Day 24 (33 In Base 7) Of Re-writing My Novel

THE DAY OF LANGUAGES!!!

This 7th of May, 2025, we use our own language again!

If your language, native or not, is something other than English, on May 7th you can speak that language all day!

You’ll blog in your chosen language(s) all day: text posts, replies, tags (except triggers and organisational tags).

Regardless of what language people choose to speak to you, you can answer in your own.

Non-verbal, non-written languages (like sign language and dialects) are more than welcome! See my FAQ for tips

English native speakers can participate in any other language they're studying/have studied/know.

The tag is gonna be #Speak Your Language Day or #spyld for short.

Please submit me some language facts for me to share on this day <3

Pinned post and FAQ

I’ve never read this book, I only watched the series on YouTube. I must read it at some point. David J. Peterson’s content on linguistics is immaculate.

I FOUND A BOOK

Look what we got from the library!!! Look at it! Look!

Now that we have The Book, there's no stopping us. You will all be drowning in words and grammar and scripts >:D

But seriously. If I had a flappy hands emoji, I'd be using it right now.

Day 16 (22 in base 7) of rewriting my conlang

While not lagging behind in terms of written content, I am definitely lagging behind in creating Modern Odapir, which is rather important for the story!

Now, there exists one word in Modern Odapir. One word. Tavishy, although this is an anglicism of the actual word. It came from Middle Odapir tabishu:, which meant 'safety, tranquility,' but also meant 'hide, conceal' when used as a verb. I haven't decided how it will be semantically changed yet.

Modern Odapir's vowels will be very cursed btw. Middle Odapir's vowels are already like... super cursed (see last post.) I'm thinking palatal sounds (j, sh, c) turn u > y, and then "disappear." (Like, j > lost, sh > h, and c > ts > s.)

Yeah and I'm gonna try to get rid of the affricates in the modern language. It creates some fun allophonic variation for the stops (e.g. p > f / [+vowel] _ [+vowel], elsewhere p, etc...) I may also have f, s > h / [+vowel] _ [+vowel].

That's all for now, amɜdáhō! (That's middle Odapir for both goodbye and hello!)

Day 8 of writing my novel, aka 1 week and 1 day. I didn’t write much today, as expected, but I let the characters remain rent free in my mind. Like yesterday, I did a lot of thinking about Part Four—mostly how to wrap up the whole story. I haven’t started writing it yet, but maybe I will start on Monday.

things that happened to me when i was a woman in STEM:

an advisor humiliated me in front of an entire lab group because of a call I made in his place when he wouldn't reply to my e-mails for months

he later delegated part of my master's thesis work to a 19-year old male undergrad without my approval

a male scientist at a NASA conference looked me up and down and asked when i was graduating and if i was open to a job at his company. right before inquiring what my ethnicity was because i "looked exotic"

a random male member of the public began talking over me and my female advisor, an oceanographer with a pHD and decades of experience, saying he knew more about oceanography than us

things that have happened to me since becoming a man in STEM:

being asked consistently for advice on projects despite being completely new to a position

male colleagues approaching me to drop candid information regarding our partners / higher ups that I was not privy to before

lenience toward my work in a way I haven't experienced before. incredible understanding when I need to take time off to care for my family.

conference rooms go silent when I start talking. no side chatter. I get a baseline level of attention and focus from people that's very unfamiliar and genuinely difficult for me to wrap my head around.

like. yes some PI's will still be assholes regardless of the gender of their subordinates but, I've lived this transition. misogyny in STEM is killing women's careers, and trans men can and do experience male privilege.

Day 15 (21 in base 7) of rewriting my novel.

I hit 20,000 words today! I'm so excited. This also means that I am just over 9,000 words on Part Two, which also makes me proud.

Today I also really focused on fleshing out Odapir as a conlang, and I have a little ways to go before I finish deriving Modern Odapir from Middle Odapir.

Fun fact, by the way, Odapir is an exonym, since Odeineikō is the endonym in Middle Odapir.

As a treat for reading this far into my blog, have a description of Middle Odapir phonology:

Middle Odapir Phonology

Stops: p, b, t, d, k, g

Nasal Stops: m, n

Affricates: pf, ts, c (palatal affricate)

Fricatives: f, s, sh (palatal fricative), h

Liquids: w, j (palatal approximant)

Tap: r (alveolar tap)

Vowels

High: ī, u, ū

Mid-high: o, ō

Mid-low: e, ɜ

Low: a, ā

Diphthongs: əi, ei, əu, au, ou

That's all for now. Stay tuned for tomorrow's update!

The only good thing from all of this is that now I have an in-depth understanding of the dynamics that create this kind of situation, which is kind-of a must for Evil Government TM. Easily the worst way to get an in-depth understanding of that but...

I have a foolproof strategy for worldbuilding these days (as an American):

Step 1: Wait for Trump/MAGA to do something stupid and perform insane levels of Orwellian double-think to justify it.

Step 2: Write it down and change the names around.

not just homestuck, how about:

* linguistics

* niche micro histories about specific people

* legend born (by Tracy Deonn)

* plants

and more!

Scene: My funeral, day. People are crying over my grave, laying flowers, all the usual customs. Suddenly, there's a rumble coming from under everyone's feet. The Earth trembles as my hand shoots up out of the ground. As people are screaming and running in all directions, I float up in the air and state one simple proclamation.

"Hello everybody, let me tell you about Homestuck."

Day 14 (20 in base 7) of writing my novel again

Woohoo! I'm at two weeks of consistent progress!

I expanded Part Two to around 7,500 words today, which makes the whole thing around the 19,000 word count. I don't know what my original estimates for this thing were, but my newest estimates for how long this thing will be are between 70,000 and 100,000, since I'm probably only 20% of the way through and I'm already almost breaking 20,000. Definitely not a bad thing, it's just how the story I'm trying to tell is coming out.

Tomorrow will be national Odapir day (I decree it!) because I need to flesh the language and culture out. While there's already a substantial mass to work with, it's not ready to be translating anything, and I need translations.

That's all for now. Stay tuned!

i fucking love writing a healthy best friendship between a man and a woman without making it weird or having them fall in love