Word count: 107276 | Since last entry: 1186 | This month: 4815 I attended a funeral today, of one of my apartment-mates from college. Even though we lived in the same city after graduation, I didn’t keep in touch with him; I think the last time we saw each other might have been at my wedding, 13 years ago. He passed away suddenly this weekend, of a massive heart attack. We were the same age. I really ought to spend more time with my friends. A good evening’s writing, though. I wrote a scene in which… a major character dies. I swear, that’s what came next in the outline. And I don’t think the real funeral had any impact on the actual death scene, because the characters’ relationship to each other was completely different from my own situation. But it is weird. Very weird. I also used this scene to summarize the plans that the characters have made in the last couple of days, leading up to the massive assault to follow. Because, even though this is some pretty heavy action, it’s not really important to the main questions of the plot. One scene left to go in the chapter. It’s a biggie. I spent far too much time looking at a map of the world’s largest cities and an earth/moon/sun map viewer (Home Planet) trying to figure out the best time for a simultaneous worldwide strike on December 13, 2051. Turns out that, even with today’s population, 8am UTC (3am New York time) is the best time for most of the 24 biggest cities — it’s just before dawn for London and Rio and just after sunset for Tokyo, with most of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia in daylight. Only North and Central America, with 3 of the top 24 cities, are in the middle of their night. The situation will be even more heavily weighted to Asia and Africa by midcentury. Well, isn’t that going to make things interesting for Clarity…