Linda Maye Adams's Blog, page 81

Navy discontinues its blueberry uniforms

Uniforms are an important part of life for both soldiers and the military.  For the soldiers, it’s what they wear, every day that they report to duty.  For the military, and especially the higher ups, it’s a way to make their mark on the service, and a very visible one, before they retire.

And usually, it’s not for the better.

Navy Discontinues Navy Working Uniform Type I Uniform

Last week, the Navy announced that they would be discontinuing their blue camouflage uniforms, nicknamed “blueberries.”

Trust soldiers to come up with an insulting nickname.

The uniform popped up when all the services were trying to show they were unique by coming up with their own camouflage (blame the Marines.  They started it).  But if you served on a ship, what good would camouflage do?

Needless to say, the uniform wasn’t much liked.  The Army also changed its uniform not too long ago.

The Army excursion into uniform change: the beret

I was still in the Army when the much hated berets were introduced.  It was a hat that never made sense.  The one we originally wore was like a square off ball cap with a brim.  Perfect for doing details and grubby work.  It wasn’t very expensive, and it could be thrown in the wash when the brim got all sweaty.   Also could be folded up and stuck in a pocket.

But beret?

It was wool and had this leather band around the bottom.  Cost a lot for a hat.  Had to be dry cleaned.  Really?  Let’s see, I went to the field and it rained for the entire week.  Then there was Desert Storm where the sweat didn’t just transfer to the hat; it imprinted.  A fussy beret would not have worked.

Somehow, no one thought about anything beyond what it looked like.

How do military personal get the new uniforms?

The military does not make the soldiers rush out and buy the new uniforms, which would be quite a hardship.  There’s a fairly long period where the old uniforms can wear out and be replaced by the new styles.

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An interesting bit of trivia:  Despite being in the military for so many years, I cannot spell camouflage!  I had it three times above, and not one was spelled correctly.  It’s a very confusing word!

Filed under: Military Tagged: Army, Beret, Navy, Uniforms

The Biggest Fear of War

There were lots of things to be afraid of during Desert Storm: Getting gassed, getting hit by a scud, enemy troops—and getting captured.

I watched the very bad Jessica Lynch movie and nearly had a meltdown when the commander of the convoy knew he was lost and kept driving in the same direction anyway, which led to the events that followed. It could have happened to us.  I could see one of our leaders doing that.

But it takes a special of courage to try do something to help yourself even when you are terrified and facing the business end of many rifles.  There was a very public incident where a Navy ship was captured briefly by the Iranians—do to leadership failures, which caused some bad choices.  But the one woman on the mission managed to turn on the beacon while under gunpoint, signaling help.

Courage isn’t racing into a battle foolishly—it’s what you do when you’re scared to death, and you do it anyway.

Filed under: Military Tagged: Desert Storm, Jessica Lynch, Navy, scud

What’s the deal with character questionnaires?

Character worksheets or questions or interviews are pretty commonly recommended to develop characters.  They’ve always had me scratching my head.  I’ve never really understand the purpose—and this is an actual example from one of them—of identifying the time a character drinks tea every morning.

Or even that logic that I’ve heard that doesn’t make sense to me: “You have to know every detail even if it’s not in the story.”

I’d look at it and rather go off and write the story and find out, then do boring, and what would be to me very mechanical, questions.

I don’t even know what my main character’s favorite color is.  Her least favorite color is yellow, but then, that’s the least favorite color of every character in the story because the aliens they’re dealing with are yellow. Ain’t no one liking yellow.

But I also trust that if I need to know that fact, it’ll show up in the story when it needs to be there.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: characterization

Would Star Trek Exist without Star Wars?

William Shatner made a comment last week that Star  Trek wouldn’t have existed without Star Wars.  It sounds wrong, simply because Star Trek aired in 1966, and Star Wars was released in 1977.  It sounds backwards.

Except it is and it isn’t.

First Came Star Trek

In the last week, I’ve run into multiple articles on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek.  One was in the Smithsonian, and another a Time Magazine special.  The tone has changed a lot over the years.

I remember when I first became a fan in the mid-seventies.  Momentum for the show was starting to build.  There were conventions popping up in Los Angeles, and a lot of people were attending them.  Needless to say, reporters got sent to find out what all the fuss was about.

