Heavy As Lead

I normally do not comment anywhere or to anyone about terrible events. I’m usually heart-broken, or numb, or dismayed, or all of it and don’t have the will to do so anyway. When the twin towers went down in 2001, I was so shocked that at first I felt like I was in some strange dream. What was on-screen…couldn’t be real. Those planes plowing into…no. No. No. No. No. No. Not real. Not possible! I had watched online and on television for hours but then…I couldn’t look at it anymore. I just couldn’t. I retreated to the only place I thought could get me away from it all—an online game. There I could mindlessly do quests until I could fully process the horror of what had transpired. It took days, but eventually, the dark cloud lifted from me and I could go about my life almost normally.

This past few days I’ve buried myself in writing, letting myself process what happened on June 12, 2016. I cannot believe someone could do that. I just do not understand how a person could wantonly kill anyone much less dozens and dozens. But someone did, and so many lives were lost. I grieve for the victim’s friends and families. And those who survived, too. They must live with the memory of the horror of what they went through.

I will not name that person. I will not name who that person claims they were associated with. I will not further that person’s goals.

My heart, heavy as it feel right now, is with the victims, their surviving friends and families, and the survivors. My heart is with Orlando.

For Anyone Who Wears Glasses/Contacts And Uses A Computer

So, I recently started using glasses while at the computer. I’d been stubbornly refusing to use glasses even though my eyesight has gone to crap over the last few years. Well, a bunch of my family were here at my house recently, and we played a game called Smart Ass (a trivia-based game that was pretty fun). As part of the gameplay, one must read clues from cards. When it came my team’s turn to do so, I could not read the card. My brother slid his reading glasses across the table to me, and laughingly told me to use them. I put the things on, and let me tell you, I was shocked at how clear the card became. And not just the cards, my phone, too! The icons looked amazing and I mentioned as much. Everyone laughed at me, I blushed in embarrassment, and he told me to keep the readers. He apparently buys them by the dozen somewhere? I never even knew that was a thing.

Aaaanyway. I’ve been using them since when I need to read anything, and the first time I put them on at the computer, I was shocked once again at how nice things looked and how clear everything was—except for rendered text. I noticed it mostly in OpenOffice (the suite I use to write because it is so much cheaper than Office and has just about the same functionality), but text in everything was not quite right. Finally it got annoying enough that today I spent some time searching online for clues as to why text looked fuzzy. I wondered if perhaps OpenOffice wasn’t using ClearType, which Windows uses to make screen text more readable. After quite some time searching, a thought occurred to me. When I reinstalled Windows recently, I went through the ClearType setup routine. Maybe I should do it again while wearing the glasses?

I typed cleartype in the Cortana/search bar and launched the setup app. I had to change most of the previous choices I made, which boded well. When I was done, oohhh man, text looked spectacular in OpenOffice! The text in the document, on the menu, in the settings dialogs—text everywhere in Writer looked great. And here in Chrome as I type in this post, text looks so much better, so much more legible. Everywhere text is rendered on my screen looks a thousand times better, now.

Long story short: If you use Windows (not sure about other operating systems, they may have technology like ClearType) and have recently started wearing glasses/contacts or have changed your prescription, I would highly recommend running the ClearType setup again with your glasses/contacts. You may see a WORLD of difference like I did. I’m betting the eyestrain/headaches I would occasionally feel will be lessened or even eliminated.

Welp, back to writing.

A Xochitl By Any Other Name

So. Many. Dragon. Names.

Hey everyone (I assume I can use ‘everyone’ instead of ‘you’ because I think—I hope?—there is more than one person who reads these ramblings),

Today I have for you a micro-update and a kind of fan extra all rolled into one! A dragonlinked info-taco, if you will! With extra exclamation marks!!

Okay. Sorry. Too much coffee.

The micro update: I’m writing the draft of the last chapter of book 4! Whoop! I apologize for how long this book is taking, but I think I know why and will let you all know if that is the case, soon. Now, I do have to write the epilogue after this chapter, but it will likely not be as long as a full chapter.

The fan-extra, secret taco-sauce: As part of writing this chapter, I have to come up with a name for a dragon who I didn’t need to name earlier. Part of my process for doing so is to review other names I’ve already used. This is true for humans or dragons, incidentally. I try to come up with a name that does not sound like and is not spelled too much like previous names. I have failed at that before, but I try to keep it from happening because, and especially with an ensemble series like this one, it can be confusing to the reader if there are names that are too similar. I just finished reviewing my character list and the dragon names therein and there are So Many Dragons. It’s very cool (dragons!), but also a bit intimidating. I have to come up with another dragon name. How do I do that? I hit up the interwebs for Aztec/Mayan/Inca names. That’s the fan extra bit. My dragon names are based off of Aztec/Mayan/Inca names! And that is what’s going on in the post title. There is no actual word for ‘rose’ in Aztec, but xochitl means ‘flower,’ so, there you go. Xochi is a diminutive form of Xochitl that I used for that rambunctious little rascal dragon who is no longer little. Another difficult part for me is finding out how a potential name is pronounced. Along with how it looks written down, how a name sounds is an important part of my selection process, even more so than its meaning. Thankfully, Google usually helps me out with that, too. So anyway, now I am off to come up with a new dragon name. I’ve had to come up with a few new dragon names while writing this book, by the way. Who are they? Where are they from? WHO ARE THEY GOING TO BOND WITH?!? Sorry, that information must remain secret, for now.

Until next time, happy reading!