100 Words in 100 Days

I am a member of Coffee Time Romance site. Granted I am a very inactive member, but every now and then I get notifications of seminars and so forth.
This week I got a notification of a seminar called Nuts & Bolts of Writing Better presented by Robyn DeHart. It is presented in the form of several posts. Today I read Day 2. The title is Tough Love and Setting Goals.
The article is self-explained by the title. Determine what you're wasting your time on. Determine how much do you really want to be a published writer. Set goals. Break big goals into small bite-sized goals.
Not any new information.
Important information but not new.
One of the "this is my type of goals" Ms. DeHart mentioned was writing 100 words in 100 days.
Now that is a goal I can keep. Sometimes the idea of finishing a book is daunting. After all it can take a year to finish a 400 page book. Committing a year to a project is something that can kick your knees out from under you. I mean, I can't even commit to staying in an exercise program for a year.
But writing a simple 100 words for the short period of 100 days is do-able.
So today is Day 1 and my first 100 words.
Well, not my first 100 words on a novel but my first 100 words in this 100 day goal, challenge, pursuit. Whatever it is called.

Update on Ken - More strokes, more loss, and loss of part of his foot due to gangrene. Yucky things happening to a wonderful man.

A New Member of the Family

We have a new member of the family. Her name is Skittles.

This is Ken and Skittles.

He is not unhappy - remember I said he could no longer smile.

She has been on his lap since getting here. They both seem very happy.

Skittles is a 3 year old Chihuahua.

She is Ken's Emotional Support Animal.

I will keep you updated.

Japan - Then and Now

A friend of mine sent me this link


http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm

It is an interesting site. You can use your mouse to move a black line between photos.
The photos are of areas of Japan before the quake and tsunami and after. The devastation is incredible.
 
When the tsunami hit Indonesia, it was horrible but because it was not a developed country it seemed less horrible. I'm not saying that the destruction in Indonesia was any less horrific, but I don't think (based on the news coverage) it hit "us" Westerners as much.
 
Japan is so "civilized" with actual houses and factories etc - things we can relate to - it makes it seem even worse. I noticed most of the crop lands were gone. They subsist on rice and with rice fields gone - it will take years to rebuild them and grow rice - this disaster is going to affect people in Japan for many years to come. It's not a matter of simply rebuilding houses and factories - their whole economy is gone. It's as though a huge tornado wiped out all of our corn, and wheat fields. Also, the fishing is going to be gone for a long time - the tsunami wreaked havoc on the ocean bed as well - the Japanese have fish as their primary protein mainstay. How would we work out if all of our cattle, chickens, pigs etc were gone in a day? This trial for the Japanese has only just begun.


Now, I realize I am making these statements without concrete evidence. I don't know that it will take years to rebuild the rice fields. But I do know that rice takes longer to grow than some other grain. I don't know that the fishing is gone, but common sense says that any storm that destructive would cause problems. And with the water coming up into the land, how many tons of fish were washed up on shore? How long for the fish population to come back? No, I haven't researched this, but this is a blog and my opinion.
 
It is scary.
 
Oh, not end of days scary, although that does run through the mind some times. If it is end of days then I simply have to make sure I am ready. That is not the point, though. The point is that when we look at a disaster that has us gasping for air, the news keeps us up to date for days, weeks on end. Then  another  "show-stopping" story shows up and we no longer hear about the last disaster.
 
However, Japan has been changed forever.
 
Perhaps, after all the hulla balloo is over, we should remember to keep them, along with the people who suffered disasters that we no longer hear about, in our prayers, good thoughts, minds.
 
Tragedy may make the headlines for one day - but continues to plague the life for many.

Book Drum

I have discovered a really neat website.

It is Book Drum  

They say of themselves:

Book Drum is the perfect companion to the books we love, bringing them to life with immersive pictures, videos, maps and music.

Book Drum is the perfect companion to the books we love, bringing them to life with immersive pictures, videos, maps and music.

Whether it’s video of the Rockettes in The Catcher in the Rye, the Italian opera tracks that accompany Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, the historical context and maps of The Odyssey, stunning South American photography for In Patagonia, or video of Kabul kite fighting for The Kite Runner, we take readers beyond the page to enjoy interactive content alongside their favourite books.

It is an intriging site that takes a book and expands it with the use of pictures, reviews, a glossary, videos, maps, voice samples, music and everything else you can imagine by way of the Internet.
Imagine for a moment -
You are reading Vampire Academy.
You want to know where Portland is, or what a honda looks like or what a duster actually is.
Voila`!  You pull up Book Drum and then pull up Vampire Diaries. On the first book mark you find pictures of each item. You can find clips of Russian speakers so you can actually hear a Russian accent.

Book Drum is having a tournament.
According to their website:

Welcome to the 2011 Book Drum Tournament, in which book lovers from Australia to Zambia can delve deep into a favourite book and, by building an illustrated profile, share their enthusiasm for it with the rest of the world.


