One Hot Mess

Oh my God, you guys. You guys. Seriously. I wrote nearly 9k today. I did. My arm is killing me, but it's worth it because the first draft of BLOOD HUNT is now done and winging its way to my wonderful editor at Queered Fiction.

9000 words. That's my new record. I probably should have stopped at 5k and finished it off tomorrow, but I reached a point where the end was so close it felt stupid to stop. Look at that word meter, people. This novel is 102% finished. This novel is a mathematical impossibility!

71663 / 70000 words. 102% done!

Huzzahs! Now all I need is someone to check the French and a couple of trusty beta readers. If you can help with either of those things, let me know and the rewards will be awesome and shiny!

For now, I have a wicked headache and a very sore arm, so I'm going to stop typing and watch Derren Brown perform crazy feats of wonder. Burn the witch!

I've managed to keep to the "at least 1k a day" rule while I've been off work. I'm sure I'll be able to keep it up once I'm back at work, it just might involve a bit of self-bribery and a lot of whinging about my arm. Oh the pain! I switched from Vista to Windows 7 recently and haven't investigated the voice rec situation with it yet. I mean, I know there is voice rec, I just haven't set it up yet because of my crazy fear about teaching my laptop to think for itself and sparking the robot rebellion, in which I am killed in the opening credits.

Anyway. As usual, the plot is throwing up some twists I didn't expect, and like with SILVER KISS, there are more relationship issues than I anticipated, but not so much between Ayla and Shannon this time. In the mean time, Ayla is speculating about monsters, and I'm wondering if it's too early in the plot to send the cast down into the catacombs for some horror.

 

11387 / 70000 words. 16% done!

*I'm sure I've used that as a blog title before.

Anyway. My arm freaking hurts. I was really good all weekend, doing nothing more strenuous than lifting a wine glass and the occasional piece of chocolate to my mouth. I may have been online yesterday, but I swear I did all my surfing one-handed. And despite this I am in a world of pain today. I feel really fuzzy-headed with it. Clearly I have not yet recovered from the Wild marathon last week, and thus will not be getting back to work on Demonised tonight. Or indeed, for the rest of the week.

I've yet to discover anything that really, completely gets rid of the pain. I have exercises, as provided by the physiotherapist I saw last year, and I have various work-break programmes on my computer, wrist braces, balms, gels, creams, and pain killers. But none of it works for long. I know that. The therapist told me this was not a curable problem, only a manageable one. That doesn't stop me being frustrated! Because it's not just typing or writing that's the problem; it's lifting, carrying, having a bag on my shoulder, reaching out to hand things to people, sitting with my arms crossed, sitting with my arm straight out, standing with my arm at my side, etc etc... Basically everything I do hurts. I don't do anything that doesn't involve my right arm, except possible wangst about how much it hurts.

Ugh. I hate how much I whine about this.

I'm leaving work early today, since there's somebody here to cover the desk, and planning an evening of little-to-no movement. Hopefully tomorrow it'll be better. Le sigh.

Since Wild is with my Fearless Agent and SILVER KISS is almost ready to step out into the big bad world, my mind has inevitably turned to the next project. (It's taken me like, a week to get over Wild. When I finished the rewrite I swore I'd never write anything again and everything could just go to hell because dammit, my arm really hurt. Still does, but anyway).

Anyway. There are a couple of certs - namely the two sequels to SILVER KISS. I'm undecided what order to do them in. Both will take Ayla and Shannon out of town. Probably Bad Dogs will be next since the events follow on quite closely from SILVER KISS. That's set Oop North. The third book is set in France and is currently called Moonstruck, but I'm edging towards changing that to something along the lines of Stone Touch. All will become clear eventually, I promise.

I've also got the sequel to AFTERLIFE, called Afterburn despite the indigestion connotations. That's not contracted, but Damnation Books did express an interest in seeing it, and I definitely want to write it.

I've been working on and off on a novella called Earthbound for a QueeredFiction anthology. The deadline is already gone (it passed whilst I was feverishly writing about junkie werewolves and homeless ghouls), but I'm going to finish it up and inquire anyway.

There's that zombie-military thing too. I'm currently reading Zombie CSU for research. There's also a YA idea floating around, although I've never written YA before so I'm not sure about that one.

And always, always, there's the rewrite of Scarlett's first novel. Sigh. Always. One day I will do it, I will make it awesome and it will take over the world. And then you'll all see *shakes fist skyward*

And all of this is why I need to escape this damnable dayjob.

So it's that time of year again, with everyone gearing up for Nanowrimo and getting excited about pub meets and write-ins and so forth. Everyone on El Jay is asking what we're all going to be working on, and I'm just gurning because I can't do it. I want to, every year I really want to do Nano, but I can't. It's not the word count at all. I can easily knock out 2 -3k in a couple of hours if I put my mind to it. But I can't do it consistently every day because of my bloody arm.

