Zornhau

andrewducker  asked...
1) What should you have done sooner?

Got serious about writing.

2) Did you always want children? Or did it sneak up on you?

Always*. Very much planned, right down to target season for birth.

*Always, as in always part of the plan. It was never very urgent.

3) Where have you always wanted to visit, but never managed to get to?

I've wept at the grave mound of Marathon, walked barefoot on the Parthenon, trudged Hadrian's Wall, closed my eyes and seent he mayhem at Rhodes, taken the field at Tewksbury, climbed pyramids of blood in Mexico, but my god I would like to visit Krak des Chevaliers.

4) In what time period would you be happiest?

The 21st century rocks! Hard to tell if we're living in a transitory golden era, or whether things will get better. So, given a choice, I wouldn't gamble. Yes, there are eras I would like to visit, and there are those in which, given the right start in life, aspects of my personality would find... fulfilment. But overall, there's no place like home; I can play with swords, but never face sharps. I can have children, but not too many, and have a reasonable chance of a good headcount after a birth.

5) What do you most wish you had the time for?

Writing.

The good thing about having children, as my old mother always says, is that they make you learn new things. To which I'd add, that the good thing about being a parent in your 40s - though not good enough to compensate for the lack of stamina when faced by broken nights - is that when a child asks "Why?", you know enough not to have to say, "Because."

Kurtzhau's roving interests keep me scrabbling through non-fiction, not to preserve a spurious "Daddy knows everything", but rather so I can answer his questions - hence his precocious if basic knowledge of Republican-era Roman tactical doctrine, and Byzantine history. We often hit the books together, and in bookshops he often helpfully suggests weighty tomes, "Daddy you could buy that book and read it and tell it to me."  ("Sorry, I really don't have time to learn about 70 Years War infantry tactics.")

He shares one interest in common with most other little boys, though: Dinosaurs.

I'm not sure how many 5-year-olds watch the actual documentaries and make their dads explain the difficult bits, much to the confusion of their older relatives:

Kurtzhau: Look [Older Relative]! They found SIX tyrannosauruses in one place. That means they might have hunted in packs!!
Older Relative: Can you count to six, Kurtzhau? One... two...
Me: Actually, we're rather busy watching this program about giant killer dinosaurs, thanks.

However, I can vouch that there were oodles of 5-year-old boys at the Dinosaurs Live stage show, which was beyond awesome both as a technical achievement, and for shear visceral OMG these fuckers are huge value...

Just noticed that Alan Campbell's been deluged with amazing fan art. Go look at his blog (then read his books).

Alan Campbell, who we're lucky enough to have in our crit circle, got a very nice review in Scotland on Sunday.

EDIT: A pity the reviewer used the opportunity to take swing at the worst examples of the genre as if they mattered. Imagine a review that started, "Most Literary Fiction is belongs to a sort of academic circle jerk. However...."

Note to self: The dragon sequence in the Hobbit, though engrossing, is not very practical as a bedtime story...

I swapped sword strikes with far flung friends,
Caroused with a nimble-footed man mountain,
Fought a friendly Finnish giant,
Tested my Meisterhaus on Glaswegian Germans,
And together, smiling,
We danced Death's Dance,
Straining our ears for the song of steel,
Echoing from another age.

Gah!

I have this novel. It's a proper fantasy novel, with plot and character and themes and stuff.

Mostly, though, it's also cool because it's full of what's been described as "mental" swashbuckling scenes... crazy neo pulp  which, because of nifty world building and planning, all make some kind of sense at the time.

The least over-the-top example is in the opening chapter where the hero... for good plausible reasons... counter charges an entire army. Then there's the love triangle which serves to explore the themes, while serving up a dose of eroticism.

So, in full outline, it looks like a proper novel with neo pulp action. In a one paragraph pitch, it looks the same, mainly because you can more or less say just that: When [REDACTED]  clashes with [REDACTED], [REDACTED] happens. As [REDACTED], [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. In the end [REDACTED].

A shorter outline or synopsis - now there's a problem. Keep the neo pulp sex and violence, and the foundation drops away and you're left with the sort of one-handed catalogue of adventure that teenage roleplayers come up with in their cups - I know, I was one of them.