The 2010 Book Drum Tournament saw seven Contributors share £2,000 of prizes, and led to eight talented writers being commissioned to write and edit new profiles on the strength of their entries. Hundreds of people took part, creating many of the excellent Profiles now freely available for everyone to enjoy.

To enter the 2011 Tournament, choose a published book and create a Profile of it, consisting of a Summary, a Review, a Glossary, an illustrated Setting page, a biography of the Author, and a comprehensive set of illustrated Bookmarks. Book Drum's interactive system makes it easy to do, and the chance to research a book in detail is richly rewarding.

The awards this year,2011, are
 First Prize: £1,000 Second Prize: £500 Third Prize: £250 5 Runner-Up Prizes: £100

About the Tournament:

A list of Recommended Books is provided, but you can choose a different book if you prefer. It should be published by a mainstream publisher, and must be widely available. Please check your choice with us in case there’s some reason why it might not be suitable: editor@bookdrum.com.

Only one person may profile any given book. Where a profile already exists, or is under construction, the book may not be chosen. Check your choice here: Profiles under construction or already published. Please note that to ensure popular titles are not reserved and left untouched, we may reclaim titles if no significant progress has been made within three weeks.
Profiles of your own books are not eligible in the Tournament. Authors may however create and publish profiles of their own titles as normal while the Tournament is running.
The Tournament is open to anyone over 18 other than the winners of the 2010 Tournament first and second prizes. The five runners-up in the 2010 Tournament are free to enter. People under 18 can ask a parent, teacher or other trusted adult to register for them (Book Drum is not able to store minors' contact details at this stage).
Groups may enter under a single registration. Book clubs or literature classes may like to divide up the sections of a profile between their members. Teachers can set up a profile of a study text for their students. Prize money will be paid to a bank account designated by the registered email address holder; Book Drum will not be responsible for ensuring fair division of any prize won by a group.
The prizes will be awarded by three distinguished and independent authors. Results will be announced on 31 May 2011.

I am entering a profile of Gulliver's Travels.    
The profile in under construction at present. Since it is under construction, it doesn't seem that you can find it. At least I couldn't find it when I was looking as though a visitor. But hopefully, when I win, you will be able to find it and enjoy how I expanded a delightful satirical book.

Antigravity, The Feline Butterology Theory and The Argument Against

(I belong to a mailing list called Humor List. This was priceless.)

Antigravity, The Feline Butterology Theory



Captured from the Usenet Oracle, 19930625
This question was posed to the Usenet Oracle:

If you drop a buttered piece of bread, it will fall on the floor
butter-side down. If a cat is dropped from a window or other high and
towering place, it will land on its feet.
But what if you attach a buttered piece of bread, butter-side up to a
cat's back and toss them both out the window? Will the cat land on its
feet? Or will the butter splat on the ground?

And in response, thus spoke the Oracle:

Even if you are too lazy to do the experiment yourself you should be able
to deduce the obvious result. The laws of butterology demand that the
butter must hit the ground, and the equally strict laws of feline
aerodynamics demand that the cat can not smash its furry back. If the
combined construct were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this
paradox. Therefore it simply does not fall.

That's right, you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you
have discovered the secret of antigravity! A buttered cat will, when
released, quickly move to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and
butter repulsion are in equilibrium. This equilibrium point can be
modified By scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing
some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent.

Most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle
to drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming
heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred
tabbies.

The one obvious danger is, of course, if the cats manage to eat the bread
off their backs they will instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land

on their feet, but this usually doesn't do them much good, since right
after they make their graceful landing several tons of red-hot starship
and pissed-off aliens crash on top of them.


Flaws In the Flying Cat Theory: A Response

Special to the Coastal Beacon

A logical analysis of the BFAD (Buttered Feline Antigravity Drive)
propulsion theory clearly demonstrates the impossibility of such a system.

Let us begin with a simple analysis.

1) Buttered bread must fall butter side down.
2) A cat always lands on its feet.

While both theorems are indisputable, the oracle offers no proof of the
construct. The oracle implies that anyone who 'would' test this construct
would immediately find the secret of BFAD.

This is clearly nonsense.

Let us assume a normal Einsteinian universe (although a Euclidean universe
would serve our purposes just as well, the Einsteinian is both cheaper and
drinks are readily available.)

To test BFAD, one must procure:

Bread
Butter (margarine, for some reason, will not work)
A cat
A strapping device.

Let us assume that all of these are readily available.

Attach the strapping device to the cat.



See?

No cat.

What has happened? We have run up against a priori universal law. By a
priori, we mean that it takes priority over either the Buttered Bread
Principle or the Law of Feline Landings.
What happens is that the instant a strapping device and a cat occupy the
same four dimensional space, the cat disappears.

