Trudy Myers's Blog, page 39

Inspiration Everywhere

Sometimes, after sitting at my desk for weeks, my ideas dry up. This year, with the World Science Fiction Convention being in Spokane WA, we decided this was the time to take an Alaskan cruise. I wanted to see a glacier calve off some icebergs (before they retreat so far they can’t be seen doing that anymore).

Not only did I see that sight, I had lots of experiences and thoughts to tuck away in my mind’s corners to possibly be used in future stories. And the same happened to John; he almost daily stated he could use a particular experience in one of his short stories that he now hoped to turn into a novel.
For instance, our first excursion was ziplining through the tree canopy of the forest surrounding Juneau. Having an on-again/off-again fear of heights, it took grim determination to try this. Thankfully, once I started zipping along each line, the gear kept me from looking down, so I only had to ‘face my fear’ on the platforms in the trees, for the most part. Now I have a little bit of a feel for what it’s like to don a harness and ride along a cable; how the wind feels, how easy it is to get ‘off-balance’ and start rotating instead of facing forward. Not to mention how wet one’s clothes can get, how slippery one’s shoes can get, or how poorly one can see the rapidly-approaching platform one is aimed for when it’s raining.
The day started misty but calm, and it was a gentle rain by the time we finished. From that, I might be able to extrapolate what the experience would be like in a heavier rain or even snow.
The tallest point we reached was 185 feet above the ground. (“I did not need to hear that,” I told our guides.) I don’t think the platforms were any more than half-way up a tree, and for the most part, there were tree limbs around us. But the course came down the side of a steep hill, and the ‘training’ line started at a platform about 1 foot off the ground and ended at one about 10 feet off the ground. The 2nd line (the bunny slope) took us even further into the air. With some imagination, I could possibly figure out what it would be like to use a zipline between buildlings like a cat burgler, or across chasms, or from stony outcrop to stony outcrop on a mountain.
I’ve considered intelligent creatures traveling in this way, but only 10-20 feet off the ground. If they were on a steep piece of terrain, they would have to use ‘switchback’ lines or ‘tack’ their way down. I’m still working on how they would get up a hill. That might involve tree-climbing.
It was hard for me to get started with this adventure. By the time we finished, my knees were shaky and I was completely worn out. The other adventurers asked how I felt about ziplining now, did I enjoy it? I replied I wasn’t sure ‘enjoy’ was the word I would use; I would have to do it again to see if it was fun. And then, during the obligatory visit to the gift shop, I found THE t-shirt I HAD to have! It said,
I survived ziplining!
Well, I’ve spent this entire blog talking about ziplining. I thought I would quickly run through a catalog of our ‘new experiences’ from this cruise, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen that way. Yeah, I tend to ‘run off at the keyboard’.
So stay tuned for my further adventures! They’ll get written up and posted, mixed in with all the other stuff I find to write about here.

Old Characters

Like real people, characters get old. Or should. If a book only covers a couple years of a character’s lifespan, then that isn’t a problem. But if the author is young, and they have an old-ish character, they seem to make one of two errors:Either their older character is afflicted with every old-age problem known to man, and a few we don’t know about, or the older character only talks about being old, and otherwise is as energetic and healthy as any young character. An author needs to have experience and in this case, most young authors don’t know what ‘getting older’ feels like.I am no longer young, although I reject the idea that I am old. Still, I am beginning to experience some of those ailments that creep into the bodies of ‘old people’.Arthritis is frequently thought of as an old person affliction. Mine started as occasional sharp pains in a knee, sometime during my 30s, but it really started slowing me down (literally, I could hardly walk more than 6 steps) in my mid-40s. That could have been earlier than most people, while a few people might not start experiencing it until their 60s or 70s. My knees are much better now (they’ve been replaced), but now I’m battling arthritic bone spurs in the shoulders that reduce my range of motion. And every time a thunderstorm is coming, every joint in my body aches - neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, knees... I suspect my ankles and toes ache, also, but their message of pain can’t fight its way through the messages coming from so many closer-to-the-brain locations.Also during my 40s, I started needing to use reading glasses. This included not only reading, but sewing, painting, computer work... The list is practically endless. I have slowly progressed to a stronger and stronger magnification. If your older character doesn’t have glasses, he/she might lean closer and/or squint to try to bring details into focus. On the other hand, my dad used to hold the newspaper at arm’s length and squint, trying to focus his eyes, and he died around 49. So your character might do it either way, but probably not both.If your story takes place in the future, medicine might have cured these ailments, or delayed their arrival for decades, in which case, you don’t really have an older character. If your story is in the past, people died much younger, and these afflictions arrived much earlier.Old people’s immune systems gets worn out, so they catch things easier and keep it longer. Gout is extremely painful and keeps that joint from bending for days. (These days, steroids send it packing quickly.) Do a little research on old age afflictions, and then pick a couple for your older character to deal with. Don’t load him/her down with every illness; it’s not only unlikely, they would be pretty useless. And don’t forget the common cold, flu, and all those other illnesses that even younger people have to contend with.
Make your character’s older age believable, but don’t make that character a burden to the rest of the war party. Unless, of course, that’s integral to the story.

More on Pluto & Charon

Last week, I made a prediction to a friend that, alas, has come true. My prediction was that by this week, NASA’s look at Pluto and Charon would have fallen out of the news as being too old, and the ‘news’ programs will have returned to dissecting and analyzing some politician’s speech or statement made last week... or even earlier. As exciting as the Pluto/Charon photos and info are, the people analyzing that information are scientists who want to be sure they understand what they have before making any big announcements like “Life found on Pluto!” or “Charon a huge alien generation ship!”I find Pluto and Charon far more interesting than all this way-too-early political jibber-jabber we’ve been getting for what seems like the past decade. So I’ll take this opportunity to go through my reasons why I feel Pluto (& Charon) should go through yet another reclassification.In my research reading the past couple of days, it seems there is no upper size limit to ‘dwarf planet’. One article actually said that if an object larger than Mercury were found in the Keiper Belt, it would be classified as a dwarf planet, because it has not substantially cleared out its neighborhood of debris. Can you imagine? If Earth were located in the asteroid belt, it would be a ‘dwarf planet’! The lower size limit of ‘dwarf planet’ is pretty fuzzy, too, but from what I gathered, the lower size for a rocky planet is about a radius of 372 miles.Pluto’s radius is 1,430 miles, about half the size of Mercury, and definitely bigger than that lower limit. NASA’s new photos show it as round and rocky/icy. But look at this; Charon’s radius is 751 miles (about half Pluto’s size), also bigger than that lower limit, and it is also round and rocky/icy. So, why is it still considered by most to be a moon and not a dwarf planet?Technically, Charon does not revolve around Pluto. Both Charon and Pluto revolve around a common point that is located outside Pluto’s body. If Earth and Mars were in the same orbit and both revolving around a common point, they would be a binary planet. Why not just jump in and classify Pluto/Charon a binary dwarf planet? I have to imagine that Pluto’s ‘other’ 4 moons probably revolve around that same point, or run the risk of slamming into Charon. If they’re small enough, they could zip around Pluto inside Charon’s ‘orbit’, but from what I understand, Pluto and Charon are pretty close.The European Space Agency referred to Earth/Moon as a binary planet, and the moon is 1/4 the size of Earth. Another website said that unequivocally, Earth/Moon is not a binary planet, because the moon does not orbit the sun, as set forth in the current definition of planet. Really? How does the moon orbit Earth and not go around the sun at the same time? By that reasoning, binary planets are impossible, because their primary orbit would not be around their star. So, what would they be?To be fair, I did glimpse some websites that indicate there are others who - like me - think Pluto and Charon are a binary dwarf planet. I hope the idea spreads. Pluto deserves to be somewhat special, in my mind.
What do you think?

Cycles

I was listening to the radio a few days ago - yeah, I do that, especially when I’m driving somewhere. It was a ‘news’ program, and one of the subjects that came up was emojis. They used to be called emoticons, now they are emojis.Apparently, there is a social app (that is particularly popular in some parts of the world) where you type in your message, and the app converts it into emojis. These little emotion symbols have become so prevalent and so popular, that one man actually ‘translated’ Moby Dick into emojis.

