#@dduane

[petermorwood]

Mr. Morwood, I have enjoyed your blog for quite a while and I have a question.

I have been writing since I was a kid and it's always been the only part of my life that I never stress over. Maybe the story is good; maybe it's not-- the important thing is that I had fun writing it. Even writer's block was rarely a problem. I could either take a break and wait it out or just Write Something Anything, and the words would start to flow like always.

For almost the past year, the words won't come. I can come up with ideas, sure, but when I sit down at the keyboard the sentences are clunky and my brain feels like a cat being given a pill. That's the worst part-- I'm fine with writing badly but this just isn't fun like it used to be. I've tried all the classic tricks, tried giving it time, tried finishing old projects, starting new ones, different font. Same result.

Since you're an experienced writer I hope I'm not out of line in asking, what do you do to break writer's block? How do you call the words back?

I wish I knew, but the state of my own WIP folder is an indication that I don't, and your comment (bolded) is one I can appreciate.

That's the worst part-- I'm fine with writing badly but this just isn't fun like it used to be. I've tried all the classic tricks, tried giving it time, tried finishing old projects, starting new ones, different font. Same result.

Confronted with all The Usual Suggestions, I can add the one which isn't there: have you tried reverting to pen / pencil / notebook and writing in longhand "for spontaneity"?

I'm somewhat acquainted (heh!) with a much better, more experienced writer than me, so I'm going to tag @dduane in on this.

[trek-tracks]

How did my dash know this was actual canon dialogue from The Search For Spock?

(As always, @adestroy's cartoons are a gift)

[hug-your-face]

After seeing it on tumblr for years now, I finally joined the ranks of hundreds? thousands? of people who have made @dduane's Aggressively Garlicked Lamb.

It's really good! Different from other lamb dishes I've had before. Rather than disguise or lighten the, shall we say "robust" flavor of the lamb with acids, crusts, or complex herbs, the garlic simply rises up and enters a full-on cage match with the lamb. I used 2 bulbs and I could have used 3. The result is not at all subtle, but delicious and comforting. Bring the strongest Cabernet you have to the show for a savory, hearty tavern brawl in your mouth. Perfect for a cold winter night.

Honestly I'm prolly gonna have to go buy The Door Into Shadow now just to enjoy the fictional version of this real-life treat.

[grapefruittwostep]

I was so cool and fine and normal about Dairine Callahan at age ten (I was NOT, I was SO NOT NORMAL, and I have never become normal about her, she is a childhood blorbo and I have been rotating her like a 90’s windows screen saver for twenty-two years)

[insipid-drivel]

I just wanted to say thank you for your post about horses and the knowledge gap, because 1) it was super knowledgeable and easy to understand, and as a historical fiction writer helps to make my job easier which makes it a lovely tool to have, and

2) there was a tidbit about people with fat bodies still being able to be fat and accomplished riders, and I can't tell you how much it warmed me to my soul to read that. I don't know if it was directly your intention or not to combat the constant barrage of fatphobia we human beings are exposed to in many societies, but it is so hard to convince people that a truly healthy body can be fat and strong and athletic. As a fat liberation activist in my spare time, it was so refreshing to read in a piece that wasn't directly related to fat acceptance or liberation, and dealt with in such a casual, no-big-deal kind of way. It really made my day!

Plus, I got to read all about HORSIES! I've tried to do a lot of research about the human-horse relationship for my work, but there were some things I'd never come across, like the fact that horses can't throw up. That's one of those "things you'd only know if you know the thing" facts that really informs how I shape the details–and I see that you're a writer yourself, so no wonder you understand how to craft useful information for writer and reader alike.

Anyway, I loved this post for all sorts of reasons, and I hope your day is going well.

Thank you so much! And I did indeed include the comment about "fat people could be excellent horse riders" to clap-back at fatphobia.

