Of Research, Notes, and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

The other night I had a dream that someone asked me if I’ve ever played football. I was about to say of course I haven’t when a kaleidoscope of events that occurred when I was around twenty-one crossed my mind and I had to amend my answer.

The thing is that is the only time I ever played!

All my roommates and I joined up with a bunch of guys at a nearby park to play. As we divided into teams, I kept trying to tell them I’d never played, but no one would listen. As the team I was on formed a huddle, I finally got our captain to understand I knew nothing about the game.

He pointed out one of my larger roommates and told me all I had to do was keep from her passing our scrimmage line.

Okay.

I still wasn’t sure I could do it. This girl was taller and broader than my then less than five feet, 125 pounds body. But I lined up with the rest of my team directly across the field from said roommate.

When everyone started running forward, I took a couple of steps, planted my feet firmly in place, and then held my arm out to my side, the side for which she was aiming.

As she got to my arm, I put my whole body into moving my arm in front of me.

Within seconds she was flat on her back at my feet, staring up at me totally stunned I managed that.

My team captain yelled, “We’re playing tag football not tackle!”

I faced him and said, “You said stop her; I stopped her!”

My roommate spent the rest of the evening commenting on how I was stronger than I looked.

She was probably glad I stopped playing because soon after that my hip started bothering me and I sat down on the sidelines for the rest of the game.

I’ve never played football again. But some years later I came across a booklet titled “A Football Widow’s Handbook” which I studied thoroughly because my husband was into watching the sport.

Nowadays, anytime Konnie needs any information related to football for a story of hers, she asks me.

I lost that booklet decades ago, and I lost my husband over a decade ago, so it’s been at least that long since I’ve watched a football game, but Konnie still turns to me for such information.

Though it’s been a while since she’s asked me about football. More recently she asked me about makes of cars and their sizes. You know, to be more specific in her story. In other words, telling the types of vehicles wasn’t going to cut it.

Good thing I have a computer. I just looked up some of the makes I could think of. Konnie couldn’t come up with any.

So, I guess I do know cars better than she does but let’s keep in mind I have one story where the two main characters are auto mechanics. And boy did I have I have to do quite a bit of research for that!

Of course, I’ve also got one where the female lead is a pilot. And yes, I did a lot of research for that one too.

Now I’m working on my sci-fi and I had to do a lot of research, more than any of the rest.

I had to look up military ranks because the hero is in the military. But I also had to research the Greek Alphabet and study how fables were written for my backstory for the series which is an ancient fable for the world I’ve built. I did write the fable.

Then I also had to look into things like kings and their heirs, because that plays a role in my story, and for good measure, I looked up ranks of nobility.

Let’s not forget looking up a bit of science so my solar system I’m making up works!

Yeah, I’ve done more research for my sci-fi than I’ve ever done for any of my contemporary romances.

But then when I’m not researching, I have also done a lot of drawing up floor plans for the characters' homes, and for my Moose Creek series, I have a file on the family groups, including birth and marriage dates, and another file of who graduated in what year from the local high school. I also have the genealogy of the main family in that series, back several generations. I also have a file on family groups for my speculative fiction. Yeah, I take lots of notes.

As I write a story, I note character names, ages, and whatever else I need to remember, including my research notes.

How about you?

Happy writing all!

Of Call Etiquette and Teasing by Konnie Enos

Growing up in the good ol’ days before everyone carried their phones in their pockets, we were always instructed that it was rude to call anyone before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. If you knew they worked ‘9 to 5’ you had about three hours in the evening when they might be available to talk.

There were, of course, exceptions to this rule. Such as calling someone you know stayed up later, or who was expecting your late call. And late calls did happen because long-distance calls were cheaper after 10 p.m.

Of course, you also couldn’t get ahold of someone who wasn’t home, or at least in a known location with a phone number you knew or could get. But no one was calling people at work just to chat either.

But to this day, anyone who grew up in that era will panic if their phone rings unexpectedly after 9 p.m. or before 8 a.m. I’ve done it myself and was extremely irritated when a spammer woke me at 6 a.m. I’m sure others will agree with me that there are just sometimes of the day when you absolutely shouldn’t be calling anyone.

Now, the one thing I learned about this piece of etiquette is that you have to know the time differences between time zones so you’re not calling someone too early or late. For example, someone in New York can call someone in California at 11 p.m. because it’s only 8 p.m. in California.  But California can’t call New York at 8 p.m. without first arranging the time.