Best Made Plans

Have you ever made plans that just didn’t live up to your expectations? Even vacations have bumps when things don’t go your way. Our last vacation ...In Florida, every time I lay down, my sinuses immediately plugged up and I was soon mouth breathing. My cpap mask only covers my nose, so it was no help.John had signed up to march in Disney’s StarWars weekend parades. He was up at 6 AM that first Friday in severe pain and unable to bend one knee. I took him to ‘urgent care’... which didn’t open until 8. He had to scoot in and out of the back, with the leg stretched along the seat. It was gout; they prescribed steroids and ice packs. (He did get to march the next day, and for the rest of the parades while we were there.)To see the parade, I had to be at the gate by 7:30 (one never knew what time they were going to let people in), rush to one of the (2) benches along the parade route and park myself. The parade happened at 11. The humid heat did nothing for my stuffy sinuses.I got a page written for my ‘Mac’ serial, but Open Office kept crashing and finally refused to open my ‘Mac’ file again. Unable to think, having no OO specialist to consult, I gave up. John, however, got his 2nd novel rewritten (2nd draft).I finally let John take me to ‘urgent care’, and I waited 3 hours to see a doc. Then the pharmacy didn’t have the medicine! Augmentin was on back-order? The doc changed the prescription. To sulfur pills. My brother has to take sulfur pills. They work, but not quickly. Another week before I started feeling almost decent.Friends spent weekends with us. On the last parade day, as everyone was getting ready, the wife fell and struck her head. The husband took her to urgent care, so John went alone to do the parade. Long story short, it was much more than a bump on the head; she ended up in the hospital for 2 nights before they could go home.Wednesday, I started home, stopping to call my mother-in-law to say I was on my way. She had been taken to the hospital that morning. Frantic phone calls and text messages dogged me all the way home.Thursday, the radio talked about severe rain and some flooding ‘in Missouri and along the Mississippi.’ I was in Illinois, about to turn west to St Louis. I called my son and asked him to research this, in case I needed to continue north and go through Des Moines. He said it was located south of I70 (the road I would travel).East St Louis, Friday morning, heavy rain. Happily, the worst was over by the time I left St Louis. But EVERY river and creek I crossed was definitely over its banks! Like I wasn’t nervous enough.
NOT a good vacation. It wasn’t a bump, it was a series of steep cliffs the entire time. I suppose there’s bound to be a bad one every so often, right? But I haven’t given up; we plan to head for Washington (state) and an Alaska cruise in August. Hmm. Maybe it’s good we got this ‘bad luck’ over during this vacation.

What If?

Last weekend, I attended Demicon, a science fiction convention held in Des Moines, IA. While there, I gave 5 panels and 1 reading. So far, readings have not brought me loads of fans, but I don’t think I’ve ever given a reading where nobody has shown up, so those who do come get a taste of my writing style.The panels were better attended. As I explained to the audiences as each panel broke up, I generally like to introduce a subject, and let the ‘talk’ turn into a discussion. In that case, the audience members might participate as much - or more! - than I do, although I will attempt to guide the conversation from time to time. I really like that formula, because being an introvert, I tend to sit at my computer for long periods of time, and that can lead to thinking in a circle... no new ideas. But when I get other people lending their thoughts and knowledge to a conversation, I wind up with a whole batch of new (to me) ‘what if’s to ponder.One of these discussions was on planet building. This subject is not just for science fiction; I have one fantasy universe set on a world with 3 moons. But we tended to compare our ideas to situations we’ve heard about within our own solar system, and when the talk moved to dwarf planets, I mentioned that one of the dwarves living out beyond Pluto is not spherical, as the definition states, because it spins so fast, it has flattened itself. That brought up the question, what if you had an actual planet, roughly the mass of Earth, but also spinning so fast that it is flattened quite a bit. Would the gravity be different at the equator than the poles? What an interesting idea! Of course, nobody had an answer for that.The side subject of moons - If you don’t have a relatively large moon, you probably won’t have tides in your oceans - brought the question, if your planet had rings like Saturn, would they exert enough gravimetric pull to effect your tides? Another stumper! If I had been giving out prizes...These particular questions both came from James C Hines, who poked his head in the door half-way through this panel. I invited him to join us, without realizing who he was. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t put a name to the face until the talk was breaking up. Thank you, James. I now have specific questions to pose to my brother-in-law, the astrophysicist.
Every sf writer should have access to an astrophysicist.

