It’s been a few days since my last update. On Thursday the power cut out sometime in the afternoon, so I decided to go into town and pass the time. Usually it cuts back in during the evening, so I figured it would be okay. I ran into my Kazakh-American friend and we had some chai and dinner, and then I headed back to the house. Luckily, the power was on that night. Friday was a different story: the power cut out in the morning, but I just stayed in and read some Don Quixote until I was too chilly …

Hey all. So last night, I had plans to go to a movie, but it was starting late so I went to a nice little cafe for masala chai and banana bread. It was cool, I had this long conversation with a couple of Tibetan kids, children of the owners of the restaurant. The older boy, I think his name was Denzin Lagba, was quite bright, and asked me many questions about Korea; we had a fairly interesting discussion of cultural differences. I actually found it very interesting, and that’s saying something when it’s about a conversation with an eleven-year-old …

I spent the morning writing, and once again Sala, the woman who comes to clean every once in a while, interrupted my reverie in Neil’s past. So I wrote a little more, and decided to have a day out of the house. I’m still working on how to start showing one major element of the plot early on, so that it’s not just banging the reader on the head, and there are some obvious PLACES to do that, but not obvious methods. So I’m going to think that over, look around me here and see what I can find, and …

Like this link on his site: Senile eunuch-by-choice bothered by media portrayal of sex, contraception and homosexuality. Actually, his link is different, I used his text to link to his page. It’s a lovely point he makes. He also turned us on to another mad quiz: . Tired of being underappreciated and manipulated by powerful “others,” you fight back. Though possesssing a cold, violent outside, you have a soft, scentimental inside. You love your partner, you cherish family heirlooms, and you want nothing more than to be geniunely happy — but you don’t mind having to kill a couple of …

…except that I’ve surpassed 123,400 words. If this were a romance novel it’d eb long enough to publish. But I have higher standards, like rounding out the plot, for example. Anyway, I think I’m either 2/5 or 3/5 finished. I just needed some time away from the PC to figure out how to fit two major areas of plot together. It’s all coming along well except the presence of one major thing needs to be more distributed all the way along in my book. Happily, that’s doable. So I’ve got some real work ahead of me, but I think I …

…and a flock of goats, too. Is flock the right word? I don’t know. It was quite the sight, actually… old fellow crouched on the top of a gorge, tying on his turban and calling out every once in a while to the goats so they wouldn’t run off too far. I was also paying very close attention to a lot of the plants as I walked into town today. I keep seeing leaves in shapes I’ve never seen before. I think I shall steal some leaves to make a lamp; I know a place I can go to get …

… but I wish they hadn’t run off… I was looking for an earring for my buddy Seong Hwan when I heard a couple of girls talking Korean in the shop I was in. They were trying to get the shop owner to tell them about pricing for shawls, related to percentge of wool, silk, and cashmere. One of them spoke pretty good English, but the other was having trouble, so I asked them if they were from Korea. We ended up spending 3 hours trying that shop and then another shop, where the taller girl had “befriended” the shopowner. …

Well, last night after I got home from a little market-wandering a pack of monkeys jumping around on the roof failed to distract me from writing. I put some music on and kept at the writing, and made some more great progress. I also discovered that some of the content I’d produced for one character, but then discarded, was actually much more appropriate to the newest character, whose childhood and early youth, as well as his future, needed some filling-out. It’s going to be a long job of making some of that material work in its new context, and I …

I am freakin’ freezing. I’m in an unheated shop using the net. I’d go to a heated shop but this was the only place I could find with computers running on generator because the power is out. Those Indian power-cuts. They are… interesting. Anyway, it’s been rainy here and I’ve stayed in a lot, only venturing out to treat myself to dinner, drink a little, see who’s wandering about town. Not many people are, actually, because the weather is pure crap. But I think soon it’ll be snow instead of rain, which is far preferable. Because my laptop has a …

I didn’t want any, though, so I politely refused. Being an obvious tourist is such a strange thing. People class you in with so many other people, and with a certain kind of interest in a place. So yesterday I was offered a whole panoply of drugs, from the mildest all the way up to opium. Freakin’ opium. I was just looking up a stairway curiously, as it looked so precarious, and this man popped out and tried to sell me drugs. I also discovered that very nice people sometimes lie their asses off, and that I may be able …