Now that I have children on both coasts (Massachusetts and Oregon), not to mention family in Utah and Idaho, I have to remember the time difference before calling any of my family.

Okay, so four of my five kids live in the same time zone as I do. But two of those don’t live with me and I never remember their daily schedules.

Who am I kidding? I don’t know my son's schedule other than if it’s daytime, he’s probably working. I’m sure he gets a day off here and there, but I don’t know when it is.

My daughter does tell me her schedule, but their wake-sleep cycle is different and I’m never sure when they are awake. And my sister is active enough that between her jobs, friends, clubs, and groups, I’m never sure she’s home, at least during the day. I can generally catch her on weekends and evenings.

Our oldest son does have night owl tendencies but is working a daytime job. Even then I doubt he’d be in bed before 10 p.m. so 9 might not be too late to call him. Then again he’s had jobs where he had to be to work before 7 a.m. so he might be in bed by 9. The conclusion is that since I don’t know his work schedule, I don’t know the best time to call him.

Then again, he’s a twenty-something. He has told me more than once that he prefers people to text him. Then he can deal with it when it’s convenient for him. And apparently, that’s the mind set of most twenty-somethings. Even Bonnie and I have gotten into the habit of texting our questions or whatever we want to say to each other. Once in a while one of us asks if the other can talk which then leads to one of us, usually Bonnie, texting, “Call me”.

Thinking about sending a text just brought me to the realization that the new phone etiquette is ‘always text someone before you call them to be sure they are willing and able to talk to you at that moment’.

So, what brought all this musing on?

My husband.

It was inching past 9 p.m. and he asked if it was too late to call our son.

After I thought about it a moment or two (see my musing above) I told Jerry I had no idea if it was a good time or not but also mentioned how Bonnie would react if he called her.

He said, “Okay, I’ll call Bonnie.”

“You will not. She’ll panic.”

“I’ll call from your phone.”

“You will not. If you called from my phone, especially this late at night, she’d think something happened to me and really panic.”

(Don’t worry, Bonnie. I think he was teasing.)

He finally said, “Fine. I’ll just text.”

(Pretty sure he meant our son because Bonnie didn’t call me in a panic when his text woke her up.)

Anyway, that was my moment of clarity and my “I just got to write that down” inspiration.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

Of Cash and Myths by Bonnie Le Hamilton

The other day as I was driving home from work, I spotted a couple of kids with a lemonade stand near the corner of Walnut and Jefferson. It was a good place to set up. Jefferson is a major throughway, and trees line the sidewalk in that spot. Or rather the parking lot to the building on the corner of Walnut and Jefferson has a row of trees between the lot and the sidewalk.

I am very well aware of this because my car is having issues with overheating. I generally have to stop on my way home from work to let my car cool down; I prefer to do it under those trees. Its cooler.

So anyway, I pulled into the lot and parked under one of the trees and those poor boys thought I stopped to buy a cup of lemonade. Too bad, I hate discouraging such young entrepreneurs, but I rarely carry cash. I should.

But it got me wondering how anyone could have a lemonade stand, or a yard sale for that matter when very few people carry cash these days.

I guess with a yard sale folks can plan on having cash on hand before they leave, but with a lemonade stand, I never know about them until I see them.

Then again, I don’t read the paper, so I only get news of yard sales when I see the signs or drive past them. And I never stop because I have no cash on me. But other people were stopping. So clearly some people still carry cash.

Actually, I know my sister-in-law carries cash. She does that so she doesn’t go over budget. I guess a few people do it that way. I don’t. To each his own.

In other news, I finally read the Percy Jackson series. The trouble is I had a feeling of déjà vu while reading it. A lot of it felt familiar like I’d read it before. The only trouble is that I haven’t read it before! I know I haven’t.

At any rate, I have read the series, or at least the first five books. And now I am trying to figure out when I could have read them before.

Problem number one is that the copywrite date is from early this century. If I had read it that recently I would remember when and where.

Problem number two is that it can’t be very old because of the mention of things like cell phones and a model of car which didn’t come out until like the nineties. I most certainly couldn’t have read this series as a child. Cell phones were not a thing then.

Looking the series up online, it is clearly from this century. And newer than the Harry Potter series and I first read the first book around the time it hit the US.

And as much as I like Harry Potter, I think I like Percy Jackson a little bit better. Mostly because I liked the subject matter way back in third grade when we did a section all about Roman and Greek myths.

