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CREEPY PLACES: Poveglia Island

7/26/2019

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WHY PEOPLE LIKE CREEPY PLACES AS SETTINGS FOR NOVELS?
Sometimes a setting can inspire a novel, particularly in the suspense, mystery, or paranormal genres. For any of these, creepy can set the stage for the action and story line and can crank up the reader’s emotions.

Granted, creepy places may not be appropriate for a romance novel, unless it involves saving the hero or heroine from danger. I like a heroine whose mental strength and ingenuity enables her either save herself, the hero, or both. 
Of 
Images by: Caters New Agency                            course,  we don’t want to set up out hero as a wimp, but that's another discussion.
​
Photo source:www.mirror.co.uk/mental-asylum 
 
Unlike most settings people are familiar with, an unusual creepy venue – particularly a dangerous one or one associated with death – has a greater impact on the reader. Depending on the type of book you are writing, perhaps that’s not what you want.

But if you do want that sort of setting, Poveglia Island, Italy, is a background venue to look into. Reading about it brought to my mind, several stories which could take place there. Already, it has been the setting of many novels and movies, but Americans seem to know little about the location, and it’s still a fresh setting.

Mystical, creepy, or horror stories – whatever you want to call them – take advantage of our inner fears, usually ones left over from childhood. Today, children’s cartoons, books. and movies prey on the little kid inside who is afraid of the bogeyman under his bed. Under the bed, means it is right there within reach.

It’s all about the experience, the rush of adrenalin, in an unrisky, unthreatening reality. This kind of “scare” allows the reader to feel all the emotions of fear, without actually being in any danger.
 
PROVEGLIA ISLAND
Poveglia Island is one of 166 islets in the Venetian Lagoon, located off the eastern coast of Northern Italy. Although the entire island is less than 19 acres in size, a canal separates the inland into two parts. You can see on the map, this bit of land resides between the City of Venice and the Lido [today a tourist area with a wonderful beach].

But you wouldn’t want to go to Poveglia on vacation.

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​In fact, you could not go there. Although uninhabited, the island is closed -- off limits to tourists and Italians alike. There is a process for gaining permission to visit, which is the way photographers have obtained access, but it’s a long and paperwork-laden endeavor. It is possible to go around the island by boat and see the exterior, and every now and then adventure-seekers have managed to land.

The island is known for its macabre past and, supposedly, locals call it an “island of ghosts” and believe it is haunted by unhealthy spirits. Poveglia's a dark reputation evolved from a history of death and drama. Venetians tend to be superstitious about the island and call it as a purgatory for evil. One local saying goes: "When an evil man dies, he wakes up in Poveglia"                             
Location map: The Islands of Poveglia and others
​                                                                                                                   
Photo source: www.dailymail.co.uk/travel 

Let’s find out why.
​
THE HAUNTED ISLAND OF GHOSTS
Isola Poveglia is believed to have been inhabited even before a group of pre-Italians called Euganei, came there as early as 2,000 BCE. The location was first mentioned in print in the early fifth century [421 AD] as a safe location during invasions by Alaric the Goth and Attila the Hun during the decline of the Roman Empire. The islands in the Venetian Lagoon are numerous and easy to defend, so the invaders’ military forces left them alone.


Photo source: www.businessinsider.com/haunted-island

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It doesn't look very haunted. It looks like a fairly well kept property in the photo.

One source indicates it was as far back as the 6th century, the Romans sent victims of the Justinian plague to Poveglia to die in isolation.

Despite the established fact that hygiene was very important to the Romans, and it is very possible the Romans did exile diseased people into quarantine, I didn’t find any corroboration for the Romans being the first to quarantine diseased people on Poveglia. Most historians prescribe to the belief that t
he Venetians, not the Romans, developed the concept of facilities designed for the quarantine of ill and potentially ill people. Lazzaretto Vecchio, a small island in the lagoon, was home to the first of these institutions, but Poveglia is the best known.

Back to the Haunted Island. In the 9th century the Doge of Venice [the provincial governor] was killed, and an estimated two hundred of his slaves fled to Poveglia and settled there. With the fall of the Roman Empire, the island population began to grow until the location became important enough to be governed by the equivalent of a chief magistrate of a city state -- In other words, a mayor or local administrator -- under the Doge. Up to that point, it was a normal Venetian city.

When war with Genoa broke out in 1379, the residents of the island were moved to a different islet so the Doge could build a fort at this a strategic location in the lagoon and establish a military outpost.

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 THE BLACK PLAGUE 
At about the same time in history, the crest of the Bubonic Plague arrived in Europe, one of the most devastating pandemics in human history. The disease, which takes on several forms of plague, resulted in the deaths of an estimated one to two million people, as much as 60 percent of the European population. Traveling with traders, the illness moved from Asia, primarily along the Silk Road, and peaked in Europe from 1347 to 1351. (See note at end)
The octagon served as a fort when a naval post Photo Source: factinteres.


With no cure for the highly contagious Black Plague, bacterial Yersinia pestis, the dead body count rose quickly. In an attempt to isolate the ill, Poveglia became a place to quarantine them and dispose of dead bodies. Thousands were dumped into Plague Pits and burned. Speculation leads historians to believe many people who didn’t have the deadly disease were shipped off to the island of rotting corpses just in case
      “The sick lay three or four in a bed … Workers collected the dead and threw them in the graves all day without
      a break. Often the dying ones and the ones too sick to move or talk were taken for dead and thrown on the
      piled corpses.
”  
__ Rocco Benedetti, 16th-century Venetian chronicler

Eventually, the wave of black death diminished. There were periods of time when the island was uninhabited, probably between several widespread bouts of pestilence which peaked again in the 1570s and 1630s. Each time, Poveglia and other islands served as quarantines and mass burial grounds. Dead and almost dead bodies were shipped there in barges. Speculation claims that around 160,000 bodies were disposed on this island alone since 1379.

In 1777, the Magistrate of Health took control of the island and turned it into a checkpoint. Any boat or ship heading into Venice needed to pass inspection. In the 1790s, two ships failed and again the island became a temporary quarantine colony.  The hospital was closed in 1800, but in 1805, under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, it became a permanent quarantine facility. Some resources contend that Napoleon for storing weapons there. The location was discovered, and many small battles took place as the island claimed even more lives.
​
Today, rumor has it that human bones still wash up on the beaches from time to time, and fifty percent of the soil is made up of human remains. The remains of thousands of bubonic plague victims have been discovered by archaeologists, and they believe as many as 
160,000 people died on the island over the centuries between the 1379 and now … but not all of them died from the plague.

PhotoSource:www.ranker.com/list/creepy-facts-poveglia         Photo posted by: Byran White (Pinterest)                  Photosource:www.thegypsythread.org/poveglia
                                                                                          
Photo source: ksscensorthis.com/haunted-island-of-poveglia

THE MAD DOCTOR
By 1922, the location had been converted to a mental hospital where at least one doctor is known to have experimented with lobotomies on patients, looking for a cure for insanity. He is believed to have used crude tools like hand drills, chisels, and hammers. It is also rumored he tortured patients in the bell tower.

