Look what I found!!! Roman empire google maps. Do you want to know the fastest route to get an army from Constantinople to London? Or how long it would take to get from Jerusalem to Rome on a shoe string? Of course you do!

https://orbis.stanford.edu/

Spent today in Edinburgh (mainly to avoid Sam) on a trip around the Grassmarket to the second hand bookshops. Then had a wander round West Bow (where my MCs live). The Festival is on just now so the atmosphere is brilliant. The red house is the one my MCs live in, and I visited the church they would’ve gone to at Greyfriars. So many ideas! Having a burger then it’s home to the laptop! #writing #writingcommunity #edinburgh #greyfriars #writingresearch

Do you know what's impossible to find? Solid data on the percentage of people who've given birth have long-term physical side effects from it over a year later. Even info on specific conditions is hard to find. Post-partum depression, sure! A simple overall percentage of physical damage? Nope!

I want a meta-study, damn it. This is just for ONE throwaway line in my book, but I want accurate data. Harrumph.

So someone on Mastodon posted this link to an scholarly article about research into writing on wax: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv1sr6hgk.7

Which I finally got around to reading today (both #WritingResearch and general interest).

And they got an expert to inscribe cuneiform on one of their wax paste formulations to show what a new writing board might have looked like.

And they snuck the translation into the footnotes.

And it’s a sex poem.

Wind blow, orchard shake,
Clouds gather, droplets fall!
Let my potency be steady as running river water,
Let my penis be a taut harpstring,
Let it not slip out of her!

Nothing like a Mesopotamian anti-impotency incantation to start the day right. Though one’s penis being a harpstring is not quite the flex it once was, perhaps.

Writing Research question for people in Sao Paulo, Brazil:

I'm writing a scene where my characters move through Sao Paulo, walking or public transport or rideshare/uber. They don't have their own car. Late afternoon in summer.

1) their destination is an office building which is being used by a (fictional) animation studio. Where in Sao Paulo might such a business be?

2) without being too on the nose or stereotyped, what sights, smells, sounds etc might they encounter on their journey? Weather? Clothing? Music?

Particularly interested in details about traffic, pedestrian experience as some of my characters are cyclists so would notice cars from that point of view. (As in, they aren't actually on bicycles, but have a cyclist's mindset)

I think most fiction authors have a lot of strange tabs open on their browsers. Here’s some research I did today for something which might happen in my book. https://www.vice.com/en/article/7bdeyz/what-exactly-happens-when-you-pop-a-testicle-and-how-to-fix-it-173 #testicles #WritingCommunity #WritingResearch #Ouch

Did you know that a cow and a heifer are different?

A heifer is a young female who has not yet given birth to any cows. Once she has given birth, she will produce milk and be referred to henceforth as a cow.

The things you learn during #WritingResearch

More here:

https://informedfarmers.com/difference-between-cow-and-heifer/

TIL that cuttlefish ink has long been used in human art. It's a brownish color, known as "sepia" after the cuttlefish species name: Sepia officinalis.

My search history now contains “Can a domesticate pig produce offspring with a wild boar?” and “How do wolf packs avoid incest?” #writingresearch

I was today years old when I discovered the concept of „#grammatics“

(or actually, the-day-before-yesterday, during Mary Macken-Horarik’s keynote at #WRAB2023, but today the book arrived)