Well, in 1922 anyway. 

The story doing the rounds on the internet lately is that Einstein, the year he won the Noble Prize, was asked by a reporter how it felt to be the smartest man alive. He answered "I don't know, you'd have to ask Nikola Tesla."

And I can't find any attribution for the quote, so it's probably like the literally throngs of things we make up and attribute to Einstein, but it's a nice sentiment. And Tesla was absolutely a genius. You'd be quicker naming a modern invention that wasn't somehow connected to his work(if you can find one) than naming all the ones that are. Not just AC/DC power, but neon lights and robotics and radio control and wireless communication and...

Also, look at that man. Arguably he was ten pounds of crazy in a five pound sack and massively, spectacularly incapable of handling daily life, and continuously celibate. I could still just stare at him. 

Hold on, I'm trying to make myself stop petting the computer screen.

Anyway, where were we? I don't know, I've lost it now. While we're off in left field, the attribution for that picture there is here (it's a CHALK DRAWING) under this license. And I'm telling you that now, in the big letters, because if you go to the original there's a link to a video that's apparently connected (I have literally no clue how, it's in French and the subtitles didn't help much) and is possibly the strangest thing I've ever seen. Seriously. It's also not really work or child safe, fyi.

So it's sort of fitting that I'm starting this series of blog posts about sciencey stuff with Tesla, the father of the modern world. And I could ramble on here forever, about all the different ideas he had, and the strange things he said and did. The internet likes to talk about how Tesla believed in free energy and peace, but you rarely hear that he was a proponent of selective breeding eugenics, or often rude and dismissive, and incredibly picky about the appearance of the people around him. 

But I'll narrow it down to three things I didn't know about him before I started writing this.

1) In middle age he was close friends with Mark Twain, and they spent lots of time together in his lab. Clearly Mark Twain was a braver soul than I. I've seen the picture of the lightning and the cat. You couldn't pay me.

2) When Tesla died in 1943 the government seized all of his things they could get their hands on, by fair means or foul. And I knew that. I did not know that they'd released 'most' of his file in 1980 under the freedom of information act. You can see it here at the FBI archive. And it's two-hundred and forty-nine pages, but the first one is the best. I really want to know who wrote that to Hoover. 

3) Of bearing to literally no one but me, we share a birthday. My mother shares a birthday with Hitler. I win.

And I'm finishing with a quote, because this is starting to get long enough I need to walk away. 

“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”

                                                                                                            --Nikola Tesla

I doubt he meant that figuratively. How is that not an entire novel series about him traversing The Core and discovering all its secrets with his plucky, long-suffering side-kick?

― Cornelia Funke

In an effort to not use my Wednesday post about writing (I'm possibly going to fail at that a little, but I'm trying) I'm digging out an old standard journaling/short writing prompt. "Who is your favorite character of all time."

I said it was an old standard. I didn't say it was easy to answer.

Picking your favorite character is about like picking your favorite book, isn't it? When people ask me for a favorite book I always have to narrow it down to five. I can almost do five. I mean I still feel like I'm giving an award acceptance speech and forgetting half the people who are important to me, but it's better than one.

I have lots and lots of favorite characters, and I could tell you something about all of them, about the thing that makes me appreciate them more than the others around them. I could tell you about what makes them special compared to all the other fictional people living in my head, or about what makes them stand out.

But the point of these posts is to showcase good writing, and I'm the first to admit 'technically good writing' and 'writing I like' aren't generally the same thing. So maybe the better question is, which character stands out the most, with the least amount of imaginary leg-work from me? 

That one I can do, easily. It's hands-down, always been Mr Bennet. Austen doesn't tell us a lot about the patriarch of the Bennet family--although in all honesty one of the better joys of her writing is that she doesn't tell us a lot about anyone. But something about his personality just leaps off the page for me. Every detail we get of him through dialogue or reaction is another brush-stroke in her creation of this spectacular, unusual, flawed man. 

He loves his daughters,even when he doesn't know what to do with them. He loves his wife, somehow. He makes the best decisions he can for his family, knowing there probably aren't any right ones, knowing he can't do better for them no matter how much he wishes he could. He still buries himself in his library to avoid the people he loves. He makes selfish decisions sometimes, but he admits when he's done wrong and acknowledges his own short-comings. He feels real to me in a way so many characters holding his place-card in a story do not.