TheGypsyThread.org says that “Believers of the story say that after many years of performing these unspeakable acts of human depravity, the doctor also began to see the ghosts his patients had so long reported. It is also said that those spirits led him to the top of the bell tower where he jumped or was thrown by a supernatural force to the ground below. Yet, the fall did not kill him. Instead, he remained alive but immobile and in immense pain until a sickly mist poured forth from the land and slowly choked the life from his injured body.” www.thegypsythread.org/poveglia

THE FINAL DAYS
In the mid-twentieth century, the hospital was converted to homes for the elderly, but that was closed somewhere between 1968 and 1975. Convalescent homes for seniors are unpopular enough even when they are nice and new. Imagine how you would feel if your kids sent you off to live in a converted mental hospital surrounded by burial pits from the Black Plague?

The next endeavor was to use the island for agriculture, but apparently that didn’t succeed either.

Because of the island’s reputation, it is hard to tell if the bits of recent urban lore are true, exaggerated, or speculative. Here are a few tales of the haunted island.

     “In recent years, Italian construction crews attempted to restore the former hospital building, but abruptly stopped
     without explanation, leaving locals to speculate that they were driven away by the island’s dark forces.”
    
https://ksscensorthis.com/2250/uncategorized/the-haunted-island-of-poveglia-warning-this-is-scary-stuff/

     “In 2016, five people from Colorado were rescued by Italian firefighters after they decided to spend the night on
     the famous haunted island of Poveglia, the location of the upcoming movie 
The Plague Doctor. They reached the
     island through a water taxi and decided to stay for the night, but as soon the darkness took over a presence
     started to haunt them, making them scream for help. A sailboat in the area overheard them and called the Italian
     authorities that came to their rescue.”
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/poveglia-plague-island

     “The Italian government has tried several times to generate interest in the island.  A family recently sought to buy
      the island and build a holiday home on it but they left the first night there and refused to comment on what
      happened. The only fact that we do know is that their daughters face was ripped open and required fourteen
      stitches.”
https://ksscensorthis.com/2250/uncategorized/the-haunted-island-of-poveglia-warning-this-is-scary-stuff/

In May of 2014 businessman and president of basketball team Reyer Venezia Mestre, Luigi Brugnaro, acquired at auction a 99 year leasehold for the island, outbidding a Venetian conservation group which immediately petitioned the government to overturn the lease. By June of the same year, the government had annulled the sale as a result of public and governmental intervention, indicating it would be a “waste of public resources” to sell it for that small amount in the face of Italy’s financial crises.

In 2019, the conservation organization, Poveglia Per Tutti, is alive and well, and still fighting to turn the island into a public resource. Architect Lorenzo Pesola, one of the spokesmen for the organization, says
     “…there’s little basis to the lurid supernatural tales that have trivialized much of the reporting of the Poveglia
     auction in the foreign media – 
a handful of plague victims lie here … not the ‘hundreds of thousands’ of popular
     myth; and the mad doctor who supposedly carried out experiments on elderly patients is a fiction.”
    
https://www.privateislandnews.com/italy-worlds-most-haunted-island-sold-at-auction-questions-over-future-remain/

However, the fate of the island is still undetermined.

WHAT IS STILL THERE
The surviving buildings on the island consist of a shelter for boats, a church, a hospital, an asylum, a bell-tower and housing and administrative buildings for the staff. The bell-tower is the most visible structure on the island, and dates back to the 12th century. It belonged to the church of San Vitale, which was demolished in 1806. At one point the tower was re-used as a lighthouse.
Image by: Chris 73/CC By-AS  - Photo source:                     Photo Source: www.atlasobscura.com/poveglia               Image by: Angelo Meneghini
https://www.historicmysteries.com/poveglia-island-venice-italy/
                                                             Photo Source: www.atlasobscura.com/poveglia
                                                                                                                                  
MY QUESTION IS WHY?
For a locale supposedly forbidden to everyone, there are a lot of photographs available. Just sayin’.

When looking into the topic of scary places, abandoned mental hospitals tend to be at the top of this list. Perhaps that’s because most people have no experience with them or have a bad experience. At minimum, they’ve seen a movie or TV program which caste such hospitals in a less-than-appealing light. We associate them with evil and sinister happenings. No doubt, in the past some pretty awful things happened in them.

Some of these abandoned hospitals [and old prisons] have such reputations they’ve become tourist attractions. In those cases, I understand why the locations have been left in such derelict condition … maybe even staged to give the tourists some bang for their buck. The following are examples of other locations.
 Images by: Caters New Agency                                          Images by: Freaktography/Flickr                                  Photo credit: True British Metal  
Photo source:www.mirror.co.uk/mental-asylum
        Photo source: allthatsinteresting.com/Willard          
Source: www.historicmysteries.com/poveglia        

Elsewhere in the lagoon, the remains of the Insane Asylum on San Servolo Island are preserved as a museum dedicated to the history of Venice’s plague islands and asylums. However, in the case of Proveglia Island, which is off limits to everyone, why would the powers-that-be leave the facility full of obsolete, decayed equipment and furniture inside?
​

That, more than anything, is the creepy part. The photographs above show how the Poveglia facilities looks in the 21st century.

Note: In this blog I use the terms Black Death, Bubonic Plague (Yersinia pestis), and Black Plague interchangeably. It had been the theory since the 19th century that they are the same, but since the 1980s scientists have questioned this. If I turn out to be wrong, I apologize, but either way, it has no bearing on the article.

Sources:
https://factinteres.ru/povelya-odno-iz-samyh-zhutkih-mest-na-planete
https://www.livescience.com/29498-plague-helped-destroy-roman-empire.htmlhttps://www.quora.com/Why-is-Poveglia-Island-off-limits
https://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2014/01/there-is-island-near-venice-called.html
https://www.thegypsythread.org/poveglia-island-worlds-evil-places/
https://ksscensorthis.com/2250/uncategorized/the-haunted-island-of-poveglia-warning-this-is-scary-stuff/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poveglia
https://www.historicmysteries.com/poveglia-island-venice-italy/
https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-facts-about-poveglia-the-italian-black-plague-island/cheryl-adams-richkoff
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/poveglia-plague-island
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/poveglia-island-like-hell
https://www.interrail.eu/en/trip-ideas/recommended-routes/classic-routes/dark-tourism-places-europe
https://www.privateislandnews.com/italy-worlds-most-haunted-island-sold-at-auction-questions-over-future-remain/
https://planetsave.com/2013/11/11/poveglia-island-asylum-ghosts-plague-history/
http://www.ancientpages.com/2016/01/21/mystery-of-the-bloody-island-poveglia-a-place-of-hell-in-ancient-and-modern-times/
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
https://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/venice-poveglia/index.html
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/03/the-evil-island-of-italy/
https://www.scientificmystery.com/no-one-can-dare-to-visit-poveglia-island-it-is-really-haunted/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivI2kDu19Nc
Black Death / Bubonic Plague
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17223184-000-did-bubonic-plague-really-cause-the-black-death/  (2001)
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-04/ps-mbd041102.php  (2002)
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/04/020415073417.htm (2002)
https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/viruses101/could_the_black_death_actually  (2013/Ebola-like virus)

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THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

7/19/2019

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A NATURAL WONDER OF THE WORLD
The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Located off the coast of Queensland, Australia, the reef is the largest living thing in the world. That's right. It's alive. It is the only living thing visible from space.
Image Credit: NASA - Photo Source:                   Image Credit: NASA/Gsfc/Larc/Jpl, Misr Team                          Image Credit: NASA - Photo source:
www.pinterest.de/539235755362862894/             Photo Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef         www.impactlab.net/2009/Great Barrier Reef
 

