20 pounds of cat on your chest can feel like a heart attack in your dreams...

[lagilman]

1700 new words on the page yesterday for Pack of Lies, and I'm though a scene that was really hard to write. That particular scene needed a lot of repressed emotion packed into it, but for me to write it I had to open up the tap...and then squeeze it back into repressed state as I wrote. Like using a snorkeling breathing tube while playing the harmonica. Okay, not at all like that. But difficult.

I really want to get to the chasing-and-shooting part of this book already. Hopefully today, if Venec co-operates.


A report on the BVC Chat Sunday night is up here: http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=14411 And I'm pleased [and relieved] to announce that the final testing on the premium content got green across the board this weekend, so there will be additional material going up Very Soon Now. Yes, that includes the "backstory" for P.B. Updates when they happen. :-)


Random Bits:

RiP Alfred Knopf Jr., aged 90, founder of Atheneum. Died Saturday.

Zagats is expanding into....doctor's guides. Oh, this could get ugly...

Sam Donaldson has announced his retirement from ABC News.

Anybody got any other Random Bits to share?

Comments

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

reported on NPR yesterday: the only 4-star restaurant in Ohio is closing. No fine-dining for more than a hundred miles.

[lagilman]

Is there now any reason at all to go to Ohio?

(I had a difficult time finding one, offhand, but maybe I'm missing something...)

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

Woman Attacked By Chimpanzee In Stamford

[lagilman]

I saw that on the news last night. My feeling about exotic 'pets' is basically "don't." But people just don't learn. Sad for all concerned. :-(

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I think anyone who keeps a chimp is nuts. They're incredibly strong.

Our latest dog was passed on by someone who has a small child. Dog is very gentle and frequently beaten up by the cats: her nose is covered with scars. But she went for a deer a few weeks ago and critically mauled it. We were lucky, from the social point of view, that it wasn't a sheep. Sometimes nature just flicks the wrong switch, from our POV.

[lagilman]

Anything with teeth and claws should be treated with respect. Even Mei-mei can bite down hard, if she's spooked or threatened, and Pandora is a Mighty Hunter who is not patient with grabby children [or adults, for that matter. She bit a friend who tried to high-pitch baby-talk her, after repeated warnings not to do that....].

There was a case in NYC recently about a man who was keeping a full grown gator and a tiger in his apartment. A walk-up, apparently.

I think people like that deserve to get eaten. The shame is when it's their neighbors (or, more often, the neighbor's dog) that goes.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

>She bit a friend who tried to high-pitch baby-talk her

Well, I'd have bitten too, given that provocation!

[lagilman]

*snort* I admit, I'd been tempted to bite her myself, a time or six.


(basic intelligence test: if told "thing with claws and teeth does not like that" do you a) stop doing that or b) chase after thing doing exactly that? If b, FAIL!)

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

I never cease to be amazed (or else I'm a slow learner!) by how exhausting writing can be.

Good work you!