In July 2007, I spoke at the Second Language Creation Conference at UC Berkeley, which was my first physical public outing and the first live presentation I’d given in years (save those made to record label suits behind closed doors).  I returned to speak again at the Third Language Creation Conference at Brown University this past March.  The conference sites (with pictures) can be seen here:

http://conference.conlang.org/lcc2/

http://conference.conlang.org/lcc3/

I’m fairly conspicuous in all the photos I appear in; I’m the large, sasquatch-like guy in green or black (at Brown, you’ll usually see me in my fedora, which I don’t often wear).  You can view video of my conference presentations on the site.  (The one aspect of my appearance that gets commented on the most is my size–not horizontal, because that’d be un-PC; but rather vertical.  For the record, based on a recent doctor’s visit, I’m 6’3 1/2″ in socks, and about 6’4″ in shoes; I once stood next to Chi McBride and didn’t feel small, which is a good feeling; but it makes airplane cabins tough to negotiate.  Just ask Lila Sadkin—on the Berkeley-to-Denver flight, she saw me bang my head several times on the cabin ceiling, while she gracefully swept through without even the merest threat of a roof encounter.  Physical size perhaps once had great survival advantage in our past, but these days it’s the biological equivalent of a trophy wife.)

I also appear in Arika Okrent’s IN THE LAND OF INVENTED LANGUAGES, which you can purchase here:

http://www.amazon.com/Land-Invented-Languages-Esperanto-Dreamers/dp/0385527888/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246062872&sr=8-1

The book is getting great reviews in a broad section of the media, and it’s doing well; if conlangs are your game (or one of your games), I highly recommend it.  I appear in the book alongside the famous John Quijada and Donald Boozer.  I’m very honored (flattered, really) to have been included.

There’s also an interview with me forthcoming from the LCS (check their website: http://www.conlang.org/), done by David Peterson, whom I met at the conferences.

Over on Bryn Neuenschwander’s (AKA Marie Brennan’s, whose books you ought to be reading) site she has some thoughts on a sub-genre called “hard fantasy”:

http://www.swantower.com/marie/essays/philosophy/index.html

What constitutes this sub-genre is much debated; and I have yet more confusion to add to the debate: THE SPIRIT-WEAVER, I believe, constitutes a kind of hard fantasy.  Specifically, it’s emotionally and physically hard; by this I mean it deals realistically with the emotional and physical consequences of the situations it portrays.  The aforementioned agent described what he read of the book as “intense”–and subsequent discussion with him led me to believe he really meant that the book shows nakedly many things fantasy usually glosses over.  What does it really feel like to kill someone in a fit of rage?  What does it feel like to have a loved one have committed suicide?  How do you really feel at the end of a 500-mile trek through the wilderness?  What does it really feel like to watch thousands get slaughtered in a desperate battle for one’s own country?  And so on.  THE SPIRIT-WEAVER holds nothing back; hence, I call it hard.

THE SPIRIT-WEAVER is best described as James Fenimore Cooper meets DELIVERANCE, with mythic sensibilities.  That may sound paradoxical, but it’s a feeling I’ve had many times through my life: even in the midst of the worst oppression and agony, there’s still the sense that you’re living some kind of myth, that there’s some kind of meaning and reason for it all.  That you are, in addition to being an individual in unique circumstances, also an archetype playing out a mythic role.  I know that’s an almost religious attitude to experience, yet I can’t avoid it: that’s how I think and see the world; I always have.  That comes through very much in the book, and gives it a lot of its power.  But the book is not per se about all the dark stuff that’s in it: rather, it’s about overcoming all of that, and finding, along that journey into the uncertainty of distant lands and alien people, something you can believe in and defend and call your own.  It’s about finding the soul you lost years ago.  To use a Christian metaphor, it’s a descent into hell from which you emerge better and stronger than you ever could have otherwise been.  At the end, I want readers on their feet, cheering, just like when the original Jaws got blown to bits.

