Re: I'm new!

On Sat, Oct 21, 2000 at 09:49:22AM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
[snip]
> Hey, better than the one mainly-ripped-off-the-English-alphabet conlang
> that basically had French grammar, because at the time I wasn't
> intelligent enough to try to analyze what little I knew of Korean
> grammar.  (I really *must* get my parents to teach me more this winter.)
I wasn't even original enough to use the lexis from one lang and grammar
of another -- all I had was an obscure way of writing English. :-P

> My one 6th grade conscript wasn't actually a script, just a cipher based
> on runes and written like Korean.  I'm a cheapskate with ideas.  =^)
Heh, my first conscript was based on runes too. Blatantly ripped off from
an RPG, of course. Ripped off the idea, that is. I used different symbols,
but they were basically a one-to-one mapping of runes. :-P

[snip]
> Short stories, not novels.  (Though having a published novel would help
> me pay off loans...somewhat!)  I see all sorts of beautiful conlang ideas
> pass me by in this forum, and some of them, OC, are yours!  :-)
Which ones, may I ask? :-P

>  Perhaps
> it's a specialization issue: since 3rd grade I've specialized myself
> toward fantasy (and later sf) writing.  I didn't know enough about the
> language aspect of worldbuilding to really make a crack at it until
> fairly recently, and I'll probably never know half as much about language
> as a lot of people here, but hey--that means I'll always have neat stuff
> to learn.
[snip]

I like fantasy/sf writing too, but being the rebel that I am, I detest any
fantasy/sf that's too stereotypical of their genre. Eg., the existence of
magic, rituals, etc., in fantasy sometimes turn me off because I feel
those concepts are too "canned". Ditto for sf with the typical alien
cultures, intergalactic diplomacy, and all that. I especially find
distasteful sf that tries to connect with real-world philosophical or
social issues -- I much rather prefer an exploratory/discovery approach
that focus on the exploration/science rather than the other "fluff".

That is not to say, of course, that I don't like anything to do with
social issues -- but I find it too "canned" that alien cultures would face
the same (or similar) social issues and have the same (or similar) social
structure as human beings. Don't call them aliens if they aren't *that*
alien! :-P

My current conculture is somewhat like a mix of fantasy and sf:  the
Ebisedi are basically human manifestations in the con-universe (and
therefore have rather human aspects such as a language, social structure,
etc). Magic and physics meld together -- the "Experts" are the ones who
discover their inner integration with the physics of their universe, and
thus wield magic-like powers. The universe itself is composed of many
"layers" and "realms" (the formation of which is based on its own physics,
of course), somewhat like "planes" in fantasy.

So basically, I've an obsession about creating original things... Whether
that attitude is good or not is, of course, questionable. :-)


T