Progress To Date

I am making progress on Book 2 of the Abolethic Sovereignty trilogy. Book One, Plague of Spells, is due out this November. The second book is due out next October, in 2009.

I'm a little more than a third of the way through Book Two. My first draft is due November 1. Assuming I can keep my hand in the pie every day, so to speak, scribbling 500 words here and 500 words there, I should be home free.

Just to be on the safe side, though, I took two weeks off from Wizards at the end of October to make sure I have 10 completely free days to devote to writing. Better safe than sorry.

32,000 / 90,000 (35.6%)

This and That

• 13:50 Her eyes rested on the empty chair across the kitchen table. Her hands clutched a white coffee mug, and her mouth was grim with sorrow. #
• 14:17 Obama rally live: tinyurl.com/6g42hn #

Crossposted by LoudTwitter

From the Vault: No Kill Animal Shelters

[updated from my old blog; more relevant than ever]

You've probably heard about no-kill animal shelters, as opposed to shelters that euthanize animals. It seems pretty cut and dried--you probably prefer the idea of no-kill animal shelters.

But consider the following subtleties that you might not be aware of.

Open admission shelters take all animals, no matter their state of health, their temperament, their age, or any other factor.

On the other hand, no-kill shelters only accept highly adoptable animals, and when they're full, they don't accept any animals.

Which means people attempting to relinquish pets or strays at these places are sometimes turned away.

What do you suppose happens to stray animals turned away from "no kill" animal shelters?

Well, I guess if they're lucky, the folks who brought them in to the shelter keep looking until they find another shelter with open admission. If the animals are not so lucky, they are simply let loose again (which means starvation, being hit on a highway, or any of a number of ends that could include undue suffering). No-kill shelters know full well (or they should know full well) that when they refuse to take an animal, they've sidestepped responsibility. Despite their "no kill" status, they may even give out names and locations to the open admission shelters.

For example, the Humane Society in Bellevue has adopted political expediency and a "no kill" outward-looking face. So, when a terrier with a rough-looking demeanor showed up at their door as a stray a few weeks ago, the Humane Society refused to take the dog. Which meant the people who found him made the trek down to King County Animal Care and Control and turned the terrier over there. One of the shelter staff members, wondering if the dog were perhaps merely scared, took the dog home for a week to care for it. A dog the "no kill" Humane Society closed its doors to, kissing its fate up anyone else but itself. [At the time of this writing, I don't yet know the terrier's final outcome.]

So who has the higher 'moral' ground here? Those who pass the buck, or those willing, if necessary, to humanely euthanize an animal that has no prospect for adoption because of health or temperament? Or, in the case of the terrier I noted above, give a questionable animal a second chance?

Of course, all animal shelters have a role. Some no-kill shelters simply don't have the financial resources to employ a veterinarian to treat sick animals, so rather than take any chances, they turn all such animals away. And that's understandable--many of these shelters operate on a very small budget. They do what they can.

However, if animals slip into a no-kill shelter who turn out not to be adoptable, those animals are sometimes "warehoused," which basically means the animal is kept in a kennel or cubby so long that health and temperament slip to the point can justify euthanasia (yes, even at the "no kill" shelter). More considerate "no kill" shelters send these animals to open admission shelters (allowing them to hold on to their "no kill" status despite passing direct responsibility for the animal; at least it's the ethical thing to do).

BUT, a quality open admission shelter [which is no longer the Humane Society for Seattle/King County, I'm sad to say; now it's "no-kill" see here] might have programs, policies, and services in place to make certain every animal surrendered has the absolute best chance for finding its forever home--the Humane Society once had an 80% adoption rate! Its rate is skewed now, because of its new selective intake procedures.

So, to sum-up--"no kill" shelters are merely side-stepping responsibility, rightly or wrongly. I believe wrongly, especially the "no kill" shelters that take every opportunity to denigrate open admission shelters, and for shelters that have the resources to be open admission but choose to jump on the political bandwagon for the sake of public naivete, but at a real cost to stray pets.

This and That

• 14:00 Trying to not let all the toys on internet distract me from writing. Failing. #
• 23:06 It was old when Selûne cried her glittering tears. When it fell into slumber, the world yet rang with the primordials' forge hammers. #

Crossposted by LoudTwitter

So many toys, so little time

I think I need to swear off the internet.

Or maybe just swear off twitter, Facebook, and about 3/4ths of the various RSS news feeds and podcasts I subscribe to. There is just not enough time for me to stay current on all the content out there that interests me, especially if I want to continue to read, write, and pursue side projects from time to time.

But there's more to it than just those services. The internet and all its jewel-like wonders sing to me a song of desire I can hardly ignore. In fact, my profession requires I pay attention to it! To succeed at both my day job and freelance job, I need to use a computer to write a certain number of words per day; longhand is too slow and has to be transcribed to boot. And just as important, I need to research various things I write about on the internet.

Which means that even when I am able to cull the demon internet from my attention for a whole hour, I'm right back on those greased rails looking up castle ramparts on Wikipedia, what rhymes with Faustian on rhymer, synonyms for observer on thesaurus, interesting names for villains on rarewords, or any of a hundred thousand different interesting sites that'll pull me out of the original reason I logged back on faster than a hummingbird's wings pulsate.