Anyway, just letting my blog readers know the situation.  Bear with me.

From the beginning, I intended THE SPIRIT-WEAVER to run counter to that trend; I wanted something that was short by fantasy standards, with a lot of punch in that short space.  That was my guiding light when I started, and it still is.  The compiled notes and sketches for the book, herded into binders for easy access and reference, are over 600 pages of handwritten text and single-spaced type.  But, as I write, I find myself using only about a quarter of that material directly; roughly another quarter is merely implied, and the rest gets stamped with a big red A, meaning I intend to remove that material to the inevitable appendices.  The writing process is every bit as much about deciding what to omit as it is about deciding what makes it to the page.  That, to my mind, makes for a better and denser book; by stripping the story down to its dramatic core, and cutting the stuff that adds little or nothing, you get a more powerful final product.  It’s like refining uranium ore.  And that end product is shaping up into a very sharp, intense experience, for me as a writer–and, I hope, eventually for readers.

The more I write, the more my reasons for writing come into focus.  The most obvious motivation, which holds for probably every writer, is desire for success: I want to make a career of this.  I want to get out of music (the reasons for this are complex and are a post all their own; the gist: while I love the work, I hate many of the things I’m forced to do on the business side) and trade my sound engineer’s cap for a writer’s hat.  I know I’m good; whether I’m good enough to make writing a career remains to be seen; THE SPIRIT-WEAVER is my test.

The other motivation will probably make me sound arrogant to some: I want to create another Middle-earth, or a place even better.  In fact, I’ve been doing that for over a decade.  I want to create a world and tell a story in it that has all the complexity and power of Tolkien, and which inspires people and makes them dream the way Middle-earth and LORD OF THE RINGS do. Many have tried this; there’s been no shortage of LOTR ripoffs over the last 50 years; but I don’t mean I want to retread Tolkien’s ground and make a new and improved version of Middle-earth.  Rather, I want (and have wanted) to do for North America and its native peoples what Tolkien did for Europe; and the result of that quest has been Daszeria, which I’ve been developing since I was 15 years old (I’m now going on 32; so you can do the math).  It’s taken this long to get myself to a position where the writing of a big epic set in Daszeria could be accomplished. I’ve tried to write that book before, the last time in 1996-97; but neither I nor the world were ready then; the whole thing had to gestate some more.

My hard deadline for THE SPIRIT-WEAVER is August 31, 2009.  Recent developments related to the book have tempted me to speed this process up; but I’ve been at this far too long to half-ass it now.  I know I could rush it, and have it done by spring, but that would involve sacrifices of art and craft I’m not willing to make.  Someone once joked that this whole thing has been in development longer than Duke Nukem Forever; but if it turns out the way I want, and everything points in that direction at the moment, it’ll be worth it.  Readers will at last have another Middle-earth to dream over.  (I’ve been scared at times of being scooped by established writers; but I figure if anyone were actually working in the same vein I am, they’d have published a book long ago.  Amerindia has been the subject of many historical and paleohistorical novels; but never has a complete fantasy world been built on it.  Daszeria’s combination of Amerindianness with inspiration from Colonial and frontier America, with the supernatural woven through all of it, is unique; it seems unlikely that someone hasn’t thought of this before–but if they have, they’ve not written anything.)

