2023 - year review - writing fanfic
Dec. 25th, 2023 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nicholas_lucienSeems hardly any time has passed from my last yearly update! Oh yeah, just a few minutes! Still sick, but pluggin away. 2023 is a much faster review.
Still collecting Forever Knight fanzines, picking up a few more from gh coyote. As for my dogs, my little Australian Shepherd has grown (and big, he's definately not going to be average size for the breed), and I ended up getting from the dog shelter a female Great Pyrenees about the same age as him, so they play a lot together. And dig up the yard.
In the news of Forever Knight, this year saw Catherine Disher put up on eBay a number of Forever Knight items she had, and confirmed it was her selling them, so I know a few people were able to get those items. Sadly, we also found out that one of the Caddies (the one purchased by Scott Hedrick) had been in an accident in 2001 and was sold for scrap in 2010. Still a bit confusing, but I think this is the 1962 Cadillac, but the owner insists its the 1961 Caddy, but also says the one sold by Brock Jolliffe is his, which I'm just not going to argue with him on this one. The images of the car don't make it super clear and the parts that would make it clear were lost or deformed in the accident (or not included in the pic). But from what I can see I still think its the 1962 one. Not unknown in the field to not know the year, many owners unfortunately don't actually know the year of the car, 1961 and 1962 being so similar. So at least as of now, the original 1961 Caddy is still out there.
On to the fanfics: just 1 this year. :(
Prompted story!
2023 FKFicFest had a few prompts this year, but I picked "this experiment went horribly wrong." I had been reading up on radiation and how the whole world had gone crazy about the life-giving attributes of radium. Even when people were dying of radiation poisioning. There is a lot going on there, many assumptions, many ideas that something pretty can't be bad for you, but eventually this was regulated better and these products got taken off the shelves. What ended up saving many from the harmful effects of these radium-laced products was there was no radioactive material in them, as that is expensive and cuts into profit. But there were enough products that really did have the radiactive isotope in there and that caused problems. And with all of this going on, I figured Nick would have heard about it and wanted to try it out since he tries out everything that could be a cure.
The story Experiment 1260 is mostly flashback and set at different times, following how radium as a treatment was being used in the world and being in actual locations during those times. I used a real person as a support character, Luther SH Gable, who claimed many events and inventions as his own, lied about what he had done, and never himself got sick from radation poisioning. Though more than willing to have you believe him an expert and willing to sell you his gadgets, he did firmly believe in the healing and life-gving attributes to radiation, and as a true believer, he made a great character for the story. I had so many pages of notes for this story, so harldy anything had to be made-up, unfortuatnely, most of what was going on or said was real. The effects of the radium boom are still being dealt with today (supposidly in parts of Paris you still cannot grow anything in the dirt as it is radiactive and they are quietly replacing and cleaning up those areas).
Nick, of course, tries the radiation as a cure and it goes horribly wrong, as he eventually succumbs to radiation posioning becuase they use so much (no details in the story becuase once you see some of those pics of what happened to the people, you don't want to describe that).
Fun tidbit on the story, the title, experiment 1260, the number was not selected randomly. 1260 belongs to a series of numbers called vampire numbers, 1260 being the first of the series (after that would be 1395, 1435, 1530, etc). Vampire numbers is a composite number with an even number of digits (1260 is made of 4 numbers) where you can seperate the numbers evenly (1 and 2 in a group, 6 and 0 in a group), and you can arrange the group into a number (like 21 and 60) and multiply the groups together (21 x 60) to get the original numer again (21 x 60 = 1260). The numbers 21 and 60 are called the fangs of the number and longer numbers (which give many other ways to group them) can have many fangs. It was just a cool thing to add and the reason it was selected as the experiment number.
For the upcomming year:
FKFicFest, of course. And still thinking of working on my various series and getting those stories out. We'll see, but I don't want to fall behind in writing again like what happened this year.