The only major factor about a person's body weight when riding a horse is whether the rider's weight is more than 30% of the horse's, and that weight limit only applies to weight applied directly onto the horse's spine; they can handle A LOT more weight when they're pulling it, like a carriage, rather than carrying it flat on their backs. Most standard-sized breeds of horses can't handle riders that weigh more than about 250-300lbs, but that's only due to the size of the breed of horse. We mostly had Quarterhorses at the ranch, which are kinda like the standard all-rounders of the horse world in the US; they're good riding horses, not tremendously expensive compared to other breeds, good specialist horses when needed, and generally have pretty even and mellow temperaments vs. other breeds, but they're also mid-range in size and not good for fatter riders purely because it can injure or kill the horse, not because anyone wants to shame you for your weight.

If you're fat and you want to ride? Then the size of your horse can be matched to your weight in order to maximize both your safety and the horse's. The only time I was ever forced to tell a fat person they couldn't ride at the teaching ranch I worked at was when the person's body weight exceeded what the horse's size could handle, and if we could, we'd just pair the person with a larger horse that could handle bigger people in the saddle. However, there were a couple of people that were so big that we literally didn't have any horses in-house that could carry them (again, the 30% weight ratio rule), and had to refund their money and turn them away with a sincere apology and a recommendation to other places to try that had larger breeds.

And yes! You could still be visibly fat AND in amazing riding shape! Fat equestrians have been A Thing for thousands of years! Even Henry VIII was considered to be one of the best equestrians of his time and even specialized in dressage! Just like with professional weight lifters, body fat =/= unhealthy in riders. It's just that so much of the real workout in riding takes your entire body that rather than dropping a bunch of weight from riding to put on muscle in A Place, your body is building muscle underneath your body fat in All The Places, so there isn't a lot of visible weight loss in a lot of riders. If anything, you may gain a little bit of weight just from the muscle you're putting on from learning to ride. It still means you're getting exercise and putting on healthy muscle! Anyone who looks sideways at you if you're fat and a regular horseback rider is seriously just being fatphobic and has 0 understanding of realistic horseback riding. Fuck 'em. Love your curves like you love your horse: you both deserve it.

Writers, this also means that your scene depicting your main protagonist riding with the secondary protagonist on the same horse IS NOT REALISTIC. Horses usually CANNOT carry more than one adult rider (carrying a small child or baby is different) for long without serious injury, or even getting a broken spine. Horses also cannot handle the shock of you "jumping" into the saddle from a tall height (example: Robin Hood: Men In Tights). If you were to try to jump from a high spot and land in a horse's saddle, not only would you probably break your hip and seriously damage Everything In Your Crotch, but you can also snap the horse's spine and kill it in a horrific, godawful way.

[voxmyriad]

I was so tired I didn't realize these were two separate posts

I was just like wow...your bedroom is huge...

[lucy-is-bored]

@dduane idk you but this happened on my Tumblr dash and I was like "huh well that's not right"

[dduane]

(snickering) What…? Seems obvious.

DIANE AND PETER PLEASE

[ailurinae]

well that's brownies sorted at least.

[weilaverdui]

To honor the beginning of our friend's Johnathan's misfortunes, I made some paprikash. (Mind you, I usually pair them with knedliks from slightly different region, because my family really loves them).

Happy Dracula daily to those who celebrates!

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

..,.,.oh fuck me, JANUARY is gonna have to be the Month Off Of Words, huh

[53rdcenturyhero]

Ask Diane Duane, it's likely she wrote it. Seriously!

One thing that's funny about "ancient" fandoms, is when newbies are very confused about how certain new lore apparently weaves into the story with "no foreshadowing" so they try and write up these really deep theories about why these things happen using the more well known instalments. And then some old Enoch-mofo comes along and is like "Actually that part of the lore was explained 20+ years ago in some throwaway line, they mentioned it like twice back then, and it's still canon even if no one fucking remembers that lore-origin. But they occasionally still build on that part even if it was never explained again." it's funny, old and new meeting. : D Also made me realise how much hidden knowledge old fandom folk have, because some 20+ fandoms might have a lot of lost media in some form or other.