I’m now writing an extended chase sequence which is present in the 96 version, but the current scene is a new one.  It takes place on an island formed by rivers in what is now western New York state, called in legend the Place of Nameless Fear, or the Isle of Ghosts.  The island was the site of several battles between the natives of the area and the Wandmen, during the Wandman conquests several centuries ago; the Wandmen attacked the villages there in vengeance for the burning of some towns of theirs to the south (by another tribe), and after the battle slaughtered those who survived.  No one was allowed to escape.  Since then, the Isle has become, if not haunted, certainly very strange; there are no ghosts there, but as White Thunder says: “The agony of those people [the massacred natives] has become one with the Earth in that place; no one passes over it without feeling something of what they felt in their last days.”  Something is an understatement; out of nowhere, fear, paranoia and rage steadily grip the party members as they cross they island, in search of a hunter and trapper who’s stolen the Spirit-Weaver.  It builds until some of the party flee in panic, while others point their rifles at one another. I’m basing the Isle and its psychological effects a bizarre experience of mine at a Revolutionary War battleground in New York some years ago; though the Isle of Ghosts has a far more profound effect.  The whole chase sequence ends a bit later at Daszeria’s version of Niagara Falls; and, yes, as is almost required, someone goes over the falls.

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Dear Mr. Galen:

My recently completed 160,000-word novel THE SPIRIT-WEAVER is gritty, character-driven epic fantasy in the tradition of George R. R. Martin’s A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE. The world in which the book unfolds, Daszeria, is the North American version of Middle-earth; the setting draws vividly on American Indian lore, colonial and frontier America and the mythology of the American wilderness.

Into panic-ridden Felora Little Ford’s quiet, desperate life comes the Spirit-Weaver, an innocent-looking leather headband coveted by the Wandmen, brutal conquerors who bid to doom Fel and the other native peoples of Daszeria to a living hell of dispossession and subjugation. When he realizes the Spirit-Weaver’s awesome and harrowing power, Fel must reach within himself for a power even greater—an iron will determined to keep the headband out of Wandman hands, even as they overrun his homeland in search of it.

Hunted relentlessly, Fel seeks salvation in the ancient and mysterious Western Nations, whose legendary warriors fended off Wandman aggression a thousand years ago. But securing their aid becomes a struggle all its own: bitter rivalry and war have sundered the Western tribes—and, like a storm that no one sees coming, they are the next targets of the twisted Wandman creed of Manifest Destiny. To make the Western Nations stand as one against the Wandmen, Fel must first overcome the demons that have held his soul all his life—and if he fails to conquer himself, the Wandmen will conquer everything.

My lifelong passion for American Indian culture and language drove me to write the book and to spend over a decade crafting Daszeria. I’ve studied the American Indian languages Mohawk and Cheyenne for fourteen years now, and they’ve inspired several constructed languages that appear briefly in the story.

Fantasy readers have shown that they’re hungry for more adult themes—and THE SPIRIT-WEAVER pulls no punches: like Martin, it shows the real brutality of the real world, and the villains aren’t evil wizards in distant towers, but human beings who commit their atrocities out of religious fervor, greed and lust for glory. Fel, my flawed and haunted hero, will inspire anyone who’s ever longed to rise up against the forces, external or internal, that hold him back. The book features those “big canvasses, big characters, big consequences” that you find so compelling in fiction, and will appeal not only to epic fantasy fans, but equally to historical and mainstream fiction readers. I intend to make it the first volume of a series; and I’m currently working on the sequel. I’d like you to evaluate the manuscript and assist me in selling it to a publisher, and to likewise handle my future books. Please reply at your convenience.

XXXX X. XXXXX

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I read a couple books on query letters years ago, and I wrote the above from what I remembered of those.  A query follows a basic paragraph formula: introduce yourself and your book; give a short capsule of the story, akin to cover-copy blurbs; list your publication credits and/or credentials; and conclude with a summation that tells the agent why your book is special, where it fits into the market, and, most important of all, invites him to read the thing.  You have to do all that with great enthusiasm; your passion for your work has to evident in every sentence.  Oh, and you have to do it succinctly: the ideal query letter is a page or less.  Agents are busy people, and your letter had better be so damn intriguing that it tears him away from his busy schedule, and, ultimately, makes him pick up the phone and call you on the spot.  Or at least send you a “gimme” reply.  I tried to accomplish all that with my query; time will tell if I succeeded.  At any rate, I hope the letter helps the writer who inspired this post.  (As I said in another comment, I wrote the query well in advance because my writer’s group is focusing on queries at the moment, and I decided to give it a try; I’d originally planned on waiting until the book was finished…but at least this way I’ll have the letter ready when it is.  And while the query is addressed to Russell Galen, and he’s far and away my first choice, and I feel like I have a good shot at him, I’m well aware of the pitfalls in this business; so if need be, I’ll revise the letter a bit and try someone else, should it come to that.)