Skimp on the details, and it looks like (I hope) a superior fantasy novel with a quest and character arcs. But this is like reading the lyrics on the back of a Hendrix album. You want the lyrics to be good, but that's not why it's on the CD player.

Worse still, hone down to one of those query letter synopsis sandwich favoured by American agents. Now there's three paragraphs which have somehow to tell a story where the attraction is in the detail.

Doomed! Doomed!

Last night I had a class of four people throwing Krumphaus around the salle, and it was good.

In its simplest form, the Krumphau (trans "Crooked Strike") is a sort of windmill action.


Getting people to really spring is hard.

We spend our lives in front of computers. The Medievals, in contrast, were often, if not always on their feet. Their idea of a dance involved leaping around like a young Mick Jagger.

Visualisation helps. "If that blade was sharp, and you had not mask, you'd be the hell over there, wouldn't you?"

There's a similar sequence involving throwing a Zornhau - that is a diagonal cut - into an incoming Zornhau, and then thrusting ("Zornhau Ort"). Foot and blade move differently, but they're easily muddled in a fight. So I had the class alternate between the two.

Then I introduced the counter. For all the complexity of the interaction between the techniques, German Longsword techniques themselves are simple - they have to be, since they need to work on the fly, in the rain, in poor light, with sharps. So, this counter works against both counter attacks; as the cut or thrust comes in, raise your fists, push the enemy blade past your face, and stab him.

The system almost teaches itself. At the end I had pairs in full protective gear doing their best to hit each other. Everybody looked the part.

I was happy, and the Ancient Meisters applauded from Valhalla.

A band reunion BBQ at the weekend. Like me, the bass player has more or less forsaken Rock and Roll for martial arts, in his case an Eastern hand-to-hand style ("Schezwan Kung Po"?), and also like me, he's a dad and loves it. However, he started earlier, so is able to have the following conversation with his eldest:


So, cairmen is right. The generation gap is dead. Dad plays a mean rock guitar, son plays drums. Both play World of Warcraft. That said, some things don't change.

Morgenstern's off on a nursery trip. Kurtzhau's at school. Today is a writing day.

Normal service will be resumed... eventually.

(A longer, more thoughtful write up to follow.)

It started well, with salmon_lord 's wedding anniversary party. Then, round midnight, there was a minor migration to the Royal Oak - a folk bar with a regular session, and a piano.

Give me a few beers, a piano, and a drunken audience, and I slip over into that other timeline where I chose Rock and Roll over swords. Thing is, though I can still play a good Jerry Lee Lewis, and get a rabble "singing" Shake Rattle and Roll, my fingers have lost their protective coating of mojo. I stripped the back of my right thumb playing glissando - that's where you flick the keyboard to produce that crashing down the keys effect - and one of the keys in the lower register must have had a sharp edge, so my left thumb has a patch of missing skin. Oh, and the pads of all my fingers ache - with Rock and Roll, the driller killer sound comes from a shoulder action, and I'm a hell of a lot stronger that I used to be.

Last orders came, so I left the bloodstained keyboard and made it to the door. A few paces into the night, and Russian Bear (from the German longsword class) steered our dwindling party into a Jazz bar where he knew the bouncer, another Russian. It cost to get in, and it was home time for me, so I tried to demur, but, "No. I pay. You come in and have other drink!" Then - surrounded by 12 year olds with beards digging the cool music played by other 12-year olds (yes, we were in the student area), we talked about War and Peace, and I heard what it was like to go through two revolutions.

Finally the Winged Hussar (another fencer) and I ran out of steam and made it out to street level, where we lent a very pissed Politics Graduate a mobile phone in exchange for his "career" plans. Considerably amused, we parted company, and thence to a taxi and home, with many glasses of water.

I woke to two children jumping up and down on me and the Mother of All Hangovers.

And the dice? Left overs from the party games at the start of the evening. When I saw them (looking as if they were) going spare, I thought of Kurtzhau and our wargames. I rather like this timeline.

There's no better way to experience the distinction between story and text than to go back to the roots of our genre.

As a result of a spectacular parenting own-goal, "The Hobbit" – a battered old copy that Mrs Hau's father once purchased for 8s 6d – is Kurtzhau's current bedtime story. 

( (Off-topic Kurtzhau story...) )

Reading the Hobbit is a bit like listening to Bill Hailey and the Comets. The beat is there, but the delivery  - though charming and skilled - is not quite right.

