(no subject)

[dr_pretentious]

Last night, the words "persistent cat on keyboard" got stuck in my head, and I couldn't get to sleep for thinking about the two books that could carry that title. Persistent Cat on Keyboard: The Life and Times of Thelonious Monk was the first, and the second was a children's picture book about housepets who form a garage band. My insomnia latches onto the oddest things.

22,760 / 50,000 (45.5%)

New words: 637

Current deficit: not thinking about that tonight

Working conditions: Tried to do longhand shift alone, with too late a start, at local B&N. 3 longhand pages, then stuck, then looked at books to prompt brain. Not research, just looking at pictures, honest! Typed longhand stuff into laptop while watching entirety of The Return of the King with Dan, who had thorny debugging problems to get through on a deadline and required the film as opiate to get through project. Couldn't tear myself away from the combination of spouse and Tolkien. The persistent cat eschewed the keyboard.

Not, withal, a stellar writing day.

Tomorrow morning, I have another diagnostic thingy that absolutely, positively has to be done at 6am. How did the medical system fall into the hands of sadistic morning people, is what I want to know!

I'm hoping that, between a morning writing shift at Starbucks with Breva the Axe and the evening write-in with my fellow Nanowrimo cultists, I'll make up a good bit of my deficit.

All those hours of looking at Ukiyo-e prints, history of warfare timelines, and maps of archeological digs of structures that were probably observatories--it did help. Beltresa's conquest of Miaaro starts with a sort of proxy war, when Beltresa and Efa get deadlocked. I'm used to thinking of Efa as it is in the big manuscript, two centuries later than the plot I'm working with now in the prequel. Different dynasties, different pressures. Now I know better what the Efa are about in the 110th year of the Principality. Chapter 3 will get unstuck tomorrow.

Still pining for Clausewitz, though.

Comments

[annathepiper]

The persistence of my cat is one of the many reasons I am glad I use a laptop. ^_^

the lovers

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

their eyes met across the crowded study

she said, "i still pine for you."

he said, "We maintain, on the contrary: that war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. We say, mixed with other means, in order thereby to maintain at the same time that this political intercourse does not cease by the war itself, is not changed into something quite different, but that, in its essence, it continues to exist, whatever may be the form of the means which it uses, and that the chief lines on which the events of the war progress, and to which they are attached, are only the general features of policy which run all through the war until peace takes place. And how can we conceive it to be otherwise? Does the cessation of diplomatic notes stop the political relations between different nations and Governments? Is not war merely another kind of writing and language for political thoughts? It has certainly a grammar of its own, but its logic is not peculiar to itself."

his english, stilted by poor translation, moved her and fired her desires to know him more.

but it was not to be. she had her writing, and he, his dreams of glories past.

"aufwiedersehen, meine keine apfelblüte!" and they parted.

Re: the lovers

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Breva the Axe and I are gasping with laughter, and every slacker at Starbucks has turned to stare.

You do realize, don't you, that you have now perpetrated RPS (Real Person Slash)?

Re: the lovers

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

i hadn't realized that, no. do i get an award or a jail sentence for doing that publicly? :)

Re: the lovers

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

You might develop a devoted following, if you post it on the right boards. I don't know what those would be, but they can't be too hard to find. I mean, Clausewitz fandom's gotta have a big web presence, right?

Re: the lovers

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

heh. :) i'll have to ask pxr5; she's a big slash fan.

btw, can you think of any reason you're clausewitz's little apple blossom? the pet name feels right for some reason, but i haven't the foggiest why.

Re: the lovers

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Appleblossom is the name I go by in Pagan circles. Also, in Pagan Circles.

Re: the lovers

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

and apparently among the prussian general staff. i must have overheard it during one of those walks along the beach at königsberg. neither of you noticed me; i was hunched behind one of those huge tintype cameras that were all the rage back then. photography is so much easier now that it's gone digital.

also good to know that flotsam from the wreck of the subconscious voyager drifts ashore occasionally.

