Tag: science (Page 1 of 2)

Science, Math, and Nature as Inspiration for Themes in Writing and Beyond

October 25, 2018 / Katie L. Carroll

Long-time readers of the Observation Desk might remember that I’m a fan of science. Some of my old posts include “We Are All Stardust”, “Big New for the Big Bang,” and “Seems the World Will End in a Bang, Not a Whimper.” I find science and nature (and even sometimes math!) to be a great source of inspiration, not only for writing but for my life.

There are so many wonderful, beautiful, crazy aspects of our universe. An exploding star, called a supernova, sends particles shooting across the universe. These happen all the time in our universe and have been happening for billions of years. All the elements that make up earth, including our own bodies, were once ejected particles from a supernova.

Then you have the Fibbonacci Sequence, which starts at 0,1 and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two (0,1,1,2,3,5,8, etc…) and put in order in boxes make a spiral. Many things in nature follow this pattern, from flower petal and seed arrangements to how spiral galaxies are formed.

To take a look at a math example, did you know that a computer cannot truly generate a random number? Because computers function via algorithms, or sets of rules programmed in to the computer, it’s not possible for a computer to do random.

And whether or not I totally understand all these concepts that fascinate me (spoiler alert: I don’t, but I keep trying anyway!), they never fail to inspire me. They push me to examine the patterns in my writing. On a micro level, I look at the the words, language, and sentence structure patterns I fall back on, so I can push myself beyond my own cliches.

On a macro level, it pushes me to recognize emerging themes in my writing. What themes did I go in with and maybe didn’t follow through on properly? What themes didn’t I notice, ones that maybe stemmed from my subconscious, that can make my story better if I tease them out more and reinforce them? Where are there more opportunities to refine any symbols I’ve used or places where I can introduce more?

Taking a patterned analysis to my writing allows me to make sure every detail (word, sentence, symbol, description, etc…) counts to work toward a greater whole through theme and plot.

To take all this a step further, trying to understand the science and math that governs nature can help me examine my own life for themes and patterns. It pushes me to a greater level of introspection and hopefully to a better place as human being. And that will only contribute to me being a better, more deliberate writer.

When I work at honing that merging of the creative and analytical thinking, stuff moves in ways I could never have imagined before. The world, my stories, my life…everything reaches a whole new level of understanding in my mind. And that feels like a pretty incredible phenomenon.

Getting Excited About Science with Julie Murphy Author of GILLY’S TREASURES

October 19, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Today I have a great guest post from Julie Murphy, author of the picture book GILLY’S TREASURES. I always love seeing how people’s day jobs or passions influence what they write, and Julie’s post is full of wonderful pictures. Let’s give her a big welcome!

Thanks for hosting me on your blog, Katie, and helping me to celebrate the October 11 release of my new fiction picture book for children (4-8), Gilly’s Treasures.

Some writers say they always wanted to be an author, but my journey to Gilly’s Treasures was a little more roundabout. I always loved animals, so after finishing school I went to university and studied to become a zoologist – a scientist who studies animals.

The mornings were cold, but living close to a seal colony for a couple of weeks was a wonderful experience. (There’s a baby seal on the rock behind/between us.)

I was especially drawn to animal behavior, and studied how guide dog trainers assess the temperament of their trainee guide dogs for my Masters thesis. It was a great project, but city-based, so I made a point of helping friends with their projects in the field which got me out into nature from time to time. Among other things, I helped to collect sea cucumbers (which, despite their name, are actually animals!), and sea stars, and observed a population of fur seals on a restricted stretch of shoreline for ten precious days. That last project was especially amazing – and liberating. Can you imagine? Three young women on our own, camping along the coastline next to a colony of hundreds of seals. Our only outside contact was a radio call to the local ranger every afternoon to say we were okay. It was fantastic!

With a baby wombat in my zookeeper days. Wombats are still one of my favorite animals.

Later on, I worked as a zookeeper for ten years. But even then I couldn’t resist doing voluntary research projects in my spare time. One project involved rigging up time-lapse cameras to film the nocturnal behavior of native Australian mammals. I wanted to find out when they were active, what they did, and how they got along with each other in their mixed-species enclosures. Of course, doing the research is only half the job; the other half is sharing the results with others who could benefit from them. So I wrote my results into an article for a zoo journal, and presented them at a conference. This is how my published writing list began.

I view science as having a healthy curiosity about the world and trying to answer some of the questions we have about it. I believe that curiosity is something we should actively encourage in our kids, which is one reason why I love writing for children. It’s my chance to encourage children to be excited by nature, and life in general. Not only is it enriching for the child, but the more that children learn about animals and the environment, the more they will care about conservation.

My daughter (3) has always enjoyed exploring nature, and I’m sure she benefits from it in many ways.