I've been having twinges ever since the weather turned colder, and am back to using Work Rave for rest breaks at work, which is always a bad sign. I'm also back doing all the nerve gliding exercises the physiotherapist showed me back in March. Sigh. I wish I could used voice recognition, but I hate it. I just HATE it. And I know loads of writers who swear by it, but I cannot for the life of me get my head round it. Maybe it's just that Vista has crap voice rec? Anyway, I hate it with the hatred of a thousand burning suns.

So I'm not even going to attempt Nano this year, after two years of Fail. I'm going to do picowrimo instead. Last time I did it, in 2006, I wrote a 5k short story that got published in Midnight Times ezine. This year I'm planning a slightly more ambitious target than 5k. I just can't decide what.

Edits for AFTERLIFE are due in on November 15th, but until I see what needs to be done, I can't judge how much time they'll take me. I have an idea for a short story (maybe 10 - 15k) for one of QueeredFiction's upcoming anthologies that I would love to write. I'd also like to get cracking on the sequel to AFTERLIFE (not set on a title yet, but Blood Legacy is the one I keep coming back to. Sounds very generically "sexy vampire" though).

In any case, as soon as I've decided I shall hop along to the picowrimo community and announce my target, thus creating the necessary peer pressure to make sure I actually do it. And now the inevitable: Who's doing Nano? What are you working on?

Things of note:

1. I'm done with the emo thing today. I had some brilliant news yesterday that I will share asap, and that lifted me right out of my "woe is me" mood.

2. I'm off to my parents this weekend for an internet-free few days of hardcore writing on Silver Kiss. I've done a lot this week, had two very productive write-ins, and I'm determined to do a lot more before the week's over.

Which ties into my next point:

3. OMG, I woke up at 4am this morning in agony. FLAMING, SEARING AGONY. I must have fallen asleep on my bad arm. It was cramped, I had the worst pins and needles ever, I couldn't move my fingers, and from my shoulder to my elbow, everything was numb. I had a complete freak-out and leapt out of bed waving my arm around like a maniac to try and get the feeling back. But it kept going numb despite my proactive methods. I spent a good ten minutes just massaging it and stretching and eventually reduced my panic from "OMG, AM I GOING TO HAVE TO AMPUTATE IT?!" to "this is pretty damn uncomfortable."

So yeah, not great. I have overdone it this week and I've been slack at using my voice recognition, because me yelling at my laptop doesn't make for a happy, productive atmosphere for the other writers at the write-ins.

Thanks to everyone who offered encouragement and support yesterday :) I definitely needed it, but now I've had my mope, it's back to work. I've got four work-free days ahead of me and I intend to use them to the max. The plan:

1. Lots of writing
2. Lots of applying for jobs
3. Visiting Gran
4. Rinse and repeat

We'll see how it works out....

In slightly-related news, I had my lasy physio session yesterday. Well, technically the last, in that Laura can't really do anything more for me, but I can ring up and scream in pain and get another appointment if need be. Basically, I've got all the tools I need to deal with my radial nerve problem, and now I need to build up the strength in my arm and keep doing the exercises. Like, forever. Because although the problem can be managed, it can't really be cured as long as I'm in a desk job. Which I probably always will be. Although not the one I'm currently in, if I can help it.

I hope someone told you they loved you today. But do remember that your love is not as good as Laurell K Hamilton's. For the record, nobody has yet told me they love me today, and I put this down to me not being LKH.

On the other hand, I have added 4k to Death for the Born since I started redrafting it. this continues my tradition of making my novels bigger by editing them. It's now at a respectable 77k instead of a slightly wimpy 73k, with more "editing" to be done. Yes, I hurt. Yes I'm not supposed to be typing today. But fuck you, repetitive strain injury. Fuck. You. I've got agents to query.

If you're planning to spend four hours on Sunday evening slouched in bed typing away, with no back support, no wrist support, and you can't be bothered to use voice rec, don't be surprised if. come Monday, your back, neck, and wrist aches unbearably.

PS - The word count you achieved makes all your pain totally not worth it, too.

I sorted out extra accommodation for RNA. Huzzahs all round! And my stay there may be further aided by the fact that I'm having my wisdom teeth taken out the week before and will probably need a week off work after that. In theory, that means I can travel to Chichester at my leisure, swollen and bruised face notwithstanding. Sometimes Fate does provide for me. Although, I have to say, I'm kind of dubious about the whole thing. This is an approximation of the referral form I was shown at the hospital:

Reason for removal of wisdom teeth: Prevent pain, infection to gums.

Possible after-effects of removal: Pain, infection to gums.

Not promising...

On the plus side, I finally figured out what to do with Harris' mistress and it's awesome! And will involve a fight at a funeral, which will be awesome! In a grave, dignified manner, of course.