Book Review: Steal Like an Artist

by Ariela

Periodically I like to read advice for artists and other creative type people. Even though I have been working as an artist for 14 years (good grief!), I'm always looking for more inspiration. If anything, the longer I go on with this, the more important it is to have a good process to prevent burnout. Since I have been doing this a while and have a pretty functional workflow, the percentage of new advice I find that I want to try is fairly low, but sometimes it's good just to be affirmed in the things I already do; sometimes it is also good to affirm what you do in the face of contrary advice.

Cover of the book Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

I recently read Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon. It is a very short read, and on the whole I liked it.

My Favorite Advice from Kleon

Kleon presented a couple of ideas in ways that worked extraordinarily well for me. Sometimes it's not about finding something new, but looking at something you already knew in a different way. The two that stood out for me here were his titular "Steal Like an Artist" section and his section on hobbies and side projects.

While the lines "nothing is new" and "take inspiration from everywhere" are hackneyed, but the particular collection of quotes about them that Kleon collected is funny and evocative and makes it seem, if not fresh, at least reminds me of the truth of it. I particularly liked the André Gide quote of "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again." 

I was also somewhat surprised to see Kleon refer to taking pictures of things that you want to "steal" as keeping a "swipe file" or "morgue file." I take pictures of things that I find inspiring and want to use in my own art all the time; I just called it my "reference pictures." What I call my morgue file is the file I keep for my day job of...ideas I think are good that I want to emulate. Son of a gun, they are the same thing. How about that.

The other rephrasing that really spoke to me was his talk about not giving up your other hobbies and passions. Kleon wrote about focusing on writing to the exclusion of his music as "phantom limb pain." Oh yeah, did that ever resonate. I don't get to sew or do woodworking nearly as much as I used to, because between my day job, my calligraphy, and my safrut, I just don't have any time. But periodically the hankering to do them builds up into a compulsion that simply has to be answered before I burst. When I don't get to exercise my creativity in lots of ways, it hurts. Less urgently, I have been on a kick of listening to audiobooks for about the past year, whenever I was doing chores or working, or whatnot, and I basically stopped listening to music. I didn't realize how much I was missing it until I started watching the first season of "Legend of Korra" and downloaded the soundtrack. Wow.

The one really new thing I got from the book wasn't actually new, it was just something I never realized anyone else did. Kleon recommends keeping a "praise file" of nice things people say about your work that you can revisit when you are stuck in the creative doldrums. I have certain emails and even old Twitter exchanges that I like to go back and look at when I need a boost, but I always thought that was a self-involved indulgence of mine that no one else would ever do. Turns out the only self-involved part was thinking that I was the only one doing it.

What Didn't Work

As with all advice books, this one didn't hit all the right notes for me. That's okay. Not all advice will work for everyone because everyone's process is different. I'm not here to bash different methods, but there were a few things that Kleon said (or didn't say) that could be potentially harmful.

Kleon quotes his mother as saying "Garbage in, garbage out," and then expands this to say that you should surround yourself with great people and follow the best people possible online, pay attention to what they are talking about. With that in mind, it is rather appalling that in a book chock full of quotes, only four women besides his mother are quoted; one of the remaining four is his wife. Only one of the special black quote boxes features a woman. I have to wonder about Kleon's definition of "the best people" if it contains so few women worth quoting. So I would further expand his advice about following the best people online and say that it is imperative to follow people who are very different from you, in background, in method, and in fields. You will learn more that way, and your creative life will be richer for it.

The section called "Use Your Hands" also got my hackles up. It is an exhortation to return to analog methods. Normally I am all for praise of physical media; as someone who writes with a quill on parchment, I'm clearly a fan of the old school. But Kleon's framing bothers me intensely because he implies that working purely digitally is bad for the creative process. It may very well be bad for his creative process, and good for him that he has identified this and made it part of his workflow to use analog methods. But generalizing from "this works for me" to "this is the best way to Art" makes me angry. Yes, by all means try some natural media if you primarily work digitally. Try a new medium, or go back to one you haven't worked with in a while. I believe that the artistic process is fundamentally different in natural media than in digital, but I also recognize that people are wired differently. Don't eschew physical media out of habit, but if you try it and hate it keep coming back to this miserable exercise because someone wrote a book or an article online saying that this is The One True Way of Art, just no. Eff that noise. Try new things, stretch your creative muscles in new and different ways, but don't let anyone else tell you what you must and mustn't do to be an Artist. (Jen Bartel had a magnificent Twitter rant on this in response to the originator of Inktober saying something similar.)

I'm also kinda bothered by his placement of his advice about marrying well in the same section where he talks about keeping a logbook and taking care of yourself. I felt that it would have worked better in his section about surrounding yourself with interesting, awesome, and supportive people, because if you are a creative and you're married, ideally your spouse is all of these things in spades. Framing it that way would have placed a spouse as captain of Team You; as it is, it comes off as a lifestyle recommendation, and I'm bothered by people pushing marriage. Yeah, I'm married, but again, people are wired differently and I am uncomfortable with prescribing major life decisions for other people. Also, much of what he said about spouses would apply equally to roommates, so why is it about Marrying Well? Why not "Choose Cohabitors with Care?" I admit, this might be overpicky on my part.

