One of the funny things about moving (well, OK, it’s not funny, but you take your fun where you can get it) is the drastic change in rhythms of life. On the one hand, it’s inevitable: the H and I haven’t moved far, but we’re completely changed our commute time, and our commute schedule (we take half as much time, and the trains are much more regular, but tend to be jam-packed in the evening). On the other… it’s a funny thing to see the differences between the suburbs and downtown Paris: we’ve only moved 20-30km, but the “culture”, for want of a better word, is already radically different. For starters, the timetables are very different: things open up early in the suburbs, but also close very early; and I used to have to come home around 6:30pm, because the shops would be closed if I got there later! By contrast, everything is open late in Paris: our butcher and baker close at 8:00pm, the local supermarket at 10:00pm, and we even have an emergency shop that’s open until midnight every day! However, the laws on having the obligatory day of rest are stricter in Paris, which means that very few shops are open on Sunday: the other day, the H and I wanted some DIY supplies, and the closest open shop which had them was in La Défense, technically outside Paris (and bloody far, too).
All of this means… well, people tend to arrive late at work, and to leave late, and I tend to do the same (at the moment, I’m not entirely succeeding because I keep having various errands). Leaving late also means you miss the rush in the metro; and boy, that’s something that I can gladly do without.
And the sum total of this is, of course, that I’m struggling to reorganise. I used to have a day that started early and finished early, leaving me time to write in the evenings. Now my days start later, and also finish later, and I’m still doing the shopping at that point… I also used to take an all-but-empty bus, which was handy for typing out words; but now I take a packed metro where all I can do is read ebooks (you wouldn’t believe it, but it actually takes space to turn the pages of a hardback or a paperback). I don’t like it, but it looks likely that I’d shift some of the writing time towards morning, in order to have some spare time to spend with the H come evening. Something to think about, at any rate.

(I’m not complaining, btw. Pretty sure things are going to work out, but right now I need a little breathing space to think on my process and how best to kickstart it back into shape)

What about you? If you’ve had any moves, have you experienced rhythm shifts, and how have you adapted to them?

So, here’s the bonus question: our mah-jong game (a gift from my grandma, bought in Vietnam) came with 16 extra tiles. We have 152 normal tiles (4 copies of the three sets+dragons+winds, and 4 seasons and 4 flowers). From googling things up on the next, we think that the extra tiles we can’t identify are Vietnamese jokers (this site and this site both describe the Vietnamese mah jong variant as having 16 jokers, which can replace a variety of tiles, from the “Emperor” who can replace pretty much anything, to the “Dragon Lady” who can replace any dragon, and so on). However, to start with, those two websites don’t agree on which tile is which! Also, neither of them has the full set of our tiles…

On the off-chance that someone would know either Vietnamese mahjong, or how to read Chinese characters–do those tiles below mean anything to you? (bear in mind it’s a Vietnamese mah jong game, so the Chinese characters are approximative, to say the least…)

And bonus question: anyone have the Vietnamese rules of the game? Sloperama mentions that there are only 19 ways of “going out”, which should correspond to the special hands in Classical Chinese mah jong, but the Classical Chinese rules I can find on the net pretty much fail at having 19 special hands…

ETA: following the find of a Vietnamese set of rules (in Vietnamese *sob*) I am pretty reasonably sure that the two topmost ranks are as follows, from left to right:
Blue: tile which replaces any tile, tile which replaces circles, tile which replaces bamboos, tile which replaces cracks
Red: tile which replaces any ordinary tile (bamboo, circles, cracks), “Great Flower’ aka tile which replaces any flower, tile which replaces any Dragon, tile which replaces any Wind
I have no idea of their names in English.

-brought up more boxes! More specifically, the extra books–the shelves are currently 80% filled, and I’m staring in mounting dread at all four boxes in the living room. Also, I seem to have lost a few books, which is annoying when they’re, say, #12 in a series of 18 (the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters, to be more specific). On the plus side, I found my much-cherished copy of Elizabeth Bear’s New Amsterdam, and all my bandes dessinées (don’t have many of them, but I cling to them…).

