Today’s Fun Fact: You can make diamonds from peanut butter. Because diamonds are made entirely of carbon, scientists have successfully crushed peanut butter under extreme hydraulic pressure to strip away the oxygen and hydrogen, leaving behind pure carbon diamonds. “You” is the key word. That means “me”, not “some person, somewhere”. It doesn’t seem thatContinue reading “Extreme Hydraulic Pressure”
Author Archives: Mark
No Plot
I wondered if it would come up. It did. There is no plot in the first half of the book. This is not exactly by-design, but it’s not accidental, either. There is a “theme”, but that’s not the same thing. Our intrepid heroes don’t have a goal. They’re not intrepid heroes, yet. They’re just twoContinue reading “No Plot”
No one’s waiting, but…
Chapter 18. Well… Weapons issue resolved. Some monster needs to be killed, hacked into bits, and the best parts brought back for dinner. That has happened. These people (wolves?) just don’t shut up. Chapter 18 is now at 27 pages. It’s amazing how much dialog spews forth when you take a bunch of pups onContinue reading “No one’s waiting, but…”
Axis Orientation
I’ve found it useful to envision human behavior as set of rotated normal curves. Pick some attribute and incorrectly assume a normal distribution of it. Now spin that curve around its peak. You get a normal “mound”. Each individual attribute is its own curve. The mound is all of them together. We’re each a pointContinue reading “Axis Orientation”
Chapter 18 Shall Submit
That’s the weekend goal. It need four scenes. Updated with what actually happened. Done. Some monster needs to be killed, hacked into bits, and the best parts brought back for dinner. That sentence, with “ZZZ” in front of it, is all there is. Most of the monsters have been mutated existing things. Maybe it’s timeContinue reading “Chapter 18 Shall Submit”
Evening Narrator Hunting
The narrator can be difficult to spot in the crepuscular gloaming. There is a point to this, two actually: To list the one’s that I’ve caught and to justify what I leave behind. I’m not necessarily “right”, but I will have a reason. …let’s get back to the lodge, eat something, then we can figureContinue reading “Evening Narrator Hunting”
Lunchtime Narrator Hunting
From Chapter 4: … He kept his arms loose at his sides. Below his flexing knees, his well balanced feet didn’t shift. Tom’s aim did. “Ooof!” Luke grunted as a punch to his stomach landed. I think that one works. A bit later: Tom nodded, turned, and led the way toward the main lodge. TheContinue reading “Lunchtime Narrator Hunting”
Learning 2 Bake From Scratch LXXXVI
Garden Strawberry Cake I made it up. Guess the secret ingredient! It’s the layer cake recipe from the back of the Swan’s Down Cake Flour box, which I’m writing down here so that I can throw the box away. Garden Strawberry Cake 2 sticks butter – room temp2 cups sugar3 cups sifted Swan’s Down CakeContinue reading “Learning 2 Bake From Scratch LXXXVI”
LitRPG and Omniscient Narrator
Research time! My narrator talks. I _think_ this is genre standard, but I need to do some checking on when and where. The fight scenes are all 3rd person. One does not see the fights from our intrepid hero’s perspective. The narrator speaks during fights. This is standard. Bloody but unbowed, our intrepid hero doveContinue reading “LitRPG and Omniscient Narrator”
Feedback
I can haz it! I wanted to write down the main points. The two things that I found most important, because they were unalloyed goods, were: Laughing out loud happened. I assume it was in appropriate places. “I want to know what happens next.” Mission Accomplished! What I consider the two most important bits ofContinue reading “Feedback”
