I want to reach my hand into the dark, and feel what reaches back.

[greygirlbeast]

I did a modest 801 words yesterday, and began "The Thousand-and-Third Tale of Scheherazade." Turns out, it's not so much a "Yellow House" story, as it is another story about the old house on Federal Hill where the changelings can go to be, briefly, free of the attentions of the ghûl. It looks as though both the stories this month will be snow stories.

Also, I began work in earnest on a Secret Project. I've not had one of those in a while.

I don't think all this snow is ever going to melt.

Last night, we watched Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth (2007), which I thought was a genuinely splendid sort of fantasy (or, arguably, science fiction). Imagine a collaboration between Coppola, Orson Welles, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and Hermann Hesse, and it's a little like that. Beautifully filmed, and, by turns, haunting and sublime. One of Tim Roth's finest performances, and I was taken with Alexandra Maria Lara. I wish I'd had a chance to see this film in the theatre. It is, by the way, based on a novella by Mircea Eliade, which I'm going to have to hunt down and add to the Stack That Never Gets Any Smaller.

Later, I got in a good scene in Second Life. Currently, I'm playing a paraplegic vampire, which, the more I think about it, is a short story that I need to write.

Completely unrelated to last night's rp, there's a very peculiar grammatical habit that I've noted in SL, and it drives me nuts. But, although I first noticed it many months ago, maybe even a year ago, I've never felt like being rude enough to correct anyone I've seen doing it. It results in paragraphs constructed in the following manner:

X walks into the room and takes a seat near the television. "I remember seeing this once before, years ago," she says. She wondered if anyone else had already seen the show.

That is, a player will begin in present tense (the norm for rp), then, in the last sentence switch over the past tense. It's as if they have learned somewhere that the purpose of present tense is to begin sentences, while the purpose of past tense is to complete them. I've considered the possibility that it's an artifact of another language, of people writing in English when it's not their first language. But I've seen it done by people I'm quite certain are American and British. So...it continues to baffle (and, I'll admit, annoy) me.

I need to get part of an interview done this morning before I start back in on the new story, so I should wrap this up. Please do take a moment to order A is for Alien, due out next month from Subterranean Press, if you have not already. I'll also remind you that the limited edition comes with an unusually lengthy chapbook of supplementary material. Thanks.

Comments

[timesygn.livejournal.com]

"It's as if they have learned somewhere that the purpose of present tense is to begin sentences, while the purpose of past tense is to complete them."

I often make this same mistake when writing a story in the present tense. (Of course, I always catch and correct the error during revision.) Maybe Second Lifers need to proof-read before hitting the key ...

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Maybe Second Lifers need to proof-read before hitting the key ...

It's far too consistent to be a typo. The people who do this always do this. I've considered it might be some bad habit picked up from old-fashioned text-based MUDs (a lot of players spent time in MUDs), but I really don't know.

[blubeagle.livejournal.com]

If you need a paraplegic technical advisor for your story, I'd be more than willing to help out.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

If you need a paraplegic technical advisor for your story, I'd be more than willing to help out.

Thanks. Noted.

[blubeagle.livejournal.com]

Anytime.

[sovay]

Currently, I'm playing a paraplegic vampire, which, the more I think about it, is a short story that I need to write.

Yes. Yes, it is.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes, it is.

Maybe next month.

[badbookworm.livejournal.com]

I suspect that people are used to writing creatively in the past tense. The know the conventon in RP is present tense, but they forget and slip back into the usual.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I suspect that people are used to writing creatively in the past tense. The know the conventon in RP is present tense, but they forget and slip back into the usual.

As I said before, the players who do this are far too consistent about it for me to think that it could possibly be any sort of mistake. It seems clear that they believe it's correct grammar.

[sovay]

It seems clear that they believe it's correct grammar.

If anything, I would have expected the tense shift to go the other way—start a story in the past tense to situate it in time, change over into the present to indicate its immediacy—so this is fascinating. It's still wrong, though.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

so this is fascinating. It's still wrong, though.

I agree that it's rather fascinating (though, as I said, annoying) to watch. I keep trying to get up the courage to ask someone why they're doing it.

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

It seems clear that they believe it's correct grammar.

Now that you've mentioned this, I'm almost certain that I do this mostly because I'm not certain that I've ever concentrated on not doing it.

I'd also like to propose that most people who do not form the majority of their world around words simply do not think enough about grammar to consider (or even acknowledge) the error.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Now that you've mentioned this, I'm almost certain that I do this mostly because I'm not certain that I've ever concentrated on not doing it.

I'd also like to propose that most people who do not form the majority of their world around words simply do not think enough about grammar to consider (or even acknowledge) the error.

Well, you raise some interesting points. Yes, I live my life mainly in words, and while my own grammar is hardly without fault, I obsess over it quite a lot (much more than I did only a few years ago). And, possibly, this leads me to look more critically than I ought upon what others write in rp.

But, as Sonya said in an above comment, it's still wrong, the present-to-past shift, and I think it continues to capture my attention because those who who do it are so consistent about it, leading me to believe they learned somewhere that this was correct English, or at least something expected of them in rp. It's not the sort of thing one does habitually by accident. SL rp is replete with bad grammar, and most of it I manage to ignore. But this bit fascinates me. It's just so weird.

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

I began work in earnest on a Secret Project

I presume, of course, that this is a Secret Project for pay. Is your health up to it? You've had problems with this in the past. Best wishes, of course, but we do worry so.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I presume, of course, that this is a Secret Project for pay. Is your health up to it? You've had problems with this in the past. Best wishes, of course, but we do worry so.

It is a Secret Project for pay. At this point, Spooky certainly wouldn't let me take on any other sort. It's also one that will require only a modicum of my time. Thank you for worrying.

OT

[blubeagle.livejournal.com]

I thought you might like this:
http://community.livejournal.com/crochetcrochet/828434.html

Given your love for things tentacled, I thought of you.

[omegamorningsta.livejournal.com]

..I don't *THINK* that I do this? but if you catch me at it, do please tell me...

Of course your example includes ANOTHER one of my pet hates.. "XXX wondered if...."... people emoting things that you can't SEE.

But, we persist. I am praying to the gods of time and serendipidy that we catch up soon :)