When we talk about characters we always say things about how it's their flaws, it's their realness as human beings that draws us in, and we wish for more of that. Except I don't think we do, not really. We want them to be flawed in ways we can forgive. Mr Bennet with his sarcasm and avoidance, his doting on his favorite daughter; we're okay with these flaws. But a heroine who doesn't stand up tall and hit every feminist button she can reach is almost automatically a cipher, or the writer's views on women leaking through. 

And I'm not saying she is or isn't, or that a hero with a god-complex isn't a Marty-Sue and the authors pathetic attempt at living out his dreams of daring-do. I suppose I'm trying to say that characters--good characters--should require the same tolerance investment out of us real people do, rather than a snap decision based on cover art and tag-lines.

Can you imagine what modern publishing would have done with Pride and Prejudice?

Have you ever noticed how incredibly self-centered blog prompts are? I know the purpose is to help you open up and share with your readers, but I can't imagine you really want to hear about the time I gave someone an ultimatum. 

I suppose now that I've said that, I'm under some kind of pressure to come up with something interesting today, aren't I? Somewhere, in the long list of prompts I drudged through there was one about your worst dream (I have no clue where it was now, or I'd link it).

When I was twelve I had an elaborate, disturbing dream about being chased by a flying strawberry from outer-space. 

It talked, in that sort of horror movie rasp-gurgle-groan that usually portrays the undead, and it's leaves spun around like helicopter blades. It was moldy and misshapen and honestly one of the most terrifying things I was capable of imaging at twelve. 

I was no stranger to bad dreams. Some-day when I'm feeling articulate and ambitious I'll tell you about the house I grew up in.

Some dreams drop away, when you wake up or as time goes by. I spent most of my teens waking up in tears because someone I cared about had died, and I couldn't tell you the particulars of a single one of those dreams. One of them involved a boat ramp, and probably had something to do with a serious obsession with the Titanic. My best friend was nearly killed by being shut in a refrigerator door once.

That might have been more about me than you needed to know. Anyway.

Here's the thing with the strawberry. It wasn't just that it was scary and horrible. It's been more years than I'm going to admit to since I was twelve, and I still remember vividly the way it followed me all over town, the way nobody but me ever saw it, the way it showed a sort of...sick joy that no one believed me. Any therapist worth their salt would have a field day with that. 

But I've never been one of those people who put store in dreams. Maybe they outline your biggest fears, the things your subconscious doesn't know how to deal with. I've been afraid of aliens literally as long as I can remember, but I wouldn't say I'm unduly afraid of the unknown. Supposedly strawberries in dreams signify female desire and sexuality. I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole. 

I've never once had a logical or honestly pleasant dream, that I remember. But the things in my dreams were never quite as scary as the things I imagined when I was awake, trying to deal with being afraid of the dark and too old to be afraid of the dark. 

So what do you do about a giant flying strawberry from space? Learn not to eat half a gallon of raspberry sherbet before bed. It's just a dream.

For funsies I drew you an evil strawberry. You're welcome, you may bask in my awesome finger-painting skills.


Photo from here under this license. I made no changes.

There are buds on the trees and birds on my deck (they like to torture the cat) and guys playing ultimate Frisbee in the field behind my house. I'm not sure I'm ready for it to be spring yet. 

So, way back in the annals of history (shut up, January was a long time ago, I have the attention span of a mayfly this time of year) I made a commitment to blog more. You can look at the list of posts under this one to tell how that's gone. 

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” 
                                                                                                                      ― Winston Churchill

I've got nothing more relevant to say than Mr Churchill up there. So I'm moving on. 

Apparently the general consensus on this is that you should blog three times a week, and not blog about writing because no one wants to hear(see?) you witter on about writing three times a week. I'm probably going to fail about that, because irrespective of what everybody else thinks the conversation is about, it's always about writing to me. I promise to do my best to make it interesting.

Are you ready for the schedule? 
 
As of this week, Monday's at Words and Wonderings will be Miscellaneous Monday. There'll be a post, hopefully it'll be fun to read, I'll figure out what it's about when I sit down and start writing it. Wednesday's will the Well-Written Wednesday. That's the day for book reviews, or my take on what's happening in the writing universe, or TV/Movie (of the content variety, not the 'he's so pretty' variety) pop-culture. And last but not least Friday will be Sci-Fi Fridays and I'll trot out the latest cool thing I've found (usually getting lost while researching) and probably talk a little about it's potential in fiction. 

