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Status: badly dislocated.

Before I try picking up loose threads, I'm going to catch up a bit on reviews.  I've lost count of how many I owe, but I'll try to do six today.  After that, I have about four hours of physical design work to do ... and some hope that it will work out.  If not, it's a big delay while I think more things out.  If it does work, then I can move on to the next part--about 700 parts on twelve copies of a circuit board.  I'm planning how to order the work so I can test it section by section.

I've got three boxes inside my front door with expensive shelf parts.  Wire shelves, the kind you put together with a rubber mallet.  It's too noisy to do at night, so I have to figure out when to do it.  And this is a too-clever splice job, for space for all the boxes and bins of resistors and capacitors and diodes ... and badly needed.  Actually, I need about sixty feet of shelf space.  This will get me about twelve--and not all of it within easy reach.

My little constant-current circuit works so well that I can try reversing it to operate off the Vcc rail, skipping the current mirror.  It will drop only about 400 mV more,  and I can spare that.  That is, if it works using the complementary transistors I've got.   Worst case is that it works, but barely well enough.  That's one more thing to breadboard and test.

I lost most of Monday and Tuesday to that mystery contest.  I've got an entry that could have used more editing--but I got it in just under the wire.  If anybody cares to have a look at it, I'd be grateful, even though it's too late to put changes in.

Ouch!  I made a last-minute entry (at about 23:35) and realized I'd omitted something, so I edited the version out there.  The edit was completed at about 23:53.  Does the contest get the edit or not?

Not sure about the Tazar twist.  Let's see how it plays.  I'm afraid it might hold Tazar back early when he needs to act.

Ragarding leftover Magic: use a LOTR solution: no new mages, magic fades over years, immortals become mortal.  Poor Anver--all that study.

Reviewed Matthew Abelack's A to O Krudges, Ch. 1.

Prod as you like.  I've got several irons in the fire and several pots to keep stirring.  And I owe some reviews, which I'm catching up on, and I just saw the next few steps for Melayne ... which I'm writing up as a chapter of scenes that will have to be spread among other chapters.

And I've had some plot problems settle out, so I've been spending time with that.  I think the path I'm sending Merran on after I get her settled on the other side of the Rockpile will carry her to the end of B2 and a cliffhanger.  The sort that her mother would not like ... and might shatter a world to fix, if she weren't out of practice.

And I'm making notes on index cards at a terrifying rate.

There's also a useful little circuit that I blew out accidentally and have to fix.  Or rather, to replace, with a more robust version.  That's sprouted a couple of runners that I have to keep going, and I had a wrong turning on a heat sink problem.  That reminds me--I have to order some nylon spacers.  And I need to buy some steel #10-32 flatheads, preferably Phillips.  I've got some battery holders coming in next week, replacements for others I ordered that didn't quite meet their diagrams (raised lettering on surfaces I need flat for gluing).

So I'm waddling and stumbling as fast as I can. 

But Merran would be glad to know you care

But it's not a flaw; it's an obstacle.

Look at the flaws you've listed for Anver.  How could Jaylene fall into that sort of flaw, either by deficiency or excess?  Does her devotion to Tazar almost get someone killed?  Require apologies to the Great Houses?  Cause her to miss something important developing at the Temple?

BTW, Anver putting his studies ahead of stolen wealth might not be a flaw  .

Ramifications from Sulder's death may include anger and doubt, exposing character issues and creating doubt.

That's not a flaw.  That's an obstacle.   A flaw leads to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or wrong decision.

The Greeks showed us that the best flaws are strengths in the wrong place and time or out of proportion.

Jaylene is a Cold War leader.   Now open war looms.

Her handling of Tazar's imprisonment involves all the right choices.  Maybe she should make a mistake, corrected by someone else?  Maybe her mistake drives her final desperation in the prison?

You're not wrong, but I think there's more to it than that.  Unfortuneately, I need sleep right now.  Two Q's to start: what are Anver's flaws? How has resurrecton changed Jaylene?

Progressing from one crisis/goal to another is not a problem.  How you do it is.

If you're going to kill Sulder, we should see the contrast between the good and gentle man who sacrifices for Tazar and the wickedness of his murder.  We the reader should feel it almost as badly as Jaylene does; we might wonder what it means to Alda from the clues given, and Tazar's gratitude might make his purpose terrifying.  Instead of a constellation of two, you get a constellation of three.  We should feel her fear at leaving the Order above unguarded while we she goes for the Order below.

Rearrange Zylpf and the dangers so there is already danger pursuing them.

Let them find, at a critical moment, that the danger is not what they feared.

Decide what is essential with the Taken and telescope the rest.

And someone can give me similar advice.  I'll argue with it and go in a different direction, but it will help nevertheless.