The Coming Fall…

The gentle breezes turn turbulent now, perhaps even more tumultuous than the beauteous colours exploding in slow motion all around.  I feel the change within, feel my new shades blossoming throughout my veins.  The uniformity of summer breaks away in creative bursts of transformation.  And I am now – once more – unique.

Tomorrow, I shall dance and play with the Wind.  His daring swirls and rapid twists are an exhilarating show, a show that reveals to the world all of my hidden hues.  And when I dance with him, I’ll once more be free.  And with that freedom, I will fly!

Inspired by the following writing prompt — “You are a leaf and fall has started.  Explain how you feel about this.”  Prompt from The Writer’s Circle.

Parallel Universes – A Random (Creative) Thought

You know those times when you’re having a conversation, and instead of saying the word you’re thinking, you say something completely random.  And I don’t just mean the opposite of what you meant.

Well, what if, when not we’re thinking too hard about the words coming out of our mouths, we say ‘banana’ but actually intended to say ‘kitchen’?  Could it be that there is some tenuous connection between this world and a parallel one resulting in our words getting mixed up on the wrong plain?

I mentioned this to my husband, Rich – who is a scientist – of course he said that something like that would be ‘difficult to prove’.  Now, I’m not a ‘scientician’ (as I like to call it).  And I know that something like this would be impossible to prove with our limited knowledge (never mind the theory of parallel worlds not yet being proven… c’mon Hadron Collider).  But however improbable, is it not possible?

What if our brains are somehow tuned to our ‘next door’ brains?

Rich asked me why I thought the brain would have anything to do with it.  Why not?  There is so little we know about it.  If we’re presumably only using like 10% of it, what’s the other 90% doing?  Maybe when we’re off our guard some momentary connection is made.  Now, usually when this happens, it just provides a source of comic relief, but it can also be seen as a potential indicator of a mental problem (if occurring at a high frequency).

In any event, it seemed like an interesting hypothesis to me (the non-scientist).  And certainly an interesting idea from a literary point of view.  In one of my future novels, I have a character who will have the ability to open other dimensions, I’m thinking I just may have to incorporate this idea somehow… could prove to add an interesting element to the bike… I mean, story.

Stop Spending Money on War And Check This Out.

A friend of mine shared this…it seems pretty cool…

A few concerns after seeing this, one being how much more light pollution would this add. It’s one thing to have city roads looking like the Tron movie, but it’s getting harder and harder to find anywhere to go to see the night’s sky without the intrusion of man-made light. I know everything has a price, but I would hope some discretion would be used.

Also, what would the short term costs (material-wise, therefore resource-wise) be for creating so many panels, and are all of the components “friendly” ones? And by that I mean, do they contain certain metals/materials that can only be obtained in third world countries by dictators through child labour (like the BBC highlighted for, IIRC, crystal cell phone components were at one time).

I don’t mean to be a downer, merely practical on a large scale, as you know everything is connected and inter-connected. It’s like electric cars – fantastic idea – but adding the need for more electricity onto an already failing infrastructure (not to mention the energy requirements to create such a thing) cost still has the potential to be greater than benefit in the background that we don’t see.

Just worth thinking about.

*Re-post of my comments to her blog*

Stephanie Renaud

I have three words for you.

Solar Freakin’ Roadways.

Seriously.Check out the video link below.

http://youtu.be/qlTA3rnpgzU

Really?! My first reaction was “Why are we not on this already?!” Roads are such ordinary things.We all use them, walk on them and drive on them without giving a thought to them.Sure, we think lots about what is on them, we yell at other drivers, and get frustrated that this damn traffic is not allowing us to achieve our own personal goals, namely getting to where we are going in a timely fashion.The thing itself though? It is the epitome of ordinary.So ordinary that it ceases to be a consideration in our minds.With this technology, and enough people getting behind it, we can transform what is inefficient into an energy creating, tax saving, job creating workhorse that serves the whole entire world.

Think about all the money…

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What to Do When You Absolutely, Positively NEED a Pen Name

I’ve never even considered using a pen name…not sure if I can chalk that up to confidence or clueless. What about you?

Kristen Lamb's Blog

Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Kenny Louie

Yesterday, we talked about reasons NOT to use a pen name.I will again be very clear about this. Ultimately, it is up to the writer. My job is to make sure you guys have time to write more books and that you aren’t inadvertently making more work than is necessary. Yes, there ARE good cases for having a nom de plume.

There are probably as many reasons TO have a pen name as not, but it will be extra work…which is why I don’t like them. I am LAZY. But that’s me 😀 .

If you are okay with that? Sally forth!

A Caveat…

I come at this from a different perspective than most writers, since often I am the one called in to help talk a writer off the ledge when pen names go bad. For instance, I recently…

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Star Trek T.V. Revival Rumours

Recently there have been a lot of posts about the possible revival of Star Trek on television.  Based on these rumours there have a been a number of proposals that have cropped up.  One, which has been around for some time, is for something called Star Trek: Federation.

After reading the potential story-line I’ve become very apprehensive about it.  Not that I wouldn’t give it a watch to see what it’s all about, but based on the description I’m not very optimistic.

Star Trek inspired a generation of scientists and astronauts because humanity was finally able to rise above the petty internal quarrels and follow a noble purpose.  The response to the passing of Leonard Nimoy made this very clear.   It was the best of humanity going forward with that noble purpose.  These scientists were not inspired to make historic discoveries, breakthroughs, or press the limits of what we know by a bunch of broken, angry people that constantly “blowed stuff up.”

Just because you call it Star Trek, doesn’t make it Star Trek.

There are people who will disagree, but I think those people have missed the point.  Go ahead and enjoy the reboot-alternate-timelines if you want, but understand they are not what they claim to be.  Star Trek was an intellectual pursuit with a secondary focus on action, which undoubtedly would occur because outside forces would inevitably cause conflict.

That being said, I would love to see Star Trek on television again, but not some pseudo-wannabe that thinks it needs to completely change everything in order to be successful (a.k.a. be like everything else on television).

Change happens – and I totally get that – but this isn’t about “moving with the times.”  This is about a fundamental shift in the premise of what made the show exceptional.  And if you’re going to continue to do that…make your own show and stop calling it something it’s clearly not.

 

Sir Terry Pratchett

In my heart I know it was his time to go, but that doesn’t mean that my heart doesn’t break into a thousand pieces.  His works – and therefore he – meant so much to me.  An inspiration, a balm in a harsh world…

Thank you for everything Sir Terry… YOU made a difference.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Made these in honour of the new year (my sign, too!).