-spent a nice afternoon/evening with friends doing some tabletop RPG, and then some mah-jong. Darn, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy mah-jong. One day, we’re going to be proficient enough to stop playing with the “simplified rules” (ie, no taking into account of special hands, and no bonuses. Counting a hand with the various points and doubling systems is already troublesome enough when we play about once a year, and never with the same people each time…). Also, one day, we’re going to figure out what the extra tiles in our game mean, ie how to use Vietnamese jokers…

-edited the heck out of the novella. Temp title is “On a Red Station, As If Within A Dream”, which sucks (mostly because there is absolutely no connection whatsoever. Well, OK. It is a red station in several respects, but the dream aspect? Not so much. Lobbed it off to H for his opinion while I tackle next project’s research.

Snippet:

Linh had been on Prosper Station for less than two hours before her disguise was pierced. She didn’t actually see the two men in station livery enter the room she was in—it was, in any case, far too large, filled from end to end with the makeshift houses erected to receive the mass of refugees aboard Prosper. But she was magistrate, fitted with enough mods to notice even the smallest discrepancies; and so she heard their passage: the hush that passed over the noise of the crowd, leaving only the crackling sound of maize frying in the cooking units—a wave of silence, steadily headed for her.

She’d expected this, but wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or anxious. Try as she might, her identity couldn’t be hidden–not once her name had been added to the rosters of the Temple of Literature on the First Planet.

The checklist includes a massive banquet scene, all the tropical fruit I could cram into 140 pages (longan, pitaya aka dragon fruit, lychees, coconuts, pineapple ), quotes from Chinese classics such as Three Kingdoms and (in a very meta fashion) Dream of Red Mansions, bad Vietnamo-Chinese poetry (I wrote it myself, which explains a lot of things…). Also, it has an entire scene amongst giant vats of fish sauce. Pure win, I tell you

I was reading this fascinating article by Jason Sanford over at SF signal, on military SF. Not that I’m much fascinated by military SF, I admit, but the article is fascinating for another thing: it’s the use of the word “political” to refer to something that, for me, has nothing to do with politics (in this case, whether or not to approve of war). I’ve seen it before, to refer to diverse other things, such as people’s positions on QUILTBAG relationships, abortion, women’s rights… The thing is, for me, those are not political problems. My position on war and abortion isn’t politics: it’s a matter of pure ethics, of how I put things in the context of my personal morals, rather than where my chosen political party stands on the issue (in fact, if anything, it would be a matter of where my religion stands on the issue).
Thing is… in France, parties don’t define themselves by this kind of position. Our left wing is slightly more pro-abortion and pro gay rights, for instance, but it’s far from their main campaign argument–so far that I don’t particularly associate a particular party with a particular moral stance [1].
This would seem to be a purely US use, and I’m curious–if you’re a USian and reading this blog, mind explaining to me why “political” for this kind of subject? Is “ethics” banned from public discourse, and I somehow missed the memo?

ETA: I stand corrected. Patrick Samphire and K.S. Augustin pointed out to me that this was also a UK and Aus usage. I’d not seen it in UK/Aus blog posts, and I leapt to conclusions regarding its use a tad too fast.

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[1] Amusingly, I tend to define the French left wing and the right wing in terms of where they stand with relation to wealth: the left wing wants to tax the rich to death, the right wing wants to over-favour them. (and yes, this tells you everything you need to know about my politics vs my cynicism)

So, tonight I was rereading the French translation of Harbinger and finishing up with a few troublesome notes. Here’s a sample scene from that endeavour: I’m sitting in the sofa with the French translation on my knees, and going through my own notes. From time to time, I’ll ask a question to my husband that goes something like this:

Me: “Here, listen to this. Do you think there’s something wrong with it?”
The H, frowning: “Er. No. Quite honestly no. It’s just you trying to apply English grammar to the text.”
Me: “What about this? Don’t you think it’s too modern for the time period?”
The H, still frowning: “Hum… Probably.”
Me: “What would you replace it with? I’m coming up blank…”
[The H rolls his eyes upwards, but agrees to brainstorm suggestions with me for a bit]

And this, right here, is why I would make such a bad translator from English to French…

(let me reassure you that it’s nowhere as catastrophic as it seems, and that I manage most of the edits on my own, especially the translations of technical terms my wonderful translator–Laurent Philibert-Caillat–wasn’t entirely sure on. But about a fourth to a fifth of my edits have to go through my husband, to make sure that I’m not inserting random anglicisms into the text…)

