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jhetley ([personal profile] jhetley) wrote2005-07-29 12:55 pm

Revision city

Starting in on GHOST POINT this morning, most of the stuff is simple mechanics, like figuring out how to make sure the reader knows about a gap of time without the blatant "Two days later, as they headed down the road..." (Which actually could work in a lot of stories, but doesn't really fit this book's style, being more omniscient narrator-voice than really tight third-person.) I'm working from back to front -- that makes life easier for the intrepid author, as the Nice Agent Lady referenced page numbers, and some of my changes will throw those all to hell.

Which also means that the _hard_ part, the cuts in Grendel's POV, gets put off as long as possible, as those come in the first four or five chapters.

But I can use that as avoidance from scraping paint on the front porch. As Dante pointed out, there is a gradation to the circles in Hell.

And anyone who has a painless solution for evicting or eradicating a yellow-jacket nest from the compost bin, please raise your hand. I got stung three times yesterday evening. Good thing I'm not allergic to _that_.

[identity profile] nathelmi.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 10:14 am (UTC)(link)
Fire helps with yellow-jackets.

Sometime ages and ages ago, we had a hurricane. (No, not Juan. A different one. About 15 years ago).

We had a picnic table on our front porch. And loads and loads of windows. So we moved the table to prevent it from rapidly entering the house.

Carrying it down the steps, we failed to notice a yellowjacket nest underneath one of the steps.

My brothers were stung multiple times. I was only stung once. Right on the hip/ass.

Torch them. Bind them to Hell with Everlasting fire.

[identity profile] jhetley.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 03:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Since the compost bin sits right next to a neighbor's garage, fire does not seem to be among the viable options.

[identity profile] nathelmi.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 04:10 pm (UTC)(link)
I suppose that depends on how well you like your neighbours.

But regardless, I wish you luck.

[identity profile] suzilem.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 10:40 am (UTC)(link)
Alternatively, get yourself a nice CO2 fire extinguisher and freeze the little suckas......

[identity profile] jhetley.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 03:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Some say the world will end in fire, some in ice....

[identity profile] green-knight.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 10:42 am (UTC)(link)
most of the stuff is simple mechanics, like figuring out how to make sure the reader knows about a gap of time without the blatant "Two days later, as they headed down the road..."

Spill dem beans!

What strategies have you found? My problem right now is that Valendon's Diary does not have enough sense of time passing, because he doesn't write down 'two days later' or even 'two days of this. What a waste of time.'

[identity profile] jhetley.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 03:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I had Alice (younger Alice) mutter about how they had been as busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest for the last two days....

For a diary, why don't you just date the damned entries???

[identity profile] kightp.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 11:45 am (UTC)(link)
Are your yellowjackets the meat-eating variety?

If so, get a small can of cheap, smelly catfood, and go to a garden center and buy some rose dust. Open the can, mix in a generous spoonfull of rose dust and then put the can in one of those little mesh bags that onions and lemons come in and hang it near the nest (off a tree branch, nailed to the side of a building, whatever, as long as it's up high enough so the neighborhood cats don't go after it).

It'll take a few days, but the little SOBs will poison themselves and their whole nest dead, dead, dead.

Much to be preferred, IMO, to approaches involving personal confrontation.

[identity profile] jhetley.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 03:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Giving this one some serious thought. According to Wife, these are more likely a fruit-eating species, but the same principle might work, substituting mashed apples or such....

[identity profile] kightp.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Yup same principle, but a little more tricky, because some birds will also go for fruit, and you probably don't want to poison the birds.

I'd think mashed banana or applesaucce + rose dust, packed in some sort of improvised container with an opening small enough to keep inquisitive birds away from the poison while letting the yellow jackets in to feast. Hmmm ... a single-serving milk carton or yogurt tub with a hole cut in it, maybe...

[identity profile] jhetley.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 04:14 pm (UTC)(link)
We were thinking about maybe a soda can -- the little bastards like to crawl into those and then sting unsuspecting humans on the lips when they go to drink....

[identity profile] kightp.livejournal.com 2005-07-29 04:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Perfect.

Let me know how it works out - I have a loathing for yellowjackets that's simply beyond reason. Kill, kill, kill!

[identity profile] jhetley.livejournal.com 2005-07-30 11:47 am (UTC)(link)
I don't think anything up to and including species extinction is "simply beyond reason." Goes for blackflies, too.