Actual serious world events (for once)

[drakyndra]

So, Kim Jong-Il has died. Didn't see that one coming.

To borrow a quote, it's been a bad year for dictators, and it kind of makes you wonder who's next. Or what else is going to go in the world, since international politics seems to have become rather unpredictable these days.

It's also meant my Twitter feed has been full of terrible yet amusing jokes. Or other links. I know I shouldn't have found this video nearly as entertaining as I did.

I just hope it doesn't cause much trouble in the area - yinake, you let me know if things start getting crazy, okay?

Anyway, more personally my Christmas shopping is done. Now I just need to wrap things

My shopping jaunt also led me to discover that a certain second hand book store was halving a closing down everything half price sale, which is always cheering. Especially since they had a couple of books I wanted. And also the Star Wars manga. Because, you know, nifty.

There was also this amazing Strawberry cake I had from Brunettis. And then at dinner someone went and screwed up my order and I ended up waiting about an hour for all my food to come. And this was not at some fancy restaurant. On the plus side, they gave me free slice to make up for it.

Your nifty thing of the day goes out to the couple of Leviathan series fans I know I have reading, who I strongely recommend should check out Scott Westerfeld's newest blog post for this bonus Christmas story and art. Contains spoilers for the end of Goliath, and crossdressing - not the kind you'd expect from the series, either.

Comments

[lizvogel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the video link, which is deeply entertaining. Selfish reason is selfish, but the plot of my novel-in-progress was entirely dependent on Kim Jong-Il's continued existence, so I really needed a grin on that subject right now.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

How is Kim Jong-Il's existence necessary for your novel, dare I ask? Is it possible to just date it some time before his death?

[lizvogel.livejournal.com]

The plot revolved around a bunch of spies chasing after what they at first thought was a bioweapon, but which turned out to be a cure for KJI's illness. (Which I had a lot of latitude in defining, since getting reliable info out of North Korea is so challenging.)

Is it possible to just date it some time before his death?

Sadly, no; there's a previous novel that locks down the time-frame for this one, based on my MC's age. I could fudge that by a year or two, but not enough to make a difference.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that is a problem then.

The one thought I had is that if it can't be realistic, make it very obviously an alternate future. Instead of "What might happen..." it becomes "What could have happened if..." - like those books about what the world would have been like if the JFK hadn't been assassinated, but lower key. What year is it set?

[lizvogel.livejournal.com]

2021. (And yeah, I know I was taking a chance on him hanging around that long. But I figured he'd at least last until I could get the thing published! As one of my characters (would have) said, "He's been dying for fifteen years, he can die a little longer.")

Testing that by Subject headers still work

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I suppose alternate future is your best bet. The plus side of that is that you can use "alternate world events" to handwave any other plot-necessary diversions from reality (plus world-building).

...Though that depends on how much you've written, and how much you are willing to rewrite.

by Subject headers apparently still work fine

[lizvogel.livejournal.com]

Either alternate future, or just shooting my plot and starting over. I'm still debating that one.

Oddly enough, I wouldn't have to rewrite much of the 30,000+ words thus far. Right now, I've got a bunch of spies chasing around after... something, but since they don't know what it is yet, there aren't that many identifying marks to file off. But I, as the author, kind of need to figure out what the something is, PDQ.

It depends what style your LJ format is

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Well, it's your story so you can do what you want to it. You can make your decisions for what you thinks will work best.

Where does LJ even *get* these ideas?!

[lizvogel.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm working in a sub-genre where keeping consistent with reality is the expected standard, so alternate future isn't as appealing as it otherwise might be.

I swear, the next book will be science fiction, where I can just make stuff up. Or else historical, where once I do the research on how things were, they can at least be expected to stay that way. ;-)

Re: Where does LJ even *get* these ideas?!

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Yes, sci-fi does have that advantage (though if you set it too close to the present, then you get people criticising all the things that you got wrong when the date actually shows up.)

Re: Where does LJ even *get* these ideas?!

[lizvogel.livejournal.com]

Yep. Which is why the SF will be at least a couple hundred years in the future; the book might still be around to be nit-picked by then (one can hope), but I won't be around to hear it. ;-)