The Skellingcorner

[writingwithcolor]

nikkikan asked:

Hello, I'm writing a fantasy piece in which a traveler from a Tibetan-coded nation describes their adventures as a storyteller years later. In this, they describe people from a Scandanavian-coded nation. I'm looking for a way to describe 'western' (non-epicanthic, bi-lidded) eyes but every single resource I've found starts with that as the norm to compare 'asian' (epicanthic fold, monolid eyes) against. Do you have any advice?

Asian Person (Tibetan) Describing a White Outsider

Honestly, why focus on the eyes? If you look up ancient Chinese descriptions of meeting Marco Polo, they’re more focused on his hair and skin. The original term “red skin” was to refer to white people, because Asians found the colour so strange.

Just because white people are so into describing one feature of an ethnic group, doesn’t mean the ethnic group is so into that same feature on white people. Every group focuses on different things based on their own reference, and from preexisting literature, we know that the Chinese didn’t focus so much on eyes.

As is the mantra on WWC: read literature from the people who came up with this stuff. If you look up trade descriptions from China and Tibet, you’re bound to find that yes, they traded with white people, and they had their own focus of what’s notable and not. They also had their own descriptions. Use them, and you’ll gain more authenticity in your work!

— WWC

P.S. We don’t suggest you use red skin in modern literature, seeing as that meaning has changed; referring to the redness of their skin doesn’t have to be a slur for another group.

[its-a-writer-thing]

Insider Self-Publishing Tips That Often Fall Between the Cracks

[its-a-writer-thing]

There’s plenty said about self-publishing and the right way to do it. Should you choose a small press or use print-on-demand via Amazon CreateSpace? What sites should you advertise through? These are the big questions.

However, there are some insider secrets that fall between the cracks; the lessons that only trial and error can teach you. These eventually add up to a successful and smooth publishing experience – or, without them, a clunky and disappointing one.

Here are some quick tips about cover creation, editing, marketing, and more from self-published author Sidonie Dao Vu, as well as from myself as a professional editor who’s helped countless eBooks to the finish line.

Cover Creation:

• Contact a freelancer. You may be talented with Photoshop, but the professionals offer something specific: their experience. You may be biased as the author, with a specific vision for the cover, but a professional knows the trends in the market and has experience in what imagery, colors, font, and placement of both is the most effective when attracting your target audience.
  
• When Picking a Freelancer: Browse their portfolio and check out how successful the books they’ve done covers for have been. Also, be sure to ask for ideas; a talented professional will be a creative one, whereas lesser professionals will be looking to do a fast, cheap job.  
  
• How to Get Your Cover. Send them a brief blurb or chapter of the book, so they can gear the cover to fit the story’s tone. Most importantly, tell them your target audience so they can use their marketing skills.
  

Marketing:

• Get Reviews, Reviews, Reviews. Buy reviews, ask friends for reviews, give out free copies in exchange for reviews. However: stress how necessary an honest and unbiased review is, because if you get all raving reviews with five stars, not only will Amazon remove the reviews, believing them false, but readers won’t believe those that stay.  
  
• Always Drive Traffic to Your Site: You may think driving people to your Amazon page is enough, but it’s not; you need a website. This will serve as the directory for all readers and, if you get them on a subscription list, keeps them updated about future works or editions. Also, people are more likely to try out an author with a website, because it shows they’re committed to their work. They didn’t key smash and then publish.
  
• Do Promotions. People like free stuff, and readers love free books. Sidonie Dao Vu is holding a giveaway of “The Infamous Infatuation” until May 1^st, where three random winners will get a free copy of the book. Readers are willing to give something a try, and later fall in love with it, if there’s no risk and only gain – and that’s the beauty of a giveaway. It gets your name out there, gets your work into the hands of new readers, and hopefully can earn you more reviews.
  

Editing:

• Get a Professional Editor. You can have a fantastic story, but if it’s riddled with typos, not only will it be unpleasing to the eye, it’ll distract from an otherwise good story. Even if you’ve had friends go over it, even if this is your 19^th draft – get a professional. It’s the lynch-pin in a successful self-published story.
  
• Get a Copy Editor Specifically. Proofreading is great, and absolutely necessary, but you definitely want to invest in a solid copy editor. Not only will they be more rigorous on your book, pointing out errors and making suggestions they would have overlooked as “not my job” before (because it’s not), but copy editing takes more work and skill. Anyone thinks they can check for grammar and spelling, but a copy editor knows the effort and time their job takes, making it something amateurs rarely sign up for. This weeds out the bad professionals.
  
• When Interviewing Potential Editors, Get Samples. A good editor will expect to be paid for these samples, but it’s worth your while. Give them the first chapter and see how well they do. It’s better than paying full price for something that disappoints you in the end. Also, many editors will do up samples for significantly less than they will the whole book, so it’s a cost-effective tactic to get quality work.  
  

These insider secrets for self-publishing may be simple. So simple that many authors think they can skate past them. However, in all actuality, having these small bases covered is the foundation that supports a successful publishing effort.

Before you get started planning your own self-publishing strategy, if you enjoy celebrity-watching, reality TV, and risqué social behavior, help out a fellow self-published author and treat yourself by checking out “The Infamous Infatuation” giveaway – limited time only, ending May 1^st just before midnight.  

Happy writing!

[alexreadsboooks]

Day 4 of #grimdragon is Star Wars Day
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Happy Star Wars Day everyone! For today I have this gem from my mum’s library, the novelisation of A New Hope from back when the movie was released.
*
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#bookstagram #bookish #booklover #bookworm #booklr #books #bibliophile #maybookchallenge #bookstagrammer #booklove #booksofinstagram #instabook #read #reading #reader #buch #bücher #lesen #bookstagramfeature  #bookphotography #leser #igbooks #bookishallure #jamestrevinorepost

[sweetlittlevampire]

Alright, so it looks like I owe you an internship update - I felt too sick to type yesterday evening, so I went straight to bed and ignored my laptop, lo.

So that press conference I had to attend on my own…was not at all as scary as I thought it would be (apparently they never are, but I always get really really nervous when it comes to those kinds of things). The Minister I talked to does have quite the handshake though (ouch). I actually brought up the courage to stick my microphone into his face and asked a question completely unrelated to the topic, but I was apparentlx nice enough, because he was willing to answer.

Cutting the audiofile went soothly, and I did write a news report for it. Which was broadcast in the evening news, along with the audio excerpt I chose and cut. I was a bit sad I didn´t get to speak it, but they usually have one speaker for the whole twelve minutes session of evening news - and they´re broadcast live, not pre.recorded, so I guess that´s fine.

Today I felt utterly sick, just like yesterday evening - I blame it on the salmon oelette I had for lunch yesterday. But perhaps it was also due to y exaggerated nervousness…who knows? Spent the day at the office typing up more reports.

[pumpkinspiceandeverythingspooky]

[scr33ncaps]

The Love Witch - Anna Biller (2016)

[writingwithcolor]

General PSA’s

[shiraglassman]

Here’s some stuff a lot of people seem to not know unless they have personal experience with it:

-Islam is not the only religion with a hair covering tradition

-There are lots of Muslims who are not Arabs, including a huge population of Black Muslims that white non-Muslims seem to forget about a lot. There are also Arabs who are not Muslim.

-Nazi Germany was not the beginning and end of anti-semitism or even anti-semitic violence.

-Not all antisemitism was solely religious persecution; sometimes it has a racial element. Sometimes it does not. There are nuances, and converting would not have saved people from the Nazis unless it was literally a few generations back.

-Cats CANNOT eat onions and garlic. If they ingest either of these they will throw up and you will have to take them to the pet ER or they could die from their blood cells literally bursting. Once there, they’ll be fed activated charcoal and will hopefully be fine.

[its-a-writer-thing]

[did-you-kno]

Medieval castle stairs were often built to ascend in narrow, clockwise spirals so right-handed castle defenders could use their swords more easily. This design put those on the way up at a disadvantage (unless they were left-handed). The steps were also uneven to give defenders the advantage of anticipating each step’s size while attackers tripped over them. Source Source 2 Source 3

[severalowls]

Not really the best illustration since it totally negates the effect by having a wide open space for those ascending. Castle tower staircases tended to look like this:

Extremely tight quarters, with a central supporting pillar that is very, very thoroughly in the way of your right arm.

Wider, less steep designs tend to come later once castles moved away from being fortresses to simply noble family homes with the advent of gunpowder.

[mumblytron]

Oh! Pre-gunpowder military tactics are my jam! I don’t know why, but this is one of my favorite little details about defensive fortifications, because the majority handedness of attackers isn’t usually something you think about when studying historical wars. But strategically-placed walls were used basically worldwide as a strategy to secure gates and passages against advancing attackers, because most of the world’s population is right-handed (and has been since the Stone Age).

Pre-Columbian towns near the Mississippi and on the East coast did this too. They usually surrounded their towns with palisades, and they would build the entrance to the palisade wall in a zigzag – always with the wall to the right as you entered, to hinder attackers and give an advantage to the defender. Here’s some gates with some examples of what I’m talking about:

Notice that, with the exception of the last four (which are instead designed to congregate the attackers in a space so they can be picked off by archers, either in bastions or on the walls themselves) and the screened gate (which, in addition to being baffled, also forces the attackers to defend their flank) all of these gates are designed with central architectural idea that it’s really hard to kill someone with a wall in your way.