In other news, the H forcibly put me in front of my computer Saturday morning, and insisted that I write something and stop moping on the internet. Whad’ya know, it actually worked. I broke 20k on the novella today–hit the first climax scene and the start of the spiral towards the end.
(one of the many, many reasons I’m happy to be married to the H)

…into a new neighbourhood:
-find two local bakeries: the one that makes the best bread (if necessary, split between the one that makes the best baguettes and the one that makes the best loaves); and the one that doesn’t make the best bread, but is open on Sundays.
-find the local Asian (Vietnamese/Chinese) takeaway (which has the advantage of being open 7/7). Not difficult, as there are three of them within a 2-minute walk.
-find the local pizza delivery place, preferably one open late at night and on Sundays. Not as easy as the Asian takeaway; we finally found a kebab place that also doubles as a pizzeria, and makes their own dough by hand. Yummy. Drawback is over-reliance on eggplants (I love eggplants to bits, but the H is less obliging).
-find the nearest Asian (ie Vietnamese) food-store. Normally, this would be Chinatown, but we’re in luck, as there’s a small grocery store that carries a handful of basic supplies. Already bought some chả lựa and spring onions
-find the nearest open-air market. Theoretically done, but we haven’t been yet.
-find a cheesemonger, a fishmonger, and a butcher. Got the cheesemonger, still working on the other two.
(and yes, it’s all food. I can’t see why there’s a problem there…)

Let’s see…
Kitchen: almost done. Dishwasher working. Rice cooker reinstalled. Broken cupboard was fixed this morning.
Living room: furniture almost in their final locations, except for my desk which will possibly move around a bit. Not yet unpacked: my computer, misc. papers, and books.
Bedroom: my clothes unpacked and sorted. The H’s are still in boxes.
Bathroom: most of the stuff is elsewhere, because the cupboard isn’t installed yet. But the washing machine is working (we had a bit of a fright because it wouldn’t restart–turns out it was a plugged filter).

Missing: a dresser for holding the excess dishware and cutlery. Sorting out the duplicate materials in the cellar.

All in all, a most profitable weekend

Oh, and I did manage to finish editing Foreign Ghosts, as well as tentatively plotting two sequels, Unwelcome Spirits and Revered Ancestors. One thing down, several billions to go…

The move went well, even though the piano didn’t make it (the movers hadn’t foreseen the lift wouldn’t be large enough, and it takes special people to move a fragile piano upstairs). The H is a little sad, but normally we should have it on Monday.

Our flat has been completely done over, and it’s very pretty (parquet floor, nice kitchen with all-new appliances, and the suppression of a wall that cost us space in the living room).

I’m also close to the new job (about half an hour, as opposed to the hour I used to commute before), which definitely feels nice.

Computer’s still in storage, so I’m typing this from the small laptop–and, of course, we’re in a room full of boxes (they’re winning, trust me). And yeah, writing has been pretty much not happening in this corner of the woods…

And our move has been under the sign of Doctor Who: we finished up the Tennant specials during the packing of boxes (nothing extraordinary, though I can’t quite understand the bile against them. They’re pretty average episodes with nothing special, except perhaps “Waters of Mars”, and “The End of Time”, which doesn’t have a fantastic scenario, but is worth it just for Timothy Dalton as a Time Lord ). And our new, mini living room setup was christened with the first few Matt Smith specials (so far, I like Smith more than Tennant, and I have to say “The Eleventh Hour” was a terrific ep).

Now, if only we could have a TARDIS to move things around…

6600 words total. It’s mostly going very fast because I’m combining existing sections rather than writing them from scratch.
(also, yes, if I keep this up, I should exceed my target of 30k by a large margin–prov. total is in the high 40ies. However, I probably have tons of things to prune from the worldbuilding, which should help)

To tide you over: Gareth L. Powell has just released his SF novel The Recollection with Solaris:

(and if that cover doesn’t convince you to check out the book, try this handy summary over at the Solaris website)

The blurb is bittersweet, though, and reminds me that today is the day of Colin Harvey’s funeral–my thoughts go out to his family and friends. Still angry, and very sad at the hole he leaves behind him.

Isn’t it pretty?

(Chinese print purchased in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Sorry about the wonkiness on the edges, I had to weigh the scrolls down with something, so I basically cropped the picture to get an unobstructed view… I love the little house perilously perched atop the mountains–not very visible in the small version, but much better in the large one)