Progress and Research ideas

My intro re-write is, I think, a bit of a success. Well, to my own eyes it is; no one else has read the new-and-improved version yet. And truthfully, since I just finished parts of it at 10:30 last night, my own opinion is far too close to really see it. There is no longer any sort of surprise as to the true setting--a modern day Renn Faire., and I think it flows a bit better. It definitely improved my ability to include the character's thoughts, as they obviously know that they're not in 14th century Europe, but rather in dressed-up midwestern fair grounds. The re-write is longer than the original--I didn't do a word-count comparison, but the new version is 21 and 8300 words pages vs 15 pages and ??? words in the old one. I have seen an estimate of 250 words to a "manuscript page", but that calculation is completely inappropriate for my pages--I think it assumes that you're doublespaced, and I know for a fact that this file is not. Heck, I don't even indent my paragraphs (a habit I abandoned years ago writing technical stuff. I'm lucky that I remember not to number my paragraphs some days...1.1 Purpose of this document 1.1.1 Background 1.1.2 References 1.1.3 Our story finally begins).

I think that I had a brilliant idea for a post last night, that was not just an update on my WIP. This morning, I have absolutely no idea what it is. It might have been about wikipedia. That site is awesome. Want a photo of renaissance armor? How about a nice diversion reading about German jewels stolen after WWII? Actually, there are whole articles about real thefts of artwork throughout the ages...hmmm..fodder for future story ideas...