It wasn’t until I became a stay-at-home mom that I focussed on writing for children. Reading picture books every day to my daughter taught me about the kinds of books that were being published, and through which publishers. I was able to use my science training to get a foot in the door with some publishers with work-for-hire, which involved writing non-fiction books about animals and the environment to specific briefs provided by the publisher.

It was a steep learning curve, but doing writing courses (some on-line), joining organizations such as the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), and finding some trusted critique partners to provide honestfeedback all helped me to improve – and still do! And it turns out that the skills I learnt from working in science – objective observation, critical thinking, research, and concise writing – have all come in handy too.

Some of my non-fiction books about animals.

I am extra excited to welcome Gilly’s Treasures into the world because it is my first fiction picture book that began as my own idea (as opposed to from a publisher’s brief). Here’s the blurb: While out fishing, Gilly the seagull finds a beautiful, shiny treasure. He loves it so much he can’t help searching for more…and more. Will he ever be satisfied with what he has? The story has the feel of a traditional fable, which illustrator Jay Fontano has done a wonderful job balancing with fun, friendly illustrations. I especially love the new character he introduced – an adorable little crab. I am sure children will love spotting him (or her!) on each page.

I hope that readers of Gilly’s Treasures will be inspired to visit the beach for themselves, and maybe find a treasure or two of their own. (I for one can never leave a beachcombing session without a pretty shell or two in my pocket!) And it might even spawn a conversation about what they hold most important in their own lives.

A “family portrait” from one of my beach holidays.

About the Author:

Julie Murphy is a children’s writer of both fiction and non fiction. She trained as a zoologist and zookeeper, and is never far from animals and nature. Her favorite place to be is at the beach. She lives in Melbourne, Australia – a country surrounded by beach – with her husband and daughter.

Julie Murphy’s web site – (not working) www.juliemurphybooks.com

P.S. On a sad note, my website host has gone missing in action. True! I have set up an interim web site, in case anyone is interested. You will find it at http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~julieamurphy/

Twitter: @juliekidsbooks

Facebook page with book preview: www.facebook.com/GILLYSTREASURES

Gilly’s Treasures is available from many on-line book stores, including Cedar Fort’s sales site, Books & Things (free postage to most states in the US): www.booksandthings.com

The #InkRipples Inspiration Continues with Science

July 18, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

I’m a bit of a science nerd at times. I have a layman’s fascination with astrophysics and love watching programs and videos, reading books, and visiting exhibits on the many topics it covers. (Long time readers of the blog may remember these classic science posts on the Large Hadron Collider, the Big Bang, and dark matter.) And that’s what brings you today’s #InkRipples moment of inspiration.

The boys joke that when they see too many cool things (i.e. trains, fire trucks, police cars, construction vehicles, and the like), their heads explode, complete with hand gestures and sound effects. I feel that way about science. It can make my head spin, but it’s an endless source of head-explosion moments…and inspiration!

The thing about science is that it can make you feel very insignificant, as it does in this video about how small we are in comparison to the largest known star. (I may have shared this video and the following one on the Observation Desk before, but they are totally worth a rewatch if you’ve already seen them.)

With information like that, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the large scale of the Universe and to think that nothing you could ever do in your puny, little lifetime could have any kind of lasting effect. So before you begin to despair, let me share this next video with you, which I think helps us to appreciate the intricate way we are all connected to each other and the Universe. When famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked what the most astounding fact in the Universe was, he head this to say:

So now I want to know what kinds of things induce your head-explosion moments.

Finding Inspiration from New Perspectives #InkRipples

July 7, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

For July #InkRipples, we’re talking about inspiration. Since there are so many things that inspire me, not only in my writing but also in my life, I decided to post something new each week. Since two of my writing friends have new books out next week, I’m all booked up with guest posts, so you’re getting two #InkRipples this week. (Lucky you!)

I love when I come across something that makes me think about the world in a different way. Science often gives me a new perspective on the world. I could probably write a bunch of posts about how science inspires me, and I might be coming back to that later this month. Language also has the power to change the way you experience something. It can be a turn of phrase, a metaphor, a way to use a word you haven’t seen before, an emotion evoked simply from the words on a page–so many aspects of language can open your eyes to something new.

The moment when you come across something, and say, “I’ve never thought of that before” or “how come I never thought of that before” or “I never would have thought of that, but this is really amazing,” those are moments of inspiration. When I came across the headline “What Do Tree Rings Sound Like When Played Like A Record?” (granted this isn’t a brand-new story, but I hadn’t seen it until recently), I was like, “What?” And then I listened, and I was like, “Wow!”

YEARS from Bartholomäus Traubeck on Vimeo.

Big News for the Big Bang

March 18, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

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.

A few articles of further reading are in these articles: “A New Window On The Big Bang Has Been Opened” and “Big Bang, Inflation, Gravitational Waves: What It Means”. I leave you with this (lighter) explanation of the universe as provided by The Barenaked Ladies, a video that is one of The Boy’s favorite things to listen to (perhaps he’s a little scientist in the making!).