On the whole I don't think this book was a waste of time, and considering my experience with a lot of other advice books for artists, that's actually pretty high praise. Not all of his advice will apply to everyone, but for me the parts that worked outweighed those that didn't.

Yes, I would recommend it.

You can visit Austin Kleon online here.

No Matter How Much You Love It, Work Is Hard

by Ariela

We're generally pretty cheery about our work process here at Geek Calligraphy on this blog. But today I want to pull back the curtain a bit and talk about some of the ways in which it is challenging.

Geek Calligraphy is a side gig for me. I have a day job that I work 35 hours per week (and only 35 hours, thank you, labor union). I create all the Geek Calligraphy art, write my portion of the blog posts, take commissions, and do scribal work around the edges of that. This means that I have financial security while I work on building up this business.

With the recent addition of scribal work to that load, however, I have started to strain the feasibility of this arrangement to the breaking point. There are only so many hours in a day, and aside from shifting more of the blogging burden onto Terri, I haven't really cut back on any of the other work associated with Geek Calligraphy. We still do a product release every month. I have a backlog of commissions that's over six months long. (Sorry people who don't have definitive deadlines! I promise I have not forgotten you!)

I have more work than I can feasibly accomplish while maintaining a full-time job, but not enough that I could quit said full-time job. (Also, my spouse is a grad student. That day job is what keeps a roof over our heads and food on our table.) Someday I would like to ditch the day job and do calligraphy and scribal work full time, but I am not there yet. Reducing my hours at my day job is not currently an option, and finding a new one that would cover our expenses, include benefits, and not require more hours is as likely as finding a unicorn grazing in Central Park (if you see one, it's probably a hoax).

Nobody is forcing me to do this. I could quit anytime, but I don't want to, because I love doing art and I love getting my art out to people who appreciate it. I don't want to stop doing scribal work, or product releases for Geek Calligraphy, because both of those are important groundwork for that elusive someday when I might be able to be a full-time artist. So I work too much, get out too little, and keep saying to myself "someday!"

And right now, I feel like this:

Gif shows Barry Allen on a treadmill.

Tishrei is Coming!

by Ariela

Today is the first day of the Jewish month of Elul, which means only one thing.

Brace yourselves....

Image shows Ned Stark blowing a shofar, with the words "Tishrei is Coming."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

AAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHH!

Ahem.

For those of you who aren't Jewish, or aren't observant, you may be wondering what all the yelling is about. 

Rosh HaShanah, or Jewish New Year* is on the first of the month of Tishrei. It kicks off an entire month of festivities. Rosh HaShanah runs two full days in the lunar calendar (meaning it starts in the evening and ends two evenings later). It involves going to very, very long prayer services and eating a festive meal each dinner and lunch, usually shared with other people. Think four Thanksgiving meals in two days. So that's the first two days of the month.

On the 10th day of the month is Yom Kippur. That's a day of fasting and atonement. There's no eating or drinking during the day itself, but that means lots of hydrating leading up to it, and we are supposed to eat a large, festive meal before the fast starts.

On the 15th day of the month starts the holiday of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles. If you have Jewish neighbors and see them putting up an oddly flimsy looking hut-like thing in their yard with a bunch of dead plants on the top of it, that's a sukkah, a booth or a tabernacle. Said booth is not supposed to be built before Yom Kippur, but it must be completely finished by the time Sukkot starts. We spend the next 7 days eating in these booths, starting with two more days of holiday (or one, if you live in Israel or are Reform, about which more below**), during which we spend more time praying and eat another four Thanksgiving-dinners-worth of meals. Yes, in the hut, we eat all that food in the hut. There are lots of bugs, and sometimes raccoons, skunks, and coyotes.

On the 22nd day of the month is Sh'mini Atzeret, the Eighth Day of Assembly. It's another festival day, with more long prayers. Eating in the tabernacle is optional on this day, but there are still two festive meals to be eaten.

On the 23rd day of the month is Simchat Torah (in Israel and on the Reform calendar, this is combined with Sh'mini Atzeret), the Celebration of the Torah. This is when we celebrate completing the annual reading of the Pentateuch and begin the lection cycle anew. It is a relatively new holiday, but there's still lots of praying and eating, though not outside anymore.

All of this is in addition to regular Sabbath observance, which involves more festive meals and praying. Also, those of us who are observant of the Jewish prohibitions against work on the holidays have to take a whole mess of days off from our jobs, but deadlines don't get pushed back.

In sum, in the space of a month we need to prepare and host or be hosted for about 13 Thanksgiving dinners, spend 7 full days in synagogue, still observe the Sabbath, and meet all of our regular work deadlines. Hence the screaming. All of this goes double if you actually work in a synagogue and have to orchestrate this at a professional level as well as for yourself as an individual.

Some Additional Notes

*Rosh HaShanah is usually referred to as "the Jewish New Year," but we actually have four new year celebrations each year. Rosh HaShanah commemorates the creation of the world and is the start of the Jewish calendrical year. The other three are:

• New year for the trees, happens toward the end of winter, also was the start of the tax season in historical Judea;
• Liturgical new year, happens in the spring, on the first of the month of Nisan;
• New year for animal tithes, happens in the summer (today, in fact, first of Elul).

