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Random stuff you learned as an author...
message 51:
by
Charles
(new)
Oct 07, 2015 11:26AM
I learned that traditional publishing is basically a form of indentured servitude.
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16th century England: It was considered unhealthy to bathe regularly so once a year was it, generally in May when warmer weather arrived. This led to the tradition of brides rushing to the altar in June AND the custom of carrying a bouquet of flowers to bring a masking scent to the occasion.
G.G. wrote: "Well...Cars don't know either."People do more than horses. Most of them. Plus cars don't bleed and suffer.
But, now of course, we're hearing driverless cars do it even better.
But what happens when GPS goes down because of a solar storm and all wireless communications are knocked out or unavailable because of too much use (like in emergency situations)? Not to mention hacking and privacy issues.
Air Force Materiel Command's headquarters is located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. I learned this since I had them hiding a UFO there at "Hangar-18" in my novel.I also learned that it is Materiel, not Material. It is a French word, and "materiel" has one narrow definition: "the equipment, apparatus, and supplies of a military force."
This was a new word for me -- and good to know if you write military fiction.
Morris wrote: "That also ties into something I realized about writing fiction. Fiction is not truth, so it is a lie, by definition. I know, people accept it is not true, so it's okay. Try keeping you "lie" straig..."Interesting: I don't keep an "outline" but I do document the fire out of my characters (complete bios) and keep notes on developing clandestine plot "seeds" that I've planted along the way. I also allow some plot directions to "dead end" before taking an entirely new direction. It's the way life is. Something will come along to change your path, causing you to scrap previous plans.
Doing this in a novel, keeps your readers guessing...and interested.
If you do this, you are actually outlining as you go. I once had a chapter with so many things going on at once, I have to get an Excel spread sheet built with dates, times, and activities, five columns wide. I called it my time line document.
Morris wrote: "If you do this, you are actually outlining as you go. I once had a chapter with so many things going on at once, I have to get an Excel spread sheet built with dates, times, and activities, five co..."I haven't gone to Excel yet (may have to consider that) but I do have three large legal pads and a spiral notebook filled with book and character data. The draft would be impossible to keep organized without it.
Perhaps the do/don't question is more of understanding how we each keep our data and story lines organized. There are different ways to "outline" and I'm gathering that we all do it in one fashion or another.
In Sweden in the 16th and 17th Century you had to keep the doors and windows closed when you gave birth so that a troll would not come and exchange your baby with their own.If your child was born with disabilities then a troll had swapped it. If you pretended to throw it in the fire she would come rushing back and return your baby and take back her own.
Morris wrote: "That also ties into something I realized about writing fiction. Fiction is not truth, so it is a lie, by definition. I know, people accept it is not true, so it's okay. Try keeping you "lie" straig..."I used to have "Professional Liar" listed as my employment when I had a Facebook. :)
Ancient Babylon had no divorce laws. If your wife got on your nerves, you simply demoted her to household slave, then went off and got yourself another wife.This era of human history is commonly referred to as "The Good Old Days". :)
Jay wrote: "Ancient Babylon had no divorce laws. If your wife got on your nerves, you simply demoted her to household slave, then went off and got yourself another wife.This era of human history is commonly..."
The world sure has changed. :)
I learned there's some things you can't unlearn. There's a missing nuke off the northern coast of British Columbia... D-:
I've learned a lot just from this thread:)I've googled way too many things on asphyxiation, concussions and the severity of them, bleeding in a variety of manners, gunpowder residue around a wound, and I could go on and on. If there is limited gunpowder residue that indicates the shooter was a distance away or maybe a silencer was used. So many ways a person can die.
I think I need to write my next book without a serial killer;)
I've learned that I get treated with more respect since I was published. Agents and publishers suddenly reply to emails and people, particularly on the internet, lend greater weight to my comments.It's strange, really, as I have not suddenly become a better writer or acquired more wisdom since my book came out, but it makes a nice change!
