The New Worlds Patreon discussion of weapons continues on with the social forces that shape what people use to attack each other. What are you allowed to carry? What are you trying to do with it? Do you even know how to use that thing?
Comment over there!
It’s no secret that I have an interest in combat. But it’s taken me until the second year of the New Worlds Patreon to start discussing that corner of worldbuilding, beginning with the materials and application of different kinds of weapons. Comment over there!
Also, we keep dancing along the threshold of the next funding goal. So if you’ve been thinking of becoming a patron, now is a great time to start!
If the word “library” makes you envision a spacious, airy, well-lit room overseen by stern ladies who will guide you to the right books and hush you when you talk too loud, your mental image is very modern. This week the New Worlds Patreon discusses how libraries have changed over time!
This week the New Worlds Patreon is talking about books! And also about scrolls and stelae and other methods of organizing the written word.
By the way, we’re also just $1 shy of the next funding goal, which would allow me to make a print edition of the gathered volumes (Year One is out now in ebook, with more to come). So now is a great time to become a patron!
Normally when authors talk about “writing tools,” they mean things like software for word processing or blocking out distractions. But in this case I mean the physical paraphernalia of recording words: paper and clay, pen and brush and stylus, all the different media we’ve put words on and the devices we’ve used to do it. That’s right, folks, it’s Friday, which means it’s time for another installment of the New Worlds Patreon! Comment over at Book View Cafe . . .
(And don’t forget that the book is on sale now!)
The Patreon tree has delivered its first crop of fruit!
(All the fruit trees in my backyard are currently in flower. I have agricultural metaphors on the brain.)
The New Worlds Patreon has been trucking along for more than a year now, building up a huge pile of material. I’ve gathered the initial mass of it into New Worlds, Year One: A Writer’s Guide to the Art of Worldbuilding: all the posts from that first year, edited and reorganized for your convenience. That’s on sale now, and other installments will follow in due course! If you are a writer, or an artist, or a game designer, or a GM — anybody with a need to invent worlds, or heck, just anybody who likes thinking about different ways of living in real or imaginary worlds — this book is for you.
In hindsight, writing systems are such an obvious topic for a series on worldbuilding for writers that I’m surprised I didn’t get around to them sooner! But I’m there now, with the latest New Worlds Patreon essay, in which we discuss everything from pictographs to featural scripts, along with some of the practical implications of each approach.
Comment over there!
Since this is a month with five Fridays in it, this is a month with a theory post! The New Worlds Patreon promises four essays a month, but one of the funding goals (which we reached some time ago) is a bonus in such months, discussing more theoretical topics: underpinning concepts in anthropology, or practical advice for how to approach worldbuilding in fiction. This is one of the latter, and it concerns the question of when you should invent a thing for your imaginary world, versus using something real.
Comment over there! And don’t forget, the first volume of New Worlds is available for pre-order now!
Onward to other types of body modification!
This is one of the months with five Fridays, so the next New Worlds Patreon essay will be a “theory piece,” talking about some of the underpinning concepts and ways to approach this subject in fiction, rather than specific cultural content.
From cosmetics (a temporary and easily removable alteration to one’s appearance), we move on to the more lasting or even permanent alterations grouped under the name “body modification.” But there are enough types of modification that I’ve had to separate them out into two posts; this first one discusses things I’ve decided to call “adornment,” i.e. small changes that mostly add on to the body’s appearance in some fashion. The larger changes that reshape the body to a more substantial degree will come next week.
Also, I’m pleased to say that the New Worlds Patreon is fairly close to its next funding goal! So if you’ve been thinking about becoming a patron, or sharing it with people who would enjoy this sort of thing, please do — then we can have a print edition of the collected essays, along with the ebook!
There was a brief period of time in junior high where I went to the effort of putting on makeup every day.
. . . that didn’t last long.
I am a fundamentally lazy creature, and especially now, when I work from home and can go days at a time without seeing any human beings I’m not related to, routine makeup is just a thousand times more trouble than it’s worth. I only bother with it now when I’m appearing in public professionally: going to a con or a reading, doing a video interview, or something in that vein. And even then, I rail a bit at the fact that I’m expected to do such things, whereas John Q. Author is not — but at the same time, I’m aware that we have a deep-seated bias toward pretty people, and I derive a benefit from looking my best. (A benefit John Q. Author can also reap, if he knows how to put on makeup subtly enough that he’ll just look polished rather than obviously made up . . . because unless you’re Johnny Weir or equivalently flamboyant, being a dude with a painted face is seen as strange nowadays.)
