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I’m starting new projects.

Taking lessons-learned from TiH, I’m starting two things.

The first is another kids book, aimed at a slightly older group than Mara. I’m angling for the same feel.

Initially I intended to write a direct sequel to Mara and the Trolls, but that story was done. The great conflict was resolved as best I could. I turned the crank on a few more iterations, follow-on stories and so forth, and they all felt like unnecessary sequels.

I did have such an awesome title though: Hector and the Fairy Godbear. Right?

Ah well.

The second is something more like TiH. A while ago I mentioned: “I learned I don’t like solo main characters. I like a bunch of the little buggers all pinballing off each other.

I do like keeping a setting for a few scenes. I want to introduce a room, a statue, a field of battle, or the places between stars, and be able to go back to that locale for another scene. I want to dive into the people doing the stuff, and if I reuse a room, the characters can start interacting again with less description.

I like magic. I like really, really complicated magic.”

And I think I’ve set that up this time. But I’m still learning. Hopefully.

Anyway, new stuff going on in the OTS-machine, and it’s going to be great.

Good luck, everyone. I’m rooting for you.

Mara is free on Kindle today, tomorrow, and Sunday.

The worst of all things are intermittent wiring faults.

And quasars.

I want to find a BMW 6 series coup that’s new on the dealer lot.

BMW stopped selling them in the US in 2018-ish. I bet one exists somewhere.

Multiple conflicting motivations are better if they’re slightly askew. If Adam wants to win the tournament, and Bob wants to defeat Adam, Bob doesn’t necessarily have to win the tournament to do that.

Now one-on-one things reduce to simple conflict, but among a battle royale of eight participants, each of which are somewhat in opposition to the others, there’s a lot of flexibility.

My models don’t converge. I think I need more data.

I wanna go mad with power and buy another lamp. And maybe a couch.

I don’t have enough power to go mad. I can’t even get disgruntled with power. I’m at worst vaguely dispeptic with competency, and that just doesn’t have the ring to it.

The joy of the mountains is that they aren’t sentient, alive, or aware. They’re just mountains existing.

In autojourno circles, fast refers to top speed and quick refers to acceleration.

I still look at that for a second every time I see it.

Today, in my lab, I discovered what an intermittant wiring failure looked like.

It looked like a week’s work wasted.

The metal core of a wire snapped inside the insulation but, depending on where the arm was, would still make contact.

The master has failed more times than the student has tried, and I am well on my way to mastering this robot.