Weird Wednesday - Phaistos Disc and Rongorongo

Phaistos Disc - Side A
(click to supersize)

For some reason, I am fascinated by mysterious, undeciphered writing (check out Weird Wednesday - The Voynich Manuscript.) Today, we have not one, but two good mysteries from the Mythik Story Idea List And Weird Things File :)

The Phaistos Disc is, oddly enough, an approximately 3600 year old disc-shaped clay artifact discovered in Crete in 1908. Although the dating is imprecise, and some archeologists do think it is a hoax, it is generally accepted by the scientific community as the real deal.

It has symbols or "signs" in a spiral pattern on both sides. There are 45 unique signs that make up its "alphabet," and there are a total of 241 "tokens" made up of the signs. Many of the signs seem to represent people, faces, and objects such as weapons and tools. The signs have been compared to the symbols in Linear A and Anatolian and even Egyptian Hieroglyphics. There is even a theory that it may be the result of the world's first printing press. But so far, nobody has been able to come up with a conclusive translation.

Jon Mac On The Radio

Today I was on the Leo Laporte show, a nationally syndicated radio program about all things tech and geek ;) I've always loved listening to Leo and it was great fun to speak with him.

We talked about using older, manual focus lenses with new DSLR cameras. What does that have to do with writing, you ask? Heh, well I like to think of this blog as being about stories as much as writing, and A) storytelling is important in photographs and movies, and B) Using older lenses that are high quality and 1/10th the price of new ones is definitely in the Indy Author Spirit, and C) I'll be adapting some of the Mythik stories into movies using this technique ;)

Here's the snippet from the radio:

A lot of people are taking advantage of this combination of new and old tech in a lot of creative ways. It's definitely a fun pairing of retro and future :) Whether you're a reader, watcher, writer, or filmmaker, the "democratization" of creative technology only makes the world a better place.

The Moon

As you can see from the incredibly creative title of this post, today we'll be talking about the moon. Not just any moon, but earth's moon. We love our moon so much, we didn't even bother to give it a real name and just call it "The Moon." It's kind of like naming your dog, "Dog." But whatever, I guess it gets the job done.

If you've read this far, you're now probably expecting some amazing little known science facts about our nearest heavenly neighbor, or maybe some comical old superstitions or moon hoaxes. Nope! Instead, I'm going to make you look at a picture. (Click the images for full size)

The Moon - Taken with Canon T3i + Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f3.5
Notes: 210mm and 2X extender, plus 3X "lossless" center crop, f22, ISO 1600
Shot as 1080p video @ 30fps - image is about 100 stacked frames

Storytelling Is Time Travel

This is why there is so much construction
on the freeway of my daily commute.

I'm the last person who would tell somebody how to write stories. But I was (sort of) asked. So here goes:

We're already 10/365ths (or 0.027397260 for you math whizzes) into the new year. So most of the yearly future predictions have already been predicted (December is that magical portal in-between the "Top-[insert number here]" lists of what has already happened and the "Top-[insert number here]" of what might happen - the internet loves lists even more than usual at this time of year.) How does this possibly relate to writing stories, you ask?

A Mythik New Year

Happy New Year, everybody! The ol' Mythik Blog has been neglected for a while, but the Underwater Cave-dwelling Sea Monkeys who write this stuff are back to work and have their typewriters warmed up and ready to go.

November was very busy with NaNoWriMo, and although I didn't "win," I did get 45k or so words, which I considered a success and a very good start to the Land Of Lor novel. It is shaping up to be a very fun twist on classic, personal Sword & Sorcery combined with an overall Epic Fantasy feel. Although the main characters and plot lines have been in my head for many years, it has already taken a few unexpected turns resulting in several painted-in plot corners, ha ha. I was so busy writing, I didn't keep up with the planned blog updates. Oh well, it's a trade-off I'll accept :)

December was busy with lots of work at the day job and, of course, family and holiday time. I was able to do a test shoot of video for an upcoming Weird West Thriller.

Screen grab from video test shoot. T3i camera with 30 year old Kiron 28mm lens @ f2.

Weird Wednesday - Flying Humanoids Over Mexico

Today's Weird Wednesday is a special guest post from M. Pax, a talented SF&F writer who also enjoys the occasional bit of weirdness. Be sure to check out her always interesting blog posts at Wistful Nebulae and her website, which has tons of cool stuff. Let the weirdness begin, M. Pax:

Reports have been cropping up of terrifying encounters with flying “humanoids” in Mexico. One of the most fascinating reports comes from a police officer in Monterrey. He says he was attacked in January 2004 by a flying entity draped in black.

NANO Day 1

Well it was a busy weekend and even busier last couple of days. Here's the first day of #NaNoWriMo, and I'm already exhausted ;)

But did get over 2k words written :)

Don't worry, I won't post every day, just milestones haha.