Standing On Boxes

August has been the month of no writing. I’ve done less writing in the past month than any time in the last year. Ugh!

While replacing the red car’s windshield the guys at the autoglass place found some real rust that I hadn’t noticed… where the windshield wiper is rubbing against the hood… Argh!!!

I’m hoping they did a good job and it doesn’t leak… sort of paranoid about that one.

Thought I would make things a little friendlier for people who stumble across my works in progress page. I’ve added dates to indicate the last time a part of a fic changed. Starting yesterday. So it’ll be possible to go there instead of having to hunt down the actual fic index page. Of course, since they are WiP’s the dates don’t mean ‘completed’, they mean last changed.

I’ve updated the timeline/outline for the first 9 parts of my fic The Two so that it now makes sense. (Any mention of events after that are subject to change.)

I’ve now attached a day of the week to most of the events. Note – in this outline days = story days, not days of the month. This is Sunnydale, seasons don’t matter. It could take part during any time during the year (though, since one of the characters goes to high school it is most likely fall or spring )

For much fic writing. Just reading…

A different take on the whole Harry Potter / wizarding world secrecy thing.
justaguy‘s The Muggle Way. He uses an organization run by muggles centered around a character from Katherine Kurtz’ Adept series as the interface between the different magical groups. Very well thought out.

For comparison purposes – in my Red Raider series I have a department in the Ministry of Magic (MoM) pretend it serves that function when in ‘reality’ it’s just another sign of the MoM’s attempt at control of muggle access to magic. Sort of. His idea probably wouldn’t work in something like my series because I’m looking at the relationship between members of two specific magical groups that aren’t really aware of each other (And I came up with a convoluted way to stick with the MoM secrecy rules in the process.) while he’s using it as an organizational structure for his story. I think. His doesn’t really focused on relationships between several characters but between social groups. Which requires a different kind of story telling.

But dang… it works so well the way he’s using it I wish I’d thought of it… must be jealous. Even though I don’t think my style of writing would work in that structure.

The TN Dept. of Safety approved my license plate. Now I just have to wait until late Sept. for it to show up at the local County Clerks office and pick it up.

Yeah!!!

On my way home tonight… A rock or two came flying off of a truck several hundred feet in front of me and hit my windshield… I now have a crack on the passenger side. The actual impact point was approx. an inch above the bottom corner but the cracks on the inside go up midway. Not good but not the worst it could be. And, of course, filing an accident report with the local police is probably pointless since the truck was too far ahead to identify it when it happened and there’s no proof that the truck I saw a few minutes later was the same one (I think it was).

The real issue is insurance… if I make a claim will they cancel my insurance when it goes up for renewal in October? This would be my 2nd claim in a year.

I have no idea yet on how much a windshield for a 94 530i costs… but when I had one replaced on my 91 318 back in 2003 the windshield was just barely more than the deductible.

I have pictures but taking a picture of a windshield in the bright sun … not the best conditions.

Instead of working on any number of unfinished fics during my vacation, I spent the time working on updating my outline of the entire “Red Raider Series” and a timeline, and character list. Not quite done but much better than before. I also ended up with a number of changes I need to make to a bunch of fics to fix continuity and grammar errors. It’ll take a couple days to do that.

Just spent the last week in the land of no-internet-access. Just put 2300 miles on the red car. Approx. 34 hours of driving from start to finish.

I hadn’t planned originally on placing the Perci story within the Red Raider AU/Crossover universe. I’m still not sure if I will… but it’s tempting. I hate to give up such a detailed backstory for one of the characters…

But… even if it does occur there… it is a completely different story… and occurs later/afterward…

Is that even proper English…?

I’ve finished my short story Tonks, Just Tonks. Looking at word count it is my fifth longest ficlet so far. That’s a surprise.

Posted the next part of Tonks to TtH at lunch. Almost done with the conclusion. Yeah!

Is it a bad thing that I find this funny in spots?

I’ve added another work in progress – Perci (not Percy!) aka Persephone the Vampire Slayer. It’ll probably have a very low update frequency since i’ve got 4 other stories ahead of it on the queue. But I couldn’t resist starting it.

It’s not perfect. Trying to make the Sunnydale collapse a pivotal event in the story makes it hard to fit it into my HP/BtVS crossover series already in progress. But it’s just a prologue so it’s early yet.

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I’ve already had several suggestions that I tie this into the Red Raider alternate universe. I would need to deal with the “Hermione thinks she doesn’t have a sister” issue and straighten out the rather convoluted story timelines for all of the stories Dawn appears in so she can appear in the Red Raider series and also in this story without violating the laws of physics and creating a temporal anomaly.
Considering how convoluted the series timeline is already… that could be a major task. I’d originally placed “Girl in a Bar” in October of 2005. Which means the major events of “Red Raider” take place in early summer (Part I – The Pilgrimage) and thru the fall ( Part II – The Quest – ends (winter solstice?))