Creative Currency and Food

When I was world building for Woven, I hated coming up with money methods for my different countries. It just seemed like one of those nitpicky features that really weren’t going to come up much. Then I started writing my book, and realized how often I was using money. Food was a little more fun, because I’m a glutton and I like to talk about what sort of food other people are eating. A lot.

These two topics, of course, have absolutely everything to do with each other. That’s why I chose to group them together instead of giving each their own post. How rich a society is will dictate what sort of food is most common. I know that if I’ve got fifty bucks to get groceries for one week, and a hundred for the next, those two weeks are going to have vastly different menus. (Lots of hot dogs and peanut butter in week one. Maybe some fish and pork chops in week two. Either week, there will be potatoes, because potatoes are awesome and cheap.)

As for money, how people come about their money and what sort of money they have are both things you’ll want to consider. Personally, I went with a really simple method, different shaped coins of precious medals. In my main country, called Septa, I called the coins Octs, after Octavian the first, their first king. In another country people trade coins with numerical symbols that are mealy representative of the gold that the government keeps locked up (Like I used to think we did in America.) A third country uses only bartering, except for traders, who trade in other countries coins. I tried to keep it simple, and to alleviate my own irritation, had one of my main characters constantly messing the coins up and giving people too much and too little money.

Both money and food are going to be largely dictated by four main parts of your society.

Climate.

Obliviously climate and weather are going to have a ton to do with the food your people eat. If they’re near the ocean, fish is their meatloaf. If they’ve got nothing but farmland, there’s going to be a rich diet of vegetables. If it’s cold, stews and canned things will be a staple. If it’s warm, people are pretty big on salads. You get the picture.

When it comes to money, consider what sort of minerals and stones might be mined in your areas. Now, I was more interested in telling the story of a boy who weaves than making up new metals, so I stuck with real ones like gold, copper, silver. You don’t have to do that. Maybe there’s some great metal that these people use for their money, and it’s extra heavy, or knows who its real owner is. Make it fun. Or, you can make it realistic. I know that gold and copper can be mined in Europe and Russia, the two main countries that my world is based on. So, I stuck with that.

Type of People.

What sort of person you are will make a difference in the food you put in your mouth. In fact, it will likely be the biggest indicator of what sort of food your people eat.
* Is there a prevalent faith that makes certain food taboo, like Hindu or Judaism?
* Do people drink alcohol?
* Do they have the extra income and resources to have sweets?
* How much time to they have to make food each day? Is there a mother or father home to bake bread and stew? Or is it more a matter of convenience?
* Are there restaurants, and bakeries?

We’ll ask similar questions about money.
* Does the prevalent faith have rules about giving tithing, or donating to the poor?
* Are people well off enough to indulge in sweets and booze?
* Do people invest in things like art, education or land?

And here’s the real big one. What can a person own in this world that would make them be seen as wealthy?

Relations with other people.

No world exists alone, much as China and North Korea would like to think they can. Your world will likely have multiple countries, unless there’s a reason why.

Now, food is something that is defined by its source. French wine, German sausage, Swiss chocolate, British tea. Then there’s food that you just know where it comes from. Sushi, haluski, lasagna, haggis. You know what country that food comes from. If you’ve got a neighboring country that has a distinctive dish, and it shows up in your country, you can assume they are now or have been friendly.

Money’s the same way. If you can change money from a country in a bank in your country, they were probably on good terms. If someone from your country pulls out a coin and someone from another country has never seen one like it before, they probably aren’t.

Social interactions.

In my hometown, people get together in homes and bars over sports. We drink beer, and eat hot wings. Some people like to gather over wine, some like to collect at coffee shops. Food and drink is a big part of social gatherings.

And what kind of social gathering someone goes to will often depend on what kind of money they have. Rich people gather over good wine and fine cheese with artisan bread. People in my financial bracket meet over beer and pretzels.

What it comes down to is this; show, don’t tell. Do not tell us that your country is wealthy, in a cold district that mines gold. Show me your character ordering a fine buttered rum with a gold coin.

Writing 101, day 20?!

