auroracloud | Apr. 15th, 2018

I'm currently reading (among other things) The Unknown Universe by Stuart Clark, which is about "what we know - and what we don't now - about time and space" and also the history of these things. Anyway, early on in the book, where it talks about comets and research into them, I discovered this quote:

"In the sixteenth century, German painter and astronomer Georg Busch published an extraordinary commentary that claimed comets 'are formed by the ascending from the earth of human sins and wickedness, formed into a kind of gas, and ignited by the anger of God. This poisonous stuff falls down again on people's heads, and causes all kinds of mischief, such as pestilence, sudden death, bad weather and Frenchmen.'"

It's the middle of the month, so tomorrow

sylvanwitch will be taking over, as my schedule for the latter half of the month is more irregular and it's better I don't host the whole month. I've totally enjoyed the hosting, though - and I think it's been good to drag me out of the mental cocoon I've been in for the early part of the year and interact with more writers again! I look forward to seeing the participants continue as the challenge moves on. I'll post the complete tally for the days 1-15 tomorrow, but from tomorrow onwards the check-in happens at

sylvanwitch's journal.

Two practical notes about that: first,

sylvanwitch needs to keep the posts locked, but has promised to grant access to anyone who wants to participate in the challenge, and if you want, can remove it once the month is over. So if you haven't added her to your circle yet, do that or request her to add you, so you can continue in the latter half of April. Second, she has told me she may have power issues due to weather tomorrow, so if the posting is delayed, that's probably why.

Anyway, I hope to keep seeing all of you around in the challenge! And I'll be happy to do a full month of hosting some time later in the year - say, from July onwards I'll probably be okay hosting a month, if nothing surprising turns up. By the way, I don't think we have a volunteer for hosting the challenge in May yet. Does anyone want to volunteer for that already? Or for June, for that matter? Of course, if nobody turns up now, you can still volunteer towards the end of the month at Sylvan's journal, but thought I'd ask already so that we have a chance to get the hosting cleared up sooner.

Today's Writing

A lot of the day kind of went away from me. I was mostly geeking out over space writing (the aforementioned Stuart Clark book, which has a lot of science goodness in it, not just weird quotes speculating about the surprising celestial origins of bad weather and Frenchmen). I also watched The Cloverfield Paradox, and concluded I should have read the reviews first, as it was quite awful. However, Gugu Mbatha-Raw was amazing so I couldn't stop watching. So at least there was her performance to enjoy...

But anyway, I didn't manage to be as productive as I hoped because time just went away, but I did write a little over 700 words. Partly on a couple of scenes of the novel, partly writing notes for a minor character who suddenly made herself known to me as I was emptying the dishwasher and listening to podcasts. I also looked at the structure a bit. I need to make sure I don't bloat the beginning, which I have a tendency to do.

Tally

Tally

( Days 1-7 )

Day 8:

auroracloud,

carenejeans,

cornerofmadness,

shopfront,

sylvanwitch,

talkingtothesky,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 9:

alexseanchai,

auroracloud,

carenejeans,

cornerofmadness,