Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

njc wrote:

There's a huge structure of logic tying it all together.  It's called theology and has been the source of disagreement and even war.  Though the war usually resulted when someone wanted to throw it all away and start over from a 'simpler' base.  That same urge has 'informed' our politics for some decades now.

Personally, I don't find any logic. But I'm not a believer.

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Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

That will be a problem if you ever want to write about Christianity, or about Christians.  Or Mormons, or Jews, or Muslims.  Systems of belief are just that--systems.  Orson Scott Card's Mormon upbringing and active belief lead him to argue that the real hero of LotR is not Frodo but Sam.  (He's got a case, and it's stronger built on his foundations.)  Martin Luther's beliefs led him to argue for driving Jews out of their homes (if they would not convert).  And thousands of people now are screaming that speech is violence, and that free speech is incompatable with justice.

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

NJ you are confusing knowledge with belief.
I know plenty, and, should I wish - unlikely - to write about any religious group, that is what research is all about.

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You said you found no logic.

I don't believe in the tenets of the Latter-Day Saints  but given those tenets, OSCard's conclusions about Frodo and Samwise make sense to me.  I can follow the logic even though I reject the premises.

155 (edited by Norm d'Plume 2018-04-20 02:24:19)

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Kdot wrote:
1 Peter 3:18 (FR)  wrote:

Christ aussi a souffert une fois pour les péchés, lui juste pour des injustes, afin de nous amener à Dieu, ayant été mis à mort quant à la chair, mais ayant été rendu vivant quant à l'Esprit...

Note that Spirit is capitalized and might translate better into Holy Ghost (After checking this I went back and checked. It seems it's likely capitalized in English too). Like being "baptized in the spirit" kind of means "baptized in the name of the Holy Ghost".

You speak French that well? Impressive. However, both Hebrew and Ancient Greek had only one case, so it's up to the people who did the translation. A quick check of the English-language Catholic Bible has it capitalized as well. Modern translations tend to go with Holy Spirit instead of Ghost.

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Ugh. One of my books that follows in the footsteps of Jesus is 500 pages on my cell phone. I sure hope it's shorter on my Kindle. So far I've read two of the five books I bought on this topic, although I have yet to transfer the notes into my Word file. Once those are done, I'm left with the Catholic New Testament study guide. I plan to read the whole thing, but I only need notes from the Gospels, which overlap the aforementioned books. Then the story outlines and my first chapter. Allowing for time to finish editing Galaxy Tales, I'm going to need six months. It should make it easier to write more quickly, though, once that's behind me. I'll probably need to research the Jewish Messiah and Islam's Mahdi before writing book two, but not nearly in this crazy level of detail. I'm debating whether the Antichrist can attack all three religions or, better yet, pit them against each other.

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

I finally figured out a way to handle the ton of notes I'm getting from the pilgrimage/tourist guides. Highlight them in Kindle and create a cross-reference by subject in my notes file for each book. There are probably fewer than fifty subjects I want to highlight (key events/miracles and details of their modern locations), so I don't have to spend weeks copying endless notes out of the books, none of which would be organized. I'll probably skip to the Gospels to create the list of subjects first, then come back to the guides to fill in the cross-references. Fortunately, I only recently began copying notes out of the guides, so I've only lost about a week.

I'll edit a chapter of Galaxy Tales before I dive into the NT study guide.

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Woohoo! Now tables work. I can put a row in a table for each major event in Jesus's life and put each of the five pilgrimage books in a column, then place cross-references in each cell. This also works for the four Gospels (one per column) in a separate table. Finally the chapter & scene outline, probably in plain linear note form, color-coded by scene POV character, of which there will probably be two throughout most of the book, except near the end of book one.

159 (edited by Norm d'Plume 2018-04-23 03:11:04)

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Turns out the Gospels are not all organized chronologically. Spent half a day hunting for an intelligible chronological ordering online. Finally found this: http://aschmann.net/BibleChronology/Chr … ospels.pdf
As expected, I identified fifty events that I may want to use in book one. Many are in the same place (mostly in Nazareth, Capernaum, around Galilee, and in Jerusalem).

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Too funny. There's a one hundred-year-old story about the end times called Lord of the World. Someone recently converted it to Kindle, and Pope Francis recommends reading it. It's very different from my series, so I don't plan on renaming mine. My next book will probably be one of the consolidated Gospels that weave all four Gospels together into one coherent story.

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

I stumbled on a book called The Single Gospel, which brings together the four gospels into one narrative in chronological order. I couldn't resist. Yet another book to read, Admittedly, this one should make it possible for me to quickly identify and organize all of the key events in Jesus's life, even more so than the brief pdf I noted above.

