Thursday Thoughts

Discovered today that I had used my last Beast of Albion card yesterday, so my boot camp is finished.

... and so is the macro-read of Journal of the Dead! I'm letting it set for a few before I print out the outline and see how much material, how many changes, what kind of issues I'm working with as I go back through the manuscript.

Things are picking up in Scylla and Charybdis. One dynamic I hadn't really explored in the short story was the interaction between Anaea and Orithia - her current friend and ex-lover. At the time, I just threw in the "ex factor" because it served to illustrate an aspect of the station. Now I'm finding that it has more dimensions. I also am enjoying building the contrast between Orithia, who is outwardly rebellious but inwardly conventional, and Anaea, who is outwardly obedient but inwardly daring.

I also introduced Penelope, Orithia's kearl - which is a companion animal somewhere between a cat and a monkey. Now, Anaea wouldn't think of them like this, so I didn't directly describe it as such, I just used descriptors that keyed into the two animals. Hopefully, when Gwydion meets kearl later and I get the opportunity to explain fully, it will simply fit the pieces into place for anyone reading.