All The Input Is Done

Bit of a good news, bad news flip flop going on in my life at the moment.  Did manage to type in all the bloodred murder scene pages into the laptop, AND to finally figure out the scene structure on that chapter, so it's like...90% done.  Actually the whole first half is like 90% done.  Word here, phrase there, typo, brain fart, do detective work on a note referencing a past novel type stuff.  It is how it will be in the final novel at this point, just rearranging the deck chairs before bon voyage.

Also managed to type in the other slightly less bloodred 'man that's a bad nosebleed' pages that have been moved into the next chapter now.  Now my mission is to go through about 50 pages worth of previous work done while in stupid levels of pain and see what I want to save.  I think the vast majority is getting tossed, but maybe some dialogue and the occasional exposition might be salvageable.

Bad news:  I haven't been able to dive into that yet and won't next week either because I've been dealing with a tooth that got infected and I've had to make multiple dentist and endodontist trips over the last six weeks for lovely antibiotics and a root canal and just...SO MUCH FUN!!!  Lymph nodes swelled up, nerve died, ya know, SO MUCH FUN!!!  As someone who's had a lot of pain, that's the most pain I've ever experienced.  You just exist in the pain, no stopping it whatsoever.  It kicked tramadol in the balls and left it whimpering in an alleyway.  Literally had to freeze the nerve with a cold pack just so I could swallow one mouthful of bone broth, then repeat ever few minutes.  SO MUCH FUN!!!

Also good news:  spine is behaving.  Just the occasional mid back stabby stabby that I can fix with lying down for a rest.

Bad news:  still haven't got back to BG3.  Might never, hard to get back into games after you set them down for a time after real life strikes.  Halsin been kidnapped by a cultist for over two months at this point!  Granted I barely said three words to the guy and he was disappointed I wouldn't join his gay bear sex orgy, so he's a menace and deserves whatever the shapechanger is doing to him...

Good news:  Hades 2 finally came out on the Playstation.  Yay!!!  HD and 60fps instead of fuzzy whatever that was on the Switch.

So, one more root canal appointment then I need to get the crown set and placed, meaning like 3 more total over the next couple weeks.  Cross your fingers.  I will try to sneak in a day here or there through it all, really champing at the bit.  Chomping at the bit?  Have we decided if that's been replaced by the modern word yet?

That hit of typing in the pages and doing some solid editing after so much back crap to start the year felt amazing.  Way my mood spirals or improves based on how long its been since I've written is probably unhealthy, but too deep to stop at this point...

RFA Done

Recovering.  Already feeling much better.  Hope to be back typing seriously by the end of the month.  Still have about 40 pages left to get into the computer then it's onto rewriting that last trouble chapter, at which point the book will be on the back end.  A long back end, but still heading DOWN the mountain rather than up it!

RFA On Friday

Can't really type or use a mouse much, so quick one.  Neck/shoulder/hand has been really bad.  Like, can't hold a pen for longer than a minute bad.  My life has been lying in bed watching TV and reading, trying to ignore that everything hurts.  No progress on the Vicky novel this month, needless to say.

Luckily, the spine docs had already scheduled the RFA month before last and it will start on Friday.  As usual, two step process, two weeks apart, need about 10 days to recover after each step.  So I'll update all of you late April, hopefully feeling much better.

Really happened at a bad time.  Vicky novel's innards are all over the operating table with that rewrite finally almost complete.  Had just figured out I needed to yank a scene from one chapter to the next and how to connect everything together.

And I can't game AT ALL, just as I finally reached Baldur's Gate in Act 3!

Still Alive...Plus A Tease?

Silence isn't some conspiracy.  Holidays into just trudging along, wondering if the Order of Wen the Eternally Surprised is using me as their current time suck victim most days.

Having to type a disgusting amount of edits into the laptop and saving my "good spine" hours for that instead of blog posts.  Pages look like the Crazy 88 after the Bride got done with them.  Or Maki with the Zen'in for a more current reference!  Actually trying to catch up on last year's anime right now too...if you haven't watched Frieren, watch Frieren, second season currently ongoing.  It's like a beautiful soul hug.  Fantasy based from an elf's POV.  Highest RR recommendation possible.  English Dub is very good too and I'm pretty sure is on Netflix at the moment, so easily available.

So...rewrites are on the tail end, next up is starting the second half of the novel (should hit 100k words by the time rewrites are done).  Same as last couple posts despite the trudging, but we have trudged, I promise, lot of pig shit to dodge on them peasant trails, okay?  Dreading going through the forty pages of the next chapter I know I'm mostly going to trash...going to be so much better though, like lightyears of improvement, but urgh.

Your tease:

“You—you think Brother will propose?  Tonight?!?” Victoria couldn’t hold back a squawk.

If I don't post another one of these in the next couple months, it's just more trudging (hopefully not all on rewrites, but the back half as well).  Oh, I started Baldur's Gate 3 finally.  So that's my other entertainment at the moment.  Human Sorcerer just like my DND days...almost 3 decades ago...fuck I'm getting old.  Gale is kinda pointless to the party, the poor bloke.  Have had aggressive Gith domination sexy time, don't judge!

Still Paying For Past Sins

Just reworking what I've already wrote because I'm not happy with it...for THE SECOND TIME, no biggie.  Not driving me insane or anything.  Or killing my spine since it's all being typed back into the laptop...

What was there was unacceptable and this is 10x better, but...yeah, feeling pretty disgruntled by how much time these mistakes (also known as pain induced flippancy or "we'll add it in post") cost me.  We're talking two months just on rewrites at this point.  Granted its a 300 page novel and counting...then the next chapter I've already had some realizations on and...will be seriously reworking it too.  Haven't even checked to see what can be saved and will need to be tossed.  I'm basically changing where characters are in a certain room, so they won't be able to comment on different conversations they were previously part of or WILL, some lines might be transferable with a little tweak or two, but...yeah, whole atmosphere will kick it up a notch.

After that we're luckily into blank page country once again and the last half is all the juicy awesome stuff I planned to write it for in the first place anyway...

Actually this chapter I'm reworking and being so picky about is also super juicy and I think some of you will start squeeing like fourteen-year-old kpop fans over a certain revelation, but ya know...the next bit is even better than that!

So there!

Consider this your "happy holidays" message as well!

Bah humbug!