Not only am I behind deadline, the next deadline (due to a change in production schedule (absolutely nothing to do with me and nothing anybody can do anything about) and my desire to keep that April slot) means I have a turn-in date way short of the usual. So I am going to be one jump short of crazy for the rest of this year. Thank God for Jane.
And still working…
by CJ | Jun 3, 2015 | Journal | 33 comments
33 Comments
Submit a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Yikes! Sounds substantially worse than a term paper due on Friday. Apply chocolate and or single-malt scotch as appropriate. And go on your daily walk up and down the block.
At least one of your regular readers would be happy with an April date that was after the 15th! But that’s very selfish of me; not everyone makes a living doing other people’s tax returns.
Lol—bad enough doing our own prep for it. We are at least closing in on the end of this book. I write, Jane follows me up, Jane asks questions and suggests scenes she’s thought of, I fill them in—it’s like a snowball gathering size and complexity on the downhill roll.
While CJ-daja pounds away, have you all heard of the discovery that Pluto and Charon are of similar enough size that they both orbit a common barycenter as do the other four small moons in resonance orbits? That makes those orbits decidedly uncircular, sometimes chaotic.
Well, back in the Win95 days I found a little program called Newton that allowed one to play with orbital dynamics. I played with a system of a “red giant” and close, equally massive, “white dwarf” binary pair–the sort of system primed to become one of the famous Type-1a supernovae. Then by trial and error (the only way the UI allowed) I finagled a small planet in a retrograde 3:1 orbit, and let it run. The orbit is triangluar! With the corners rounded off a bit, of course. It even precessed. Cool! So I added a 4:1 square orbit, all the way up to heptagonal!
Of course, as a SciFi reader I imagined a story where stellar explorers discovered such a system, and supposed perhaps they frightenly surmised there were entities with god-like powers. Q?
That was the premise of Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (nominated for a Hugo, but I misremember whether it won). Aliens were trying to make contact with humans; one of the ways they did it was by setting up a video game which was modeled after the dynamics of their multi-sun solar system. It was so chaotic it was a miracle any type of civilization managed to get established.
The article I read said that if you lived on one of these moons you would not know if the sun would rise or from which direction if it did. I took a moment for scientific enjoyment and then immediately thought what a great story this could make.
I think Saint Issac already did that kind of story.
I think Saint Issac already did that kind of story.
Take 2. Missed a close quote…
Ooooh. Shiny.
When I was researching Heavy Time I used an asteroid tracking program that asked users to advise of any Earth-threat they might happen to feed in. I turned up one, but darn it! a computer glitch (it really stressed my computer) killed it before I could note the number (name) of it or the date at which that would happen.
It’s out there. 😉
Actually, it was some time ago, when programs were simpler and computers were smaller, so we are probably safe.
Who knows? Maybe I spotted Apophis a shade early.
Is there a progress bar for the next book? The one that used to be here appears to have vapored.
Mmmm.. Let me see. That software may have died.
Dave’s Whizmatronic Widgulating Calibrational Scribometer is active…it shows the first draft of Visitor at 80 of 120 pages, or 67% complete…..
Oh! I see it now. That’s weird. It wasn’t there yesterday. :S
I notice it’s only 120 pages long. CJ, is this a method of being able to block out the chapters and their contents without getting bogged down in too much detail, too early?
Did I say crazy? Yep. Crazy. I didn’t mean pages. I meant thousands of words.
LOL! Fair enough! 😛
Oy! Hang in there.
I know this isn’t pertinent But there are now 8 missing cats ON MY STREET. Just last week my (good) neighbors. I have called police, animal control, put up posters, called all the animal rescue leagues here. Nothing. The police won’t do anything because I don’t have proof. I ask you where would I put a camera? Not like me to do nothing so I am going to protest a stupid ordinance that says cats cannot be free, but that is little. Any other ideas out there? My neighbor is inconsolable. Her cat was either at her house or at mine. This is unconscionable! There must be something I can do?
Several years ago I levelled my 12Ga at a coyote in my back hay field because I saw it take one of the neighbors cats. It ran, not fast enough, and kept running. But I knew where the bones were.
I believe there is some judicial precedent that says it is in the nature of cats to roam and that requiring them not to is not reasonable. That was several decades ago. I’d say get together and oontact a lawyer if you think the city is responsible. If you think you have a person doing harm to animals, that is serious business, for one thing because such people work up to harm against people as well. I’d get together all the neighbors who have the problem and contact the news, contact the mayor, contact the pound, contact the police department and keep making a fuss as a group. Meanwhile keep the kitties indoors, no matter how they protest.
I am that. We are going to make a BIG fuss. I am very much part of the protesting generation! I will have to find a precedent, of sorts. They just love pics. I’ve done it before to get rocks out of my parking space. Not shy. Ooh how the h___ could they? Dammit if you live two feet away from your neighbors what do you expect?
I don’t know how to post it but I have a sweet pic of SpeckleD oh how I hate whatever thinking for me!that’s Speckled with an s. In the catnip jar.
I am that. We are going to make a BIG fuss. I am very much part of the protesting generation! I will have to find a precedent, of sorts. They just love pics. I’ve done it before to get rocks out of my parking space. Not shy. Ooh how the h___ could they? Dammit if you live two feet away from your neighbors what do you expect?