​This 1,800 mile long ecosystem was deemed a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981. It encompasses hundreds of tropical islands and three thousand reef systems and coral cays. It houses a multitude of species: 6oo types of soft and hard corals, 100 species of jelly fish, colorful fish, 20 types of reptiles, mollusks, crocodiles, turtles, 30 species of whales and dolphins, and sharks. Sizes range from microscopic to larger than you want to meet face to face, and the innumerable vivid colors boggle the mind.
                                                                                            
 Fish
▼ PhotoSource:                           Emperor angelfish ▼ PhotoSource:           Irukandji ▼PhotoSource:             ChristmasTreeWorm ▼ PhotoSource:
www.changesinlongitude.com/               www.australiantraveller.com/GBF            
www.thetimes.co.uk/killer-jellyfish            www.GBR.com.au/worms 
Lion Fish  ▲  PhotoSource:                      Shark  ▲   PhotoSource:                        Green Sea Turtle ▲ ImageCredit:          Dugong  ▲  PhotoSource:
news.co.cr/tournament/lion-fish            guardian.ng/shark-great-barrier-reef     Photo by Poseidon Outer Reef Cruises      www.telegraph.co.uk/dugongs
​__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

                                                                 Sapsucking Sea Slug▼PhotoSource:    CrownOfThorns Starfish▼Image:         SpottedEagleRay▼PhotoSource:
 
New species▼PhotoSource:      www.pinterest.com/30047522494940341        John Hanson/Wikimedia Commons              www.tripadvisor.com/barrierreef
                                                                                                                                    PhotoSource: www.seychellesnewsagency.com/​    
The Great Barrier Reef is also unique as it extends over 14 degrees of latitude, from shallow estuarine areas to deep oceanic waters. The average depth is 35 meters in waters close to shore, but some areas extend down to 2,000 meters.

In 1975 The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act was passed, which extends into the airspace above to the earth beneath the seabed. In 1981 it was deemed a UNESCO heritage site.
​
HOW IS A CORAL REEF MADE?
Corals are marine invertebrates in the class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria [You really needed to know that, right? Sorry.] They live in compact colonies of many genetically identical individual polyps [nodules]. The polyps are small, only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in length. They are sac-like animals with a set to tentacles around a central mouth opening.

 ▼https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coral_polyp_en.svg
Picture
​ The group that make up the colony includes reef builders that secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. This exoskeleton [the bony structure is outside the animal, rather than on the inside, like mammals] is excreted near the base of the polyp. It requires many generations for the colony to create a large exoskeleton which we call a coral reef.

Individual heads grow by asexual reproduction of polyps, but corals also breed sexually by spawning. Polyps of the same species release a specialized reproduction cell [male or female] with half the number of chromosomes. The cells unite to produce a cell which may develop into coral. About 75% of all corals reproduce sexually.

Corals catch fish and plankton using the stinging cells in their tentacles which carry venom, but the largest part of their diet and nutrition is obtained through photosynthetic cells [Symbiodinium]. These corals live in clear, shallow water, at about 200 feet.

Typically, each polyp harbors one species of algae. Via photosynthesis, these provide energy for the coral, and aid in calcification. As much as 30% of the tissue of a polyp may be algal material. Other corals that don't have a symbiotic relationship can live in deeper and colder water, surviving as deep as 9,800 feet, although the Great Barrier Reef does not have that depth.

CORAL IN A WELCOMING ENVIRONMENT
Photos of coral living in the Great Barrier Reef. Coral are incredible. They come in many types and colors. asiNo wonder the Great Barrier Reef and others have become such tourist attractions, attracting divers from all parts of the world.

Although most coral polyps have transparent [clear] bodies and their exoskeletons are white, their vibrant colors are derived from the zooxanthellae [algae] living inside their tissues. There are several million of these organisims producing pigments in one square inch of coral, and these pigments are seen through the clear body of the polyp. The zooxanthellae use photosynthesis to survive. The coral reef itself provides, in addition to safety, the carbon dioxide needed by the organisms for photosynthesis.

Montastrea cavemosa                 Brain Coral                                 Soft Coral                               Goniopora Coral–PhotoSource:    Mushroom Coral              
https://kids.kiddle.co/Coral       marinebio.org/coral-reefs/   

THE ENDANGERED GREAT BARRIER REEF
There are a number of factors that threaten the continuation of a healthy Great Barrier Reef. Not only tourism, although essentially under control now, but also runoff from the mainland, climate changes, mass coral bleaching, and cyclical population outbreaks of the Crown-of-Thorns starfish. The combination has resulted in a loss of more than half the coral of the reef between 1985 and 2012.


● Tourism
Because The Great Barrier Reef is so beautiful and offers so many activity options, over two million visitors come to see the reef every year. As tourism grows, the concern over protecting the reef grows. The reef suffers from tourists walking on the reef, anchors dragged and dropped on the reef, pollution from boats and humans and, of course, the human propensity for breaking off parts of the reef to take home as a souvenirs.

 PhotoSource: www.thetourspecialists.com.au/great-barrier-reef                                        Photo Source: lostinaustralia.org/gallery     
Picture
Picture
​Nonetheless, a large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which controls on much of the reef. Because the activities are spread over a huge area, and are not concentrated, tourism is not the biggest threat so far. Local operators understand the potential problems and are sensitive to protecting the reef, since it is their livelihood.

A great deal of attention goes to managing the visitors and local activities in a way that doesn't threaten the long-term health of the reefs and the ecosystem. After all, tourism is an important economic activity for the region, generating over 3 billion Australian dollars per year.

​● Coral Bleaching
Another major threat to the reef is coral bleaching. When corals are stressed from such things as heat, carbon pollution, or severe cold, they expel the zooxanthellae, their major source of food, leaving a transparent skeleton. Some coral are able to feed themselves, but most starve without the algae.

PhotoSource: www.pbs.org/newshour/global-warming
           ▼Normal                               ▼Bleached
Picture
The bleached coral is not necessarily dead, and if the abnormal conditions cease and stability is maintained, the coral may regain the algae and eventually recover, but it takes a long time. For example, the ocean temperature rising one degree Celsius for a period of four week will trigger coral bleaching. If the temperature remains for over eight weeks, the coral begins to die and will not recover.
​                 PhotoSource:  https://www.marineconservation.org.au/coral-bleaching/ 
▼

Picture
ccording to biologist Dave Vaughn of the Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research and Restoration in Florida, according to studies, “even the fastest growing corals need 10 to 15 years to fully recover.” https://www.livescience.com/64647-coral-bleaching.html
​
Then it will look like the photo to the right.

