Tetraptych Tuesday: Desolation

  By Robert Watson | 20 August, 2013 - 23:00 |
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Here’s a visual project I started for fun. The digital painting below is the first panel of four, illustrating the rise of a colony on a newly discovered planet.

 

Desolation, Panel 1

“Desolation” – The first panel of a tetraptych
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What happens next? You’ll just have to stay tuned!

Fall Semester

  By Robert Watson | 16 August, 2013 - 21:57 | , ,
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My wife has recently tipped me off on some new developments in the world of hypertext and electronic fiction. Unfortunately, I just haven’t had the time to finish reading and researching it all. So, a bit later on that, then.

This week I’ve been busy preparing for classes. Fall semester is probably my favorite of the two, especially August, September, and October. The humidity is going away, the weather begins to cool. This is the time of year everyone, faculty and students, seem most excited to be in school. It’s fun to watch the freshmen adapt to adulthood, and to be a part of that.

Spring semester isn’t quite the same. Even by the end of January, people start to look forward to summer. The hopes of a new year are replaced by the realities of  time. There’s never enough to get everything done.

But I did finish one summer project. I’m happy to say I met my goal of finishing the “primary part” of An Ember in the Wind by the end of summer. The sequel is formatted similar to A Foundation in Wisdom. By “primary part,” I’m referring to the part that makes up Sheridan’s tale.

I don’t want the chapter introductions, the dialogue between Sheridan and John Bartlebee, to be an afterthought. However, the fact of the matter is, they are a function of the main story.

The first draft brings with it what I’ll call first-draft blues. The draft is not great by any means. In fact, it may even be a little discouraging.

It’s easy to focus on the effort it takes to complete the first draft. Entire sites and programs are devoted to helping people get it done. (Hi, Nanowrimo!) And with good reason. It’s hard.

But it’s also easy to let the effort required to finish the first draft overshadow the effort required to revise it.

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It’s clear there’s a lot of work left to do. In elementary school, we once had an author visit our class and talk about writing a book. I remember only one thing from that presentation, that she said she did 23 revisions. She made writing a whole book seem like the sort of thing one would have to be crazy to attempt.

A Foundation in Wisdom went through 45 revisions. If you have a copy, it’s stamped on the copyright page (R45). Granted, once I started working with proofs, even a typo fix counted as a “revision”. However, before that point there were a handful of complete rewrites and multiple rounds of heavy editing.

Basically, it’s a lot of work. And for An Ember in the Wind, the majority of that work is still to come.

I don’t think community sites (like DeviantART) put enough emphasis on the revision aspect of writing. It concerns me a little because I often see students take the same attitude on term papers. (Yes, papers in math class). I don’t think this is the time to speculate on a reason, but I would be interested in hearing any insight anyone has to offer.

But, depending on who you listen to, it’s easy to walk away with the idea the first draft needs to be shining. Hence, it’s easy to walk away very discouraged after finishing the first draft.

So, I’m going to propose a new analogy. Writing a novel is like building a house. The first draft is like the design phase. After working with the architect, you should have a very good idea of what the finished project will look like. You have blueprints, 3D models, maybe even an artist’s rendering.

Now it’s time to build it.

Ry Recommends: The Big Bang Theory

  By Robert Watson | 9 August, 2013 - 21:55 |
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As a mathematician, there are two is one question I’m frequently asked: “What do you think of the show, The Big Bang Theory?” (I used to be asked what I thought about Numbers, but apparently the show has ended).

I’m starting a new feature here on An Orthogonal Universe Blog: Ry Recommends. While I would prefer to review books, I thought a review of TBBT would be a good way to kick off the feature. It addresses what seems to be the biggest thing people want to know about me.

For the record, I’m only addressing season 1. This would probably be the most useful for people who haven’t seen the show, since the box sets are available. Also, I live in a TV black hole, so I only watch shows when I buy the sets.

At its core, TBBT feels like “Friends, with physics.” The show revolves around two physicists: Leonard and Sheldon, their friends, and their neighbor, Penny.

Leonard is portrayed as a very bright intellectual who wants to “fit in,” but often struggles to. Sheldon is portrayed as eccentric, a former child prodigy with peculiar habits and a lack of social skills. Penny seems to function as the everyman. She aspires to acting, and works a day job as a waitress. Most of the episodes focus on the implied romance between Leonard and Penny, Sheldon’s eccentricities, or “geek culture.”

There are two things I feel the writers really nailed. The problem with targeting the “science and math crowd” is that you have to make sure you get your science and math right. You’re targeting a group of people who would pounce on a mistake like a cat on a laser pointer dot. It’s a challenge on the level of taking up “Grammar Nazi” as a hobby – one which requires impeccable grammar. So kudos for TBBT for staying on top of things.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the writers were able to work in jokes about mathematics and physics that didn’t rely on being an expert in either. Much of the humor comes from the Leonard and Sheldon’s attempts to fit into the “normal world,” and find connections to people outside of their realm of physicists.

Such humor can be great if done right, and for the most part I think it is. Where I feel the show falls flat is when jokes are derived from stereotypes. There are a few instances where this appears to be the case.

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In the first season, there seems to be a very clear line drawn between “geeks” and “regular people,” which hardly reflects the experiences I had in 5 1/2 years of graduate school, and 3 years as a professor.

What worries me a bit is the message, “if you want to study advanced, theoretical level science, you will have to deal with the realities of being an outcast from ‘normal’ society.”

While I never felt this message was purposefully broadcast, I think, at times, the show could do a better job showing that the division between “people who think like Sheldon” and “people who think like Penny” is not so black-and-white, that there are plenty of people in between.

Perhaps the inclusion of new characters would help fill in those gaps. As I stated before, I’m only addressing the first season. I’m aware new characters were introduced later.

The final verdict: I am planning to purchase the next few seasons. I’m fairly picky when it comes to TV, because I don’t watch a lot of it. This is a pretty solid show, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops.

 

7 out of 10.

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