Re: the lovers

[happy-dr-friend.livejournal.com]

(Side effect of reading through friends only section of blog: comments on long ago posts.)

Shouldn't that be "meine kleine Apfelbluete"? As it stands, the sentence translates "good-bye, my not an apple blossom."

Re: the lovers

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

genau. i can make typos in two languages. :)

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

I'll see ya tonight!

(I'll be wearing my NaNo shirt for easy identification!)

(and I'll probably be there early, as I'm coming straight from work.)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! My wardrobe's all tweedy and chocolate-colored today, and I'm walking with a black cane.

[(Anonymous)]

No tattoo needle, but I'll bring a safety pin! It's one of the B&N's with the little corner coffee-house-place, right? Please say there will be coffee.

Alright, I'll probably be the blondest person there, if not, definitely top three. While I can pass for my age, it's more likely that I'm the guy who looks twenty or twenty-one. If there -is- a coffee-house-place-thing, I will set up camp there and there will be a flag or tent or something. Probably not literally, but you never know.

Clausewitz and research

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Why not use Clausewitz as a reference book? "Oh, I got a battle coming up! Skim that section!" Not as good as reading the entire thing, but better than nothing.

Hmmm, I wonder what the technology level of Beltressa is? I was just remembering that Clausewitz wrote in a period of gunpowder, and wrote in post-Napoleonic Europe. Gunpowder and artillery do change a battlefield...

Re: Clausewitz and research

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

My general tendency is to slog through big things from beginning to end. It's occasionally crazy-making, but usually for the best.

In the 110th year of the principality (Stisele's era), the Efa have just discovered gunpowder, but cultural factors too hairy and ill-thought-out to explain here lead them to use it for battlefield illumination and fireworks, rather than for Blowing Shit Up Real Good. In the 320s, when the big series is set, one of the minor characters is just beginning to figure out how to make militarily useful rockets, but they're pretty small still.

Magic also changes a battlefield. The characters in Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell are of the opinion that weather magic is no big deal, but the Beltresins find it to be pretty useful. Hailstones galore.

Re: Clausewitz and research

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

If I could read serious texts with any kind of speed, I think I would do the same. But not having that ... well, I tend to skip around a bit.

The reason, of course, I was wondering about technology, is I was wondering just how valuable Clausewitx would be. By the time you got to him, gunpowder had radically altered the battlefield. Not just by reducing the effectiveness of armor to nil, but also by changing tactics to account for muskets being the primary weapon. Of course, it also wasn't technology that had altered battle, but the centralization of the state and the use of larger and larger armies, up to armies of tens or even hundreds of thousands, as opposed to a medieval army where 10,000 was a large army indeed. How all this fits into Beltressa is unknown and maybe even possibly-head-explosive, but then, I appaer to be rambling now...

Re: Clausewitz and research

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Ooop! A part 2:

As for magic, yes it can radically alter a battlefield, especially depending on how common mages are and how trusted thwy would be to the powers-that-be. But they would most likely be more like artillery rather than front line troops with guns.

Other useful kinds of warfare magic,
divination/clairvoyance: Knowing where the enemy is and possibly where he will be next is SOOO useful to generals.
illusions: Deceiving the enemy as to where you are and possibly where you will be next is SOOO useful to generals.
Also, weather spells can be fun to cast on the enemy marching towards where battle will be: "Let's see how well they fight after marching 15 miles through mud!"
Or: "Hey, I can't see a damn thing through this fog! Where the hell is the enemy?" [sound of weapon entering body] "Found them...!"

Re: Clausewitz and research

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Uncanny guesses you've made about the other options at work in this volume. At the end of Chapter 3, the Beltresins, with their artillery-like Royal Weather Agency, are up against the Efa, who see in the dark and can infiltrate your camp wearing your face. From Chapter 5 on, the Principality of Beltresa tries to avoid becoming Efa's colony by colonizing somebody else first, to match the Vasu dynasty empire for empire.

The Miaarans, who are ruled by Augurs, can look far enough down the forking paths of the future to ascertain that fending off the Beltresins too soon would result, two hundred years later, in the total extinction of their people, but having endured one generation of slavery would later preserve Miaaro against a foe who would wipe them out. Then, of course, the Augurs have to sell this bitter plan to the Miaaran polulace, who don't much like being enslaved and instead throw a peasant rebellion.

knowledge isn't power?

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

huh. despite that kind of Foresight, the augurs couldn't come up with a better solution? (er, in that iirc, the augurs lost much of their power in the bargain.)

otoh, this is the kind of magical power (weathercalling vs. efan eye magic vs. divination) that caused wombats and me to throw our hands up in despair at making sense of what ought to happen. so who am i to say? :/

Re: knowledge isn't power?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

There's a plague coming from across the desert in another couple of generations, and the House of Gorsae's dissemination Beltresa's magic/technology for public waterworks is the main thing that keeps the Known World from being depopulated to such a degree that the Augurs choose to lose power over choosing the loss of most of the people in the world as they know it. (The rule of Gorsae was a golden age of jurisprudence, public works, etc. Too perfect for me ever to set a story during that era.)

And the Augurs see the Lelese coming. The Miaarans could wipe the Crown Houses out, and they see how, but without weathercallers, it'll be impossible to hold the Lelese back, and nothing the Beltresins can come up with in their repertoire of slavemaster behaviors is as awful as what the Lelese are already up to across the ocean. Not that the information's available to anybody on our side of the ocean but the Augurs, but Lel is subjugating the Birin in the 110's, and it's an ugly, ugly war. Remember Wref, the ungrateful litle snot, the key informant prisoner Sondliet brings back in Vol 2? Those guys.

In the late chapters of the current book, Stisele's going to be watching the Augurs choose the extinction of their caste over the extinction of their people. I'm not sure how to fine tune it, but that's what I've seen happening.

In Vol 4 or 5, Vaia's going to die her 3rd death in Miaaro in the late 320s, and, coming back, she'll break open the barrier between the living and the dead, at which point Augury (and many other things) will be possible there again.

Re: knowledge isn't power?

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

gee, and i thought some of my sf/fantasy backstories were grim... :P :)

hm. i think i see some other choices the augurs could make, but they may not have been available to them.

i also Foresee you making fabulous sums of money with this larger story arc. thems what likes big worlds will lose themselves there.

Re: Clausewitz and research

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I'm picturing the poster for the film adaptation of your fantasy novel, Warhammer vs. Warhamster. The sound effects for the dysentery should make the film very appealing to 8-year-old boys.

You might actually like Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, if you like the diction and pacing of the big 19th century novels it draws on. Jonathan Strange spends several years with the British army, fighting Napoleon, and the question of what magic makes magicians feel impressive, as opposed to what magic is actually of use to soldiers, gets a good workout, to occasionally comic effect. No long-range cholera hamsters, though.

Re: Clausewitz and research

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

i'm always fond of wet and cold for grinding down armies. historically, generals mud and winter have commanded the most powerful forces on the battlefield.

but wrt those vs more direct battlefield uses of weather, there's the question of "magical logistics": how hard is it for the weathercallers to summon them up. physically, generating thunderstorms strong enuf to produce damaging hail takes way more power than merely pulling rain from clouds, but doing it magically might be entirely different.

i'm fond of big gouts of flame, but sadly, nobody in beltressa's got those. :)

Re: Clausewitz and research

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Nobody on our heroes' side of the ocean. Occasionally, I look at the very sketchy notes for the last volume of the series, in which Sondliet and company make an ineffective effort to pacify Lel after knocking the capital over with a big storm. The Lelese have subjugated lots of other nations on their home continent, and I have only the vaguest notions of what any of those people do. So maybe there will be big gouts of flame, after all. Just not any time soon.

Re: Clausewitz and research

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Well, there's an even more important aspect of logistics to think of, especially with weather: making sure that hail only hits the OTHER guys, and not yours.

Having your artillery rain (no pun intended) on your own troops is a good way of getting them annoyed at you.