The Right Angle; Evidence of a Promise Kept

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Snap a picture of something at an angle. Don't tilt your camera, take a picture of something at an angle to your camera. Tilts, slopes, angles, inclines, downgrades -- they're all up for a picture.

What, you mean like this?

Probably hit by a truck at some point

The truth is, I've been overthinking this particular photo shoot concept. What does it mean, "at an angle to your camera?" Assuming the camera is aimed more or less parallel to the ground, then anything that isn't perpendicular to the ground, such as poles and buildings, is at an angle to it, or on a curve. And anyway, what about a right angle? That's an angle, too, the most famous angle of all. So perpendicular to the ground is at an angle, too. It's just not an unusual or unexpected angle.

Yep, overthinking.

Parking lot markings and curbstones at Cherrybell Station

I've taken something like 45 pictures over the last couple of days, many of them attempts to do something interesting with this angle theme. But I've decided to only use photos taken in and around Cherrybell Station at lunchtime today.

Speed bump and handicap access / crosswalk

Regular readers may remember the name Cherrybell Station on Cherrybell Strav. (Strav, in case you're wondering, is someone's bright idea of combining the terms "Street" and "Avenue" to denote a street that goes at an angle relative to the city's N-S-E-W grid.) It's the main post office, down off 22nd Street near the railroad bridge.

And this is why I was there. In that box on the counter, coincidentally at an angle relative to the camera, is the full manuscript of Heirs of Mâvarin, addressed to the Submission Editor at DAW Books. Also in there are my much agonized-over cover letter and a packet containing a return label and $9.00 in stamps, sufficient to cover postage on a Flat Rate Priority Mail box. Not enclosed: a return box (wouldn't fit) and a synopsis (they specifically say they want the full manuscript instead). The address label on the box is the one I printed off the USPS web site on Saturday; it's not dated so it should be okay - I hope!

Notice that just the little bit of an angle here has a huge effect on the perspective, and the apparent angles that the camera sees and, it seems to me, exaggerates. Really, you can have a camera straight on relative to something, and it's still not going to look parallel to the lens. Vanishing point, anyone?

Tonight I edited Chapter Five of Another Mâvarin, which is Chapter 16 of Mages of Mâvarin overall. I managed to complete an unfinished scene and fix some timing issues (again), and discovered another, major dating discrepancy that I have to fix in upcoming chapters. At the moment it only takes Cathma and Rani Lunder two days to complete a three day journey. Oops! Actually, it may be that the actual scenes are right but my date headers are wrong; I'll have to see. I use a "dateline" at the beginning of each chapter and whenever a new day begins, to help me (and possibly the reader) keep track of things. It's possible that I just failed to put one where a new day began, throwing off my subsequent datelines.

Still, I'm really, really happy with the way it's going.

A friend of mine occasionally sends me emails about what's "hot" in publishing right now, and asks me whether I can position the Mâvarin books accordingly. Is it supernatural romance? Is a tengrem a kind of werecreature? The answer to these questions tends to be "no." So it amuses and cheers me to stand in a theater hallway, looking at posters for several upcoming fantasy films, having just watched one of those films and seen the trailers for three others. Harry Potter sets records, and now suddenly every other fantasy series with kids or teenagers as protagonists is being made into a movie. And that professional writer at church, the one who read Harry Potter in Italy, referred to fantasy trilogies themselves as "hot." Heck, I have one of those. Kevin points out that the granddaddy of all fantasy trilogies, the one about that Frodo fellow and his friends, isn't really a trilogy at all, but just a really long novel in three volumes. Well, so is mine. Funny how that works.

Karen