Oh, wow, it’s the last day? I know we’ve only been doing this for a month, but somehow it still feels like the end of the school year, you know? I’m so excited to hear that we’re going to be doing this again in the summer.

So anyway, a post about my prized possession.

Hard to say, honestly. I’ve got my tablet that I depend on for writing, the day job and everything in between. Then there’s my massive collection of books, that I love.

Then, there is my bag. My writing bag. I bought it a year after I moved out of my mothers house. It’s an LL Bean bag, and it was $50.00. I have never spent so much money on something for myself that wasn’t electronic, and I’d never spent so much on myself before that. It’s canvas, and has a strap with real leather attachments and it made me feel very grown up. I’ve been carrying it ever since. I used to use it as a diaper bag. When my daughter was big enough to walk, but not big enough to walk the whole way home, I would put her on top of it, and carry her home. When she outgrew that, I covered the top portion in geek pins.

This bag was one of the first things I ever earned with money I bought that was big. It matters to me, and it still does.

But that’s not the most important thing.

The most important thing in my house is a ratty, old paperback copy of Bag of Bones by Steven King. It’s a good story. If you’ve never read it, you should. But it’s what it represents to me that matters more.

When I was sixteen, I sold my first piece of writing, a poem. It paid ten dollars, on Paypal. I’d earned money before, washing dishes and cleaning. But this was the first time I’d ever been paid for my work, my real work. That paperback books is important to me, because it represents the first time someone valued my writing enough to pay me for it.

This has been so much fun, guys. I’ve loved meeting so many of you, and I loved seeing some really great new blogs. Don’t be strangers.

Writing Prompt Saturday- Hometown

What can you tell me about your hometown?  I bet you ask anyone that question, and you’ll get a flood of stories.  some will be good, some will be horrifying.  Some, like mine, will be about this crazy guy who chased me off his porch with a shotgun while campaigning.  The guy had a taxidermy squirrel on his porch.  I should have known better, the blame lies with me, honestly.

The point is, our hometowns have a significant effect on who we are.  The same goes for your characters.

So, what’s your main characters hometown like?  What sort of stores, restaurants, and jobs are there?  Is this an average town in the world you’re building, or is it unusual in some way?

Does your main character like her hometown?  Or could she not wait to shake the dirt of the place from her shoes?  What about your character would let someone else in the world know she’s from that town?

Try to come up wit as much detail as possible, especially if your book isn’t set in the real world.  What’s an average hometown look like in a world where gargoyles walk around and mermaids live in the village fountains?

Plans for May, World building

You deserve to know, right off the bat, that this month is going to be sort of heavy on fantasy writing.  If you write fantasy, you’ll love it.  if not, I’ll be doing my best keep it relevant to all fiction writing.  At the very least, I’ll be telling jokes.  You guys like my jokes, right?  Right?!

World building is so much fun.  I mean, you get to make your own rules for how your world is going to work.  So many, in fact, that I easily had more than a month worth of topics to cover, so I had to pick my favorite.

This month we’ll talk about,

  • Currency and food.
  • Weather, clothing and map making.
  • Languages and literature.
  • Calendars.
  • And of course, it wouldn’t be a month of world building if I didn’t offend someone by talking about religion.

Of course, we’ll have our normal collection of great new blogs and apps.  I’ll be dissecting some new poetry forms and giving you some fun exercises to build your fantasy world.  Are you excited?  I am.

Market- Second Hand Smoke

This is an anthology that is really close to my heart, and since I finally finished Starting Chains, I’ll be sending a piece in.  Second hand smoke is an anthology dedicated to raising awareness about the dangers of second hand smoke.

This one really hits home for me, guys.  My mom was a smoker, and I can tell you, it effected my life.  Like I was only five pounds and almost didn’t make it to my first birthday effected.  If you’ve got a story like mine, try it out here.

Genre- Nonfiction, about the effects of second hand smoke.  Preferably personal anecdotes.

Word Count-Not specified

Submission Date- September 15

Wait time- Not specified

Payout- Publication

Check the full submission guideline here.  You’ll be sending your submissions to   annette.kraus@gmail.com

This is a really important topic, guys.  Let’s help get the word out.

