Trudy Myers's Blog, page 7

Finding the Americas

There have been severaltheories about how mankind found their way to the Americas. I’m not going to gothrough all of them in this blog post. But a couple theories keep gettingtweaked as scientists find new evidence.

 

Two theories postulatethat mankind made its way to Alaska by way of following a land bridge fromSiberia into Alaska. The land bridge existed due to a much lower sea levelduring the last ice age. There are two theories because some scientists believethe people followed the edge of the land bridge by boat, keeping the land intheir sight all along the way. Another group of scientists believe the peoplefollowed game animals as they walked across the land bridge. Which groupreached Alaska first? I don’t think anybody knows.

 

According to data gleanedfrom sediment and fossilized marine life, the first Siberians might havetraveled to the New World more than 10,000 years before the First Nationspeople are thought to have arrived. Such an early migration would have been alot easier because of sea ice. It’s been suggested that expanses of winter icemay have facilitated travel by foot when passage by boat would have beentreacherous.

 

For about five decades,archaeologists thought the Clovis people as the original pioneers of the NorthAmerican continent. This theory stated that families trekked across the landbridge around 13,000 years ago.

 

Yet recent discoverieshave pushed back the arrival of humans in the Americas to more than 25,000years ago.

 

But could they reallyhave walked all that way? The sea level was probably low enough to expose asolid bridge as far back as 36,000 years ago. However, the rugged cap of snowand glacier covering the bridge might not have been traversable.

 

However, once glaciersbegan to retreat, a thin strip of coastal ecosystems could have providedresources for traveling by boat. A 14,000-year-old settlement on Canada’swestern coast implies that pre-Clovis people were inching their way along thewater’s edge.

 

However, windows ofopportunity may have closed during warm periods, when melting snow and icewould have sent currents swirling in the wrong direction for migratingpaddlers. An analysis of climate models says high winds and lower sea levelswould have made ocean currents 20,000 years ago twice as strong as they aretoday.

 

Records also suggestthat winter sea ice would have been present until 15,000 years ago, whichmigrants could have walked across, or even sledded. Researchers identified 24.5to 22 thousand years ago and 16.4 to 14.8 thousand years ago as the most likelyperiods for early migration along the Alaskan coast, possibly aided by a“Sea-ice Highway.”

 

Emerging signs thathumans ventured as far south as New Mexico more than 20,000 years ago implythere may have been a relatively safe and open path for them to get there.

 

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techno...

Amazonian Ancient City

Scientists havediscovered an ancient city in Eastern Ecuador using LIDAR. The Light Detectionand Ranging technology (LIDAR) was used to map 115 square miles of Ecuador’sUpano Valley, along the foothills of the Andes. They found evidence of asettlement named Sangay, which could have been home to as many as 100,000people.

 

One scientist remarkedthat this discovery changed the way to think about Amazonian cultures. Insteadof small groups living in huts, at least some of them lived in complicatedurban environments.

 

The system discoveredat Sangay connected various urban centers. The road are nearly straight andcontain right angles, which would be difficult in the Amazonian terrain.

 

We don’t know muchabout the people, archeologists also detected traces of fields where theylikely grew maize, beans, sweet potatoes and cassava. And at the end of a hardday, they probably enjoyed a kind of sweet beer called ‘chicha’.

 

They have dated Sangayto have been active from 500BCE to possibly 600CE. The LIDAR scans haverevealed various platforms, plazas, streets, and drains. But one unique aspectof Sangay is the complex road system that extends nearly 6 miles.

 

I am always interestedin such discoveries. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more information aboutSangay.

Formatting Manuscripts

Finally, I got someactual instructions from Draft2Digital on how to prepare a manuscript to beuploaded for publication! Their instructions are vastly simpler than what I hadto do for Smashwords, but I have made some mistakes that would make thefinished ebook come out wonky.

