Servusamanu.com

Duchenne Smile

According to Wikipedia:

A Duchenne smile contracts the zygomatic muscles of the cheek and eye, forming crow’s feet. The crow’s feet indicate that the smile is genuine and that the smiler is truly happy. It was discovered by and is named after Guillaume Duchenne.

After writing about prosody I spent an hour or so running around esciencenews.com. There’s some great articles and tons of science. From a writing standpoints one article stuck out in particular. Smiles!

Skin bunched by the eyes, raised cheekbones, a slight squint, all signs of a genuine smile…and useful to write when you’re sick of ‘John Smiled’

If facial expressions say more than a 1000 words, than we can cut out a thousand words by writing about facial expressions, yes? Maybe not, but prosody…what a great word! Sometimes you read something and it just overflows with…well…prosody. Tapping into little things like facial expressions is a good way to furfill that arch-commandment of show, not tell.

Here’s another article explaining just how people respond to these little facial queues.

Every year I make a list of 100 words. These are words that I find interesting, or exotic, or just strike my fancy. There’s no particular rhyme or reason to them, but over the course of the following year I try to memorize and use the words in a list. I’ve been doing this for a while and my previous lists are still online.

2006
2007
2008

And now, without further ado. The words of 2009. Most of the definitions are from dictionary.com. Many of these words have multiple meanings and parts of speech. I choose the meaning and part of speech that I found the most intriguing.

