Better Ideas Can Be So Soul Crushing

Part of it was a better idea, another part was the writing just not being that good to start with, but I threw 3000 words worth of work into the trash bin yesterday.  Before...that's like a day, maybe two days worth of work, with the new normal it's more like a week.  So...it hurt.  I just feel kind of mentally crushed today because of it.  I do think the book will be much stronger for it.  It's not some major huge altering change, but...it does focus this one chapter a lot more.  It's something King Henry would very much do to someone and I think you'll all enjoy it...

It's also made me realize I need a chapter split.  War to End All Wars has by far the most chapter splits I've ever experienced moving from Outline to actual Novel before.  Some of this is the total session count being limited because they carry across the series, so I really stuffed them ful.  Another part of it is just me typing something like "KH has Breakfast with Welf/Hope+Old Mancy Crew to Antagonize Them" into the Outline that turns into a 10k scene by the time I end up writing it.

I have a very good sense on the session I'm working on now and it actually is OBVIOUSLY the midpoint of the novel, so we finally got there, kiddies!  Feel like I'm starting to get a handle on the story and the characters and what's going on.  I can see the end on the horizon as long as everything keeps improving with my body.

Pain wise I'm starting to feel not totally horrible.  I can very much over do it and I can't lift anything and sitting here typing still has an upper limit before my back starts screaming, but its a lot better than I've felt in the last 18 months, that's for sure.

The biggest problem right now is probably the heat.  At a certain point, you have so many 100+ days in a row, you just don't have the energy to think.  Yeah, the AC does its best to make things survivable, but it doesn't always feel like the kind of life you can tolerate.  75 degrees at 3AM is probably the worst part of the Fresno summer.  You can't ever open those doors because what's the point when it's going to be 80 degrees before you even have breakfast.  You're just stuck inside, no fresh air, muggy, judging if your cat is really cute enough to keep on putting up with his fish farts for another day.

One of these days I'll have enough, Sherburt!!!

July 25th Edit:

Longtime commenter Treydog (and new to the beta team for Everlasting Dilemma) threw his hat into the ring and published his first novel on KDP.  I can't speak to quality because he just sprung it on me out of nowhere and my TBR pile is a disaster at this point with like full unread Hobb and Abercrombie trilogies just sitting there judging me, but I do know it's YA...so...not as much cursing as the King Henry Tapes, I'm guessing.  Epic fantasy as well and Welsh-ish? names...so...we have established that I am not good hype man!

However, I know how miserable it is to get views as a new KDP author, so here's the link for you to peruse:  Challenge Accepted by Stuart Maher and Peregrine Anish

Blurbage:

The time for heroes appears to be past. Over 20 years ago, Trey ard Sliath and Serene na Ridire defeated the greatest threat their world had ever known. Then, they settled down to raise their families.

What do you do if you are a child of one of those legendary figures? Especially if you are naturally talented with weapons like Serene's daughter, Athynae? Or unable to use a sword at all, like Trey's son, Athlain?

And what happens when you discover that there are still enemies to confront and threats to be faced?

For Athynae and Athlain, there is only one answer. Challenge Accepted.

It's Hot

Just still slowly experimenting and doing what work I can, resting the back and wrists as I need to.  Tramadol finally got approved and its helping a lot with me getting around and not being in PAIN pain so much as SORE pain for huge chunks of the day.  Fresno summer is here, looks like 100+ for the rest of July.

Started the last scene of this session.  This is pretty much the midway part of the novel.  So...if you remember the way the school stories worked in FM5 and FM6 as a kind of double feature, this is similar.  First part takes place at the beginning of the school year and has lots of set up and then we rush forward and the second half takes place later in the year (this time around the Winter War) as everything wraps up.

Don't have to see the spine doctors again until the end of August, so more info then on Burnination #2 hopefully.

Outside of that, everyone enjoy your summer!

Early Experiment Results

Still feeling generally better than I have been over the last couple years, if a sore and beat up generally better.  My first attempt at typing was on my back in bed with a detachable keyboard, first completely horizontal and then on my left side.  Managed 1000 words that way and finally finished a scene that had remained in statis for over a year, but I was very uncomfortable the whole time and couldn't walk at all the next day.  Well...I could stagger to the bathroom and the microwave, nothing else.  Followed by zombie shuffling the day after that and my 80-year-old-man impersonation the day after that.  Spiked my pain like 4 points at least.

Experiment #1:  Failure!

1k every five days while I'm in tons of pain in-between just isn't going to cut it or is a situation I'm willing to enter into.

So last Friday when I no longer felt like one of the walking dead, I tried another idea I'd had, which was to lounge in bed and just text everything out on my smart phone's note app.  It's slower than the real deal, obviously, its going to take more editing once it hits the word processor, but...it seems to be sustainable pain wise.  I've written 4000 words this way in the last week, Ceinwyn and Plutarch are currently having quite the conversation with King Henry Jerry Spingering on the sidelines...is this the first time they've really had a scene together?  Can't remember, might have to look it up.

