I'll fit it in in the next 30 hours.
3,051 2015-05-15 16:54:51
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
3,052 2015-05-14 14:28:13
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Does that mean that Alina's death has ramifications beyond just opening the Crypt?
Too dumb or too self-centered?
3,053 2015-05-14 01:06:49
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
No. A wand recognizes its master, but 'brother' wands only react if you try to use them against each other. And it's not the wand but the magical core: unicorn hair-tail, dragon heartstring, pheonix feather, etc.
3,054 2015-05-13 03:41:02
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
It's a volcano with swirly smoke on top
3,055 2015-05-13 00:03:43
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
amy s wrote:I needed that smile. Thanks:-)
Even I got that one!
X is the first of two X's in Foxx
Who was right behind Ruth with his powerful Soxx
------Ogden Nash, Lineup for Yesteryear
3,056 2015-05-12 08:36:58
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Yes, I think I remember you said you're a super socks sorter. I'm sure you mentioned it at some point.
Time came, after Luis Aparicio was established in the AL, he was involved in a trade between Chicago and Boston. The next day's headlines? "After 12 Years, Aparicio changes Sox"
3,057 2015-05-11 15:12:25
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Or maybe from 'how do I see the socks in the pile?' to 'how do I make the pile so the reader finds these sock pairs?'
3,058 2015-05-11 14:32:24
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Amy, you have created a situation of great depth and complexity. The payoff, if you can get everything just right, is huge. But if you're having trouble, you should dial back carefully on what you are imputing to the characters and circumstances. I suspect that you'll want to do that in one or two places, leaving those parts of the story untold. But most of it I am expecting you'll tweak and fill in.
This is actually a question of detail and gestalt. You need to go from the socks back to the pile.
3,059 2015-05-10 21:13:34
Re: The comma is your friend not mine. (12 replies, posted in Fantasy World Builders)
When the semicolon is well used it should not be noticed.
3,060 2015-05-10 21:12:12
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
I need to crash for an hour or two and then do a couple hours of noisy cleaning. I'll look after that.
3,061 2015-05-10 02:40:41
Re: The comma is your friend not mine. (12 replies, posted in Fantasy World Builders)
Actually, if it weren't for A. Manuttsio, we would all write like Gertude Stein. He saved us all from a truly wlatsome fate, for not only would we have to write like the decomma'd wonder-woman, we would have to read the results if we wanted to read at all.
And if we didn't want to read, think of the stories that would never have been written, from The Moonstone and Wuthering Heights to A Christmas Carol and LotR. We would never have met Prof. A.S.F.X van Duzen or Alan Quartermain. Don Quixote would be a mere poet's nightmare, and Dr. Zhivago would never have seen the light of day (and what of Maurice Jarre?). No Albus Dumbledore, no Gideon Fell or Henry Merrivale, no Foundation or Hezekiah Bailey, no Valentine Michael Smith or Lazerus Long, no Miss Marple or Peter Wimsey. No Montegue Egg of Plummet and Rose, no Cowardly Lion or Mr. Tock.
3,062 2015-05-09 09:32:23
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
A modest rewrite, with some shading I want for later.
Don't get too excited. I'm trying to figure out what to do next in the apartment, and I've got to get on with my life.
3,063 2015-05-09 00:14:21
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
I took time to do a very little of my work, revising Chapter 54 of Book 1. There's a new version out there with some different shadings. I'd be grateful for any thoughts you have on it.
3,064 2015-05-08 15:30:16
Re: The comma is your friend not mine. (12 replies, posted in Fantasy World Builders)
'Additional information' is exactly what is meant by a non-restrictive clause. A restrictive clause specifies further which individuals/instances/occurences are meant; a non-restrictive clause (or other modifier) does not limit the instances, but only provides additional information.
3,065 2015-05-07 21:56:22
Re: Print added to content pages (13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
The formatting is nice and the font is good to read. There are tweaks I could wish for, but I'll wait until someone else asks for them.
3,066 2015-05-07 07:12:23
Re: The comma is your friend not mine. (12 replies, posted in Fantasy World Builders)
I tripped over a 1997 copy of the AP stylebook. They use 'essential' to mean 'restrictive' and 'non-essential' to mean 'non-restrictive'.
I would say the relative clause 'who is ...' is non-restrictive, precisely because 'favorite uncle' refers to one individual and further restriction is not possible. This non-restrictive clause is parenthetical in effect (try it with Real Parentheses) and so should be set off by commas.