1. Abulia: n: a symptom of mental disorder involving impairment or loss of volition.
2. Absquatulate: v: Slang. to flee; abscond
3. Aestival: adj: Of, relating to, or appearing in summer.
4. Afflatus: n: inspiration; an impelling mental force acting from within.
5. Affray: n: a public fight; a noisy quarrel; brawl.
6. Amative: adj: disposed to love; amorous
7. Ambisinister: adj: clumsy or unskillful with both hands.
8. Anodyne: n: anything that relieves distress or pain:
9. Argal: conjunction, adv Literary. therefore: used facetiously to indicate that the reasoning that had gone before or the conclusion that follows is specious or absurd
10. Atrabilious: adj: gloomy; morose; melancholy; morbid
11. Bagatelle: n: something of little value or importance; a trifle
12. Bedizen: V: to dress or adorn in a showy, gaudy, or tasteless manner.
13. Bescumber: v.t: To discharge ordure or dung upon
14. Bespoke: adj: (of clothes) made to individual order; custom-made:
15. Bibulous: adj: fond of or addicted to drink
16. Bruit: v: to voice abroad; rumor (used chiefly in the passive and often fol. by about):
17. Cadastre: n: A public record, survey, or map of the value, extent, and ownership of land as a basis of taxation
18. Caitiff: n: a base, despicable person
19. Callipygian: adj: having well-shaped buttocks
20. Calumny: pl. n: a false and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something:
21. Caterwaul: v: to utter long wailing cries, as cats in rutting time
22. Cavil: v: to oppose by inconsequential, frivolous, or sham objections
23. Cenotaph: n: a sepulchral monument erected in memory of a deceased person whose body is buried elsewhere.
24. Clochard: n: a beggar; vagrant; tramp
25. Comity: n: a state of mutual harmony, friendship, and respect, esp. between or among nations or people; civility
26. Contumacious: adj: stubbornly perverse or rebellious; willfully and obstinately disobedient
27. Deracinate: v: to isolate or alienate (a person) from a native or customary culture or environment
28. Dextral: adj: of, pertaining to, or on the right side; right
29. Dilatory: adj: tending to delay or procrastinate; slow; tardy
30. Dishabille: n: the state of being dressed in a careless, disheveled, or disorderly style or manner; undress
31. Epeolatry: n: The worship of words.
32. Epigone: n: an undistinguished imitator, follower, or successor of an important writer, painter
33. Ersatz: adj: substitute, artificial and often inferior; using substitute components
34. Espalier: n: a trellis or framework on which the trunk and branches of fruit trees or shrubs are trained to grow in one plane
35. Excrescence: n: an abnormal outgrowth, usually harmless, on an animal or vegetable body
36. Factitious: adj: Produced artificially rather than by a natural process.
37. Fainéant: adj: lazy, idle
38. Flummadiddle: n: nonesense
39. Friable: adj: easily crumbled or reduced to powder; crumbly
40. Gamine: n: a diminutive or very slender girl, esp. one who is pert, impudent, or playfully mischievous
41. Gelid: adj: very cold; icy
42. Gestalt: n. pl: an instance or example of such a unified whole.
43. Gimcrack: n: a showy, useless trifle; gewgaw
44. Gloaming: n: twilight; dusk
45. Gnomic: adj: expressing what is generally or universally true
46. Guerdon: n: a reward, recompense, or requital.
47. Hirsute: adj: hairy
48. Hypergelasts: n: someone who laughs excessively
49. Imprimatur: n: official sanction or approval; support:
50. Inchoate: adj: not yet completed or fully developed; rudimentary
51. Inculcate: v: to implant by repeated statement or admonition; teach persistently and earnestly
52. Ineluctable: adj: incapable of being evaded; inescapable
53. Insouciant: adj: free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant
54. Inveigle: v: to entice, lure, or ensnare by flattery or artful talk or inducements
55. Importunate: adj: urgent or persistent in solicitation, sometimes annoyingly so
56. Lachrymose: adj: suggestive of or tending to cause tears; mournful
57. Lissom: adj: lithesome or lithe, esp. of body; supple; flexible
58. Lucullan: adj: (esp. of banquets, parties, etc.) marked by lavishness and richness; sumptuous
59. Louche: adj: dubious; shady; disreputable
60. Malinger: v: to pretend illness, esp. in order to shirk one’s duty, avoid work, etc.
61. Magniloquent: adj: speaking or expressed in a lofty or grandiose style; pompous; bombastic; boastfu
62. Manichean: n: a believer in religious or philosophical dualism
63. Maquillage: n: Cosmetic or theatrical makeup
64. Maugre: preposition: in spite of; notwithstanding
65. Mawkish: adj: characterized by sickly sentimentality; weakly emotional; maudlin
66. Mendacious: adj: telling lies, esp. habitually; dishonest; lying; untruthful
67. Merkin: n: false hair for the female pudenda
68. Miasma: n.pl: a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere
69. Misoneism: n: hatred or dislike of what is new or represents change.
70. Monadnock: n: A mountain or rocky mass that has resisted erosion and stands isolated in an essentially level area. Also called an inselberg
71. Nostrum: n: a medicine sold with false or exaggerated claims and with no demonstrable value; quack medicine.
72. Objurgate: v: to express strong disapproval; to criticize severely
73. obsequy: n: a funeral rite or ceremony.
74. Pellucid: adj: allowing the maximum passage of light, as glass; translucent
75. Perdurable: adj: very durable; permanent; imperishable
76. Purlieu: n: an outlying district or region, as of a town or city
77. Persiflage: n: light, bantering talk or writing
78. Perspicacity: n: keenness of mental perception and understanding; discernment; penetration.
79. Pestiferous: adj: Producing or breeding infectious disease.
80. Probity: n: integrity and uprightness; honesty.
81. Prolix: adj: Tediously wordy
82. Quietus: n. pl: a finishing stroke; anything that effectually ends or settles
83. Recherche: adj: very rare, exotic, or choice; arcane; obscure
84. Repine: v: to be fretfully discontented; fret; complain
85. Rodomontade: n: vainglorious boasting or bragging; pretentious, blustering talk
86. Roister: v: to act in a swaggering, boisterous, or uproarious manne
87. Rollick: v: To move or act in a playful, carefree manner.
88. Ruminate: v: to chew the cud, as a ruminant
89. Sempiternal: adj: everlasting; eternal
90. Sinistral: adj: of, pertaining to, or on the left side; left
91. Skeuomorph: n: an ornament or design on an object copied from a form of the object when made from another material or by other techniques, as an imitation metal rivet mark found on handles of prehistoric pottery
92. Stentorian: adj: very loud or powerful in sound
93. subfusc: adj: dark and dull; dingy; drab:
94. Tarradiddle: n: A petty falsehood; a fib
95. Temerarious: adj: reckless; rash
96. Tocsin: n: a signal, esp. of alarm, sounded on a bell or bells
97. Topiary: adj: (of a plant) clipped or trimmed into fantastic shapes.
98. Univocalic: n: A piece of writing that uses only one of the vowels.
99. Vexillology: n: the study of flags
100. Virago: n.pl: a loud-voiced, ill-tempered, scolding woman; shrew

As you can tell, I’ve made a couple of changes to Servusamanu.  Nothing too major, just some artistic modifications.  Tell me what you think!

America, 200 years after a nuclear holocaust. Washington, D.C is a blasted wasteland, irradiated, barren, and home to a myriad of small groups trying to a carve a life out of the deserted ruins that once housed the most powerful government on earth. With a handful of old weapons and scattered junk, a lone wanderer explores the dystopian remnants of society that optimistically awaited the future of technology in search of his newly and mysteriously disappeared father. Will he find shelter amongst the scattered townships of the desert or die at the hands of a raider with nothing better to do?

Does this sound like a book synopsis?

It certainly could be, but it’s not. It happens to be my rough overview of Fallout 3, a computer game by Bethesda, known best for the Elder Scrolls games (which could be books in their own right.)

I’ve been playing Fallout for a little over a week now. I could review it as a video game and on those merits it’s safe to say that it’s fun, but for Servusamanu, I’d rather review it as a piece of literature.

