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Other Cool Blogs: The NaNoWriMo Blog – Cat Advice

Erin Penn

Photo by Bogdan Farca on Unsplash

NaNoWriMo is looming its 50K word head again. Last year I Frankensteined it, stitching together several projects including getting this blog prepared for 2024. It has held me in good stead not to worry about creating things on the regular and I’ve been able to concentrate on longer works throughout the year.

One of the cool things about the NaNoWriMo team is their constant support of writing throughout the year at their blog “The NaNoWriMo Blog”. (okay, not the most original name, but it is easy to remember.)

A great post is “Write Meow! 4 Writing Tips Cats Teach Us” written by Megan Jenkins posted October 30, 2023. (https://blog.nanowrimo.org/post/732643913309011968/write-meow-4-writing-tips-cats-teach-us?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NaNo%2023%20Engagement%201&utm_content=NaNo%2023%20Engagement%201+CID_caf0cfb6a1acca00b6c60815d98e4e90&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Write%20Meow%204%20Writing%20Tips%20Cats%20Teach%20Us)

  1. Have a Routine – Cats love their routines for foods and pets, plan your writing around them.
  2. Take Breaks – If you need a nap, grab it. Don’t stare at the laser pointer all day.
  3. Prioritize Meals – Don’t make your cat drop a mouse on your keyboard because you forget to feed yourself when typing. Eat regularly and it gives you the energy to hunt and peck at the keyboard.
  4. Focus on the Present – Write now, edit later. Take advantage of that scrolling memory and look at the novel with fresh eyes for the second draft, after the first draft is done.

Your cat wishes you luck, though they will never admit it.

Writing Exercise: Rep-Pre-Sent!

Erin Penn

Image by Luiz Gustavo from Unsplash

(Aqui não existe barreiras . Projeto social Amar e vida Surf transforma vidas)

The photo is from Loving the Surfing Life Project (?? – not sure about the direct translation from Spanish), There Are No Barriers Here.

Representation matters. Latino and physically challenged. Immigrant or homeless. Black and people of color. Gender fluid or gray-haired. All types need to exist in stories. Not just for people to see themselves as the hero, but also to see that other people can be the hero as well.

And to be aware that as their identity changes, they can still be a hero.

Will reading Ms. Pollifax as a teen affect me now that I am reaching retirement age? We shall see. The Chosen One is not a trope restricted to people coming-of-age. Everyone ages, even the Chosen One.

I should note, with age comes injury. Between ages 5 to 15, only about 5% of all people are disabled. At 75 and older, nearly half are disabled (46.1%). (https://www.statista.com/statistics/793952/disability-in-the-us-by-age/).

So while a reader might not change skin color, they could change social standing, age, religion, or become challenged physically or mentally. They could be forced to flee their home and become a refugee. Their cognitive abilities might become compromised, like a friend of mind whose ability to make decisions went from “high power” to limited – she can still make decisions, but the energy they take destroy her after a few each day. Reading about characters who are living in different circumstances can help a reader survive these seismic shifts of identity.

WRITING EXERCISE: Today write a Representation Matters scene or flash – between 100 to 500 words. Age, race, gender identity, sexuality, disabled, religion. (Somehow, the person you are writing about should not “look” like you, now or in your past.)

My attempt: Join the Crew (5/5/2024). Writing a science fiction where the planet was settled by Spanish speakers created a set of challenges for me, barely remembering the void that was my high school language, but I have two niblings who look like the characters in this story. They should be able to see themselves when they read fiction.

Flash: Dies Irae

Erin Penn

Photo by Joel Wyncott on Unsplash

The ghosts were at it again. Squeaking the attic ceiling vents, walking back and forth on the wooden floorboards, and Rascal sounded like he was about to hit the pots and pans in the kitchen. I had to sleep tonight; tomorrow the new job starts and I needed to be fresh. Ugh.

I got out of bed and crossed to my violin collection. So far, I had been nice about all the noise, after all, I just moved in. But enough was enough. They wanted noise, they will get noise.

Do you know just how shrill you can push a treble violin?

I put in my ear plugs, grateful for the lack of neighbors around this old Victorian I picked up for a song, and started playing. After the screecher I nicknamed Nails on Chalkboard in my head, to establish dominance, I switched to my fiddle and rocked Fire on the Mountain.

The temperature in the bedroom dropped enough I could see my breath. The four annoyances were an audience now.

Putting away the fiddle, I reached for case number three of the night, my normal violin.

Looking at their hazy forms, I addressed them for the first time with more than curses.

“Alright, you and I, we need an agreement. I need sleep time to make money to pay for the house. Keep it repaired and a roof over our heads. I assumed you want that since you aren’t going anywhere.”

I waited to see if I would get a reaction. I could feel a hole, an anticipation, a waiting.

“You let me have my eight hours, and I will play a song a night. Don’t let me sleep, and I will find the most hateful songs you have ever heard.”

I could hear them laugh at that.

“Oh, you don’t think I won’t play ‘Be Kind to Your Webfooted Friends’ for three hours? Try me.”

One of them tightened up their mist.