3,067 2015-05-07 06:21:37
Re: Back in the saddle (27 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Sometimes dinner must wait.
3,068 2015-05-07 04:16:58
Re: Back in the saddle (27 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
My control systems professor was a professionally irreverent fellow with whom I could never get along. He knew enough to give me a miserable grade, which I certainly earned. But I also kept my ears open for little things.
The computer center had acquired one of the first Altair computers with a little box monitor. Nearly the only software we had for it was a lunar lander game. Maybe one person in ten could get the lander down, one time in three, without it running out of fuel and crashing.
After my second failure, I remembered something that Professor C--- had said: often the optimums occur at extremes. I thought about how this might apply and realized that using the lander's rocket thrusters at anything less than full power was wasteful, because the thrust fraction that corresponded to hovering thrust was throwing fuel away.
I started again, and this time used the minimum possible fuel to slow the lander out of orbit and orient it rocket-down. I waited until I was about 60% of the way down, falling at a terrifying speed, and then used a full-power burn to slow the fall to near zero. I did it again with the lander only a couple hundred meters up, and had enough fuel to make a soft landing with just a little to spare.
I also had an audience. The person responsible for our Portable Slum (a story for another time) was watching, and he announced to the people in three rooms (full of noisy machinery) that I had succeeded. And then ... "I bet you can't do it again!"
I should have made him put money on it. He and a few others shouted "No! Use the rockets! You're going to crash!" as I repeated the performance, ending with almost 20% of fuel remaining.
I silenced them and spoiled the game by discovering what the NASA folks knew: that the only way it could work is if you used partial burn for only a few seconds while making the soft touchdown.
3,069 2015-05-07 03:47:58
Re: Back in the saddle (27 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
No, this was an alteration, like virtually everything a miscellaneous shop does. The building was at least twenty years old, built with firebrick around the steel instead of spray-on mineral fiber coat.
Okay, Wikipedia says it was built in 1930-31. So it was about 45 years old then, give or take a year.
Remember when Rowling introduces the portkey in Goblet of Fire? The sensation of using it is described as having a hook grab you behind the navel--not unlike the sensation of an automatic skyscraper elevator pre-1966. The skill to build fast elevators that don't do that came from the space program. The math needed to make a rocket stand on its engine exhaust without toppling opened the door to limiting acceleration, jerk, and jounce (first, second, and third derivatives of velocity, respectively) while stopping the car at exactly the right place without perceptible overshoot.
3,070 2015-05-07 02:35:29
Re: Back in the saddle (27 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Not as awesome as the guys who climbed up there and put all those parts together! I was on a scaffold-floor under the roof. Quite safe as long as you stayed away from the elevator machinery. The high-voltage electrical parts stick out this way and that, exposed.
3,071 2015-05-07 00:26:08
Re: Back in the saddle (27 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
I may be able to generate another 76 inches of paperback space, and a 19 inches of higher space.
And I'm looking to transform some of the bedroom shelf space. That requires white melamine-coated shelving. The shelves are supported by bent wires in grooves rabbetted into the shelf edges, but I'd have to use pegs. The holes are too small for standard pegs, bug might, just might, fit 4d common or 6d finishing nails.
The things I'll do for another 28+1/2 inches of shelf space ...
3,072 2015-05-07 00:07:12
Re: Back in the saddle (27 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
The first time I was hospitalized for an infection they were still using butterflies, which had to come out after three or four days. It was time for the third one and the nurse didn't like any vein she could find. They called the floor doc and I was afraid they'd have to excavate for a vein. The doc gave my forearm a light slap, saw a few veins he liked and set up for work, using the nurse as a tape-holder.
When he did the stick I barely felt it, and when he was done I thanked him profusely. I've never had a less painful vein stick--or one more neatly taped. Of course, now you have the needle-comes-out, tubing-stays-in arrangement. Much less geometric taping.
Unfortunately, their first-thing-in-the-morning phlebotomist was a pain machine.
3,073 2015-05-06 18:56:40
Re: Print added to content pages (13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Ah, I see it now, a tiny black icon in contrast to the big red button.
Any chance of making the tiny black icon a little more prominent?
3,074 2015-05-06 10:58:40
Re: Back in the saddle (27 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
I'm impressed with the apparent size of your book collection. ...
You mean my LIBRARY.
3,075 2015-05-06 04:19:07
Re: Print added to content pages (13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
That's the one whose tooltip says "print all chapters."