three things
16 Dec 2009 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigou1. Contacts arrived on Monday, new glasses on Tuesday. WOAH. I can see!
2. When setting a story in actual geographical location, it helps to look farther than just a half-hour away to get an idea of the region. Hit point in story where I had to ask, are there bookstores? how big? how far away? and I went back to map to remind myself of nearest good-sized city, outside the town where the story's set. And then... ahem. Suddenly mental list shifted radically.
-- has large number of Ming-era homes. check!
-- has mountains nearby. check!
-- is within short distance of Yellow River. check!
-- has archaeological significance for pre-Qin dynasty. check!
-- has at least one big honking temple in/near town. check!
-- has historical significance going back to Liao Dynasty. check!
-- is within hour's drive of the most polluted city on earth. check!
...wait whut whut.
I can't even comprehend the notion of any one person living in a place that's so polluted it makes Los Angeles look like middle-of-nowhere in Montana on a gorgeous day, let alone a place so polluted that breathing its air for twelve hours is equivalent to smoking three packs of cigarettes. I certainly can't imagine putting four million people through that, and even if they are living with that as I write this, I'm not doing it to any fictional characters.
If I had more word-count and a broader picture, I might place a story there for the additional social commentary and critique (not to mention the issue of whether it's American privilege to demand a safe and healthy environment!) but this story has enough weight to juggle already, and I think it'd sink under such a massive thing... especially when, after watching two different documentaries about the area's coal-mining issues, I discovered the pall of smog is captured by the surrounding mountains, so one would be driving for nearly two hours along the valley before the smog dissipates. Since the original setting is on a mountain just north (and facing) the coal-mining valley, well, that explains one thing: those pictures of the temple and the town's architecture weren't all taken on foggy days. That's smog.
Gross.
3. There is a CAVE near my HOUSE.
Yesterday while hiking through the woods (don't ask), I was taking a deerpath that runs about 30' up from a seasonal creek, and the ridge above extends another 40' or so -- sharp drop. Come up a slight rise in the ledge and there's a limestone outcropping over my head. The path breaks off, so I follow it up to the outcropping, and there I discover CAVE.
Inner 8-yr-old: CAVE! MUST EXPLORE!
Inner 12-yr-old: I bet this is where teenagers do Bad Stuff.
Inner writer: This is so going in a story. Let's go in!
Inner sanity: SNAKES.
And then I backed away slowly, rather irritated that I didn't think to bring a flashlight with me so at least I could have shone a light in and seen more of the darkness. And it's just the right size for crawling on hands-and-knees, so it's not like it's terribly tiny. What's odd was the lack of graffiti, beer cans, pipes, or any other accoutrements of trash that I might expect, so I guess it's not something most folks know about.
Still... a cave! A Real Live Cave! I spent just about every single summer as a child searching for a cave to explore (probably thanks to all the Nancy Drew stories with caves involved), and never found a single one. The counties around Atlanta just aren't big on natural caves, it seems -- and now I've finally found a cave and a) I'm not quite as short as I used to be, so the fit would be much tighter, and b) I've got this annoying adult voice reminding me about SNAKES.
Sigh. But I can at least dream -- in between researching furiously to find another region for setting a story, and this time to double and triple check that the locale doesn't come with excessive amounts of smog. Gross.
2. When setting a story in actual geographical location, it helps to look farther than just a half-hour away to get an idea of the region. Hit point in story where I had to ask, are there bookstores? how big? how far away? and I went back to map to remind myself of nearest good-sized city, outside the town where the story's set. And then... ahem. Suddenly mental list shifted radically.
-- has large number of Ming-era homes. check!
-- has mountains nearby. check!
-- is within short distance of Yellow River. check!
-- has archaeological significance for pre-Qin dynasty. check!
-- has at least one big honking temple in/near town. check!
-- has historical significance going back to Liao Dynasty. check!
-- is within hour's drive of the most polluted city on earth. check!
...wait whut whut.
I can't even comprehend the notion of any one person living in a place that's so polluted it makes Los Angeles look like middle-of-nowhere in Montana on a gorgeous day, let alone a place so polluted that breathing its air for twelve hours is equivalent to smoking three packs of cigarettes. I certainly can't imagine putting four million people through that, and even if they are living with that as I write this, I'm not doing it to any fictional characters.
If I had more word-count and a broader picture, I might place a story there for the additional social commentary and critique (not to mention the issue of whether it's American privilege to demand a safe and healthy environment!) but this story has enough weight to juggle already, and I think it'd sink under such a massive thing... especially when, after watching two different documentaries about the area's coal-mining issues, I discovered the pall of smog is captured by the surrounding mountains, so one would be driving for nearly two hours along the valley before the smog dissipates. Since the original setting is on a mountain just north (and facing) the coal-mining valley, well, that explains one thing: those pictures of the temple and the town's architecture weren't all taken on foggy days. That's smog.
Gross.
3. There is a CAVE near my HOUSE.
Yesterday while hiking through the woods (don't ask), I was taking a deerpath that runs about 30' up from a seasonal creek, and the ridge above extends another 40' or so -- sharp drop. Come up a slight rise in the ledge and there's a limestone outcropping over my head. The path breaks off, so I follow it up to the outcropping, and there I discover CAVE.
Inner 8-yr-old: CAVE! MUST EXPLORE!
Inner 12-yr-old: I bet this is where teenagers do Bad Stuff.
Inner writer: This is so going in a story. Let's go in!
Inner sanity: SNAKES.
And then I backed away slowly, rather irritated that I didn't think to bring a flashlight with me so at least I could have shone a light in and seen more of the darkness. And it's just the right size for crawling on hands-and-knees, so it's not like it's terribly tiny. What's odd was the lack of graffiti, beer cans, pipes, or any other accoutrements of trash that I might expect, so I guess it's not something most folks know about.
Still... a cave! A Real Live Cave! I spent just about every single summer as a child searching for a cave to explore (probably thanks to all the Nancy Drew stories with caves involved), and never found a single one. The counties around Atlanta just aren't big on natural caves, it seems -- and now I've finally found a cave and a) I'm not quite as short as I used to be, so the fit would be much tighter, and b) I've got this annoying adult voice reminding me about SNAKES.
Sigh. But I can at least dream -- in between researching furiously to find another region for setting a story, and this time to double and triple check that the locale doesn't come with excessive amounts of smog. Gross.