The Billion Year Backup System (working title)(Workshop & Comments thread)

[Buster's Uncle]

What you described is what we call a bush ax -shaped almost like a cross between a paddle and a flat shovel w/ an asymmetrical end/spike-that's-barely-a-hook, right?- handy for similar jobs if it's sharp enough, great for thicker bits that need a little chopping heft behind them, and I understand the exact same tool with a slightly longer handle, called a bill hook then, is a good tree limb pruning tool that goes way back and doubled, wielded by peasants pressed into service, as a good knight limb pruning weapon - the primal form of polearm that elaborated into pikes and halberds and such.  You should ask Vishniac about this - I betcha a Swiss soldier and military buff knows LOADS about all things polearm...

[Buster's Uncle]

The Wikipedia article calls it just a bill, or bill hook.



A bush ax, the one we have, anyway, has less than half that much hook to it, but otherwise, that's it pictured.

[Buster's Uncle]

An agricultural version, commonly known as either a brush-ax or bush-ax, is readily available in rural hardware and farm-supply stores in the United States today. It has a 4-foot-long (1.2 m) handle, and a 16-inch (41 cm) head. It is extremely useful for clearing undergrowth and unwanted hedgerows. Both the concave and convex edges may be sharpened edges, but spear-points and back-hooks are not available. Expertly used, the brush-ax can fell a 3-inch (7.6 cm) tree with a single blow. Inexpertly used, it can pose a grave danger of accidental maiming to those standing nearby.^{[citation needed]}

[Rusty Edge]

Yes. It was a blade like that attached to an axe handle. Mostly used it in fence rows.

I've been writing.  I've got most of it out of my head and into print.  I've started a word count.

[Rusty Edge]

It seems that now that I'm home again, there's always something which needs attention, until I reach a point where I'm trying to work on the story with closed eyelids, which leads to negative productivity.

It's easier to write than count in that mindset, and when we're talking bout Dads and lost kittens, I'm a little too sad to write.

My all day headache has lifted. Back to re-reading and re-writing. Someday I'll finish that word count.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm very close to finishing White Gold Wielder, and then I'll have to turn up World of Ptavvs and re-read for you...  Relic of Empire is in Tales of Known Space, isn't it?  Or Neutron Star?  I can lay hands on the latter instantly for sure, maybe the former - saw a couple of Niven collections last night...

[Rusty Edge]

Neutron Star is where I read Relic of the Empire, Neutron Star, and The Handicapped last. I need to get back to reading that Man-Kzin story, but I've been in a gaming rather than reading mode.

 Strangely, it's the game Cookie Cats, a jewel-type game featuring singing cartoon cats, which have a way of cheering me up. That and the tournaments against other players capture my competitive spirit. There's a link on my face book.

I was happy with what I got done last night. The Bandersnatch doesn't have a consistent character voice, but it's going to be ready for your eyes again soon. I have one more anecdote to write.

Then we can discuss what to do with the ending- maybe changing the sequence of the revelations, explaining some things better, not beating the reader over the head with the others. Addressing a loose end I may have missed, embellishing the Epilogue vs. putting another anecdote in the story itself. That kind of thing.

 Or maybe the whole thing/ plot/premise is flawed and the story needs a major rewrite. I am game to try another version and see which we like better. But I'm approaching the point where my ideas are in print, the logical follow-up questions are answered, and it's time to decide if that's a good story in need of polish, or re-arranging or revision.

[Buster's Uncle]

Sure.  Part of the trick is knowing when you're done.

-I don't know about your dad, but mine was bad at that.


We're going to have to decide what to do with this thread eventually, too - it's too cool to just plonk.  You may want to add some at the top of the OP urging readers to read the finished version (linked, of course) before they follow the educational kicking around/development, and let it continue as the comments thread - or lock it (you can do that yourself) and make a new comments thread with the story and development threads linked.

Obviously, the finished story doesn't belong in here unless Papendou funtime comes onstage abruptly, but in public where the lurkers and non-Writer group members will see it.  This thread COULD stay here and have one of the on-going functions of Adult be semi-private workshopping...

[Rusty Edge]

My Dad would do his best whatever it was, finish and move to the next thing again and again. I have more of a tendency to dwell, but if I don't dwell and keep thinking and revising, I instead fall into the procrastinator-perfectionist trap. Dwelling makes for better finished results in my case, I've found. The rushed parts get refined that way.

