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Going a Viking

19 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by K.A.M. Boham in RW Out and About

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Denver Museum of Nature and Science, History, Icelanders, Lindisfarne, Sagas, Viking Culture, Vikings

The latest special exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is Vikings: Beyond the Legend.  I was looking forward to seeing it.  When I first began researching different cultures for my book, I had no idea where to begin.  I visited the children’s non-fiction section of my local library and pulled off the shelf every cultural and historical book that looked remotely interesting.  I remember reading a few books on Vikings but, as my attention was quickly diverted to the cultures of the Ancient Mediterranean, my reading on Vikings quickly fell by the wayside.  I was looking forward to re-acquainting myself with them.

I began said re-acquaintance by attending a lecture at the museum before purchasing a ticket to the exhibit.  The lecture assured me I would see the Vikings in a new light; show me proof they were much more than raiders and killers portrayed by history.  Maps shown at the lecture did make me aware that Viking ships made it far further into various lands than I knew and that was interesting.  However, as another slide showed archaeological evidence that victims of a raid had been neatly buried in one mound with all their heads neatly buried in one adjacent, the lecture didn’t do much to dispel the raider image.  I had hopes the exhibit would do a better job.

It did.  The artifacts on display are incredible.  I learned Viking culture was so much more than swords and raids.  Metallurgy did involve the forging of swords but it also resulted in fabulous jewelry the intricacy of which, the exhibit tells me, is almost impossible to replicate today.

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I was able to see Viking ingenuity at work in the inner workings of a lock.  The spring mechanism, activated by pressure from the teeth of a key, was brilliant.  I wish I had been able to get a photo of it.  The exhibit did tell me that the penalty for theft where the goods had been locked away was higher than if they had not.  An interesting facet of law.

The role of women in Viking culture interested me.  I had always thought that only men went a viking but, apparently, this isn’t so.  Women too, went on these travels.  Women had a great deal of authority in the home, more so than most other women of their day, and this role and power as household manager is symbolized with the keys found in some burials of women.

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Of course, Viking raids did definitely happen and were brutal.  And yet, the Vikings were also accomplished traders, dealing in goods as far away as China.  There was a replica of a Buddha found in a burial but, try as I might, I couldn’t get a clear photo of it.  I did manage to get a picture of a glass beaker, something I would have thought would be unheard of in Viking lands.

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One last observation: I took a photo of this blurb from the exhibit.

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That struck me.  In my reading, I learned that some Viking colonies had been abandoned, presumably because of a lack of natural resources.  This understanding and resiliency showed me how truly multi-faceted Viking culture really was.

I left the exhibit with a desire to know more and I decided to go straight to the source.  What did the Vikings have to say about themselves?  To find out, I purchased The Sagas of the Icelanders from the gift shop.  I look forward to reading it and learning more about this fascinating culture.

A caveat:

I googled tips for taking photos in a museum and did try to put them to good use but I still have a long way to go. 🙂

 

 

 

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A Work in Process

11 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by K.A.M. Boham in Writing

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Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Writer's Life, Writing, Writing Process

What is my writing process?  Apparently, all writers have them and all are unique.  Do you write standing up?  Write Drunk and Edit Sober or vice versa? Devote an hour a day?  Don’t stop until at least three pages are finished?  Don’t even think about your book until you’ve accomplished a half hour of free-writing?  I enjoy reading about other writers’ processes and there is a sense of community as I find writers share many of the same struggles, but though I’ve been working on my book for years, I still don’t have a process.  It’s constantly changing and has yet to be nailed down.

I try.  “I’m going to write an hour a day. Period.”  I begin with that goal but then I’ll have a day where I’m so tired I can’t string words together verbally much less type something other than gibberish.  Then there days when my arm will hurt and I can’t type or write by hand and, before I know it, days have passed with no progress on the manuscript.  That doesn’t mean I’m not writing if by ‘writing’ I mean thinking about my book and characters, plotting what happens next, or reading a bit by way of research.  In many ways, my process is to work on my book every waking moment-and some sleeping moments-even though words don’t always make it onto paper.

I hear advice like; don’t edit yourself-get it down on paper and then edit.  That makes sense but that doesn’t work for me.  I’ll be writing away and then I realize that both plot and characters feel dry and that a change needs to be made; often four or five chapters ago.  If I don’t go back and make the change, I CANNOT continue writing.  It’s like all creativity dries up.  So, I edit myself I great deal while working.

One piece of advice I have taken to heart is don’t throw anything away.  I have a dump file and, whenever I hit a situation mentioned in the above paragraph, I take the scene that isn’t working and stick it in the dump file.  This has been crucial for me.  There have been so many times I plopped something that wasn’t working in the file and forgot about it until I found I needed it; often years after first setting it down.  I recently copied in work I’d done in my earliest draft-almost ten years old now-into my current draft and was thrilled not to have to re-write the scene.

“Taking a long time” is definitely part of my process but my story arcs over seven books and I don’t want to make the mistake of introducing something in Book One that is utterly contradicted in Book Seven.  I hate it when authors do that.  I’ve had authors I like reference an instance from an earlier book that I remember happening differently and, sure enough, I scrounge up the appropriate book and find I’m correct.  Why does that happen?  Is it easier to tweak the facts for the current book?  I don’t know but it’s annoying.  I also have a hard time continuing to read an author that changes a character’s name in a later book.  Is the name unimportant because the character is a minor one?  No.  If you’re going to bring the character back in later books, make sure you use the same name!  I don’t know if that’s an author or an editor mistake but, again, it’s annoying.

I respect authors that go that extra mile in research and attention to detail.  The Denver Museum of Nature and Science recently had a Sherlock Holmes exhibit.  Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorite characters and I enjoyed immersing myself in that world.  The exhibit had plenty of hands on activities and there was a mystery to be solved as I moved through the different displays.  Great fun but I enjoyed reading the letters written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  One such letter was to his publisher and Mr. Conan Doyle was requesting a copy of an early manuscript as he couldn’t remember all the details he’d set down and no longer had a copy of his own.  My writer spirit felt camaraderie with that: a writer respecting both his characters and his readers enough to research his early work.  Such an eye for detail and a respect for research-as well as great writing-keeps Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on my shelves.

Sherlock

My Sherlock Holmes Collection

 

I knew Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote other books: I’ve seen The Lost World even though I haven’t yet acquired a copy of the book.  I did find a collection of stories I’d never known Conan Doyle wrote and I was especially interested in the Preface to The White Company written by Conan Doyle’s wife.  It begins:

My husband was intensely thorough in all his literary work.  He took enormous pains to have everything right.  For instance, before writing The White Company, he soaked his brain with a knowledge of the period he intended to portray.  He read over sixty books dealing with heraldry-armour-falconry-the medieval habits of the peasants of that time-the social customs of the higher fold of the land, etc.  Only when he knew those days as though he had lived in them-when he had got the very atmosphere steeped into his brain-did he put pen to paper and let loose the creations of his mind.  (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Historical Novels: Volume One; Preface to The White Company)

This, also, I deeply respect.  I do write a bit differently than this; I soak my brain in the period I’m writing in but there are things I don’t realize I should be researching until I’m already in the writing process.  For instance, merely having a character attend a public bath isn’t enough.  I need to know what the baths in both Ancient Rome and Ancient Arabia were like.  How did they differ from one another? Were there different rules for men and women?  Were there castes of society not allowed to attend at all?  What did one do with his or her clothes when bathing?  Fortunately for me, there are historians with these same interests and I can scare up a book or a documentary that will tell me what I need to know.

Maybe my writing should be more disciplined.  Maybe I take too much time.  Maybe I shouldn’t be getting wrapped up in these little details until a second or even a third draft.  Maybe, but it doesn’t seem to be part of my process.

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My Historical Volume Collection

 

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Behold, Here’s Poison

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by K.A.M. Boham in RW Out and About, Writing

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Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Plant Medicines, Plants, Poison, Yew Cancer Treatment

Poison book

Of course I picked up a book at the exhibit

My membership at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is so useful to me.  I do a great deal of research for my books at the different exhibits and I was able to make a long visit at the Poison exhibit when it was in town.  I haven’t planned on any of my characters using poison to off another character but I never know when information will come in handy.  I try to take advantage of opportunities like the Museum’s special exhibits and I have a growing file full of bits of information I find interesting.

The exhibit was fascinating and I spent hours wandering through the displays, trying to stay out of the way of other museum goers while I took copious notes.  This exhibit was one of the best I’d visited.  As an avid mystery reader, I’ve been aware of how various plants can be deadly in the right doses.  As someone who lives on a plant-based diet, I pay close attention to the fact that some plants are both edible and deadly, depending on what part of the plant is used.  I couldn’t wait to find out what more this exhibit could teach me.

I was not surprised at the presence of foxglove at the exhibit.  Agatha Christie’s books first introduced me to the fact that digitalis, derived from foxglove, could be beneficially used by people with heart problems and as a deadly poison by those with nefarious purposes.  It’s such a beautiful plant and I marvel at how something so beautiful can be at once to useful and so deadly.

Books also introduced me to cassava, a staple among some cultures.  What I did not know is that cassava contains cyanide and can be deadly.  It is only dried and ground into flour that it can be safely used; something that may end up in a book someday.

I was not fully aware of the part plants have played in the medical field and this aspect of the exhibit was fascinating.  I know of curare being used as a poison but had no idea it was used as an anesthetic.  It’s effect wasn’t fully understood and I’m thankful I’ve never been subjected to a surgical procedure under its influence.  However, according to the exhibit, curare can be used as an antidote for strychnine poisoning.  If I can ever come up with a valid reason why one of my characters would have curare on hand and then be poisoned by strychnine, I’m using this.

I learned that an extract of the yew tree is still being used as a cancer treatment, although it’s made synthetically now because of the ecological cost.  I thought it amazing that a derivative of yew bark could help treat cancer and was curious what other plants were being studied..  I learned that scientists were turning to plants like sweet wormwood and the opium poppy in search of medicinal uses.  And, scientists aren’t just studying plants but animals as well.

What makes a person look for cancer treatment in the venom of the Deathstalker Scorpion?  Pain relief in the venom of a black mamba?  Can the monocled cobra point researchers to a new arthritis drug or the Brazilian pit viper reveal an ACE inhibitor?  I took my notes, went home, and began googling.  Sure enough, the exhibit wasn’t lying to me: these animals and many more and being looked at for everything from tumor paint to anticoagulants.

I learned so much from this exhibit though I don’t know how much of it I’ll be using in the series I’m currently writing.  Still, I have all sorts of ideas for stories to write when I’ve finished this series.  I like knowing my file of facts is there for the gleaning.

 

Note:  My title is also the title of a mystery by Georgette Heyer.  Want to know what was used?  You’ll have to read it!

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K.A.M. Boham

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