{"id":2478,"date":"2013-11-25T14:19:52","date_gmt":"2013-11-25T21:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/?p=2478"},"modified":"2017-04-08T20:55:12","modified_gmt":"2017-04-09T03:55:12","slug":"breaking-horizon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/25\/breaking-horizon\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Horizon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kroom<\/p>\n

At some point over the past weekend, I broke 40,000 words on Nano. This is no time to get complacent: even though I’m a few days ahead now – only 6200 words from the end – and I’m supposedly on vacation, I may need to go back to work tomorrow to deal with a minor, well, not crisis, but something that demands my attention.<\/p>\n

\"MAROONED<\/p>\n

So while that mountain above has impressive height and slope, it ends in a plateau, because the month of November is not done. And if you don’t retain focus, you can end on that plateau, because the end of November is friends and family and Thanksgiving and Black Friday and the year-end scramble at work, if you have one.<\/p>\n

\"MAROONED<\/p>\n

SO while I have a lead, I’m going to do what I can to keep it. Speaking of which \u2026 I wrote 375 words between what I wrote above and the end of this article. Here’s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSo, still thinking Halfway was a steal?\u201d Sirius asked. \u201cWas it worth it to spend your inheritance on the hideout of a war criminal, no doubt on her way back here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not a war criminal, and she\u2019s not coming back,\u201d Serendipity said. \u201cShe\u2019s a prolific and nurturing mother. She would never have left her grandchild behind, much less her own daughter. Same rules as Norylan\u2019s parents: if she could have come back, she would have\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNurturing mother doesn\u2019t mean,\u201d Sirius said, \u201cshe wasn\u2019t a war criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA few hard choices don\u2019t a monster make,\u201d Serendipity said. \u201cShe led the First Contact mission between Dresan and Murra. For all practical intents and purposes, she founded the Dresan-Murran Alliance, the most harmonious grouping of aliens in the universe\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFounded on annihilating everyone who didn\u2019t fit that mold?\u201d Sirius said quietly.<\/p>\n

For a moment, Serendipity didn\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t take responsibility for the sins of someone who wasn\u2019t even my ancestor,\u201d Serendipity said, \u201cbut I\u2019ll defend the values they bequeathed to me, values they developed trying to learn from their mistakes. When my grandmother came, I could have had her kill you all\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey!\u201d Sirius said. Then he punched her arm. \u201cAss!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey!\u201d Serendipity said back, feeling her arm. \u201cOw\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, you couldn\u2019t have had her kill us,\u201d Sirius said. \u201cShe would have sliced up that blaster, and maybe lopped a few arms, or perhaps just gut checked a few of Toren\u2019s goons with the back end of her scythe blades. Your back was turned. She took the room in an instant\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a killer,\u201d Serendipity said. \u201cYou don\u2019t know her\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a First Contact Engineer and a pregnant mother,\u201d Sirius said. \u201cI saw her face. Yes, she\u2019s scary\u2014I\u2019ve never seen anyone that scary\u2014but I could also see relief when she saw we were children. I refuse to believe she would just windmill through us all, rolling heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serendipity stared at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure I agree with you,\u201d she said, \u201cbut I think you\u2019re also making my point.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Back to work.<\/p>\n

-the Centaur<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At some point over the past weekend, I broke 40,000 words on Nano. This is no time to get complacent: even though I’m a few days ahead now – only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,197,200,1],"tags":[4,91,87],"class_list":["post-2478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challenges","category-fiction","category-science-fiction","category-uncategorized","tag-dragon-writers","tag-nanowrimo","tag-the-dresanians","ratio-2-1","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3678,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions\/3678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}