Alien Rain
Cool Stuff June 2nd, 2006No yurt sightings this Friday, but I did find two articles of particular interest.
The first one is a blog post by Brandon Sanderson about the draft process he went through in writing his book Elantris, which is now out in paperback. He talks about the revision process:
Many of these drafts don’t change a whole lot. I call a ‘draft’ any time I read through the novel all the way, changing things as I go. So, false starts and thrown away chapters all count in the rough (or first) draft. The second draft is usually me reading through and fixing the big consistency errors. The third draft is me trying to cut the book down (since my novels all get a little long-winded.) I usually lose between 10 and 15 percent in this draft.
This second article at PopSci.com put the idea-generator in my head into overdrive.
One Indian government investigation conducted in 2001 lays blame for what some have called the “blood rains” on algae. Other theories have implicated fungal spores, red dust swept up from the Arabian peninsula, even a fine mist of blood cells produced by a meteor striking a high-flying flock of bats.
Enjoy the weekend!
—”Stewart!”
June 4th, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Thanks for pointing out that article about blood rain. I love weird stuff like that, though I think the explanation will ultimately prove to be mundane.
I read a book some years ago that suggested moving from macro-problems to the micro when editing a story. You start out by solving large problems with the plot, character, and so on, and then you work your way down until you are examining things at the word-level, cutting out unnecessary words and such.
June 4th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
If more blood rain falls, will we be able to protect ourselves by moving into yurts? Or are we all doomed?
June 4th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
I remember reading an article about earthquakes in a college Geography course. The author said that some indicators of earthquakes are an increased number of UFO sightings. Turns out—according to him—that the movement of faults creates large amounts of static electricity that can result in ball lightning.
Another article about harmonic resonance dealt with what are called “phantom tractor phone calls” when a farmer’s tractor hits a specific resonance and spontaneously dials random phone numbers.
I’m not kidding! I love these sorts of articles, especially when they come from supposedly-legitimate sources.
Do you remember the article you read about editing from the macro to micro level? It sounds really interesting.
June 4th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Our R&D department here at Nethermore Enterprises is hard at work on developing a blood-rain-proof yurt. Watch for it soon!
June 5th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
It isn’t an article. It’s a book. I haven’t read it all the way through, because two hundred pages on the art of editing makes for less than fascinating reading. It’s called Getting the Words Right, by Theodore A. Rees Cheney. There is an interesting part about how when revising one of his novels, he was able to cut the word count by half.
(BTW, is there a way to create italics in these messages?)
June 5th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Another fun UFO fact: the number of UFO sightings increases on Wednesdays.
And have you heard of the Men In Black (and no, I’m not talking about the movies)? Apparently, people who have reported seeing UFOs will sometimes get visited by guys dressed in black claiming to be government agents. But they often show remarkable ignorance about how people live, such as not knowing how to use utensils while eating. Anyway, they make ineffectual attempts to convince people not to talk about their sightings. I don’t really believe these stories, but they are pretty entertaining.
Where did you find out about the tractor harmonics?
June 6th, 2006 at 11:18 am
I think tractor harmonics was in the same Geography class article.
Those “Men in Black” stories crack me up. Would make for a great short film!
To do italics:
Open a word with < em > (without the spaces) and close it with < /em > (without the spaces) and that will give you an italicized word. Use them like an open quote and a closed quote. If I type them without the spaces here, then the program makes everything inbetween them into italics.
June 6th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Like this?
June 6th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Cool.
June 7th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Yeah, italics ROCK!
June 7th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Word.