The amassing knowledge I have on things that would creep normal people out, is...oof.
Ah, the woes and wonders of being a writer.
Has a lot to do with training and background. Had a old mentor who's favorite words (I paraphrase) was he didn't care how much I wrote he only cared about what I wrote. His second favorite advice was a triple repeat of one word... concise concise concise.
If he was still around I think he'd love the phrase "word salad"
I never worry about other people's pique. 
If anyone has any questions about the following topics, hit me up.
- Cars
- Forensic Anthropology
- Medical-stuffs
- Weaponry
- Martial Arts
- Music Theory & Instruments
- Middle English
- Medieval Europe
- Fairy Tales
- English Literature
- Victorian England
etc.
Either I have direct knowledge or have immediate access to a professional / expert on the subject.
(sorry for the spam, I got too excited and Tapas said I 'posted too much.')
What fun knowledge do you(all) have?
All my fun stories are really just me and my friends writing Middle/Medieval curse words and profanity on white boards. Though the real joy was waiting for the professor to see and snort out their tea in a laugh.
Medieval Literature, you all, if e-ffing hilarious!
It didn't creep him out, but it did make my husband laugh when he used my laptop and I hadn't closed out of a research window. He asked me "Why were you trying to find out how people would send nudes in the 1950's?"
I briefly explained the plot of my romance novel and how I was trying to decide if I could take creative license with sending a naughty photo or not lmao (I did in the end because it was my novel and I wanted a nude photo sent)
I imagine Pin-Ups weren't an available option?
The times mine has walked in on me researching and then walked back out would make me rich, LOL
Heh, just life experiences and technical career, jurisdictional issues, fitness, some foreign languages, gardening, a bit of video gaming... interests sort of accumulate, and I forget a bunch as years go by.
In case any of you were wondering:
Certain words were considered only for men to use, and similarly only for women. So, when you find a fabliau where women are not using their deemed words, things get fun real quick.
So, women were only allowed to refer to a man's you know as a yard. (cue I roll, I know).
Men could call it a pintel or a tarse.
Other fun fact, the F-word is older than you think, but is not the only word that is regarded with such severity. There are others on the same echelon.
For instance: swived. to swivel. was considered equally as bad. Though, the f-word, is far punchier.
Stop me, or I'll keep going. LOL.
You wouldn’t believe the arguments a few decades back about George Martin destroying the mood of the period piece by using f-word. There was the full on threads on how early it appeared... heh.
I love this. haha! A lot of these are also the random subjects that I enjoy. I'm really tempted to go back to school to get an anthropology degree because Bones (and Kathy Reichs) made the subject so interesting. Learning is a blast when you don't have to do it for grades.
Right now, knitting/yarn crafts and foreign language trees are striking my study interest.
I will admit that one in particular is not mine, but my best friend's. They have a masters in it and have worked like Bones does. From what they have said, the science is solid, the rest of it, and I agree, is terrible. Doesn't stop me from watching it though.
I have had so many people offer to teach me that to do those kind of crafts, but it awakes an internal rage and beast that I rather let lie. LOL
I have my issues with George RR Martian as a writer, but he wasn't wrong for the use of his curse words.
I mean, things are far, far older than we give them credit for.
For instance
The idea of 'who wears the trousers in the relationship' Medieval, at least
'Women are cats,' MEDIEVAL
Bros before Hoes, trust your dog more than humans, SO FREAKING OLD.
The rants I could get into!
Anthropology is really really cool. One of my secret passions are the early humanoids. I don’t understand much, but i adamantly follow the news from that area of research lol.
I like the repetitive nature of loom knitting but the crafting rage monster is real. Thank goodness for YouTube videos. haha. My parents raised with the Yankee spirit of "I can do it myself". We do make a lot of things ourselves but some of the more detailed work like knitting or crocheting, my mom refused to learn those crafts because of the rage monster.
My goodness, my brain is so all over the place. I'm not typing well. Haha.
I've recently taken to 3-D printing. The work of peeling the supports off the models has been quite relaxing. I hope to paint them soon. I think that may be my extent. Needles and I have a contemptuous relationship.
edit
Since you had mentioned fashion earlier, here's the dictionary I was talking about:
https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/dictionary/
Aside from my perfectly normal, morbid fascination with death like most women I know, I really like studying the cultures. There are so many aspects of human cultures that inter-relate that's so interesting to me. There are some Native American traditions that have ties to both Nordic and Judaic traditions that are super interesting.
I love random research papers, like 30% of Europenian women who have Neanderthal genes have more children/easier childbirth, right next to an article that assures me that Neanderthal child rearing practices were similar to modern humans, and they had shown to have older mothers/younger fathers than modern humans at the time...
For the little I know, the closer south you are, the more likely. For instance, Italy is said to be pretty strong. I'd have to double check.
Most of my ancestors are Scandinavian with a few loose ties to Russia and the Romanov family. A few did make it down to France and Switzerland.
Just writing atm, because I am close to the end of the book, but I had to look up a lot for this one, despite it being a complete bogus. But it all started with a show on Yamnaya (which I recently saw people criticize, but they were too late!)
So, what went into my story was Pontic-Caspian region, Yamnaya, CRISPR and proto-indo-europenian language... and like some vague teen memories about a certain pop-band.
Lol, I feel almost embarrassed, but that's how my mind works.
That sounds cool.
