It has been 18 days since my last blog post and September is flying by. I have been working on a short story and “Book I” for my series and the short story is finally coming along. Book I is mostly written, just needs editing and I think I have mangled it a bit with editing at this point. Taking a break from it to work on a few other things at the moment.

Sometimes taking a break, a few minutes, hours, days or weeks can provide much needed perspective and I am hoping for a solution to my editing doldrums. Sometimes it is best to push on through, other times walk away and often, just pause for a bit. The trick is knowing the difference. (I am hoping taking a break now is the right choice!)

I have been participating in the #SeptWritingChallenge on twitter to some extent, though I am not very good at documenting my writing (word count) and editing (how many hours) as I do much of it very late at night. It has been very helpful to see people committing to writing 500 words a day and sticking to that commitment. I have been trying to do one thing a day, either editing, writing, working on cover design and learning the ins and outs of this crazy self publishing business. The folks at the monthly writing challenges on twitter have been helpful in the extreme and have pointed me to many blogs, books and other valuable resources.

The information is out there!

Some of the Blogs I follow:
http://writersinthestormblog.com/

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/blog/

http://writeonsisters.com/

http://authors.susankayequinn.com/

Please share your own recommendations – the more the merrier!

Indiana’s Bicentennial

By now, if you live in Indiana, you have heard that 2016 is our state’s bicentennial. Indiana became a state in December 1816 and (Yay!) we should celebrate it 200 years later.
This sort of celebration makes me think about the rest of the world, where cities, states, and countries are significantly older than a mere 200 years.

A saying I have heard previously, but read recently in one of the Outlander books– an Englishman thinks 100 miles is a long way and an American thinks 100 years is a long time.

What about older countries, such as China or India?

Do they celebrate such anniversaries by the 100’s or by the 1000’s?

Will the USA one day celebrate a 1000-year anniversary?

What will we be like in 2776?

760 years from now, will things be radically different? I hope that some things will be different.

Seven hundred and sixty years ago (or thereabouts) major event of the time include the signing of the Magna Carta (1215), Genghis Kahn invading China (1211) and the Inquisition begins (1231). Marco Polo and Thomas Aquinas are also famous people from that time.
Education, transportation and communication have changed radically, but have we as a people changed that much? We have better nutrition and hygiene, lower infant mortality, but we could (in theory of course) take someone from that time period and bring them to today, or the reverse, send someone from today back to that time and see if they could blend in.

Are the people so radically different?
How different was 1215 from 1815?

I write stories where the future 100+ years from now shows us a changed world, but it is not radically different from our own. We still recognize most things and people are still people. I once joked that in my future world the BBC still exists!

Over time, even long spans of time, somethings change and some stay constant. How people receive news, sports and weather change a great deal over time but humanity’s interest in news, sports and weather has not. We are also interested in politics and gossip but what that means exactly varies with the times and governmental structure.

What do you think humans will look like in another hundred years? Will we change much? How about 500 years?

Will we experience a “dark ages” where we need to regain lost knowledge or will we continue to accrue our education in a linear fashion?