**Why is the holiday calendar different in Israel than for Jews outside of Israel, except for Reform Jews?

Okay, buckle in.

The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar. In the days of the Temple and the Sanhedrin (the Jewish High Court) in Jerusalem, instead of having a fixed calendar each new month was declared when two witnesses came and swore that they had seen the new moon. Once the new month was declared, the proclamation was spread by means of signal fires, think the Warning Beacons of Gondor. While Jewish holidays listed in the bible have only one day of Festival observance (with the corresponding abstention from work, feasting, sacrifices at the Temple, etc.), the rabbis declared that those living outside the Land of Israel should observe two days of each Festival, in case of any lag or confusion caused by the time it takes to transmit the proclamation of the new month. (The exception is Yom Kippur, since telling people to go without food or drink for 48 hours is impractical and, in many cases, dangerous.)

Before you ask, yes, they had astronomy and almanacs back then, everyone could have worked it out for themselves when the holidays would occur, regardless of location. That wasn't the point. The point was that the new month did not begin until the Sanhedrin declared it so.

Most Jews who live in the modern State of Israel no longer consider themselves obligated to follow the requirement of the additional day of holiday observance. (Whether that is because they are in the historical location of the Land of Israel or they consider the modern State to be a new manifestation of the historical Land is a point of serious debate. Let's not go there now.) Likewise, the Reform Movement has declared that, in light of the calendar now being fixed as opposed to each holiday being individually declared, they see no need to retain the second day observance. The Conservative and Orthodox Movements outside of Israel retain the additional day.

Except Rosh HaShanah is still observed for two days within the State of Israel and by most Reform congregations. Why? I don't know.

Eicha

by Ariela

Tonight begins the fast of Tisha B'Av, the ninth day of the month of Av in the Jewish calendar. It is a day of mourning for the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, and mourning the sinat chinam, the baseless hatred that brought said destruction about.

On the eve of the Ninth of Av, we read the book of Lamentations, identified in Hebrew as Eicha for its opening word. Before we sign off later today for the duration of the fast, we wanted to share a few images of scrolls and codices of Eicha.

Scroll of Eicha damaged during the Holocaust. Image from the dubious site Scrolls4all.org.

Photo of a scroll open to the third chapter of Eicha. The text is formatted to in diagonals that are supposed to look like walls falling in.
Image from HaSoferet.com

Opening page of Eicha from British Library MS 4709 f. 149r. The penman was Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol. Note the marginalia.
Browse all of BL MS 4709 on their site.

Opening of Eicha in British Library MS 10455. Not sure why the initial isn't filled in, as it is in other books in the same codex. Also note the hand, which is closer to the Birds' Head Haggadah hand.
Browse all of BL MS 10455 on their site.

And now we are off to contemplate the consequences of sinat chinam, baseless hatred, which led to the destruction of the Temple. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

There's a New Way to Support Our Work!

by Ariela

There are lots of ways to support creators you like. Up until recently, the only ways to support us have been to buy our art and to spread the word about our art. Today we are adding a third option: buying us "coffee."

Ko-fi logo

Ko-fi is a free service that allows fans to give money to creators in small amounts, amounts roughly equivalent to buying them a coffee.

Y U No Patreon?

Patreon is probably the best known crowdfunding service for creators, but it has never really been an option for us. Patreon's reward system tends to depend on offering special perks each month for the highest donors, either in the form of early releases or additional content. Our content doesn't tend to be sequential such that getting access to it early would be particularly enticing, and we're already working to our maximum capacity to get each product released each month and complete commissions so creating more content isn't an option for us right now.

That's why Ko-fi is a good model for us. We recognize that there are plenty of reasons why someone may appreciate our work without wanting or being able to buy our art. But we hope that people will be inspired to support us in other ways.

So, will you buy us a coffee?

P.S. Some of you may be finding this a little ironic. After all my loathing of coffee is legendary. I don't have anything witty to say about it other than to shrug and say that I am not actually being paid in coffee, so I can use it to buy tea, or, more likely, matboard for art. Also, Terri does like coffee, and she is half of this outfit.

Calligraphy Tools: Beyond Pens

by Ariela

This is a followup to the post of several weeks ago about different types of calligraphy pens. While pens are, in many ways, the most important tool of the trade, it would be a lot harder to get good results without others.

Ariela's drafting table with t-square hanging off it.

Drafting Table

You won’t get far without a good surface to write on. The sloped surface of a drafting table considerably reduces strain. When working on large surfaces, I increase the angle to bring the top closer to myself. Even when working on smaller pieces, the slant means that the pen meets the paper or parchment at a different angle than it would on a flat surface.

Mine is a Bieffe AF15, but brand matters much less than height and range of angles. As long as one adjusts to heights and angles that are comfortable for you, that's all that matters.

Good lighting is important while working. Many artists, myself included, answer this need by installing a swingarm lamp on one corner of their drafting table, but there are plenty of other solutions available.

T-Square

Making straight, parallel lines is one of the most important preparatory steps for calligraphy. Some drafting tables have a ruling tool built in. Mine doesn’t and I like it that way; there are times when I want to be able to use the entire surface of the table. Instead, I use a t-square together with the flat edge of the table to rule parallel lines. Mine is three feet long.

Ariela rests a triangle on her t-square.

Triangle

When making vertical lines, it isn’t always practical to flip the t-square and use it vertically; for one thing, the t-square is quite a bit longer than the table is tall, and jabbing myself in the gut is not fun. When I need to make a small to medium vertical line, I rest a triangle on top of my t-square.

Lettering Guide

Ariela rests a lettering guide on a t-square.

This little gizmo saves me so much time. Instead of measuring along the side of my writing area and marking each point at which I should draw a parallel line, I sit it on top of my t-square and it does all the spacing for me. (This is another way the slant of the drafting table helps – I can use gravity to keep the bottom of the lettering guide flush with the t-square.) I can change the line height by rotating the disc in the center between 3mm height and 10 mm height. If I want to work bigger than that, I can skip holes in the center or use the ones along the sides.

If you are a calligrapher and you don't have one of these, I highly recommend acquiring one. They are cheapest from Blick Art.

Lead Holder/Lead

Hand holding lead holder.

This is the original mechanical pencil. While you can now get leads of different weights to load into modern mechanical pencils, I prefer this one for a few reasons. You do sharpen this lead, unlike your standard mechanical pencil. This means that you can choose how much you sharpen it; if a super sharp lead tends to cause you to gouge holes in your paper, you can keep it a little bit dull. The lead is thicker than the 5mm or 7mm standard to mechanical pencils now, so I don’t snap it as easily when inserting it into the holes of the lettering guide. I also just like the feel of this pencil body, the weight and the balance. Others might prefer different pencil bodies. I tend to use a 2H lead, which provides a good balance between producing a line that is dark enough to see but doesn’t lay down enough lead to smudge much while working.

Guard Sheet

I put a piece of paper under my hand to prevent the oils from my hand from touching the paper too much as I rest my hand while writing. It can be any scrap piece of paper.

There are more tools still for when I need to do fancy schmancy things, but these are the ones that get used in basically every calligraphy project

Questions?

I love talking about the technical aspects of calligraphy. The best way to get in touch is to tweet @GeekCalligraphy.

"I Like It" =/= "It's Good"

by Ariela

Quick followup on last week's post about my Hugo ballot. I mentioned a few times that I voted for things that I didn't enjoy. I don't think I mentioned the flip side as much, where there were things I enjoyed very much that I didn't vote for, but that happens, too.

The "Good" Meter and "Ariela's Enjoyment" Meter are different things.

Because here's the thing: just because I enjoy something doesn't mean that it is "good" by any metric except the "does Ariela enjoy it?"-o-meter. I enjoy some things that I recognize as being bad by any number of metrics. Candy corn, for example, is terrible for you, and not actually that tasty, I just love it. I also hate all coffee, even high-quality coffee; my lack of enjoyment of anything I have to put in my mouth that includes coffee says nothing about how good a product it is. There are also things that I enjoy that are good, like a perfectly cooked meal, and things that are bad that I don't enjoy, like undercooked chicken.

So, too, with media. I enjoy some horrendous things, and there are some things that I recognize as being superbly skillfully done that are just not my cup of tea. And when I vote for the Hugos, I am trying to indicate that I think something succeeds in the metrics of innovation, craftsmanship, skill, and execution. It's not really about what I liked, it's about what I think exemplifies everything I want to see in the field of Spec Fic. And yes, we can - and do - argue about what the field of Spec Fic should be. But anyone who thinks that the field of SF should consist of only what they personally enjoy, with nothing for anyone else, is probably not worth talking to.

I want there to be SF for people who like things that are dramatically different than what I like, and I want the offerings for them to be good. I want them to have things they love, things that speak so deeply to their experience that fandom becomes part of their identity. Just because I don't share it doesn't mean it shouldn't be awesome for them. I also want good reading and viewing options for me, and I hope they would support me in my desire for same.

So, for me, the Hugos are not about voting for the things I enjoyed the most, they are about voting for the furtherance of the genre.

Ariela's (Partial) Hugo Ballot

by Ariela

Logo of the Hugo Awards

Voting for the Hugo Awards ends in a little less than a month. Terri and I are both supporting members and, when not attending Wiscon, prepping for other art shows, and working on new products, we've both been steadily working our way through as many of the works up for voting as we can.

I am by no means done, but here is my ballot for some of the categories that matter most for me, with some notes as to my thoughts and choices:

Best Fan Artist

Because the Hugos have not changed their criteria for Professional Artist since they were invented, the Fan Artist category is the one that most artists fall into, whether art is a source of income for them or not. So this is actually where most of my artistic colleagues are up for awards. I will be voting as follows.

