Werewolve

Feran the blacksmith was a good man. Freckled, red-haired, Scottish and a blacksmith. He wasn't going to be breaking any stereotypes anytime soon, but he was well loved and his weapons and tools that he hammered and shaped were of great quality. He was a perfectionist, only allowing the very best swords, arrow tips, and even hinges to be sold or used.

This is why none noticed when he started to nitpick at even the slightest problem. This link of chain was asymmetrical, this sword's blade was chipped by the tip, this nail is slightly bent.

And then he started coughing. No one's sure when he got bitten, or how, but they know it only started to become suspicious when his occasional cough turned into a hacking fit, and soon he would have to leave the smithy to cough. He was clearly in a daze, the virus infecting him and already starting to transform him.

I just wish someone had noticed! Now there's one more wolf running around, and if I have to go back to Feran's wife and three children with the news that he was killed by poachers... oh boy...

Anyway, the next night, they heard the door creak open, and all they could find of Feran was a trail of blood leading off into the forest. The news spread quickly
"FERAN'S BEEN BITTEN! FERAN'S BEEN BITTEN!" shouted people everywhere, running through streets and alleys full of shops to alert the village.

And then turned up Mrs. Calloway. Or, her coffin, in any case. Ripped to pieces, her grave dug up, no sign of her newly-buried body until the next day, when her half-eaten carcass showed up in the river, face half-skinned and seeming to screech in hate for the creature who'd done this to her.

I sighed, I have to do it now. I could see Feran, or the werewolf formerly known as Feran. He was marking a tree, running his razor sharp claws down it and sniffing the air in an unhappy snarl, and hadn't caught site of me. I stroked the ash leaf around my neck to reassure myself, grabbed shining pair of silver nails I always keep with me, and took a deep breath.
"You! You big-eared, squirrel-tailed slob! C'mere!" I shouted, quite un-lady-like -- but since when have I ever pretended to be a gentlewoman? The wolf turned around snarling and spitting with rage.
"Yeah, you! Y' thick-skulled id't!" He beared his teeth and charged, as angry as a werewolf could be.
I jumped neatly out of the way, adrenaline pumping through my veins and heart beating with the risk of it all. I just told myself that I would not get bitten. I wouldn't let myself. Feran skidded to a halt and spun around, leaping on all fours towards me. I readied my silver nails, glanced down at my ash leaf necklace and drew a quick breath in. It was scary, but exhilarating, this. I sidestepped right in time, and as Feran stumbled past I grabbed his dirty, wiry fur and tugged. He yelped and growled with anger, trying to spin around and bite or scratch me. Again I told myself I would not let myself be bitten, and with a quick and clever move I'd been perfecting since midwinter last year, I had the wolf on his back, my hand on his neck to stop him from rising, my body on his, pinning the werewolf down. I imagined how awkward this must look to someone, and blushed, but pushed the thought away and concentrated on the task at hand.
"Sorry" I whispered into his ear as I bent down close to his head.
I grabbed a nail, pinning down one of the werewolf's paws with it, and in one quick motion pushed the nail down into the wolf's hand.
As a new hunter I would've winced, but I didn't as the werewolf thrashed and yowled in pain as blood gushed from the wound and covered my hand. Quickly switching positions, I instead sat on the wolf's injured arm, hand again across his neck, and reached out to drive the other nail into Feran's other paw. I drove it in hard as poor old Feran redoubled his efforts of howling and yelping. I held the nail there, then quickly got up, grabbing both nails and skipping away from the werewolf. Feran just curled up into a ball, yelping and thrashing around on the forest floor. I took a whistle out of my tunic and blew on it, the piercing sound traveling through the woods and soon I heard the crunching and rustling of Beron and Milter approaching. The two figures, Beron with his white and black speckled hair and strong arms and Milter with his scruffy brown hair and lean frame, pushed through the bushes and appeared with ropes and bandages for the wolf.
"You got Feran!" Milter said with joy. "I'll be glad when he's back to making us silver nails and ash leaves and that sort of thing!"
I didn't reply, just stepped back and let them do all the work of bandaging and disarming Feran. As they bound his wounds and tied his paws and jaws together, I took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from my forehead -- succeeding only in smearing werewolf blood across my face. But what mattered was only that Feran was cured, or almost cured at least, and I would soon be able to return the poor man to his family, and as a human -- not a wolf or a corpse.

