OPP Chapter delay · 12:30am Nov 4th, 2013
The rough working draft of the next chapter is done but for one scene. There's a perspective shift I'm not happy with, and I'm thinking of dropping, too. We'll see how that goes.
There's no way I can have it out to y'all tonight, though. I'd rather take the time to have something I'm happy with than push it, and I can't just dump it on my pre-readers, say "you've got an hour before I hit the publish button,' and expect them to make useful comments. That's not fair to them, and it's not fair to you.
I'd hoped that I would be able to more quickly make the transition from performing to writing, but it turns out I need a couple of hours to unwind before I can psychologically shift gears. I"m sure that there are writers on this site than can put together a paragraph here and there in their few minutes of free time; I'm not one of them.
All is not lost, though. As I've ranted on about before, research is key. In some of my down-time, I found a bunch of pictures of equines, and here's one I want to share:
You'll notice, I'm sure, the canine fangs Mr. Zebra has. Consider this a forewarning for things to come, in fact--because I know that when we get to Equestrian dentition, there are going to be a lot of smug commetors saying "Herbivores don't have canine teeth!" Well, sorry, but some of them do; Equines are on that list.
How about a close-up of a pony?
Well, by golly, look at that! A pony has them, too!
So much for the scene where the ponies look at Dale's canine teeth and scream "Ermagerd, it's a meat eater! Hide your foals!"
. . . not that I was planning any such scene, of course. But I did laugh when I saw this:
I think that her dietary needs can be assumed to be already accounted for, given that she doesn't seem malnourished. Plus, you know, the canines kind of give it away. Wait... can herbivores have canines? *does cursory research* "Most herbivores don't have canine teeth. Horses do." Aha- wait... what.
(from the comments on Diary of a Store Clerk)
EDIT: I feel I should add this: There were a few comments about "Detective Moller" being a pun on Agent Mulder from the X-Files. As my pre-readers know, Moller was "Agent Smith" in the working draft (of The Matrix fame). That having been said . . . in this chapter, we'll meet another Michigan State Police detective whose name I haven't picked yet. Right now, though . . . she's named Scully.
Canine Teeth, meh.
It's all in the digestive tract, ye ken?
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Oh, I know. But that seems to be a common theme: if it has canines, it has to eat meat or it will die.
Also, for what it's worth--do you figure Dale knows IRL horses have canine teeth? I bet he doesn't (heck, I didn't until I did research--which was based on the flawed premise that all mammals probably had similar teeth [what was I thinking?]).
lh5.googleusercontent.com/-gKHXgL-0h2s/UNOF850eCmI/AAAAAAAAApo/aVjlrsSOA64/w506-h750/pinkie_snickt.png
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1_nuKzNuV-Y]
(I have no idea how to put in YouTube links that work . . . the button doesn't do it for me)
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I saw it anyway.
When linking YouTube vids, I have trouble getting them to work on many sites when they have "feature" or other fancy mumbo-jumbo in the url. I think it has to do with the extra punctuation.
This is the same video when not accessed from a playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_nuKzNuV-Y
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I'll try that next time. I'm not one to link videos normally, but someone else just posted it in the comments of Diary of a Store Clerk, and I wanted to share, since it was relavant.
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And due to a relatively recent herbivore ancestor human digestive tracts look herbivorous to inspection.