Unfortunately, the biggest threats to coral are global warming and carbon pollution in the air caused by the mining and use of coal. Recent reports indicate that coral bleaching is more widespread than believed previously. This is a serious situation, since at least 25% of all marine life depends on coral reefs at one point or another.
Crown Of Thorns Starfish ▼ ImageCredit: . John Hanson/Wikimedia Commons
PhotoSource: www.seychellesnewsagency.com/crown-of-thorns+starfish

Picture
● Crown-of-Thorns Starfish Infestations
Coral has natural enemies as well as its man-made adversaries. Crown-of-thorns starfish are marine invertebrates that feed on coral. Although they are natural inhabitants of the reef, certain conditions cause the population to expand, and they can wipe out the hard coral communities​.  Healthy reefs can recover in ten to twenty years, but those reefs already under stress take much longer.
​                                                                                                    
Cyclone damage to GBR ▼ April 2014 - Image: Catlin Seaview Survey
                                                                                                                                     PhotoSource: https://mashable.com/2014/06/19/great-barrier-reef-cyclone/

Picture
​● Tropical Cyclones
The coral reef’s natural resistance to the effects of weather events has not been able to adapt to the shifting weather patterns resulting from climate change. Harmful weather events [tropical cyclones, wind, and rain] are more intense and more frequent in the last twenty to thirty years and they affect different locations. Such storms do extensive physical damage to the reefs [as seen in the photo] and are considered a major threat.

Cyclones are low-pressure systems that derive their energy from warm tropical oceans — they form when sea-surface temperature is above 26.5°C.

PUT THIS ON YOUR BUCKET LIST TO VISIT 
​
Sources:

http://www.oceanwideimages.com/Large-Image.asp?pID=14154&cID=635&rp=search%252Easp%253Fs%253DFish%2BGreat%2BBarrier%2BRee
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8753630/Mass-starvation-of-dugongs-and-turtles-on-Great-Barrier-Reef.html
https://earthnworld.com/climate-change-turning-green-sea-turtles-female-great-barrier-reef/
https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/australia-s-great-barrier-reef-under-threat
http://www.greatbarrierreef.org/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/world/australia/newsletter-issue5-great-barrier-reef.html?_r=0
  https://www.barrierreef.org/latest/news/coral-bleaching-update
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/about-the-reef/facts-about-the-great-barrier-reef
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall11/clark_j/whatshappening.html
http://www.deepseanews.com/2014/03/amazing-close-up-video-of-great-barrier-reef-animals/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/photogalleries/marine-new-species-photos/photo6.html
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html
https://www.marineconservation.org.au/coral-bleaching/
https://www.livescience.com/64647-coral-bleaching.html
https://metro.co.uk/2017/11/07/mysterious-hole-found-in-great-barrier-reef-leads-to-incredible-discovery-7059490/
https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/killer-starfish-eating-up-great-barrier-reef.html
https://coral.org/coral-reefs-101/coral-reef-ecology/coral-polyps/
https://sciencing.com/coral-reefs-come-many-colors-5434662.html
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-global-warming-is-permanently-reshaping-the-great-barrier-reef
https://www.marineconservation.org.au/coral-bleaching/
https://www.aims.gov.au/docs/research/biodiversity-ecology/threats/cots.html
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/our-work/threats-to-the-reef/climate-change/storms-and-cyclones

Photo Sources only:
https://www.changesinlongitude.com/free-things-to-do-in-cairns-australia/
https://www.thetourspecialists.com.au/travel-tips/great-barrier-reef/travel-tips-great-barrier-reef-faqs.313.html
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/killer-irukandji-jellyfish-threaten-tourists-at-great-barrier-reef-s0q6ws8x5
https://guardian.ng/news/boy-bitten-by-shark-in-australias-great-barrier-reef/
https://tropicdays.com.au/great-barrier-reef-trip-coral-types/
https://www.tripadvisor.com/VacationRentalReview-g297910-d8831222-Great_Barrier_Reef_Taiwan_Snorkel_tour_at_reef-Taichung.html
https://news.co.cr/fishing-tournament-costa-ricas-south-caribbean-capture-lionfish/66233/lion-fish-2/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8753630/Mass-starvation-of-dugongs-and-turtles-on-Great-Barrier-Reef.html
https://www.australia.com/en/places/cairns-and-surrounds/guide-to-the-great-barrier-reef.html
https://coral.org/coral-reefs-101/coral-reef-ecology/coral-polyps/
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/secret-coral-reefs-tiny-fish-excel-dying/590092/
http://www.impactlab.net/2009/07/25/legramazing-satellite-images-of-earths-natural-wonders-from-space/
 



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THE POWER OF THE FIRST LINE

7/12/2019

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Matthew 19:30 – “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

THE FIRST WILL BE LAST
The first line of your book may be the last you write to finalize your novel. The first line you write will be the place holder until something better comes to mind, but at the very end, after the book is finished, you’ll most likely end up writing a new first line.
​
My message here is “Don’t spend a lot of time writing the first line or first chapter over and over.” Move on. Finish the novel. Then rewrite the first line and paragraph.
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'RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES
Common Wisdom in the writing world claims the opening line sells your book and the closing line sells your next book. Whether that wisdom is accurate or not, most writers seem to agree the first line of a novel is oh, so very important. Some believe it can make or break your novel.
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Think of the first line as a headline in a newspaper. This is what attracts the reader’s attention. It has to be intriguing enough to make the reader want to read the second line, and then the one after that.
Think about it. A reader wanders through the bookstore (or in this electronically oriented world, wanders through a website), spots a catchy cover, and picks up the book. Or, perhaps, this reader goes directly to the shelves holding the desired genre and studies the titles and author’s names. Next, read the cover blurb. “Hmm. That sounds interesting.” And then the reader opens the book and skims the first paragraph.

That’s when you have to hit ’em between the eyes. Knock ’em dead. It’s the first thing they read of the story itself, the first impression. You’ve only got a few seconds to sink in your teeth. It better be good.

If an author doesn’t make the effort to sculpt the words of the first line into a masterpiece, what level of attention has he/she taken with the key moments in the novel when interpretative pressure is at its peak, when capturing a complete fictional world is at its most pressing?  As one writer put it, “Screw up the opening, screw up the book.”

WHAT TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO
So, how does a writer come up with the perfect first line? I wish I knew. If there was a failsafe formula, someone would be out there selling it and making a bundle. Instead, there are a plethora of opinions and guidelines—things an author should and should not do—and those vary to some extent. They all agree it should be intriguing and capture the reader’s interest. It’s the how of it they disagree on. Well, maybe not even the how, but more what is interesting and compels the reader to go on.

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The Opening Line Should:
● Be intriguing,
● Hint of things to come,
● Be compelling,
● Establish an intriguing question
   Make the reader want to find out more,
● Set the tone and flavor of the book
  
Show what kind of book it is,
● Incorporate the mood or theme of the story.

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Suzannah Windsor Freeman adds the following to the list:
(writeitsideways.com/6-ways-to-hook-your-readers)

“● Make your readers wonder.
Put a question in your readers’ minds. What do those first lines mean?  What’s going to happen? Intrigue with unanswered questions and they’ll keep reading.
● Begin at a pivotal moment.
  By starting at an important moment in the story, the reader is more likely to want to continue so he or she can discover what will happen next.
● Create an interesting picture.
  Description is good when it encourages people to paint a picture in their minds. Often, simple is best so it’s the reader who imagines a scene, instead of simply being told by the author.
● Introduce an intriguing character.
   The promise of reading more about a character you find intriguing will, no doubt, draw you into a story’s narrative. Most often, this is one of the main characters in the book.
● Start with an unusual situation.
   Show us characters in unusual circumstances, and we’ll definitely be sticking around to see what it’s all about.
● Begin with a compelling narrative voice.
   Open your story with the voice of a narrator we can instantly identify with, or one that relates things in a fresh way.”