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I just now learned that Dwayne has a super power that can make me stop being productive and start wiki-ing things I'd never realized I had to know more about.
Christina "I used to have "Professional Liar" listed as my employment when I had a Facebook. :) "
LOL
LOL
Denae wrote: "S.J. wrote: "I was trying to find out how long my character would have until he bled out from a nick to the brachial nerve..."So, how long DOES a character have?
A guy on a site said he nicked his brachial artery and lost 1/3 of his blood in 20 minutes. Apparently the EMT said he was minutes away from checking out.
I learned that you can die from ..."
I imagine that's also a rather painful way to die (hanging upside down)
Micah wrote: "Automobiles were originally pushed for because they were...environmentally friendly!Large urban cities were overrun by (pun) horses and horse drawn vehicles. The amount of poo that was produced d..."
I recently had the pleasure to visit a friend of mine in Worthington, Ohio, and he decided to take us up to Amish country for a day trip. Riding around side-by-side with all the horse-drawn carriages was interesting. There was a whole LOT of horse, ....er mess everywhere. Maybe that was the angle they were going for with the new invention called the automobile. It didn't leave sticky messes all over the county.
In writing my time travel novel, I learned that America was building a supercollider in Waxahachie, Texas. They worked on it for about ten years, and the estimated costs kept going up and up, so Bill Clinton reluctantly signed the papers to abandon the plan. There is a partially built circular tunnel under the city now.
Ray wrote: "In writing my time travel novel, I learned that America was building a supercollider in Waxahachie, Texas. They worked on it for about ten years, and the estimated costs kept going up and up, so Bi..."Congress "budget cut" the funding, and US leadership in particle physics in the process. The design was superior to the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, so there's no telling how much further our knowledge would have progressed if they hadn't cancelled this project.
It's becoming more and more difficult to get the general public to realize that such pure research is the source of our technological progress and worth every penny. We now seem to be a quarterly-statement-challenged society.
S.J. wrote: "I imagine that's also a rather painful way to die (hanging upside down) "You black out long before it happens. But it's certainly a very slow way to go.
Ray wrote: "In writing my time travel novel, I learned that America was building a supercollider in Waxahachie, Texas. They worked on it for about ten years, and the estimated costs kept going up and up, so Bi..."Sweet! That's not far from me! Road trip!!!!
Random fact: Family are not always your biggest supporters. Sometimes complete strangers are just awesome.
Ashley wrote: "Random fact: Family are not always your biggest supporters. Sometimes complete strangers are just awesome."(*insert swear word of choice*) I hear that!!
I have hundreds of friends on fb; do they buy the books or even like/share my posts? Do they hell?! :-(
Oh well, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers!" (mmm...Marlon Brando...!)
Sorry; rant and daydream of Marlon over :-)
Christina wrote: "Ray wrote: "In writing my time travel novel, I learned that America was building a supercollider in Waxahachie, Texas. They worked on it for about ten years, and the estimated costs kept going up a..."What a great explanation for a massive underground facility (fill in the blank for its purpose). Many high cost government projects are funded with "abandoned false flag projects that exceeded budget" and lost funding.
Did you know that the Navy's Deep Sea Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) program was a cover to develop stealthy spy subs? They were never used for a single rescue but logged LOTS of "test" missions.
Ashley wrote: "Random fact: Family are not always your biggest supporters. Sometimes complete strangers are just awesome.""Family and friends" would be more appropriate, at least in my case...
General Douglas MacArthur's son (and only child) has lived under an assumed name since 1964 to avoid his father's shadow. Supposedly, he lives in Greenwich Village, New York where he is a patron of the arts.The General is buried in the old Norfolk Va courthouse, which was converted into a tomb, and a museum honoring his memory. His mother was from Norfolk. A funeral home in my small hometown handled the funeral because they were in close proximity to Norfolk, and had a large staff due to multiple locations.