 

For instance, I placed4 hard returns before each chapter heading, to push it down a nice distance onthe page. But now I know that 4 hard returns in a row will be changed to a pagebreak. I don’t want that, because I already put in a page break to get the newchapter to start on a new page. It would wind up with blank pages before eachchapter if I don’t go through and remove 3 of those hard returns.

 

I also carefullycreated a Table of Contents. But their software will create one for me, so Ineed to yank mine out.

 

There are other placeswhere I’ve got multiple hard returns as I tried to get the front mattersomewhat symmetrical. Now I have to spend a few minutes figuring out how toplace the front matter pleasingly on the page without using a bunch of hardreturns. Because just 2 hard returns in a row will be converted to a sectionbreak, which I don’t want cluttering up my title page.

 

There are 60 chaptersin the book I’m trying to get published. It will take me 2 or 3 days to gothrough and straighten those out. Another day to figure out the title page, andtime to work on a couple other pages that have a picture involved. And I’mstill in the middle of classes that take up far more time than I thought theywould. So, it’s beginning to look like this book might not go on sale untilAugust 1.

 

Still, I’m making progress,however slowly.

 

Not Enough Time

I wish there were twoof me. Identical twins who can finish each other’s sentences and know what theother one is thinking.

That way, maybe I couldget some things done.

I’m not sure how I gotmyself in this predicament. There for a long time, I was over-busy arranging myhubby’s doctor appointments and seeing that he got to them, that he had hismedicines, that he had food to eat… in other words, I was his caregiver.

Then, suddenly, Istarted having my own health issues, and I was juggling appointments for bothof us, researching my new diet, keeping track of my own medicines… I was nowcaregiver to both of us.

Consequently, I didn’tget much business or writing done. Oh, if I had an odd hour free in any givenday, I would edit a chapter or two of a book that was waiting to be published.In the evenings, I would try to write. For the most part, writing was the onlypleasure I had.

Then I discoveredonline classes, called challenges. They involved watching a short video (under10 minutes) and following the simple instructions. Homework probably took 10minutes or less to complete. I was very happy with the results of the first oneI took, and it only lasted 5 days.

Then I signed up for a2nd one, which sounded even more intriguing than the first had. Ithink that’s where I made my mistake.

This challenge lastsfor 5 weeks, with new videos to watch each week, and new homework to do by theend of the week. And it wasn’t just 1 video to watch, but multiples. If youhave to watch 7 or 8 videos at the beginning of the week, that time adds up,even if most of them are under 10 minutes. And then there’s bonus videos towatch, at an hour or two a pop. There were Q&A sessions (2 hours ea) everyThursday afternoon, which I never got to join because of doctor appointments.Deep into week 3, I am now behind on watching 3 Q&A sessions. This challengeis sucking up every spare moment I’ve got and demanding more.

I’ve thought aboutquitting the challenge. But I really want to learn the subject!

It’s only 3 more weeks.(We get a few extra days at the end to catch up.) So I guess I’ll keep doingthe best I can. Maybe I don’t need those Q&A sessions, or the hour-longbonus videos.

I’ve got a book I’vebeen trying to get published for the last 2 weeks. Maybe, when we get back fromour appointments tomorrow, I will publish it before I return to workingon this week’s challenge.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Big Sale Coming!

MoonPhaze is excited to announce that most of our bookswill be available as part of a promotion on Smashwords for the month of July aspart of their Annual Summer/Winter Sale! This is a chance to get our books,along with books from many other great authors, at a discount so you can getright to reading.

You will find the promo here starting on July 1, so savethe link:
https://www.smashwords.com/shelves/promos/

Please share this promo with friends and family. Not to mention the avid readers in your life!

Thank you for your help and support!

Happy reading!

Writing Ups and Downs

I’ve been working on ashort story the last couple of weeks. The guidelines said a minimum of 3,000words, which is a little less than most shorts I write, but I thought I coulddo it in about that many words.

The first week, I thoughtI would never get to 3 thousand words! It seemed like I wrote and Iwrote, and the word count barely moved.