Sorry didn’t mean to post twice…
I am immovable in my conviction that it is not necessary for cats to roam, and much, much safer if they don’t. The hazards outside are too numerous, and chief among them, sad to say, are other humans. I know that sometimes they get out even if you don’t want them to; I’ve been there, and it was agonizing. If someone has been deliberately harming the cats on vagmztp’s street, may they rot in hell.
I would suggest looking for a pattern in time and place of disappearances, as much as is known. At least the homes to which the cats belong and the day/night first known missing. For 8 cats, it might show something. Statements by the cats’ owners would help.
Are there other animals (dogs, raccoons, opossums, birds of prey) that might be the culprits?
Some people really don’t like strays or really don’t like cats in particular.
I knew one lady who was really and truly *afraid* to have a cat near her. They’d always, therefore, want to say hello. Poor woman, she couldn’t help her fear. But she didn’t hate cats.
I don’t think much of someone who’d actively hate animals or harm them. (I don’t begrudge hunting in a managed way, which to me is different anyway.) But unreasonable hate or harm is quite something else. I’ve heard people brag before. Not cool. And although some people would draw a clear distinction between treatment of animals versus how they’d treat humans, on the other hand, if someone would harm animals regularly, repeatedly, it could lead up to more, and to harming people, or at least a lower threshhold toward verbal or physical action towards other people, whatever that might be.
Sigh. That’s not a good thing. Not the disappearances. Not the worry over what is the cause, or if it’s one or more people acting out. But eight in a short time span…not good.
But I’ve also known someone, a neighbor of my grandmother, who was a “cat lady.” More than three, and I hope less than 12, in a small home. And odd, prone to temper.
A few weeks ago now, I missed getting moist cat food at the grocery store. Why? Two women spent the entire time I was in the store, huddled over the cat food, deciding what to get for their cats. Both cat laides, apparently. — I’d tried twice to get in and out, and decided it was really not worth it. I was really stunned it would take them that long. And I saw the shopping carts. Whoa. — I was annoyed, but well, if they are happy, and their cats are well taken care of, then OK, who am I to judge? I just wanted to get one big pack of moist food to feed my two cats. And yes, they (or any pets) are dear to me they add to my life, and they are their own kind of creature, as fitting and welcome on the planet as any human.
My two are currently curled up in the room with me, becasue they usually would rather be with me, if not right with me. One has a definite tendency to try to sleep on my hand while I’m at the keyboard. Heh.
Wishing for a good resolution to the matter.
According to the book, “How to Talk to Your Cat”, by Claire Bessant, people who don’t like cats don’t understand that by looking away from the cat, they are demonstrating non-aggressive behavior. Then again, there are those people who love cats and try to get the cat to come to them, but continue to stare at the cat. They don’t understand why the cat won’t come to them, but will come to the person who doesn’t like the cat. Staring is an aggression signal to a cat, and the cat reads the stare from the cat-lover as a threat, whereas the cat-disliker looks away, futilely hoping not to attract the cat’s attention. No wonder the poor feline is confused when the disliker pushes the cat off their lap……
THere’s also the fact that cats daily mark ‘their person’ with pheromones. It’s part of the Kitty World Domination plan that all humans must be marked and those not marked can be claimed.
To the great distress of those humans who are allergic to cats.
vagmztp, I hope your missing cats turn up safe and sound, or failing that, you discover what is causing the spike in cat disappearances, and that it’s something that can be corrected.
The Feliway is in place, and the verdict is mixed. I believe the tension between Junior and Zorro has been somewhat reduced, but there are still bouts of hissing and growling. The hallway is a pinch point, and if they unexpectedly encounter each other, they may startle into a dispute. It doesn’t help that the best places for the litterboxes are along the hallway (Captain’s Cabin and human bathroom). We are still working out what mix of lighting and feeding schedule will let us sleep in past dawn, because Junior still howls around 5 a.m., then Zorro decides it’s food o’clock and the hew-mons must bring them breakfast. That is the one point on which Zorro and Junior agree, breakfast is a sacred covenant and must be honored as early in the morning as possible; they will tag-team us on this and not fight.
We have weekly gatherings at our house, and as soon as more than a couple people arrive, Junior does a vanishing act and doesn’t reappear until everyone leaves. Until last night, we had no idea where he had been hiding, until I caught him emerging from under/inside the sectional couch, where Zazzle the kitten had hidden when she was visiting.
Last night we had an unexpected visitor; just as the 8:00 feeding rolled around, one of the neighbor’s dogs showed up in the back yard. Lola wanted to visit around, get tummy rubs and eat all the cat food I had just put out (the Three Stooges vanished immediately), not go home. 50-odd pounds of pit mix, no matter how happy, is rough to hang onto!
Lol! oopsie!
I hope you manage to catch up with the deadlines. The arrival of the new Foreigner book is always, for me, the first sign of spring.
And for us, it is an autumn herald, and it means long evenings under a blanket, with a hot cocoa, reading. 🙂
BTW, when you do decide to make that jump, be aware that there will be others on this side waiting to catch you, should you stumble when you land.