And they came with a bias, which showed up in the newspaper:

Star Trek is for children.
Star Trek is for crazies.

Invariably they would either find a little boy in a Spock shirt and shorts and wearing pointed ears and take a photo of that.  Or they find the sloppiest, craziest-looking fan and photograph her.  And ignore anyone—everyone else—who looked normal.

It’s probably where “Trekkie” got associated with children and crazy fans, because there was always that condescending attitude from the news stories about “These Trekkies” like those people weren’t normal.

We all wanted the show come back.  But the studios hadn’t liked it in the first place.  They thought no one would like it much, and besides, it was way too expensive.  No one was going to take a risk on it again.

Along Comes Star Wars

In 1977, Star Wars came out.  It caught everyone off guard—it just took off.  People were lining up around the corner to get into the movie theaters.  They returned to the theater to watch the movie sometimes 20 times!

I saw it only once.  I wished Star Trek could come back.  Star Wars was an action adventure film, but Star Trek was about something more.

But Star Wars’ success had the affect of making science fiction something everyone could enjoy, and that they would spend money on.  It kick started the move to bring Star Trek back, with a shift to films and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

If Star Wars hadn’t been such a huge success, causing studios to get dollar signs in their eyes, I’m not sure the studios would have wanted to risk the expense of bringing Star Trek back.  And we’d have been a lot poorer for it.

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We’re at 115 degrees today—the actual temperature was 100, and the humidty pushed it the rest of the way.  Ugh!

Filed under: Entertainment Tagged: Los Angeles, Spock, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Wars, Wiliam Shatner

Locations Used for TV Around L.A.

One of the cool things about growing up in L.A. was that I’d see places I’d been to on a TV show.  There was an episode of Hunter that was filmed at a local Ralph’s grocery store.  Scarecrow and Mrs. King had a scene filed outside a Gemco (a department store that was turned into a Target). 

Probably one of the more famous ones is the “Batcave,” which is a small cave used in the original Batman series.  You can see the car driving through it.  But it was also used as part of Star Trek 6.  I visited L.A. then, and my father took me to the cave.  Men were out there building some kind of structure on the outside of the cave.  We went over and asked, and they told us what it was for.

Here are some locations that were used for a number of TV shows.

Filed under: Culture, Entertainment, Television Tagged: Batman, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Star Trek

Where the size of paperback books originated

I’ve always liked paperback books.  Not just because they were very budget friendly, but also because they were small and portable.  I could take one out to lunch with me and tuck it back into a bag—and didn’t weigh down the bag too much.  And when I was in the Army, they tucked right into my cargo pocket.

Try that with a hard back …

Plus, paperback doesn’t take up much space on the bookshelf.  Very important when you have a lot of books and have to keep beating them back.

The ereader is also designed in a paperback size.

But where did this size comes from?

Turns out, the size is because books were made from parchment, which was sheepskin. 

© Rud | Dreamstime Stock Photos

The Hidden Link Between e-Readers and Sheep features some interesting history on the origins of books, and some pretty cool pictures.

Then there’s this interesting note:

There’s a reason medieval monks wrote manuscripts; preparing the parchment was penance.

Oh, dear.

Filed under: Books Tagged: Books, ereaders, hard backs, paperbacks

Writing Action Scenes with Women Characters

One of the hardest things about writing an action scene is when there’s a woman character.  Most women aren’t as strong as a man, and punching out a bad guy just ain’t in the cards.

In fact, it’s so hard that writers use all of the following:

Write the woman like she was a guy.  Pretty fake.
Give the women supernatural powers, then write the action like she is a guy.
Have a male character do the action while the woman stays off to the side.

The first time I wrote an action scene with a woman character, it was both exciting and scary.  I didn’t want to screw it up, and I wanted it to feel like if it was the woman reader, she could imagine that it was something she could.

Minus all those scary parts.

How the heck do you write an action scene with a woman?

It actually took quite a bit of creativity and thinking.  I knew from my time in the Army that there were some things that the guys could do but that women wouldn’t be able to.  Most action films use the man’s upper body strength—dangling from rooftops, punching the bad guy out … well, you get the idea.

