Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
Well, for starters, every time I looked at it as an editing project, I found something less like work to do.
This is familiar. Yesterday, I wrote two poems - poems!, not songs - so I could enter "PromptMaster !" , so I could enter "The Contest Challenge" , which is a year-long commitment that was not included in my 2026 writing goals. All to avoid adding a new chapter to my novel. I'm maybe two scenes away from my midpoint crisis. I'm not if I'm dreading torturing my characters, or if my subconscious thinks it's not torturous enough. Either way, I have two poems now and can't even sing them. đ
What can I say? "The story sounds great, get to editing!" No, I have the same affliction; I've written great stories, but when it comes to editing, they sit and smolder, getting colder by the year.
Shorter how? Shorter by saying "Don't go on social media."
I do think this suggestion has some issues, but I think that's because I've seen social media be a useful way to promote activities in Minneapolis that give people an opportunity to help others (e.g. informing people of food/essentials drives) and/or advertise events where people in the city can decompress for a bit. When used strategically, social media can shed light on things that may get overlooked with current legacy media incentives being more twisted than a tourniquet.
Oldest Son started dating a Chinese political refugee last year. The Chinese woman was kicked out of China for posting something critical of the government on the internet. They didn't exactly kick her out, but they are blocking her from being employed, rent an apartment, register a car ... they essentially blocked her from life.
Soooooo ... she lives with us now. And, yes, she is a fourth child to me. Although her English is very good, there remains somewhat of a language barrier. There are cultural differences. Oh, and don't get me started on China's One Child policy that has created a person who has no self-awareness because she was doted on by her parents and grandparents and never told to consider others. (Like chewing with the mouth closed. Like leaving some of the fun food things for others. Like not giggling loudly in the middle of the night when others are trying to sleep.)
Argh.
Well, she loves my son. Or she loves having a free place to live. I don't care. Even with all my above gripes, she is good company. She's easy going, funny, creative, and carries her own weight in the household. She has her own car and she's giving rides when the other cars are booked up.
And, and this is crucial, when I sit her down and explain life in a large~ish household, she immediately adapts and starts following the rules.
I like robots..but according to all the movies and books..they are going to be our downfall. They could really be a big help..but our government is going to turn them toward war etc.
Re #10: My first thought was of Data connecting with Locutus-Picard after he was rescued from the Borg. As for direct ad injection, of course it's going to happen, because it would be way better than subliminal advertising.
Tell us why you stopped working on it, or why the work is not advancing.
Tell us what people in this group or on Writing.Com could do to help you see your project through to the end.
By âhave been working on,â I suppose âonly in my headâ counts.
There was a NaNo project I did lo these many years ago. Itâs meant to be a science fiction novel set in the next century, where human travel outside the Earth-Moon system is still not done for various technical and political reasons. Without giving away too much, the story is mostly about one pilot who breaks that barrier in a newly designed ship, built in secret and in contravention of international laws, in order to retrieve an ice asteroid that will make her orbital community more self-reliant and less dependent on Earth or Luna (such self-sufficiency is, of course, what those laws were written to prevent).
How long ago? I donât know. Itâs gotta be going on 20 years now. This is how I know Iâm just not cut out to be a real writer: not because of lack of writing ability or ideas, but an utter inability to see things through.
Why did I stop working on it? Well, for starters, every time I looked at it as an editing project, I found something less like work to do. For finishers, the political milieu of the story is: a conservative, fascist, racist, protectionist hybrid corpo-theocracy has taken over most of the US, and, after Civil War II, the US is no longer the US but fractured into, basically, Good States (California, New York, etc.) and Bad States (Texas, Florida, etc.) Thatâs not actually what theyâre called, but thatâs the idea. Other countries are aligned with one or the other, but the biggest global power in the novel is a different, rival theocracy to the one in the former US.
Since I started writing the story, the US started heading for Civil War II, thanks to a conservative, fascist, racist, protectionist hybrid corpo-theocracy, so the milieu I envisioned has gone from âyeah, rightâ science fiction to âit took no genius to predict thatâ science fiction. So thatâs why Iâm not working on it now, apart from sheer laziness: my ability to do so without cackling at just how spot on my political, if not technological, projections were, would get in the way. It pays to be a pessimist; you can always find something to cackle about.
Tell us what people in this group or on Writing.Com could do to help you see your project through to the end.
If anyone could âhelpâ me, Iâd have completed it already. No, at some point, I simply gave up all hope of ever finishing that, or the three other novels I have in draft form, all promising, none actually finished.
(And that's still less than 500 words except for the italicized bits, which were just the assignments.)
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