--

I'm suddenly reminded of lierdumoa's post about that Vulcan from First Contact.

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

At my air gate, will have contact with yall for a little while yet

I got my pocket trek

And bones has come in with the mood of the century

An absolute mood Ty @dduane

[frogeyedape]

Hiccup cure

I cannot for the life of me remeber where I saw the 3 part guaranteed hiccup cure (let's be honest, probably here), but ever since I did anytime I get the hiccups it's like I literally just *imagine* doing the first cure (dissolve a spoonful of sugar in your mouth) and my hiccups stop.

!! Went searching for the og b/c I couldn't remember cure three and instantly saw the Hiccup (picture of Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon) Cure page on Diane Duane's site, and bing bing bing! Yep, saw it on tumblr and clicked through to that selfsame page, so thank you @dduane

Anyway, the reason for this post: is/why is *imagining* putting sugar in my mouth dtopping my hiccups?? Hypothesis: I have a pavlovian response to sugar/thinking of sugar that is as good as eating sugar for the purpose of this cure. That would be...wow. No proof of causality thus far beyond the anecdotal, but interesting.

[petermorwood]

More on pre-electricity lighting.

Interesting to see this one pop up again after nearly two years - courtesy of @dduane, too! :->

*****

After experiencing a couple more storm-related power cuts since my original post, as well as a couple of after-dark garden BBQs, I've come to the conclusion that C.J. Cherryh puts far too much emphasis on "how dark things were pre-electric light".

For one thing eyes adjust, dilating in dim light to gather whatever illumination is available. Okay, if there's none, there's none - but if there's some, human eyes can make use of it, some better or just faster than others. They're the ones with "good night vision".

Think, for instance, of how little you can see of your unlit bedroom just after you've turned off the lights, and how much more of it you can see if you wake up a couple of hours later.

There's also that business of feeling your way around, risking breaking your neck etc. People get used to their surroundings and, after a while, can feel their way around a familiar location even in total darkness with a fair amount of confidence.

Problems arise when Things Aren't Where They Should Be (or when New Things Arrive) and is when most trips, stumbles, hacked shins and stubbed toes happen, but usually - Lego bricks and upturned UK plugs aside - non-light domestic navigation is incident-free.

*****

Here are a couple of pics from one of those BBQs: one candle and a firepit early on, then the candle, firepit and an oil lamp much later, all much more obvious than DD's iPad screen.

Though I remain surprised at how well my phonecam was handling this low light, my own unassisted eyes were doing far better. For instance, that area between the table and the firepit wasn't such an impenetrable pool of darkness as it appears in the photo.

I see (hah!) no reason why those same Accustomed Eyes would have any more difficulty with candles or oil lamps as interior lighting, even without the mirrors or reflectors in my previous post.

With those, and with white interior walls, things would be even brighter. There's a reason why so many reconstructed period buildings in Folk Museums etc. are (authentically) whitewashed not just outside but inside as well. It was cheap, had disinfectant qualities, and was a reflective surface. Win, win and win.

*****

All right, there were no switches to turn on a light. But there was no need for what C.J. describes as stumbling about to reach the fire, because there were tinderboxes and, for many centuries before them, flint and steel. Since "firesteels" have been heraldic charges since the 1100s, the actual tool must have been in use for even longer.

Tinderboxes were fire-starter sets with flint, steel and "tinder" all packed into (surprise!) a box. The tinder was easily lit ignition material, often "charcloth", fabric baked in an airtight jar or tin which would now start to glow just from a spark.

They're mentioned in both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". Oddly enough, "Hobbit" mentions matches in a couple of places, but I suspect that's a carry-over from when it was just a children's story, not part of the main Legendarium.

Tinderboxes could be simple, just a basic flint-and-steel kit with some tinder for the sparks to fall on...