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Panic-ridden Felora Little Ford’s chance discovery of the Spirit-Weaver twists his boyhood dreams of worldly travel into a nightmare. As Fel quickly discovers, the innocent-looking leather headband harbors unpredictable power, and when years of pent-up rage lead Fel to use it on a bully who humiliates him, he flees with it. But his flight puts him on a collision course with the Wandmen, brutal conquerors who bid to doom the native peoples of Daszeria to a living hell of dispossession and subjugation. Intent on using the Spirit-Weaver to resurrect their long-dead god Shalthumel, the Wandmen relentlessly hunt Fel; but the terror of pursuit and Fel’s own conscience stir within him a secret power that rivals the Spirit-Weaver—an iron will determined to see the Wandmen defeated.

Driven by guilt and desperation to save his overrun homeland, Fel must seek the help of the ancient and mysterious Western Nations, who slew Shalthumel and fended off Wandman aggression a thousand years ago.  But securing their aid is no easy task: bitter rivalry and war have sundered the Western tribes—and, like a storm that no one sees coming, they are the next targets of the twisted Wandman creed of Manifest Destiny. To make the Western Nations stand as one against the Wandmen, Fel must first overcome the demons that have held his soul all his life—and if he fails to conquer himself, the Wandmen will conquer everything.

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If anyone wonders, yes, I have a specific agent in mind—and it’s no secret that it’s Russell Galen.  This kind of thing is right up his alley—a big story told on a big canvass, with big consequences.  But that’ll have to wait—there’s no small amount of work left to be done. But in the meantime, if he were to happen across this blog and read this (about as likely as my learning how to fly a 777), I suppose this would amount to me telegraphing him the punch—which could be good or bad, depending on his reaction.  But this blog is for me and a few other interested parties; I have little room in my head to consider anything other than the book right now.

About a month later, in November of 2002, I joined the Zompist Bulletin Board, or ZBB, which has been my main home online these past six years.  The people there have been privy to parts of Daszeria’s growth since I re-committed to the project, but many have consistently asked for more.  But I’ve never been comfortable posting incomplete ideas or first drafts, so they’ve mostly seen the completed stuff–which, sad to say, has been sparse.  Back in late 02, I imagined I’d have everything done and THE SPIRIT-WEAVER finished by mid-2004, at the latest; but I severely underestimated the amount of work to be done, and I could only work a few hours at a time, here and there, when I wasn’t involved in recording.  When 2004 had come and gone, I knew I’d never get this thing done unless I could dedicate myself to it, totally, for at least a year; but taking a year off work requires money, and at that point I started squirreling some cash back for that year-long sabbatical.  By July of this year, I was ready, both financially and personally; and I haven’t looked back since.

It’s amazing how much I’ve gotten done these past three months; more than in the previous three years combined.  The languages are nearing their final forms, at long last; I anticipate being able to make use of the vast “Central Mountain” article (mentioned in an earlier entry) that describes them in my presentation at the Third Language Creation Conference early next year (tentatively set to be held at Brown in Providence).  The new maps are taking shape; and I’ve been sorting notes and developing the new master outline for THE SPIRIT-WEAVER.  SONGS FROM THE EARTH, the mythology of Daszeria that tells of the fight to reclaim the Earth from Kamoashka and the dark ice age he brings upon it, is in need of very little revision; it’s long been a fixed tradition and the background to everything else Daszeria-related I’ve done.  I anticipate using a bit of SONGS in THE SPIRIT-WEAVER, to vet the feeling of depth and explain references made to past events; I aim to try to work in parts of two long poems in iambic pentameter called “The Lust of Yoashan” and “The Vengeance of Kamoashka,” which detail the accidental creation of Kamoashka and his revenge after returning to Earth from exile, respectively. If they fit, that is; if not, they’ll be passed over silently, or perhaps with a quick reference or two.

The languages of Daszeria, covering some 12,000 years of fictional historical development, are among its most important aspects; and, at times, I’ve considered them _the_ most important, because they intersect and shed light on more or less everything else.  I’ve been working on Daszeria’s conlangs since college, having started to develop them seriously around the end of 1995, before the first draft of THE SPIRIT-WEAVER was written.  I was taking a course in Mohawk at that time, and it had more than a little influence on them; and Cheyenne, which I began learning a couple years later, exerted even more.  Their broad strokes have been painted since the beginning, but the minute details and have grown and changed much over the years; and they’re still undergoing evolution now.  I’ve said before to friends that I’d probably never be satisfied until I’d traced Daszeria’s main language family, called Central Mountain or CM, back in time to a purely CV proto-language with no vowel length and a semi-minimal number of sounds, so that I could show where all the little nuances and oddities came from.  And that’s exactly one of the things I’ve been working on–extending CM’s fictional history back to that primordial, pure-CV genesis.  I’m writing it out in the form of an academic treatise, covering all aspects of the languages–phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic–from a diachronic perspective and treating it like I would a paper on a natural language (which it’s supposed to mimic); I get a big kick out of doing that, playing my own language game–it’s a unique thrill only conlangers know.  Here’s a taste of the work so far (the sound changes in §2.3 are all labeled [x], since I won’t number them until I know how many there’ll be in total):

§1 OPENING REMARKS

§1.1 INTRODUCTION

Central Mountain (CM) was a large family, perhaps largest among its early contemporaries, only a small part of which survived the First Earth.  Our work focuses on the six best known languages: Hlholamelo (Hlh), Kapakwonak (K), Noyahtowa (N), Hanoa?tsi (H), Shashuska (S) and Ohiyo?pa (O), all of which were closely related to N.  Data from lesser known CM languages and dialects are used as needed in supplementary fashion.

Proto-Central Mountain (PCM) is used to designate the common ancestor of Hlh and K.  An earlier stage, pre-PCM (pPCM), is investigated through methods of internal reconstruction applied to PCM.  While by no means a blind guess, pPCM may indeed reflect as much speculation as fact, glossing over (by necessity) substantial irregularities and variations in favor of idealized forms.  Elements and words from pPCM must be viewed with this caveat in mind.  Nevertheless, we regard many, if not most, pPCM forms as probable, while admitting that our internally reconstructed language as a whole is not likely definitive.

§1.2 TRANSCRIPTION AND ABBREVIATIONS

Transcription follows, in the main, Americanist notation, supplementing with IPA or ad hoc symbols only when the former is inadequate or unclear.  No distinction is drawn between phoneme and phone.

§2 PHONOLOGY

§2.1 SOUNDS

PPCM had five vowels, which apparently did not distinguish quantity: high front *ɩ; mid front *ɛ; low central *a; high back *ʊ; and mid back *ɔ.  The back vowels were rounded; the others were not.  The high and mid vowels were all lax. 

The pPCM simple consonants were unaspirated stops *p, *t, *k; fricatives *s, *h; and nasals *m, *n, *ŋ. The nasal consonants were voiced; the rest were voiceless, probably lenis.  The consonant *ŋ, although alien to the phonologies of the later languages, is reconstructed based on the need for a segment that shares the nasality of m and the velarness of k, both of which are yielded by the segment.