If only Beron or one of the others could've done that for me. Me and poor father and Viola...

I sighed.

Wondrous Wednesday: Indian Pangolin

Alright, I admit it, I forgot. Yesterday I was all: OH MY GOD TOMORROW IS WEDNESDAY FIND AN ANIMAL TO WRITE ABOUT. And this morning I was like: OH MY GO-- what what was I being excited about yesterday?

Yeahhhh...

Welp, better late than never, eh? I present to you: THE INDIAN PANGOLIN!

The Indian Pangolin (Manis Crassicaudata)
Or Thick-Tailed Pangolin
Conservation Status: Near Threatened

The Indian Pangolin is a Pangolin that lives in the plains and hills of India, Sri Lanka, and some parts of Pakistan. It's not common anywhere in it's range, and is hunted for meat, blood and for making medicinal oil.

"We keep them alive in cages until the customer makes an order. Then we hammer them unconscious, cut their throats and drain the blood. It is a slow death. We then boil them to remove the scales. We cut the meat into small pieces and use it to make a number of dishes, including braised meat and soup. Usually the customers take the blood home with them afterwards."

Pangolin populations have also suffered from illegal trafficking. In May 2007 31 Pangolins were found aboard an abandoned vessel off the coast of china.

The name Pangolin derives from the Malay word "Pengguling", meaning "Something that rolls up". There are eight species of Pangolins alive today, living in parts of Africa and Asia. Pangolins have large Keratin scales covering their skin that are soft when they are young and harden as they age, and are the only mammals with such an odd feature.
Pangolins are nocturnal animals and use their good sense of smell to find insects to eat.

Pangolins were classified with various orders, including Xenartha, which includes Anteaters, Sloths and Armadillos, but new genetic evidence suggests that their closest living relatives are actually in the family Carnivora.

Pangolins can curl up into a ball when threatened, much like an Armadillo, their scales acting as armor and extra defense as they are quite sharp. Their front claws are so long, being meant for digging into termite mounds and climbing, that it is hard for them to walk with them, so they instead walk with their forepaws curled over to protect their claws. Pangolins can also emit a foul smelling acid, similar to the spray of a skunk.

In Pangolins, the section of their brain that relates to problem solving is highly developed, and while this is usually used to find food in the wild, captive Pangolins are extremely good escape artists. Pangolins also lack teeth and the ability to chew, so instead they rip open ant- or termite-hills with their claws and lick the insects out. Some species also use their claws to tear away the bark of certain trees to get to insect nests underneath.

Pangolins reach sexual maturity at two years of age, and the Indian Pangolin usually has one to three babies in a litter.

In Kerala, the Indian Pangolin is called "Eenampechi", in Sinhala it is "Kaballewa" and in Tamil it is the "Azhungu" or "Alangu". The lifespan of any Pangolin in the wild is unknown, but they have been reported to live for as long as 20 years in captivity.

--
Images from Google
[More about Pangolins]

Well, this was a hard one to put together, seeing as there is little known and even less on the internet about Pangolins, but hopefully I've made someone aware of this crazy little creature and how odd and cool it is.

Until next time, unless I forget, happy odd-animal-hunting!

Inspiration

You can't force inspiration, but you can push it away. You just have to wait for it, and when it comes, you better be damn well ready with a pen and paper and some harsh self-critique. You can invite it -- by reading books, or talking with other writers, or listening to soundtracks to music... but in the end, you just have to wait, not impatiently, not even consciously, maybe. You just have to wait. And when inspiration comes, you have to write like crazy -- that first burst of energy and ideas is something rare, precious, and ephemeral, even if it is riddled with typos and cliche' things. So once you have an idea -- write, write, write! You can edit and spell-check and develop characters later, but right now you just have to write!

You can wait as long as you may for an idea, but once you have even the slightest bit of inspiration, write it out and think about it and develop it. You can again wait as long as you want -- none will steal your idea or write it before you --, but none will write your idea for you. Stop saying 'one day I'll write about this idea I have' and say instead, 'today I'll write about this idea I have'.

And if that's too much to say, then instead say, 'today I'll write ten words about this idea I have', and soon you'll have written 1,000. All you have to do is break down large, menacing tasks into smaller, more inviting ones.

Instead of 'writing a novel', 'write a chapter' and soon you'll have a novel anyway!