If I miss these you're totally allowed to brow-beat me about it. 

See you Monday!
(Yes, I realize I'm an eternal optimist. Yes, I realize how annoying it is.)

PS--the title is borrowed from Robert Frost-- "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

“It's that wounded-poet crap, that soul-pain shit, that too-much-of-a-tortured-genius-to-wash bollocks. Brush your teeth, you little bastard. You're not fucking Byron.”
--Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo's Calling

At this stage, if you have a life on the internet you've probably heard of The Cuckoo's Calling. I've mentioned it before, months ago, and the scandal revolving around the failed attempt at a pen-name was decently explosive. 

It seems sort of fitting that I'm finally managing to post this review when JK's in the news again. 

I won't spoil the book for you. If you haven't read it yet, or you haven't even considered it, you should. Cormoran Strike, our detective, is a deep enough character I can't really lay him out for you, without spoiling part of the narrative of the book. There are other people moving around his universe--supermodels and drug addicts and stars and plucky office assistants--who in general have more agency and purpose than most b-list characters in Mystery. He has a suitably tortured back story you learn in little teases through the course of the book. 

The plot is good, and as usual Rowling isn't afraid of much of anything, subject wise. If you've read A Casual Vacancy you'll be ready for that. And unlike with A Casual Vacancy I didn't spend three quarters of this book hating everyone. Intensely. 

Which all sounds nice and appreciative, I'm sure. And probably makes you wonder why I finished the book nearly two weeks ago and I'm just now writing the review. 

I don't know what to say.


It's a good book, and I absolutely liked it. I like nearly everything she writes so that's not a surprise. It was clever and generally good about not being full of itself and even the parts I wasn't comfortable with, or that are generally instant turn-offs for me (again, I can't tell you what exactly because it's kind of a spoiler) weren't as annoying as they usually are. 

The problem is, it's not a Mystery novel. When I sat down to read The Cuckoo's Calling it'd just come out that it was hers, and everyone was talking about how wonderful it was and how it was the quality that outed her as the author more than anything. Like the whole reading world was crying 'First mystery novels just aren't this good!' And maybe they're not. Much as I love Christie, A Mysterious Affair at Styles isn't her best work. The same of Doyle and A study in Scarlet. 

But...

When I get to the end of a mystery I expect to look back and see all the clues I've missed, the things characters or the narrator said that I just didn't attribute the right weight to, but the protagonist did. I don't get that with The Cuckoo's Calling. It ends like a TV crime drama, where the detective is smarter than us all, even the bad guy. Where the clues are all made up at the end and they don't matter. And that leaves me cold and less connected to the story than I would be, if you gave me a satisfying conclusion. I'm not nearly as interested in the personal melodrama around a detective as I am the case he's trying to solve.

So, given all that, would I still suggest it? Absolutely. Mystery genre issues aside it's arguably one of the best books I've read in the last year. I sincerely hope she keeps going with the series (there's some hope, in multiple places it's billed as 'Cormoran Strike no. 1).

The picture at the top is pilfered (under fair use, and with attribution--just click on it) because I don't like Amazon enough to borrow their cover image and link to them.

January was just...broken. It always sort of is, because that month after Christmas always manages to get away from me in new and surprising ways, but this one was worse than most. My kid was home from school for like eight days, and it got properly cold in Virginia for the first time since we moved here.

And even with all that, I still managed the vast majority of my January goals. I finished the light-edit I was trying to do, and I finished the Minecraft scarf, and I blogged nearly once a week (the last week didn't happen because I spent three days trying to figure out what to say and I still don't really have anything interesting to blog about), and I finished The Cuckoo's Calling.

There'll be a blog post about that when I can come up with something quasi-interesting to say about it.

So, what's on the plate for February?

1. Editing Watcher (the first part of the Paranormal series I started last May)
2. Writing the first two books in the short-mysteries series I keep threatening to do.
3. Something knitted that constitutes a birthday present for my Mother in Law.
4. Reading The Fault in Our Stars (with some other lovely people, so we can share the inevitable pain).

Added to the late January/early February weirdness, the Superbowl was horrible and Phillip Seymour Hoffman died. I can't decide if he always reminded me of the friend that gave me my first job, and then killed himself a year later, but he certainly does now.