“Oh, you know that song. Good.” I moved my bow to point at the others. “Tell them. Tell them I will find other songs, something from their eras if I must. Trust me that I will find something.” I lifted the violin up. “But I’m not here about the stick. Like I said, a song a night if I am healthy and getting my sleep. Do you want to hear one?”

Two moved, the hole to be filled returned.

I poured Verdi’s Dies Irae into it.

(words 410; first published 10/20/2024)

Geeking Science: Ready to Fly to Titan

Erin Penn

Come out and hang ten on Titian, flying around Saturn’s rings…

T-shirt design available here: https://balooie.com/surfing-titan-t-shirt/

Ready to surf on Titan? We got pictures of a shoreline thanks to space probes…

PANORAMA OF THE “SHORELINE” ON TITAN Panorama of the “Shoreline” on Titan, stitched from Huygens DISR Side-Looking and Medium-Resolution Imager raw data. Image: ESA / NASA / JPL / UA; image processing and panorama: René Pascal

Excuse me, I need to just stop and Geek a moment.

We got a frigging shoreline picture from a moon of Saturn.

Wow.

Ok, back to why I’m here Geeking Science … can you believe it is not that?

No, really it isn’t the shoreline. It is the Dragonfly.

Not a dragonfly.

Photo by Ashish Khanna on Unsplash

But THE Dragonfly

NASA’s (presently concept-only but working toward reality) drone the size of an SUV to be deployed to Titian around 2034 (if we can keep our Congress looking forward and out).  Titian has a great dense atmosphere. While Ingenuity has been slugging it out in the thin air of Mars during its over fifty flights, the Dragonfly will have plenty to work with.

At the moment, they are still testing out the eight rotor design (video below). As drone technology continues to mature on Earth, the tech will be adjusted to work on other worlds with different atmospheres. Instead of exploring worlds by inches, flights will let us cover yards and maybe even miles. And in an atmosphere like Titian we can drop in something the size of a large car and all the technology we can shove in that space. How much are we going to learn having all the instrumentation available? Considering how many different things normally fit into the small probes, I am completely Geeking about the flying space lab we will be sending to Titian … with initial results coming back before children born this year turn ten are old enough to vote if everything goes right. (see update below about timeline correction)

Interested in this tech? You can follow the Dragonfly development at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory site here: https://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu/

(And let me give kudos to whomever designed the Dragonfly logo … it’s gorgeous.)

UPDATE – TIMELINE CORRECTION: Budget reductions have reduced the mission budget by nearly 20%. This could push the launch date from 2027, and cascading the previously timeline of arrival at Titan in 2034. (The Downlink, Planetary Society, 12 May 2023)

Book Review (SERIES): The Ridnight Mysteries

Erin Penn

The build on this series is intoxicating. The first book introduces us to a world on the brink of industrialization through a murder mystery in the most magical and tribal part of this fantasy world. The second book weaves in stronger political portions with a heist in a Frontier Kingdom. The amazing conclusion is located in the industrial cities which straddle democracy and corporate oligarchy with a kidnapping mystery. Each mystery is different, each locale is different, the stakes keep rising, and there is no “saggy” middle to this series.

The Ridnight Mysteries Series by Stuart Jaffe

  1. The Water Blade
  2. The Waters of Taladoro
  3. Waterfire

Amazon Cover

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE WATER BLADE

A brave warleader on a quest for a mythical weapon, Axon Coponiv is forced to look outside her trusted party for help when one of her own is mysteriously slain. She turns to Zev Asterling, a failed businessman, displaced aristocrat, and psuedo-detective, to help her find out who killed her man and why. The mystery deepens as Zev realizes that the killer must be someone close to Axon, perhaps even one of the others in her band.

Is it Pilot, the genial but deadly warrior who has served alongside Axon for many years? Henlio, the quiet but steady sword who has stood by her through battle after battle? Or the mysterious witch Bellemont, one of the mysterious Stolen, about whom little is known?

To get to the bottom of this mystery, Zev will have to use all his intelligence and guile, not only to find the killer, but also to stay alive as the party traverses the treacherous distance to Castle Ridnight and the legendary Water Blade, the only weapon that can stop the encroachment of the armies of the West and their mysterious god-leader known only as The Beast.

The Water Blade is the first in a new trilogy of fantasy mystery novels from Stuart Jaffe, author of the Nathan K series and the Max Porter Mysteries.

MY REVIEW for THE WATER BLADE

A fantasy and a mystery, but not exceptional in either genre to drown in, still an tasty mixture to sip. The characters were more complex than the fantasy world-building and the mystery, though the foundation laid for the gods, the politics, and the magic system look promising for the rest of the series now that the initial premise has been developed in book one.

The Water Blade follows two POV characters, one a solider in search of legendary status and one is a natural detective in search of a challenge. Neither one comes from a family that understands their ambitions. Together they might change the world.

Amazon Cover

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE WATERS OF TALADORO

The Shield of Taladoro. A mythic artifact recovered by the valiant efforts of Axon Coponiv along with brave adventurers from the East and the Feral Lands.

