From my fantasy writing desk:
I usually say I’m good at disciplining myself to get the writing done each day, but I confess that I was distracted this week.
Some of the distractions were writing related. I spent Tuesday answering questions on Reddit’s Fantasy Writer of the Day. I enjoyed interacting with a new group of readers. By the end of the day, I felt more at home in a new-to-me online community of great interest. I’ll be visiting there more often.
One of the topics I talked about on Reddit was my obsession with authentic, Bronze Age food in my books. I may have to coin a new phrase, Foodie Writer, or something. Many of you know I’ve gone so far as to publish a cookbook of the foods in my novels. You can get a copy by signing up for my newsletter (see the sign up box on the right). (If for some reason, you do get my newsletters, but didn’t open the cookbook email and want it, just let me know. I can send the download link to you again.)
And that enthusiasm for cooking accounts for much of the rest of my distractions this week–all food preparation related. At least I ignored that draft for a good cause. Back to writing next week!
Archaeology and history posts I enjoyed:
Roman winter holiday as precursor to Christmas
Io Saturnalia! Here’s a fun and well-informed post on the Roman holiday of Saturnalia, celebrated about now each year and often depicted as an orgiastic free for all. Alison Morton notes the distinct parallels to modern Christmas and how this holiday and its companion holiday dedicated to the ‘unconquerable sun’ called dies natalis (day of birth) contributed to the Christian holiday. A fun read from Alison Morton who writes an excellent alternative history series in which Rome lives on in refreshingly creative and unexpected ways. Click here for Alison Morton’s website “Saturnalia: serious Roman festival or free for all?”
Truly a “Dark Age”
“And it does not have to be the Middle Ages … (I just heard the news, and every day I get depressed more)”
If you think things are bad this year, a new study will give you some perspective. The year 536 was far worse. A historian and archaeologist with Harvard’s Initiative for the Science of the Human Past says 536 was the worst, surpassing 1349, the year of the Black Plague, and 1918, the year when the flu killed 50 to 100 million people.
Why 536? We’ve always known the years around 536 were, well, dark. Written sources mention a mysterious fog that blocked out the sun. And this is the period we use to call the “dark ages.” But no one understood why or how bad this bad really was.
Newly studied ice cores, using a much more precise technique, reveal that a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 536 blocked the sun and caused such low temperatures that it snowed in the summer. Crop failure and famine resulted. This was followed by two other volcanoes in 540 and 547.
It isn’t until 640 that another signal in the ice shows that recovery was on its way. That signal? Airborne lead, which shows a spike in silver mining, which equals economic well-being. You can’t eat silver, after all. Frivolous stuff, precious metals. Click here for Science Magazine “Why 536 was the worst year to be alive”