Old News; Coldwater's Steampunk Festival

I'm just going to skip excuses and reasons for being to quiet on the blog and simply offer a post about Coldwater's Steampunk Festival that took place about six weeks ago.

Ya know what? I am still feeling sick from a cold I caught a few days ago. Maybe I'll extend this post. Maybe.

In the meantime, Nanowrimo is beginning to set up for this year's event. My entry won't be steampunk but I am sure many will be.

2 Weeks to Coldwater Steampunk Festival

Festival homepage here.

The town of Coldwater is a remarkable place. Everybody knows Richard Shrivels in Coldwater and the way they boil eggs is oft-discussed. And also, they have an annual Steampunk Festival. I was busy for one of the first ones and out of the country for the next four and excited to attend this one.
Some Facebook pages:

Medieval Swordplay 
Steampunk Festival
Coldwater Steampunk Festival
and Coldwater Steampunk Festival  - Yes, the names are similar or identical but the landing sites are different and I am not sure of the sources.

The theme this year, and I only learned of it today, is Oceanic. I had been trying to figure out how to make a costume for it and this one word has given me some ideas that I should have had days ago. Chiefly, that I should look for faux-leather vinyl to wrap stuff in for a period feel. How did that only come to mind after the unrelated word 'Oceanic'?

writing as procrastination instead of writing as work

I have mostly finished my semester's work at the university.  Classes are done but I am awaiting grades from a test my students take outside of class.  I was fairly busy until Friday.

This summer, I will work at an English camp where I will teach, uh, biology, I guess, in an ESL environment.  The uncertainty I displayed above is due to the plans for the class.  In the past, I have taught evolution and ecology and dove into these subjects with enthusiasm.  This time the camp director is giving me students with weaker English ability and wants more of a hands-on taxonomy class, focusing on descriptions of animals and behavior.  All this is good and the subject has great potential, but now you know about as much as I do about the class.

I need to write a booklet for the students by the end of the month and let me show you what I have so far:

Since I photographed this mind-map, I have added snakes, lizards and snails to it.  I may add shrimp as well.  Why shrimp for an inland camp?  Because Korea has fresh water shrimp - these are tiny or shrimpy-shrimp.

On the left is a snail and on the right is a longtailed tadpole shrimp.  Gangwon province is far from Kimhae where I took the picture so such shrimp are unlikely there.

Back to my narrative. I have had a little trouble sleeping because I have been worried about camp preparations.  Making the mindmap relieved me enough that I slept better after making it.  The thing is, the mindmap, though containing important information and offering suggestions on how to organize my book, does little to actually advance the project.

Earlier, I wrote about the differences between novelty and innovation.  I guess I have progressed through the first ring but have a lot of actual creating to do before the product is ready.

I think this illustrates the difference between the lessons of creativity lectures -like Music to my Ears - and discussions of genius.  The class focused on the creation of ideas while geniuses use their deep understanding of the material to choose the best ideas and build on them.  My mindmap contains no new (that is, not new to me) information and I, having studied biology in North America, am greatly ignorant about Korean flora and fauna.  To some extent, birds are birds everywhere and bugs are bugs, but this is to be a descriptive course and I need to be able to name and identify the critters seen or collected.

Anyway, here I am, typing this in a coffee shop.  Typing more original content on this blog than I have in months.  All too distract myself to the problem of not knowing what to type for the book.  Back to work.

...

Before I go, my son and his cousin made a mud man while I was planting rice this weekend.  Have a look - and also enjoy the snail eggs:

Steampunk festival in Coldwater

It's on August 10, at Coldwater Ontario.  I hope to be there for the morning, and possibly with a few guttersnipes in tow.
Facebook page.  Coldwater Event calendar.

In a similar vein, Orillia's Museum of Art and History has a Steampunk exhibit.

So, what is Steampunk?
Squiddo says:

Over the past thirty years authors have been trying to combine the past with the present to create the 'modern' steampunk. This involves manipulating the Victorian industrial era with futuristic inventions largely run on steam. As a sub-genre that is still growing in popularity it is hard to know what elements are "necessary" for a story to be considered steampunk.

Squiddoo focuses on three main points.
Language (Cockney and Victorian), Industrialization, Historicism


One Nanowrimo wannabe says

Air pirates and air ships are a big one! I'm personally a big fan of air ships. :) This isn't necessarily a literary steampunk thing, but goggles are very much a staple of steampunk costumes and aesthetic. As are gears on clothing and such. I use this to a slightly humorous affect. The gears on clothing in one of my WIPs has no purpose beyond the fact that the society finds it aesthetically pleasing and pretty, and people that dress up in steampunk nowadays do. People often use something called called "aether" in steampunk media that's sort of a vague thing. In classical beliefs (and the 19th century), it was thought that aether was some sort of substance that acted as a medium of transition of electromagnetic waves.
The thing about cliches and tropes is, they are cliches and tropes because they /work/ if you want to write in air pirates and what have you, go for it! Own it and make it your own.

This quote is from 2012, so this person might now be a Nanowrimo completer,

unlike me, who remains a wannabe.

Steampunk Canada has more info.

TV Tropes has suggestions on how to write Steampunk:

"Steampunk", of course, suggests steam-driven technology, so you will need to include this in your story. In a broader sense, steampunk also usually refers to a general attitude and aesthetic around that of the nineteenth century, incorporating the styles and fashions, attitudes and politics. This means, of course, that your story will either be set at some point within the Industrial Revolution or the nineteenth century, an Alternate History which spun off from this point or another world which is based on these stylings....Steampunk tends to run on Rule Of Cool; in actuality, a lot of steampunk technologies (particularly those which attempt to replicate modern technologies such as the computer) would have been massive, consumed unsustainable amounts of fuel and would probably have ultimately been unworkable (there's a reason in real life the human race switched from steam to oil and gas). This, of course, does not mean that your story cannot work — it does, however, mean that you need to make sure you get the reader's Willing Suspension of Disbelief on side. In general, as it's such a fantastic genre, the audience will accept quite a lot — but this does not mean they will accept absolutely anything.Steampunk is also an aesthetic. Technology affects the world around us in great ways, and a world based on steampunk technologies would be quite different in terms of politics, attitudes, fashions, etc. You need to keep this in mind; your reader will not be convinced if you simply transplant modern society with a slightly steampunk makeover.

I attempted my own list of tropes or requirements for Steampunk before I began research so lets see how mine compares:

• Steam powered engines: train, dirigible, ornithopter, etc
• Above, either biomimickry or loud, clanky, dirty, dangerous massive machines
• Victorian settings, styles, classes: nobility travel with huge amounts of luggage and servants,combination of guns and swords, repressed emotions and sexuality, flowing booze and copious amounts of food
• Brass, steel, leather, wood construction, goggles and gears
• Magic or Magic/science - Mesmer's hypnosis, Frankenstein, ouija boards.

Added the next day:
Boingboing reviews a book on Steampunk Device making.  Amazon link here.

Added March 14, 2014, Steampunk 101.