Any luck with this market, or any other?  Let me know at nicolecluttrell86@gmail.com, and I’ll post it on the monthly brag board, on the last day of the month. 

Writing 101, Day Nineteen

Day 19, freewrite 400 words

Well, that’s not hard.  I am famous for not being able to shut up, not having a problem starting.

So, let’s see.  Right now I’m sitting at my awesome desk, with my daughter’s rats on my shoulder.  She’s cleaning their cage, and needed sitting.  I guess this will be funny in like twenty years when I’m babysitting for her.

It’s the same desk in the picture of my rough draft.  Man, I’m still proud about that.  Took me so long to finish Starting Chains, when the rough draft of the first book took no longer than six weeks.

To be fair, nothing was going right or going on when I wrote Patterns.  Starting Chains was written after PBW was in full swing, and I had a bunch of other story telling opportunities in the making.  Looking back, I think I’m going to shut everything else down when I write the rough draft of the next book.  Maybe write all my articles for a month in advance, and work just on the draft.  Really pour ever bit of my creative energy on that one project for just as long as it takes.

Maybe.  As much as I’d like to think my brain works that way, I’d probably get bored.  No matter how many projects I have in motion, I always want to do something new.  I’ve got a ton going on, now I want to take a day off to learn about ways to boost my twitter following.  I have so many plans, so many ideas, that I can’t ever really focus on one long enough.

Honestly, I don’t know how I’ve managed to write two books in the same series already.  Except for the fact that it’s the series that saved me.

In September of 2013, something really bad happened to my family.  I’d made an outline for Broken Patterns, and made maybe a token effort at writing it.  Then, my whole world flipped over.  Nothing was going right in my life, and it all got worse for the next few months.  The only thing that was going right, that made me feel in control, was my writing.  I finished the last 500 pages in two weeks.  As we went through a nightmare that included my husband nearly dying, a horrible custody fight, and a less than congenial parting of the ways with my old day job, my writing was my escape.  My safety net after days and days of tears and torture.

Brag Board for April, 2015

Welcome, my beloved readers, to the first ever Paper Beats World Brag Board! I am so excited to start this brand new, once a month event where we get to talk about the awesome things we did this month!

Did you finish something big?
Did you make a sale, and want to let us know where your work’s going to be published?
Did you just graduate, get married, have a baby?
Did you write something on your blog that you’re super proud of, and you want to share?

Then let us know! All month long you can e-mail me anything great you did this month, and I’ll put it up on the board. If you’re getting this late, never fear! Just tell us about your awesome accomplishment in the comment sections below. Feel free to add links back to your own blog, too.

Brags for the month-

Me- I finished the rough draft of Starting Chains, Book one of Woven. Finally. I’ve been working on it since November, and it is such a relief to have it done.

I also wrote two really cool short stories. I can’t wait to get them edited.

So, what did you do this month?

Check This Out- Just a Girl and Her Blog

So, this is a super exciting Check This Out for me because, (dum da da da!) this is the blog that inspired me to get into blogging. I would read Just a Girl and Her Blog every time it updated, and I’d think; this is such a cool way to connect with people. maybe even help them get on the path they want to be on. I want to do that, but do I really have the time? Wait, this lady’s got two very little sons, and she’s got time for all this? No way I’ve got any excuse.

Just A Girl and her Blog doesn’t have a lot to do with writing fiction. But it does have a lot to do with managing your life around being a parent, and working, and working at home, around kids. Essentially, this is the blog that helps me do the things I need to do to keep things running.

We’re writers, and that’s a pretty freaking awesome thing to be. But that isn’t all we are. We’re also parents, students, employees, spouses, friends, daughters and sons. There will never be a day when I am only a writer, so I’ve got to have some help with the life around me. If I can learn a cool trick to limit how much time I spend on housework, the I’ve got more time to spend on writing.

Also on this blog, I find all sorts of cool things about self publishing. The author has written a couple, and she loves to share all the things she’s learned.

