Digging Deeper - We're Finding Treasure

DH and I have been busy at the store, digging deeply into forgotten corners and bags, finding treasure troves of merchandise or items for repair that haven't seen the light of day for decades. It's been really fun, and since many of the items actually were set aside because they needed new stones or alteration before they could be wearable, it's been a challenge re-configuring items into useful and beautiful things once again. 

The items we've been finding in the back corners and in the safe
have needed repairs, but that is usually not a problem. It's been
lots of fun figuring out how to repair them and getting them
polished and onto the sales floor. 

Even though most of my equipment has been transferred to my home studio, we left enough of a set-up at the shop to allow repairs, etc to be carried out there with relative ease. The lighting sucks, but I can do a lot with a Dremel and a Foredom flex shaft and various burs and tips. I'm pretty happy with where things are going right now. I'm getting a chance to work with metal again, and have been able to get some really nice pieces out onto the sales floor. 

There's still a lot to do, and there are times when I'm just holding my breath and trying something that may end up breaking. When doing repairs like that, I always try to have a back door available - a second way that the item might be able to be used. But in most cases I just grit my teeth and go for it. After all, it hasn't been available for sale for more than 20 years, so anything is an improvement. 

I have absolutely no idea which direction I should take to sell
the graphic art we still have in stock. The market for limited
edition prints tanked a decade or two ago, and most of my inventory
is in that format. I have original art too, but much less of it. 

DH, on the other hand, has been busy researching current market prices for items similar to what we're fixing and putting out for sale. Our prices marked were from the 90's. Silver has gone up a lot from then, as has labor. Most items would benefit from a doubling of the price I had marked on them, some might go even higher. We probably should also look at setting up a secondary website or an Etsy or Ebay site to put some artwork and other items onto. I have four print drawers units full of limited edition and original Native American artwork to sell (a total of 24 deep drawers full), and no walls to hang them on. It's a problem - a serious one. Still, life seems to be good and I have hope that we'll figure something out. 

I've also started work on my holiday cards - card and envelope paperstock is being delivered later this week, and I'm working on the ornament I want to include with each card. I found my dies and have been cutting out glittery stock each morning before work. It's such a relief to be creative once more. Keep your eyes open, I'll be doing my first "call out" for cards by the end of the month. 

Have a great Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. 

Research and Fan Fiction Within Tolkien

My goodness, people writing for B2MeM have been so productive! It's turning into a really fun month, and it's keeping me on my toes to stay up-to-date with my chosen Red path. Stories and artwork are being posted from friends both old and new. I hope those of you on Live Journal have an opportunity to join or watch the B2MeM community - there's some wonderful writing and artwork going on now in the JRR Tolkien realm of fanfiction.

I'm having so much fun writing again, but also reading and
looking at the various art pieces produced. B2MeM is a
wonderful thing! 

The quest for stories is keeping me on my research toes, and that's quite a lot of fun too. When writing in someone else's universe, all of a sudden you're placing a transparent overlay on top of already existing words. That gives a foundation for your story or art which can be very comforting. However, it also places a structure around the story/art that usually requires the use of some touchstones to ring true to others reading or enjoying the work. In the case of Tolkien, it's a LOT of written backdrop for a very small short story that still has to fit into the historical structure of the world that he built.

Ivan Billiban was an earth 20th century artist whose elvish
illustrations are stunning. Here is his Elves of Mirkwood piece. 

In other words, the majority of fan fiction isn't going to actually reinvent the world already created, it's going to choose small bits and pieces to embellish, expand, or explain. Can stories be carried out of Tolkien's universe and into new grounds? Of course. That's what the more historical documents featuring Tolkien characters will do. That's the 20th century elves (21st century now, of course) living and thriving in our current world. That's the Maglor through history stories that many of us have done. I'm guilty of that myself, and may end up with some AU stories within my 31 days of B2MeM.

Researching within a fictional world that already exists can be
intimidating. So much has already been written - millions of words,
thousands of authors, and you're trying to put your own stamp on
your own vision of beloved fiction. 

But when a prompt is clearly based in a specific "historical" reference, it almost always places an obligation on the author to play in that particular sandbox. Thus - research! My "spare" time has been spent with research lately - the timeline for events, the specific names of supplementary characters who may or may not appear in a tale, the general rediscovery of why I love the greater world of Tolkien so much.