Still collecting Forever Knight fanzines, picking up a few more from gh coyote. As for my dogs, my little Australian Shepherd has grown (and big, he's definately not going to be average size for the breed), and I ended up getting from the dog shelter a female Great Pyrenees about the same age as him, so they play a lot together. And dig up the yard.
In the news of Forever Knight, this year saw Catherine Disher put up on eBay a number of Forever Knight items she had, and confirmed it was her selling them, so I know a few people were able to get those items. Sadly, we also found out that one of the Caddies (the one purchased by Scott Hedrick) had been in an accident in 2001 and was sold for scrap in 2010. Still a bit confusing, but I think this is the 1962 Cadillac, but the owner insists its the 1961 Caddy, but also says the one sold by Brock Jolliffe is his, which I'm just not going to argue with him on this one. The images of the car don't make it super clear and the parts that would make it clear were lost or deformed in the accident (or not included in the pic). But from what I can see I still think its the 1962 one. Not unknown in the field to not know the year, many owners unfortunately don't actually know the year of the car, 1961 and 1962 being so similar. So at least as of now, the original 1961 Caddy is still out there.
On to the fanfics: just 1 this year. :(
Prompted story!
2023 FKFicFest had a few prompts this year, but I picked "this experiment went horribly wrong." I had been reading up on radiation and how the whole world had gone crazy about the life-giving attributes of radium. Even when people were dying of radiation poisioning. There is a lot going on there, many assumptions, many ideas that something pretty can't be bad for you, but eventually this was regulated better and these products got taken off the shelves. What ended up saving many from the harmful effects of these radium-laced products was there was no radioactive material in them, as that is expensive and cuts into profit. But there were enough products that really did have the radiactive isotope in there and that caused problems. And with all of this going on, I figured Nick would have heard about it and wanted to try it out since he tries out everything that could be a cure.
The story Experiment 1260 is mostly flashback and set at different times, following how radium as a treatment was being used in the world and being in actual locations during those times. I used a real person as a support character, Luther SH Gable, who claimed many events and inventions as his own, lied about what he had done, and never himself got sick from radation poisioning. Though more than willing to have you believe him an expert and willing to sell you his gadgets, he did firmly believe in the healing and life-gving attributes to radiation, and as a true believer, he made a great character for the story. I had so many pages of notes for this story, so harldy anything had to be made-up, unfortuatnely, most of what was going on or said was real. The effects of the radium boom are still being dealt with today (supposidly in parts of Paris you still cannot grow anything in the dirt as it is radiactive and they are quietly replacing and cleaning up those areas).
Nick, of course, tries the radiation as a cure and it goes horribly wrong, as he eventually succumbs to radiation posioning becuase they use so much (no details in the story becuase once you see some of those pics of what happened to the people, you don't want to describe that).
Fun tidbit on the story, the title, experiment 1260, the number was not selected randomly. 1260 belongs to a series of numbers called vampire numbers, 1260 being the first of the series (after that would be 1395, 1435, 1530, etc). Vampire numbers is a composite number with an even number of digits (1260 is made of 4 numbers) where you can seperate the numbers evenly (1 and 2 in a group, 6 and 0 in a group), and you can arrange the group into a number (like 21 and 60) and multiply the groups together (21 x 60) to get the original numer again (21 x 60 = 1260). The numbers 21 and 60 are called the fangs of the number and longer numbers (which give many other ways to group them) can have many fangs. It was just a cool thing to add and the reason it was selected as the experiment number.
For the upcomming year:
FKFicFest, of course. And still thinking of working on my various series and getting those stories out. We'll see, but I don't want to fall behind in writing again like what happened this year.
no subject
Date: December 25th, 2023 08:29 pm (UTC)First of all: Get well soon and happy holidays/solstice/end-of-year-new-year/Christmas!
It's good to know that at least one Caddy is still out there, providing lots of trunk space. :)
I enjoyed your FicFest story, it was such a great take on the experiment prompt! Extra kudos for the vampire number. Didn't know about them, sounds interesting.
All the best for you in 2024, and lots of inspiration for your (planned) stories.
no subject
Date: December 28th, 2023 04:43 am (UTC)