More Writing Inspiration From 1969...

A few days ago I blogged about how excited I was finding an old magazine from 1969, but there was one page specifically, a collection of interesting scientific worldwide stories compiled by John F. Pearson, that made me realize just how much writing inspiration could be found from this one publication. After I found that one page, so much in the rest of the magazine seemed to become a potential writing topic.

Here's the topics on that page:

New way to prevent cavities is with a laser beam

Omega, called the world's first global, all-weather navigation system

A rare weed that proves a threat to western ranges is under study by the Department of Agriculture scientists

"Moon mud" may be the next cure-all peddled by quacks once our Apollo astronauts return from a lunar landing

Quick recognition of friendly ground troops is a problem for combat pilots

For the first time a pulsar has been put on film

The "pill" is still a controversial method of contraception

Each one of these topics made me think of some really good short stories. I realized as I looked through the pages that the magazine was printed during the Vietnam War. Its mentioned throughout, but not sensationalized or highlighted, only that it's happening.

Some of my favorite topics--the runaway rare weed infecting the west, the potential Moon Mud scandals (especially since this was printed two months before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon...), and the first global navigation system. Now, a global system seems so ordinary, but back then, it was revolutionary. Those were the ones I would choose, if given a choice.

I don't know if I will ever write some of these short stories, but I loved that this old magazine got the ideas flowing.

Anyone Want A Nuclear Heart...?

Yesterday, I mistimed the train back to work so I had about ten minutes to kill before next one came. Luckily for me there's a used/new bookstore right across the street from the station. 

I went in.

Five minutes later and one dollar poorer, I came out with a copy of Popular Mechanics, the May 1969 issue.

Talk about a gold mine!

I'm being serious--this thing is amazing! First, it cost 50¢ back in 1969 so the thing's doubled in price. Second, I thought it might be interesting--to be honest, I thought it might remind me of my dad because he was a mechanical engineer back in 1969 (actually, his degree was in tool engineering, but I've been told the modern name for the degree is mechanical engineering...). It did remind me of him, but I also found something in it's aging pages I didn't expect--a ton of story ideas! This thing is chuck-full of amazing bits of information that would make incredible stories. I'm going to dedicate at least one, and maybe several blog posts about this. But that's later.

For now, I'll leave you with just one story I found in the magazine. It's for a nuclear heart. When I read, "The nuclear-powered heart would function as a tiny steam engine, including a minute boiler, with pumps attached to the arterial and venous parts of the blood system" I couldn't believe it--that's steampunk, baby! And I've written several steampunk stories. Imagine a person with a nuclear steam-powered heart walking around. Once you get rid of that pesky isotope plutonium 238 decay, it's smooth sailing after that. It seems unimaginable today, but back then, they actually considered it, or thought that's how it would work.

Fantastic!

The old magazine has so many things to think about, almost every page has something interesting. At least, I found it interesting. And it was only a buck. It's easy to look back and see what they got wrong, but what I love is that they dared to dream. They saw a problem and considered solutions using the information they had available. And, who knows--maybe in forty-five plus years someone may find a copy of a digital magazine from 2016 and laugh at what we were thinking. Someone might even want to use what they find as the subject of stories. You never know.