I'm actually writing this before the first post for the new blog has been published... And, actually, before I've nailed down web space for it, or named it, or anything of that sort. That said, I've spent the day working on a couple of things that are sort of good icebreaker topics, which is to say, things that tie into some of the interests that would help a person get to know me. So, I decided to write something up.
1) I harbor an unhealthy obsession with Orkney. Orkney is an archipelago that's about ten miles off the north coast of Scotland. I met and subsequently visited some Orkney residents when I was in college, and I fell in love with the place.
2) I've also been working on a couple of novels, set overseas, since late 2007. I've found myself endowed with an inordinate amount of free time at work lately, so I've decided to read through and make some adjustments. Significant events that have taken place since I started writing in 2007, which will require major or minor revisions to what I've written already, include:
So, I need to spend a some of my down time going through both novels and making some edits.
3) I love satellite imagery. There aren't really very many quizzes like DIGO's imagery analysis quizzes[*], but I can spend hours at a time on Wikimapia doing the same sort of thing that's outlined in that quiz.
Okay, that brings us to today.[**] I've had a few passages for my novels that I've been wanting to write for a while, and I started working on one today. It's set in Orkney, and I was trying to figure out where one of my characters could be staying. A few days ago, I'd looked at some websites about places to stay in Orkney, and I went to work trying to find it again. Eventually, I found it - I'd seen the website about The Ruah, a guest house on Eday, located here. My search led me to discover another guest accommodation on North Ronaldsay[***], the Howar Farm. Having found The Ruah without much trouble, I decided to go looking for the Howar Farm, using clues from the pictures on their website to find it on the satellite map. After at least half an hour of poring over the satellite maps of the entire island (fortunately, it's a small island), I finally found another website (the North Ronaldsay page on the official Orkney tourism website) that helped me to confirm the location.
Awesome.
* That link is totally broken. For like, two years now. It's really a bummer, it was a good quiz.
** Again, not actually today. Nearly two years ago.
*** The most interesting thing about North Ronaldsay is that it's the home of the North Ronaldsay sheep, which is uniquely able to subsist on seaweed. North Ronaldsay may also be the setting of part of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In Chapter 19, Shelley writes:
"Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of Scotland and finish my work in solitude. I did not doubt but that the monster followed me and would discover himself to me when I should have finished, that he might receive his companion. With this resolution I traversed the northern highlands and fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labours. It was a place fitted for such a work, being hardly more than a rock whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare. Vegetables and bread, when they indulged in such luxuries, and even fresh water, was to be procured from the mainland, which was about five miles distant."Also awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment