Archive for November, 2008
Starting the Sequel
Posted by Michael Livingston in Fiction on November 27th, 2008
So I took the past two days off from official work — I’m on vacation, right? — in order to make some real headway on my next novel. I’m now about 5% into it (as seen in the progress meter at left), and I have to say it’s been an interesting experience so far.
I’ve never written a “sequel” before, and I’m finding that it raises thorny problems. None bigger, of course, than the question of how much I can take for granted. That is, can I count on the fact that readers will read Book 1 before hitting Book 2? And even if they have read Book 1, how much can I count on them remembering?
I knew that this problem existed in a theoretical way, but until I sat down to start up this book I didn’t know it in a practical way.
My prologue to Book 1 was 3,830 words long, which is fairly massive for a prologue — though in my defense it operates in a much different way than most traditional prologues. The longest chapter in Book 1 was one of the climactic ones, at 4,924 words, and the average length was probably around 3,100 words.
The prologue to Book 2, the first draft of which I just finished? 5,399 words.
Some of that is taken up with action and basic character development — though it’s a character that we grew to know pretty well in Book 1 — but I fear that far too much of it is giving recap of basic plot data from the first book. I’ve tried to parcel it out, tried to be subtle, but I found it much more of a problem than I thought it would be. I’m longing now to take Tolkien’s approach and just assume that the reader will slog straight through the whole series, giving no help at all to anyone joining the show part way along.
Am I over-thinking this? How much can I trust you readers? Any advice for the Tolkien approach versus the give-some-background approach?
Carter, Carnarvon, and King Tut
Posted by Michael Livingston in Uncategorized on November 25th, 2008
Eighty-six years ago tomorrow — well, techinically today on Cairo time, where it’s already 26 November — Howard Carter struck a candle through a tiny hole in an ancient wall and stared by its flickering light at perhaps the greatest buried treasure discovered in modern history. Lord Carnarvon, who’d financed his dig in the Valley of the Kings, grew anxious at Carter’s stunned silence and asked him if he could see anything. “Yes,” Carter replied. “Wonderful things.”
Carter and Carnarvon thus became the first people in some three millennia to enter King Tut’s tomb — site KV62 for those desiring technical details of the excavation — and they thus hurtled archaeology into new understandings of our distant past.
Makes a fellow feel rather unaccomplished, I must say.
Thanksgiving Break
Posted by Michael Livingston in Uncategorized on November 23rd, 2008
I have no class.
At least not this week. It’s Thanksgiving Furlough (that’s “Break” to you and me) here at The Citadel, which means a quiet five days overall. I’m very glad for it, being tired out and far behind on several projects.
On the plus side, this weekend has been decently productive, which I hope carries over into the rest of the week. I should get a couple more stories out onto the market, most of the Christmas business taken care of, and a good chunk of editing done.
Here’s hoping, anyway.
The Therapeutae of Alexandria
Posted by Michael Livingston in Academics, Fiction on November 20th, 2008
I’ve got the end-of-semester crunch soon, and an academic book that very much needs as much of my attention as I can manage in the coming months, but I’m still trying to get a bit of space here and there for research on my next fiction book (while crossing fingers that the first one sells, of course).
What I’m in the midst of researching right now is the Therapeutae, which is a little-known Jewish sect that lived near Alexandria in the first century. Our only decent description of them is by Philo Judaeus, in his work De vita contemplativa. There he describes them as desert-dwelling ascetics, renowned for their healing arts and dedicated to a contemplative, philosophical outlook on the world. Where they came from, where exactly they lived, what exactly they believed, and what happened to them are all unknown … the precise sorts of mysteries that tend to interest my mind.
