Don't Have a Not Sad Day (cad é?)

January 25th is National Opposite Day! So for today I would like you to write a paragraph from your book again, but with genders and roles switched. So if you have a female hero against a male villain, it's now a male villain against a female hero. However, keep any physical characteristics that would stay in the case of a gender switch, such as hair and eye color, build, and height proportions. (So if you were transferring a male to a female, they wouldn't be 6'4", but probably around 5'11".)

In addition, due to a ridiculously busy schedule I probably won't be able to post Mondays anymore, with few exceptions. Sorry.

P.S. The language in the title is Irish. It translates to "what?", as I'm sure you might have imagined. I was originally going to do "qué?", the Spanish, but I prefer Irish.

Is Your Character Healthy?

January 24 is Women's Healthy Weight Day. Figure out what your female characters' ideal weight should be and decide for yourself what their actual weight is. For example, Tate is 5'10" and is very active, so she's usually around 135/140ish, which is healthy for her height and activity level.

The most comprehensive site for BMI calculation is this: http://www.webmd.com/diet/calc-bmi-plus

Shooting Things is Always Fun

January 23 is National Archery Day, which is fitting considering the recent slew of media in which an archer is the protagonist (The Hunger Games, Brave, The Avengers [I'm counting Hawkeye]). These are the different kinds of bow:

• Recurve bow: The tips of the bow curve away from the archer. As the bow is drawn, the curves straighten out, and as the arrow is released the tips return to their curved state. This adds extra velocity to the arrow. They make more noise with one shot. Mostly Native American, East Asian, and Middle Eastern.
• Reflex bow: When unstrung, this bow completely curves away from the archer. The curves are opposite to the way the bow flexes when drawn. Mostly Mongol.
• Self bow: A bow that is made from one piece of wood.
• Longbow: A long self bow, usually over 5 feet long. Most English longbows are traditionally made of yew, though other woods can be used. Mostly from the British Isles, though the Japanese yumi is classified as a longbow.
• Composite bow: A bow made of more than one material. Mostly used by Asiatic nomads, horse archers, and classical Greek and Roman Empires.
• Compound bow: A bow with mechanical aids, usually pulleys at the tip of the limbs, to help with drawing the bowstring. First made in 1966.

The following are various archery activities:

• Bowfishing: Shooting fish with barbed arrows.
• Bowhunting: Shooting animals.
• Clout achery: Shoot at a flag called a "clout". The closer you are to the flag, the more points you get.
• Field archery: Shooting at targets of varying and unmarked distance in rough terrain. In one division called 3D, you shoot at three-dimensional foam animals to simulate bowhunting.
• Popinjay: Use your bow to knock artificial birds off of their perches. The higher up the bird is, the more points it's worth. In Britain there is a Festival of Popinjay in which the archer who severs the string suspending an artificial parrot is awarded the title "Captain Popinjay" for the rest of the day.
• Target archery: Shoot at a target from a marked distance. The color of the band that the arrow goes to determines your point value.

Please Tell Me...

I have many questions.

22 January is National Answer Your Cat's Question Day! So, what is your cat's question, anyway? And how would you answer it? If you don't have a cat, feel free to use a cat that you know. Dogs and children do not count.

Blerg!

Blerg! I wasn't able to get on yesterday because I was too busy, and I Just got a new pair of contact lenses today and I can't see anything close-up, so bear with me because I won't be able to see my spelling mistakes. Anyway, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so for today's prompt I want you to imagine that you are part of a minority for your race/gender/religion like MLK was. Now, what are you going to do about it?

Penguin Fun

Today, January 19, is National Penguin Awareness day! So today you will proceed to be peppered with weird penguin facts that you may not have known.

• Penguins eat snow to get a source of fresh water.
• The name comes from two Welsh terms: the first is "pen", which means head; and the second is "gwyn", which means white. So basically its name means "white head".
• The United States Libertarian Party's unofficial mascot is a penguin.
• The first thing a penguin does when it's born is call out loudly so that its parents learn to associate the voice with their chick.
• A group of penguins is called a colony or a rookery.
• Penguins can jump up to six feet out of the water.
• Penguins first appeared about forty million years ago.
• A prehistoric penguin is believed to have been up to five feet tall.
• Penguin hunt in water, which is where they end up spending about three quarters of their lives.
• The little blue penguin will, oft-times, make its home in someone's garage. While they are a very loud species, New Zealanders are so happy just to have a penguin living in their home that they'll put up with it.
• Penguins get deeper sleep in the afternoon than they do in mornings.

Close Enough

This is wonderful.

January 18 is National Polygraph Day. I decided to give you, as a writer, another kind of test. The Mary-Sue Litmus Test. This is a test designed to figure out whether your character is guilty of being a Mary-Sue, or "perfect" character. There are three main types: average, who is perfect in every way, shape, and form; clone, which is the author inserting themselves into a main character; and trauma, who has had an undeserved amount of abuse, has infinite mental disorders, and uses that as an excuse to either do horrible things or cry in a corner the whole time.

The most in-depth and my favorite is http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm, but a close second is http://www.katfeete.net/writing/marysue.html. Please note that those two strictly apply to humanoid creatures. For a wolf one, I found http://quizilla.teennick.com/quizzes/8164465/the-mary-sue-test-wolf-versionrequired-for-entrance-to-ethereal. While it is supposed to be for entrance to a roleplay, you can still get a pretty accurate score.

If you're looking to find out if a whole race in your fantasy story is too perfect, you may be looking for http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysuerace.htm.

Cars on Ropes--What Could Go Wrong?

January 17 is National Cable Car Day, so here are some fun facts about that transportation should it be vital to your characters.

• A trolley is six tons.
• The speed of a trolley is 9 1/2 mph.
• In San Francisco, there are 40 cars in service: 28 "single-enders" and 12 "double-enders".
• San Francisco trolleys have up to 26 passengers at a time on weekdays, but have the potential for carrying up to 60.
• More women are likely to work as a grip operator for a cable car.
• The first cable car line was created in 1873.
• A woman in 1964 sued the city of San Francisco for a mechanical failure that she claims gave her a black eye, bruises, and a brain injury that turned her into a nymphomaniac.

I had to leave you on an interesting note like that.

...

I was going to have a prompt or advice for you today, until I found out that January 16 is National Nothing Day. So, much like two days ago, you will not write today. Keep yourself far away from your writing zone. You want to? Too bad. Enjoy the nothingness. Anything pressing can wait until tomorrow.

Forced Humanitarianism

January 15 is National Humanitarian Day. I struggled to come up with a prompt for today until it finally hit me. Your character did some little crime, like littering, and was forced into community service. Detail their whole day in diary form for every hour. Do they start out loathing it and then start to get into it a little, or are they a totally helpless case and spend the whole day trying to avoid work and dash home as soon as they're told that it's okay?

Two Holidays

I know not what I have done to
receive this fate.

January 14 has two fun holidays, so instead of picking I've decided to do both: it's a two-for-one day!

First, it's Clean Off Your Desk Day. This means that you need to get organized so that you can start writing without having to look for things all over the place. If you work on the computer, this can mean getting rid of old files that you haven't worked on for a while or that have gotten totally blanked out. Even blank files take up about 18 MB of space.

Second, it's Dress Up Your Pet Day. This is a more fun holiday than the previous one. If you have any characters that have domestic animals, I want you to write a paragraph that involves them finding simply *the* best outfit for their pet and attempting to put it one. Then write the same paragraph in the point of view of the poor victim.

The Blame Game

I know, it's all my fault.

January 13 is Blame Somebody Else Day, and this is the perfect day for a fun kind of procrastination. Instead of writing today, make a list of all the people that are impeding on your ability to get any work done. Feel free to include me on this list because you spend all your time reading this instead of actually writing, and because I gave you the idea in the first place. Don't feel bad about it; I'm blaming you as well, because you're the reason that I feel the need to write a new post every day.

Chicken Scratch

January 12 is National Handwriting Day. Handwriting can tell a lot about a person, but can also be deceiving. For example, what you thought was written by a teenage girl could actually be written by a forty-five-year-old man. So for today I want you to write "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs" in what you can only imagine the handwriting is for each of your characters. Feel free to be creative. For example, Tate writes mostly in long, scrawling cursive, while Ryan prefers neat print and Felan has chicken scratch.

Expensive Jeans and Puddles

You know you want to. Jump!

January 11 is Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friends Day, which is fitting where I live because it rained recently, so there were actual puddles to step in. Of course, splashing your friend may not be something that they are totally up for. Maybe they just bought a $200 pair of jeans that they had specially ordered with a graphic design, and if you jump in a puddle it'll wash the paint right off and they wasted $200 for nothing. So, say that two best friend characters of yours are walking along after a rain storm and one runs up full-speed to a large puddle and splashes it all over the other friend.

Write the conversation that ensues.

Oh, The Strange

10 January is Peculiar People Day! I can think of nothing better than to show peculiar people to you. However, I cannot find any good free-use images of peculiar people. So that's where you come in. Look up "peculiar people" on Google Images, pick one, and go crazy!

Tesla Time

Nikola Tesla: he's
probably thinking of how
to zap you.

January 10 is National Static Electricity Day, and while I don't have anything fun directly related to the topic, I do have something about a guy who worked with static electricity, as well as other forms of electricity, quite a bit: Nikola Tesla. Tesla first got interested in static electricity when his cat shocked him (something that happens to me quite a bit). He also invented a death ray, but he never used it.

So, what if he did use the death ray and started zapping things like crazy to get back at people? He would probably zap Thomas Edison first, as Tesla created the AC when working for Edison and demanded his $50,000 reward for completing it. Edison said that he was only joking about the money, so Tesla released AC to the public. Edison claimed it was unsafe and electrocuted animals to prove it, including cats such as the one that inspired Tesla in the first place.

Using that as a launching pad (recap: Tesla builds death ray, uses it on Edison, says "That's for the cats!"), what happens next?

I Have a Secret Pal

January 8 is Secret Pal Day, something which sounds mildly creepy to begin with. (In addition, it's Kim Jong-un's birthday today, but that's beside the point). Therefore, I have a horror prompt for you today. Just one, but I hope you have fun with it.

You have to go to your best friend's sister-in-law's baby shower for about the fourth or fifth time. You're less than excited and sit in the doorway of her house for most of the shower when her eldest, a little six-year-old boy, tugs on your sleeve. He says that he has a secret friend and that he wants you to meet the friend. Before you have a chance to answer, he's pulling you towards his room.

Have fun~

The Oldest Rocks

The Blue Marble.

January 7 is Old Rock Day, so to celebrate let's take a look at some of the oldest rocks that we know altogether: the planets in our solar system. These are a few basic facts that would be found useful, and while I'm sure that you've looked these up at some time or another, it's a good place to keep all of them together so that in one quick look you can find out something.

I've recorded as much information as I could find pressed for time.

Mercury
Highest Temperature (0N/85N): 426.85/106.85 Celsius (800.33/224.33 Fahrenheit)
Lowest Temperature: -173.15/-193.15 Celsius (343.67/379.67 Fahrenheit)
Average Temperature: 66.85/-73.15 Celsius (152.33/-99.67 Fahrenheit)
Year (in Earth days): 88 days

Venus

Average Temperature: 462 Celsius (863.6 Fahrenheit)
Year (in Earth days): 224.7 days


Earth

Highest Temperature: 57.8 Celsius (136.04 Fahrenheit)
Lowest Temperature: -89.2 Celsius (-128.56 Fahrenheit)
Average Temperature: 14 Celsius (57.2 Fahrenheit)
Year (in Earth days): 365 days


Mars

Highest Temperature: 35 Celsius (95 Fahrenheit)
Lowest Temperature: -143 Celsius (-225.4 Fahrenheit)
Average Temperature: -63 Celsius (-81.4 Fahrenheit)
Year (in Earth days): 687 days


Jupiter

Average Temperature (1 bar level): -108.15 Celsius (-162.67 Fahrenheit)
Average Temperature (0.1 bar): -161.15 Celsius (-258.07 Fahrenheit)
Year (in Earth days): 4,332.59 days


Saturn

Average Temperature (1 bar level): -139.15 Celsius (-218.47 Fahrenheit)
Average Temperature (0.1 bar): -189.15 Celsius (-308.47 Fahrenheit)
Year (in Earth days): 10,759 days


Uranus

Highest Temperature: -216.15 Celsius (-357.07 Fahrenheit)
Lowest Temperature: -224.15 Celsius (-371.47 Fahrenheit)
Average Temperature: -220.15 Celsius (-364.27 Fahrenheit)
Year (in Earth days): 30,799 days


Neptune

Average Temperature (1 bar level): -201.15 Celsius (-330.07 Fahrenheit)
Average Temperature (0.1 bar): -218.15 Celsius (-360.67 Fahrenheit)
Year (in Earth days): 60,190 days

A Long, Legendary Journey

Gold, frankincense and my
favorite: myrrh.

Today, January 6, is the Epiphany! Originally, the Roman Catholic Church always celebrated Epiphany today, but it was recently changed to the Sunday after New Year's. However, today the two dates line up perfectly. This is also the day that, traditionally, Christmas trees are taken down from houses.

If you are of the Roman Catholic faith you have probably heard that three wise men named Balthazar, Caspar, and Melchior followed the star to Jesus and brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Actually, nobody knows how many magi there were. The Roman Catholic Church assumes that there are three because of the three gifts, but most Eastern Orthodox churches assume that there are twelve. We do know that they followed the star to Bethlehem, came from the east, brought three gifts, and were probably scholars and astronomers. The rest, including their names, come from legend.

So, say that your characters go on a great journey and become famous amongst their people. What parts of their story will actually be true? Which parts of their story will be made up for it to be a better story, or will be assumed about them? What will be recorded and what will be left to word of mouth?

Til Death-- Kinda, Sorta, Not Really

January 5th is American Divorce Day! It was on this day in 1643 that Anne Clark was granted the first divorce in what would later become the United States. In honor of this day, think about two characters you have (primary or secondary, or even tertiary if your cast is large enough to support it) that are either happily married or at least together in some way, shape, or form. Now write the worst possible scene you can think of when their relationship ends. Make it so that nobody will ever believe in love again. For the whole thing, do not use the word "divorce" or the phrase "I think we should see other people/break up". And bonus points if you can find a way to incorporate a "wife sale" such as the one on the right into a contemporary work. Have fun!

P.S. Sorry that this is technically on the sixth, but I forgot about it.

Fiction Trivia

But how can that be? That's
impossible!

January 4 is Trivia Day! Therefore, instead of giving you something to think on today, I'm going to give you some fun fictional trivia for you to quiz your friends with.

• In the novel Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King, King first mentions the werewolf having yellow eyes. In every account afterwards and in every illustration the werewolf has green eyes.
• In various Stephen King novels, the setting is Castle Rock, Maine. This was named for the William Golding novel Lord of the Flies, where the meeting place is called the Castle Rock.
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett was rejected sixty times, and one of the rejections told Stockett that there was no place in today's literature for her works.
• (This isn't fiction trivia, but it's still crazy) According to Sir Isaac Newton, the world is going to end in 2060.
• There's a 233-page French novel called Le Train de Nulle Part (The Nowhere Train) that has no verbs in it whatsoever.
• Mark Twain said that he wanted to dig up Jane Austen and beat her in the skull with her own skeleton.
• There are three instances in Shakespearean plays where a character mentions something not yet invented in the time period of the setting: when the Anglo-Saxon Lear mentions not wanting spectacles, cannons in 1054 and 1200, and clock in the time of Caesar.

Hobbits and Hornblowers

One ring to rule them all...

