from the chaff in my own writing at this point, but I had been underestimating (rounding down) MS Word's calculations every chapter for this reason. Regardless, I feel pretty relieved that I managed to finish this one and am back in the game, even if I'm rusty and sore. Muse-chan is ~~a sadistic mistress~~ mean.

Time for bed. My eyes are actually quite red and itchy at the moment so I won't be making fixes until at least a day later.

Syncope 1.10

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:06:18 GMT

Syncope 1.10

Squib #3: Deus Ex Machina

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 06:15:47 GMT

All fic/fanfic writers should be well-acquainted with the concept of the Mary Sue (the annoyingly perfect and unrealistic "wish fulfillment fantasy" character). Google it if you haven't heard the phrase before.

What is less known, I suspect, is the deus ex machina:

In fiction writing, the phrase has been extended to refer to a sudden and unexpected resolution to a seemingly intractable problem in a plot-line, or what might be called an "Oh, by the way..." ending. Some critics think that a deus ex machina is generally undesirable in writing and often implies a lack of skill on the part of the author because it does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic and is often so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief, allowing the author to conclude the story with an unlikely, though more palatable, ending. -(Wikipedia)

The intelligent reader will be able to spot both, but from a writer's perspective, I think the Mary Sue is much easier to avoid simply because the concept is limited to a finite character. Now, I'm not thinking of deus ex machina (which I'll call DEM now because I'm lazy) as limited to the conclusion of the written work itself, but as the conclusion to any important plot/subplot. This makes it difficult to spot in a complicated plotline, as a writer, unless planning is done far ahead of time with the world setting well-developed and static.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm looking at Syncope as a whole, not just a series of strung-together chapters with a guaranteed* happy ending. So while I'm outlining Part 2 and writing 1.10 at the same time, I'm trying my darndest to avoid a real shetty DEM, especially since my setting is a mostly realistic modern Japan, and I have to follow its laws and culture... most of the time, at least. Now, because a DEM comes into existence after the development and culmination of a plotline, I'm trying not to seed too many problems in Part 1 into Part 2. This is serious business. ^_^; Obviously, I can't say too much about this process, but today I was quite happy to get rid of a big plot problem and potential DEM. Riiiiight.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to check and update my big Syncope research library as I'm resuming writing. This includes checking over 200 browser bookmarks and reorganizing nearly 40 megs of extant random PDFs, HTML pages, and reference images. I was pretty sad to find that many of my bookmarks were dead, so I've been trying to go through all those links, find replacement links, and mirror all sites to my hard drive; currently mirrored content: 451 megs and rising.

Edit: Oh yes, and the ending of Mai-HiME is kinda DEM-y, yeah.

*What's happy for me may not be happy for you. [cough]

Chapter 1.10: Schedule

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:38:19 GMT

Chapter 1.10 is on track for a Thanksgiving weekend release. Current calculations will place it at about 11 pages in MS Word, 10-pt font and single-space, quite a bit longer than my average chapter. Let's just say all the Nao/Natsuki talky bits are longer than expected. I wonder what the Livejournal post character limit is. ^_^;

Status update

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:40:15 GMT

O B A M A

In other news, the California Proposition 8 to ban gay marriage passed, and similar bills passed in I think three other states. That's really too bad.

I've had writer's block on an important Natsuki/Nao dialogue for a few months now, but I'm going to try to break it down anyway. Grr.

Reading.

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:39:45 GMT

http://www.kyotojournal.org/kjselections/oswalt.html

Questioning Gender
An interview with Japan-based psychotherapist Kim Oswalt (2006)

"Kim Oswalt, an American psychotherapist who has been working with transgender clients in Japan for nearly five years, does not view transsexuality as a mental disorder. The very real suffering that Oswalt seeks to relieve is, she says, partly rooted in the client’s social context — in society’s rigid insistence on stable, binary gender role archetypes. Seen in this light, the true disorder becomes the widespread aversion known as transphobia: intolerant attitudes and discriminatory behavior towards transgender people. In many cases, Oswalt says, transgender clients themselves internalize this transphobia, setting up a severe inner conflict."

I love finding online gold mines...

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:20:39 GMT

Meaning information, of course.

I discovered a legitimate and fairly recent website of a university course on Japanese culture. Fascinating stuff.

This, in particular, is very interesting. The date is 1994:
http://cla.calpoly.edu/~bmori/syll/Hum310japan/familyforms2

Here's a counterpart international table from the same site:
http://cla.calpoly.edu/~bmori/syll/Hum310japan/familyresp2
(Oh, hey, check out England...)

Of course, the numbers would have more weight if we knew how the studies were actually conducted, but it's still neat. If only I could find poll data from after 2000.

EDIT:

I found just a little more.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?nn20000919b4.htm

Dated 2000, "In a 1997 survey conducted by a major daily newspaper, about 65 percent of Tokyo residents polled said they did not believe homosexuality was natural..." And there was murder involved somewhere.

Getting the general cultural attitude about same-sex relations accurate is pretty important for the majority of "Syncope" even if I'm not going to show masses of people talking about it. But I'm pretty sure Japan as a whole has never been gay-friendly and still isn't now when looking at the family units.*

P.S.: Don't think that the United States is particularly "open" to gays either, as a whole. (Several states and the country itself have pushed forward bills to ban gay marriages, whether successful or not.)

As of a 2007 political election in Japan--
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/politics/2005-4557.html

"Only four countries allow same-sex marriage; the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Belgium, and South Africa. The state of Massachusetts in the US also allows same-sex marriage." It may be better to read 'allow' as 'recognize'.

*(So why is yaoi popular with Japanese women, anyway? There's actually a detailed study about that somewhere. And, according to that author, it's really not what you think.)

