Puttering About

I've been putting some time into expanding my French. I've been reading some every day and watching videos on YouTube. With extensive help from a dictionary, I made it through Vacances dans la tourmente, which means something like vacations in the tempest. It's about these kids who find a map in an attic and go camping where X marks the spot looking for treasure. It's for ages 7 to 12, and it was still hard to read.

A couple of good YouTube channels I found are C'est pas sorcier(It's not rocket science) and 7jours(seven days). 7jour has subtitles in French and features news content. C'est pas sorcier is a science show that would kind of fit in on Discovery or the Learning Channel. It reminds me of Galileo but for a younger audience.

Remember the Charlie Hebdo attack? While looking up a word I didn't know, I ran across the word hebdomadaire. It means weekly. Hebdo is the abbreviated version. Charlie Hebdo means Charlie Weekly. Now it makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that the French word for week is semaine. Why isn't it Charlie Semainement? A mystery for later on.

I ran through part of my Pimsleur Hebrew course. It was a lot easier the second time around. The one thing I can say about Pimsleur is that it helps with picking up a native accent. If I had tons of money to burn, I'd buy the French version just for that.

Book Stuff
I've gotten a little done on the YA book I mentioned here and here a while back. It's set in virtual reality that's based on modern MMORPGs. I've read books with VR settings, but they really skimmed the computer aspect and the gaming aspect. Instead, they were more like fantasy novels. I'm putting real game interface technology into the book, albeit a future version of today's tech. I keep wondering if it's too geeky or if the reality of it will be more immersive for the reader. I also keep wondering if doing it that way will appeal to only a certain audience. Personally, I like the realism of it.

I've also been putting thought into the next two B'vellah War books. I already have an outline done for the major events in the story. I still need to decide things about the characters. Stasis was introduced in Messengers and plays an important role in the space novel. What if a character fighting in the war had the gift of stasis? I think I like that.