I do use a Greek myth in one of my stories.

Rick Riordan uses most of them and brings them into the modern age. It is quite an interesting take on the myths actually.

Anyway, it got me wondering if any other authors have used old myths for their modern stories. There have to be a few because of course, Thor and all those are part of Norse mythology. Modern stories of them do exist.

I think there are modern stories of other legends or myths from other cultures, the problem would be, that all I have ever studied is Roman and Greek myths. None of the others were mentioned in the course I had way back in third grade.

Technically, I have heard or read about a few others since then, but I seem to gravitate towards Greek myths myself considering that is the only kind of myth I have used in my writing.

I can also say one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek The Original Series is the one with Apollo in it.

Now that I think about it, that episode combined with the lessons I had in third grade may explain my liking of Greek myths so much.

So, do you like any myths? Have you considered, or even used, at least one myth in your writing?

You don’t have to make it as prevalent as Riordan does. I don’t. I barely mention the myth I use in my story, but it is there, without it the group my main characters are a part of wouldn’t exist.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

 

Of Homebodies, Sleeping, and Editing by Konnie Enos

I’ve found that since Covid I’ve become a homebody.

Before Covid, I was the one who usually checked the mail every day. Nowadays I just remind my family that it needs to be checked and they bring it to me.

Before Covid, I was going to the grocery store at least once a week, though usually two or three times. Nowadays, I don’t go to the store at all, and my daughter does the shopping only once a week. Of course, that’s because she plans better than I do. She writes a menu plan for the coming week and then checks all the cupboards to make sure we have enough to make all those meals. She also generally refuses to buy anything not on the list.

Of course, she also refuses to go back to the store in the middle of the week when we run out of something. Milk seems to be the one thing that doesn’t last a whole week which is perplexing to me. There are only two people in our family that drink it. I only have milk on the rare occasions I eat cereal. And my daughter can’t have dairy at all.

Also, before Covid, I would go to multiple stores each week to find the best deals for the supplies and other things we needed. I would also do that for getting gifts and gift-wrapping supplies. Walmart and Family Dollar Stores were where I went the most. Nowadays, I don’t even bother going to Walmart. If I need something my daughter can’t find on her weekly shopping trips, I’ll order it online. Either from Amazon for delivery or Walmart for pick-up.

Another thing I would do before Covid was write checks and hand-deliver them to the provider, or personally take them to be mailed. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a check. Now I pay all my bills through direct withdrawals from my account or online.

When I was confined to my room with Covid, I complained because I couldn’t see and talk to my family and had to keep my bedroom door closed. Nowadays, the door is usually open, but I still spend most of my day in bed.

Not asleep mind you. I’m generally sitting up on my computer or tablet. I spend my days doing coloring, Sudoku, and other games on apps, getting sucked into Facebook or other social media sites, reading books, doing handcrafts (admittedly rarely), dealing with our finances, or working on my writing. All of which I can do from the comfort of my bed.

Currently, the one thing that takes up the most of my time is editing two of my WIPs. My fantasy is the shorter of the two. I spent about a week working my way through it. Changing my wording here and there. Changing some of the POV. Adding a bit of detail. (I’m really bad at adding the necessary details until about the tenth draft.) The one thing I’m sure I still need to work on is the POV but I’m much closer now.

After working on that, I started on my sci-fi. It’s much longer. In fact, it’s so long I’ve broken it down into five books.

I got through the first three books just editing a few word choices and, again, adding some details. I even managed to get to the last chapter of the fourth book without much problem.

Then I hit a snag.

The fourth book currently cuts off with an incomplete chapter and at the wrong point of the story line. Fortunately, the correct point is in the fifth book, I just have to move it over. But this also means I need more scenes for the fifth book, or it’ll be a novella instead of a novel.

Knowing this, I did some brainstorming with my daughter and sister. I even was all tech savvy enough to take notes on my phone, so I have something to refer to while I’m making these changes. The thing is, some of these changes mean I have to go back to the very first book and start over.

Heavy sigh.

So, Monday I spent much of the day working on the first book but decided I needed a break and went down that famous rabbit hole known as Facebook. I got off and went to bed sometime early Tuesday morning. Yes, I shouldn’t do that.

So, yesterday I tried to concentrate on my editing, but I kept dozing off. But I finally managed to get about halfway through the next to the last chapter. I only quit because I was extra tired and still needed to do my post. I opted for sleep and doing my post this morning.

Now back to editing.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.