Author: Kelly Sedinger

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Screws fall out all the time, the world’s an imperfect place.

xkcd nails it on screws!

In my day job I see a lot of different screws. There are way more screws out there in the wonderful world of mechanical fasteners than Randall Munroe even bothered to depict here, but the reactions to the existence of those other non-Philips or non-flathead (or “straight blade”) screws tend to run like this. I don’t know how many times in my years at this job it’s happened, but if I had a dollar for every time I’d had this conversation:

“Uh, Kelly? I was gonna do this job myself but then I saw the screws and they look like normal screws but they’re got this square thing in the head instead of Philips and is that a real thing and do they even make a driver for those?!”

This is when I say “Why yes,” and I pull my from pocket my trusty Klein 11-in-1 driver, and for one brief moment, I achieve a status in their eyes that is absolutely Gandalfian or Dumbledoresque.

Now, when I encounter a screw that I do not have a driver for, that’s when my command of expletives comes in handy, because really, there’s just no need to use a screw that obscure!

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A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

My least-favorite word. What's yours? #words

Copacetic is my least favorite word. I remember at the end the 1990s, suddenly everybody and their brother was using this word, and for some reason the word annoys me. I got to thinking about this when I read something on Facebook yesterday about how awful the word moist is, which got me to wondering: What is your least favorite word? (Excluding naughty language.)

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Bibles: Not just for God anymore!

I read this post by today, on the subject of story bibles:

What is a story bible?

A story bible is where you keep all of those essential details about your book/s. It how you stop those pesky inconsistency errors from sneaking in and make sure that things make sense. For example, if say Ryan had have received an injury in Wyrd Calling that left him with a scar, then that would go into the story bible so that the scar didn’t magically vanish in later books. It’s also where I keep a track of names, which bits of backstory were mentioned where, which species have been mentioned and how, physical descriptions of things, geographical notes, everything.

I, too, maintain a story bible for The Song of Forgotten Stars. It began as a bunch of separate files, but eventually I got tired of having to open three or four files every time I sat down to write — or opening them but not opening the right one, and having to stop and go into Windows Explorer because I opened “Locations in the Galaxy” and “Dramatis Personae” but I didn’t open “The Bestiary”, in which I’ve been collecting details on various creatures on my main planet (or referred to as living on others). Before I started work on Princesses In SPACE III: Yukon Ho! (not the actual title), I collected the various files together into one large file called “Forgotten Stars Reference Guide”.

So, what do I put in there? Well, I try to remember to put something of everything in there. Every little detail I make up along the way needs to be in there, from Princess Tariana’s hair color to what interests young Otona Cheyendi. This minor character’s full name, because I might only refer to him by his last name before I need to remember his first again. The names of various stars and planets. How many moons this planet has, how many planets that sun has. Names of historical figures I mention in passing, and what they did to merit being mentioned in passing here and there.

In short, every single little detail belongs in the Bible. Does every single little detail actually make it into the Bible? Well, no. I don’t have that much time, and I can’t stop writing a passage in which I’m making things up just to go and make new entries in the Bible. So when do I put things into the Bible? When I think to do so. Lots of times this involves my sudden need for a piece of information and my discovery that it isn’t in my Bible. So off I go to look it up in the manuscript, at which time I also make a Bible entry, and then I resolve to do better. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I think what I may do from now on is set aside a bit of my writing time on Saturday or Sunday to Bible Maintenance: making sure that new stuff is in there, or that I’ve updated old stuff (like names that I have changed along the way). I do need to get more organized about this, since the world of these books keeps getting bigger and bigger. I’m also starting to feel the need for maps, which is difficult because I’m working on the planetary scale. Do I do Mercator projection? Grab a white ball and draw on it with marker? How should I map a planet? To say nothing of — gasp! — an entire galaxy? Stay tuned!

Oh, and I’m going to stop calling it my Bible. Since my main planet in these novels is called Xonareth, I shall retitle it the Encyclopaedia Xonarethica!

Zap! Pow!!

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Buffasaurus Rex

So, Rex Ryan is apparently the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills.

Not my first choice, really; but then, I didn’t really have a first choice. I don’t hate the hire, but I’ve never been a big fan of Ryan’s. He strikes me as a media-savvy guy who uses a “larger-than-life” outward persona as a way of creating more of a sense of being a great coach than is really warranted by his record (which, after exiting the New York Jets after six years with playoff appearances in his first two, is still a losing one). Somehow Ryan is a “big name” despite a relatively unimpressive roster of actual accomplishment, so we’ll see how he does in Buffalo, where the media spotlight won’t be nearly as intense, and where he’ll mainly have a single group of annoying sportwriters to irritate when things aren’t going all that well.

