As the Zeroes Roll Over

Posted: June 13th, 2015 under Life beyond writing, the writing life.
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So tonight the ms. stands at 70,000+ words.   This is after chunks removed and chunks added over the past few weeks.   Front end writing toward the end, and backfilling gaps both.  More chunks remain to be removed, but I’m waiting on the larger ones until I’m closer to the end.   There’s quite a bit of back-filling to be done; some of the writing has been fairly skeletal…the skeleton needs muscle, tendons, skin, and clothing.   Aiming at a finished length of ~120,000, which means 50,000 to do between now and the end of August.  Doable as so much is fleshing out the scenes and the transitions between scenes  (drat–I just has an opossum on the window-screen beside me.  Young one, but well past the cute stage.)  The story itself is moving well into the final stages.

Certain characters have come to a sad end.  The group is now small enough to fit around one large table.   People are looking around, suspicious and worried.   Who else might be “bad?”   Ky is resolute and very, very tired.   And also sad about what she would like to consider unnecessary deaths even though she knows at least one of them was necessary.  New critters have been added to the outdoors, though they may not have any effect on the plot at this point (this thanks to more research, including that done at the Field Museum.)    Some of the backfilling is to the environment of the story, tempered by the realization that this is not about that, exactly.

Bedtime now.  Six in the  morning comes early, I’ve finished the week’s word quota and I need to sing both services tomorrow.

29 Comments »

  • Comment by Richard Simpkin — June 14, 2015 @ 1:55 am

    1

    Opossums being unwelcome critters in your own outdoors?


  • Comment by elizabeth — June 14, 2015 @ 6:35 pm

    2

    Richard, opossums are native, so they’re quite welcome to be out on the land. In town, they’re a nuisance. My particular gripe at them is that they have twice blown the transformer near here, cutting off electricity to the neighborhood. So has a squirrel, but squirrels have the advantage of being (along with destructive) kind of pretty at some times of the year and hilariously funny during mating season. Both opossums and squirrels like to get into attics where they make a mess (and noise at night.) Also there’s a dead opossum in the front yard, under a juniper tree, and it’s been hot and humid. The dead smell has attracted vultures, who, when they perch on a house, leave significant marks on the roof…stinky ones. It may not be fair to blame opossums for their own death, but if they would stay out in the country they wouldn’t be stinking up the yard.


  • Comment by Jonathan Schor — June 15, 2015 @ 1:20 pm

    3

    Are opossums really good eating?


  • Comment by elizabeth — June 15, 2015 @ 1:36 pm

    4

    I’ve never eaten one. I have heard from others who have that they are a fat, sweet meat…more like pork than rabbit or squirrel. Urban possums eat a lot of trash and I would consider them contaminated, though–starving–I would eat ‘possum. ‘Possums around here eat fruit off the trees, nuts, trash, various other things. They also eat cat and dog food, and they get into horse troughs (where they sometimes drown) and transmit disease to horses. Presumably also cattle, but I don’t know.

    If you happen to kill and eat one, a) use gloves to skin and clean it and b) find out from local health officials what diseases they carry in your area. Then come tell us what you thought of it.


  • Comment by Ginny W. — June 15, 2015 @ 3:26 pm

    5

    I eagerly anticipate reading the final product. It sounds interesting, despite the characters who have come to a necessary, at least to the plot, end.

    Possums are (marginally) less obtrusive and destructive than raccoons, at least in my city neighborhood. On the whole though, wildlife generally needs more wild to live in than urban environments provide. The lack of appropriate predators and natural food sources and viable nesting sites quickly turn urban wildlife into un-domesticated dependents. Not good. Possums are one of the few natural predators for giant slugs. This is a silver lining.

    Sorry about the dead possum in the yard. Yuck!


  • Comment by Daniel Glover — June 15, 2015 @ 7:40 pm

    6

    With all the rivers round about here we just had another cougar/mountain lion siting near the urban core (with a mile of the high rises) within the past fortnight dining on a domestic cat killed. Last one with good documentation to come through here made it all the way across Minnesota and Wisconsin and was killed by a car in Michigan. Others come through but don’t get good footprint and DNA documentation.


  • Comment by elizabeth — June 15, 2015 @ 10:49 pm

    7

    Pictures? Someone collecting scat for DNA analysis? Inquiring minds want to know.


  • Comment by elizabeth — June 15, 2015 @ 10:53 pm

    8

    Ginny, a dead body in the yard is the one thing that makes me wish for 110F days of very low humidity–things dry up faster & thus stink less. This hot, humid, off-and-on rain isn’t really helping, though the turkey vultures weren’t around today. The corpse has deflated, husband says. We don’t know if the vultures got at it or something else did, or even why it died. And since finding out would’ve required crawling under an ornamental juniper (acts like a tent to hold in the smell) and donning protective gear…we’re not playing CSI-wildlife with this one.