§2.2 SYLLABLES AND STRESS

PPCM syllable structure was strict, invariably CV, with a vowel always forming the syllabic peak.  No clusters, consonant or vowel, occurred.  There was a single level of stress, constituted by increased amplitude.  Monosyllabic words all received stress; and disyllabic words were stressed on the first syllable.   In words of three or more syllables, every other syllable was stressed, starting with the first, with the final syllable invariably receiving stress as well.  In polysyllabic words containing an even number of syllables, this resulted in two contiguous intra-word stressed syllables (the final two), which occurred nowhere else in the language. 

 §2.3 HISTORICAL PHONETIC CHANGES BY LANGUAGE AND PERIOD

 Here the regular historical sound shifts that occurred in CM are sketched. 

 §2.31 FROM PPCM TO PCM

(x) The dental coronals {t, s, n} palatalize before stressed and unstressed front vowels {ɩ, ɛ}; and after stressed {ɩ, ɛ}, they also progressively palatalize.

{t, s, n} > {tʸ, sʸ, nʸ} / _{ˈɩ, ˈɛ, ɩ, ɛ}

{t, s, n} > {tʸ, sʸ, nʸ} / {ˈɩ, ˈɛ}_

(x) Word-initially and before stressed and unstressed front vowels {ɩ, ɛ}, ŋ is lost. Before a stressed or unstressed rounded vowel (other than word-initially), ŋ is assimilated to m; and before a stressed or unstressed central vowel (other than word-initially), ŋ becomes g, which is then devoiced to k.  With these changes, ŋ ceases to exist.

ŋ > ø / #_

ŋ > ø / _{ˈɩ, ˈɛ, ɩ, ɛ}

ŋ > m / _{ˈʊ, ˈɔ, ʊ, ɔ}

ŋ > k  / _{ˈa, a}

(x) With the consonant loss in change (x), compensatory lengthening rules first apply.  These rules become a persistent feature of CM and give rise to its three-way vowel length distinction, apparently without any pre-existing length from an independent source, which is ordinarily taken as a requirement for compensatory lengthening to occur.  The compensatory lengthening rules work to preserve overall length following the shortening or loss of sounds.  The rules can be summarized by assigning length values to various types of segments, and by providing for the shift of a segment’s length value (in whole or in part) to another segment (typically to a vowel) when the segment is lost or shortened.  Relative to short (i.e., unlengthened) vowels, which equal 1, simple consonants have a length of 0.5; mid-long vowels a length of 1.5; and long vowels a length of 2.  The vocalic length values correspond approximately to actual relative vowel durations–i.e., a mid-long vowel is held about 1.5 times as long as a short vowel, and a long vowel about twice as long.  In this case, the first vowel preceding a lost ŋ will become mid-long if it is short; or if this vowel is mid-long, it will become long.  If there is no preceding vowel, the first vowel following a lost ŋ will become mid-long if it is short, or long if it is mid-long.  These processes occur from left to right across the word until all lost consonants are compensated for.

(x) It is likely, but not demonstratable, that mid-long and long vowels in unstressed syllables briefly take on at least a secondary stress, until the shift of stress patterns in change (x) below.  However, no trace of such secondary stress remains after the shift, and this secondary stress, if it existed, seems to have exerted no discernible phonetic influence.

(x) The persistent relationship between extended vowel length and tenseness among the high and mid vowels appears.  Mid-long and long {ɩ, ɛ, ʊ, ɔ} become tense.  Hereafter, mid-long and long high and mid vowels will always be realized as tense, while their short counterparts continue to always be realized as lax.

{ɩˑ, ɛˑ, ʊˑ, ɔˑ, ɩː, ɛː, ʊː, ɔː} > {iˑ, eˑ, uˑ, oˑ, iː, eː, uː, oː}

(x) Unstressed short vowels {ɩ, ɛ, a, ʊ, ɔ} are syncopated.