Complicated

I have this game I’ve been playing when my brain is fried and I need a break. I thought it was a ‘time management’ game; others have called it a ‘sim’ game. Whatever. It amuses me.In this game, I am an outsider, washed up on some island. It is my job (apparently) to organize the natives to build houses, grow food, and such things. When I get a village on that island to a certain size, I take a few of the natives on a raft to another island, to start a village there. Communication and trade between the villages flourishes, and there always seems to be some new quest for me to take on.All the natives are men, and they all look exactly alike. I add to a village’s population by having a hut or house built, and when it is done, another native comes running in to live in it. When I have them build a house that will hold 2 people, they are 2 men. Are there no women on these islands?Yes, there are, at least on the original island, but let me talk about them later.After I’d had a few huts built, and they were growing crops, they wanted some amusement; a bar, cafeteria and a hot tub. They wanted bonfires to keep the evil spirits away, benches to sit on, and paved streets. And then... an altar of emotions. I could not imagine what that was, but I had them build it.And that’s where the women appeared. The altar of emotions seems to be a cross between a brothel and wedding chapel. When a man feels lonely, he goes there to see his girl friend (all of whom look exactly alike), although one quest was to perform 10 wedding ceremonies. And then it dawned on me that each time a man went to see his girl friend, he left money for the village coffers. So... what did that make the women? Because they never appear anyplace other than the altar of emotions.That does not sit well with me.But it is just a game, and we can’t expect the designer to make it lifelike.I like this game because I enjoy imagining colonies in their first few years of existence on another planet. Was it a planned colony or a shipwreck? How many people are there, and what skills do they have? Do they actually have the equipment they need, or do they start out with a basic campfire and have to create or re-create any technology they remember? Are there any intelligent natives? Dangerous predators?I have one colony I’ve ‘designed’ a number of times over the years. Usually because I lost my previous plans, or realized they would need plumbers, or doctors, or something I had forgotten. I get lost in the details of that colony for days or weeks. However, I don’t need all those details to write stories about that colony. Kind of like the game; keep it simple for the reader.
Real life, of course, is far more complicated. And somehow, far less entertaining.

Waste Not, Want Not

Years ago, people started talking ‘disposable’. We became a ‘disposable’ culture, in that whenever something didn’t work anymore, we were expected to toss it and get a new one. Shall we blame NASA for that mentality? After all, every time they sent someone or something into space, they had to build a whole new rocket, new capsule, and who knew what.I hate to blame NASA. I believe in NASA, although I sometimes chaff at how slow their progress can be.I don’t want to blame NASA, so I blame business. It’s a conspiracy, you know. Business figures that if they sell you something you want and need, but which quickly ceases to work, you’d be back to buy another. And then another.How long does a ball point pen work? I’m not talking about expensive pens, I’m talking about the cheap ones you buy in packages of 10 or 30, that your workplace buys by the cratefull. They don’t last long. When was the last time you put an ink refill in one? You probably don’t; you just toss it and pull out a new one. They’re cheap, and you don’t even think about it, do you?Well, pause right now and think about the hundreds, thousands, millionsof dead ball point pens taking up space in landfills. Think about what remains of each one; a drop or two of ink, a tiny bit of metal, and the rest is plastic.One or two million drops of ink would, I assume, eventually lose its ‘moisture’ into the surrounding compost, the color components forming bits of color. Millionsof bits of metal would corrode at some point, possibly forming a metallic ‘lode’ for future people to dig up and use.But what about the plastic? What’s the half-life of plastic? What does it form, if and when it finally breaks down? From what I’ve gathered, most plastics don’t break down in landfills. Some break down when exposed to sunlight for days on end, but when they do, they form nasty toxins. There are newer, ‘biodegradable’ plastics, but they don’t degrade well in landfills, either; they degrade in compost where heat is present. So, millions of plastic pens are thrown into landfills where they will probably remain dead pens for a heck of a long time. If they do manage to degrade, they will form toxins to sicken any plants or animals that ingest them.
Long after I’m dead and gone, all those ball point pens I’ve thrown away will be out there, forming toxins. That is not the kind of legacy I wanted.