...or elaborate like this one, with a fancy striker, charcloth, kindling material and even wooden "spills" (long splinters) to transfer flame to a candle or the kindling...

This tinderbox even doubles as a candlestick, complete with a snuffer which would have been inside along with everything else.

Here's a close-up of the striker box with its inner and outer lids open:

What looks like a short pencil with an eraser is actually the striker. A bit of tinder or charcloth would have been pulled through that small hole in the outer lid, which was then closed.

There was a rough steel surface on the lid, and the striker was scraped along it, like so:

This was done for a TV show or film, so the tinder was probably made more flammable with, possibly, lighter fuel. That would be thoroughly appropriate, since a Zippo or similar lighter works on exactly the same principle.

A real-life version of any tinderbox would usually just produce glowing embers needing blown on to make a flame, which is shown sometimes in movies - especially as a will-it-light-or-won't-it? tension build - but is usually a bit slow and non-visual for screen work.

*****

There were even flintlock tinderboxes which worked with the same mechanism as those on firearms. Here's a pocket version:

Here are a couple of bedside versions, once again complete with a candlestick:

And here are three (for home defence?) with a spotlight candle lantern on one side and a double-trigger pistol on the other.

Pull one trigger to light the candle, pull the other trigger to fire the gun.

What could possibly go wrong? :-P

*****

Those pistol lanterns, magnified by lenses, weren't just to let their owner see what they were shooting at: they would also have dazzled whatever miscreant was sneaking around in the dark, irises dilated to make best use of available glimmer.

Swordsmen both good and bad knew this trick too, and various fight manuals taught how to manage a thumb-shuttered lamp encountered suddenly in a dark alley.

There's a sword-and-lantern combat in the 1973 "Three Musketeers" between Michael York (D'Artagnan) and Christopher Lee (Rochefort), which was a great idea.

Unfortunately it failed in execution because the "Hollywood Darkness" which let viewers see the action, wasn't dark enough to emphasise the hazards / advantages of snapping the lamps open and shut.

This TV screencap (can't get a better one, the DVD won't run in a computer drive) shows what I mean.

In fact, like the photos of the BBQ, this image - and entire fight - looks even brighter through "real eyes" than with the phonecam. Just as there can be too much dark in a night scene, there can also be too much light.

*****

One last thing I found when assembling pics for the post were Folding Candle-lanterns.

They were used from about the mid-1700s to the later 20th century (Swiss Army ca. 1978) as travel accessories and emergency equipment, and IMO - I've Made A Note - they'd fit right into a fantasy world whose tech level was able to make them.

The first and last are reproductions: this one is real, from about 1830.

The clear part was mica - a transparent mineral which can be split into thin flexible sheets - while others use horn / parchment, though both of these are translucent rather than transparent. Regardless, all were far less likely to break than glass.

One or two inner surfaces were usually tin, giving the lantern its own built-in reflector, and tech-level-wise, tin as a shiny or decorative finish has been used since Roman times.

I'm pretty sure that top-of-the-line models could also have been finished with their own matching, maybe even built-in, tinderboxes.

And if real ones didn't, fictional ones certainly could. :->

*****

Yet more period lighting stuff here, including flintlock alarm clocks (!)

[vaspider]

Okay. Yeah. I've seen the post.

I'm not panicking and you shouldn't either.

What I am going to suggest is that us indie artist & writer folx - @thebibliosphere , @seananmcguire , @dduane , @simakai , @somecunttookmyurl , @renthony , @mayakern , @fatsexybitch , @natalieironside, @lauraannegilman , @optimysticals , @theshitpostcalligrapher - tag others, I know I'm forgetting so many people - should probably chat about where we want to start building community.

Like, we gotta. That's an unfortunate part of being a creative in the world as it is. So rather than wandering in various directions and hoping people will follow us, we might wanna like... try to do things in an organized fashion. Or at least a semi-organized fashion.