It's not 100% (and Mad Scientist Mode is impossible), but it's closer than anything I've felt since before I hurt my back.  I'm rusty and my writer's mind is struggling to return and War to End All Wars is still an indulgent monster, but...

Experiment #2:  Progress!

Going to keep with this for now and see how it goes.  Been staying away from the computer (either reddit scrolling or card gaming) and just reading a ton of books in bed as my main form of entertainment just to save my back. (btw totally recommend Naomi Novik's Scholomance Trilogy, especially for fans of the magic school aspect in the KHT.  One warning I would give is that the inner monologuing is A LOT...and that's coming from ME.  But I'm loving it so far halfway through the last novel, does a lot of the same things I'm trying to accomplish theme-wise with the KHT, granted in a very different way, also the main character El has aspects of KH and Val thrown together into one person that makes me smile for...reasons...)

Tramadol order is still fubar and still weeks until we know about when the next burnination can take place, so that's where we are for now.  But, ya know...4k words a week or more as I get back into what groove I can manage...that's something.  Still have the dictating setup to try out too and I want to give a go at rigging the detachable keyboard up so it's almost like a vertical triangle where I don't have to turn my shoulders and wrists to type and see how that works.  That's really one of the main differences between texting and typing outside of finger-usage, so it's an idea...

But for now, going with what we got and finally some progress!*

*remember that progress can implode along with my spine at any moment and temper your expectations accordingly!

June 28th Edit:  wrote 5k more and then the back imploded. :(  Did finish the scene.  Will move on to the next when my joints chill out, hopefully in a few days.  This novel continues to vex me for reasons beyond my ills and pains...each session/chapter is averaging about 20k so far.  By my outline I have at least 6 left to write...math is not on my side...

Edit Pass Done

325 pages down.  Pain has been up and down, but down is miles better than it used to be.  Feeling a bit better for the first time in two years I didn't quite realize just how much pain I was in until now.  The pain I'm in typing this would make most whimper their way into bed for the day and I'm just...well, could be a billion times worse, so grin and bear it!  You don't understand spinal pain until you've experienced spinal pain and you might not realize how much pain you're in until it's let up...probably why when I always tell doctors I'm at is probably just a 7 or an 8 they just look at me like I'm a fucktard.

My mind has been spending a lot of time processing what it's been through now that it has the extra emotional space to decompress and I know others have it far FAR worse, but I've been fighting serious feelings of frustration and also...I guess...betrayal.  By who?  I don't know.  My body?  The Universe?  Who knows, but it's been a battle to shake.  We're also coming up on the three year anniversary of my Grandfather's death and the anxiety and dread and general melancholy seems to rise for June every year since.  It helped a bit to suddenly realize that's why my mood has been so sour (it always sneaks up on me somehow!), but it also hasn't completely been conquered.  It's better than it was last year and the year before that, so...that's another type of healing I'm going through, I suppose.

Still not sure how my spine will react to prolonged typing, so the next week will be very experimental as I figure this out.  Maybe the next two weeks even.

Pain doctors are also up and down on whether I can get the burnination done six months after the last instead of waiting until next year, since it's on a different level (Cervical vs Thoracic), so might get that relief sooner rather than later, depending on how the insurance has it all worded.  Won't know more until next month, but we're talking October instead of January if it does go through.  They've also put me on low dose tramadol for the pain finally, just to cover all the spots they aren't burning, but insurance is making that extra difficult too and I've been waiting six weeks now for all the authorization to get finalized.  The one week I was able to really write decently in 2022 was when I said 'fuck it' and popped those one day right in a row, so...that could be another tool towards productivity.  Obviously I don't want to, but...God it would be nice to be able to sit in a chair again!  Much less get out of this house for something other than a doctor appointment...

To summarize:  doing better, actually got some work done, might get some NEW work done, but it could all implode at any moment if a few nerves decide they're not going to be team players, so...day at a time!  Huzzah!

Hey, look at all that I typed!!!

Cut This, Might Be Worth a Laugh

 It would be impossibly hard.

Mostly because Class 2015 respected and admired me and sought my praise.  They’re teenagers, they’re supposed to be antisocial and shit, what the fuck is wrong with this upcoming generation?

Always being connected to society for every waking moment, constantly being judged for every action by every person they’ve ever come into contact with and millions upon millions of strangers, with the Sword of Damocles hanging over their head if they make the slightest, little mistake they’ll be digital stoned and left as a pariah?

Nope, it has to be porn!

Or the existential threat of Climate Change making existence largely pointless and procreation a recipe for their grandchild starving to death once all the crops wither and fail and…the dolphins commit mass seppuku with severed swordfish heads or some shit?

No!  No!  It has to be the video games!

Video games and porn!  Especially videogame porn!  They make that, right?  You…do you know any good ones?  A…a friend was asking about it, ya know?