Now I’ve reached 3k,and it seems like the story will never come to an end! I’m so close, andyet I’ve got to go through so many details before I finally end it. I ratherdread working on it, but if I don’t, it won’t get done. It’s not going to writeitself.

I just noticed thedeadline is August 1st, so I’ve got some time. But I can hardly waituntil I can revise the rough draft into a 2nd draft. I’ve alreadyseen places where I’ve used too many words, scenes that could be shortened.

I think my problem isthat I’m not sure of the subject matter. But they wanted stories where a zombiepresence is the new normal. So I’m writing zombies. I’ve only ever read onebook about zombies. I used to watch the Walking Dead, and that scared me halfto death, some episodes. It’s a fine line that I’m walking to be writing aboutzombies.

Well, I’ll be that muchhappier when I get it done and can submit it. Then I can return to working onmy longer Work in Progress, which is waiting impatiently.

PS. I finished thezombie rough draft Wednesday night. The word count is now 4,500 words. I’m takinga couple days off from it before I start revisions.

Publishing Made Simpler

A few months ago, Imade some changes to one of John’s books, and then I tried to republish it.Unfortunately, I made some errors in the formatting as I got ready to republishit, and when I sent the new manuscript to smashwords’ publishing software,those formatting errors were obvious. So I listed that book as ‘unpublished’,thinking it wouldn’t take me long to fix the formatting errors.

I was wrong. Whatever Ihad done wrong, it was there to stay, so I had to remove ALL the formatting andthen put correct formatting back in. Usually, this takes me about a week, if Ican spend most of my time concentrating on it. But I couldn’t focus on it likethat. John’s health wasn’t good, and then I started having my own healthissues, and months went by where I couldn’t focus on that book at all.

But I kept picking atit, doing a chapter here and there, and I finally got the formatting done. Iwas ready to republish!

Meanwhile, smashwordsand Draft2Digital merged. I was notified that Draft2Digital would be doing thepublishing, and smashwords would only be a storefront. My first thought was asarcastic, “Great, now I have to learn how to format books for Draft2Digital’spublishing software.” I have to admit that I procrastinated looking atDraft2Digital’s formatting requirements for a few days. I didn’t want to gothrough and reformat that book again.

But I finally took afew minutes to look it up, and their requirements were vastly simpler thansmashwords’ had been! I was still ready to republish!

It’s always good when anew process is simpler than the old process.

Another Character

My first romance novelwas about Wanda, who had been very comfortable with her life before the readersmeet her. She was very happily married, with a husband, Hank, who thoroughlysupported her efforts to be a full-time author. Wanda wasn’t sure how muchmoney Hank was making with his IT job, but he paid the bills without complaint,and he told her he was saving ‘as much as he could’ in case they ever had anyemergencies. They had friends they got together with regularly and life waspleasant in their apartment in Chicago.

The reader meets hershortly after Hank has died in a traffic accident going to work in a blizzard.She is deep into grief, not just because Hank is dead, but because she knowsshe can’t pay the rent on their apartment on her own. She will have to move.

As she is going throughHank’s papers, wondering what she can get rid of, Wanda comes across a deed fora house in a tiny town in Nebraska. The house was an inheritance from Hank’sgrandmother, given to Hank and somebody named Charles. Charles had apparentlysold his half to Hank, or gifted it, but whatever, it looked like the house wasentirely Hank’s. It seemed strange that Hank had never mentioned the house, buthe didn’t talk much about where he grew up. Except happy memories of hischildhood.

Wanda contacted a realestate agent in Nebraska who might be able to answer questions. The agent knew thevillage of Belgrade well and assured her that the house was in decent shape andfully furnished, although it was likely to be dusty, since it had been empty acouple of years.

So Wanda moved, withouteven seeing the house she was moving to. Or the town where she would be living.Not having rent or a mortgage to make payments on, she was confident she couldmake ends meet. She took herself from a place where she had been happy to aplace where she was an outsider.

The first person shemeets in Belgrade—a bartender at one of the two local bars—looks an awful lotlike Hank. Besides fixing her some lunch, he makes phone calls on her behalf toget her utilities turned on.

