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Friday, September 29, 2023

Burnination #2 Incoming

C7 to T2 spinal ablation.  Middle of November.  If it provides the same relief as the first, in a more needed area, it could be pretty huge to my quality of life, pain reduction, and of course...writing output.  Just like last time, we're talking about a month long process of getting one side of the spine done, then two weeks recovery, then the second side, then two more weeks recovery.  So we won't see the full effects of all this until probably around Christmas.

Until then I'll just be managing what I can manage texting out on the phone for the most part.  Only managed a disappointing 5k words in September.  Why, you ask?  You were so hopeful, RR!  You had three free weeks!  Did you waste your time playing the new Hearthstone Battlegrounds update?

Yes, yes I did!  At night, when the house finally cooled down because the day after I posted that last hopeful message my almost brand new just installed two years ago AC stopped working.  During Fresno's last big heatwave of the year!  Why did it stop working?  Because Fresno is a horrible, inescapable vortex of evil!  Also a dustbowl since our last drought.  It clogged the blower motor so bad it shorted out and NO COLD AIR.  Did they have the part ready?  NO!!!  Are you not paying attention to my luck lately, Noble Reader?!?

So...instead of getting all that free time writing, I spent about two weeks sweating profusely and drinking large amounts of Gatorade in a nearly completely dark room all the hopes of avoiding another bout of heat exhaustion.  Which I did!  Yay me!  But...not much writing done.  Just me and the television...oh, I started reading Tony Hillerman because he's my Mom's favorite author and she guilt tripped me into it.  Point is this:  three weeks free became one week free.

I don't think I get to post positive thoughts about my writing again.  I think the jinx is very real.  I think some other author got so jealous of how awesome I am they did some voodoo shit.

So...life is Paine!  Woah is me!  I bow before you Great Blighted Potato who wiped out so many of my ancestors!  Give me mercy and mediocracy!  I pledge to the Way of the Grasshopper!  Ignore the next two weeks until my next doctor appoint, nothing will get done.  Ignore the whole month after that with nothing until the burnination itself.  Don't worry, there will be no progress!  I will play nothing but Football Manager!  I'm not at all interested in who wins the 2015 Camping Test as King Henry gets to watch on behind the scenes!  No, no!  I have no interesting ideas at all!  Writing?  So boring!  All I care about is sixteen-year-old Brazilian wonderkids!

You guys think...you think the Potato bought it?

Wednesday, September 6, 2023

First Edit as Red Ink











Yes, I ran out of room.  The circled numbers are for corresponding paragraphs on the back of the page that you can't see.  There will probably be four or five more versions of this section before I get to the final one that will be published.  I suppose you can consider this a tease for you maniacs that want to try to decode it...

As far as new writing, after a dreadful back half of August and start to September, I am free from doctors (and the car drives to their offices that destroys my back for two to three days) until the 27th.  Hopefully I'll have second burnination plans made then.  But until then, I have 3 weeks free to try to finish this chapter and start in on the second half of the novel.

Wish me luck!