In every culture in the world, someone thought to themselves, “Hey it’s hard to swing a weapon with a wall on your right-hand side,” and then specifically built fortifications so that the attackers would always have the wall on their right. And I think that’s really neat.

[his-quietus-make]

Ooh, ooh, also: Bodiam Castle in Sussex used to have a right-angled bridge so any attacking forces would be exposed to archery fire from the north-west tower on their right side (ie: sword in the right hand, shield on the useless left side):

[petermorwood]

These tactics worked so well for so long because until quite recently lefties got short shrift and had it trained (if they were lucky) or beaten out of them.

Use of sword and shield is a classic demonstration of how right-handedness predominated. There’s historical mention of left-handed swordsmen (gladiators and Vikings), and what a problem they were for their opponents, but that only applies to single combat.

A left-handed hoplite or housecarl simply couldn’t fight as part of a phalanx or shield wall, since the shields were a mutual defence (the right side of the shield covered its owner’s left side, its left side covered the right side of his neighbour to the left, and so on down the line) and wearing one on the wrong arm threw the whole tactic out of whack.

Jousting, whether with or without an Italian-style tilt barrier, was run shield-side to shield-side with the lance at a slant (except for the Scharfrennen, a highly specialised style that’s AFAIK unique.) Consequently left-handed knights were physically unable to joust.

There’s a creditable theory (I first read it in “A Knight and His Horse”, © Ewart Oakeshott 1962, 1998 and many other places since) that a knight’s “destrier” horse - from dexter, “right” - was trained to lead with his right forefoot so that any instinctive swerve would be to the right, away from collision while letting the rider keep his shield between him and harm. (In flying, if a pilot hears “break!” with no other details, the default evasive direction is right.)

The construction of plate armour, whether specialised tournament kit or less elaborate battle gear, is noticeably “right-handed“ - so even if a wealthy knight had his built “left-handed” it would be a waste of time and money; he would still be a square peg in a world of round holes and none of the other kids would play with him.

Even after shields and full armour were no longer an essential part of military equipment, right-hand use was still enforced until quite recently, and to important people as well as ordinary ones - it happened to George VI, father of the present Queen of England. Most swords with complex hilts, such as swept-hilt rapiers and some styles of basket-hilt broadsword, are assymetrical and constructed for right handers. Here’s my schiavona…

It can be held left-handed, but using it with the proper thumb-ring grip, and getting maximum protection from the basket, is right-handed only. (More here.) Some historical examples of left-hand hilts do exist, but they’re rare, and fencing masters had the same “learn to use your right hand” bias as tourney organisers, teachers and almost everyone else. Right-handers were dextrous, but left-handers were sinister, etc., etc.

However, several predominantly left-handed families did turn their handedness into advantage, among them the Kerrs / Carrs, a notorious Reiver family along the England-Scotland Borders, by building their fortress staircases with a spiral the other way to the OP image.

This would seem to be a bad idea, since the attackers (coming upstairs) no longer have their right arms cramped against the centre pillar - however it worked in the Kerrs’ favour because they were used to this mirror-image of reality while nobody else was, and the defender retreating up the spiral had that pillar guarding his right side, while the attacker had to reach out around it…

For the most part Reiver swords weren’t elaborate swept-hilt rapiers but workmanlike basket-hilts. Some from Continental Europe have the handedness of my schiavona with thumb-rings and assymmetrical baskets, but the native “British Baskethilt” is a variant of the Highland claymore* and like it seems completely symmetrical, without even a thumb-ring, which gives equal protection to whichever hand is using it.

*I’m aware there are those who insist “claymore” refers only to two-handers, however the Gaelic term claidheamh-mòr - “big sword” - just refers to size, not to a specific type of sword in the way “schiavona” or “karabela” or even “katana” does.

While the two-hander was the biggest sword in common use it was the claidheamh-mòr; after it dropped out of fashion and the basket-hilt became the biggest sword in common use, that became the claidheamh-mòr.

When Highlanders in the 1745 Rebellion referred to their basket-hilts as claymores, they obviously gave no thought to the confusion they would create for later compilers of catalogues…

[chroniclesofrettek]

Also, muskets had their whole “Flint and steel and gunpowder” thing on the right side so if you tried firing it lefty you’d get a face full of fire. More recently, rifles eject their spent shell casings to the right, so if you’re a lefty you get some hot metal in your eye.

[writernotwaiting]

Ooooooohhhhhh this is so very cool and nerdy!

(Tags below: let me know if you want to be added to Tumblr’s nerdiest tag list.)