Particularly fascinating, I think, is the possibility that the Therapeutae have some connection to the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka. Among the famed Edicts of Ashoka, rock inscriptions that can still be found marking Ashoka’s empire in modern-day India and Pakistan are statements about how he sent missionaries throughout the known world — including Alexandria specifically — to proselytize the Buddhist faith to which he himself had converted. There’s little indication what exactly happened to these missionaries, though Buddhism was known to at least some Romans by the first centuries of the Common Era. A Buddhist holy man, for instance, is described in association with Augustus Caesar in Cassius Dio 54.9 (he apparently commits self-immolation, actually), and Clement of Alexandria gives a brief description of Buddhist belief in Stromata 1.15. Indeed, some revisionists have looked to stories of the Buddha’s “virgin” birth (from the side of his mother) as the source for the later Christian traditions of Jesus’ birth (and much else about the Christian mythology).
Anyway, the possibility of a small, mysterious group of Jewish-Buddhist philosophers living a quiet, communal life in the deserts beyond the walls of Alexandria is just too brilliant not to use somehow.
Inspector Clouseau
Posted by Michael Livingston in Uncategorized on November 19th, 2008
I needed a dose of Pink Panther just now.
Admit it. You did, too.
Definition: Bad Day Teaching
Posted by Michael Livingston in Academics on November 18th, 2008
I love almost everything about teaching.
Almost.
What I don’t like — what will screw up my sleep habits for weeks after it happens — is handling what we here at The Citadel call “HVs”: Honor Violations. In my academic neck of the woods that means plagiarism and lying (which are really the same thing in the end).
I’m currently on a years-long streak of catching at least one plagiarist every semester. I don’t know if this streak reflects that my students think I’m an idiot or if it means that I’m smarter than the average bear, but either way it tears me up inside every time another name, another face, another young life gets added to that terrible list. I’m not proud of the streak, I assure you. Indeed, I’m deeply sorrowed.
Because here at The Citadel an H.V. is generally a one-strike-and-you’re-out proposition. Plagiarism is intellectual theft, and they’re absolutely serious about its prosecution. I applaud that position on principle, of course — one of the reasons plagiarism rates are so high (aside from the internet’s open temptations) is that too often schools give only a light slap on the wrist to those who commit it — but at the same time it means that I feel a very heavy weight when I discover a plagiarist.
I know that I’m not the executioner. I only turn over the information to an Honor system that has far more responsibility for deciding fates. But that technical detail frankly doesn’t mean much when I know how an expulsion due to academic dishonesty can hang like a black cloud over a life hardly begun at age 19. The tears that are shed — and, yes, there are always tears — are not all theirs.
Simply put, it’s a tragedy I want no part of, even if I know I have no choice.
So the bad day in teaching, the worst possible day, is every day that my hopes for a semester without a plagiarist are ended.
Sunday was that day. My streak still stands.
I found three.
Star-Spangled Banner meets Bob Dylan
Posted by Michael Livingston in Uncategorized on November 16th, 2008
I was fortunate to meet a clever fellow in graduate school named Kevin Cryderman. Very clever. Dauntingly clever, in fact.
And then I found out he’s also a terrific musician and a hell of a nice guy (the show-off).
Here he is singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” to the tune of Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-changin’.” Go, Kevin!
A Grade Weekend
Posted by Michael Livingston in Academics on November 14th, 2008
Not a Grade-A weekend, mind you. No, no. A weekend devoted to grading.
Insert cheering here.
Especially sad is that it’s Homecoming hereabouts. I’d much prefer enjoying the festivities than whipping out the red pen (and my students would probably be happier, too!). Not that I can enjoy too many of the festivities: After taking away the faculty’s free admission to football games, the @#$%ing athletic department has done the same for basketball (’cause, you know, they pay us so much already). What a greedy, short-sighted, and moronic move. And a few other terms I ought not say in public.
Oh, I’m not surprised, but that doesn’t mean I’m not pissed. If I wasn’t already attacking the powers-that-be over other matters, I’d start a petition. Hell, the cadets ought to start one. Isn’t it community-building to have the faculty and students mingling to cheer on our teams?
