C James

The only problem if I do it that way; it will mean I'd likly have no more chapters to post this year after LTMP finishes in a few weeks. The other issue is I don't like working on just one story at a time. I find it far easier to have another to work on; that way I can work on something different when I get blocked on one. Question; is two weeks between chapters too much? Okay, I'll find nice, relaxing places to stop... Like the end of chapter 37? Well, it's all due to my unwilling and unjust occupancy of Shadowgod's cliffhanging throne... It gives me vertigo! It keeps influencing me... So much so that I think the best place to pause a story for a few weeks or months is with a cliffhanger.. Yes, that sounds just right... Say, a little one, something not too much worse than LTMP 37, Fire in the Sky... Perfect stopping place.. But, fear not! There is an easy solution! Just return Shadowgod to his throne by popular acclaim, and all will be well. ROFL!!! Well, the cloning idea sounds good!!! As a practical matter, I'm a slow writer and I also don't have a lot of time to write. I can barely keep up with a chapter-a-week schedule. While I'd love to be able to post two chapters a week, I just can't. One varient on your idea could be... make my main effort on one, but keep a second to work on at a slower pace, and hold the second one until done. That might mean ten day gaps between postings, though. Thank you!!! Good points! I'd definitly like to have more than one. In fact, for the last month I've been spending a little time working on the three new stories; it's handy when I'm blocked on LTMP. CJ

I'll comment more later, I've got to run, but just a fast note to say Sorry: I made at least two goofs in this chapter, both serious. One was the addition of the word "carried" when they were checking Mario's body for keys. It's gone now. (and thanks very much to the person who spotted that!). Worse, is the "Tim" in the chapter. There were two mentions, both gone now. That was Brody's original name in the outline and part of the draft. I decided that name didn't fit for a biker, so I changed it. I guess find-replace missed two. Sorry!!! CJ

Just a quick update... My new card is in, and although i have some driver updating to do, etc, it's working and I can use the system. (I'm on it now).

I do have an FTL seqel in the works, too. Here's my worry; I like working on different stories at the same time. However, I cannot maintain a weekly posting rate on more than one. Doing two, I'll be posting at least a chapter a week, but not of the same story. I know that, as reader, i can't deal with long gaps between chapters. I forget far too much. So, I'm trying to avoid doing that to y'all. I want to do the FTL sequel as well. I do have a little done already. Any thoughts on how to handle this issue? One way would be to find a good stopping point for a posting break from one, then switch to another for a few consecutive chapter postings. CJ

Wow, thank you Gary!!! I think my laptop is younger than 10, actually... Near as I can tell it was manufactured in early 2000, according to some of the lables and copyright stuff. For some reason I had ten years in my head.. Ah well, I never claimed to be able to count. Actually, it isn't that bad except for the battery being dead. That makes it a pain for travel. A new battery would cost an arm and a leg, not worth it for this old clunker IMHO. Nope! I have XP on disk; I just won't install it on my main system. 2k does pretty much everything XP does, and with less system overhead. I put XP on my laptop after a HD failure mainly just to have a look at it. I think the laptop came with Millenium, which I loathed. As for Vista, no way! not now, not ever, not even if they paid me. In my opinion, Vista is the worst, XP is better, and 2k is at least as stable as XP, maybe better for some hardware. And both 2k and XP are based on the NT kernal. 2k and XP are very similar systems. And by all means, venture in, that' sthe only way to learn! Hope you slept well. BTW, XP does run on my ancient laptop. My much newer and more powerful main system runs 2k. The main issue I have is that if I try upgrading from 2k to xp, I'll likely lose my main windows install; its a little cranky as is and my hunch is it wouldn't survive and I'd have to do a clean install. It has a plethora of hacks and changes. I don;t want the hastle of re-inesalling everything (I have tons of software) and re-hacking the OS. I might upgrade one of my partitions to XP, just to have a look. (I have multi-book, four different bootable partitions on my system). BTW, my new graphics card has arrived in town. (I can't get fedex out here, so i have it deleivered to town). I'm leaving in about ten minutes to go get it.

I can't say what or who it will be about (that would be a spoiler for the end of LTMP) but the sequel to LTMP is called Changing Lanes. It begins posting the week after the last chapter of LTMP posts. Also, at that time, begins "Jake". Jake is the continuation of the story in my anthology entry "three for Jake". Basically, the short story becomes the prologue, and the story itself is written in third person. A less frequent writing project will be "Skyfire", a sci-fi story, but the posting rate will be slow. BTW, please don't make any assumptions from the title of Changing Lanes... After all, no one guessed that "Let The Music Play" was The Scar's line, regarding detonating a nuclear weapon. LoL. CJ

Happy Birthday, Matthew!!!

Hrmmm, a coordinated effort by geese! That would solve the AK-47 problem... I hope it doesn't mean that! I wouldn't use racial terms in my stories unless it was a plot requirement. Here's a story that should tell y'all what it means... Search on the word "chevo" in the story. BTW, it might not be slang but an actual spanish word, so my apologies if I mislead earlier.

Hrmmm, Geese with AK-47's? Hrmmm... I'd have thoguht a goose would use something smaller, like an Uzi??? BTW, the Chevo Landscaping truck played a role in planting the nuke in LA, and now in the goings on in Colorado. So here's the question: What does "Chevo" mean? I'll give a hint.. it's a Spanish slang term.