It's packed with Herodotian ring composition, editorialising, explicit allusions to the character's future, and lots of "telling" rather than "showing", all of which distance us from the story. Worse, Gandolf is the only person who really does anything until well into the book. It's page 62 before Thorin even strikes a goblin, and he does that off screen, and in narrative summary—imagine how Robert E Howard would have handled that...

Even so, the story and the world it articulates, rocks. JRR built a deep history with deeper caverns, and painted the lot with conflict so that we can see it in the light of the Strife Ray (like in CSI where they have a lamp that shows up bloodstains).

 And so I'm hooked, and Kurtzhau's hooked, and we'll both return to this book time and again, just as I'll listen to Rock Around the Clock when I'm in the mood.

In one matter, however, Tolkien excels over his later imit—successors. He knows how to use the Strife Ray to do "landscape porn"

Landscape Porn has to be a key marker for High Fantasy. You know the kind of thing – towering mountains, mystic rivers, ruined cities.

Mostly, I skim this kind of stuff. Odd then that Old Father Tolkien managed to deliver a chunk of real estate direct into my mind's eye before I could mutter, "If only Conan were age appropriate!"

I'm talking about the approach to the Rivendell and the Misty Mountains – the first three pages of Chapter 3.

Here's the outline:

The party survived the Trolls and the weather's better, but the landscape promises danger. The horses graze well, but provisions are low. They ford a river – a sign of progress – but mountains loom ahead. They look close, but sinister. Bilbo asks if it's the Lonely Mountain, but that's actually a long way away with many dangers before then. 

They now risk starvation, but Gandolf pitches the Last Homely House in Rivendell (even now, the name sends a Moomin shiver down my spine – JRR was a genius). However, "...they had not got there yet." Almost featureless landscape makes it hard to find Rivendell. They make progress, but find nothing. Worse, the landscape becomes dangerous. The path is marked by white stones, but many of them obscured by moss. Gandolf is the guide, but even he has trouble.

The party reaches the brink of starvation. They forge on through the night, but the going gets dangerous. The ground falls away into a steep valley... is this a disaster? No they've found Rivendell and it's hellishly merry Elvz!

Just look at all those "buts" and "howevers"! And the focus never wanders; a death match between the Party and the Landscape. Even where the landscape doesn't represent a direct threat – "That's no Lonely Mountain, Bilbo...." – it still gives the feeling of cards being put into play.

I imagine this a bit like a game of cards...

Bilbo: I play "Pass Significant Landmark."

Landscape: Fuck you. I play, "Epic Quest Ahead."

Bilbo: Oh dear god. Hang on... "Resting Place."

Landscape: Ha! "Lost in Landscape."

Bilbo: Can he do that..? Right. "Ancient Highway."

Landscape: Gotcha. "Entropy."

Bilbo: "Wizard Guide."

Landscape: "Entropy" is permanent.

Bilbo: Bugger. "Grim Determination."

Landscape: "Pitfall."

Bilbo: "Happy Reversal!" My game I think.

Landscape: Pah! I'll get you next time.

There is - of course - stuff missing. The sequence doesn’t do much other than get the play... characters from A to B, and foreshadow Dangers to Come. Nobody decides anything, nobody changes. It's Fantasy as Symphony.

But, even as I write, the landscape sticks in my head. So a point to JRR. Now, where did I put my pack of Writer cards....

"Why did they need warships, Daddy?" asks Kurtzhau (age 5).

On the way back from swimming, I mentioned that - in olden times - sailors couldn't always swim, which took us to press gangs, and Nelson's navy. Now I have to explain economic warfare. He already knows about merchants, and mercenaries, so after I explain tax, he quickly grasps that money is indeed the sinew of war.

"What happens," I ask, "if the merchants don't make money from their ships?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "Then government doesn't get its money and they can't pay for soldiers, and they lose the war."

"So," I prompt, Socratically, "If you were the French and you had a navy, how would you stop the British having soldiers?"

"Daddy, I have guys who speak British and I land them at night and they blow up the bases and kill the soldiers and break the guns and ammunition... and they also take the money."

I need to print off multiple copies of my first three chapters to dispatch to various Luddite agents. I'd rather not burn out my printer.

So, anybody in Edinburgh - any ideas?

"Darwin saved us, Daddy!" says Kurtzhau (aged 5).

"What...?" I say, and add mentally, ...the fuck?

I take a good luck at my son.

We've just watched the BBC documentary about "Ida", the 47-million-year-old monkey-lemur who might well have been on grooming terms with one of several missing links the Creationists are always saying we don't have.

And Kurtzhau's eyes are lit up like a little crusader.  It's a little scary.

Thing is, our atheism isn't a faith.

Darwin isn't some sort of ersatz prophet - which is why posthumous attacks on his reputation or certainty (did he make a deathbed repentance?) are so very thoroughly off target. He's just one of a line of thinkers that privileges evidence over faith, and refuses to shrug and claim ectoplasm oils the gears of the world.

So, for a few heartbeats I'm thinking: Has Kurtzhau picked up some Christianity from school, and created his own inverted mash up, and if so, how the hell are we going to untangle this and won't we look stupid in front of our more religious relatives who will be unbearably smug...

"I mean," says Kurzhau, "that Darwin saved us from having to believe in God."

"Well, there were atheists before Darwin," I say. "And I'm not even sure what Darwin believed in. But..." And we talk a little around how it helps to have good answers for when proselytisers come knocking on our brains.

Then. "Daddy. It makes me feel sad that Ida was six years old like me... But if they bring out a model of her, can we buy one?"

His eyes are still afire with the wonder of rain forests covering Germany, of volcanic lakes spewing deadly CO2, of a motley international band of paleontologists unravelling the ancient tragedy of a little girl with a maimed hand who suffocated and drowned a mere 20 million years after the dinosaurs.

And also, I think he's glimpsed the web of past, present and future. And his joy reminds me that I've seen it too.

No, we don't have  a religion. Why would we need one?

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/comic_fragment.jpg
...except that I'm not joking.

It feels like I've come out from under a dark cloud of Tullish proportions. It's not just been the work, it's also been a lingering feeling of fatigue. I had thought I was just wearing myself out, or - admit it - getting old.

But then I had this conversation with two of the local mums:


Then andrewducker  pointed us all to an article claiming that 30K people in the UK have probably already sneezed and grown curly tails. I wonder...
( Query letter behind the cut... )

I'm starting with agents who accept email submissions, and only want a synopsis and sample chapters. Next I'll do postal queries. Then move onto those who want outlines - which I'll need to write. The aim is simply to get moving.
 

"Daddy!" announces Kurtzhau heading for my cupb... I mean executive study space. "Now it's time for us to see what that Roman General looked like with his arrow kit so we can do the big battle!"

"Who?"

"Besilarius," he says with great firmness.

"Oh, Belisarius...?"

"Yes, Daddy, the one on the walls of Rome who shot the Barbarian chieftain at the start of the battle that was like Helms Deep."

"OK..." I glance around my study. "He's really a Byzantine, though he would have thought of himself as Roman. I don't really have any Byzantine books. Let's look on the computer."

"Let's look for Buzzantin pictures, then." Kurtzhau cuddles up while I google...

Lots of Victorian pap. Some fat reenactors. Some grainy wargames figures and... "Oh my God. I forgot about this one!" And there it is, the famous mosaic of Emperor Justinian with - possibly - Belisarius at his right hand.

"Yes, yes," says Kurtzhau. "But I want to see him with his arrow set so I can do the battle with my Playmobil Romans."

We search a while longer, then I say, "I'm sorry - there just isn't anything. I don't think the Byzantines drew many pictures of their soldiers in action."

Kurtzhau considers. "Well, maybe Playmobil will do Bightsanta-ins..."

"Sorry. I think you're probably one of the few five year olds in the world who have the foggiest idea who they are!"

"Well, we'll turn our Romans into them anyway."

Oh Jesus! I think. I'll end up having to help him reverse the conversion - and that means sorting out about 60 confusion Imperial Legionaries. But I cannot lie to him. "You'd have to put pointy helmets on all of them, and give them round shields and long spears."

Kurtzhau shakes his head. "I'll wait until I'm older and not interested in Playmobil anymore then I'll have wargame soldiers and I can have Byzantines."

Phew!

He brightens, "Can you read me some Byzantine stories...?"