Sunday

Stay tuned for pictures of butterflies in the next couple days.

Pass the Mustard

Here’s an addition to my ancient pottery series. (link, link, link) 

Archaeologists analyzing food remains on the inside of ancient pottery discovered that 6000 years ago humans seasoned their food with mustard seeds (article). From other food remains in the pottery shards, they can tell that the mustard was added to meat from land animals and marine life as well as starchy plants. Mustard is not a significant source of calories or nutrients, so the seeds were probably a flavor enhancer. Previously, the earliest known use of seasoning was 4500 years ago in Northern India where turmeric and ginger were used. 

No actual mustard can be found in the pottery after 6000 years. Scientists studied phytoliths, silica crystals that remain when plants decay, and determined the phytoliths are characteristic of mustard plants.

A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

Last week, I blogged about my protagonist’s decision making process. I noted the passages that referred to the decision and assigned them a numerical ranking ranging from -10 = pretending the problem doesn’t exist to +10 = sealing the bargain. That means, the lower the number, the more negative my protagonist is, and the higher the number, the more positive she is.

Today, I graphed the numerical ranking vs. line number. Deciding to embark on the hero’s journey was neither straightforward nor easy. 

Since my numerical analyses make some you crazy, here’s Herbie Mann covering If (a Picture Paints a Thousand Words) by Bread.

Speaking of pictures, that album cover was ranked one of the worst of all time.

In Case You Were Worried About Running Out of Insects

Adventures in YA Publishing has a great post by Sonya Sones on writing dialog.

Yellow

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Sunday

Overheard #262

"We can be sensible later."

Big Decisions

Commitments are tough, especially for protagonists who are faced with embarking on the hero’s journey. My main character is no different. A recent critique of my novel mentioned my protagonist’s inner debate was too short. 

After revising, I created a table to track my main character’s state of mind. I copied every passage that dealt directly this decision and pasted the quote into my table along with the chapter and page. Then I invented a scoring scale to monitor her feelings about the decision.  

0 = neutral
-4 = avoidance
-7 = saying no outright
-10 = pretending the problem never existed
+4 = waffling, but in a positive way
+7 = saying yes out loud
+10 = sealing the bargain. 

Of course some passages fell between these markers.  

I learned she spends over 1000 words considering the problem. (I’m still waffling about whether this is enough.) Originally, her decision was postponed twice by interruptions. (I got rid of one interruption to reduce scene similarity.) The table allows me to see how she makes up her mind. Often it’s one step forward, two steps back. Perhaps that’s normal, or maybe she’s doing the cha-cha.

Sunday

birthday roses

Overheard #261

"Celebrate extravagantly."

Of Mice and Music

Today Jeremy was replacing guitar strings in the basement when a mouse ran across his guitar case and disappeared. When Jeremy came upstairs to tell me about it, I reminded him that his father is the mouse-control parent. Living in the woods as we do, discovering a mouse in the house is not uncommon. My husband catches them in Havaheart traps then releases them many miles from here, first providing a muffin for the mouse’s first meal away from home. 

Once the guitar strings were replaced and Jeremy started practicing, the mouse came out again. At first, the little creature panicked and ran straight into Jeremy’s foot. After a while, the mouse got used to the music and sat listening. The mouse did not toss a sunflower seed into the guitar case and make a request, although that might happen at any time.  

I know this isn’t a plot. There isn’t a problem. The mouse doesn’t try three times to solve it. 

But isn’t there a picture book here somewhere? 

Go ahead. Write it. Be my guest.

Sunday

At the MSU gardens

 bumblebee

 sharing a flower

 Japanese beetle

 proboscis

pollen sacs

Overheard #260

"You can't ignore  the Universe when it offers you a gift."

Lawn Alternatives

Our backyard has no lawn whatsoever. Thanks to our giant oaks and a medley of smaller trees, there isn’t enough sunlight to support grass. I like it that way. Recently I’ve embarked on a project to create a woodland environment of ferns, brunnera, lily of the valley, astilbe, rhododendron, etc. 

We do have a lawn in the front, but it suffers. Tannic acid from fallen oak leaves and acorns make the ground acidic, and lawns prefer a basic environment. Our large maple, with its abundant surface roots, steals water and nutrients from the surrounding grass. I’ve been threatening to take out the front lawn too. This article presents a convincing argument and beautiful alternatives to grassy yards.

Writing Retreats and Inertia

At last weekend’s writing retreat, I made huge progress on my novel. Since I returned, my revisions have ground to a halt. This brings me to the concept of inertia. 

Inertia: a body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted on by an external force.  

At a writing retreat, revisions are in motion. Everyone was pushing their projects forward, all day long and into the evening. At every retreat, I relearn that immersing myself in a project leads to clearer thinking about it. This year, I discovered that solving problems in early chapters hinted at ways to fix the metaphorical train wreck near the end. 

On Sunday afternoon, when I left the retreat, I’d only started to clean up that daunting train wreck. Household chores and daily activities are significant external forces that shift my revisions into resting mode. Frustration over the train wreck was another inhibitory external force. 

If I want to finish this draft, I must become the external force that kicks revisions into gear again.   

Overheard #259

"Their capitalist interests are bumping up against my capitalist interests."

Writing Retreat

The World’s Greatest Critique Group heads out tomorrow for our annual retreat. I’ve just received thoughtful comments on my manuscript, and I’m looking forward to digging into my revisions. A big part of the plot needs to be rerouted and several characters need rebuilding. While I’ve done very little writing in the past couple weeks, I’ve been pondering these changes and hope I’ll be ready to revise. 

I’ve also been thinking about attitude. Athletes and writers tend to have the same creed: Work hard and success will be yours. As an athlete and a writer, I became the Energizer Bunny. Recently I’ve been considering the benefits of accepting with grace the things that are out of my reach. I may never finish this project. I may never submit it. The important thing is focusing on the joy of creating it.

Chicago

We went to Chicago to watch Sam compete in the USA Taekwondo National Championships. He represented the Michigan team in World Class Sparring. He didn't advance, but simply getting to Nationals is quite an accomplishment.

  Sam (in blue) about to score a point. 

Sue, the famous T. rex in the Field Museum

With my sons in the windy city

Overheard #258

"In my business, they prefer the stick to the carrot."

The Riddle of the Labyrinth

The Riddle of the Labyrinth: the quest to crack an ancient code

by Margalit Fox

Harper Collins, 2013

In 1900, archeologist Arthur Evans discovered a series of tablets on the island of Crete. The tablets dated from 1450 BCE, almost 700 years before the Greek alphabet was developed. The tablets were written in an unknown script and in an unknown language, referred to as Linear B. The Riddle of the Labyrinth tells the story of how Linear B was decoded, and the contributions of the three major players, Arthur Evans, Alice Kober and Michael Ventris. The process took 53 years. The work was done before computers were available to private citizens and when paper was in such sort supply that Kober had to cut her own index cards from church flyers and greeting cards. 

From reading this book, I learned that languages may be logographic where each character depicts an idea (Chinese), or syllabic where each symbol refers to a syllable (Japanese kana script) or phonetic where each character stands for a sound. “By some estimates, only 15 percent of the roughly six thousand languages spoken around the globe have written forms.” 

I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in codes, the development of language or history.