I don’t see catfood on your todo list there, mister.
No, but I am back on track for National Novel Writing Month, even though today was consumed almost completely by a software release that just … wouldn’t … die. I’m actually planning a postmortem on a tiny little patch that ended up becoming a complete new release of our software that exposed interactions everywhere from our unit test framework to software we’re launching next year. That made me late for the monthly Writing Allies meeting – normally I chunk out a piece of time to write over dinner before I get there, even if we all are having too much fun talking about writing to actually write. But when I got home, even after a lot of cat wrangling, I did manage to sit down with the laptop (or, from time to time, follow cats around with the laptop):
Back on track for the day: 18179 words, or 16219 added. Still a day ahead. Woohoo! An excerpt:
Doug stared with interest at the footage from Ron and Sunny’s cameras, then at the pictures I’d taken of the graffiti with my cell phone. He asked if we had more, and I was embarrassed to admit that we’d hightailed it before fully finishing our location scouting.
“S’alright,” he said, reviewing the tape one more time. “Most interesting.”
“Well,” Sunny demanded. “What is it?”
“Definitely magic,” Doug said. “But I’m guessing you knew that.”
“Well—” Sunny began.
“C’mon,” Ron said. “There’s a demonstration of magic on the tape—”
“I was there,” Sunny reminded him. “And I do believe in magic. It’s just—”
“A projectia,” I said suddenly. “A caster’s will magically projected as a form.”
“Precisely,” Jinx said. “Like your tattoos, but free-floating. They can be as insubstantial and transparent as, well, ghosts, or as solid and opaque as physical objects. Your old boss, Christopher Valentine, used them to create his famous doppelganger illusion.”
Congratulations, Nano writer! Now back to work.
-the Centaur