I get lost in vortexes of research all the time. I personally like the touch and love it when I can tell a writer has done research of their own.
Earlier in the year, I was on a massive endeavor about carrying capacities of different animals in comparison to various forms of vehicles. I also learned the differences between a wagon, carriage, cart etc. Fun times.
I bet!
I managed to prep tomorrow’s update, yay! And ended at 54.1K total, so getting to my 1K per day minimum.
Plus, I screwed around with changing the title of the book, hoping to get a bit better views. It is now called Lone Werewolf, to maybe avoid the omega verse vibe.
I also put a dramatic quote at the beginning of the description...
right now I am in the darkest portion of the book, and almost finished with a fantasy storyline scene, about to swing back to the relationship bit, before I move to the last fantasy scene, then it is basically the romantic scene and the final sequence. Which I actually have in stages this time, lol.
Should be slightly over 60K, I think
NaNoWriMo Update: Although I'm half-pleased with my project as a story, the wordcount is looking grim. At 16,000 words, I'm only about a 3rd done with less than half the month to go. My next four days will be slammed with work also. So, I've decided to bring the Xenomicon out of retirement. That's my parody series in which my Alien Fiction characters rill on an episode of a volunteer's series. I knock out these goofy satire episodes very quickly since it's the easiest thing to author ever. I need some volunteers.
Novels are preferred for the word count, but comics are an option. If you have a thick skin and think some free publicity cannot hurt (you poor fools), then I'm offering this service as a Novel-Writing-Month exclusive service.
That's so exciting! Good for you!
I'm around 20k words for the story right now. I'm quite pleased with the progression, since I just started a couple weeks ago and have been doing a lot of research for it. A lot, please, send sanity.
I sent a care package full of sanity. It got returned to sender. Apparently, I don't want it, you don't need it, and the post office won't touch it.
Seriously though, that does seem like an impressive degree of research. Are you writing a non-fiction project?
No.
Gods, I wish. I feel like that would justify it but really it's more that I need to know. Difference between English, French, and Italian cuts on dresses, in the Georgian and/or Victorian era, I got you, fam.
Want a recipe for a hair pomade made out of bear fat, I've got a book on it.
The carrying capacity of mules, oxen, dogs, or cows, this I also know.
and 
on 20K words!Are you guys offering any sort of "prizes" for hitting goals for Inksgiving? Part of me wants to do a reward system for meeting a certain goal but I have no idea what to even offer. I don't think I have a following enough yet to offer bonus chapters yet. Drawing a picture, like some comic book artists are offering, cab be a lot faster than writing a good 1K word chapter. TBH, I'll just be grateful for any ink that I get this year.
I officially settled on -
Inksgiving Tiers (Starting November 20th at 3pm PST) -
1000 - Biweekly updates of short story
2000 - Weekly updates of short story
4000 - Updates of short story posted 3 days a week + TLOAW side story
8000 - Updates of short story posted every other day
15,000 - Updates posted daily + NSFW TLOAW scene!!
I didn't feel right asking for too much so I cut my numbers way down
I decided to not have reward for goals, in the end. I don't know what goals should I set and what kinda reward I could offer -- a short story, perhaps, would be my best bet. But, my stories have really different base of readers, -- setting a reward only for one story would be unfair, and having to write short stories for both is a little too much for me right now.
Nope. I am unable to get any ink because the videos are not loading by some reason, so I am not feeling like I can be asking for ink when i am not giving away any. Plus, I am barely keeping afloat with regular updates, and my current book is not gaining.
Edit: also, I threw in the towel and moved the story from BL to Drama.
I wasn't going to originally either, but then I figured I'd give people the option to have a NSFW scene added to the story plus my short story is already completed at 16k words so the only work for that to be posted for me is to copy and paste and schedule. I don't know if Tapas audience will enjoy the short story but it did pretty well on amazon when I first published it so I'm hoping people here enjoy it too
I had to put my main series on hiatus just so I could catch up on writing. Hopefully, I'll be able to start scheduling more chapters come January. I'll give away ink where I can but doing reward levels seems weird if you don't already have material prepared beforehand.
I feel entirely too new to it all to even know where to begin.
I do intend to post some 'behind the scenes' content, like having character art, dress designs, and links to videos I've used as research. I think that would be fun, but so far ahead of where I am right now.
I'm still trying to work my way to the first big moment of the story, where they all attend a gala/dance/ball thingy. It's a lot of fun to get to that point. I'm so particular about it all, I've been doing research on dresses, music, food, and what-not.
I've just been sitting here trying to not get that excited. Like, there's this big red DO NOT TOUCH button, I'm calling the 'drama bomb' and I just wanna push it!
I JUST WANNA PUSH IT, you all!
Hahahahaha this times 1000!! Seriously! I love adding in drama! I had to really hold myself back from going overboard in my series! My original first draft had much, much more drama and my lovely beta reader was like 'tone it down'
I'm lucky that I'll be able to fairly seamlessly add in the NSFW scene after a chapter next week! It all just lined up nicely for me
Awesome-sauce.
I've been nervous about my mature chapters. I'm still not sure how I should mark them, so I'm taking the if it's more than PG-13, to do so.
I write in an R-rated style, generally, solely from the use of curses words and themes, so being here has been some restraint.
Glad the scenes are folding in nicely. Isn't that such a lovely feeling?