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Showing posts from May, 2017

Things I Learned From Vet: Personality Shines Through

"But we feed them the exact same amount!" - One cat is a bowstring and the other is a basketball. Two cats who are littermates, live in the same house, and eat the same food, can still turn out as completely different creatures. Mr Lazy-Bones will plump up no matter what you do, and because of that he'll get all dandruffy because he can't reach his backside to groom it. Mr Anxiety-Face will run around constantly and wind up lean and mean, but maybe also pee all over the house and sneeze a lot, because he's always so worried about everything. Two dogs who are the same breed, go through the same training, and interact with the same people, can still react very differently to new people. Ms Happy-Go-Lucky always runs up and sniffs and wags her tail, and Ms I-Don't-Trust-Anything always hangs back and trembles. You can argue about nature vs nurture, I suppose. The nurture component is still there--it's why Mr Lazy-Bones has access to enough food to turn

Setting Peek: Pull of Gravity - Central Planet Tour

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Thank you for choosing Celestia Imperial TM Tours , the highest-rated luxury starliner in the galaxy! This three-week cruise will dock in orbit around four major Central worlds and stop at three galaxy-renowned astronomical sites, an itinerary sanctioned by the Steward of Culture herself. See below for a brief overview of each destination. Acathor Naturally, our tour begins at the capitol, in the heart of Cluster 1, orbiting Envares Major. We will be docked for two days ( Interstellar Standard Time ) in geosynchronous orbit over Acathor City. Our grand capitol is home of the palace and its ice gardens, Acathor College (including medical, law, arts, and culinary branches), and the Administrative Mercanum, among other notable locations. The city boasts representative temples from every major religion and cuisine from every major culture. There will also be shuttles to the glaciers, the ice falls, and the auroras. Calavor   Next on our itinerary is the sister star, Envare

Husbands As Story Fodder, Part 2

Last week, I talked about how my husband affects my writing day and what contribution he has to my books (which is not very much). But he does indirectly help me a ton in one department: I have a very good template for a happy, healthy, long-term relationship, which I can either apply to develop a convincing romance, or I can break to totally screw over my characters. At present, fanciful daydreams excluded, I have two proper novels I'm working on. One involves a couple that falls in love during the book, and the other involves an already-married couple that's trying to get back to each other. In an effort to avoid the eye-rolling tropes romance can fall into, and to try and make these characters real and lovable, I ask myself, "What would I do if it was Rick?" My rule of thumb for romantic plots is to make the reader (myself, really) fall in love with the characters as they fall in love with each other. So what better way than to include stand-ins for the things

Husbands As Story Fodder, Part 1

I'm sorry for missing my post last week. I'd like to blame it on a scheduling snafoo or some dramatic emergency at work, but the truth is I just plain didn't do it. I didn't feel like writing because my husband flew off to China for work that morning, which is something he does every few months. He'll be gone for one or two weeks, and theoretically the quiet evenings would be the perfect time to get tons of writing done. The reality is that my routine gets so disrupted, I spend the entire time moping, eating junk food, and watching Grey's Anatomy. As cliche as it is, I can't sleep well when he's not here, because the bed is big and empty and we don't watch our shows together at night--and by the end of the week I'm sleep-deprived and running on fumes. This got me thinking about how much my relationship with my husband influences my writing. There's the real-life stuff (how he affects the daily routine, his role in idea-generation and prob