In her book Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction author Patricia Highsmith suggest putting motion or a moving element (like a train or car) into the first line.

● Include something which moves and gives action 
  Highsmith encourages action rather than a sentence like, ‘The moonlight lay still and liquid on the pale beach’.” Showing rather than telling. “The movement needn’t be as noticeable as the examples I listed earlier. It can be more subtle like a door that closes and the character leans against the wall…”

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The Opening Line Should Not Be:
● Bland or trite … or just plain boring.
● An overused references to the weather or time of the year.
  If you choose to write about the weather, be careful. You run the risk of inviting comparisons to “It was a dark and stormy night,” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s classic first line from his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford) and your book won’t stand a chance.
● Overwritten
   Too often the writing sounds like the author is trying to impress someone (an agent or editor) with the prose, rather giving a sense of the story or drama.
● Cliché
   Watch out for both choice of words and/or the concept.
● Prologue
   Jeff Vasishta, writing for the Institute of Writers, includes prologues in the do-not category. “Take this one with a grain of salt. Many agents hate them but I’ve read a few books recently that have great prologues. Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s The Nest springs to mind. The author received $1,000,000 advance for the novel, which went on to be a best seller. So, agents don’t always know what they’re talking about.” www.instituteforwriters.com/opening-lines
The pro and cons of prologues is another topic which should be addresses separately.


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With the exception of the prologue issue, I’d venture to say that most authors, editors, and agents agree on the above don’ts. Beyond these, references include advice not everyone may agree with.
● Dialogue
  
Suzannah feels dialogue is all right somewhere on the first or second page, but not in the first
   line. She feels the reader won’t know who’s speaking or care.
● Excessive description
   Some description is good, but not when it’s long winded. Skip the purple prose and opt for something more powerful.
● Irrelevant information
   The first few lines of your story are crucial, so give your reader only important information.
● Introduction of too many characters
   I’m not sure how you introduce too many characters in one line, but I suppose it is possible. Suzannah doesn’t like to be bombarded with the names of too many characters at once. How is the reader supposed to keep them straight?

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​WHAT FORM SHOULD IT TAKE?
The form of the first sentence is not the same as the opening should do or not do. Feel free to disagree with me, but I believe they are not the same thing … well, not exactly, anyway.
​
Jacob M. Appel, a Writer’s Digest contributor, provides the following direction by listing the seven things he believes are different approaches to writing the “Killer Opening Line.” (https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/7-ways-to-create-a-killer-opening-line-for-your-novel)

● A statement of eternal principle
   ▪ “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of
   a wife."
(Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)
   ▪ “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina ).”

● A statement of simple fact
   Of course, these have to be telling facts. The examples listed do the job.
   ▪ “I had a farm in Africa.” (Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa)
   ▪ “It was a pleasure to burn.” (Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451)
   ▪ “I am an invisible man.” (Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man).

● A statement of paired facts
  One fact may not be particularly interesting or compelling. Paired with another fact that makes the reader think, “That’s odd,” raises a question and makes the reader want to find out more. The example Appel uses is from Carson McCullers’ The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter:
   ▪ “In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together.”
Two mutes always together is unusual. So, what’s up?

● A statement of simple fact laced with significance
  
The key to understanding the story, or solving the mystery, or discovering a character’s secret, etc. can be hidden in the first line. The reader usually forgets until the mystery is revealed.

●
A statement to introduce voice
  
A first line can be used primarily to introduce a distinctive voice, rather than character or plot. Appel writes, “Stories that begin with a highly unusual voice often withhold other craft elements for a few sentences—a reasonable choice, as the reader may need to adjust to a new form of language before being able to absorb much in the way of content.”

“● A statement to establish mood
    
Contextual information not directly related to the story can often color our understanding of the coming narrative. Take Sylvia Plath’s opening to The Bell Jar: “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” While the Rosenberg execution has nothing to do with the content of the narrative, it sets an ominous tone for what follows.” 
Jacob M. Appel,

“● A statement that serves as a frame.
Sometimes, the best way to begin a story is to announce that you’re about to tell a story. English storytellers have been doing this since at least the first recorded use of the phrase Once upon a time.” 
Jacob M. Appel,

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​ASK YOURSELF “WHY?”
We all have our favorite first lines, .and it’s always interesting to compare advice with published books to assess whether or not the words of wisdom hold true. When you do that, however, don’t look at the same old first lines. Look at the contemporary best sellers.

Trends change. What editors and agents are looking for today may not be the same as ten years ago. At one point, advice was to begin with conflict but, in fact, it depends on the kind of novel. The field of fiction writing accommodates many approaches to writing, and they can all be good. If it works, it works!

Ask yourself why a particular opening or first line works for you? Literary agent, Rachelle Gardner, writes that when she considered her favorite first lines, and asked herself why she like them, “I found each one appealed to me for a different reason. It might have:
● been clever
● been thought-provoking
● brought an immediate smile (or stab) of recognition
● struck me as poignant
● painted a really cool word picture
● set up an intriguing mystery
● introduced a character I want to know better
● made me laugh
● drawn me into an unfamiliar world
● used words in a beautiful way

The one thing they all have in common is they make me want to read more. They immediately draw me into the universe of the novel by the unique voice that first line begins to establish.” (https://rachellegardner.com/that-all-important-first-line/)

A SHORT PARAGRAPH ABOUT PARAGRAPHS
The fiction writing industry usually talks about the impact of The killer First Line. It’s great to be able to hook a reader with a single line – they are very handy as tag lines -- but I believe what we should be talking about is first paragraphs.

Many of the great “first lines” are more than one sentence. My advice: as long as the reader will read the whole paragraph (or as many lines in the paragraph for the hook) don’t sweat it. Some books will require more than one or two lines to create the hook. Read the list of first lines below.

COMPARISONS
When I first wrote this article, I listed a sampling of the first lines I’ve collected over the years; some good, some not-so-good. There was quite a variety, and several were first paragraphs rather than first lines. Quite a few were penned by mystery writer Dick Francis who, in my opinion, is one of the Masters of the First Line.
​
For this edition, I took Jeff Vasishta’s advice and looked at books that have been on the best seller list in 2019. Some of them clearly need more than the first and second lines to create the impact the author wants. These are in no particular order.

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● WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens
“Marsh is not swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water grows into the sky.”

​

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● CRUCIBLE by James Rollins
June 23, 1611 AD
Zugarramurdi, Spain
“Behind the iron bars, the witch knelt on a filthy bed of straw and prayed to God.”

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● LIAR LIAR by James Patterson and Candice Fox
“SOMETHING WAS NOT RIGHT.
 Dr. Samantha Parish noticed an odor as she pulled the door of her Prius closed.”

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● AN ANONYMOUS GIRL by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
“You’re Invited: Seek women aged 18 to 32 to participate in a study on ethics and morality conducted by a preeminent psychiatrist. Generous compensation. Anonymity guaranteed. Call for Details.”
​

It’s easy to judge other people’s choices.”

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​● THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ by Heather Morris
Prologue
Lale tries not to look up. H reaches out to take the paper being handed to him.  He must transfer the five digits onto the girl that held it.


