Bad Guys

I worry the villians aren’t enough. Since most of my stuff is written within the perspective of the heroes, it’s easy to make weak villians who don’t bring the fear. What is my villians aren’t sinister enough? Can I amp them in some way? Can I just make sure they’re actual forces of antagonism and not just annoyances? Basically, are they bad, I mean really bad, or just kinda there?

I hope they’re okay.

AO3 Hit Count Game

A game I play is tying the hit counts on my AO3 page to historical meaning. Right now we’re at 1666, the second year of the Great Plague of London, which was the last major outbreak of plague, bubonic and pneumonic, on the way to the end of the epidemic in 1750. Roughly 100k people died in London over two years, which is ghastly and tiny compared to how many people died of it earlier. Plague outbreaks would continue for almost another century, and in the modern day a few people die of it every year. Some epidemic pathologists think there may be a cell in the American Southwest, New Mexico, Arizona, possibly Utah, Nevada, and Colorado, and we do have a few fatalities most years.

USWNT

Congratulations, US Women. Well done.

If the price of leadership is endless attempts to tear you down, it’s one I understand some people being unwiling to pay. But I admire those who do. Utmost respect to the women who paid it in France, and those who came reaching for the same heights. Congratulations to all competitors.

Editing

I think the real purpose of editing is staring at the manuscript after it’s away and instantly realizing all the things I could improve. Things I never saw before after months/years of poring over the text are brutally obvious now.