I'm pretty happy with Jay and Anne they way I have them in my present draft. I think it's true to Niven's Neutron Star collection and family friendly. Strictly TANJ and Bleep.

I could write erotic, but I don't want to do that in a place that's searchable to my Real Life, and it could hijack the story, which is a quest/mystery rather than a love story.

So, I was thinking along the same lines, the finished story needs to go to the other section when complete, lock it and start a comments thread there. We can leave this development one here if you think it has merit. Stick with semi-private workshopping until the section gets busy enough to split off.

[Buster's Uncle]

Separate folder for that -called Workshop or something along that line, of course- when there's the traffic, or just make it now; why not now?  Good idea.

[Buster's Uncle]

You know, you can lock a thread, in fact, and be able to post in it without unlocking temporarily - just you and people with staff powers...

Daddy was a 13-nail when four would have done sort of guy.  Split a lot of board ends he didn't have to.  Overkill, like I've said.  He stripped the threads of most anything that screwed eventually, and us kids would go for a wrench first when we needed to use an outdoor faucet - Momma usually managed with just a washcloth to protect her palms from having to grip so hard.

You know, this thread could even go in RC, as a cool Known Space conversation that might well draw in other fans, if you don't mind showing first draft in development as part of it...  -Or we need to start a knew one, for sure...

[Rusty Edge]

Hah! My father-in-law was a thread stripper. So is his oldest grandchild, my resident niece.

Speaking of board splitting, pilot holes are fine for cabinet work, but on barn stuff I learned that if you blunt the point of a nail with a hammer, while it may drive harder, it's far less likely to work like a splitting wedge. Try that next time you have an issue.

I just went over the story again. I want to do a word count first, but I think it's ready for here.
We need to talk about titles , too.

[Buster's Uncle]

I like your working title fine, though I don't know that it sounds nivenish - I can't say if he has a title style.  -Maybe drop the "The" and it's good.

I'll keep it in mind about blunt nails.

I see an edit went through after the page stopped loading - I was under the 15-minute time-limit when the forum broke.

[Rusty Edge]

My alternate working title was "The Persistence of Memory" because Niven said he meant the title "The Soft Weapon" in the Salvador Dali malleable sense.

I got stuff going on.... bleep the word count for now. I'll post the draft now. It takes me an hour or two to read through it.  You can get to reading it when you have the time, and I'll get back to the thread when I have the time.

[Rusty Edge]

  The spy gently descended towards the surface of the small frozen moon on a personal rocket device. First he pulled the trigger again to turn it off, and glided the last meter or two in the low gravity. Then he unslung a net bandolier containing a mirror-surfaced cylindrical box and placed it on the frozen ground between his feet. He flicked the selector switch on his rocket powered lift, and the device transformed into a hand-held computer.

 "DON'T HESITATE, ATTACK!" it said. Quickly he returned the selector switch to it's neutral setting, and the device became a silver sphere atop a pistol grip. Twisting the silver sphere he transformed it into a cone, pointed it at the planet dominating the sky and pulled the trigger. A shimmering blue beam reached towards the planet. Nothing happened for a moment, and then the planet didn't seem to explode, burn, or melt as he might have expected. It simply shattered. The entire planet.

  Then he heard a voice in his mind say "Kill yourself, slave!" and he knew with crystalline certainty that it was the right thing to do. He set the secret weapon to self-destruct, and a second cone appeared on it, points end to end. The spy pulled the trigger and he and his shape shifting device vanished in a powerful blue flash.

****

An aeon or so later, on that same frozen moon, now planetless and orbiting it's star in a debris field:

  "What do ya think you're doin', Smitty?" said the Belter's partner. Bob, like most resident miners in the Asteroid Belt, was a nudist, with a bald body and a hairstyle that looked like a cross between a Mohawk and a cropped horse's mane which ran all of the way down his spine by means of hair transplants, dyed popsicle blue. Smitty's crest was a natural copper color.

  "I was reading about that Sea Statue they found in the muck on the bottom of Earth's Atlantic Ocean centuries ago, and I wondered if there could be anything like a relic hidden here on Ceres, underneath the lake in this ice covered crater. So I'm scanning it with the deep radar", he said, not looking up from the screen.

  "Yer wastin' yer time. Mine, too."

  "Uh, Bob,... I think you owe me a BEEER!" hooted Smitty

****