Today (January 3) is J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday! It would be interesting if The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey had chosen to come out today. Now here is where I admit something I'm a little hesitant to say: I have never actually read any of the Lord of the Rings books. I attempted The Fellowship of the Ring twice. The first time the print was too small for me to read anything. The second time I got the large-print copy, and that's when I realized that it just wasn't my particular cup of tea.

But no matter! Today there was going to be an A-Z of Middle-Earth, but I ran out of time, so there are only a few. Sorry it looks pathetic.

C is for Creatures: There were a variety of creatures on Middle-Earth. Tolkien made some of these species ridiculously popular to the point of explosion. Try to write a paragraph about Middle-Earth where none of these creatures exist, only humans.

I is for Inspiration: Tolkien got his inspiration for The Hobbit when he came across a blank page when grading papers. He wrote the first thing that came into his head. "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit". He didn't know what it meant, but he was determined to find out. Write down whatever you think of. There may be a story in there somewhere.

L is for Linguistics: Do you know the reason that you like Tolkien's language systems so much? Because he used to be a linguistics professor and knew what languages were made of. If you have a special language in your fantasy work, look at its speech patterns and develop complex rules of grammar to tighten it better.

N is for Nazgul: I don't know if you feel the same way I do about these, but I find them absolutely terrifying. Think of mythical creatures (if there are any) in your book that are supposed to be terrifying, and amplify what makes them so frightening.

S is for Sauron: Think to yourself: What made Sauron such a compelling villain? Think about him and ask yourself how you can make your character more like him. This doesn't mean make him exactly like the Necromancer, but strengthen your antagonist's personality so that people want to read about them nearly as much as they want to read about the protagonist.

W is for World-Building: Middle-Earth is a very complicated place that obviously took a lot of time and effort to work out the quirks of. Therefore, I encourage you fantasy writers out there to fill out every question at http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/ and answer all of the questions that apply to your work. (Some of the questions are in multiple places, so take care not to answer them more than once).

Science Fiction Writing Prompts (First Installment)

No explanation needed.

While sci-fi isn't exactly my genre, I'm making an exception for today, as today (January 2nd, by my count) is National Science Fiction Day. So I'm channeling my inner H.G. Wells here, and don't hate on my approach to the genre. There are only specific things that I like.

1. You wake up from a deep sleep and get up out of your bed to find that you have antelope legs where you used to have human legs. Pushing your hair back there are also two horns. That's when you realize, pushing away your grogginess, that you are in some kind of laboratory, and there are three bull-headed guards blocking your escape. What do you do now?
2. In an alternative timeline, President James A. Garfield was never shot, as Charles J. Guiteau (his assassin) was too busy in his cult. (True story, look it up). He has turned the United States of America into a dictatorship, and you are yourself in 1884, during the height of his rule. What are you going to do? (If you come from another country, you are a general for the army of your country and need to figure out how to react to the new dictatorship).
3. Steampunk time travel time! You live in a Victorian-era period where someone has just invented time travel. You're the first person to test it out. So you go either backwards or forwards in time to change some major event in history, and then the button breaks, sending you to January 2, 2013. How is life different because of what you changed?

New Year's Resolutions

A snowman coming to life to tell
you happy 2013: not the best
start to the year.

New Year's Resolutions. Everybody has them, and they're usually ditched by sometime in mid-January. The lucky get to February. I made mine to late October when I realized that it was futile, but I'm trying again this year.

So for today's activity you're going to be doing resolutions for both yourself and the character that you're working on. You must have one writing-themed resolution, not just "lose 30 pounds" or something like that. List them in the comments if you so choose.

My resolutions:

1. Finish the first draft of Wolf at the Door
2. Finish every Stephen King book (this was last year's resolution that I made it until mid-October with. I got to The Tommyknockers, but it was so boring I decided it could wait until next year).

Tate's resolutions (from Wolf at the Door)

1. Take down a bull moose.
2. Stop Felan from bashing his brains out in football (futile)
3. Crank out a short story or two.
4. Finish the commission that I've been sitting on for three months (why am I putting this off? It's $350!)
5. Get a real job.