I don’t have too many thoughts on how he’ll perform as head coach, really. He’s a “defensive mind”, but that doesn’t really mean much. Bill Belichick is a defensive mind, but his success in New England has been mainly by virtue of his offense. Likewise, Brian Bilick was regarded as an offensive genius when he took over the Baltimore Ravens way back when, and proceeded to win the Super Bowl with one of the NFL’s greatest defenses ever. If Ryan can bring in offensive coaches who can make head-or-tails of a currently crappy (but potentially talented) offensive line, and somehow figure out the going-on-two-decades-of-crappy quarterback situation, then great.

I am mildly biased against Ryan because I never liked his father Buddy, but that’s obviously unfair, isn’t it? Mainly I never really got why everyone was so impressed with him in New York, especially as the afterglow of those first two playoff seasons receded into memory (with the first of those appearances coming simply by virtue of the Colts simply playing dead on the last day of the season, with the top seed already locked up). I do think that Ryan is a likely upgrade over the freshly-departed Doug Marrone, who appeared less and less into things as time went on here.

Ryan inherits a team with a very good defense, most of which should return intact (as well as getting back a very good linebacker in Kiko Alonso), as well as an offense which, while crappy this year, isn’t totally without talent (part of the line, and the receivers). Quarterback is a big issue, but maybe the jury really is still out on EJ Manuel, and they can always bring in a veteran backup or challenger to the starting job. Despite local handwringing by Buffalo News sportswriters, the trade in last year’s draft for Sammy Watkins, which left the Bills with no 1st-round pick in the upcoming 2015 draft, was hardly the equivalent of the infamous Herschel Walker or RGIII deals that left their respective receiving teams with no 1st-rounders for multiple years. The Bills should be able to get back to the quarterback drawing board sooner rather than later, if they determine that’s needed.

In any event, it seems to me that with the roster he’s inheriting, coming off a 9-7 record that should have been even better, it’s not unreasonable to expect Ryan to get the Bills into the playoffs within two years (assuming that they don’t end up 11-5 in one of those weird years where an 11-5 team is left in the cold, which does happen now and again).

So let’s see what you got, Rex. Impress us. It’s not like the bar for being impressive is all that high around here, after fifteen consecutive non-playoff seasons and only two winning records since 1999….

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Sunday Stuff

Weirdness and coolness are two sides of the same coin, people.

(Whoa! That’s deep. Or it seems deep but is really shallow.)

First, a picture from Tumblr. This is not an inspiration for anything I’m writing.

I don’t get the “short shorts” thing, nor do those high-heeled boots seem terribly practical wear for a woman who is flying through space with a blaster in each hand….

Second, here’s a list of the most romantic lines from literature.

Third, over the last week there was on Facebook a lot of linking of articles saying that warming your car up is a bad thing to do. On the other hand, here’s an article in defense of this practice. I do start my car and let it run a minute or two before driving, but that’s just it: a minute or two. I’m not letting it run for ten minutes so the insides reach a toasty warmth, but neither am I starting it and then flooring it down the street, either.

More next week!

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“A Long Way Above the Ordinary World”

The other day, Guy Gavriel Kay cited this poem on Twitter as a measure of support for authors in the Rookie League (hmmm…am I one?), but of course, he couldn’t post the poem to Twitter, because it’s longer than 140 characters. I had to go look it up, and what a wonderful poem it is! It’s “The First Step” by Constantine Cadafy (text via).

The young poet Evmenis
complained one day to Theocritus:
“I’ve been writing for two years now
and I’ve composed only one idyll.
It’s my single completed work.
I see, sadly, that the ladder
of Poetry is tall, extremely tall;
and from this first step I’m standing on now
I’ll never climb any higher.”
Theocritus retorted: “Words like that
are improper, blasphemous.
Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you’ve done already is a wonderful thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it’s a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you’ve done already is a wonderful thing.”

It’s nice to have the notion expressed in so wonderful a poem to which I can refer in the future, when I find myself engaging the dark thoughts that I’m never going to get anywhere or amount to anything as a writer, because I suspect that no matter where you are, there are times when the step you’re on feels like it’s only the first step….

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