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  J M Beal

Well, I asked...

12/16/2014

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So. On Monday I asked if anyone had a suggestion for what I should write about, today. 

"I would like you to post a blog about your novel. What it's about, what drew you to the story, how it came to be... not about the publishing process because that is probably a post for another time but about the book itself." --Tamela Ritter

And I asked, and she answered so... Thanks Tam. Sure.

What it's about:
That should be a super simple question, shouldn't it? Unless you happen to know me, and how hard I try to shoot myself in the foot when it comes to plotting. Also, I sort of hate answering this question because what a book is about to me, even as the writer, is maybe not what it'll be about to you. If you disagree with what I say next, I'd love to hear it.

On the face, it's about a guy who does the best he can to avoid any kind of responsibility. He lives on a little back-water planet, with his best friend, and they both do odd jobs to make ends meet. And then the world starts to go more than a little crazy around him and he has to make decisions. There are inept government officials, and shadowy organizations, and a woman who could be the girl of his dreams. He might do something about the 'girl of his dreams' part, if he gets them all out alive.

What drew you:
The characters always reel me in. Especially a character like Orion (Rye) Bartleby. There's an inherent problem with the way Orion views himself. If you asked him he'd tell you he was, at best, a blunt instrument. He'd say he's not too clever and not too useful. But he's wrong. And that internal misconception drew me. It made me wonder what he was going to do--how he'd react--when the people around him and the situations they were in challenged that. It's one thing to be footloose and fancy free when nobody needs you, but when you have to let go of that self-image what's left?


How it came to be:
Hehe. Right. So. Back in 2010 (I think) it was like the week before NaNoWriMo started, and I didn't have a plot yet. I mean I had options. I had sequels to books I'd already written (I wasn't particularly interested in any of them) and the entire plot for a paranormal/coming-home thing that's way too autobiographical to actually publish. Back in August I'd written this giant futuristic fanfic, and one of the things I like to do when I'm a bit bereft of inspiration is go back and read old stuff. 


In this crazy, long-winded fanfic I'd written a conversation where two characters start talking about what their favorite books are (don't judge me) and because I over-think freaking everything, one of them had to have a book that wasn't real and reasons. His reasons basically boiled down to him identifying with this character who'd been told his entire life he was worthless, and then sometime as an adult he'd had to grow past that and find his own self-worth. I'd given his favorite book a title, and mentioned a couple of his favorite plot points, and my brain just went "you know, it's October 27th. You should just write that."


Now obviously there's editing, and the book that I sat down and started on Nov 1st wouldn't look much like the thing you can buy a copy of today (thank ****). There were people who just kind of showed up on dusty street corners without asking me first--Addy was disturbingly adept at not doing what I wanted her to--and like most things, what I thought was going to be the simple bit turned out to be incredibly complicated. But hey, what's life without a little challenge?

So. I hope that answered your questions Tamela. Thanks for the opportunity to ramble on about my book with impunity. 

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Click on the cover to check it out on Amazon.

Side Note: Ashley asked for a post about tea, particularly in the Americas, and that's probably going to take a little research. Come back and look for it on Monday ;)

And check back on Friday, for sciency stuff about women made of awesome.
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Miscellaneous Monday--Ancient and Unpronoucable

12/14/2014

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So. I've kind of fallen down on the whole posting thing lately. I have reasons, sure. November is generally a reason. Even on the years I'm bad at being an ML, it takes up a ridiculous amount of time and energy. Also, my book came out at the beginning of December so you can imagine what that did to my November.


Anyway, I'm doing my best to not do the whole "my New Year's resolution" thing where I promise to start up again in January. Feel free to wet noodle me if I fail at this.
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Ptolemaic coins found at Heracleion.

Sunken Treasure, and the unreliability of anything you find on the Internet.

Do you notice that this is kind of a theme with me? I know, everybody gets that the net is unreliable about more or less everything. I suppose today I'm a little more ranty about the steady decline in journalistic standards. 


And because of those declining standards we're going to start a conversation today totally out of left field. Because the place that led me to today's post doesn't deserve the link. I have a real issue with click-baiting with scientific data, when your data is made up of a Yahoo article I'm guessing you didn't even read. 


