Friday at work I stumbled over a fact: Atomic bombs have been used in shooting a seismic profile. 40 of them. 'Peaceful'. Not technically wrong, but... just but. Colour me stunned into speechlessness.
Holy crap, there's a vaccine for chicken pox? And there has been for over twenty years? This just totally slipped by me, I thought we were still using the traditional methods of "infected children available for scheduled epidemics." Excellent.
OMG time flies. The vaccine has actually been in use for 30 years but was only licensed in the US in '95.
I think I was seven years old when I had chicken pox. I found the first ones on my wiener. That's all.
I was too young to remember when I had chicken pox, but I do have a couple of small scars from it on my inner thigh. See? Right there.
So it was in use when chicken pox killed my stepsister? She caught it in her mid-twenties, it got into her bloodstream and lungs, and... well, yeah. That sucks.
That is so sad. I'm so sorry to hear that. Vaccine campaigns targeted adults that hadn't had chicken pox because it is so much worse for adults. But it's hard to reach everyone all at once.
Yeah, we weren't close (our parents married each other when we were both adults), and nobody is anti-vax or anything, she just must not have known about the option or something. Oh well.
Wow. I am so sorry to hear that, @Iain . That sucks. And, thank you for sharing that, because it was important information for people to see. @GingerCoffee I did not know the chicken pox vaccine was an option for adults who have never had it! Thank you for including that info. In Googling, apparently there is a blood test for people who don't know if they've ever had chicken pox. I'm 70% sure I have not had it; if so, it was such a mild case no one recognized it. I'm immune impaired, so these things are important to know. Probably important for a lot of other people reading this, too. @Iain Aschendale & @GingerCoffee , this really is the epitome of "things you didn't know you didn't know"!
I remember having chicken pox. I was off school for a week and I was really worried that they'd think I'd gone on holiday without permission (I was six, I worried about these things) and then I went back when I was no longer infectious (and no longer feeling like crap, obviously) but before my spots had healed up, so no-one wanted to go near me. Fun times. As I'm sure you can imagine, I was the popular kid at school.
Chicken pox has a very specific incubation, contagious, and visible period that I don't remember exactly, but I do know that when I got it in high school, I was able to call in sick a week or so in advance. My sister (not step, full) had purpose-babysat some kids who were in the contagious stage, so we could count on the calendar and tell when I'd be entering it to within a day or so. That was a weird talk with my boss.
Allow me to add a bit to that: ~30% of people don't get a rash with chicken pox infection. More than 90% of adults have had chicken pox (milage may vary now that the vaccine is in use). Recommendation: if you are an adult that has not had chicken pox, get a blood test to see if you truly have not had it. And if you have not, then get the vaccine. But it is a live vaccine, so a person with an immune deficiency needs some good advice if a blood test shows they are not immune. VZIG (other people's antibodies) can be given to people after an exposure if they don't have a vaccine option. Prevention of Varicella - Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)
From an equestrian, thank you for realizing that! I can't tell you how frustrating it can be reading a book where horses are clearly just another prop. There is so much that goes into horse and rider communication, never mind the physical aspects of different breeds, disciplines and tack, that gets left out and it can make things rather flat.
Yes indeed. And while you can easily write books set in the modern day and not include horses at all, you really can't write about any time in western history prior to the 20th century and leave them out. They were as ubiquitous and important as cars, tractors, buses, trains and all sort of other forms of land transportation are today. However, horses are NOT machines, and can't be ridden or driven as if they are. And I really needed to learn—especially how they were used and cared for in city environments. People still keep horses on farms and ranches, but not so much within cities any more. I didn't dare take any information for granted.
Totally agree with you. Nothing annoys me more than a lazy attitude towards research, or a writer thinking the little bit of knowledge (or idea) is 'good enough.' Good enough—until somebody points out that your plot turns on some so-called 'facts' that couldn't actually have happened.
I agree with @Shenanigator on this. If you're going to set the story in an identifiable town, you really need to get the details as correct as you can. If you want to make impossible things happen, you can fictionalise the location to be similar to the town, however. Nobody would mind if that lighthouse was unmanned, and the characters conducted their shenanigans (!) in it on the dates Shenanigator needs for his plot ...if the town had a fictional name. The size of the 'real town' really matters. If you concoct a fictional street in, say, London, nobody is going to kick as long as the main identifiable details are correct. (Get the date of some indentifiable event wrong, however, and you'll be sorry you were born!) However, concoct a street in a small, named town, or invent some structure or some business that doesn't exist? If the town actually exists? I wouldn't do it. Same with the kind of detail he's included about the lighthouse. Folks from the area will know that stuff, and it will hurt your reputation as a writer whom the readers can trust. Get that kind of historical detail wrong, and what else have you screwed up? Why bother using a real location if you don't actually care about what makes it real? You can justify your decision by saying it's a tiny town and not very many people will notice or care, but it's hard to draw the line on that kind of thinking. What other details will you just handwave into existence? I think this kind of attitude can lead to really sloppy writing. Fictionalising the name of the place solves SO many problems of this nature—and lets you get on with the story as you've conceived it. Folks who identify with that KIND of town will be happy, and those who don't know any better will be taken by the quality of your writing. It's a win-win.
Which is why you say in the bit from author at the end - readers who know XYZ town will note that the light house wasnt open to the public until ... Lazy research is not knowing that yourself, Intelligent decision making is not letting your story be held captive by an inconvenient minor fact that your research has uncovered. If you read Barry Eisler he does it a lot with Tokyo - a town he clearly knows very well - and in the back matter he'll say that "those who know toyko will note that blah blah blah and he gets respect from his readers for his detailed knowledge
Arthur C. Clarke moved Ceylon by a few degrees for Fountains of Paradise, acknowledged it in the author's note.
That's pretty much what I did with my book Sheriff of Casterbridge - I based it on a real place, but changed the horses, y'know? ..and also Ted of the D'Ubervilles
I see what you're saying, but I'd rather just insert the correct word or phrase or terminology into the story instead of writing an entire essay at the end in the author's notes. Both methods require research; the latter requires even more writing and editing. I'm not planning to even have the author's note, unless a publisher expressly requires it. Just acknowledgments.
The climax of one of my books hinges on me opening a theatre two years early. Everything else matches up and that was the only way I could swing it.
