smoke shop news: tobacco tax preparations and decrepit humidifiers

[edenfalling]

Tomorrow I will have the very important (and mind-numbing) job of inventorying all the tobacco products in the store, so PM can figure the floor tax on Wednesday. :-(

My consolation is that I am not scheduled to work on Wednesday, so somebody else will be tasked with changing the price stickers on all the cigars and rolling tobacco and pipe tobacco and cigarettes and so on and so forth. :-)

The tricky part, though, is that somewhere in all the counting, I must find time to clean the two upstairs humidifiers, because I didn't get around to it earlier this month and they're almost certainly slimy-scummy-disgusting by now. I will not try to descale them (stupid hard water deposits, boo hiss), but they need a decent scrubbing and a complete water change at the very least. Also, the lefthand one may need more lubricant on its gears; lately I've had to spray it every three weeks or so, to prevent it from overheating and making horrible noises, which is slightly worrying. I keep wondering what might happen if it caught fire in the middle of the night...

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I attempted to start scene 3 of ch. 14 (which I suppose is now scene 4, but I will continue to call it scene 3 and the interlude with the twins will be called 'the interlude with the twins,' because I fail at naming as well as outlines) and ran into a slight problem, i.e., I don't remember how much Xanthe knows about Ginny's possession. I know Ginny told her slightly more than she told anyone else (partly by accident, partly because she needed to give Xanthe some information in order to get useful advice), but the details escape me, and until I know said details, I can't figure out how Xanthe would combine her limited knowledge with Dumbledore's announcement and the rumors circulating around the castle.

So I am hunting back through chapters 10, 11, and 12 for every time the two girls talked. Argh.

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ETA: Um. I kind of closed the files and wrote 500 words of "Guardian" instead. *headdesk* (Why do I have no focus? I don't care that ending "Secrets" will mean the characters won't be so active in my head. I won't lose them; I can always wake them again. I must stop being so avoidant!)

Comments

[supplanter.livejournal.com]

Eek, inventory D:

(Can we expect more Guardian at some point, really?  I am very very very fond of that fic....)

[edenfalling]

Yes, there will be more "Guardian." If I have started publicly posting a story and have not labeled it as a fragment, that is a promise that I will eventually finish it. ("More or Less the Same" and "The Dragon Debacle" are possible exceptions, because those are written more for myself than for any potential audience, and even there I am kind of twitchy about leaving them incomplete. It feels untidy. *grin*)

"Guardian" is near the bottom of my WIP list, because it has the greatest amount of unfinished story to write and because I am hazy about the details of its climax and conclusion (I know a few key points, but other equally key points are still undecided)... BUT, because it's been languishing so long without an update, my current plan is to finish chapter 13 as soon as I send the epilogue of "Secrets" to beta, and then go back to following my list.

(My current WIP list, in order of priority: "Secrets," "Ephemera," "Lemonade," "Strange Likenesses," "Guardian," "Debts." Outlined one-shots, "New Horizons," and "The Transient and the Eternal" get poked at if and when inspiration strikes.)

[supplanter.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's good to hear!  I suppose I'll just have to be surprised by an update at some point, and because I'll have forgotten everything that's going on I'll just have to reread it, and Way of the Apartment Manager too, why not....

Hm, so is Guardian maybe just halfway done, or less?

[edenfalling]

My current outline claims "The Guardian in Spite of Herself" is a 24-chapter story. This is undoubtedly a false estimate -- I always think I can shove more stuff into each chapter than will actually fit -- so it will probably run to 30 chapters or more. At 4,000-4,500 words per chapter, and at least 16.5 chapters left to go (the rough draft of ch. 13 is about half written), that's 65,000-75,000 words to go, minimum.

The first twelve chapters come to about 50,000 words, so this is a long and complicated way of saying, "No, it's not halfway done yet, but it might be two-fifths done if I'm very lucky!"