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● THE RECKONING by John Grisham
Part I – The Killing
On a cold morning in early October of 1946, Peter Banning awoke before sunrise and had no thoughts of going back to sleep. For a long time he lay in the center of his bed, stared at the dark ceiling, and asked himself for the thousandth time if he had the courage. Finally as the first trace of dawn peeked through a window, he accepted the solemn reality it was time for the killing.

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● PLAYING FOR KEEPS by Jill Shalvis
“Sadie Lane walked through the day spa, closing up for the night, alone as usual. Her coworkers had left, but even if they hadn’t, they’d just be milling around with their expensive teas, complaining about how hard this job was.”

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● ANATOMY OF A DISAPPEARANCE by Hisham Matar
“There are times when my father’s absence is as heavy as a child sitting on my chest. Other times I can barely recall the exact features of his face and must bring out the photographs I keep in an old envelope in the drawer of my bedside table. There has not been a day since his sudden and mysterious vanishing that I have not been searching for him, looking in the most unlikely places.”

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● BEHOLD THE DREAMERS by Imbolo Mbue’s 
“He’d never been asked to wear a suit to a job interview. Never been told to bring along a copy of his resumé. He hadn’t even owned a resumé until the previous week when he’d gone to the library on Thirty-fourth and Madison and a volunteer career counselor had written one for him…”​

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● HARRY POTTER & THE SORCERER’S STONE by J.K. Rowling
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the l ast people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they didn’t hold with such nonsense.”



If you want to pursue this further, this is the link to the American Book Review List of the One Hundred Best First Lines in American literature (novels) http://americanbookreview.org/100BestLines.asp.

I can’t say that a lot of those 100 Best resonate with me. Quite a few break one or two of suggestions about what not to do when writing a first line. Others, while they are first lines from great works of literature, aren’t exactly catchy as stand-alone opening lines.

I believe the first lines considered good and great may vary depending both time and location. For example, in my opinion, British readers are generally much more tolerant of lengthy sentences and difficult words than American readers. Although I haven’t really studied this topic in detail or done extensive research, it seems there are differences in “best first lines” in books written in earlier centuries (such as Daniel Defoe’s  Robinson Crusoe written in 1719) and more recent works, as well as difference between literary fiction and popular fiction.
□
FIRST LINES BY DICK FRANCIS (my personal King of the First Line)

Flying Finish by Dick Francis
“You’re a spoiled, bad-tempered bastard,” my sister said, and jolted me into a course I nearly died of.

For Kicks by Dick Francis
“The Earl of October drove into my life in a pale-blue Holden which had seen better days.”

Risk by Dick Francis
“Thursday, March 17, I spent the morning in anxiety, the afternoon in ecstasy, and the evening unconscious.”

Hot Money by Dick Francis
“I intensely disliked my father’s fifth wife, but not to the point of murder.”

Straight by Dick Francis
“I inherited my brother’s life. Inherited his desk, his business, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses and his mistress. I inherited by brother’s life, and it nearly killed me.”

Twice Shy by Dick Francis
“I told the boys to stay quiet while I went to fetch my gun.”

Dead Heat by Dick Francis and Felix Francis (2008)
“I wondered if I was dying. I wasn’t afraid to die, but such was the pain in my gut, I wished it would happen soon.”

Wild Horses by Dick Francis
“Dying slowly of bone cancer, the old man, shriveled now, sat as ever in his great armchair, tears of lonely pain sliding down crepuscular cheeks.”

Banker by Dick Francis
“Gordon Michaels stood in the fountain with all his clothes on.”

FIRST LINES BY JANET EVANOVICH

Four To Score by Janet Evanovich
”Living in Trenton in July is like living inside a big pizza oven. Hot, airless, aromatic.”

High Five by Janet Evanovich
“When I was a little girl I used to dress Barbie up without underpants. On the outside, she’d look like the perfect lady. Tasteful plastic heels, tailored suit. But underneath, she was naked.”

Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich
“The way I see it, life is a jelly doughnut. You don’t really know what it’s about until you bit into it. And then, just when you decide it’s good, you drop a big glob of jelly on your best T-shirt.”

FIRST LINES FROM OLDER MYSTERIES

The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie
“I have often recalled the morning when the first of the aonymous letters came.”

Unnatural Causes by P. D. James (1967)
“The corpse without hands lay in the bottom of a small sailing dinghy just within sight of the Suffolk coast.”

A Certain Justice by P. D. James (1997)
“Murderers do not usually give their victim notice.”

Devices and Desires by P. D. James (1989)
“The Whistler’s fourth victim was his youngest, Valerie Mitchell, aged fifteen years, eight months and four days, and she died because she missed the 9:40 from Easthaven to Cobb’s Marsh.”

“L” Is For Lawless by Sue Grafton (1995)
“I don’t mean to bitch, but in the future I intend to hesitate before I do a favor for a friend of a friend. Never have I taken on such a load of grief.”

“R” Is For Ricochet by Sue Grafton (2004)
“The basic question is this: given human nature, are any of us really capable of change? The mistakes other people make are usually patently obvious. Our own are tougher to recognize.”

The First Eagle by Tony Hillerman (1998)
“The body of Anderson Nez lay under a sheet on the gurney, waiting.“

Fear No Evil by Allison Brennan (2007)
“The sick and depraved had voted: Death by stabbing.
‘No.’
Kate Donovan’s whisper became a cry as she pocketed her cell phone, unable to respond to the text message her only remaining friend in the FBI had sent.”

Loves Music, Loves To Dance by Mary Higgins Clark (1991)
“The room was dark. He sat in the chair, his arms hugging his legs. It was happening again. Charley wouldn’t stay locked in the secret place. Charley insisted on thinking about Erin. Only two more, Charley whispered. Then I’ll stop.”

Visions In Death by J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts) (2004)
“She’d gotten through the entire evening without killing anyone. Lieutenant Eve Dallas, cop to the bone, figured the
restraint showed enormous strength of character.”

FIRST LINES FROM OLDER NOVELS

Gone For Good by Harlan Coben
“Three days before her death, my mother told me—they weren’t her last words but they were pretty close—that my brother was still alive.”

Berg by Ann Quin
“A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town
intending to kill his father.”

Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler (2001)
“Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.”

A Frolic Of His Own by William Gaddis (1994)
“You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.”

Death In A Sunny Climate by Diane Shalet (1994)

“I sat at Michael’s desk, buried under a mountain of third-class mail. October 7, 1983. The second plea from Newsweek: YOU HAVE NOT RENEWED. PLEASE TELL US WHY. I answered for him: Because I died. Then I signed his name.”

Her Secret Agent Man by Cindy Dees (2005)
“Huge snowflakes drifted down around him in a winter-wonderland scene, and the boughs of the pine trees passing beneath his feet sagged under a heavy blanket of white. Neon-garbed skiers whooshed past, laughing, but up here on the ski lift, all was silent. Peaceful. Bucolic. And his palms positively arched with a need to kill the woman he was here to meet.”

The Medusa Game by Cindy Dees (2006)
“The bus the terrorists had demanded was just pulling up in front of the Olympic village apartment building. The casual observer wouldn’t see the dozen German army snipers lying in wait around the street, but Isabella Torres was no casual observer.”