162 (edited by Norm d'Plume 2018-05-02 03:22:41)

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Yes! Converting the Single Gospel into a table of fifty key events in Jesus's life is done. In turn, the Single Gospel cross-references the original Gospels in case I want to see the original wording, which I probably only need for occasional Bible quotes. I've created a second table of the exact same events that I'll use to cross-reference the modern pilgrimage/travel guides, three of which I have yet to read. Unfortunately, one of those is 500 pages, twice the length of the Single Gospel. Since I'm totally sick of research, I'm going to start on the outlines for the novels while simultaneously slogging through the second table. I have a pretty good idea of how book one will unfold, and I know the climax for each book and the ending for book three. Somewhere, I also have to find time to read my Catholicism book (another 400 pages), which I'll use as a reference guide. Fortunately, I bought a printed version, which comes with an index.

I need a bigger desk...

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Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

bzzt!

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Yeah, no kidding. My Kindle purchases are driving up Jeff Bezos's net worth, although the order for a plastic storage unit for my office went to Wal-Mart. It's about the size of a mini fridge, weighs ten pounds, yet ships for just $6 via Canada Post. I bought two and got free shipping. How do they make money doing that? I paid almost $15 just to ship my tax papers with tracking.

If you're bored, I put up a cleaned up version of Joseph Meets Jesus in Galaxy Tales.

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

My outline for scene 1 of Saving Connor is done. I had originally planned on three scenes in the first chapter, but that makes it too long for reviewers. I'm debating just splitting all scenes into standalone chapters. That'll force me to come up with more chapter hooks, which is probably a good thing. There will be two interwoven threads running through the story, so it'll probably be similar to my Joseph/Apollo chapters, only I hope they'll be shorter.

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Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Keep up the running dialogue even though I don't respond every time. Its good to hear about your ongoing progress and I read every one.


A

167 (edited by Norm d'Plume 2018-05-17 17:44:18)

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Amy, I have a scene with a boy in an orphanage who is experiencing an epileptic seizure, including convulsions. His form of epilepsy is resistant to medication. Other than hold him down, is there anything else the people around him can do? Also, is there a medication that can be injected into him to reduce the severity of the convulsions (e.g., a tranquilizer)? What would they do for him if he was in a hospital? Once the seizure has passed, is it common to take him to a hospital for further observation?

Thanks
Dirk

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Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Valium is used to treat seizures. Or Ativan.

Protect his head and let him flop around otherwise. Protect and open the airway

People w frequent seizures don’t always go to the hospital as long as they don’t have serial seizures without waking up in between

169 (edited by Norm d'Plume 2018-05-19 03:20:55)

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

How do you protect/open the airway? Is there a medical doohickey that you push into their mouths for that?

EDIT: Found the manual resuscitator online. Since they know he's an epileptic, they'll keep one in his nightstand for emergencies. The nurse brings a syringe with valium, but he's already recovering by the time she arrives. He happens to recover just as Connor is saying a powerful prayer for him. Coincidence?

Thanks, Amy.

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Just spent the better part of a day researching the Italian police (I need detectives and a CSI team). I spent almost two hours trying to find reliable information about Italy's two national police forces, the state police and the Carabinieri. They have a lot of overlapping duties right down to responding to civil crimes. They are the result of Italy's dysfunctional political system. The best comparison I can make to our police is that the state police are a civil force while the Carabinieri are a military force. The Carabinieri are somewhat like the National Guard. Since they both have command stations in Rome, I needed to know who's in charge when a bishop or cardinal turns up dead. Finally found an article that said the state police are ultimately in charge in large urban centers, but the Carabinieri may be the only police force available in rural areas, so they're in charge in those areas, rather like the RCMP. Both the state police and the Carabinieri are truly national police forces, unlike us where each major city has its own independent police force.

Pretty slim pickings online about Italian law enforcement and even less about their CSI functions. I may have to borrow a few North American concepts. I have yet to figure out how to kill off a large number of clergy in serial killings without making it redundant or overly gruesome. Worse, a serial killer ought to result in a major taskforce, with all kinds of different police functions cooperating.

I also can't figure out what the damn Italian equivalent is of a detective, since they don't seem to use that title. They follow Interpol-like command ranks.

I hope CSI is available on Netflix.

171 (edited by Norm d'Plume 2018-05-25 16:51:53)

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Can someone please tell me why there is a comma in the following sentence: T i a thought they might have more landing areas closer to the centre, but couldn’t make any out. I lifted that sentence from Kdot, so I assume it's correct, but I can't find any online rules about this one.

Thanks
Dirk

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Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

I'd say this is a case of stylebook rules.  I go by global structure, so I don't see a need.  Still, if you want to put one in, that's the right place--the place where several levels of structure end and you resume the suspended structure above them.

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Thank you, sir.

Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Tomorrow I have to begin binge-watching murder/CSI-style shows to get up to speed on writing a compelling supernatural serial killing. Unfortunately, CSI (the series), Criminal Minds, and Law & Order are not available on Netflix in Canada. Found a bunch of stuff that looks promising, though. One revolves around the FBI and another around a new special team assembled in Europe to fight crime across borders in the EU.

If anyone knows of any good serial killer series or films, please let me know.

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Re: The Lord of the Earth - Dirk B.

Wasn't Dexter all about a serial killer?