  • Comment by Ellen McLean — June 16, 2015 @ 12:53 am

    9

    Glad the writing is rolling on. Sorry to hear about the former possum. The weather is due to rain again like crazy.


  • Comment by ellen — June 17, 2015 @ 12:50 am

    10

    Possums a pain around here too. At least we don’t get vultures. Looking forward to the book.


  • Comment by Daniel Glover — June 17, 2015 @ 4:29 am

    11

    Elizabeth,

    Yes, it was documented.

    This wasn’t the one I was looking for but it has some of the same types of information.

    http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2011/09/evidence_confirms_cougar_roami.html

    This one is a bit longer about another incident and the documentation efforts.

    http://www.twincities.com/outdoors/ci_22749606/more-mountain-lion-sightings-documented-minnesota


  • Comment by Kathleen — June 17, 2015 @ 5:21 am

    12

    I feel your pain on the dead critters. In the urban area that is Metro DC, we have some possums. But the clear problem is that the deer are out of control. Resulting in lots of road kill (and body shop repairs). Resulting in a bummer crop of Turkey and Black Vultures. I think the vultures out number the osprey and eagles by 10-1 at least.


  • Comment by Julia Coldren-Walker — June 17, 2015 @ 8:08 am

    13

    Don’t forget all the raccoons around here in the DC area and now Virginia has had to two people attached by what they believe was a rabid raccoon.


  • Comment by Nadine Barter Bowlus — June 19, 2015 @ 11:29 am

    14

    Where there are deer, there are lions.
    Most people in California have no idea how wide spread the population of Mtn lions is. We had periods of news show hysteria this spring when lions and bears were sited in greenways within urban areas (SF Bay area and metro Sacramento).


  • Comment by elizabeth — June 20, 2015 @ 9:29 am

    15

    Kathleen: Deer are out of control in Austin, so the coyotes have moved in after them…finding some things easier to take than deer. Deer-caused wrecks–yes. I’ve seen small groups strolling across the streets at night, like jaywalking teenagers, from one well-landscaped neighborhood to another. There are or were some mountain lions in west Austin, in the little canyons, but I don’t know if there are enough photo traps to determine how many if any are left.

    Julia: Raccoons. We have lots of them. Austin also has them–if you have a cat or dog door, they’ll come inside to forage. Unlike squirrels, they’ll stand their ground. I had a big one in the carport one night, determined to get the top off a trash can, and it puffed up and snarled at me–I had a broom. It finally backed under one of the cars, and I was not going to engage it while down on hands & knees with only a broom.

    Nadine: Habitat destruction is the main reason for mountain-lion sightings around here; the one Richard saw was probably displaced by road construction in a previously unbroken area of wooded hills.

    In general and back onto zeroes rolling over…If you’ve momentarily switched from one document to another, you can scare yourself thinking that your 70-something-thousand word book is down to 85 words because the computer lost everything. Not so. Different document. I can breathe again.


  • Comment by Nadine Barter Bowlus — June 23, 2015 @ 4:06 pm

    16

    Does computer induced panic count as an aerobic activity? 🙂


  • Comment by elizabeth — June 23, 2015 @ 10:16 pm

    17

    Unfortunately not, because my (admittedly unhealthy response to computer induced panic is to go eat something. Today, for instance, while struggling to get the new DSL modem to cooperate with our computers so we could get back online after several days of spotty, and one of zero, internet connection, I went through far too many ginger snaps. If there’d been doughnuts or brownies in the house…they’d have been long gone.


  • Comment by Linda — June 25, 2015 @ 12:37 pm

    18

    After about the fifth squirrel suicide resulting in transformer damage near my home, the power company installed some sort of squirrel proof gadget to the transformer and I haven’t had a power outage due to that cause in years. Downed trees, windstorms, ice storms, blizzards, careless drivers, but not squirrels or possums.

    The possum who died in my crawl space last winter (found by the electrician) never, as far as I know, caused a stink, but then the temp didn’t get above freezing for more than three months! Probably freeze dried.

    Turkey vultures here in VT follow the interstate north each spring. Cheeky birds, I have had them not move when confronted by an admittedly small car and have had swerve to the other side of the road to avoid them. At least they serve a purpose!


  • Comment by Ginny W. — July 5, 2015 @ 8:39 pm

    19

    Happy, if belated, Independence Day to all who commemorate the Fourth. And independence to all who don’t.


