Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

storywrights

Situation → Disruption → Reaction → Consequence → | (New Situation)

1. So help me, I'm sore tempted to rewrite my NaNo Novel from the beginning. A little over half-way through (middle-grade and youth chapter books are often about 30k words-- at least, pre-Harry Potter) And furthermore, I'm tempted to cheat, and just add the second version onto the first, instead of pasting over, so I reach the 50k mark by having 2 different beginnings, 3 middles, and seven endings.
   
   
   
   (Caption to image link: A graphic calender representation of how much writing I've done so far on my NanoWrimo novel; six of the days are Code Green, seven are Code Yellow, and five are Code Red.)
   
   *Sputters* It's just that, as I'm writing, my brain wants to keep changing the voice and POV on me..., and as I'm writing one scene, I suddenly realize that in order for this one to work, I need to make three consecutive scenes ten segments back completely different. *whimpers*
   
   
2. Tuesday's Nova was pretty neat-- all about the new studies they're doing around Stonehenge, doing experimental archeology, and bringing in experts from-non Eurocentric cultures. Back in the 1920s-30s, scientists didn't think you could learn anything from cremated remains, so when that's all they found at Stonehenge back then, they just dumped all the bones in a single burlap bag, and reburied in one of the old, original, bluestone holes. So modern-day scientists dug them up again, and sorted out the bits, and did dna analysis, and found that all the remains were from adult males, aged 25-40 years old. So their theory is, now, that it was a special ceremonial cite for royalty. So much for the idea that this was a matriarchial society, I guess. But now, I'm wondering if Stonehenge was the origin of the idea of King Arthur's "Round Table" (Originally, the lintels on top of the outer sarsen stones formed a continuous ring of tongue-and-grooved linked stones, and the whole surface was level all the way across to within a couple of inches, and the bluestones, which are the oldest in the circle, are all from Wales). The whole episode can be watched online (at least, in the U.S., and at least for a couple of weeks) here.
   
   
3. The week before, Nova did a show on dogs, and the new things scientists are studying about how dogs differ from wolves. The narration script took the usual tack of how we domesticated them, selectively breeding for increasing tameness over generations, and it cited the fifty-year old Russian program of selectively breeding foxes for tameness, and reduced aggression, and how, when you deliberately select for that one trait, you get a whole bunch of other "doggy" traits, such as floppy ears, white spots and markings, and curly tails.
   
   But, as Audrey points out, wolves were hunting big game cooperatively long before humans were, so rather than wolves trailing along after humans, chewing on our discarded bones, humans were probably trailing after the wolves, much like ravens (We couldn't hunt mammoths, or elk, and the like for ourselves, until after we'd invented spears; but with a hammer stone, we could break open bones to get at the marrow inside). The wolves were not (probably) deliberately controlling which humans bred, and which didn't. But I bet there was natural selection to favor "tameness" in human pups, just like there was among the wolf pups, as the two species gathered around the kill -- kids who saw a wolf pup as a potential playmate and partner was less likely to get attacked than a kid who saw a wolf pup as a potential meal, or as a rival for food. And, I wonder if this trait of seeing a member of another species as a potential partner, and someone with whom we can have a symbiotic relationship (hello, chickens, horses, sheep, cows, etc.), is also linked with other traits we associate with humanness-- like language, and houses, and...



4. Really liked the Matt Smith interview with Craig Ferguson, Tuesday night (American Telly late-night chat show), but I think the Beeb could have chosen a better clip for the introduction (that scene from Vampires of Venice where the Doctor first meets the women in white, and runs away) for an audience that mostly has never heard of the character. That's a great scene for those who already know the character, because we can see his sardonic wit and glee. But taken out of context, it's hardly suggestive of "the oncoming storm." Okay. So showing the "Basically... Run" speach (showing the faces of all the other TV Doctors) would have been spoilerific. But one of the official trailers would have been nice.
   
   He's taller than I expected, standing next to Craig Ferguson (who is often taller than even the male stars who come on his show). I squeed a bit over his polka-dotted socks.
   
   
5. I know I had a fifth thing, coming in. But I've forgotten it now...
   
   Maybe something about my failing memory?:-/

A bit of background:

At new year's I made the resolution to write a novella as a Christmas / New Year's gift for my kith and kin. I was planning on taking a year to write it, instead of NaNoWriMo's insane month, because, after four "Successful" Nano's in a row, I wasn't having fun, anymore. I wanted to be able to slow down and actually talk and listen to my characters.

I then, promptly, got writer's block.