1. Likhain (M. Sereno)
   Mia is an astonishingly talented artist and if I could place her higher than first, I would do it. Her use of color is breathtaking. And I have an extra soft spot for her work because she occasionally incorporates calligraphy, and does it very well.
2. Vesa Lehtimäki
   Vesa does some truly gorgeous photo editing. I do photo editing for my day job and know exactly how hard it is, so this blows me away. 
3. Spring Schoenhuth
   Spring does some of the most beautiful geek-themed jewelry, and works at a size that increases her difficulty factor exponentially. While I see geeky jewelry at nearly every con, most of them are made from premade, mass-produced pieces. Spring is the only one I know who does this kind of work from scratch.
4. Elizabeth Leggett
   Elizabeth is an extremely technically accomplished artist, but she doesn't rank higher for me because I see lots of similarly themed art around. For art to be Hugo-worthy for me, it needs to not only be technically skilled, but also original.
5. Ninni Aalto
   I suspect I am missing the best parts of Ninni's work due to language barrier; the ones without language don't really do it for me.
6. Steve Stiles
   Steve is an amazingly prolific artist, but since we are judging just based on output in the past year, I haven't seen anything from him in the past year that really grabbed me.

Best Novel

Novels are my favorite thing to read and what I read the most of. I had already read a number of the nominees before nominations opened, much less after they closed.

1.  A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers
   I adored The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which was an utterly delightful reading experience. But it lacked the emotional punch that the sequel delivers here. I'm a sucker for "what does it mean to be a person?" books, and this one comes at it from both ends in a devastating way.
2. Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee
   I will admit that I couldn't finish this one, which I started before award season. I bounced off it in much the same way I bounced off Ancillary Justice my first time around. Serious culture shock, working too hard to absorb the world to be able to sit back and enjoy the story. Though I finished AJ on my first attempt, it took me until my third readthrough to just enjoy it. I suspect it will be the same here. As is, I recognize the technical accomplishment already.
3. Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer
   This is another incredibly rich worldbuilding work. I am impressed, but I suspect that the later books will bring more payoff. If this volume doesn't Hugo, I suspect the third book in the trilogy will.
   While I was impressed, I am also somewhat troubled by feedback I have heard from the trans and non-binary communities about some of the gender views expressed therein. I hope that the later volumes address this.
4. The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin
   I voted for The Fifth Season and was incredibly gratified when it won. While this volume is no less skillful, it suffers from middle-installment issues - we've already met most of the characters and we've been introduced to the world. While there are astonishing revelations (Sassun's sections broke my heart), it's all about building up to The Stone Sky.
5. All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders
   This book is skillfully written, but it just didn't wow me as much as everything above. Frankly, it wasn't my cup of tea, but it might be yours, so you should still check it out.

I didn't actually read Death's End by Cixin Liu. I voted for Three Body Problem, even though I didn't enjoy it at all, because I felt that it was both technically brilliant and extremely innovative, and that it made a significant contribution to the field of SF lit. However, there are limits to my dutifulness, and having not enjoyed either of the first two installments in the series, I'm not going to put myself through the third. So it is not on my ballot. Mind you, I am not voting it below "No Award," I am just leaving it off the ballot entirely, as I haven't read it and cannot rank it.

Best Novella

This is a partial list, as I have not yet finished reading everything in the category, and I do intend to.

1. The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle
   This one blew me away. 
2. Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire
   Years ago I came to the reluctant conclusion that, though my friends love it, Seanan's writing is not my thing. This, however, really impressed me. It's a fresh take on the very tired trope of portal fantasies.
3. Penric and the Shaman, by Lois McMaster Bujold
   I adore everything Bujold writes, and though liking something isn't enough to make it award-worthy, in this case, I think it is. I am enjoying the exploration of the magical and theological issues Bujold is taking us through with this entire series.
4. A Taste of Honey, by Kai Ashante
   This was well executed, but it didn't have the wow-factor of the works above it.

I haven't read The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe or This Census Taker yet. I do plan on reading them both, despite This Census Taker being on the Rabid Puppy ballot. I don't always dignify a Puppy nominee with reading, but Mieville doesn't seem to be wrapped up with them like, say, Wright is.

Best Series

Ah, the one-time category. Thank goodness I had read at least some of almost all of them before now, because if I tried to read them all in Award Season, I would have drowned in the attempt.

1. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
   I mentioned my love of Bujold above, and the Vorkosigan Saga is where she has done almost all of her most innovative work. It is always one of my first recommendations to someone looking for new reading material in the SFF field. It also covers an astonishing breadth, from space opera to political intrigue to romance.
2. The Temeraire Series, by Naomi Novik
   Again, I love "what does it mean to be a person" books, and Temeraire's struggle to get dragons recognized as people in Europe speaks deeply to me. Also, I happen to love Regency period stuff. A+ highly recommended.
3. The Peter Grant/Rivers of London Books, by Ben Aaronovich
   I only started this series, but 2.5 books in, I am mostly enjoying it. I love Peter's constant efforts to approach magic scientifically, and I love that he is foiled not by magic being magical (or not just by that) but by his lack of access to resources, and sometimes by his own distraction. I'm less thrilled by his constant commentary on the women he meets; it gets really tiresome.

I haven't read any of The Expanse by S. A. Corey, and I don't expect to have the time to do so before the close of voting, but I will check it out later. October Daye was my first introduction to Seanan McGuire, and as I mentioned above, really not for me. I read the first two books and decided I didn't need any more. Likewise, I read 1.5 books from The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone and decided it wasn't my cup of tea. I will be leaving all three of these series off my ballot. Again, I am not voting them below No Award, I am just leaving them off.