Mouse traps

I made a bunch of ratty, previously-yogurt-and-cereal-box live mouse traps. Set them in the chicken coop, baited them with peanut butter and we'll see how well they work, if at all. I was inspired by my awesome skill in catching a very unafraid and perhaps partially blind vole, and while I don't have the patience to sit in the chicken coop with a net all day -- or the desire to look insane --, I just decided I would make some mouse traps instead and see if they work.

Also, we may be getting a frost tonight, who knows. Most of the tomatoes, peppers and a few other plants have been covered with blankets and cold frame roofs -- hopefully they'll survive and we'll get a few ore days of zucchini, bell peppers and cherokee purple tomatoes.

There's really not much else to say, not much else to update on -- not much else is happening around here. Just the usual. Catching voles with nets, drawing, and making mouse traps.

Real life too boring? Create a custom-made 100% pure yourownimagination world!

I love creating fictional worlds. It's so fun. You know just how everything works, you can make up your own rules and customs, and you can show glimpses of that world to your readers. When you're reading about a fictional world, it's so cool whenever a character says "when frogs grow fur" instead of "when pigs fly". It gives the story and the world that extra bit of depth -- whereas if you just explain every thing that every character says, or use normal sayings and real-life flora and fauna, the story and the world starts to lose it's mysteriousness and appeal. The world also looses appeal and my respect if you just slap on a different animal and have your character say "when hedgehogs fly", or "oh foxdung!" (I might add that both of those sayings are from the Warriors series and utterly lame). At that point, it would probably just be better if your characters just said "oh crap" and "when pigs fly".

Moving the focus on from different sayings to different plants or dishes, it's also cool and funny if your character gags at the mention of some foreign dish that they dislike, or makes a poultice of Hertease, Bristlebloom and Icetem leaves for a burn. Your not sure what these herbs are, or maybe you've got a faint idea, and you know what these sayings mean, yes, but everything is different and strange. Just like in cultures in real life, there are different sayings, foods, animals, dress codes and styles in every part of the world. Adding this into your story really gives everything more depth and makes your readers a bit curious as to what things are.

I, personally, love making up herbs and medicinal plants -- you can get away with lazy combo-names like Paperbloom or Spinewort, and you get to make up what the plant looks like, what it does, and where it grows (and since I'm a really bad herbalist in real life, it's fun to be able to know exactly what this does and what this character would use to cover a wound without doing a ton of googling and bashing-my-head-on-my-desk-ing).

I like less, however, making up animals. It can be a bit of a pain and plus, if you really have something against squirrels or geese, don't you want your main character to be able to eat them for dinner? (That squirrel might not taste as good as that goose, though).
In my opinion, a mixture of real-life animals and made-up things is just as good or better, and a whole lot easier to invent.

Nonetheless, in order of importance according to my opinion, the best and less-best made-up things to put into an alternate universe:

Sayings and swearwords! Take various sayings from real life and re-word them, or make up new sayings for things that you think need them.

Herbs and plants! Unless you are a master herbalist yourself, or willing to go through all the work of actual research (oh god the horror D:), then I recommend making up your own plants for ease of writing and whatever else. Especially if your character is an alchemist or an herbalist or a healer. Plus, it's just fun making up plants!

Building styles and fashion styles! Now, I'm not really one of those people who's really into fashion, so I prefer to design clothing for species or climates that focus mainly on what is logical for that species or climate to have or need in their clothing. Anthropomorphic, rabbit-like, fighting species? They'll need armor for their ears, and a fairly open-faced helm to let them use their entire range of vision. A culture living in a thick pine forest surviving mainly off of game? They'll need camouflaged, warm, hard-to-snag (no fluttery capes or needless laces), hard to penetrate clothes.
Then there's the buildings, of course. That anthropomorphic, rabbit-like species? They'd live in hobbit-like houses close together and probably farm wheat and oats and carrots and the like. That pine-forest-dwelling hunter society? Big, log-cabin-like houses made of pine and cob, with underground root cellars for storing whatever food they farm and any salted or smoked meat they have. See? It's fun!

Animals, etc.! Now, I actually kind of like having real-life animals like rabbits, deer, salmon and whatever else in my stories, which is why this is so low on the list, but it can be quite cool to have a mix of real and imaginary -- or completely imaginary -- animals in a world. It is, however, also a big pain and that's another one of the reasons why I don't usually do this. I also don't know much about animals and all their bones and organs, so I'm afraid my species wouldn't come out that realist-seeming, and I could actually probably describe how to gut a rabbit better than any imaginary animal I invent, just because I don't really know what organs it would have anyway.