Wow, thanks!! Honestly though, my system (I build my own) is mainly ok. Let's see... 3ghz cpu, fairly new motherboard, USB 2.0, firewire, etc, 4 gigs of Ram, 5 physical hard drives (around a quarter-terrabyte of HD space) customized tower case with 11 fans (1 larger one for the air filtration in the air pre-intake; I got suck of dust in my case so I rigged pre-filtration of the case air intakes), 2 CD drives (one a burner) and two 3 1/4 inch floppy drives (yes, i still use 'em) plus all manner of card readers, etc. I only built this system last year; however some of the hardware (some drives, plus the vid card) was from my old system. It might look old though, the 25" CRT monitor is a decade old. The new vid card will support multiple monitors, so I might get a large LCD for a second monitor. My laptop, on the other hand, is a nearly dead clunker. It fails to boot one time in three, is insanely slow (it's about 10 years old) and the battery is kaput. However, right now I'm glad of it.

I wanted to touch on the gun laws issue... I did look into Colorado laws, and based on what happened, no one would be in any real trouble. The person with the AK-47 (Graeme, that's not a spoiler!! It was a person, it's the only possibility!) fired first, so making them into swiss cheese was quite legal. That would be the case most anywhere in the US, I think. Where the law gets tricky is when it comes to shooting in other circumstances. For example, shooting a burglar in your own home. In some states, that's fine. In others, you can get in hot water (but usually won't be charged). In Arizona, I'm fine as long as I don't shoot the burglar in the back. If you shoot while they are trying to flee in most states, you can get in trouble. However, the statutes in Arizona are technically that you need to feel threatened. Well, my reasoning would be (and many people have used this ) is that if someone breaks into my home while I'm in it, I feel threatened by that. Who knows what they could do? Hrmmm... Going to their house in the dark to apologize with an assault rifle! That would be an interesting scene!!

Thanks Gary!!! I got it and replied. Ok, an update; Definitely my graphics card. I can get my main system to boot without it, and confirmed this my netting in on my home network to my one shared drive. (I have six physical hard drives split into nine logical (lettered) drives). I then tool my graphic card and cajoled a friend into letting me try it in his system. He agreed, but no further than the splash screen; he didn't want to worry about driver issues (and I agree). Result? The card is dead. So, between a dead card and my PC being able to boot, I'm positive it's just the card. I've ordered a new one (I had to do some searching to find a win2k compatible one). Found a good one and ordered it. It should be here Monday. Between now and then I'll be confined to the cranky old laptop. If it conks out completely, I'll be gone until Monday or Tuesday.

It looks like the video card on my main sysem has failed. I've tried two monitors, and nothing. It does however boot, or appears to. Anyway, I'm stuck on my ranshackle laptop for now. I'm hoping I can get the main systm running again soon, at least in time to post the next chapter. I have no way of getting it out of that system otherwise. So please excuse my abscence, I have a computer to tear into...

I can't comment on what will happen (otherwise, the Echidna will get me!!) but, I can say something from the posted text: Joe (lump) knows where Instinct is. From Chapter 36:

I'm a firm believer in saving the dramatic climax for a story's finale. Things might possibly become.. tense. The Greylag Goose did indeed play a key role. Mario didn't know that there are different types of Geese. LoL. However, he'd have been hard pressed to find a Canada Goose quickly enough for his needs, i suspect. My favorite bit was the General's question: Yep, dead birds usually don't fly along at 20k feet wearing bomb belts. It's just one measly mysterious bullet riddled body, that's not a cliffhanger!

Thanks Tim! One suggestion; it's easier to fix mistakes a chapter at a time than to try and go back and fix them to an entire story. I'm still slogging through FTL trying to fix deficiencies in my writing, and it is a slow process. Cliffhangers?!!?!? But I can honestly say that the first 40 chapters of LTMP are comparatively cliffhanger-free! BTW, LTMP will have 46 chapters, plus an epilogue. I still need to do some polishing, and of course the beta and editing process, but the writing phase of LTMP is over.

There were two errors in LTMP 40, "Greylag Goose", that I've changed. In the prior chapter, I mentioned CO2 emissions from a faulty keroseane heater, but it's supposed to be CO: Carbon Monoxide. I changed that, but stupidly forgot that I'd used the same term in 40, so I changed Dimitri's reference of CO2 to carbon monoxide in 40, too. Sorry. Also, I goofed regarding Chase's laptop. In fact, I goofed twice. It was pointed out during beta that using a modem to connect to a dialup account via a cell phone is rather antiquated, so I changed it to a nonspecific of just using a cell phone to connect a laptop to the net. However, I forgot that I'd used the word "modem" in a prior sentence, so I have changed it. It now reads:

But I don't see how this is a cliffhanger? We know the body is not that of an Instinct member, or Helen. What could possibly be tense about that? I mean,. what's the worst that could happen? BTW, my higher threshold for cliffhangers, I meant the threshold where somthing is deemed to be a cliffie. I still don't see how this one is. After all, I almost never use cliffhangers. (and even the one time I have, LTMP 37, it was due to me being under the influence of Shadowgod's cliffhanging throne.).

Cliffhanger? One measly bullet riddled body and you declare a cliffhanger? I'd have thought that after reading Shadowgod's stories, you'd have developed a much higher threshold for cliffhangers!!!

I'm not sure how I can answer this without a spoiler. All I can say is that if it's Dimitri and Mario, then they would have driven their SUV down closer to the ranch for the attack. They'd have needed to make a faster getaway than going on foot would have allowed.

Now, now, I never misdirect! The goose is important. You'll see in chapter 40. Off a CLIFF!?!?!? Ahhem, sorry, but no cliffs! This is not a Shadowgod story! BTW, Ch 40 should be online within the hour.

Happy Birthday, oh Wizzardly one! Have yourself a GREAT day, and have fun!!! :wizard: :wizard: :wizard: :wizard: :wizard:

Congratulations Dan and Robert!! This is indeed wonderful news!

I just wanted to mention the title of chapter 40. It's "Greylag Goose"

Now, now, just becuase I said I have a lot in common with The Scar, don't go jumping to conclusions!