Women don’t have that upper body strength.  Heck, I’m struggling to get above six pounds on free weights at the gym!

For that first action scene, the woman character was locked in a room and directed to come up with a formula.  Bad guys outside the door.  Typical guy action scene would have the hero lure the guard in, deck him, and escape.

Since she couldn’t punch him out, then it was time to put her smarts to use.  Since she was in a room with a bunch of chemicals, she builds a small bomb that smokes up the place.  Bad guy comes in to investigate, boom!  And she escapes.

Action Scenes with Men and Women

These are about as challenging.  I always think everyone should be equally in deep do-do.  So the bad guy (or monster or alien) needs to do something to screw the characters up.  So the male character might get whacked, and the female character is trying to keep him from getting whacked worse, and bad guy is not cooperating.

And meanwhile, they’re hopelessly outnumbered.

But it is a lot of work keeping it so that both characters are respected.   One of the most disrespectful books I read had a woman main character with a male sidekick.  During the big action scene early in the book, she falls down the stairs, and out of the scene, so the sidekick could do the fight.  Very lazy writing and made me think a lot less of both the character and the writer.

Action scenes are best served when all the characters get to participate.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: Action Scenes, action-adventure

First woman to pin on the dolphins

PUGET SOUND, Wash. (April 18, 2016) – The Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN 730) transits the Hood Canal as it returns to home to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor following a strategic deterrent patrol. Jackson is one of eight ballistic missile submarines stationed at the base providing the most survivable leg of the strategic deterrence triad for the United States. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Amanda R. Gray/Released)

 

We now have a woman submariner! The first woman has pinned on the dolphin qualification badge. 

When I was growing up, I loved reading and watching anything about submarines and undersea. I checked out submarine books from the library—Admiral Rickover’s book on the first nuclear submarine, and Robb White’s novels.  Even the movie tie in for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (which is quite different from the movie that aired). 

Submarines are just cool.  Nothing like seeing one burst up out of the water on an emergency blow.  Of course, I’ve only seen that on TV, but it’s still cool.

By the way, she’s enlisted, and a cook.

Filed under: Books, Military Tagged: dolphins, Submarines, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Mars a Shining Star during Desert Storm

This was where I lived during Desert Storm. Pretty bleak looking, huh?

Last week, the founder of the Mars candy company died, reminding me of how Mars bars were a shining star during Desert Storm.

I’d been in Saudi Arabia just under a month.  Time’s different when you’re at war.  I know I was there six months, and it felt like years.  Our meals were the same day in, day out.  We had the same breakfast each day, and dinner repeated itself every three days.  Lunch was whatever MRE we could get.

Then it was Thanksgiving, and the military brought in all this wonderful food.

But the most exciting thing for me was finding Mars Bars on the display table.  There’s a scene in the original Battlestar Galactica where the ship emerges from a dark void and the stars appear.  It was like that, knowing home was still real, even if it was far away.

Filed under: History, Military, Thoughts Tagged: Battlestar Galactica, Desert Storm, Saudi Arabia

What does your writing muse look like?

Sometimes it helps to picture the muse.  That’s the creative side of the brain, the part that plays when I write.

Most of the time when I see discussions about the muse, it’s either treated like fairy dust or a stern school teacher.  I was thinking about what it looked like after reading an article on Novel Writing Help:

The muse sulks when he doesn’t get his own way and sometimes throws things across the room in a temper. The critic sighs, shakes his head, and fetches the dustpan.

In one of the many online workshops on writing that I took, one of them had a lesson that asked me to come up with what my muse looked like.  The first image I had was a Golden Retriever:

Golden retriever swimming in muddy water with dragonfly on head

© Kitsen | Dreamstime Stock Photos

It’s not hard to see that happy dogs like exploring the world.  Mention walk (or in my case, if I bumped the leash hanging on the all), and it’s time for a dog party.  Yet, any inking that a vet is in the future and that same dog puts down her front feet and will. Not. Go.

That’s the muse, all wrapped into one package.

What does yours look like?

Filed under: Writing Tagged: Dogs, Golden Retriever, Muse