30 years later: Chernobyl

Normally, I save my "nuclear stuff" posts for my writing blog, but we've had some crossover episodes before and this is interesting.

30 years ago (and a few days), Reactor #4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine had a meltdown. The explosion left the radioactive core entirely open to the world until they built the Sarcophagus , which is a big old (now crumbling) concrete bunker around it. So, lots and lots of Bad Nuclear Stuff was in the air, and as a result, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was formed for a 30 kilometer radius around the plant. The only people who still live there are the ones who refused to leave their homes, though some have become very sick as a result. Here's a selection of the first photos taken at Chernobyl; the pictures are foggy like that because that's what radiation does to camera film.

The interesting thing about the zone, though, is how it's affected the wildlife.

(Chernobyl sign from Wikimedia commons)

Why I don't like Twitter so much anymore

Note: this mostly applies to my "dog" Twitter. My writing Twitter is what I find I've been spending a lot more time on, and interacting with people on.

I don't spend a lot of time on my @TheElkaAlmanac Twitter anymore. I'll share peoples' blog posts, and look at specific peoples' accounts to interact with, retweet, whatever, but looking at my feed in general? Not as much anymore. It just kind of depresses and frustrates me.

I've done it to myself, in a way. One's Twitter feed is full of who you've opted to follow, or follow back (I do tend to follow back, my numbers permitting. It's only polite, after all). But with my interest in supporting dog rescue and boosting the signal for people and things like that, I've gotten a lot of follows and such whose tweets I don't want to read. I also don't want to go and unfollow hundreds of people. It's my choice, and I could do it, but it doesn't seem fair. But.

Alpha? No, that's just not how I roll.

Fewer things are more alarming to me when I see one faceless person on the Internet say to another "Make sure you maintain your Alpha position. Your dog must be submissive to you. On his back or on his side. Bring him down and hold him there until he submits to you."

Paraphrased, but you get the gist. You probably have heard of the "alpha roll" before, but if you haven't, it's as physical and improbable as it sounds: you physically roll the dog onto his or her back. And hold him or her there until the dog submits to your dominance. Sound like a bad idea? Yeah, I think so too. Have I ever "alpha rolled" Elka? No. And I never intend to.

See the joy in this face? I don't want to crush that.

NaNoWriMo 2012

Well, it's that time again.

That's right, kids, it's National Novel Writing Month again. Every November, like clockwork. 30 days, 50,000 words.

This year, I'm writing the sequel to a book that I started in March and finished in September. I've noticed, since getting Elka, that dogs have found their way into my fiction pretty often. This time around, I've once again decided to embrace it. Why argue with a good deal, right? I already read and write about dogs so much (and read about wolves once in awhile), I might as well do something with that source material.

I'm writing about werewolves (though not really in a Twilight or Underworld sort of way, trying to make them my own without getting too squirrelly with the folklore), and so there are dogs. There are wolves. There are people who are wolves, but use the same body language in varying forms. It's interesting to use canine body language that many of us pet bloggers are in particular familiar with: yawning, lip licking, head turning, hard stares, hard mouth, that kind of thing. It'll be interesting to me, should these books ever get published, if those sorts of things come through to the reader, or at least the dog-savvy reader. We'll see how it goes, right?

So, if I'm not replying to comments on here all that diligently, I'm not ignoring you! I'm just making my wordcount. My goal is not only to reach the 50,000 words for the month, but actually finish the novel itself. Book one ended up being around 80,000. I've never pulled quite that many words in a NaNoWriMo, but there's a first time for everything, right? I hit 13,500 words on Monday night/Tuesday morning (midnight isn't called the Witching Hour for nothing), and that's an unprecedented and blistering speed for me.

I've also noticed that some other dog/pet bloggers are participating in NaNoWriMo, and I'm so glad! Good luck to everybody, I hope you're having a lot of fun.