Squib #2: Retrospective

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:07:56 GMT

Life has just been so TIRING lately, and going back over "Syncope" has been surprising... both strange and refreshing.

I've never been in a position like this. Do all creative authors reread their work after a long period and think, "Man, this is fecking weird"? [scratches head]

Well, I've certainly written a lot of other technical papers and whatnot, but those are things based on experiments, data, research, and other "solid" things not dependent on artful craft to get a point across. And certainly no dialogue.

I had mixed feelings while rereading. ^^ On one hand, I was astonished that I managed to craft a poetic piece of text here and there that accurately conveyed my own beliefs and feelings about the series' characters. There's that momentary swell of pride. On the other hand, the sheer weirdness of thinking "I can't believe I wrote this" took hold more than half the time. But that was in neither a good nor bad way. (It's hard to describe!)

In any case, I need another plan of action to get back into the writing game. (This could be a bad idea, actually, because I'm supposed to be busier than usual. But doesn't your head just shut down after a while of "OMGcan'ttakeanymoreofthis"? Maybe I just need a break.)

Here are some interesting things that stuck out to me upon rereading:

The paragraph in Chapter 1.4 beginning with "In the end, they came to a better understanding" is my least favorite section ever. Actually, it just pisses me off, and I don't know what to do about it precisely. I'm tempted to write an omake about that point (Yukino and Natsuki); I might even remove the entire flashback to avoid the awkwardness.

I need to get rid of more "adjective-girl" appellations, but using only names could get annoying, too.

Despite all the angstful pain the dialogue caused me, my favorite parts of "Syncope" so far are: Natsuki-Mai talky bits (1.3), Shizuru-Mai talky and Shizuru-Natsuki flashback (1.6), Natsuki's nightmare and Nao-Mai-Natsuki talky (1.7), Shizuru-Reito talky (1.9), and both omake. Interesting.

Things to do:

Review Mai-HiME (somehow)

Go over paper version "Syncope" and compare to LJ notes/comments and make final edits (source of review)

Review outline and begin brainstorming again

Attach research items to the outline (I hadn't done this before, and I think it'll be easier this way)

Start small: omake are easier to write because I don't have to keep track of too much plot, so it might be better to start out with one.

No, there's absolutely no timeline at this point. ^_^;

Well, goodness me.

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:59:30 GMT

A late "happy new year" to everyone.

Just a little update on the state of this: I had run into a plot obstacle so I had been trying to research into it. After all, I want certain setting aspects to be either probable or "quite possible" since certain parts of the plot are kinda "huh, really?"

With that in mind, I had been researching how Japanese corporations deal with each other because the b2b culture is very different from Western so-called ideals of capitalism. Yeah. I'm using Japanese corporate structure as a huge setting, so I'd like just a tiny bit of realism.

Honestly, one of my biggest pet peeves with people writing about other cultures in fanfic circles is the complete failure and disrespect to understand differences and realism. Oh, "Syncope" is hardly realistic, but I mean, for example, heavily using "yakuza" as a plot device in a middle school. It feels kinda cheap.

Anyway! This is going to be an interesting year for me. I hope it'll be a good year for everyone. OH HEY, IT'S ELECTION YEAR IN THE U.S. THIS IS SLIGHTLY IMPORTANT!

Hmmmmm.

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 22:45:56 GMT

Note to self: When printing out over sixty pages of this thing, don't nab a bunch of random pages in between while it's printing just to see the quality of print... BECAUSE YOU FORGOT TO PUT PAGE NUMBERS ON EVERYTHING. Duh.

Nao's mom?

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 05:00:14 GMT

Hmm, I don't think I asked this yet. Is anyone aware of canon information (artbook, drama CD, whatever, official site, etc.) concerning what Nao's mom did for a living or if she had a job at all?

P.S.: TAXES.

P.P.S.: Have you ever edited a term book for four authors? I am. Mind you these are other students; I am not impressed with the language quality. "Wow." I don't want to be an editor ever. The stress and general annoyance might be insurmountable. ^_^

Um, yes...

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 23:45:31 GMT

Finals long over. Had a short vacation; went home for a bit.

And now I have to actually reread everything to get back into the groove. Seriously. Be patient. :P This sort of thing takes a lot of planning and the correct mindset.

I may need to coax Muse-chan back, though; she must have finally wandered off into the wilderness when she couldn't get my attention during midterm projects. ^_^;

¬_¬

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 02:39:41 GMT

I have three papers due in less than two weeks, so... probably no update after all. Sorry. ^_^;;

Nari's description image is still missing for now, but you can check out the current gallery in the links for images of other characters.

...[sigh]

'Twas a poll...

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 22:12:43 GMT

Edited 9/19: XD

I finally found a hack that's supposed to show userpics in the Generator style, so I'm going back to that. Yup! But I'm still playing with it. Such ugly code...

Things to know: One reason why I ended up buying a one-year subscription is to have the comment page styles the same as the front page. This way, I could show the Index links on every page of my Livejournal (in case someone got to a specific entry, in the old style the front page link isn't that obvious and they couldn't go directly to a specific section).

I also require "quick reply" functionality, and only a handful of Livejournal styles have this capability: Generator, Unearthed, Tranquility II, The Boxer, Smooth Sailing, Gradient Strip, and Expressive. You can see the style previews here: http://www.livejournal.com/customize/preview.bml

The only technical problem with this Generator style is that the width is fixed. I have it set to 1000 pixels, thinking that most people are on 1024. I'm not sure if that scrolls or not, because my resolution is 1280. (To be honest, if you have a lot of horizontal scrolling issues, you REALLY should try out Opera 9. I love my friend forever for that.)

I think I found a hack that forces this style to use a percentage width instead of a hard-coded number (yay!), so it's set at 90% or something. Hopefully that works a lot better.