Racing toward the End

I've been hunkered down writing a good bit of the day. There's also been some bill paying and air conditioner purchasing and installation mixed in there... we're pushing 100 degrees here in NC. I bought a 12,000 BTU model that's supposed to cool 550 square feet--roughly the area of my living room, office, and a bit of the kitchen. So far, the day is really testing the unit. Tomorrow, I'll install the much smaller 65000 BTU model in my bedroom and see if that helps things out. Days like today make me wonder if I'm wrong about global warming. But, of course, the data from any given city on any given day is pretty meaningless. And global warming is one of those issues where it really doesn't matter much if my opinion is right or wrong. So what? The reality is, we as a species are going to be pumping a lot more CO2 in the air next year, and we'll be pumping out more the year after that, and more the year after that. The AC unit in my window is making my carbon footprint bigger, but I'm one of the select few people on the planet that get to have AC. That's not going to last for long, though. The chinese are putting in AC. People in India are installing AC. Coal is going to be powering most of this.

And, of course, that's not even the big driver of greenhouse gasses. The big drivers are the agricultural systems that keep American's fat and happy... and, coming soon to a planet near you, steak-eating Chinese will make American's look like vegan sissies. Food follows money.

So, we're all doomed, unless we're wrong, and there are feedback systems in the planet that keep the thermostat stable, or unless the extra heat turns out not to matter all that much. The ice caps will melt, and we'll lose some tropical shoreline, but we'll start building beach houses in Russia and Canada, and life will roll on.

This wasn't at ALL what I sat down to talk about by the way. I'm actually sitting down to report that at some point tomorrow, I'll roll over the 120k mark on Dragonseed, the third Bitterwood book. Actually, there's a decent shot I'll roll past the 125k mark. I worked on Chapter 29 today. Tomorrow I'll do 30, and maybe go back and fill in a scene or two, and that will be the end of the first draft.

Right now, I'm in a good news/bad news sort of area, plot wise. I had really set myself a goal of finishing all the major plot threads raised in the trilogy at the end of this book. Any further books set in the Dragon Age were going to follow a different cast. But, while I'm confident I'll end the story of Bitterwood, it looks like I'm going to have to leave a few of the rest of the cast with some dangling plot threads. Not major ones, but my goal had been to have all the characters by the end of this book either living happily ever after, or dead. Now, it looks like I'll be getting many of my characters out of the fire at the end of the book, but still in a frying pan, so to speak. Ah well. These things happen. Rome wasn't built in a day, and the human/dragon struggle for dominance can't be completely resolved in a few books. It's like waving a magic wand and saying that the Palestinian/Isreali conflict is all better now.

Sunday, I plan to nap. Maybe go fishing, even with the heat. Maybe stretch out in front of the AC and read a book. Then... the rewrites begin. But, that's the thing about endings. They always seem to morph into beginnings.