V > ø

(x) Compensatory lengthening applies with the vowel loss in change (x).  The first vowel preceding a syncopated vowel will become long if it is short; if the first preceding vowel is non-short, the first vowel following a syncopated vowel will become long if it is short; if the first following vowel is non-short, the first vowel preceding a syncopated vowel will become long if it is mid-long, and if it is not, the first vowel following a syncopated vowel will become long if it is mid-long.   In cases where there is no following vowel and this rule calls for lengthening of the first following vowel, that part of the rule is ignored.  The length of any syncopated vowel that cannot be compensated for (in whole or in part) by the foregoing is simply lost. These processes occur from left to right across the word until all syncopated vowels are compensated for, to the degree that they can be.

(x) Syllable length sandhi rules first apply.  Like compensatory lengthening, these become a persistent feature, but they are ranked above compensatory lengthening and prevent it (and other changes) from occurring when the rules would be violated.  The rules prohibit non-short syllables from occuring consecutively in a word, where the length of a syllable is determined by the length of its vowel; thus, a short syllable must always intervene between two non-short syllables.  The sandhi processes can be summarized as follows, using the length values of segments as discussed above: sequences of two or more consecutive non-short syllables are divided into groups of two non-short syllables each, from left to right across a word, with no syllable belonging to more than one group, and with any leftover non-short syllable momentarily ignored.  The first syllable in the first group loses one or more increments of its length, such that it becomes short, and the lost length is then shifted to an adjoining syllable–preferably, to the preceding syllable, if there is one, or to the following syllable, if there is not, or if the preceding syllable cannot receive the shifted length (for either of the reasons described hereafter); shift of length will not occur, however, if it results in a sequence of two consecutive non-short syllables, and/or if the syllable that would receive the shifted length is already long.  Short and mid-long syllables may receive only enough shifted length to make them long, and they may receive the entire quantity of shifted length, if able, or only part of it; and any length that cannot be shifted as described above is simply lost.  Once the first group is thus altered, these processes are repeated with the second disyllable group (if there is one), and so on, from left to right across the word.  If, after all groups are altered,  there remains any sequence of two consecutive non-short syllabes, these syllables are treated as their own distinct group, irrespective of and separate from the other previous groups, and are subjected to the foregoing processes.

(x) Mid-long and long high and mid vowels become tense.

{ɩˑ, ɛˑ, ʊˑ, ɔˑ, ɩː, ɛː, ʊː, ɔː} > {iˑ, eˑ, uˑ, oˑ, iː, eː, uː, oː}

(x) Stress patterns shift, perhaps in response to some of the previous changes.  Monosyllabic words no longer receive stress; and disyllabic words become stressed on the second syllable.  In words of three or more syllables, every other syllable is still stressed, but starting with the second; and final syllables are stressed only if they receive stress by the foregoing pattern.  In all lengths of word, mid-long and long syllables are all likewise stressed, and the syllable following a mid-long or long syllable is always treated like the beginning of a new word–i.e., the stress count starts over, so that the syllable immediately following a mid-long or long syllable is left unstressed, the syllable after that is stressed, and so on.  These stress rules become a persistent feature, but they are ranked below both the syllable length sandhi and compensatory lengthening rules and may be violated by either of them, or by certain other changes; but they are consistently reapplied following violation by any change.

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Those familiar with Algonquian and/or Nishnaabemwin will see a few inspirations from there in the above.

Among fantasy writers, few besides Tolkien have paid much attention to the languages of their worlds; and while Daszeria’s conlangs share no formal similarities to Quenya or Sindarin, and are about as different from them as Mandarin is from English, I owe him a huge debt–he is, in my opinion, the founder of artlanging; he showed that it was possible to do stuff like this–to work out the history of fictional languages in realistic and detailed fashion, and to connect them to culture and myth in a compelling way.

(Reading through the above excerpt from the Central Mountain paper, I’m struck at how different my academic writing style is from my fiction style; my academic writing reads like Bloomfield, while my fiction is closer to Thomas Wolfe–two worlds that are about as far apart as you can get.  I often feel like a different person when doing one type of writing vs. the other; I pay attention to different details with each, and my entire way of seeing things and expressing them differs.)