Video games tend to have a bad reputation as a medium for story-telling. There’s only so much I can argue against that, but there are definite exceptions and Fallout 3 is one of them.

It’s a world, a huge world. The story is engrossing, but seeing a barren nuclear wasteland and getting to walk around is a haunting experience. Books can describe and movies can show, but only games let you explore. Running out of ammo in the middle of nowhere is frightening and dramatic. I can’t help, but come up with story ideas. Why is this school infested with raiders? Why are all these cars on fire? How many people have wandered into this wasteland and ran out of supplies? Could I start a new village here?

As a medium for ideas, computers games probably aren’t for everyone, and I can’t imagine anyone who already plays particularly needs an excuse to get or avoid Fallout 3, but if everything I write in the next few weeks has a dystopian bent, you’ll know why.

As I was going through my bookmarks, looking for things that I thought might be useful tools for writers, and I came across the notes I had scribbled down after reading The Cimarron Review. Published quarterly out of Oklahoma State University , each issue is approximately one hundred pages and features three or four short stories and about thirty or so poems. While a few stories have a slight supernatural or eerie bent, The Cimarron Review is mostly filled with stories of cultural exploration, conflicts with society, and “slice of life” vignettes. While my interests tend to lie more towards genre fiction, I’ve found it to be an excellent source of ideas. The Review also allows short story and poem submissions!

Subscription Information can be found here.

Everyone knows about Project Gutenberg, right?

No?

You should. Project Gutenberg is the oldest digital in existence…and has over 25,000 free books available. It’s mostly books that have fallen into public domain, but that happens to include authors such as Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, James Joyce, Daniel Defoe, and Mark Twain. If you enjoy e-books there’s no better place to get a hold of some free classics. I’m currently working on King Lear by Shakespeare. Enjoy!

Before there was Servusamanu there was…well a lot of things, but also The Secrets!

The Secrets is both a few seasons worth of (free!) podcasts and a series of pdfs dedicated to becoming a better writer, getting published, and, perhaps most importantly, having a career as an author. Both are written and presented by Michael A. Stackpole, perhaps best known for his Star Wars novels. Personal instruction from a highly regarded and highly successful author is usually hard to come by, The Secrets is easily the single most complete resource I’ve found for all aspects of writing from designing worlds, creating characters, pacing a novel, getting it edited, finding a publisher, negotiating the world of agents, and having a…career…doing the whole process over. The podcasts do tend towards fantasy and science fiction writing (No surprise there), but I’ve found the advice invaluable even outside of so-called genre fiction.

As someone interested in the future of writing and reading, Stackpole’s opinions on trends in the industry are especially noteworthy. I intend to post in the future on using technology like facebook/craigslist/twitter/ipods-iphones-Kindles as a means of delivering writing. In the mean time I suggest listening to the fifth series of podcasts: on the future of publishing .

Recently I’ve taken to exploring micro-fiction, defined by me, as complete stories less than 1000 words. I was initially skeptical about either writing or reading anything of that length. Writing fiction that short has certainly been very difficult. You really have to narrow down your focus on exactly what you want to say, exactly what character you want to portrait, and exactly what story you want to tell.

Entirely separate, I created a twitter account. Twitter is a social news and messaging sites. You can update it (create twits) over email or text message. People who subscribe to your twitter get these messages instantly. It’s been used in the past for on-the-spot reporting, especially of tech conferences and political events.

It wasn’t long before I considering combining this ‘new’ type of fiction with this new technology.

However, the average twitter message is less than twenty words. Even with a succession of twits, fiction would be limited to maybe 100 words. I initially wrote off twitter as a new and novel means of delivering stories, but the idea remains intriguing. It would certainly be a good way of enticing readers with a first paragraph or summary, but I feel there may still be a use for it as the means of delivering complete stories, it just remains to be seen what enterprising author can manage to write entertaining vignettes of that length.

I currently have a twitter name, but no stories to release. I’m trying to drum up some discussion of the idea though. I may write something soon. I’ll make sure to post the relevant information whenever that project (one of ever so many) comes to fruition. In the mean time, what are everyone’s thoughts on this?

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=twitter&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Respectful Insolence is a running compendium of science and history (and more!) written by one of my favorite online writers, Orak. Orak is the nom de plume of the resident insolence hurler, a research oncologist who writes on sketchy medicine, holocaust denial, Dr. Who, and a host of science topics all with a careful spattering of snarky wit and reasoned skepticism. I’ve slowly increased my blogroll to encompass as many topics as possible (for ideas as well as knowledge), but I also owe Respectful Insolence a more personal shout-out since it was one of my early inspirations to become a ‘blog writer,’ if I indeed have any claim to that title. It’s well worth reading.

For an example of a relatively recent, science-oriented article that I particular enjoyed: Drug Testing!