So that's a partial look at my Hugo ballot. I am still working my way through the novelettes and short stories and have no idea when I will have a chance to watch Arrival, which is the last of the Long Form Dramatic Presentation nominees I want to watch.

What's on your ballot?

Geek Calligraphy Guide to Pen Types

by Ariela

I get a lot of questions from people who are interested in learning calligraphy. They cover a range of topics, but a lot of them concern materials. So today, I am going to talk about pens.

That's a lot of pens.

Like many things, there's no one right pen for all things. You need to use the correct tool for the job, and sometimes it comes down to a matter of personal preference.

I am going to go through the biggest categories of calligraphy pens and talk a little bit about what projects they are great for and what my favorite brands are.

Felt Tip Calligraphy Markers

A very small sample of the number of felt tip calligraphy markers out there

What they are good for:

Felt tips are great for beginners who are just starting out. They don't require any sort of learning curve for care and feeding of the pen, the inkflow, etc., which frees the user up to concentrate on learning pen angles and strokes.

As markers, they require no maintenance beyond remembering to cap them when you're done. They come in a rainbow of colors and you can buy them in any art store and many office supply stores as well.

They are also nice for casual projects and for taking along when you need to go somewhere, as they are the least likely to leak.

What they're not good for:

Felt tips are not great at creating thin lines. For projects that require hair-thin lines, felt-tips are not your friend. They are also not good at subtle changes in pen angle and pressure. The line quality and ink density are also not great. Work you do with them may be prone to fading.

Ariela's Favorite Brands:

Zig makes a nice variety of colors and they have double-tipped markers, which I like very much for the two-in-one. But they are pricier than a lot of the other brands.

Cartridge/Fountain Pens

Several uncapped fountain pens with cartridges and a bottle of ink.

What they are good for:

A good fountain pen with good ink will give you the most consistent ink flow of any tool available.

Cartridge pens provide better line quality than felt tips, with good thick and thin. They also travel pretty well.

The roundhand nibs of cartridge pens tend to be fairly rigid. This may be a feature or a bug depending on your preference.

If you need to write a whole lot with the same nib width, and you will use the pen regularly, a cartridge pen is probably the best tool for the job.

What they are not good for:

These are not pens to buy on a budget. Note my first sentence about "good" pens with "good" ink; that means pricey. Cheap pens and ink may give you okay results, but they may also be made of fail. Buying ink in cartridges is an even more expensive proposition than in bottles, and refillable cartridges are not everyone's cup of tea, though I rather enjoy the process.

Good fountain pens also need to be bought from a specialty store. You cannot walk into Michaels or your local craft store and buy one. Chances are that you will find Sheaffer's and Manuscript, and believe me, they are made of DO NOT WANT.

Cartridge pens need to be cleaned regularly. If you use your pens at least every other day, you can get away with only cleaning them every couple of cartridge changes/refills, but if you only use it occasionally you should clean it after every use. Cleaning them can be pain in the tush. Leave them uncleaned for long enough, and you will probably need to replace the whole pen as many companies don't sell replacement parts individually anymore (though you can always check Ebay!).

As mentioned above, the roundhand nibs on calligraphy pens with cartridges tend to be pretty rigid. If you like a flexible pen or need to get variations based on pen pressure, this is the wrong tool for the job.

For my money, I hate grinding the nibs on cartridge pens, but your mileage may vary.

I find that the variety of nib widths offered by cartridge pens is much narrower than for dip pen nibs.

If you want to use lots and lots of colors, then you need to have lots and lots of pens, or be prepared to wait a long time between switches as you clean and dry your pen.

Ariela's Favorite Brands:

I am a loyal devotee of Rotring Art Pens, though they have been cutting down their calligraphy line of late. 0.6 nibs are no longer to be had for love nor money, and 0.9s are only available on Ebay once in a blue moon. I like Rotring because they give good inkflow for a fairly inexpensive pen (by fountain pen standards), and they disassemble completely, which makes cleaning them - and especially drying out the parts afterward - much easier than the ones that don't break down so fully.

Unfortunately, my next favorite brand, Osmiroid, is no longer in production, though there are plenty of them floating around eBay. It's a workhorse brand with good value for your money. In the debit column, their nib and feed don't separate from the grip, which makes them harder to clean. However, the barrels of Osmiroid pens are shorter than the Rotring pens, which means they feel better in my hand.

Dip Pens

Just a few of the options available for dip pen nibs, pen bodies, and ink.

What they are good for:

If you want a variety of options, dip pens are the go-to. You can get nibs in so many sizes and shapes you may experience decision paralysis. Want roundhand nibs? Spoon nibs? Poster nibs? Copperplate nibs? Left-hand nibs? We have all those and more in a variety of sizes and flexibility.

Dip nibs are the most responsive to subtle changes in pressure and angle, and they have the widest thick and thin range. Some are more responsive than others and you can get a nib that is as responsive to pressure as you personally like.

