Finished the first scene in the revised Fairfields Arc.  It was at least 50% erase-and-start-again.  I gave Luke's hosts better sense in how to deal with obviously traumatized and very very dangerous patients, and I gave Luke a better apple than he got last time.  Also, Makepeace Hall and its bit of land now have an actual - if very crude - map in ( Read more... )

I caught one! Right at the beginning of Katy Elflocks, before I knew or thought I'd need to care about the details of the wider kingdom, I had Luke's father give him his ridiculously destructive magic sword as a parting gift - and it is explicitly the case that the old king has borne it into battle and knows what it's like, albeit clearly he doesn ( Read more... )

Killer-Kate and Luke Lackland: 430 words.  The Young Duke is tripping over vestal virgins at every turn, and generally feeling like a fifth wheel in his own castle.  It's worse than having the decorators in!  And then he finishes by tripping over something else I left for him to discover three or four chapters ago - little to his delight, and much ( Read more... )

I assisted at the harrowing of H___ by Emma Woodhouse.  This was planned with all the unerring foresight one might expect.  I was not Mr Knightley, but I might as well have been, except for the 'not marrying her at the end' bit and the 'being too busy running around trying to stuff Lamia and the Three Stooges back where we found them for any of ( Read more... )

After a pleasant week of Family Stuff, I returned to work to discover a defrosted freezer.  The contents, which were mostly liver and lights, had reached the stage of sending out miasmas and pseudopods.  The Offaly Civilization has now been destroyed, but long shall its memory be green.  Crimson, purple, billy-brown and black also ( Read more... )

Yay!  I have my main computer back again!

When that I was and a little tiny boy, I was inspired by superhero comics and my dad's passion for electronics to build my own computer.  So I made me a diagram of circuit symbol salad, corrected it to allow for the rather limited number of components I actually possessed, and built it in a lunchbox.  My ( Read more... )

Back on Sunday from a big family gathering in Gosport, for the seventieth birthday of my eldest aunt - a witty fellow-scribbler who shares something of my penchant for fantasy.  Hampshire is nearly on my doorstep, but it isn't a county I know at all well. What I've seen makes me wish to amend that in the near future... It was a merry meeting, as ( Read more... )

They don't always get on with one, as I am occasionally reminded.  On a medicine now that will hopefully pacify them.  I see much bland eating and even plainer drinking ahead for... some time.  I suppose small frequent meals does mean more variety, which is spice of a sort.

I slept reasonably last night for the first time in a while, which is ( Read more... )

Poll Test Poll: Breakfast of Protagonists

My indigestible food was indigestible, so I was condemned to spend long midnight hours awake, with neither the power to sleep nor the energy to rise.  Therefore I entertained myself with thoughts of Keynes and cargo cults, and whether limited companies have owners, and how to stimulate the grassroots economy without spending a dime, and many other ( Read more... )