Personal Appearances

These days, it is the responsibility of the author to do most - if not all - of the marketing for their book. One way to do that is to make ‘personal appearances’ - talks, readings, book signings, that sort of thing. For authors who write science fiction, fantasy or something fairly close to those genres, much of those activities can be done at science fiction conventions.1) You can participate on ‘panels’, either alone or with other speakers. Panels are discussions or talks on a particular subject, and the marketing involved includes mentioning your (most recent or most known) work when you introduce yourself. 2) Readings are falling out of favor with some sf conventions, but others will still give you a time slot. 3) Most sf conventions have a ‘freebie’ table, where you can place fliers about your work. 4) The author or a group of authors can rent a table in the dealer’s room, where they can sell copies of their books. 5) Autograph sessions can be organized at that dealer’s table. 6) Get out there and mix with people! The more people have met you and had a conversation with you, the more they are likely to buy a copy of your work.My first appearance this convention season is Willycon, held April 10-12. Held at the college in Wayne, Nebraska, it is the smallest convention we attend each year, but it is a good way of ‘easing’ back into the convention scene after a long winter of hibernation. John and I have been going since the convention got started, and a number of former students are now friends with us on facebook.I like Willycon because I am not always at my best after that long hibernation, so a small convention lets me get my groove on, so to speak. I always take some fliers for the freebie table, and participate in at least one panel or workshop. This year, as lack-of-planning will have it, I am having a stubborn tooth root surgically removed the day before Willycon, so I have deliberately limited myself to one panel, but it will be fun!“Well, this is it; We’re all going to die!” will be an audience-participation-expected panel, where we will compile a list of all the various ways humans (or at least most of them) could be wiped off the face of the Earth.John Lars Shoberg has a few panels that he is giving, including the ‘flip side’ of my panel, which he calls “Surviving the Apocalypse”, or something similar. After I and my audience come up with a list of dooms, he and his audience will figure out how humans could survive each awful fate.
Hope to see you there, or at one of the other conventions we’ll be attending this year. More info on those other conventions in the future.

Names for Pluto

If you’ve kept track of the various space trips we’ve sent machines on, you are aware that New Horizons is approaching Pluto. Of course, that was launched some 9 years ago, and some of us have trouble remembering what we had for breakfast. But I saw an article in January of this year that the New Horizons was ‘waking up,’ getting ready for the closest fly-by of Pluto ever. So I’ve kept my eyes open for updates on that.In the meantime, I’ve discovered that Pluto has not just 1, but 5 moons! I’ve known about Charon for a long time, and it’s almost as large as Pluto. But the others are mere specks in comparison, and are named Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx. I think I see a pattern in these names.Recently, I saw an article asking people to submit and vote on names for when they start creating maps of Pluto’s and Charon’s surfaces, once New Horizons sends back photos taken close enough to show geological features. I hope they pick some good ones. I don’t want Pluto and Charon saddled with names like ‘Tom’s Mountain Range’ and ‘Smith’s Canyon’.Again, they are looking for names for geological features. They don’t expect to find cities, villages or roads. Nor are they likely to find rivers, lakes or oceans... although I suppose there is some possibility that something may have frozen into long strings or blobs that might bear some resemblance to waterways. Mars has its ‘canals’, and now the bed of an ancient ocean. Even the moon has areas called oceans and seas, though it’s not likely any water ever sat in them.So, do start coming up with names to propose for mountains, crevices, plateaus, craters and so on. The naming campaign is being promoted by SETI. You can propose names - and vote - at http://ourpluto.seti.org through April 7, which is only a few days away. The International Astronomical Union will decide which names will actually be used.
I wonder why there’s such a hurry to get a list generated? New Horizons’ closest approach won’t be until July of this year, the pictures won’t arrive here until after that, and then the maps will be begun. So, what would be your guess? A year from now, will that map be done and all the features named?