Tyler wrote: "Christina wrote: "Ray wrote: "In writing my time travel novel, I learned that America was building a supercollider in Waxahachie, Texas. They worked on it for about ten years, and the estimated cos..."Well, in my story, they reexamined the idea of the supercollider and completed it with funding from an independent source who had a great interest in the advancement of science.
You know, you could just about any of these facts and make a really interesting story out of them. LOL!
While highest in elevation at 29,000+ feet, Mount Everest is not the tallest mountain on Earth. Measured from its base on the sea floor, the volcanic mountain-island of Hawaii (Mauna Kea) is significantly taller at 33,000+ feet.However, scientists insist that the impressive growth of Mauna Kea is unrelated to its well-known, but now historical diet of volcano virgins. :)
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Ack! That was SO not my intention!
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Nope. And, personally, I'm fine with that. I can't imagine my family would enjoy most of what I write, so I'm actually glad they don't read it.
Christina wrote: "Ray wrote: "In writing my time travel novel, I learned that America was building a supercollider in Waxahachie, Texas. They worked on it for about ten years, and the estimated costs kept going up a..."Be sure and take pictures. I'd love to see what's there now.
Performing CPR on a person whose heart is still beating could kill them. If they stop breathing but their heart is still beating, you do mouth-to-mouth only, no chest compressions.
From the corner of Pratt and South in downtown Baltimore, it will take longer to get to Mercy Medical by car than it would by foot.
J.D. wrote: "From the corner of Pratt and South in downtown Baltimore, it will take longer to get to Mercy Medical by car than it would by foot."Considering Baltimore's homicide rate (ranked 13th among major cities) shouldn't that be from the corner of Pratt and South downtown until you almost make it to the hospital?
What's the emoji for macabre humor again? :~\
Jay wrote: "J.D. wrote: "From the corner of Pratt and South in downtown Baltimore, it will take longer to get to Mercy Medical by car than it would by foot."Considering Baltimore's homicide rate (ranked 13th..."
There's a reason I decided to set my murder mystery series in Baltimore (I wanted a major city, but not the NY/LA/Chicago that so many others fall back on).
J.D. wrote: "There's a reason I decided to set my murder mystery series in Baltimore..."Makes perfect sense.
Jay wrote: "J.D. wrote: "There's a reason I decided to set my murder mystery series in Baltimore..."Makes perfect sense."
My grandparents live in Maryland, and I was visiting them for the holidays one year, and on New Year's Eve we were watching the news on WJZ and they talked about how for that calendar year, Baltimore had 367 homicides -- more than one a day. That's when I decided to set these books there.
I just had to research the half life of subatomic particles, and learned this:A free neutron—one that is not incorporated into a nucleus—is subject to radioactive decay of a type called beta decay. It breaks down into a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino (the antimatter counterpart of the neutrino, a particle with no charge and little or no mass); the half-life for this decay process is 614 seconds. Because it readily disintegrates in this manner, the neutron does not exist in nature in its free state, except among other highly energetic particles in cosmic rays. Since free neutrons are electrically neutral, they pass unhindered through the electrical fields within atoms and so constitute a penetrating form of radiation, interacting with matter almost exclusively through relatively rare collisions with atomic nuclei.
But I need to go smaller than the neutron, so back to the google.
the human body can take a lot of abuse. 80% can withstand stabbings and gunshot wounds. you might be gimpy but you'll live
I just learned this evening that King Gustav III of Sweden did not consummate his marriage with his wife for nine years. When he finally dared to try in 1775 he could not find the "hole" (the king´s words, not mine) and his page had to come in and show him.
Charles wrote: "I need to go smaller than the neutron..."Interestingly, most of the mass of protons and neutrons (~90%) is the virtual particles spontaneously generated by "empty" space within the particle itself. The subatomic particles that we can readily detect (quarks, etc.) are a minor component of mass.
Then, going even smaller, you end up with string theory which cannot be tested. Is this then physics or philosophy?
It's some pretty fascinating research.
