oh quantum physics

Tom gave me a pretty good explanation, and I read the following articles and looked at their pictures, to try to get my own grip on the physics of the teleportation we've been doing lately:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/19690
http://www.aip.org/png/html/teleport.htm
(The second one is a rather old, outdated article, but the basic premise is the same - and it's explained muuuch more simply.)

It took me awhile to realize that we're not actually moving particles around, just the information that makes the particle what it is. Or something like that.

The best way to learn something really is to try and explain it to someone else... even if that someone is a fictional character. That you yourself are writing. (Bonus points if she knows even less science than you do!)

But I am GOING to make it to 50k! I had a coworker's party Saturday night, and then went downtown for a little while, and I need to remember I can't drink as much as other people I know. ;p Crashed that night. Sunday I worked early, as did Tom, so after getting home and then going grocery shopping... uh, we were out by like 8pm lmfao. So I wrote about a thousand words before showering this morning, spent the day on a belated Thanksgiving dinner for us, aaaand now am trying to write before the three glasses of wine make me fall asleep. woooooo!

wallpaper and old toys

This is the kind of wallpaper in the little bedroom, though there are touches of the colors of some of the others in this set. (And that site is absolutely amazing, I looked at eeeeverything they offer before leaving the website last night. The papers are all so, so pretty! and such a fantastic reference for historical interior design. <3)

It took me awhile to get the kind of information I wanted about kids' toys around the 1880s, 1890s. Teddy bears were 1902, but a German company, Steiff, started selling these little felt elephants as pincushions right about 1880 - only kids played with the things more than mothers used them as pincushions, so the company decided to go for making stuffed animals instead.

I had a hunch wind-up toys were around that era... and, holy crap. The little wind-up tin toys were a decade or so away from mass production, but what *did* exist, were absolutely stunning clockwork-type little things. And from there...

This blog gives a great overview of the sort of thing I wound up looking at. 1860-1910ish, there was a HUGE amount of this kind of thing being created, these stunning little animated figures. At Disneyworld, I was pretty blown away by the animatronics, largely created forty, fifty years ago... but this stuff? 1800s. Long before anything could've possibly been digital - the "memory" of these machines is all mechanical.
That blog has a video of one of these automatons, sculpted as a little boy, that *writes*, in a gorgeous old-fashioned cursive, one of three different poems, and can also *draw*. I can't even imagine how you would plot points like that into a clockwork machine's memory...

Even more stunning, was this guy - Pierre Jaquet-Droz, 1770, made these things - one could write, one could draw, one could play a piano. And what really grabs me, about all of these, is the insane attention to detail in the animations - watch a few, and you'll see how lifelike the eye movements are, the way the figure will turn its head, or move its hand vaguely, or all the thousand little things we do without thought. Absolutely astonishing work.

...though they also creep the hell out of me. I was looking at all this, of course, shortly before going to sleep last night, and when I closed my eyes, I kept seeing ones like this - eerily accurate movements and all, but with all the mechanisms exposed, the bodies half-decayed...

I love these things, though I really don't think you can get much creepier. So they're coming into my story - Mr. Mason and his brother have much, much more wealth and influence at their disposal than the townspeople will ever have seen. The kids can have some pretty darn expensive toys.

what happens when you're not paying attention...

Writing this whole historical society meeting section, I didn't plan the characters ahead of time. At all. Mary is vaguely related to a character I thought this story was going to have (though it turned out not to), but the other two just wandered in and started talking, breaking up the monologue.

And it wasn't until just now, as I was trying to wrap up the scene, that I wrote:
      “I think that's about it,” Mary says, tapping her fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Anything else you two want to add?”
      John and Susan

And then burst out laughing. JOHN AND SUSAN are my freaking relatives, that live in a little town not far from here. They pop into the store now and again. Susan's the sister of one of my grandparents (I always forget which side of the family is which). I had no idea, until this very moment, that I had unconsciously named my characters after them. The characters, I should note, were never intended to resemble them, though it occurs to me now that the Susan in my head looks a smidge like the Susan I'm related to.

omfg I am not going to be able to finish that sentence as it stands. I can't put the names together or I won't stop giggling. DAMN YOU SYNAPSES! Fire in ways that are HELPFUL!

just a note

I started out making up those classifieds off the top of my head - my handful of months working at the local Penny Saver gave me a good sense of the things. But I couldn't think of anything downright *weird* enough, so I pulled up some actual classifieds online for my area. (There are like three Penny Savers on my living room floor somewhere, but... that's all the way downstairs.)

So those last three? Are all actual ads. The jeans lady? Lists several pairs of jeans in every size FROM 5 TO 18.

I think she earns a novel in her own right.

confession

Guess who needs to stop making fun of people for joining Team Edward (*gags*)?

Maaaybe the girl who continually writes pale slender young-looking old-souled impossibly pretty men, who probably did sparkle back when they were still angels. Fallen angels are pretty darn close to vampires, especially the way I write them.

And then I go and fall in love with them, even while I'm terrified of the things they sometimes do.

...this was not intended to be a Phisto story, but, OH LOOK, THERE THEY ARE.



*loves them anyway*

I love Chris Baty

For the uninitiated, Chris Baty is the crazy who started this whole whirlwind adventure that calls itself NaNoWriMo. And every week, of every November, he sends out pep talk emails, which always lead to both giggles and warm fuzzies of camaraderie and encouragement.

Closing this week's:

"I didn't say this in the Week One pep talk because we'd only just met and there's really only so much cornball sentiment from a random guy on the internet that anyone should have to tolerate in one month. But here's the truth: You have a book in you that only you can write. Your story matters. Your voice matters. The world will be richer for you seeing this crazy creative escapade through to 50,000 words.

This may be hard to believe given the craptastic state that many of our manuscripts are in. But there are great, unexpected things ahead for you in Weeks Three and Four. And there is someone out there who has been waiting their whole life to read the book you're writing now."


That... is exactly why I drag myself through the slog of 50,000 words every November. Because I think (I hope) he's right. And not just about me, but about everybody - everyone views the world from a different place, with different eyes, seeing different hues of every color in the world.

So, yay for Chris Baty. <3

test

It's an early start-up this year, but figured I'd pounce while thinking about it. Template may or may not change, but this one has a nice mood to it, subtle enough that it could stretch to suit the variety of atmospheres this year's NaNo is likely to encounter.