A wall sized canvas can make you want to travel new pathways. That's
also what a broad history can do in fiction. The main path exists, but
what about all of those side paths and pastures to explore? 

Of course "Lord of the Rings" is a classic and a beloved set of books read by millions over the years. I've been reading them since 1968, so yes - I'm totally addicted. But when I first read "The Silmarillion", my vistas expanded far beyond that small little slice in time to a much broader history. That's what I love about Tolkien - that swath of history that extends eons and encompasses thousands of people. Oh yeah!

Happy Tuesday. If today's 50 mph-60 mph winds don't blow me off the face of the Minnesota earth, I'll be back tomorrow. Hopefully my current research will end up in another story being posted in B2MeM today too. At least that's the goal.

How Much? Not As Much As I Thought

I was curious, because that's the way I am. Having had the snowstorm earlier this week and now the melt and freeze, I wondered, "How much snow does my city really get, compared to others?" After all, I think we get more cold weather than lots of snow, but I could be wrong. So, I Googled it (because the internet is the 'Holder of All Answers') and found the following. Wow! Saint Paul wasn't even close to number one (Youngstown, Ohio, if you're curious, with 395.1 inches average). Nope - Saint Paul was all the way down at #68 with 46.4 inches, average. If you're curious about where you live or places you've heard about, here's a link to the list of the Top 101 cities with the highest average snowfall in a year (population over 50,000). You can autosort on either ranking or alphabetic city listing.

The plows come out to clear and salt the streets anytime there's at least a inch
of snowfall. It really doesn't take a lot of snow to snarl traffic, especially on
the freeways and in intersections. 

What amuses me is that Denver isn't even on the list. Yet, I've lived through some really nasty snowstorms in Denver that shut the city down completely. Which got me wondering. "Why does a similar snowstorm shut Denver down but not my own city?" It comes down to one thing - we know snow. Denver knows snow as a short, serious and severe pain in the neck. The Twin Cities know snow as something to clear away, move into large piles, and clear the roadways. The plows are out on our streets if there's as little as 1"-2" of snowfall. They are clearing and salting to make transportation safe and efficient. We're a model of Scandinavian/German efficiency, which makes sense when you consider that we were settled by immigrants from those areas of Europe. Snow doesn't phase us, it's an inconvenience.

There's a 28 minute documentary on Swedish Immigration
to Minnesota produced in 2011. Here's the link if you're interested. 

Other cities send teams up to the Twin Cities to learn from us. We, in turn, are always on the look-out for new and better materials to use in our annual battle for traffic supremacy against the lowly snowflake. One of the newer things we are using is cheese brine. Yes, the cast-off products from cheese production are very salty and Minneapolis is using the brine in some of its salt trucks because it's environmentally friendlier than other types of salt for the roadways. The negative is the smell. Apparently it still smells like cheese. I haven't experienced this myself, so can't swear to it. But the morning newscasters have mentioned it when talking about their early morning drives in to work.

Using cheese brine on the roads has been one of the salting methods
used in Wisconsin for a couple of years.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Here's a
short NBC News story about the use of cheese brine in our
northern states. 

Looking at other lists on the database, I found the category for Top 101 Cities with the coldest winters. That's where my area shines with six in the top ten (Minneapolis was #20 and Saint Paul was #21). So I'm going to bundle up and head out to the pool. I'll offer you the main link for the Top 101 Cities comparison categories. It's rather fun to see where, or if, your city qualifies for some of the many lists. Happy Friday to all!

Research - Can't Write Without It

As I get ready to embark once again on a journey through NaNoWriMo, research is hitting me over the head once again. Because the book I've been working on (and will be continuing to work on) is based on historical fact, research comes very much to the forefront of my own story. But what about those people who write about worlds, times, or characters that don't exist in our common lives? Do these authors also do research? What about books that are personality dependent - conversations between two or more individuals? Or fairy stories? What about children's books? Do these require research too?

Library research used to entail many books and long hours. The internet helps,
but the hours still have to be put in. 

I don't think that much gets pulled onto the page without some background knowledge. If the author is inventing a new world - fantasy or science fiction - that world still has to have dimension, landscape, physical rules and inhabitants. These things might be completely new, but they must exist to give the book its foundation. In fact, world-building and research for these types of novels is often more crucial to success than placing your story in the familiar world you currently inhabit.

Having a new world allows an author the freedom to design that
world, but the physical realities of the world still need to be remembered
while writing even if they are never enumerated for the reader. 

In science fiction you, as an author, need to define the world you will focus on. Is it larger or smaller? What is the gravity? Land? Water? Or is it a planet at all? Maybe it is the journey to reach the planet that is the story. In that case, what is the transport? How many people? How large of a vessel? How many years will the journey take? That's just scratching the surface, but as an author you have to know the background to write the tale.

If you want a unicorn in the forest, you'd best make sure you're not
placing your story in the middle of a desert. 

In fantasy, what kind of landscape are you dealing with. Do you have impenetrable forests and steep cliffs? How about swamps and deserts? Are there castles and defensive structures? If so, what are they defending against? Are you going to deal with the entire world? A nation? A town? What is the government of the land and what are the politics? Yup - still have to do research and groundwork.

The doomed interaction between Frankenstein's Monster and the
Little Girl is a classic. His inability to reason leads to the potential
for great horror here in a bucolic scene. 

Mary Shelley never imagined she would be writing about a man bringing a construct to life in "Doctor Frankenstein's Monster", but she had a minimum of world-building ahead of her by placing it in a hinterland but with somewhat modern technology. Her world was already in existence and familiar to her readers, leaving her free to create her monster and focus on his creation and interaction with others.

Students in a school bus can lead to a great story such as Rainbow Rowell's
"Eleanor and Park".

So a familiar world - one of school buses, cars and ear buds, would allow an author writing a story based in present-day Cincinnati - to write about two boys in school discovering their personal life goals and deep friendship without having to define their exterior world. In cases like this, simple knowledge of the city might be all that is necessary for a firm framework.

A shaky foundation can lead to a plot that collapses under the stress. Make
sure to do your research carefully before constructing your story. 

So as I grab my research and re-familiarize myself with the history of my own novel, I urge you to think about the worlds in which you write. What are the basic foundations? What are the physical facts? In fan-fiction it's easy to start relying on secondary sources and other fan-fiction you've enjoyed, adding those elements to your own stories. But is that a true foundation based firmly on the original work? No - that's a construct. Dig deeper and find the true foundation. Then build upon that for stories that sing with a faithful song. Happy Thursday to all.

NaNoWriMo Panic! My Thoughts Through Pictures

I seem to do pictorial blogs most frequently on my Saturdays. I don't have a really good reason for that, but it seems to be that way. I'm starting to get panicked about NaNoWriMo - I was SO much better prepared last year than I am this year, but even more than that, I don't have quite the drive that I did, although I can't wait to get back to my novel. So I'll be diving into that next week.

This lovely rainbow bridge, lit in the rainbow colors to celebrate
the achievement of LGBT rights, is a great way to start my journey today.

Samhain is just around the corner, my house is a mess, my father-by-marriage's house will get its final cleaning on Sunday and after inspection, will go on the market, so hopefully by November 1 (much later than I had hoped). Time is compressing into a solid lump, rocking on an unstable ledge, and just waiting to fall heavily on me. And all I want to do is write a novel *sigh*. So...here's a picture blog that's as rambling as my thoughts.

At this time last year I had already spent more than six months researching
my novel. This year is a continuation of what I already started last year, but
I really should have been re-reading some of the books I had checked out
before starting/continuing the writing next week. NEST WEEK? ACK!!!

My novel takes place in Colorado and deals with the early mining history
of this wonderful and fascinating state. Because it deals with true
history, having my facts accurate and understanding the cultural realities
of that time frame is essential to making the novel both realistic and readable.

The other part of the novel takes place at the Aspen Music School. I was
raised in Denver and Aspen, and spent every summer in Aspen for as
long as I can remember. Since this aspect of the book pulls more on my
own memories, I didn't have to research it quite as much, but I
still spent a fair amount of time hitting the books.

Time is slipping away from me. I thought I had so much time available, and
suddenly, I have none. I'll be writing the second half of this novel
steering by the seat of my pants. 

So there you have it - my reasoning for the panicked feelings I have been feeling as pictured in a random photo blog. Am I ready for NaNo this time? Not even close! But that won't stop me from writing, it just means I'll have more crap to edit out when I am finally able to double and triple check my facts.

But ...I'm a writer, and I'm going to write!

Pencils and Variations on a Theme

So today was Day 2 of NaNoWriMo. I wrote slightly less wordage than yesterday, but that was due to (1) the WiFi was down at my coffeeshop so I missed out on an hour's writing time and (2) I got involved in researching the history of pencils. Wait just a minute - pencils? Yes. I wanted my 1860's character to use a pencil and wanted to be sure that they actually existed back then and in what form they existed. So I took a few minutes to check it out - it was actually pretty darned interesting.

The yellow color that we associate with pencils originally

was put onto some to designate that they were using

Chinese graphite - thus Imperial Golden coloring.

If you are interested in checking the history out for yourself, here are two links that might help you. You never know when you might need to know esoteric information like this - LOL. Here is Pencil History and here is The History of the Lead Pencil from the Early Office Museum. Through checking these websites out I determined that my character can indeed have lead pencils in his possession. In fact, since I have his place of origin Boston, it makes a great deal of sense since many pencils originated from Massachusetts. My character was happy and so was I.



I heard a musical piece on my way home tonight that I remembered so very well. It's very famous, easy to listen to, and if you were as addicted to Might & Magic VI as I was, you heard this tune every time you entered a Temple of Ba. I hear this tune and I expect armed skeletons, Gorgons and goblins along with other nasty icky enemies to spring up in the pristine ceremonial areas of the Temples. I played that game for hour upon hour for months - had it SO nailed. I didn't particularly like M&M 7 or 8 though, so I stopped with VI. Just hearing Tomaso Albinoni's "Adagio" brings back so many memories, though. Now...back to writing. I've almost hit 6000 words now...

Looking for History and A New Sink

So I'm looking for the route most likely taken for westward bound settlers to go from Saint Louis, MO across towards the west. I know there were several different routes, but the northern ones usually went into northern Nebraska or southern Wyoming, then split off to continue west or go south. I'm trying to find out more specific information about the route. It's turning into something harder than I had thought. *sigh* But I will continue my hunt and I'm bound to have it nailed soon.

Any wagon could become a covered wagon and many were abandoned

along the route to the west when they were unable to keep

up under the daily abuse of the route.

I am also hunting for a list of common male names for the latter half of the 19th century. My main character has had his name for months, but his father keeps vacillating between two different ones and I'll need a larger cast of secondary and tertiary characters that need names. I know there are lists out there, but I haven't had a chance to look for them yet.

I downloaded WriteWay to try it out. There are actually a lot of special offers available for NaNo participants. Scrivner has a good offer and I already have been looking at their trial version, but I just need something relatively easy to slap my words into. I'll deal with supporting stuff later. WriteWay seemed a good alternative - a little less high powered than Scrivner, but with many of the same features.

I'm not sure if I'm getting this exact style, but this

is the color that I'm getting for my sink. It's quite nice.

My sink has finally arrived and we picked it up last night. We needed a special color that had to be done at the manufacturer and it took forever to get done and shipped. I haven't unpacked the box yet, I'll leave that to my DH and the plumber. I'll be phoning the plumber today to set up a time for him to come out and install the sink and the new faucet and drain. I really want a bathroom sink again, I've been using the upstairs sink since late August and it got old really quickly. I wanted a higher spout on my faucet but DH wanted a lower one and I wasn't in the mood to argue. We have the lower one *sigh*. When it's up I'll take a picture to share.

Studio Day = Writing Marathon

Although I wanted to get writing work done last night, my poor DH hasn't been seeing a lot of me and we love Face Off and wanted to watch the new show - Hot Set. So I got very little writing done last night. That means that today is a focused day with a break when I go grocery shopping and when I talk to Aearwen late this afternoon. Except for that, I'll be working on my o-fic story, checking out the publisher's submission requirements, and in general, driving myself a little crazy in a good cause.

I have to start by spending an hour at work scanning a book that I need to return to interlibrary loan today. It's a small book, but there is some really valuable research material in it for my NaNo piece. Given how long it has taken me to write a measly 10,000 word story, I'm starting to have serious doubts about my ability to do 50,000 words. But when I look realistically at why I have had problems with the 10,000 words, I feel a bit better. My problem was not coming up with 10,000 words, my problem was editing it down or changing the storyline a bit so that I came in at that level or lower. I could very easily have doubled the word count on this tale. Because of that, maybe NaNo will work. Or not. Maybe. Anyway, it's not stopping my research.