Many, but not all, nibs are interchangeable, so you can also customize your pen experience a lot. You can pair any number of nibs with any number of pen bodies, and you can even alter an existing pen body or commission a new one if you really want something super special.

While the volume of nibs to buy can add up to a significant price tag, each nib is pretty cheap and there are very affordable pen bodies, making dip pens a very affordable option.

Ink is available in a rainbow of colors, which you can switch between easily with just a wipe of a cloth.

The pens need to be cleaned after each use, by which I mean dunked in water or a pen cleaner and then wiped off thoroughly. Don't put your nibs away wet. That's all.

What they're not good for:

There's a steep learning curve for dip pens. You don't suddenly switch from felt tips and ballpoints/biros to a dip pen without a serious adjustment period. In my opinion this is a skill well worth the time and effort, but beginners, you have been warned what you are getting yourselves into.

Ink can be blobby and distribute unevenly between a freshly dipped pen and one that needs to be dipped again. This gets easier and less apparent the more experienced the user, but it will never be quite as regular as a good cartridge pen.

If you have to write a large amount in a short amount of time, the time spent turning to dip the pen in the ink is wasted motion. If you are in a hurry, this is probably not the best pen for the job.

Ariela's Favorite Brands:

For broad nibs, I adore Mitchell roundhand nibs. But I am in the "bendier is better" camp. For those who like an inflexible nib, I hear that Brause is the go-to. Some of them also have built-in reservoirs, if that's your jam (it is most definitely not mine). If you are new to calligraphy, you may need to try both to figure out what you like.

I am brand agnostic when it comes to spoon nibs, G nibs, and EFs. I have some Hunts and some Speedballs that I quite like, but I have been itching to try out Leonardt brand as well as some of Brause's bendier nibs like the Blue Pumpkin.

Quills

Ariela's quills and equipment.

What they are good for:

Even moreso than metal nibs, quills are flexible, customizeable, and responsive to subtle shifts in pen angle and pressure. When used skillfully, a quill will yield a line quality like nothing else. Since each quill is cut and re-cut multiple times, you get to cut it in just the way you like, with the angles that you like, and the ink channels the way you like them.

If you are looking to do historically accurate reproduction or reenactment, quills are very probably what you will need (unless you are looking to mimic a time and place where reed pens were de rigeur).

What they aren't good for (aka, all the reasons we no longer use quills much):

Quills wear out quickly. If you  are writing a lot, you may need to re-sharpen your quill multiple times daily. They can be touchy about humidity levels, causing the tines to split annoyingly along the ink channel in dry temps.

Cutting quills is a whole separate skill set from writing with them, but unless you are part of a large operation where you have a dedicated quill cutter, you really cannot write with quills without learning to cut your own, which is also time-consuming and frustrating. Hint: if you had been part of one of those large operations, you would never have been allowed to progress to writing without first learning the grunt work of cutting quills.

As mentioned above, quills are very responsive instruments. This means that if you don't have a lot of experience and fine motor control, they can respond in ways you wish they wouldn't.

Quills can be annoyingly narrow to grip. It is simply not comfortable to firmly grasp something that small for a long period of time. After trying out several different fixes, I solved this issue by making grips out of Sugru, but goodness only knows what the scribes of yore did.

Ariela's Favorite "Brands:"

So far I have only worked with turkey feathers, but I hear goose feathers are better for tiny work, so I should get some of those for my mezuzah work (letters on mezuzot are teeny!).

Reed Pens

I don't actually use them at all, so I don't have any recommendations here.

Image from MerkazHasofrim.com

Plastic Nibs

What they are good for:

Yes, they are a thing that exists.

I have never heard of these being used by anyone except Torah scribes. It makes sense: they want something they don't have to shape themselves, but can't use metal because, aside from Kabbalistic squeamishness about using metal other than gold in the production of a Torah, safrut ink literally eats through metal nibs.

What they aren't good for:

I haven't actually ever tried one of them, but I cannot imagine that they are better than metal nibs for anything (except not being eaten by safrut ink).

Where To Buy Good Pens

If you want to buy pens in person, Dick Blick/Utrecht actually stocks a decent selection of nibs in-store. They also sometimes have Rotrings, so definitely check them out. 

If you have a local stationers, they may have good pens, or they may not. The older the store, the more likely they still stock good pens. Call or go in and look, but be prepared to come away empty-handed.

If you are shopping online, I cannot recommend John Neal Booksellers enough. If you are ready to take the plunge into buying parchment for something other than Jewish holy texts (which have a bunch of extra requirements), try Pergamena.

A Note on Inks

Ink behaves differently at different temperatures and humidities. It is also a matter of preference. I have a strong liking for Winsor & Newton brand ink, but I know other calligraphers who swear by Higgins, which I cannot abide. You may need to buy a bunch and try them out. And the ink you like best in the summer may not be the one you like in the winter.

 

A Note on Papers

A lot of your writing experience is determined by the paper on which you are writing. Even a great pen will not make writing on crummy paper much better. If you aren't having any luck with any pens, it might be time to try a different paper.

When not writing on parchment (real parchment, the kind made from animal skins, not the paper that gets called parchment by art stores), I like writing on Bristol, which is fairly inexpensive and doesn't bleed much.