The Reef by Nora Robers (1998)
“James Lassiter was forty years old, a well-built, ruggedly handsome man in the prime of his life, in the best of health. In an hour he’d be dead.”


Agnes And The Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (2007)
“One fine August evening in South Carolina, Agnes Crandall stirred raspberries and sugar in her heavy nonstick frying pan and defended her fiancé to the only man she’s ever trusted. It wasn’t easy.”

The Spiral Path by Mary Jo Putney (2002)
“The trouble with reality was that it was so dammed real.”


A Time To Kill by John Grisham (1996)
“Billy Ray Cobb was the younger and smaller of the two rednecks. At twenty-three he was already a three-year veteran of the state penitentiary at Parchman. Possession, with intent to sell. He was a lean, tough little punk who had survived prison by somehow maintaining a ready supply of drugs that he sold and sometimes gave to the blacks and guards for protection.”

All The King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
“The last time I saw Mason City I went up there in that big black Cadillac with the Boss and the gang, and we burned up that new concrete slab, and it was a long time ago—nearly three years ago, for is it now into 1939. But it seems like forever."

Evening In Byzantium by Irwin Shaw (1973)
“The plane bucked as it climbed through black pillars of cloud. To the west there were streaks of lightning. The seat-belt sign, in English and French, remained lit. The stewardesses served no drinks. The pitch of the engines changed. The passengers did not speak.”

I’ll Remember You by Barbara Ankrum (1999)
“
Dusk seemed to hold its breath as the gunshot’s echo reverberated against the canyon’s rocky walls. Birds fell silent. Even the steady coastal breeze, which had only moments earlier relieved the thick summer evening, stilled as the two men stood at the top of the precipice, staring down into the well of darkness below.”

The Man From St. Petersburg by Ken Follet
“It was a slow Sunday afternoon, the kind Walden loved. He stood at an open window and looked across the park. The broad, level lawn was dotted with mature trees: a Scotch pine, a pair of mighty oaks, several chestnuts and a willow like a head of girlish curls.”

The Parasites by Daphne DuMaurier (1949)
“It was Charles who called us the parasites. The way he said it was surprising, and sudden. He was one of those quiet, reserved sort of men, not given to talking much or stating his opinions, unless upon the most ordinary facts of day by day, so that his outburst, coming as it did towards the end of the long wet Sunday afternoon, when we had none of us done anything but read the papers and yawn and stretch before the fire, had the force of an explosion.”

My Cousin Rachael by Daphne DuMaurier (1952)
“They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days. Not anymore, though.” [The novel also ends with this line.]

Baited by Crystal Green (2006)
“As another scream tore through the island forest, Katsu Espinoza stopped in her tracks, trying to get a lock on where the sound was coming from.”

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (2008)
“Since Maria had decided to die, her cat would have to fend for itself. She’d already cared for it far beyond the point where keeping a pet made any sense. Rats and mice had long since been trapped and eaten by the villagers.”

Key Witness by J. F. Freedman (1997)
“Early dark, time suspended between sunset and true night, the barest sliver of dying sunlight fading on the western horizon, flickering dull yellow-vermilion patches visible through the thick clusters of trees that bracket the narrow two-land road.”

Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan (1991)
“It seems there should have been some warning, but I felt none. Events were already in motion.”

A Western, unnamed  (I think this may be from a movie, but I like it.)
“Quiet Town wasn’t.”

1984 by George Orwell
“It was a bright cold day and the clocks were striking thirteen.”□

Sources:
http://www.blog.ljboldyrev.com/2010/06/importance-of-first-line.html|http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/fiction/2006/04/that_allimporta.html
http://kaitnolan.com/2007/08/30/the-importance-of-opening-lines/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2007/may/10/openingsentencesblog
http://alternativereel.com/includes/top-ten/display_review.php?id=00117
http://www.bluecubiclepress.com/store.htm|
http://www.thefirstline.com/
https://www.thefirstline.com/https://www.thefirstline.com/
http://www.ehow.com/how_4679283_write-first-chapter-novel.html
http://murderby4.blogspot.com/2009/11/your-first-line-hook-that-gets-your.html
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art48800.asp
http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0934311.html
http://www.pantagraph.com/news/article_a125216a-649f-5414-88b5-76a688ea3b6a.html
2019 Sources
https://www.instituteforwriters.com/opening-lines-the-most-important-part-of-your-story.aspx
https://rachellegardner.com/that-all-important-first-line/
https://www.liternauts.com/how-to-write-the-first-paragraphs-of-your-novel/
https://writeitsideways.com/6-ways-to-hook-your-readers-from-the-very-first-line/
https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/7-ways-to-create-a-killer-opening-line-for-your-novel
Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction by Patricia Highsmith
doc/writing/blogs/RochelleWeber-First Lines
07/25/2011 – updated May 29, 2019




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It Took More Than A Village To Put a man on The Moon: Margaret Hamilton, Software Engineer

7/5/2019

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APOLLO 11 – A CAST OF THOUSANDS
This month is the fiftieth anniversary of mankind’s first landing on the moon. July 1969! The BIG 5-0! The Apollo 11 mission was a “big deal” at that time in our history, and it is still a “big deal.”
Apollo 11 crew - Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin Photo y NASA - NASA Human Space Flight Gallery
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=102412

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No doubt celebrations will be held, and we’ll be hearing a lot about the historical event in the media. I’m sure the movie will be on TV every night for longer than many of us would like. Possibly we’ll even hear from some of those who denied the event ever happened and believe the moon landing to be the biggest hoax of all times.

During this momentous anniversary, we focus primarily on the men who made the nearly 500,000 mile journey … as we should … but let’s not forget the other 400,000 people who made the flight possible. All those others scientists, engineers, technicians, and support staff necessary to deal with a vast number of system and subsystems necessary to put these men on the moon. That's a fair-sized city, not a village; one and a quarter person per mile.

I’m hoping, instead, that the American people in general will be exposed to one or all of the several American women who made the moon landing possible, in particular Margaret Hamilton, even though the US has yet to send a woman to the moon. Shame on us!

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PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR MARGARET HAMILTON
​
Without her, there would have been no moon landing.  
Official photo for NASA, 1989 - Photo source
scientificwomen.net/hamilton-margaret

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​

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Margaret Hamilton (née Heafield) was born in Indiana in 1936. After studying at the University of Michigan for a while, she transferred to Earlham College and graduated in 1958 with a B.A. in mathematics and a minor in philosophy. There she met James Hamilton and they subsequently married. After graduation she taught high school math.

Hamilton and her husband moved to Boston, where James planned to attend Harvard Law School. Her plan was to attend Brandeis University to study abstract math after her husband graduated, but she accepted an interim position as a programmer at MIT, working on programs to predict weather. While she was at MIT she also did postgraduate work in meteorology. In the early 1960s she transferred to MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory where she worked on military air defense systems and wrote programs to identify enemy aircraft.

Hamilton at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 1962
Credit: Margaret Hamilton; photo source:
Photo source: futurism.com/margaret-hamilton


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FLY ME TO THE MOON
Hamilton moved on to a position at MIT’s Instrumentation Laboratory (which later became the independent Charles Stark Draper laboratory) and was there when NASA contracted with the Lab to develop the guidance systems for the Apollo Program.