  • Comment by Mary Elmore Kellogg Cowart — July 9, 2015 @ 11:19 pm

    20

    Have you had any problems with flooding and such from all the rain Texas and Oklahoma has received. I think about you.

    I have an acquaintance on Face Book, who is a friend of my son’s who lives in Florence, Texas now. I think Robert knew him in the Army. This person mentioning Florence, made me think of you even more.

    I get on your blog sporadically.

    Take care and I hope you get your computer glitches fixed.

    Mary


  • Comment by elizabeth — July 9, 2015 @ 11:38 pm

    21

    Mary: One low-water crossing in town flooded for a few hours, but we’re well above that. The flash-flooded a couple of times, but is now flowing beautifully–I don’t know for how long. We missed some of the heaviest rains (went 10 miles this way or that way around us.) Thanks for your concern.


  • Comment by Mary Elmore Kellogg Cowart — July 10, 2015 @ 9:02 pm

    22

    I live is a city, although mostly rural. I did not get flooding but some places near the Canadian River did get flooded. And I know that Dallas/Fort Worth was wall to wall water in places. Some Basements were flooded. one of the churches basements had flooded and my grandson (a new hs graduate; he’s going to OSU to major in engineering, don’t ask what kind because I forget) has helped with that cleaning. Take care.

    Mary


  • Comment by elizabeth — July 11, 2015 @ 8:30 am

    23

    When I took the train (early May and late June both ways both times) the flooding of the Brazos and streams north was obvious. In June, I took the train on from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City, and saw more flooded rivers, including a washout in Oklahoma where the tracks had been rebuilt on fresh rip-rap, gravel, and so on, with badly damaged locomotives, one at least completely smashed up, off to one side.

    We are now in a typical July dry situation, soil already cracking on top, so the worry now will be wildfires as the vegetation that grew abundantly in the earlier rains dries out. Taking care is part of living where we do.


  • Comment by Margaret — July 11, 2015 @ 2:18 pm

    24

    Regarding urban deer; a few years back when I was living in Little Rock, there was a rash of reports of deer hit by cars within the city limits. One of the stories mentioned that there is a meat processing facility in the area who, if you can field-dress your road-kill deer and bring the carcass to them, they will process it and deliver it to one of several charities who feed folks in the local homeless shelters.


  • Comment by Wickersham's Conscience — July 13, 2015 @ 12:42 pm

    25

    Wildfires: Here in interior Alaska we have some 250-300 active wild fires right now, which have burned more than 3.5 million acres. Almost all of the fires are lightning-generated. It’s not a record (2004, 6.6 million acres, about the size of Massachusetts) but it is a record pace. Only fires that threaten infrastructure get much attention. As I write this, the sky is noisy with helicopters taking 300 gallon buckets of water to the nearest fire, Packee Creek, which is a couple of miles from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The air is pretty bad right now.


  • Comment by elizabeth — July 14, 2015 @ 8:12 am

    26

    Yikes. That’s not good for lungs. Take care, please. (And that’s not even counting the other damage wildfires do.) We are still in dust from Africa (not quite as much today so far) with smoke from Mexican volcano possibly on the way.


  • Comment by Elaine — July 24, 2015 @ 10:26 am

    27

    Yay! Another Vatta book! I haven’t checked in with your blogs in — a while. Last weekend for some unknown reason I decided to reread at least the first Vatta War book. I love the character development, the understanding of insecurities and self-doubt, the fear of being different or flawed. I should have known better. I finished book TWO at 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, and I too sing in church choir. Sigh. Then, of course, instead of doing something useful I had to start book 3.

    Kylara Vatta should be a spokesperson for Lays potato chips, because I cannot eat just one.

    Elaine
    Norman, Oklahoma


  • Comment by elizabeth — July 26, 2015 @ 11:02 am

    28

    Elaine: Glad you found out about the new stuff coming, and of course I’m delighted that you enjoyed, and like to re-read, the older ones. Thank you!


  • Comment by Pat — September 7, 2015 @ 2:41 pm

    29

    I’ve just surfaced from reading Crown of Renewal, completing the entire Paks series. I found four of the five books by accident at the library while looking for something else, checked them out, put the fifth on hold, and when I finished the book I was reading went to start on the series. Except I discovered that there were three previous books, and being kind of anal that way having to read them all in order, put the Deed Paksenarrion on hold. It took forever to get it, had to renew the others twice, but finally finished them all.

    Any chance there will be another book to tie up loose ends? I kind of feel like I’m left hanging…do they finally get rid of the mage hunters? what happens to Dorrin? how does Beclan mature into his Dukedom? does Camwyn get his kingdom? does Mikeli find a wife?

    Inquiring minds wanna know. Needless to say, I loved the series, had trouble putting the books down to get anything else done.


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