NaNo Lessons

Okay, I know maybe y'all are getting tired of hearing about NaNoWriMo from all of us crazy people yakking about it all over the interwebz *g* But, the last couple of weeks have been most illuminating for me, and I wanted to share some of the things I've learned.

A little background: the book I'm writing -- Shenandoah, sequel to my short story Dragon's Kiss -- is set in a future world where technology, moderns medications and modern conveniences are things of the past. So I've been doing a LOT of research. I've spent many hours this past week reading up on medicinal plants. Had to tear myself away to write, actually, it was so interesting O_O

So, anyway, here are a few of the things I've learned researching in the past couple of weeks:

1. Sheep poo looks way more like horse poo than I would've thought. (Don't ask.)
2. Several different plants apparently keep blood from clotting, but not many make blood clot.
3. Yarrow encourages blood to clot. Yay for yarrow!
4. Half the weeds in the woods behind my house are evidently natural antibiotics/antiseptics. Who knew?
5. My GPS will not tell me how long it would take to walk from the mid-portion of North Carolina to northwest Virginia. WTF, GPS Lady? You'd tell me how long it would take to drive there.
6. I now have definitive proof that the GPS Lady hates me. See # 5.
7. A surprising variety of things can be used to start fires, if you can believe some of the websites out there. Nothing that a couple of guys in a primitive post-fall-of-modern-civilization world would have (they do not, for instance, have access to Coke cans...) but still. Most interesting.

And last but not least:
8. YOU CAN'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ONLINE.
But y'all already knew that :)