how many miles?

I'm having one of those daydream-interspersed evenings, full of images that make excellent private Mary Sue moments, but are less useful when it comes to constructive writing. I was looking at Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret just now to find a quote (the Babylon poem, for the curious) and it reminded me just how much I enjoyed it, but also just how good a writer she is. I found myself rereading Nick's description of the journey to Babylon. It succeeds on so many levels -- as a teenager describing a very difficult physical journey, as a non-initiate trying to describe things he passes which he doesn't recognise but which someone with occult education might be able to infer something about, and as a normal human being touching the abnormal, or the supernormal, or the supernatural.

Writing different characters and different perspectives; I know that the writer has everyone inside her brain. That's what writers do. However, sometimes the characters have more of an impact than expected, because once you've actually understood their point of view, your own conceptual view of things may have changed. Being able to understand doesn't always mean that your understanding changes, but sometimes it does. Yes, this is right/wrong/deserving death/deserving forgiveness/understandable/unforgivable/taboo/perfectly natural. And the writer can hardly complain, because she wanted the extra understanding, didn't she?

Perhaps we just shouldn't allow characters into our minds. The activity may be too dangerous for amateurs.

et maintenant we drinkez bitter wine

Irreverent seems to be the watchword for tonight. I was rereading the 666 series of French BDs -- graphic novels, that is -- by Froideval and Tacito, and snickering at the appropriate moments. (Yes, Beth, those books, featuring their version of Lilith in all her naked glory.)

. . . okay, I was going to write an entry of mind-shattering brilliance, really I was. It would have said things that nobody had said before, or at least not as concisely, not as wittily, and not as delicately. It would have been a marvel for the ages.

Instead I feel compelled to quote this, from the Exalted forums on the White Wolf rpg site. The person making this entry, ikselam, has been asked why one should play Exalted.

---

This is a game where you cut through 500 ninjas and duel with the villain for a day and a night to save the entire world, and then spend a week weeping at the needless slaughter.

This is a game where when you come up to your Storyteller and say, "My character was raised by wolves," he'll say "Hmm, I dunno if the wolf thing is really appropriate. I think you need to jazz it up a little. How about she was raised by a lost tribe of mystical lizardmen who are the only surviving remnants of a once-great reptile civilization?"

This is a game where characters fight with golden swords the size of small surfboards, and the size of your dice pool is directly impacted by how interestingly you describe your actions.

Owning Exalted will whiten your teeth, increase your car's fuel economy, improve your love life, speed up your internet connection, and erase centuries of negative karma. Purchasing the book will actually make you a better person.

---

I mean, what more needs to be said?