Friday Fun

Here we are, Friday once more and just a few hours away from the fun that's the weekend.

soon, this delicious grass will be nothing but a memory

So let's get this started!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Weird: Herxheim Mass Grave

Continuing with our Halloween Wednesday Weirds, let's talk bones and skeletons.

Back in 09, archaeologists were digging at the site of near the village of Herxheim, in Germany. The site was from the Neolithic era, (7,000 years ago) when farming had spread into Europe.

The site was first excavated in 1996-99 so they expected to find much of the same. Instead what they found was a human bone.

Which, if you're an archaeologist, yay, right? But then they found another bone. And another. When they were finished digging, they had uncovered a mass grave of over 500 bodies. 500 bodies is a lot, but it's even more when you consider how small the population had been at the time the bodies were buried. Not to mention that Herxheim and other nearby settlements had been mysteriously and completely abandoned, ohhh, about 7,000 years ago.

So what had caused this massive die-off of the population and subsequent abandonment? The archaeologists weren't sure.

Until they found the bite marks.

Yeah. The mass grave was a mass cannibal grave. The bones in the mass grave had been chewed on, been cracked for their marrow, even had marks on them that suggested they had been spit roasted.

Cannibalism was extremely rare in Neolithic Europe (why would you need to eat people when you could grow your own food) and yet, here there was not just a single case of it, but a massive amount of it.

What happened at Herxheim, that caused much of the settlement to be eaten by other people, and that caused the rest of settlement to be abandoned?

We may never know . . .

 

Friday Fun

Here we are! Another weekend coming fast. Which is good news, because weekends means sleeping in and having fun.

And speak of having fun, let's get this weekend started!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Weird: Screaming Ghost

Here we are, the beginning of Halloween season. Which means for this month, the Wednesday Weirds are going to be as Halloweeny as I can swing. I'm going to try to pick scary or creepy or gross topics. What will they be? No clue. I figure out when I write the posts.

But for today, to launch our Halloween series of Wednesday Weirds, we're looking at a ghost video!

I picked this one because A) it's creepy as all hell. And B) it's different than a lot of the other types of ghost videos.

Whether it's real or not, I have no clue, but it's full of tension and it's an absorbing video (no worries. There's no jump scares or anything. I wouldn't do that to you.)

 

Thoughts?

In Which I NaNo For 2014

So we're into October already, and you know what that means,

That's right. It's the ramp up to NaNoWriMo!

I missed last year (for legit reasons that ended with me landing an agent and a book deal) but I've been participating since 2009 and I'm giving it a shot again this year.

I'll be writing under my old username Falen1 and I'd love to be your friend (also, because seeing everyone's little word count meters fill up is hugely motivating for me. So yes, I want to be friends because it's fun, but also I want to be friends to help me hit my goals)

If you've never done NaNo before, you should give it a try! It's a lot of fun, and no one takes it too seriously, so even if you realize it's not for you or you can't hit the word count, or if you want to break the "rules" then that's okay!

So, are you going to NaNo this year?

 

Friday Fun

I'm back, ape-friends! After a hiatus NOT of my choosing.

I was so bored, I had to spend time with George

But here we are, for the first Friday Fun for the Fall! So let's get this started off right!

 

 

 

 

 

 

an alarm clock you have to stand on to shut it off

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Insecure Writer's Support Group

So, I totally missed last month's IWSG. I just completely didn't realize it was the first of the month or something.

My bad.

But here we are! The first IWSG for fall 2014. I cannot believe how fast the year is going.

As I mentioned on Monday, and a few weeks ago, I have been crazy busy. I knew going in that September was going to be my hell month, and it more or less was.

I had edits for All That Remains to finish up. I also had a bunch of pages on my still untitled WIP to turn in for my next MFA packet (that's due on Friday) as well as a ten page paper to write.

I probably should have been super stressed and junk. But surprisingly I wasn't. I mean, I could kind of feel that it was there, just hovering behind me, waiting. All "hey, are you suuuure you don't want to have some sort of stress freakout?"

But I was like, eh, no thanks. Instead I think I'll put my head down and get back to work.

I had definitely reached the point, though, where I had so much work that the only way out was through it. Which is in general I guess a good attitude to have. And honestly, if I had that attitude all the time things probably wouldn't stack up as much (though, to be fair, September Hell Month was just a timing thing and not brought about by slacking or anything.)

On the plus side about getting through September is now I have a bit of breathing room.

Until November that is, when NaNo starts. And yes I'm participating this year. I have a sequel to write. Which means my goal for October is to try and finish my WIP.

Will I be able to? Guess it's time to find out.