Thursdays Are Right Out

Writing on Thursday is not working for me either.  I volunteered to help coach the local High School Rugby club as it is just getting started.  That's all my "free" time on Thursday.

Penoan flag

I'm going to make this a quick post, but I wanted to introduce someone you our blogging community.  Her name is Zoso (I hope she forgives me, I think her last name is Volvóodis-Lagenam Iratus-Phteris, but I could be wrong).  She lives in Chicago, but she emigrated from a small country called Penoa to the USA.  I would like her to share some of her native country's culture and history through interviews in the coming weeks.

She will likely say that she actually emigrated to the US from Canada.  In point of fact, her mother was expecting as they were coming from Penoa to America.  She went into labor when they had a layover in Canada.  They only stayed 24 hours before continuing on to the States, however Zoso maintains a duel citizenship, a fierce love of Hockey and all thing Canadian.

When I can get hold of her I will interview her and share her answers here.

Day 9 – Seekretya – Language

This is going to be quite difficult because there are so many races from so many backgrounds, AND I'm not at all happy about my spelling convention and want to change it, but I've already changed it several times.

I think I'm going to change the spelling to whatever I feel like today, whatever looks and sounds right to me. I know that some things have been published already on my blog as other spellings, but I'm just going to have to live with that and codify my spelling in my own notes and stick to that from this day forth. I'm going to have to leave the way you pronounce it to your own preferences.

The exercise as described in 30 Days of World Building says to listen to sounds and then apply those sounds to the language you want to use. Well, there are just too many. What I'll do is think of the character of the races and ethno-groups and then use the English translations I think they would use. Also I'll use words from the places in the real world they're supposed to be from. For instance Trolls from Russia would name things with Russian words.

I did say there would be a common magical language. Based on the exercise I have to figure out exactly what the magic system is before I can do that. I won't know the feel of the magic until I know the system and I won't know the feel of the language until then either. What I do know is that magic is controlled and mostly generated by Dragons, so I think, as a first pass that the language would be lizardy, mysterous and carnivorous. There will be gravelly sounds, like roars too.

Common D, K, DR, KR, S, SM, SH, CH, J, Z, TH, G, KW, KS, F, V and R.

Very few P, T, L, Y, lone M, N, H, W.

Low, short vowels are more common than long high vowels (more O, OU, U, AU, AH; less EE, AE, IE)

Back to that spelling convention. I want to keep some of the rules I started. No C, Y is only a consonant, single vowels are always the short version of themselves. E at the end of words is a schwa, not silent and making the preceding vowel long. In fact there are no silent letters. Consonants will not be doubled unless they should be double pronounced (eg Graettrols should be pronounced like Great Trolls). Any word should be able to be sounded out.

What Makes an Expert?

My Dad used to always say, “This is what an expert is: ex is the unknown factor and a spert is a drip under pressure.”

I’ve been doing research to improve this blog and I’ve been looking at other people’s blogs. They all seem to know so much.

I give a run down on the topics I put on the poll to see how I stack up as an “expert” in these topics:


· WRITING FICTION - While I have been studying this topic more fervently in the last twenty years than any other (except maybe Excel) I hesitate to claim to be an expert since I have made a grand total of $10 on my writing. It’s all about the art though, right.

· DEPLOYMENT – I am an expert on Illinois Army National Guard Deployment to Afghanistan 2004-2005. That is a fairly limited topic (understatement). I don’t know how many people would really be interested or how many articles I could really get out of that. However I am currently the Family Readiness Group leader for the 108th Sustainment Brigade who are being deployed to Iraq soon. I will have a pretty good insight to what those soldiers and their families are going through.

· RUGBY - I do consider myself to be one of the most knowledgeable people that I know in this topic. I could easily become THE font of knowledge about the subject in the Chicago Area Rugby Football Union (CARFU), but first I want to watch the DVDs I have of the recent RWC. I want to watch them as if they are live and I don’t want the end to be spoiled. Give me a couple of months and I am right there.

· SCOUTING - I am an Eagle Scout and I was a District Executive for four years in the Chicago Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. I was an active scouter from age eight until age twenty eight. Trouble is, I’ve been out of the BSA all those years. I’ve been involved with the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) for the past six years, but I’m no expert there.

· ANTHROPOLOGY - I thought, “I have a BA in Anthropology, maybe I can write about Anthropology” but there are some really intense Anthropology and Archaeology blogs out there, and some of them are amateurs. I don’t know if I could add anything useful.

Then I remembered that part of the reason I wanted to study Anthropology is because I wanted to be an expert on Native Americans for our Boy Scout troop. I wanted to make the costumes we used in ceremonies and the actions of the actors more authentic. But I recently found out that there is already a blog about Scouting and Native Americans. It may be all anyone needs on the subject. Maybe I’m a little too late on this topic.

· CONCULTURES AND CONLANGS – ConCultures means Constructed Cultures. These are made up cultures and peoples. They are a combination of anthropology and fiction and I feel I have at least a good background in both of these. ConLang means Constructed Languages. I wrote a previous post on this subject. It goes hand in hand with ConCultures, but I have had less training in linguistics.

· MICROSOFT EXCEL. This wasn’t one of the choices in the poll, but I am definitely at expert level on Excel. In fact I would go so far as to say, if there is anyone out there reading this that is having a problem with Excel they can send me an email at innerprop@sbcglobal.net and I will help them.


So I guess I do have some expertise in some subjects. I’ve been thinking of taking the approach of the original Mickey Mouse Club and have a different theme each day. The MMC had the following schedule:

· Monday is Fun with Music
· Tuesday is Guest Star Day
· Wednesday is Anything Can Happen Day
· Thursday is Circus
· Friday is Talent Round-up

I could go with:

· Monday is Fiction Day
· Tuesday is Guest Star Day
· Wednesday is Anything Can Happen Day
· Thursday is Rugby Day
· Friday is ConCulture Day.

What do you think?

ConCulture Concepts

This is a random Cthulhu image that I grabbed. I meant to use it on the 23rd of October, but I forgot that day. It is from a 2005 silent film about Cthulhu. I haven't seen the film, but I'd like to.

ConCulture is constructed culture, or a culture that is made up. Some folks do this as just a fun exercise. JRR Tolkien did a lot of his elf stuff just for his own amusement. I do find conculture stuff fun, but like Tolkien I'd like to use it in fiction.


Here are some ConCulture concepts I'd like to explore in my writing:

1. An aquatic based hobbitesque race. Their political system would be based on levels of waterways (creeks are subordinate to streams are subordinate to rivers etc.)

2. Magic based on calendar cycles. Days and times would be magical rather than people, things, or places. It is similar to Mesoamerican cultures concepts.

3. Slavery for convicted felons

4. Military based aristocracy. The culture's form of warfare would have to be heavily logistical in nature. I envision a culture that bases its citizenship on military service and military success on expansion of the empire. A successful soldier would have to be an effective leader, administrator, planner, diplomat and logistician. Before anyone could run for office (if it is democratic in nature) they would first have had to be a military governor or mayor in a conquered territory.