Yep. You and I both know I won't be swearing off the internet. So I guess I'll simply have to face facts, and learn moderation. I do the same every day for eating; looks like I may have to treat internet access the same way.

This and That

• 23:35 A 4 day virus begins to release its tendrils on my mind and body. Or is it the 2 glasses of merlot? Either way, mood trending upward. #

Crossposted by LoudTwitter

If Twitter dies...

When Twitter is over capacity, how can I post my pithy comments quickly and easily, too quickly and easily to think better of them?

Like, "For the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year."

On a slightly related note--when did Digg get overrun by lunatic climate change deniers? Just because you don't think global warming is real doesn't change reality, Digg-lunatics. Do you drive a car? Do you use the internet every day to check your email and connect to Digg? Do you go to the doctor? Do you talk on a cell phone? Do you use global positioning "beamed" down from satellites? All brought to you by science. And now, the scientific consensus among researchers who study climate say global climate change is real, and dealing with it must begin now, now ten years from now.

See? When Twitter dies, I have to post here and vent my spleen. On twitter, the 140 character limit spares you this.

Alchemical Imbalance

The latest Dragon article in the Roll vs Role column penned by me and Chris Sims is now posted at Wizards. The Roll vs Role articles are designed to give DMs some great background on a specific series of encounters, providing both roleplaying and tactical information appropriate to the encounter. Each article could be developed into a full-blown adventure, or used as more limited series of encounters, depending on a DM's desire.

The article just posted, Alchemical Imbalance, focuses on a tribe of goblins who've found power in iffy alchemical arts.

350

A number worthwhile knowing.

D&D Alignment

Now that 4th Edition D&D is released, excerpts from the rules are a little less exciting, eh?

But, an excerpt that released last week discussed D&D alignment, and some of our thoughts about why alignment was updated. Behind the scenes, I was the chair of the alignment committee, and the report I and my committee put together greatly influenced the final alignment system. Here is a summary of what we were thinking, in simplified form.

Like everything else for 4th Edition of D&D, we thought long and hard about the alignment system we wanted to launch with the new edition. The struggle of good heroes against evil villains is one D&D’s core tenants. The D&D alignment system possesses a heritage and brand identity we did not want to lose. If we could overcome a couple of issues associated with the traditional alignment system without introducing new problems, we knew that we absolutely had to preserve the system so players could still talk about their lawful good paladin or the chaotic evil demon they vanquished.

As we saw it, several issues plagued D&D alignment, including:

1. A character’s alignment, chosen at character creation, can become a straight-jacket on that character’s actions. Consider the paladin we’ve all seen in play, “I had to attack the rogue, I’m lawful good,” or the rogue, “I’m chaotic good! That means sometimes I push you off the bridge; come on, don’t get mad!” or some similar sentiment when presented with a role-playing choice. For this reason, many characters stuck with neutral: a nebulous self-serving alignment (as was then defined), a “me first” mentality that didn’t necessarily promote party cohesion either.


2. In 3rd Edition, choosing an alignment usually had the unfortunate mechanical repercussion of making the aligned player vulnerable to an opposing aligned attack of a foe. It’s not really ideal that being good made you more vulnerable to demonic attacks, for instance. Another reason some players stuck with the neutral alignment of previous editions.


3. The alignment system was tied to game cosmology, in ways that sometimes translated to physical effects that didn’t lead to fun gameplay.

So we came up with a new alignment system for 4th Edition, though one not completely unlike the previous version. It saves most of the old terms, if not their cosmological or gameplay significance. If any statement can sum up the new system, it is: “Alignment means making an effort.” --Michele Carter.

Thus was born the concept of unaligned. More importantly, the concept that unaligned is benign. Being unaligned is not the neutral alignment of previous editions. Someone who is unaligned is assumed to be an “easy-going” and sometimes even helpful person, especially when it’s easy to be helpful. Just like in real life, where it’s arguable that many people (cocooned in their routines and safe lives provided by a supporting civilization) are unaligned, your fantasy character can enjoy the same freedom from thinking too hard about morality but still be granted the benefit of doubt when they are judged.

Of course, many players will feel benign isn’t good enough, and so declare themselves good or lawful good. These characters are willing to put themselves in harm’s way to uphold a virtue or save an innocent’s life, even if there is the very real possibility they could lose their own life in the process. Such willingness for self-sacrifice is not benign; it is good.

Plague of Spells Cover

This caught me by surprise, but it looks like the Plague of Spells cover is finished. Finished, and updated on Amazon, even!

I wonder if color reproduction on this art piece is accurate to the actual cover. The the blackish goop snaking into the frame from the lower right to strike the figure should be more blue in color, and more fiery in composition. I hope the actual cover is true to that description, but if not, not the end of the world. (Just as the Year of Blue Fire/the Spellplague isn't the end of the world for Faerûn . . . For some creatures that linger beneath Faerûn's catacombed mantle, it is just the beginning.)

Either way, I dig how this cover looks.

I'm already 25k words into the 2nd book of this trilogy. I'll be glad to see this first one hit the book stores.

Obama '08

Need a little mood boost? Watch: