When people ask where my ideas come from, I always tell them from any and everywhere. As I’ve mentioned in my Confessions of an Author series, coming up with ideas is not a problem; it’s whittling down those ideas to find the gems and then following through on them that’s the hard part.
Out in the backyard the other day, just playing with the boys, there was no shortage of visual prompts that could easily turn into book ideas (and it was a different black butterfly on the butterfly bush that inspired my current WIP–see first pic!). So I thought I’d go ahead and share those visuals with all of you (and of course some cuteness with pics of said boys).
Whenever I find mushrooms in the yard, I wonder what kind of magical creatures might live there. Though I knew The Boy had created the little rock formation, I thought about someone who didn’t know its origin coming across it and wondering how it came to be. And bubbles are always magical and fun!
Where do your ideas come from? What gets your creative juices going?
If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you might have noticed I stray from the writerly and motherly topics to science every so often. Black holes, the Large Hadron Collider, and the Big Bang are among some of my favorite topics.
While the first two episodes of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey linger, unwatched on my DVR (because the hubby and I want to watch them together and haven’t been able to find a time where we both have the mental acuity to actually enjoy them), a big scientific discovery about the Big Bang occurred just yesterday. No, I’m not talking about how it was recently announced that The Big Bang Theory was renewed for three more seasons (though that was pretty exciting news), I’m talking possible world-changing scientific news.
So picture a group of scientist in the South Pole gazing out into the depths of the heavens via a very powerful telescope called BICEP2. Now imagine they look so far and deep that they discovers very old light waves (as in nearly 14 billion years old), like the oldest light waves to ever have been detected. Well, you don’t really have to imagine it because that is exactly what they did.
It is believed that they detected cosmic microwave signals that show what happened shortly after the Big Bang. In short the Big Bang theory says that in a very, very, very, very miniscule moment in time, a hot, dense, teeny tiny singularity (which held all the matter and energy in the universe) expanded rapidly and in seconds stretched across space to create the universe, which we know is still expanding.
In order for that theory to hold water, something called cosmic inflation had to occur. Cosmic inflation is what happened just after the initial Big Bang, in which the universe went from essentially nothing to something 100 trillion trillion times that size in a ridiculously small amount of time, and the rapid (which I think is an understatement here) moment (which is an overstatement here) of expansion slowed to a pace closer to what we experience now in the universe.
Of course (as so many of our modern physics theories do), this idea stems back to Einstein theory of relativity, but had never been able to be proven. However, with the observation of these very old light waves, scientists believe we now have evidence of cosmic inflation. So it seems we have new insight into the birth of universe, which is certainly a very exciting moment indeed.
Like many of you have been experiencing, our winter here has been snowy and cold. A few days in the 50’s this weekend made me hopeful that spring really is around the corner. Too bad we still have enough snow around to make it hard to even play in the yard with The Boy. Here’s a look at my winter in pictures.
Before winter even started, we had this lovely snow/ice storm in which our garage had a close call with branches from the neighbor’s tree.
While Daddy braved the ice to cut down the branches, The Boy got out his saw and went to work on his car.
Trimming the tree and dancing to some Christmas tunes.
A dusting of snow.
Posing in our Christmas hats made by my grandmother.
Opening a fire truck while wearing fire jammies on Christmas day.
Present excitement!
Never too cold to go pantless.
I have to believe this face is a result of frustration over news of more cold and snow.
A rare snowfree walk downtown.
I think he’s simply given up on ever being able to play in the yard again.
Snowman family!
Found a little patch of grass to ground myself.
The Boy “grounding” himself as best he can when Mommy won’t let him be like her and take his boots off.
Just like it’s never too cold to go pantless, it’s never too cold for some cool shades.
This about sums up how The Boy feels about sleeping in his bed lately.
Lots of snow, but warm enough for some much-needed fresh air and sunshine.
I haven’t had a science update lately, mostly because my favorite science project the Large Hadron Collider is on hiatus. It’s being upgraded to increase its power so it can smash teeny, tiny particles even faster and harder. Scientists are hoping to unlock the secrets of dark matter.
Dark matter is thought to make up a large part of the universe, but so little is known about it. Thinking about the universe and great mysteries like dark matter get my creative juices flowing. One of my favorite science programs is Discovery Channel’s How the Universe Works. It kind of make my head hurts because the theories and science discussed are so mind-blowing in both concept and scope, but boy it’s so exciting to think about the universe.
I took physics classes in high school and college and found them, frankly, boring. Nothing we discussed ignited any sense of excitement. I get that you have to learn the basics to better understand the bigger concepts that theoretical and astrophysicists study, but I wish those basic physics classes had at least sparked some interest in learning more. And they just didn’t do that. It wasn’t until I was an adult, long out of school, that my own curiosity lead me to a passion for learning about the universe.
I hope to one day use a fictional story to meld my passion for writing and creating worlds and characters and my excitement over the universe. It’s been percolating for some time now and I think I have a premise and a main character. But I need to finish up a couple of other projects first and school myself more on the scientific concepts I’ll need to know to make the story authentic. Anyone want to give me a crash course? 🙂
Back in September, I mentioned how I’ve been doing this whole literal grounding technique (full grounding post here, but in short it’s my attempt to put my feet on the actual earth everyday for a year). Okay, admission time: I haven’t been out everyday since the weather has turned cold, but I have been trying to get out at least every few days.
We had a bit of cold spell in November (like temps in 20’s and low 30’s for almost a week straight). This proved to be a slight deterrent, but didn’t totally derail my grounding. And just the other day, in December, we were back in the high 50’s. A good day to get out there in bare feet.
Barefoot on the beach during an unseasonably warm October day.
A few tips if you ever decide to attempt such a crazy thing. Don’t go out in bare feet because any concrete, asphalt, unnatural surface will be colder than a natural one and will freeze your feet before you get to your intended spot (even throwing on sandals or slippers works). Scout out a good spot before going outside because that equals less time in the cold. Don’t go out when you’re already cold. A good time to venture out is right after a shower when you’ve still got the residual heat of the warm water.
So all in all the grounding is still happening, and I think I’m a more relaxed person for it (and getting heartier in the process). What have you been up to lately?