I'll be talking with my cousin on Friday night and hope that she can help me remember store names and locations for some of the places I need as mental touchstones in my NaNo story. We both grew up in the same area and hung out at the same places, plus she lived there full-time for several years and visits it far more frequently than I do. I hope that she has some memories of specifics. I'll get a map together so that I at least have some street names, etc. She has her own writing project in the works also, a novel circling around the history of her parents - really quite fascinating. We should have plenty to talk about :-) Have a productive day today and spare a thought for me slaving away over my computer keyboard - LOL.

Focus, Focus, Focus...

I am finally catching up with hundreds of Emails and misc questions that I let lie while on my Labor Day vacation. But I have three stories to write and I'm not able to get back into a writing groove yet. I had to return most of my interlibrary loaned research materials for my NaNoWriMo book yesterday, although I still have one for another week, and I have deadlines breathing down my neck. But what do I do? I read. I'm hip deep in a book series on my Nook and re-reading a book on my new phone (reading it for the third time). Having the ability to read any of my NookBooks on my phone is probably not one of the best things - LOL. But it is one thing that is making me love my phone even more. I haven't figured out a comfortable way to write on my phone yet, and the screen is smaller than that of my Nook, but the darned phone is incredibly versatile. *sigh* It's worming its way into my heart.

Gypsy Wagons by Van Gogh paints such a tempting lifestyle...

But I really have to get into a groove and start writing again, and I also owe Lai some beta work. The grooves in the road are there in front of me and I need to hitch the horses up to my gypsy wagon and get my wheels back into them.

I need to get all of my ducks into a row...

I only have two more scenes to write in my o-fic. I am finding that my muses are divided about whether my protagonist will live or die at the end of the story. Jeez! I wish those muses would just get their ducks in a row, make up their mind, and let me just finish the story. It's just a story...not an award-winning novel. And time is running out. I want to edit this several times before sending it off. No choices left here. My clock is ticking. I'm moving though...my pedometer is on my waist and my fingers are ready to hit the keyboard. I WILL write more on that fic this morning. That's my goal and my promise to myself :-)

Research, Time and Laziness?

I had email notices from the Library yesterday that two of my interlibrary loan books had arrived so dropped by there on my way home from work last night. They actually had FOUR of my books there for me. I only get them until the 16th of September and they can't be renewed, but that just means that I'll be working on research when I have my coffee in the morning instead of just reading. But I'm SO HAPPY! Now I can get the chronology down pat, the geography nailed, and other things. I also looked at the three books that a friend had lent to me and one of the books is absolutely PERFECT! The other two offer some information, but the one not only has small synopses of each town I needed, but also included a topo map of the county that I am focusing on. When dealing with a mountainous topography, it helps - actually it is mandatory - that you know where the passes are and which valleys can actually be settled.

This picturesque mining shack is outside of Crystal, Colorado.

I downloaded Scrivner last night and got it installed on my main computer. I'll add it to my laptop at some point, but right now I'll take my notes and just save them onto Dropbox so that I can pull them over to Scrivner each night. I skipped my workout this morning in favor of an extra ten minutes of sleep and to watch the interactive tutorial for Scrivner to begin getting used to using it. A tool just takes up space if you don't know how to use it to its best advantage. With the books due back at the Library and my time even more constricted than usual because of Labor Day, the State Fair and Renaissance Festival, and Sharon's visit, I need to maximize my research time and results. I'm not expecting that I'll have the history 100% nailed, and I can always request the books again after NaNo is complete, but I refuse to consciously write the foundation geography and history incorrectly if I can help it.

Water provided power for the mines and the town of Crede, Colorado.

On another positive note, Renaissance Festival starts tomorrow and will go on every weekend through the end of September. We'll be there on Sundays - it's our opportunity to be outside for at least one day a week. This weekend is Italian Carnivale weekend with a Bocce Ball Tournament, Spaghetti eating contest (not for me at all - too messy) and an Arabian Horse Show. Next weekend is one of my favorites - Royal Ale Fest with the annual BBQ Competition and Vendors. We save our money for this one - the BBQ is always exceptional! Oh, and there's a tattoo competition that day also. I might consider entering my one tattoo, but the other one....no. The only person who gets to see that one is my DH - LOL. Happy Friday...I'm off to study some more...