Some great articles to check out-

* 5 ways going paperless has improved our lives
* Hit me With Your Best Shot
* How to make money blogging

Writing 101, Day 18

The Neighbor Lady

The world always seemed like a less than sturdy place to Addison. He never really found that, day by day, anything stayed very constant. The jobs his mom went to were always changing, right along with the men she brought home. Some were nice and some weren’t, both jobs and men, but none lasted very long. The friends he made, what few he could make at his dark and sort of dangerous school, came and went. When they went it was often to juvenile hall, or the special school for kids with problems. One girl had gone to live with her aunt, and no one would tell Addison why, or why she came back a year later, seeming sad.
The neighbors came and went too. No one moved to this end of town because they wanted to, and they got out as soon as they could.
Except for Mrs. Pauley. She’d been there a long time before Addison and his mom had moved there. According to some of the kids he’d met the first week there, they were all gone now, she’d always been there. Addison didn’t really see much of her. Sometimes he’d see Mr. Pauley putter around the garden, but then he died and wasn’t there anymore. Her sons had come around a lot for a month or so after that.  One of them showed up with a moving truck, and Addison was sure that Mrs. Pauley would be leaving then. The final constant in his little life, shattered.
But she hadn’t left. Instead, she’d had a very loud shouting match with her son right in front of the building. “The presumption!” she screamed, “To think that you can just drag me out of my home, because you think I can’t be trusted left alone to my own devices! I am your mother, Anthony, and I took care of you for twenty two years! I guess I can take care of myself for just as long as I want to hold on!”
“Ma, don’t I know you took care of me for twenty two years!” the son named Anthony yelled while Addison watched from his bedroom window. “That’s why you ought to let me take care of you, now!”
Addison didn’t know what sort of reaction Anthony had wanted from that, but the one he got was for his mother to break a dish over his head. Word must have gotten around to the other five brothers, because none of them dared try that trick.
So old Mrs. Pauley stayed, while the only other constant was the pusher on the corner. Addison like this pusher. He wouldn’t sell to kids, and he didn’t harass the girls as much as the last one. Addison hoped he stuck around for awhile, but he didn’t think he would.
Time passed. Mom got a new job, then a new boyfriend. The new boyfriend soon resulted in the loss of the new job. The loss of the job soon resulted in the loss of the boyfriend. It didn’t seem to matter much to Mom, and it sure didn’t matter to Addison. He hadn’t even bothered to remember the man’s name.
The new pusher stuck around. He was there the night the cops showed up at Mrs. Pauley’s place.
Addison was outside, covering the cement steps with chalk. The rain would come and wash it away in the night, but that was the one thing Addison didn’t mind changing, because he could make it all new again once the cement dried.
The officers came, and Addison knew there was trouble when he saw Mrs. Hubbard with them. “The old bitch,” was what his mom called the woman who owned the whole block, including the buildings that Addison and Mrs. Pauley lived in.
He watched as Mrs. Hubbard marched up to the door, looking very much like she thought well of herself in her fake pearls and cheap cardigans, and hammered on the door.
Mrs. Pauley answered. She, Addison thought, really did look like she had reason to think well of herself, though Addison had never thought of it that way before. Perhaps it was just the stark comparison between the two women. Mrs. Pauly stood straight, wearing a sweater and slacks that were no double older than Addison himself, but so well cared for, so as to not need replacing with money that Mrs. Pauley would have preferred to spend on her children.
“Can I help you?” Mrs. Pauley asked, clasping her hands together in front of her.
“Don’t act like you didn’t know we were coming,” Mrs. Hubbard snapped, shaking her head. “You haven’t paid your rent in three months. I send you letters telling you that this was coming.”
“I told you, I have to wait for Mr. Pauley’s life insurance,” Mrs. Pauley said. “I don’t have any money until then.”
Mrs. Hubbard crossed her arms over her cheap cardigan. “I’m sorry, but that’s not my problem. Everyone’s got bills. I’ve got taxes to pay on this building, and I’ve got to pay for the upkeep.”
“But you’ve never spent a dime on the upkeep of this place, not since the day you inherited it from your mother.” Mrs. Pauley said. “And she never paid a dime for the upkeep since the day my husband and I move in. When the pipes burst in the winter, my husband fixed them, and paid for the supplies. When that crazy man upstairs shot through the wall, my husband patched the hole for you.”
“I never asked him to do that,” Mrs. Hubbard said, but she looked a little pink.
“No,” Mrs. Pauley said, standing taller that Addison would have thought her five feet would allow. “You didn’t have to. I didn’t think I would have to ask you for some patience now.”
Mrs. Hubbard seemed to swell up. She turned to the officers, and said, “Aren’t you going to do your jobs?”
An officer tipped his hat to Mrs. Pauley. “I hate to do this, Ma’am, but she’s within her rights. You ignored the letters she sent, and she’s got them registered. I’m going to have to ask you to come with us.”
“But this is my home,” Mrs. Pauley said, “It’s always been my home.”
One of the officers set a hand on her arm. It wasn’t a stern hand, but it was insistent. It seemed to say that he would be as gentle about doing his job as Mrs. Pauley allowed him to be.
“Hold up,” the pusher called from the sidewalk, and ran over to them.
Addison held his breath, and the officers put their hands on their pistols. The pusher held his hands up, and walked up the stairs. “Grab my wallet out of my back pocket,” he said to one of the officers. The man did so, flipped it open, nodded, and handed it back to the pusher.
“Mrs. Hubbard, I think you need to give Mrs. Pauley some time,” the pusher said. “In fact, if you don’t want anyone to know about some of the ‘tenets’ you keep in the the rooms above your bar, the ones who seem to have a lot of guests who only stay for an hour every night, you should wait just as long as it takes her, Madam.”
Mrs. Hubbard blushed. Addison smiled, and went inside.
Not much was constant in Addison’s neighborhood. Just the pusher on the corner, and Mrs. Pauley.

