Daily Archives: June 13, 2014

Jun 13 2014

Superstition Squared: Friday the 13th, Full Moon

Moon 13

Run for Your Lives!

Oh, no!

It’s Friday the 13th.

And in some places on earth, it was a full moon this morning.

You know what that means, don’t you?

Well…

…it means one of three things:

  1. If you walk under a ladder and there is a werewolf on the ladder, you’re in for the biggest chase of your life.
  2. If a black cat crosses your path and you turn into a werewolf, that might be the unluckiest dinner you ever eat.
  3. If you look at a mirror and it breaks, it means the werewolf you turned into is having a Medusa-level hair-day.

Why is it so rare?

  • There can be as many as 3 Friday the 13th’s in a calendar year.
  • There can be as many as 13 full moons in a calendar year. (Don’t let that number go to your head.)

Doesn’t it seem like it should be more common? The next one is set for 2049 (well, some times zones get “lucky” and will see it in 2017 or 2019).

Read all about it

  • Slate explains that it’s no more rare than, say, having a new moon on Monday the 22nd. (If you really want to get rare, try a blue moon on Easter Sunday!) This article also explains the time zone issue, and how some time zones will see this again much sooner.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/06/13/full_moon_and_friday_the_13th_not_so_rare_after_all.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

  • If you want to participate in some of the Facebook frenzy on this subject, here is a good place to start:

https://www.facebook.com/TheMindUnleashed/photos/pb.432632306793920.-2207520000.1402585736./737748626282285/?type=3&theater

  • Want to learn two new really long words for a couple of cool phobias (fear of Friday the 13th and fear of the moon)? Check out this article:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/13/321633197/its-friday-the-13th-and-there-was-a-rare-full-moon

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen

Jun 13 2014

The three reasons I have fallen in love with writing short stories

Here, a successful author shares how she has used short stories effectively. Series authors may be interested in the comments section, as I specifically asked how she handles short stories with her series (the answer surprised me, and the more I think about it, the more her strategy makes sense). Every author is unique, but it’s always helpful to study ideas that work for some authors.

M. Louisa Locke

stories_vol1_cover_1600x2400F-2I am the last author you would think would be writing short stories. As a writer who tends to be prolix, the short form wouldn’t seem a good match for me. I don’t write anything short––not emails, not blog posts, not books. Twitter, forget it––the most I can do is retweet those of you who are good at being succinct. I don’t even read many short stories, (except by 19th century writers like Alcott, Wharton, and James).

Yet, this spring I took time off from doing the research for Deadly Proof, the next book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, to write my third and fourth short stories, which are now part of a collection, Victorian San Francisco Stories, that I just published on Kindle, and I have every intention of putting out more short stories in the coming year.

So what happened?

Dandy Detects, my…

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