Betty Adams's Blog, page 98

Seven Days of Puppies

Saturday and Sunday are white and brown.
Monday through Friday are spotted with black.
Seven little pups all snug in Mom's  bed.
Buckle up kids, we've got us a pack! 

The World Now Has Three New Dogs In It

The world now has three new dogs in it. I can only see this as making the world a better place. 
So far we are calling them all Patches. We might need to diversify a bit. 

Motivation-less Monday

Here is a pretty picture of a majestic cliff. 

Alternate Worlds

Other worlds are a huge part of both Science Fiction and Fantasy. When writing them it is a good idea to look at existing ecosystems for inspiration. For the science part we are not even limited to good old Earth anymore. Essentially all of Mars is mapped, the moon has been photographed in every imaginable way, and even Mercury and Venus hold few secrets from our probes. Of course there is the problem that all of these extraterrestrial locals cannot host life as far as we know. A story is not much of a story without living beings to motivate it. But the are a good start and the best bet we have at the moment.

Chocolate Lily

When it comes to naming things sometimes the name is fairly obvious. If you are writing a historical fiction you really don't wonder why it is named a 'broadsword'. It is a sword. It is significantly broader than the majority of the other swords in use at that time. If you are writing a story set in a western forest it makes sense that the Lodgepole Pine is a pine three that was used to make the center poles of the lodges both historically and in modern times. 
One does wonder why something that looks rather like a half dead banana was named a Chocolate Lilly however. 

Quote - George Eliot - Middlemarch

“You must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, There’s this and there’s that—if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it. No matter what a man is—I wouldn’t give twopence for him’— here Caleb’s mouth looked bitter, and he snapped his fingers— ‘whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn’t do well what he undertook to do.” 
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

Sewer Bob

Today I saw a bear. It was fairly large for a black bear and had an odd iridescent shine to it's jet black fur. At first that didn't phase me. I didn't really think about it. Bears eat a lot of fish in the fall and the fall bears on the Alaskan Coast often have that oily shine to their coats when the salmon run. 
Then I remembered that no salmon run come this high up a mountain. 
Then I remembered that there is no food source around that bear that it could possibly eat to get that greasy. 
When I brought this up to my housemate she smiled and nodded. 
"Oh, that must be Sewer Bob. He likes to swim in the sewage ponds and eat all the frogs."

...

​"I see." 

Books I Will Likely Never Review

You can't argue with his success.
If ever an author chose an appropriate name to put on his covers it was Stephen King. The author is the number one best  single seller in any category. According to some raking in half of all the money spent on books worldwide. With over seventy published novels you cannot be literate in English and not be aware of at least one of his books. 
That said. 
This author has never read the entirety of one of his books. Nor do I ever plan to.
Once, alone in the attic I put out my eight year old hand and picked up one off of the shelf. It was a two inch thick paperback; white with black flecks all over it. It was not forbidden in the house, our parents forbade very little, but they looked on it with mild irritation. My older sister, the fearless one, had stacks of his books. When she read them her sky-blue eyes glittered with delight. I had been capable of reading since I was five by only during the last year had my reading skill increased to the point that I had discovered the joy of reading. I was ready for one of the big sister books. I can't remember how many pages I read, I can't remember what my emotions were while I read them, I can't remember when I put it back in its haphazard place on the shelf, I don't even remember what conclusion I came too those near three decades ago now. But I do remember that though I read voraciously in ever genre, I never again picked up one of those thick paperbacks that littered our house.
Later I would come to understand that I was very sensitive to dark mental images. That I had a sort of mental allergy to the horror genre that extended to movies, books, and the spoken word. It was no wonder that I shied away from its King. 
So here is my question. If I pretended for a moment that I might be convinced to read King, is there anyone out there who would want to convince me? 
What arguments could you make to sell the master of the darkness?  

Deadlines and Inspiration

Nothing is quite so inspiring as an approaching deadline. 

Deadlines

I got a job
To write a thing
It's coming really good
The juices flow 
The plot is sound
I'd send it if I could
But it's not done
The ink's still wet
And  I haven't finished edits
I'll get it done
Don't you fret 
*But first I look at Reddit* 

​

Is Anyone Doing NaNoWriMo?

So this November will probably be spent editing the book I rough drafted last year. Will any of you authors out there in cyberspace be doing the full 50,000 word NaNoWriMo challenge this year?
I think my goal will be to edit three chapters a day. 
​Any suggestions?