And there's probably some other things I'm forgetting, but that's about it.

Now, the next step (though it probably should have been the first), figuring out the very most basic basics of your world. What does it look like? What's the climate? What people or creatures inhabit it?

The answer is easy. Whatever you want. And whatever you want is generally what you like writing about.

Like cold weather? Cold planet or place.
Like rainforests? A wet, lush foresty planet or place.
Like big skies and cacti? A dry, deserty or plainsy planet or place.

Then you just narrow things down some more...

Like cold weather but hate empty, barren places? Cold planet or place with lots of cold-resistant plants and animals, or lots of stone formations, or anything, really.
Like rainforests but hate man-eating insects and spiny plants? A wet, lush foresty planet or place with tall trees, little undergrowth and very little bugs. Or, even better, a bunch of insect-eating birds, small mammals or lizards.
Like big skies and cacti but don't like empty, quiet places? A dry, deserty or plainsy planet or place with lots of unafraid and loud animals.

From there, you can narrow things down even more, and then start to flesh out your world. Is there anything you're certain you want to include in this place? Farmers, travelers, knitters, fortune tellers... it doesn't matter as long as you want to write about it.
The nice thing about creating a world from scratch, or mostly from scratch, anyway, is that you can include anything you want. Anything at all! If you don't like hackers, then there's a strong digital police force. If you don't like snakes, there are none. If you don't like horses, you never have to mention one again in all your life as a writer -- your main character could ride a pig or an aardvark back and forth throughout their journeys.

You should always write what you want to write, and in my opinion, creating your own world really helps you to do that. Unless you want to write about the real world. That's fine. But for those of you with a strange love for writing about this, that, those and the other thing (but those things don't really have that much of a connection in real life), then why not combine everything you love into one world, fully controlled by you and made custom for you, with anything you don't want edited out with the wave of your imaginary hand?

Plus, making up plants is really fun. Trust me.

Wondrous Wednesday: Eastern Quoll

I've decided that there are some animals that need more attention. Not like those "rare" or "unknown" or "misunderstood" animals like the Red Panda or the Hyena, but those real "rare" and "unknown" animals, like the Lamprey or the Bush dog.

So, without further ado, I present to you, the first Wondrous Wednesday animal! *drumroll*

The Eastern Quoll (Dasyurus Viverrinus)
Or Eastern Native Cat
Conservation Status: Near Threatened.

The Eastern Quoll is a medium-sized, carnivorous marsupial, one of the 6 extant species of Quoll. Native to Australia, the Eastern Quoll is now considered extinct on the mainland, but are still fairly common in Tasmania. This is probably because of the lack of predators such as foxes and dingos, though even without these hunters they are still in danger of being out-competed or predated upon by feral cats and killed by illegal poisons and traps

The Eastern Quoll is usually about the size of a small domestic cat, weighing roughly 2 pounds on average. Their coat can be any color from a pale tan to a dark brown or even black, with a cream or off-white colored belly and white spots all over their body save for their tail. The lack of spots on the tail and the skinnier build and slender snout of the Eastern Quoll helps distinguish them from the bigger, fiercer Tiger Quoll; also known as the Spotted-tail Quoll.

The Eastern Quoll is a solitary predator, usually hunting only at night and preying upon small mammals, birds and insects. They have also been known to scavenge food from other predators, mainly the Tasmanian Devil.

The breeding season begins in early winter. After mating, the female will then grow a pouch for her young, and will give birth to up to 30 tiny, hairless, helpless babies. However, only the first 6 to start nursing on her 6 teats will survive. Weaning takes place at around 10 weeks of age.

The last mainland Eastern Quoll was collected as roadkill in Sydney's Nielsen Park on January 31st, 1963. However, there have since been many reported sightings, some as recent as 2006. However, it is still unconfirmed whether or not there are any Eastern Quolls surviving outside of zoos and research facilities in Australia.

--

Images from Google
[More about Quolls]

Alright, well there's not much on Quolls to find on the internet, but I hope this has at least shown you about this under-loved and largely unknown animal, and maybe you'll read up a bit more on them and perhaps spread the word about this little marsupial.
-Willow