Zanski: Blog

Well, that's not strictly true. I'm better than 30K words into Nuevo Mexico, and that despite having two cataract surgeries and a torn rotator cuff over the past six weeks, including a half dozen appointments with various doctors. I won't bore you with further detail, but the combination has slowed me down, and continues to do so.

I was amused, though, when the cataract experience brought to mind something from back in the day, when I was working in community mental health. As a corollary to the saying, "seeing the world through rose-colored glasses," I would sometimes liken the experience of depression to "seeing the world through shit-colored glasses."

That simile took on new meaning after the first cataract procedure, on my left eye. After that, white objects took on an almost blue hue when viewed through the new artificial lens. Meanwhile, my right eye, to be operated on two weeks later, was still seeing the world in a sepia tint, the deleterious effect of the cataracts. It was an unexpected experience. At this point, both eyes see whiter whites and brighter colors. Go figure.

Then there's the torn rotator cuff, a sheet muscle that stretches over the shoulder joint. SIGH. It begins to be a distraction after about thirty minutes at the keyboard. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

As of the moment, I'm 17K words into the third book of the trilogy, working title, Nuevo Mexico. But I have several relatively routine medical procedures looming over the next few months, so my pace may slow a bit. We'll see.

The first two books, War Party and Bootleg Justice are 121K words and 135K words, respectively. I imagine Nuevo Mexico will end up being somewhere in between.

Later.

I have today finished the second book in my next western trilogy, the Seneca Series. Working titles for the first two books are War Party and Bootleg Justice, 121K words and 135K words, respectively. I still consider both in draft form, though mostly in need of fine tuning more than revisions.

In any event, I have already begun the final book which currently enjoys the working title Book Three.

Still hacking away, every darn day. I'm 83k words into the second book of a three-book series. I figure to wrap it up between 100k and 120k words.

I'll provide a sketch of the premise, but with a caveat: I could change it. My Arenoso Trails series, for instance, started as a sailing epic during the Napoleonic Wars, so I'm never quite sure how things will turn out.

Anyway, at the moment I'm calling it the Seneca series. The protagonist, Judah Becker, with one-quarter Onodowa'ga (Seneca) heritage, turns eighteen in January of 1864 and, inspired by reading Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, joins a regiment of Ohio volunteers.

Flash forward to 1883 when he's working as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in the Territory of New Mexico, pursuing a fugitive across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. And he enjoys fly fishing. Go figure.

I connected to the World Wide Web for the first time in 1997. Up to that time, I had been in situations that only had access to local nets, though some were state-wide, such as the state governemnt network in Oregon in the late '80s. Or the local Realtors net in Florida in the mid '80s. Or a state university net in Colorado in the early '90s.

But in '97, we built a home on five acres northwest of Del Norte, Colorado. We had to pay for a phone line to be brought two miles: over three thousand dollars. And it was as basic as phone lines could be. After hooking up, our modem would work at about 14 kps.

Oh, it was s - l - o - w.

No, it was r - - e - - a - - l - - l - - y - - - s - - l - - o - - w.

And we had to have a well drilled: 220 feet deep at ten bucks a foot. But, surprisingly the well had an artesian flow, about five gallons a minute.

Some weeks later, I noticed that sometimes the well flowed faster and sometimes it flowed slower, by as much as two gallons a minute, and I wondered why that would be. There were no wells upslope of us because our land bordered National Forest. It was just us and Twin Mountain.

So I did my first ever internet search on the World Wide Web: "Why does the flow rate from my artesian well vary from day to day?"

Among other listings was one for the U.S. Geological Survey - the horse's mouth, as far as I was concerned. But I could not find anything specific to my question. What I did find, however, was a link button captioned, "Ask a geologist." I clicked the link and an email format came up!

I was gobsmacked, utterly and completely. Here I was, two miles from the end of the last twisted pair The Phone Company had been able to tap, surrounded by a couple miles of nothing but mountainside nature, and I was going to be able to question a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey about my artesian well. In-effing-credible. I'm still thrilled by the idea of it, how that one link revealed to me the unbelievable potential of the internet.

So I sent my question and, within a couple hours, I received a reply from a PhD-level geologist: he didn't know. Turns out the Geological Survey, as its name implies, has to do with the solid parts of the earth, not the watery parts. Go figure.

Even so, he had some educated guesses, prominent among which was earth tides. Yup, the same lunar and solar influences that cause the tides in the oceans also bring those forces to bear on the solid parts of the earth. It's measurable, but only at the micro-noodle scale or something -- I forget. Still, it was another surprising thing that I learned that day.

Surprise number three came when I asked the geologist where I might search for a more specific answer to my query. Believe it or don't, he suggested NASA. Yep, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. If I hadn't already said "Go figure," I'd be saying it now.

And he was right. NASA suggested a number of possible causes, all of them fairly esoteric and not one of which took up permanent residence in my memory cells. Then some yahoo moved in a quarter mile below us, had a well drilled, and our artesian flow stopped and his began. It's always somehin'.

But today I use those near-limitless resources to research topics for my stories:

- Google query: When was sunset at Alamosa, Colorado on September 14, 1883? (6:13 pm)

- Google Ngram: When was the first use of the term "wanted poster?" (1938)

- WordHippo: What's another word for profoundly? (completely)

Google query: US Army uniform hats in 1866? (forage cap)

- Wikipedia search: D&RG (Denver and Rio Grande Railroad built by General William Jackson Palmer in the 1880s, largest narrow gauge system in the country)

- Google query: in what phase was the moon on September 14, 1883? (waxing gibbous)

And all without my fat behind having to move from my recliner. Go fig-- I mean, who'd a thunk it.