It only takes a fewdays for Wanda to realize there are 3 men in Belgrade who look like brothers toHank; Bob (the bartender), Charles (who had briefly owned ½ of the house shenow owned), and Lyle, a drunk womanizer. Bob tries to make her feel welcome.Chuck seems too busy to run into her very often. She wants nothing to do withLyle.

But this is a romance I’vewritten, and it takes place in a very small community, where gossip is thenormal method of entertainment for the residents. It isn’t long before peopleare wondering which of the town’s young men will catch Wanda’s eye. Even thoughWanda is still grieving and trying to keep her distance from the men, in a townof less than 200 people, that doesn’t seem to be possible.

If I’ve piqued yourcuriosity, you can get an e-copy of Hank’s Widow at www.smashwords.com/books/view/1090836Use the coupon code JN73Qwhen youcheck out to get it for half off.

And just to put a little icing on the cake, so to speak,you can also get “The Game”, a story that explains the relationship between Hankand his look-alikes. This short story is free at www.smashwords.com/books/view/1091675.

 

 

About Mac

I want to talk aboutMac. Colleen “Mac” MacDowell is a character I’ve been working with sporadicallyfor the past 20 or 30 years. But the last couple of years, I’ve been workingpretty intensely on getting her story written. I’ve still got a long way to go.(I’ve got about 9 volumes written in the series, but I’m thinking it will be atleast 15 volumes long, maybe more.)

Colleen—

Nobodycalls me that. It’s Mac.

(Sigh.) Mac is a girl.Or rather, by the time we meet her, she’s a woman. She was born and raised on aheavy-world planet, namely Gaelund, so she has more strength than it seems shewould have. She’s also fairly short, about 5’2”. She has fire-engine red hair,typically only found on Gaelund, and emerald-green eyes.

She was raised the onlydaughter, with 7 older brothers. Their father instilled in those brothers thatthey would protect their sister’s ‘innocence’ no matter what the cost. Shecarries a lot of baggage with her.

Icame here with 1 regulation duffel bag!

I meant psychologicalbaggage.

Oh,that.

Anyway, after 4 yearsat the Fleet Academy, and roughly 5 years bouncing from one tug to another, shesomehow finagled a promotion and a transfer to the FSS Fireballfrom her former captain. She’s the 4th communications officer on theFireball, and she’s assigned to the midnight shift.

Tellthem about Bugsy.

Stop interrupting. Shewas happy to get to the Fireball because she knew the senior helmsman,Bugalu, who she considers an adopted brother. Bugalu was two years ahead of herat the Academy and was roommate for her youngest brother, Matthew. It took the2 of them to keep Mac out of trouble, and to get her trained to get along inFleet society.

Trained?You mean, like a pet?

You’re interruptingagain.

Youtalk too slow.

I type even slower.Now, let me get along with this. When Mac arrived on the Fireball, alongwith 2 other beautiful women, the captain wondered which of the 3 would turnout to be trouble. Capt Jane Burke couldn’t tell from her first introduction tothem, but they all seemed to have personality quirks that could mean troubledown the road. Still, she sent the ladies off to their assignments and hopedtheir supervisors could nip any potential problem before it got too big.

Mac had a tumultuousprobation period on the Fireball. Between not being able to pass herprobational test and arguing with men who want to date her, it seemed Mac wasgoing to be the problem. Meanwhile, the Fireball had some adventures,and somehow, Mac always seemed to be in the middle of those adventures. Andthen Mac came up with a problem that she couldn’t solve.

You’regoing to end it there?

I have to leave somemystery to it. I can’t give away all your secrets.

Now, all of that, I’mthinking, will be in the first 5 volumes. And I’m thinking that Volume 1 will getpublished on 9/16/2025. That should give me time to get it edited, formatted, anice cover for it… all those things that go into publishing a book.

That’sover a year away, even on Gaelund.

We’ve been working onyour story for decades, what’s another year?

Ithink that’s what my fiancée thought when he…

Grief

We all know what griefis. I dare say we’ve all experienced it at various times during our lives.Well, I’m dealing with grief of a slightly different kind.

We’ve decided to getrid of my car.

This is my car.I picked it. I bought it. I paid for it. It’s mine, through and through.

It’s a 2007 Pontiac G6,red in color. I bought it about the time I retired, so right about 2010. It hasserved us well for 13 years.

But…

I don’t feel I cantrust it right now. It needs work. A lot of work. And I haven’t got the money.It needs an oil change and maybe some brake work… I don’t remember all theroutine maintenance the garage said it needed, but it amounted to about $600. Ihaven’t found that money in the almost-a-year it’s been sitting in ourdriveway. I am nervous just driving it 2 miles to the grocery store, for fearit won’t start (or something else goes wrong) so that I can’t get it home.

That isn’t all. Therewas a bunch of not-so-routine maintenance that they said it also needed. Thatis a further $500.

And to cap it all off,the AC unit is completely fried. That would be $5,000. Yes, it is that fried.

A year ago, I wasthinking it needed some bodywork and a paint job. I was dreaming, of course.

We’ll try to sell it,but if anybody shows any interest in it, we’d have to tell them what afixer-upper it is right now. It wouldn’t be honest or ethical to keep that toourselves.

If we can’t sell it,we’ll give it away.

I’ll still have thememories, right? The memories of driving that car back and forth between Omahaand Orlando for several years. Memories of driving it to Kansas City and backto Omaha once a week to take a class on Theatrical Makeup. Those were lonely trips,with just me and my car. And a road Atlas to keep me from getting lost. I thinkI still remember the route.

There was one trip toOrlando where my hubby flew down to meet me for a vacation (as usual). Thistime, while we were there, he bought two big tubs of cosplay costumes and abunch of supplies from Smooth-on. That was a very loaded down car for the tripback to Omaha!

Well, I could keeptalking about memories all day. It won’t change anything.

It’s kind of like whenyour pet dog is on his last legs, won’t eat, can’t even keep water down, andyou know it’s time to put him to sleep.

Yeah, it’s kind of likethat.

But I’ll miss it.

Interruptions to Your Writing

Most authors have heard that they should ‘write every day’.I don’t always manage to do it, and sometimes when I do write, it isn’t on mycurrent Work in Progress. I might have a blog post coming due, so I write that.Or I work on a piece for an upcoming newsletter. Typically, these ‘also wrote’items are not very long, and adding them to my Writing Journal doesn’t make mystats look any good. But it is writing, and so I count it.

But sometimes, something comes along that knocks you rightout of the idea of writing. It might last a couple of days, a couple months, oreven longer. For instance, last year when my right arm was broken in a caraccident, I could not write longhand nor by keyboard for at least 6 weeks. Eventhen, I had to have weeks of physical therapy to get that arm used to doingthings again. But I remember plotting out several scenes in my head while myhand was otherwise occupied, and as soon as I could type again, those scenesflowed out of me easily.

Another example: My hubby was facing surgery this pastMonday. All surgery has its risks. Neither one of us got anything productivedone that Saturday and Sunday. I couldn’t even focus enough to plot upcomingscenes. But on Monday, after his surgery was done, and he was sitting up andeating his supper while looking for something to watch on the hospital tv, I wrote.Even though I didn’t have any scenes thought out, I wrote for 3 hours, puttingmore than 1,200 words on the page. Not bad.

And now the worst example. At one point during my firstmarriage, my then-husband criticized my writing. Not in a good way, he meant tobe mean. I gave up writing for 10 years. I wasn’t going to let him be mean tome in that way again. Eventually I divorced him and moved on. And after a fewmore years, I started writing again. It took me time to get back in the grooveof writing, but I enjoy doing it, and I miss it when I don’t get to do it.

Just because you have things crop up that intrude on yourwriting time doesn’t mean that you aren’t a writer. It’s whether or not youpick yourself up and get back to putting words on pages.