 

Any Other Questions?

You can always ask me on Facebook or Twitter. As long as I have time, I am happy to chat about the tools of the trade.

Employing A Sensitivity Checker

by Ariela

Old Economy Steve longs for the days when he could avoid people telling him how offensive his views are.

Sensitivity readers have been quite the hot topic in some parts of teh interwebs lately.

What is a sensitivity checker? When a creative type, in my case an artist, wants to use cultural elements from a culture not their own, you employ someone from that culture to act as an expert guide, telling you things that are important to know, and giving feedback that should help you to portray the culture in question accurately and in a way that is not offensive. This can cover anything from preventing embarrassing errors like those from our Jewish Stock Photography Fail Blog, to the horribly offensive error of making Nazis the good guys in a Holocaust novel supposedly told from the point of view of a Jewish girl (we won't link to that book, but here is a scathing review by Katherine Locke). 

In some ways, it is no different than consulting any other expert so you don't make ignorant mistakes, but here the stakes aren't just your own embarrassment but the possibility of perpetuating oppression of real people. 

I recently had my first serious sensitivity check. Our product release next week will include a picture of a keris, which is a Malaysian dagger with serious cultural significance. That's the sort of thing you don't want to just assume you can just chuck into a piece of art when you don't know anything about the culture surrounding it. Thanks to the wonders of Twitter, we were connected to Jia-Ling Pan, who was incredibly helpful. We highly recommend her, if you need a sensitivity check for anything from Malaysia. (Let us know if you would like to be put in touch; she said she would prefer a referral than a link.)

Here are a few basic takeaways from the process.

1. Pay them.

This should go without saying, but alas, it needs to be said. Giving someone a crash course in the intricacies of one's culture isn't a privilege, it is work. Listening to and answering questions, many of which may be ignorant and even offensive is hard work. Giving constructive feedback is work.

This is true for art and even more true for reading a manuscript, which takes a heck of a lot longer.

Pay them. If one cannot afford to pay someone from the culture one is writing/singing/art-ing/movie-making about to do a sensitivity check, then one doesn't get to play in that sandbox.

This doesn't mean you don't get to create, just that this particular avenue is not available. Lack of money sucks. It sucks for you as a creator, but it also sucks for people whose culture gets trampled over insensitively and are then asked to help someone else make sure they're doing it right for free. Sensitivity checkers need to be paid.

2. Listen to what they have to say, and give them space to talk.

You employ a sensitivity checker because they know things you don't. Sometimes that means answers to your questions, but other times that means telling you the answers to questions you didn't even know should be asked. Give your sensitivity checker some unstructured space to talk rather than framing everything within a Q&A. Your questions are shaped by your own assumptions after all, and they may not translate into the culture you are trying to learn about. You might even wind up getting more material out of it in ways you didn't anticipate.

3. Accept what they have to say.

Sometimes a sensitivity checker will say things you don't want to hear. You have to be willing to go into the check alert to the possibility that you might have to rework part of your project, a lot of your project, or even scrap your project entirely. The earlier you ask, the less likely this will be, so check early and often! Though even that is not a guarantee.

It's never easy to hear negative feedback, particularly when it means losing a lot of work. If you are only interested in affirmation and will come up with reasons why you don't need to take the negative feedback too, don't bother to have a check done at all. 

Mary Robinette Kowal has an excellent blog post about this. Please check it out.

4. No Group is Homogenous.

As in any group, different people will react to the same thing in different ways. Just because your sensitivity checker reads things one way doesn't mean that other people won't have a different take. Having more than one sensitivity checker is a good idea, particularly if the source material is emotionally significant or you are using a lot of it. And even if all your readers say it's fine, there's no guarantee that someone else will not be offended. Which brings us to:

5. Your creation is your responsibility.

If someone else is offended by the thing you made, even if you had a sensitivity checker, the responsibility is yours. It is not the job of a sensitivity checker to tell you how to do something so that you cannot be criticized for it; they're just there to give your their own read, and possibly make a best guess at how others may feel. The mere fact that you hired a sensitivity checker is not a shield against criticism, and if the work offends someone, then it is not the sensitivity checker's fault. It is on you to own up to any damage caused and decide how to proceed, apologize, make amends, fix it, etc.

Coda: Sensitivity checking is not a substitute for #OwnVoices

#OwnVoices is a campaign to lift up the work of people in various marginalized identities telling their own stories. It is not enough to have white people telling stories centering People of Color, or straight people telling stories about LGB people, or cisgendered people telling stories about trans people. No matter how skilled or well-intentioned the creator, they will not get it all. People have a right to portray themselves. And we should support them when they do by patronizing their work.

That said, I am very much not in the camp that says it is never okay for someone to portray a person outside their own identity. That leads to other kinds of erasure and normalizes the idea of homogenous societies. But when we do paint pictures of other people, with words or brushes or songs or cinema, we need to make sure we do it with care and respect. That's where sensitivity checkers are so important.

Find a Sensitivity Checker for Your Own Work

There are lots of people out there who do this work. Writing in the Margins is a great directory if you are looking for someone to keep you from accidentally putting your foot in it.