Now, this can easily be tested, and has been repeatedly. There are two
schools of thought about this phenomenon.
The first holds that a cat and a strapping device are constituted out of
different fundamental building blocks. According to this theory, a cat is
constituted primarily of superquarks (called meows by current theorists).
These superquarks demonstrate qualities that are both atomic (constituted
as they are of groupings of normal quark particles) and feline (because
these quarks exhibit characteristic of "charmed" or "lucky" particles).

Again, according to this theory, strapping materials are fashioned out of
non-charmed particles. Bringing the two together causes one or the other
to cancel out. One aspect of this theory that has not been sufficiently
explained to date is the fact that it is always the cat, not the strapping
device, that disappears.

The second school of thought, and it is one that appears to be gaining
ground in academic circles today, holds that cats are, in fact,
super-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who exist in our four dimensional
universe only because there is plenty of good food and a lot of creatures
stupid enough to provide the food, along with plenty of attention.
Whenever a strapping device appears, the cat simply opens a door to a
different series of dimensions, and goes on an extended tour.

According to this theory, purring is a cat's way of maintaining a constant
balance cycling across multiple dimensions. This school holds that
antigravity is impossible, but that theoretically, a REALLY good grip on a
cat, while reaching for a strapping device, could result in our ability to
cross dimensions with ease (barring scratches, that is.) Pessimists argue
That if there was anything really interesting in those other dimensions,
cats wouldn't spend so much time here, so why ask for a good scratching?

Aftermath

During the last year or so I have been fiddling with three different books all stemming from the same occurrence. The occurrence is the Rising of Atlantis. How would it effect the world if this continent suddenly rose? Would the Atlanteans be considered human or non-human? Would humans, trying to recover from the devastation of earthquakes, tsunamis, and utter destruction, be able to accept a new species or several new species? When did Atlantis sink? Could that coordinate with the Flood of Noah? And if so, could that explain why we no longer have the creatures of myth?

Like I said, I have been working on three different angles. So I decided to focus on one angle. My blogging is going to help flesh out my characters.
I have a series of personality questions - from real personality tests and from ideas that other writers use - to interview my characters.
You won't be able to find the characters in any book - yet. But if you follow this blog, when the book is published, you will be one step ahead of those that haven't.

Also, in the aftermath of Ken's latest strokes, when something good, or fun, or interesting occurs, I'll write about it. We also have a ongoing joke between the two of us - if there was a mistake that could be made in caregiving I've made it.
As I remember them, I'll write about my mistakes like:
I have to use a Hoyer Lift to move my husband from his front room bed to his night time bed - different mattresses, different pressures plus we sleep in the same bed. It's less likely for me to start seeing him as a patient instead of my husband plus the different pressures from different mattresses keeps his skin integrity better. I also use the Hoyer lift to move him to his wheelchair and I have tried to use it to move him into a car.
We used to live in Desert Center. Now, Desert Center is in the middle of the Mojave Desert, all sand and very few paved roads. So, when I had to get him into the car by myself I had to load him into the Hoyer lift, wheel him out of the house, onto the 40 year old board porch, down the wooden ramp, onto a 10X10 cement slab and over to the car. However, as anyone who ever used a Hoyer lift on any surface other than a slick hospital floor knows, The Hoyer Lift is top heavy and unruly. And when ever Murphy is around (his law says if anything can go wrong it will go wrong) the Hoyer Lift misbehaves. In my case, the wheels went off the cement and into the sand which decided at that moment to become quicksand and eat the Hoyer Lift. But only one side.

Okay - Lesson number one for Caregivers - if you are about to drop the person you are helping and you are using a Hoyer Lift, let the person down gently to the ground, re-position the hammock around the person and let the Hoyer Lift do the work of picking up the invalid. DO NOT TRY TO RESCUE THE TIPPING HOYER LIFT WHILE TRYING TO KEEP THE PERSON FROM FALLING.  More injury occurs when you try to do that than if you simply let the person float down by releasing the Hoyer Lift pressure. The piston will slowly lower the invalid.
Of course, if you are a caregiver and use a Hoyer Lift get all the training you can to avoid these type of incidents. And if at all possible don't live where you are forced to push a Hoyer Lift through sand.
Kenneth wasn't terribly hurt in that incident. He got a bruise on his shoulder and not even a large one. he was laughing at me. I was banged, bruised, frustrated, and frantic. We never did get into the car.

By the way, Hoyer Lift is a fantastic piece of equipment. Without it I would be next to helpless in moving my husband from one point to another. It was in no way an equipment problem, it was an operator problem. But then I guess you always learn from your mistakes.  ;-}

From Great Days to Very Bad Days

From Good Days to Very Bad Days


It’s been a week since my last blog which was about a Great Day.

After that great day, the days sort of tanked. Kenneth was ill. Unfortunately, when you are caring for an invalid, being ill is not the sniffles. It escalates and escalates.

So, Ken no longer smiles. He has lost that ability. He needs more help than before.

We will weather it.

Tomorrow I will think of something more fun and interesting to write about.