Jay wrote: "Charles wrote: "I need to go smaller than the neutron..."Interestingly, most of the mass of protons and neutrons (~90%) is the virtual particles spontaneously generated by "empty" space within th..."
I've read that if all the empty space were removed from atomic structure, the entire human race would fill the size of a sugar cube. I dunno how true that is.
I'm thinking quarks and higgs-boson, but I suspect there are things even smaller than that.
It's physics. I just need to know how an openly decaying collection of subatomic particles would behave, and how long the characters might have to stop it.
Charles wrote: "I've read that if all the empty space were removed from atomic structure, the entire human race would fill the size of a sugar cube. I dunno how true that is..."It's probably not a bad approximation, but I don't know of any physicists anxious to do a sugar-cube calculation.
The standard model is pretty well complete with the discovery of the Higgs. It's not a question per se if there are smaller particles in existence. There may be. However, the ability of such particles to influence anything on a larger scale is pretty much non-existent. Everything that can interact fits in the model as far as most particle physicists can tell.
An "openly decaying collection of subatomic particles" would behave according to their half-life unless there were other influences acting upon them. Look up how a mass-spectrometer works to see a good example of how to influence particles.
There is also the possibility that the particles will not react as they theoretically should because of a disconformity in our universe. Nobody said that cream cheese can't have some lumps in it.
If you need to run your decisions past a particle physicist, I'd be willing to bet you can find one stashed in the basement at most colleges. Even better, they post their office hours!
Random fact: constantly updated Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, blogs, newsletters, promo vids and websites do not guarantee sales.
Jay wrote: "Charles wrote: "I've read that if all the empty space were removed from atomic structure, the entire human race would fill the size of a sugar cube. I dunno how true that is..."It's probably not ..."
I probably would if I were going to be that technical in explaining the science behind it, but I usually do the research just so the observable effects can be authentic.
Suppose someone has a device that can create things on a subatomic level, using subatomic particles to form atoms, those atoms form into molecules, etc, until you have a fully living, breathing organic entity in front of you, all done in less than a second.
Now, what if someone hit that collection of raw, subatomic material with a radioactive particle ray that caused accelerated decomposition? I just needed to know how it would respond, and what it would look like.
I've already explained the science behind it more above than I do in the book(s), but mostly because I've only just introduced a character that understands the process in it's entirety. He doesn't have the patience nor does he care to explain it to anyone else, though.
I just thought it was really cool that neutrons degrade into other subatomic particles, and was something I did not know.
Jay wrote: "Charles wrote: "I've read that if all the empty space were removed from atomic structure, the entire human race would fill the size of a sugar cube. I dunno how true that is..."It's probably not ..."
Ah, an interesting read for Jay and Charles who like the concept of neutrinos: The Speed of Light
A lot of people oppose this view (there've been many apoplectic remarks). But I believe many current theories will fall.
By the way, one can't say that a vacuum/empty space inside a particle is an empty space, Jay, as we know, quantum theory has already spoken against this. One can't also determine the absolute size of matter, to do this means to be able to determine the size of the universe itself.
Charles wrote: "Suppose someone has a device that can create things on a subatomic level..."Good enough. Just make sure that you don't violate the conservation of energy (first law of thermodynamics) and that your character has a nearly limitless supply of energy to convert to mass.
To give you a really rough estimate: Take a dollar bill out of your wallet. Now, feel the weight of that single bill. That's about the amount of mass converted to energy by a large thermonuclear warhead.
In reverse, converting energy to mass (dollar bills), you would need one major butt-load of energy to make a living, breathing creature.
One other thought: the particle ray causing accelerated decomposition may be questionable. Subatomic particles do not interact very well. We built the largest machine in human history, the LHC, in order to get them to interact.
Have you considered something entirely arbitrary, such as a ray that causes molecular bonds to break down. At least, you would have energy (or fields) working on energy. No particle interaction necessary.
It sounds interesting though. Let me know when it's ready for a read.