Keep reading

[abschaumno1]

[gunvolt]

im going to have a stroke

[prideling]

Instead try…

Person A: You know… the thing
Person B: The “thing”?
Person A: Yeah, the thing with the little-! *mutters under their breath* Como es que se llama esa mierda… THE FISHING ROD

[artykyn]

As someone with multiple bilingual friends where English is not the first language, may I present to you a list of actual incidents I have witnessed:

• Forgot a word in Spanish, while speaking Spanish to me, but remembered it in English. Became weirdly quiet as they seemed to lose their entire sense of identity.

• Used a literal translation of a Russian idiomatic expression while speaking English. He actually does this quite regularly, because he somehow genuinely forgets which idioms belong to which language. It usually takes a minute of everyone staring at him in confused silence before he says “….Ah….. that must be a Russian one then….”

• Had to count backwards for something. Could not count backwards in English. Counted backwards in French under her breath until she got to the number she needed, and then translated it into English.

• Meant to inform her (French) parents that bread in America is baked with a lot of preservatives. Her brain was still halfway in English Mode so she used the word “préservatifes.” Ended up shocking her parents with the knowledge that apparently, bread in America is full of condoms.

• Defined a slang term for me……. with another slang term. In the same language. Which I do not speak.

• Was talking to both me and his mother in English when his mother had to revert to Russian to ask him a question about a word. He said “I don’t know” and turned to me and asked “Is there an English equivalent for Нумизматический?” and it took him a solid minute to realize there was no way I would be able to answer that. Meanwhile his mom quietly chuckled behind his back.

• Said an expression in English but with Spanish grammar, which turned “How stressful!” into “What stressing!”

Bilingual characters are great but if you’re going to use a linguistic blunder, you have to really understand what they actually blunder over. And it’s usually 10x funnier than “Ooops it’s hard to switch back.”

[elodieunderglass]

I’m not bilingual but I read/edit/use science that comes to me in other languages.

The french word for “buffer” - as in, a solution that one might mention in a protocol - is “tampon.”

Do not mix these up in English

Just don’t

[heliophile-oxon]

So very much all of this. If you have to change channels, it ain’t gonna be “hi!” that you stumble over.

Also, if your character speaks a Romance language as their first language - they are more likely to use Latin-derived words in English, not less (and conversely more likely to stumble over the occasional word or expression of Anglo-Saxon origin. AND PHRASAL VERBS, which are clearly of the devil: take over, take in, take back, take up, take out …yeah, try making that make sense in a way that works predictively). Medical terminology comes high up this list; in effect the terms native English speakers think of as “simple” and the terms we think of as Difficult get swapped the other way round. Your character knows “clavicle” before they know “collarbone”; they know “scapula” before they know “shoulder-blade” and “patella” before they know “kneecap”.

And the kinds of mistakes made (if any) will be completely different depending on what your characters’ other language(s) is/are. Hooray!

[ilikesallydonovan]

I have been known to completely forget which language I’m speaking when I’m really really excited, though… And I write notes that randomly switch between languages.

Also, which words come to mind for everyday objects depends on my  surroundings - ask me in the UK what the German word for bin is and I’ll have to think long and hard because things that work like bins and look like bins are in that moment ‘bins’ and not ‘Abfalleimer’.

And another thing - my mind is pretty neatly organised into German topics, English topics, and ‘mixed’ topics. It takes me a lot longer to remember things that should be in the German category but unexpectedly happened in English than things that are in the ‘correct’ category of my mind.

[youhavereachedtheendofpie]

I learnt Russian in primary school, and even some years later I would sometimes switch to Cyrillic letters for no reason whatsoever and without noticing until I stumbled over orthography because the language I was writing in was still German or English. Sometimes it was just words, sometimes whole paragraphs, and often it would just be single letters.

[writerswritecompany]

Niccolò Machiavelli was born 3 May 1469 and died 21 June 1527

Nine Quotes

1. The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
2. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
3. There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.
4. Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.
5. Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.
6. Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.
7. For whoever believes that great advancement and new benefits make men forget old injuries is mistaken.
8. He who is highly esteemed is not easily conspired against.
9. Therefore the best fortress is to be found in the love of the people, for although you may have fortresses they will not save you if you are hated by the people.

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer. He is most most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory, The Prince, and republicanism, Discourses on Livy.

For Writers Write

[sweetlittlevampire]

Guys. Guys. GUYS.

They´re sending me to a press conference tomorrow. Politicians will be there.

I´ll have to go On. My. Own.

They want me to write a news report for the evening news about it. On. My. Own.

I AM TERRIFIED.

Originally posted by gameraboy

[weneeddiversebooks]

sudcc.syr.edu

An Introductory Guide to Disability Language and Empowerment

“The purpose of this language guide is to provide you with some information on the different types of language that are used frequently when communicating about disability.”