Sterlings update

Well, everyone else is talking about how they managed to hit 50,000 words today (or not 'fessing up if they didn't). I hit that back on the 23rd. So I guess it's time I admitted that I've still been working on Sterlings, both going back through the existing stuff. I had a very good day on the snow day, actually. Provided I don't do any more writing today, I'll end with an grand total of 65,064 words (before editing).

I spent a lot of time this morning on the bus reading through what I've got, and I have to say that it's not all crap. Oh, it desperately needs a cut (in fact, it's lost nearly 4,000 words already, down to 61K or so!) because I use an host of writerisms that really slow down the scenes. Later stories will probably grow: in my haste to make it to 50,000 words I wrote a lot of dialogue, but the descriptions are poor. Dove's emotions get whiplashed back and forth as she tries to seduce Polly, gets caught trying by Zia, gets invited into a threesome by Zia, and so forth, but I don't think I captured that very well, so that scene will be getting a re-write.

I've also fixed the naming scheme: Athenians all have greek letters for last names, Spartans have 'San' + some Founder's name as a matronymic, and Minervans just used the matronymic. The Spartans are the most conservative of the three worlds, the Minervans the most liberal.

And there's still too damned much story to write! The Pendorians seem more isolated than they should (in Ash & Arwen's case, this makes sense, but not in Saul's) and the political advances are jerky. But it's nice to be in rewrite.

Must share webcomic!

Webcomics are nothing new. Diary blogs are nothing new. Cute girls doing their diary blogs as a webcomic are nothing new (although most of them do it poorly). Even cute girls doing their diary webcomic blogs with extra doses of surrealism is nothing new.

But when the girl in question lives in Mexico City, you get a weird and fascinating view of a world you've never had before. Pilli rocks!

At last, a meme I believe in.

Species of commuter.

Remember a few posts ago when I said "if I don't do any more writing today"? I didn't. On my commute home, the guy sitting next to me brought a freaking eight-inch television with him, on which he proceeded to watch some DVD. I developed such a massive headache from trying to interrupt the instinctual portion of my brain that wanted to hone in on the high-speed flickering glow just to the edge of my sight that I finally had to just give up, close the laptop, and close my eyes. I don't watch video on my laptop on the commute for the same reason: it's freaking rude, okay? I've sat next to other geeks and not developed that kind of reaction, so it had to be something intrinsic to the action flick he was watching.

I've been taking the 6:30am bus instead of the 7:00am bus. This morning, a woman got on and looked around, and there was one seat left, the one next to me. She eyed it considerably before deciding that her double-wide ass wasn't going to fit there. Blessed be! No, I'm not enough of a gentleman to give up my seat as well.

And finally, this morning I witnessed a new variety of commuter that I can only call "the human turnstile." This is a commuter wearing a heavy coat and a backpack who stands at the front of the bus and is too stupid to get out of the way as people are trying to exit. Because he's wearing the backpack he blocks the aisle and has to rotate a full 360 each time someone wants to get past him. I hope he's at least keeping a running tally.