For dragon enthusiasts
I want to ride the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway and set out this morning to see what I could do.
I got cold. That’s what I could do.
It’s an amazing ride. Even in cold misery, that was obvious. From Rt 6 and up 119, taking a few detours onto gravel roads, the scenery was incredible for right outside town. There’s fun stuff of there calling my name, but until it warms up twenty or thirty degrees, it’s going straight to voicemail.
Are you ready, kids?
I’ve had a lot of problems blogging recently. Getting the Nine out the door on Sundays and Wednesdays is fairly difficult and working DM in the background consumes a lot of my free energy. The Nine needs more dragons.
I’m reading Redwall, which I’ve meant to start for a while. It’s good. I’ve also got Neverwhere on deck. I read Neverwhere years ago but don’t remember it much. At the time I was underwhelmed, but people whose opinions on books I trust have raved about it. I might not have read it closely or perhaps was otherwise distracted, so it’s worth a second look. Besides, all books are free at the library, so I can’t afford not to read it, right?
It’s motorcycle weather again. I’m hoping to put some miles down this weekend.
Take care, everyone.
Happy Monday, world!
If you’re a reader, either of my work or not, thank you! Good luck.
If you’re a writer and struggling, keep going! Ask for help if you need it, and I’m rooting for you, hoping you’re rooting for me.
If you’re neither, you still have struggles, dreams, and ambition. Do everything you can and be amazed at how much more that is than you expected.
Luck is preparation meeting coincidence.
My writing process is me, terribly sleep deprived, slamming unhealthy supplements while I open tabs of Firefox and make myself close them before I look at crap. Then I make jokes no one gets and somewhere a tragedy happens that makes it seem like I’m laughing at dead people. Seriously, the world is convergent. I laugh at a rabbit getting booped, and twenty minutes later the Russian Rabbit Apartment Complex goes up in flames with two hundred dead.
I miss my books; I miss my bed; I want a dog. Happy St Patrick’s Day.
I did some backend work today. Everything should be up and running. There are no more new user registrations, as they all seemed to be spam.
I live on a 6.5 day week, and I’m doing Gerard next in the Nine. Given I write with the linearity squirrels run across roadways, expect a four chapter digression on Amber’s dental care scene, and illegal flouride-based shadow raves. Follow your dreams, child. Follow your dreams because they stole my money.
Who is she?
Tatianna is a created person out of shadow. She was Ledes’s last painting, a full-sized portrait of Atiana, a dead woman he bore unrequited love for. She was his Atiana as he saw her, perfect, dark, and beautiful. The creation of the painting and the drugs killed him.
Melies conjured her. Tatianna gained some knowledge from Ledes, her painter, including language and rough social norms, and some knowledge from Melies, including the basics of conjuration. She was given to Julian as a gift, and he wanted more, instructing her to remain with Melies and learn more conjuration. After teaching her, Melies took her on the pathways to Amber and gifted her to Julian again.
The shadow-magic conjuration of Tenthet did not work in Amber, and the conjuration failed. She fled Melies and Julian, and arrived in Amber alone. By her narrative appearance she is almost broke, and an accessory to robbery and possibly murder. It is unknown if she and Obrecht killed people.
What does she want?
1) A sense of self-worth and power over her own outcomes. Melies didn’t see her as a thing, Ledes created her as personal erotica, and Julian cared little for creatures of shadow. All her decisions were made for her until she fled in the forests of Arden. She wants self-determination as well as to be a person.
2) To be recognized as powerful
3) To live
Why can’t she have it?
1) She’s broke. Poverty cares nothing for who you are. She doesn’t have the money to buy a better life.
1a) Her conjuration doesn’t work in Amber. It’s the only thing she knew how to do in Tenthet and one of two sources of her power up until arriving in Arden. It doesn’t work any more. (The other source of power, sexuality, is somewhat less than she thought because there are a lot of beautiful women in Amber, more in shadow, and the people with true power, the scions of Oberon, aren’t limited by what’s around. Julian specifically includes a bolded asterisk.)
2) Shadow conjuration doesn’t work in Amber, and she isn’t of the blood.
3) Bleys is chasing her for her ring.
The Nine at AO3 Nine for Mortal Man Doomed to Die
I take commas out of titles. In JRRT’s original poem there was a comma. I know. I took it out.
Doing some updating this weekend. Will probably break the website.
Good luck, self.
March 14th is pi Day among American nerds. Yes, it’s lower case because that’s how I’ve always seen it, and pi day isn’t a very serious thing. To be a bit more accurate, pi is the lowercase Greek character, so that’s the justification. Really it’s just habit. We write month/day/year, so 3/14/YY. March 14, 2015 was a great day in the annals of useless date-based trivia, and I celebrated it greatly.
I think I had toast or something.
Anyway, as we dive into a cesspool of what will no-doubt become natinoalistic diatribes (actually, I just won’t approve any comments on this post) we lament those who lose from pi day: everyone who writes day/month/year. April doesn’t have 31 days, so they’re out of pi luck. I guess they could have pi on 3 Jan, 2014, but that comes but once a century. Lament with me. That’s 99% less pi.
People who write year, month, day, don’t get pi day but once a century either, as 2003/1/4 is past and 2103/1/4 is coming. I don’t know anyone who writes YY/DD/MM or Y/DD/MM. I am sorta curious, though.
Effort moves the keys. Inspiration comes out of movement. Discipline keeps the keys moving.