{"id":1653,"date":"2009-09-30T22:47:03","date_gmt":"2009-10-01T06:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/?p=1653"},"modified":"2009-10-01T07:55:11","modified_gmt":"2009-10-01T15:55:11","slug":"on-and-off-a-roll-introducing-infinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/30\/on-and-off-a-roll-introducing-infinity\/","title":{"rendered":"On and Off a Roll. Introducing Infinity."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I finished doing a major revision on Jim and the Flims<\/em>. I\u2019d had my character Weena talking in the familiar Phil-Dickian California-speak that I\u2019ve learned to do so smoothly. But if she\u2019s really from 1907, it really makes more sense if she has an old-timey manner of speech. So I\u2019m going through the book, searching for every occurrence of \u201cWeena,\u201d\u009d and rewriting all her lines.<\/p>\n

I have a slight worry that I\u2019m losing some nice Val-girl zingers, like \u201cDon\u2019t worry<\/em>,\u201d\u009d but those are, after all, rather facile. I think it\u2019s going to be richer and funnier if Weena talks in an odder and more high-falutin way.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Changing the Weena dialog actually took three days, it was a lot more work than I\u2019d expected. What made it more work especially was that I ended up noticing all kinds of loose threads and inconsistencies from the accumulation of reach-back changes I\u2019ve made. But now I think it\u2019s pretty solid. And it is sort of more fun to have Weena talking in this 1900s-style way\u2014at least I hope that\u2019s the era she sounds like. I might reread some of Hinton\u2019s \u201cscientific romances\u201d\u009d to check the tone.<\/p>\n

The drudge work of doing this long revision threw me off the roll I was on before that, a lovely writing binge, tearing through the Castle chapter and into the Quest Rose chapter, all excited about the higher-degree Mandelbrot sets. It was so nice being on a roll.<\/p>\n

I had a couple of days when all I thought about from dawn to dusk was the novel, and I was belting out more than a thousand words a day, and that\u2019s including two or three polish-revisions. I\u2019d almost say those are my favorite kinds of days, when I\u2019m almost in a trance, just thinking about the book all day long, problem-solving, rockin\u2019 it, hitting the curl.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This week I didn\u2019t get to write on the novel at all, I had to write this 6,000 word introduction for a collection of essays about infinity, to be published by the Templeton Foundation, a group interested in promoting scientific discussions that relate to theology. <\/p>\n

They were going to have me to write an article last winter, but I wrote an SF story then, \u201cJack and the Aktuals, or, Physical Applications of Transfinite Set Theory,\u201d\u009d and the intended publisher freaked out about having an *ack* science-fiction story in their scholarly tome. But the Templeton guys were nice about it, and this spring they told me I could write an intro instead, and they even said it would be okay if I put in a plug for my \u201cJack and the Aktuals\u201d\u009d story online<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I liked this development fine, but then the papers that I\u2019d be introducing showed up at my house, and instead of reading them right away, I kept putting it off, even though I\u2019d said I\u2019d do the intro by mid-September.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So a few days ago, the Templeton guys emailed me, like, \u201cWhere\u2019s the intro?\u201d\u009d So finally I tore into reading the papers. The good ones were quite strong\u2014some great math ones, papers about physics and infinity, and a few of strong theology papers about God and infinity\u2014written in philosophical jargon just this side of incomprehensibility, but sort of fun to read\u2014like listening to the twittering of alien beetles.<\/p>\n

For most people the math papers would be the alien beetle twitters, but for me those are more like hearing jazz that\u2019s switched (over the years since I left grad school) to some new kinds of beats.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Anyway, I actually read all the papers and wrote a six thousand word introduction. I can\u2019t quite understand how I did that so fast. I could never write six thousand words on a novel in just a few days. Of course for my intro, I was partly able to recycle stuff that I already knew from writing Infinity and the Mind<\/a>, also I was able to drop in quotes from the papers in question. But I did write quite a bit of brand new stuff as well. And it was interesting to be writing about infinity again. <\/p>\n

But at the same time, I was in a rush to finish because I wanted to get back to Jim and the Flims. <\/em> I might be able to use some of that theology stuff in there, too, when Jim meets the god-like spirit of Flimsy herself, in the center of the Helaven sea—remember, I did a painting of that spot<\/a> a few weeks ago. Anyway, I\u2019ll still be working on the intro a little next week, as there\u2019s still two more late-arriving papers coming in, also I want to improve it a little overall.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And I have something else coming over the horizon in the next few days as well.<\/p>\n

I may get a little writing done around the edges in the coming days, I\u2019ll try and keep the embers alive, but I won\u2019t be doing any all-day rockin\u2019 on a roll for maybe a week. But then, ah then, Muse willing, I\u2019ll be carving Flimsy again…eventually getting to the Surf Zombie chapter!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I finished doing a major revision on Jim and the Flims. I\u2019d had my character Weena talking in the familiar Phil-Dickian California-speak that I\u2019ve learned to do so smoothly. But if she\u2019s really from 1907, it really makes more sense if she has an old-timey manner of speech. So I\u2019m going through the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1653"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1665,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653\/revisions\/1665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}