She headed the team responsible for developing the software for the guidance and control systems of the in-flight command and lunar modules. In later interviews (years after the fact) Hamilton said that computer science and software engineering were not yet disciplines at the time. The scientists and programmers simply learned by doing -- apparently over and over -- until it worked.

She and her colleagues developed the paradigm ideas in programming writing the code for the world’s first portable computer. “When I first got into it, nobody knew what it was that we were doing. It was like the Wild West. There was no course in it. They didn’t teach it,” Hamilton said.

In his article for Wired.com, Robert McMillian quote Hamilton’s response to an interview question about what it was like being a female in that environment.
    “Then, as now, “the guys” dominated tech and engineering. Like female coders in today’s diversity-challenged
     tech industry, Hamilton was an outlier. It might surprise today’s software makers that one of the founding fathers
    of their boys’ club was, in fact, a mother—and that should give them pause as they consider why the
    gender inequality of the 
Mad Men era persists to this day … The world didn’t think much at all about software
    back in the early Apollo days.”


As the project progressed, it soon became apparent how crucial the software was to the success of the mission. By 1965, Margaret was responsible for all the onboard flight software.
                                                                                                                
Margaret Hamilton inside mock-up of the command module.
                                                                                                                                                Credit: MIT  Photo Source: en.wikipedia.org//Margaret_Hamilton\

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  ASTRONAUTS DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES There are many significant achievements in Hamilton’s career; I won’t bother with the details. If you’re interested, I have a good list of sources.

In my opinion, there’s a significant reason why Hamilton stands out among the many thousands of engineers, programmers, scientists, and all the people who contributed to the success of Apollo 11. Her foresight saved the mission.
​
In addition to being the Mother of the field of Software Engineering, Hamilton was also a real mother with a daughter, Lauren, who, at this time, was about four years old. She would bring Lauren with her to work in the evenings and
on weekends, and the child would sleep or play while her mother                           
Margaret and her daughter, Lauren
other wrote programs for the Apollo’s command module computer.                     Photo source: hackaday.com/margaret-hamilton 

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As the story goes, Lauren was playing with the MIT command module simulator’s display and keyboard unit when an error message appeared. The child had “crashed” the simulator by accidently activating a prelaunch program called P01 while the simulator was in flight.

As a result, Hamilton wanted to add error-checking code to prevent a crash under these circumstances, but was overruled by her NASA superiors. This was not something that could happen in space because, Hamilton was told, “Astronauts do not make mistakes.” Instead she programmed a “program note” available to NASA engineers and astronauts that said “Do not select P01 during flight.” And as it turned out, the event that “could never happen,” happened.

On the fifth day of the Apollo 8 mission, Jim Lovell inadvertently selected P01 during the flight, which deleted all the navigation data the mission had collected. Without it, the computer wouldn’t be able to plot the course back to earth. Hamilton and her team spent nine hours figuring out a way to save the day, and brought Apollo 8 home to earth. After that Hamilton had no trouble convincing NASA to let her design error and recovery software for future missions.

And sure enough, there was a critical moment in the Apollo 11 mission where Hamilton’s foresight saved that mission as well. Just minutes before the Lunar lander neared the Moon’s surface, alarms went off indicating a computer overload “with interrupts caused by incorrectly phased power supplied to the lander’s rendezvous radar.” The alarms meant the computer couldn’t handle all the tasks at once. Because of the alarms built into the flight software’s error detection and recovery techniques, the mission, which came close to being scrubbed, managed to land on the moon. Dr. Paul Curto, senior technologist who nominated Hamilton for a NASA Space Art Award, called Hamilton’s work “the foundation for ultra-reliable software design.”


WHERE NO WOMAN HAS GONE BEFORE
Hamilton remained with MIT until the mid-1970s, then left to work in private industry. She cofounded several software companies, and in March 1986, she became the founder and CEO of Hamilton Technologies, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was developed around the Universal Systems Language (USL) and its associated automated environment, the 001 Tool Suite, based on her paradigm of Development Before The Fact for systems design and software development. Her contributions to the field have continued throughout her career.

Based on what I read, one of the things that impressed me most about Margaret Hamilton was her constant focus on the human-computer connection, particularly in relation to the Apollo Missions.  In 2009 she describer for MIT News her contributions to the Apollo software.
     “From my own perspective, the software experience itself (designing it, developing it, evolving it, watching
     it perform and learning from it for future systems) was at least as exciting as the events surrounding the mission.
     Not only did it
(the software) have to work, it had to work the first time. Not only did it have to be ultra-reliable,
     it needed to be able to perform error detection and recovery in real time. … We took our work seriously, many of
     us beginning this journey while still in our 20s. Coming up with solutions and new ideas was an adventure.
     Dedication and commitment were a given. Mutual respect was across the board. Because software was a
    mystery, a black box, upper management gave us total freedom and trust. We had to find a way and we did.
    Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers.”


The world can thank Hamilton for expanding the notion of just what humanity could do on earth and beyond.


AWARDS
● 1986 - Hamilton received the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award, an honor bestowed by The Association for Women in Computing on individuals, men and women, who have excelled in two areas of endeavor: 1) Outstanding scientific and technical achievement, and 2) Extraordinary service to the computing community through their accomplishments and contributions on behalf of women in computing. (P.S. If you don't know who Ada Lovelace was, that will be coming.) 

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● 2003 - NASA Exceptional Space Act Award for scientific and technical contributions. The award of $37,200 was the largest awarded to any individual in NASA's history.

● 2009 - Outstanding Alumni Award from Earlham College.
​
● 2016 - Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama, the highest
 civilian award in  the United States.  
PhotoSource: hackaday.com/2018/margaret-hamilton

​● 2017 - Computer History Museum Fellow Award, recognizing exceptional men and women whose computing ideas have changed the world.

● 2017 - A "Women of NASA" LEGO set went on sale featuring (among other things) mini-figurines of Hamilton, Mae Jemison, Sally Ride, and Nancy Grace Roman.

● 2018 – Hamilton was invested honoris causa by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

It saddens me (and angers me, a little) to point out that this is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, to which Margaret Hamilton made such a large contribution, and almost twenty years passed before she was honored for her work. The rest of the honors have been awarded after the year 2000. Better Late Than Never.
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Sources:

https://www.wired.com/2015/10/margaret-hamilton-nasa-apollo/
https://publications.computer.org/software-magazine/2018/06/08/margaret-hamilton-software-engineering-pioneer-apollo-11/
https://futurism.com/margaret-hamilton-the-untold-story-of-the-woman-who-took-us-to-the-moon
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Hamilton-American-computer-scientist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(scientist)
https://sservi.nasa.gov/?question=first-woman-on-the-moon
http://news.mit.edu/2016/apollo-code-developer-margaret-hamilton-receives-presidential-medal-of-freedom-1117
https://www.wired.com/2015/10/margaret-hamilton-nasa-apollo/
https://hackaday.com/2018/04/10/margaret-hamilton-takes-software-engineering-to-the-moon-and-beyond/
https://www.makers.com/profiles/596e0f42bea17725160a95c1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories
https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/landing-missions/apollo11.cfm
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/jul/02/apollo-11-back-up-team
https://www.space.com/18145-how-far-is-the-moon.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Hamilton-American-computer-scientist
http://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code-0817
 
 



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    Author R. Ann Siracusa

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