Writing 101, Day Seventeen.

Today’s Prompt: We all have anxieties, worries, and fears. What are you scared of? Address one of your worst fears.

My worst fear used to be spiders.  I don’t like them, they skitter.  These days, though, my worst nightmare is something terrible happening to my daughters.  More specifically, something happening to my daughters, and it being my fault.

Wouldn’t that be the worst?  Like it wouldn’t be bad enough that my child was gone, but having to live with the fact that I did it for the rest of my life.

Fortunately, my kids have been pretty safe.  Even so, I was  a typical scared mommy for the first few years.  I remember one time my older daughter sprayed cleaner in her mouth.  I had a panic attack, and called the poison control center, who’s number I had on every single bottle in the house.  “Alright, Ma’am, what kind of cleaner was it?” the very calm lady asked me.  (And God bless her.  Can you imagine having that job?  I wonder how many lives she helps save every day, but you know there’s the one that haunts her.)  “Um,” I replied, “Clorox Green Works.”

“Isn’t that just orange oil, and some acids?” the lady asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

snort.  Okay, have her drink some water, and keep an eye out for vomiting.  Have a nice day.”  So yeah, let’s here it for all natural cleaners.

I calmed down a lot, enough that when my older one rolled down a flight of stairs in her winter coat, I managed to stay calm long enough to realize she was just fine.  The coat cushioned her, and she didn’t even have a bruise.  She wanted to do it again.

When I first started hanging out with my husband, it amazed me how protective he was over our younger girl.  He babied her, and was constantly telling her not to do things because it was too dangerous.  He got over it eventually, but it took him longer.

Even so, that fear is there.  Are they okay playing outside alone?  Should I let her read that book?  Who is she e-mailing, has she e-mailed them too much?  Who is calling her?  What’s going on when my girls aren’t in my line of sight?  There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t have at least one moment of worry over one of my girls.

It will never end, that’s the thing.  The girls will grow up, and then my real worry will start.  What are they doing in college?  Are they working too hard, too little?  Are they seeing someone who will be good to them, and are they being good girlfriends?  What about when they get married?  Have I taught them enough to be good wives?  Are their spouses being good to them?  What about their babies?  Are they good mommies?  Are they taking time to take care of themselves?  They won’t tell me, I know.  How am I supposed to know if there’s a nervous breakdown just a second away from that smile?

My fears will never end.  I will always be afraid for my daughters.  Goes with the territory, I guess.  Got to say, spiders don’t bother me much anymore.

A WordPress.com Website.

Up ↑