All of which is a lengthier than usual introduction to this week’s post from the New Worlds Patreon, which (you guessed it) is about cosmetics. What kinds do we use? What do we use them for? And how come I don’t see more magic or high-tech makeup in fiction?
Also, don’t forget that New Worlds, Year One: A Writer’s Guide to the Art of Worldbuilding is now available for pre-order! You can get it from Amazon US or UK (as well as other countries, but I don’t have direct links for those), Google Play, Kobo, and Indigo, with Barnes & Noble and iTunes to follow as soon as I can work out some technical issues. And, of course, it will be on sale at Book View Cafe (the publisher) on the release date, April 10th.
I met Christopher Paolini on a panel at Denver Comicon last year, and we wound up chatting for a while afterward. Then we wound up chatting for an hour on camera, because he periodically interviews other authors, and invited me to be one of his guests.
In the video we talk about worldbuilding, writing process, and a bunch of other things. I’m only sad that we stopped recording when we did, because it means you miss out on the part where we started nerding at one another about kdramas and Bollywood and Nirvana in Fire — which, okay, drifted away from the professional focus a bit, but only bit, because we both still think like writers even when being fannish about stuff. But if we’d recorded that it would have been two hours and nobody would have watched the whole thing, so.
Can you believe it’s been a year since I started New Worlds?
I both can and can’t. On the one hand, the time has flown by. On the other, I have nearly sixty thousand words’ worth of posts I’ve written in that time, so, yeah, that’s a thing. In fact, it’s a thing that is in the process of becoming an ebook — there are some outlets where you can pre-order it now, and more to come. New Worlds, Year One will be released on April 10th, at which point I’ll be more than a month into Year Two. And in honor of that, I’ve made a new funding goal: if I reach $250/month, I’ll create a print edition of these books to go along with the ebooks.
Anyway, this week’s post is brought to you by Black Panther and all of its amazing visuals, especially as they relate to personal appearance. I’m not going to get through that whole field of topics in a month, but we’re starting off broad, with an overview of standards of beauty. Comment over there!
My New Worlds Patreon project is going strong, and about to pass the one-year mark. Everybody who is a patron tomorrow (when the March pledges are processed) will get access to the special anniversary reward, and patrons at the $3 level and above will get a complimentary copy of the upcoming ebook, which collects the first year of essays. Go here to join their ranks!
I mentioned last week that the post on divorce marked the completion of one year of the New Worlds Patreon, but I neglected to mention that I’m going to have a special reward for patrons to celebrate the occasion. So if you’re interested in backing the project, do so by the beginning of March and you’ll be included in that!
There’s still so much I could say on the topic of marriage, but since I try not to sit on any one subject for too long, we’re wrapping up this month of the New Worlds Patreon with divorce.
And that concludes the first year of this project! It’s going strong, with enough topics on my hit list that I’m sure I’ll be able to fill a second year — and probably a third — and at the rate I keep coming up with new things to discuss, probably a fourth. Now is a splendid time to become a patron (because it’s always a splendid time to become a patron!). If you are one already, thank you so much for your support.
Historical romance novels are full of families concerned about dowries, but you hear much less about bridewealth and dower (not the same thing as dowry) in the West. Any way you slice it, though, getting married has often required a lot of financial planning. Read the latest New Worlds Patreon post at Book View Cafe, and comment over there!
Onward through the topic of marriage! Now it’s time for the New Worlds Patreon to talk about monogamy vs. polygyny vs. polyandry vs. things like line marriage, and the social effects these different structures have. Comment over there!
Marriage is one of those enormous topics I’m not getting through in a single post. I could probably fill all of this February and next February just discussing it and its ancillary subjects. But we’re starting off with the question of why people get married and who’s allowed to do it, as our first installment of the New Worlds Patreon this month. Comment over there!
I have two posts up at BVC today. The first is an expansion of my post in response to the passing of Ursula Le Guin; with the benefit of a little more distance, I have additional things to say about the effect she’s had on my life and career.
The other, of course, is my New Worlds post for this week. Completing our tour through certain features of the natural world, I discuss deserts: not always hot, not always filled with sand, but very interesting for stories.
