Meanwhile…

I’ve stumbled across this rather nifty site: Forgotten Bookmarks. It’s pretty self-explanatory. The owner works at a used bookstore and finds all kinds of crazy stuff in the books they purchase. I particularly like “Scandalous!” about half-way down the front page, hehe.

Weirdest bookmark I ever found: someone had used the miniaturized Oxford English Dictionary I bought at Recycled Books to press a rose, then left it in there.

Anyway, great sites like this can be perfect for busting up writer’s block or crafting some fun “found object” writing prompts. Enjoy!

As NaNo looms, research becomes more and more important. With a daily word count of almost 2,000 pressing in, we simply don’t have time to scour the library for every little question we have. In fact, I wouldn’t blame someone for giving up on research entirely during November, and saving all that nitty gritty for later revisions.

But I thought I’d post a few more sites I like to consult for ideas and definitions, pictures and history (these in addition to the World Building post I made a short time back). These are sites that make an internet connection a valuable tool rather than a distraction while you’re trying to write.

Fashion! If you’re like me, you know next to nothing about fashion. I don’t even do my own clothes shopping anymore. My wife just buys stuff and sticks in my closet, and I may or may not notice that what I’m wearing is new.

http://www.fashion-era.com/index.htm

Names! Some people just flip open the phone book. I like to use this site, which allows you to search or browse by ethnicity, popularity, and definition. And there’s a great random name generator. And they have a sister site dedicated to surnames. Make your names mean something! You’re a writer! Be pretentious! There are of course many random name generators out there, and even more general name sites, I just happen to like these.

http://www.behindthename.com/

http://surnames.behindthename.com/

Units of measure! I’m not even sure how to describe this site. But it has a ton of information on, well, measuring things. And converting measurements, and all the history and science behind all that stuff. Can be very handy. The home page has tons of general science info. You will no longer have any excuse for not knowing exactly how long a jiffy is.

http://www.numericana.com/answer/units.htm

Quotes! Can’t remember who said what? Search here!

http://www.politicalquotes.org/default.aspx

Over the past couple of years I’ve become more and more interested in crime fiction. Not really mysteries, necessarily, but stories about crime and perpetration thereof. Not really mob fiction, either – I appreciate material like The Godfather and The Sopranos as much as anyone else, but they don’t interest me as much as small-time criminals. I’m not really sure why that is. Maybe I’m more interested in why and how relatively normal people would commit crimes, out of desperation or passion or psychosis or whatever. I also have a weakness for stories about detectives, both private and official.

Stories about corrupt cops? Oh boy, look out.

It’s a bit at odds with my general philosophy concerning heroes vs villains. Usually I find heroes more compelling, because villainy is so easy and natural. I’ll have to think about it some more.

Really, though, this is just an excuse to post this nifty link I found a week or two ago. It’s a website set up by the Los Angeles Times, charting all the homocides that have happened this year. There’s a map with all the locations marked, and the story to each crime, along with tons of statistics. They even allow (moderated!) comments, so you get to see messages left by friends and family and other members of the community. It’s pretty interesting, and may prove to be a valuable tool for those of us looking to write about crimes, especially in a large urban area like LA.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/homicidemap/

Work is crazy! Cat Kitty Pryde is terribly sick!  So not a whole lot else going on. I have a couple of stories laying around I need to fire off somewhere just so I can feel productive.

The Writer’s Ink crew just started up a world building exercise. I have laid claim to the bitterly cold frozen tundras of the north east. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and start naming things, but I think I’ll be aiming for a mixture of Scottish, Finnish, and Welsh. Should result in some stuff that’s got the right sound but not cliche.

World building is sometimes the most fun aspect of writing fantasy or science fiction. You can let your imagination roam and create anything that comes to mind. That’s probably the first exercise in storytelling I ever engaged in; I still have little pencil-drawn maps in ancient spiral notebooks with all sorts of improbable geography and crazy names. Each nation had its own little epic history and a Lego hero to call its own. I remember spending tons of time writing these histories and never actually writing any stories in them, heh.

It’ll be interesting to see what this shared world will generate. At the moment there’s six of working on it, so we should come up with a wide variety of cultures populating this place.

Anyway, here’s a few websites I’ve found massively useful (discovered while working on my first failed NaNo a couple years ago).

Medieval Demographics Made Easy (handy for getting a grasp on how big is big for ancient towns and what sort of tradesmen might be in any given population center)

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

The Language Construction Kit (handy if you’re insane and want to create a language for your people)

http://www.zompist.com/kit

Horses in fiction (awesome little article with a few basic facts about horses)

http://fantasy.fictionfactor.com/articles/horses.html

Guide to Gods and Mythology (useful as inspiration if your people are of a religious nature)

http://www.godchecker.com/

Creating and Earthlike Planet (tons and tons of information about some of the basic science behind climate and geography, with tons of links to other resources)

http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/worldkit/index.html