If you'd like an actual, decent article you can check it out here.


So basically Heracleion, or Thonis, or Thonis-Heracleion--depending on how picky you are--was a coastal-delta city in Egypt beginning somewhere around 800 bce (Wikipedia says 1200, but it doesn't say why it thinks this, so I'll go with the guy who started digging it up). Listed as a pretty serious port city for the Pharaohs, regulating access to the Nile for trade with Greece, it sunk into the sea around a millennium ago (probably because of an earth-quake) forever lost to history.


Alright, I call bullshit on that last bit. Things forever lost to history don't have names with actual, accurate naming conventions. The boat they found off the coast of Italy was lost to history. Nobody knew it existed until they found it. Something with a selection--even if it's only a couple--of footnotes in the written historical record wasn't forever lost to history.


Also, maybe this is just me reading between the lines, but I have a feeling this is one of those things we were relatively sure about it's location, we just needed technology to catch up with our hopes enough to get us there. 


Underwater Archaeology is still fairly new, on the whole. The Nautical Archaeological Society has only been around since 1972. I could get into a discussion of how much Archaeology has changed in the last fifty years, but I'd bore us all to death.


Also, Thonis-Heracleion has made it to the top of the 'news-worthy' heap on like three separate occasions since Franck Goddio rediscovered it in 2000. I'm not sure where the cut off for 'new' is, but I feel like we've for sure passed it at the fourteen year mark.


All of this is to say that while I'm glad I stumbled on Thonis-Heracleion today, that doesn't make me any less upset with the shoddy standard of the reporting that got me there. Here's a novel idea, for the future. Let's all try and click-bait with things that are actually half-way decently researched and marginally fact-checked.




Come back Wednesday when we'll talk about...I don't know. Probably television. If you've got an alternate suggestion leave it in the comments. I'm always up for a challenge.
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Is it Cyprian or Cypriot?

12/14/2014

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Edited by Joan du Plat Taylor...
A few months ago I wrote this post about Mary Anning, who did some really awesome things like discovering the Plesiosaur in a time when women weren't--at least seen to be--useful for much scientifically.  And on Monday we talked about Thonis-Heracleion, and I mentioned the early days of Marine Archaeology. Which is when I stumbled on our topic for today, Joan du Plat Taylor. 

Connected posts make me happy.

So, anyway. Joan du Plat Taylor was born in Scotland in 1906. And when sources say she became a Marine Archaeologist despite having no formal training, they mean no formal training. Reportedly Joan's mom wouldn't let her attend school anywhere. Even the normal 'carry a book on your head' kind of finishing school girls went to in the WWI era.

Despite this she was apparently well read--a contemporary said she read her father's books--and scientifically minded. Her father was badly gassed in World War I, and after the war they started spending their winters in Cyprus. Probably so he could actually breathe. Against her mother's wishes she started volunteering in the gift shop at the The Cyprus Museum in Nicosia. By 1932 she'd gone from giving tours and selling knickknacks to becoming the Assistant Curator at the Museum and learning field methods. 

She returned to London to live with her mother for the duration of World War II, and served as first an ambulance driver, and then a censor at the Ministry of Information. In 1945, again without any formal training, she became the Librarian at the University of London Museum of Archaeology, and held that position until she retired in 1970. Then, she was a founding member of the Nautical Archaeological Society and also it's first president, and editor of the International Journal for Marine Archaeology from it's inception in 1972 to until 1980.

Long story short, she's considered one of the first ever Marine Archaeologists.

I've got nowhere to go with this, I just thought you'd all like to bask in the awesome with me. 

If you've got the time and inclination there's a much longer, academic biography of her here.

Side note: I've referred to her as a Marine Archaeologist here, but if you follow any of those links you're likely to see Nautical Archaeologist, or Maritime Archaeologist. Your guess is as good as mine, whether or not that's mistaken definitions, or non-standardized terminology, or a factor of her early placement in the history of Underwater Archaeology as a thing, or some mix of all three.  If you've got a thought I'd love to hear it. 
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    There's a link to my bio at the top of the page, but for these purposes it's probably best to just say I'm strange.

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