Anyone using smoke signals?

I've found it's an interesting medium.

Everyone's main complaint seems to be that if you write for too long, your blanket dries out and catches fire. Sure, that takes some getting used to, but it's actually a pretty good way to keep you from getting too lost in your story.

A lot of authors argue over what code to use, too. I’m going with the Boy Scout method. No disrespect to anyone using the Indian method, but it’s hard enough when you only have three basic signals to work with without having to worry about translations varying from tribe to tribe. Most of the more subtle puns and wordplay get lost get lost that way. The Greek method averts that problem, but it’s just so pretentious. I don’t want to look like a hipster.

The "ingredients" you add to your fire can really alter your work's tone. Most horror and suspense authors prefer a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, and the dung of the Siberian Wolf for the rich, moody blacks it produces - they say it gives your novel a very visceral and noir feel. But I’m writing a romantic comedy, so but I’ve found that plain old green wood works just fine for a more lighthearted piece like that.

Call me old-fashioned, but I just can’t bring myself to use garbage. Sure, my neighbors are getting angry that I’m cutting down all their trees, but that’s just the price of art. Stories written with garbage just don’t have that warm, nostalgic feel.

As a word of warning, avoid chemical accelerants. I know a guy who was writing an action series, and tried to use Napalm-B to give it that extra kick. They found him twenty feet away from his pit, with his face melted off and third-degree burns over 90% of his body. Oh well. No one liked that guy, anyway. Always showing off.

Also, Florida has very few hills, so I have to start fires on the roof of my apartment building. The fire department objects to that, but fuck them. They don’t understand my art.

Tried it for awhile. After I got wrist clamps I started to work on a keyboard controlled smoke signal control system, with electromechanical linkages to the motor driven blanket and real-time additives. Then I spent more time working on the control code than the actual novel. Then it started raining, which was bad for both the fire and the SSCS. The rain shorted out the control gear, which caused the hydraulics to leak fluid, which was flammable enough that even in the rain the entire system went up in flames. My horticulturist says the lawn will never be the same.

Plus, smoke signals are kinda hard to back up, and this year's nano back end doesn't have a working ss validate. And drunk writing + fire == A trip to the burn unit. Although that may work to your advantage, as hospital rooms are quiet, low distraction places to novel, you can ask the nurses or doctors about medical and/or golf related questions, and writing on morphine becomes an option. Remember, morphine is just an opiate, and opium is what launched Samuel Taylor Coleridge to fame.

Be aware that smoke signals in Southern California may get you into BIG trouble with the local pollution control agencies. They might do a helicopter water drop to put out your message generator. And if it is fire season, the fire department may come down on your case.

Note that places like the San Gabriel Valley had campfire smoke related problems long before the car appeared. Smog, or the equivalent, has long been a problem in the area due to the inversion layer. And that was long before millions of people moved to the area.

I wanted to write my story with cave paintings, but I just couldn't get the technique. After finding a Neanderthal hiding in a nearby cave, I'm using smoke signals to tell him the story, and he translates it into the cave paintings for me. I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to get the cave paintings into the validator. I might need to use the "A picture is worth a thousand words" conversion.

Can this thread be in the procrastination station right now? :)

The hardest thing with smoke signals is validating them.

It only works if you use smoke-cloud computing :)

People seriously use smoke signals for their stories!?!?!?!?!?!?! How do you back up your story then?

I find the smoke signal method doesn't fix very well for my scifi story. At the moment I'm using the more contemporary method with gas fires, but it's just not giving me that rich smoke I want (or really much at all). I'm trying to see if I can cut out the fire entirely as it really just creates this woman homely feeling that just reads as contradicting towards the futuristic feel I'm going for. I'm debating holographic fire as a replacement. I know everyone says it's not just as good as the real thing, but as long as it gets the message across and creates the same general emotions in the viewer what does it matter if the smoke is real or false anyway?

Unfortunately I killed my MC's mother who could conjure fire, so smoke signals are a lot harder than shaving the words into my love interest's pet lion. If you don't lose the word count collar and remember to allow for a 24-hour regrowth period it works pretty well. Just make sure that someone can control him, loosing your hands to a lion can be detrimantal to word count.

Haha I love you. Reading this was quite a nice break from novel drama.

This is hilarious.

I think I'll use burnt toast as my medium. If I finish my homework I can stop by the grocery store and buy all the bread they have and burn it in my toaster oven to create the right mood. Smoke, loud noises, flashing lights... rain... perfect noveling atmosphere for someone as behind as I am.

I wish I'd seen this thread earlier. In chapter four or so, I burnt down my characters' home, a dragon mistook the burning palace for another dragon, and had her baby right in the field in front, after being almost killed by another dragon.

Lots of smoke and fire, and I could have turned it into words and avoided all that typing.

Oh, well. I'll remember this next year, or maybe I'll burn down a whole village in the next chapter, and finish up this way. :D

Oh my goodness. I love this thread. So much.

I may have to try my mother's tried and tested 'wrap a potato in tinfoil and put it in the microwave' method for the remainder of this month. Works like a charm.

Smoke signals are all well and good but CD's and microwaves are the future.

Basically the microwave reads your mind and flashes the thoughts onto the disc. Still haven't found any way of interpreting the cracks yet though.....

Seriously, folks?

You are still using the old blanket method?

We all know that real writers prefer the welding striker and ethanol method... Just MAKE SURE YOUR LAB BENCH IS FIREPROOF!

I feel like kind of a newb for asking, but exactly are smoke signals?

I just burnt my bag of popcorn as I got so distracted by all of your hilarious comments. I guess I'm good to go with the smoke signals now cause my house if full of burnt popcorn smoke.

Now stop distracting me, people and get back to work!! :0)

*scours thread for ways spies could communicate*

I'm afraid I'm sticking with the bland computer methodology for writing my novel, but I do have two spies in Regency England who need to communicate somehow. Smoke signals might work, but the idea of sending messages through strategically burned pieces of toast appeals even more. If it's burned on the buttered side, that means "Come on in." If it's burned on the other side, the message is, "Stay away."

And if it's burned on both sides? "We never had this conversation."

This piece of toast will self-destruct in five seconds...

I feel stupid because I don't understand any of the lingo used in this thread:(
Are you guys really burning stuff down? That's not very safe. >:/

Such a shame my characters were in hiding and were afraid to use fire and attract anyone such as authorities. I would have enjoyed using smoke signals, I've used them before. Got into a debate over whether tree sap such as pine or an oil or gas burns better and I singed by hair. My hair sent up quite the signal though and got my point across.