But now, during the unveiling celebration at Ridnight Castle, the Shield has been stolen. The King tasks Zev Asterling, master-solver, with finding it.

The guests, representatives from either side of the world, point fingers at each other, and Zev must navigate the lies and treachery behind someone who has taken the Shield but is still in the castle. Tensions mount as he interviews all those who had a hand in finding the Shield and getting it to the castle. If he doesn’t solve the case and find the Shield fast, a war is going to begin. Right there in the ballroom.

MY REVIEW for THE WATERS OF TALADORO

I don’t normally struggle to solve the mystery before the detective. Usually I am content to observe the master solver resolving the issue, watching it unfurl like a flower in the sun, but the interviews just begged me to peel back the layers of the mystery.

I adored the interviews which furnished flashback/backstory, supplied character development, and provided clues and plot points. The format provided a different way to approach the heist mystery than the Ridnight Mysteries Book 1 (The Water Blade), which was a murder mystery. I also appreciated different types of mysteries to be resolved in the series and am curious to what type of mystery the author has chosen for the third and final book of the series.

If you want some mystery in your fantasy, or some fantasy in your mystery, The Ridnight Mysteries are a good set to pick up.

So did I solve the mystery? … Yes and no. I had a guess and I stuck with it forever and it was kind-of right, and many of the clues I picked up were the correct ones. I would say my guess was close enough to be right, but my particular flavor … I was too wedded to it and should have been open to more options. 

Editing comments – these are just my opinions, and, in fact, IMHO more than normal. I disliked some of the modern slang and/or Earth specific slang. The Ridnight Mysteries are set in a steampunk era world, so some of the slang is appropriate, but since I was reading a fantasy, it bothered me. “Rollicking time”- very early 1800 expression, first recorded during 1805-1815 according to the dictionary, would exist in the steampunk era, from 1850-1900. The big one for me was “scapegoat” which has very specific religious significance within the Judio-Christian belief system. On the other hand, The Ridnight Mysteries series has already introduced two or three religious systems and any of them could have created the scapegoat concept as well.

Basically, any of the slang terms used fall within the possible; I personally didn’t like their use in a non-Earth fantasy novel. But that is on me. 

 

Amazon Cover

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for WATERFIRE

The thrilling conclusion to The Ridnight Mysteries!

After returning to the East, Zev Asterling attempts to put away his Master-Solver days and rebuild his life. Political tensions have run high since the events at Ridnight Castle, and a summit between the Frontier and the East is a sliver of light that many cling to.

But when a politician’s daughter is kidnapped, Zev is called upon to do what he does best. With the help of Axon, Pilot, and Bellemont, they must find the daughter in order to avert an all-out war. Along the way, his companions will have to resolve their feelings about the gods, their nations, and each other if they want to make it out alive.

Zev will have to set aside long-held grudges and family issues to deal with a threat the likes of which no one has ever encountered before, as his investigation takes him deep into the bowels of the city, pits him against a bizarre cult, and forces him to battle rogue witches who have the power to destroy the entire East.

MY REVIEW for WATERFIRE

The third and final book of the Ridnight Mysteries slams it out of the ballpark with the culmination of the worldbuilding for the last three books. While the start is slow, setting all the pieces into position for the mystery and the political thriller, once the action starts, it does not stop, ever. By the end, you feel like you have gone through a battle alongside the characters.

I should mention while our heroes do reach a satisfying conclusion in this fantasy detective series, the author leaves enough threads trailing into the future he could create another series which I would read through my eye-teeth if he manages to pull off another conclusion like this epic ending. The world is so layered, you know that the universe is continuing beyond the words of “the end” appearing on the last page.

Each of the stories of this Mystery series has concentrated on a different type of crime. The first one was the typical murder mystery, the second a heist, and the third contains a kidnapping. Usually a mystery series gets a little same-y feeling when reading them back-to-back, but with the changing crime focus and locales (East, Frontier, West), each book of this series feels remarkably fresh.

The theme of exploring toxic family vs. found family continues strongly in this book.

Zev, one of the two main Point of View (POV) characters, can be hard to deal with as he has the full confidence of a master craftsman and the internal destruction of the imposter syndrome. Some people may ask how both can inhabit the same body; if you know creators, you know this personality – godhood and worthless-worm. It is exhausting to deal with, but very real.

I do like the fact none of the characters are good at everything. The team of found family each have their specialty and respects each other in the area of their mastery, and teases them when not working in their best area. Like three friends going shopping – one drives, another is the SHOPPER, and the third keeps the other two on schedule so they get back in time to wrap the presents for the party.

Final mention, if you have read the other series books, you know the body-horror aspect of the magic system. This book takes it to a new level as one expects in an epic conclusion. I would say this last book crosses into horror as much as it crosses over into romance and political-thriller, while always respecting the core genre of detective-fantasy.

In conclusion, Waterfire delivers on the Ridnight Mystery series. It can work as a standalone, but you will be doing yourself a disservice not to become immersed in the world before experiencing the conclusion. Because, wow, the series is as amazing as this book on its own.