New Worlds: Assault and Battery
Another week, another round of violent crimes at the New Worlds Patreon — in this case, assault and battery. Comment over there . . .
Posts Tagged ‘new worlds’
New Worlds: Abduction
What a way to start off 2023 . . . but my loyal New Worlds patrons voted for violent crime this month, so here we go! First up is abduction — including the variants where it wasn’t actually a kidnapping, or it was but the law is on the kidnapper’s side . . . comment over there.
New Worlds Theory Post: The Personal Touch
2022 and Year Six of the New Worlds Patreon are squeezing in one more fifth-Friday theory essay before the end! We’ve been talking about magic this year; here that means looking at the personal element that often distinguishes magic from science. Comment over there!
New Worlds: Patron of the Arts
It’s generally been the pattern for the New Worlds Patreon that when we have an arts month, three of the essays are directly about art, and the fourth is about some adjacent topic. In this case, it’s patronage — comment over there!
And while we’re at it, this is a dandy time to remind you that New Worlds is indeed a Patreon, i.e. supported by the patronage of my readers. If you are not among their ranks already, it’s easy to join; members get a weekly photo, a monthly book review, and various other goodies at higher tiers, like voting rights in the topic polls and behind-the-scenes looks at how I build worlds for my own work. Even if you’re not able to support the Patreon directly, I’m grateful for any signal-boosting you can offer!
New Worlds: Strings and Winds
The New Worlds Patreon has finally gotten far enough into the topic of music to talk about the things that make most of the melodies, aka the strings and the winds! Comment over there.
New Worlds: Beat the Drums
The New Worlds Patreon continues its musical tour with something nearly as elemental as the voice: drums! Comment over there . . .
New Worlds: The Human Voice
A new month; a new topic for for the New Worlds Patreon! This time around, my loyal patrons have voted for music. And so we start where music itself probably did — with the human voice . . . Comment over there!
Apparently they heard me
So my higher-tier New Worlds patrons have the chance to vote in polls on what the topic for a given month will be, right?
Well, right now I’m running the polls well in advance, because getting the yearly collection ready for publication not too long after the year ends (the Patreon year, that is; the project started at the beginning of March 2017, and the books usually come out in April) means I have to write the final few months of essays ahead of time. I’ve been in crunch mode on that for a while now, with only the February essays left to go, but I need to write all of those and then reorganize and revise the whole manuscript before sending it off to my BVC beta reader on December 9th. Not a lot of time, and it’s very common for the polls to be semi-tied among a few options, with a winner not emerging until I remind people to vote a few days later — if then. I woke up this morning with a plan for how to do as much work as I could sans the February essays if there was no clear leader yet in the poll that went up today.
Y’all, one of the topics has a massive lead over the entire rest of the field. Possibly the biggest margin of victory I’ve yet seen in several years of doing these polls.
So I guess my patrons heard my silent prayer for a decisive early vote! There’s zero chance that anything else is going to overtake the leader, which means I can get right to work on writing those essays and revising the manuscript, no delay required. If you’ll pardon me, I should get back to that . . .
New Worlds: That’s Private
“Ideological stuff we rarely stop to think about” month at the New Worlds Patreon draws to a close with the question of personal privacy — several different levels thereof. Comment over there!
New Worlds: Cultural Virtues
This week, the New Worlds Patreon takes a look at the virtues particularly called out and valorized by a given society — and the pitfalls that can come with making too much of them. Comment over there!
New Worlds: The Water We Swim In
The New Worlds Patreon continues its look at the parts of our world we almost never think about, just like fish don’t think about the water we swim in: everything from ask vs. guess to interpersonal distance to emotional display. Comment over there!
New Worlds: The Individual vs. the Collective
The Topic Builders of the New Worlds Patreon have voted, and so for November, we will be looking at some of the more abstract, ideological aspects of worldbuilding. First up: individualism and communalism. Comment over there!
New Worlds: Political Patronage
The New Worlds Patreon is always ready to do a favor for a friend . . . so long as it gets one in return. To close out October, we’re looking at political patronage: comment over there!
New Worlds: Vassalage and Suzerainty
This week the New Worlds Patreon is not talking about feudalism, because that’s an imprecise term for a confluence of concepts that’s falling out of use among historians anyway. It is, however, talking about part of what people usually think of when they hear the word “feudal,” which is the vassal relationship that structured a good deal of the upper class in medieval European society — comment over there!
New Worlds: Aliens of Another Kind
Last week the New Worlds Patreon looked at citizens and subjects; this time around, it’s people who aren’t in those groups, but possibly want to join them. Comment over there!
New Worlds: Citizenship and Subjecthood
My faithful Topic Builders in the New Worlds Patreon have voted, and October will be a month for discussing political roles! The first one up is the similar, but subtly different, roles of “citizen” and “subject.” Comment over there!
New Worlds Theory Post: Principles of Magic II
It’s a fifth Friday, which means the New Worlds Patreon pivots to a “theory essay”! We’re (semi-unexpectedly) continuing the “principles that can underlie magic” strand from the last one of these; comment over there.
New Worlds: On the Field of Battle
To conclude our look at warfare (for now; it’s coming back in future months, never fear), the New Worlds Patreon takes a brief look at the most iconic type of armed clash, if not the most common sort: the direct engagement of armies in the field. Comment over there!
New Worlds: Under Siege
How sieges get fought is only one side of the story; the other side is what it’s like to endure one. This week the New Worlds Patreon takes a look at that aspect — comment over there!
New Worlds: Storming the Castle
Yes, the New Worlds Patreon is quoting The Princess Bride this week. (This is very on-brand for me.) We’re talking about siege warfare — comment over there!
