Starting Over... Again

The July post sounded optimistic, didn't it? I have done a little writing and I was able for a bit to do a lot of things around here that had to be done. The arm is well but I've not been able to go back to the gym but once or twice. 

At first because I was not cleared by the doctor. I actually had to go get a shot in the arm to help with the pain. After several weeks, I was good to go back. I made a trip to the gym on October 12. I remeber I didn't feel well and it was a week before I tried again on the 20th. By then I wasn't feeling well at all and after my 6 mile ride, I came home. I've been down ever since. I think I've had Covid #3.

Today, I'm much improved, but still not great. I'm not coughing as much and there is way less crud in my chest and nose. I've coughed so much my ribs, back, and head hurt. And as for fatigue, I've been so tired I just fall asleep in a chair. 

I'm very annoyed because I was doing really well the first of October. I felt better than I have in a long time. I was getting a lot of stuff done, had started to write again, and planned to go down to Atlanta to visit my aunt and uncle. Two weeks ago I almost left. I was packed but the next morning I was so sick I had to cancel. 

So, here I sit. Planning what to do after I'm completely over this. 

It is very frustrating because time seems to be just slipping away. I've been battling illness for years now and I'm pretty tired of it. Or maybe just tired is a better way to phrase it. 

If my I get better over the next few days, maybe I will be able to get back into it.. writing, sewing, crochet. I feel totally useless at the moment. Always, I'm starting over and honestly, I probably should just give up. 

Whew, what a bummer this is!

Writing UnLeashed

I'm not sure where I got it, but I remember it was a free download. I'm cleaning off my drive, so best get it while you can. 

From the Forward in the book: 

Welcome to Writing Unleashed, designed for use as a textbook in first-year college composition programs, written as an extremely brief guide for students, jam-packed with teachers’ voices, students’ voices, and engineered for fun.

Summer of Recovery

 Wow. I keep thinking things will get better. The writing is always so exciting but life, I don't now. Sometimes you feel like it is just out to get you. I had arm surgery on April 4th to repair my left rotator cuff. It was an old injury, happened around 1993. So, 30 years? Yeah. 

They had me in a sling for several weeks, but I stopped wearing it after two. The pain it caused in my neck and back was just horrible, worse than the pain from the surgery. The physical therapy was exhausting, too. I'd come home and have to go to bed. That really shocked me. I couldn't use the arm for 6 weeks and after that, I had to be careful. 

So, in June, just as therapy is winding down, I get an abscess tooth. Every single tooth on the right side of my mouth hurt. My ear hurt. My head hurt. My face hurt. For a month. It took two weeks just to find a dentist I could get in to see. I have an appointment for a root canal on the 18th, but that isn't all. I have another tooth that they need to pull and put a post in. That's will not happen, though. I don't have $5000 for a post. Nope. 

So, with enough antibiotics and antiviral in my system, the pain lessened. I still have times when it hurts but I pray I can get through till the appointment. When I had the arm surgery, they gave me 56 Lortabs for pain. I used, over the 6 weeks, about 20. The rest I used in the month I had the mouth pain. Really. Abscess tooth is worse than arm surgery. I'm not kidding. 

And no, there was no writing. I didn't reach my goal. I didn't even get close. I'm angry about it. I'm ready to just delete everything I have and forget it. I'm getting old. Time is running out. And I'm really just tired. No matter how hard I try to press on, something comes around the bend and flattens me. It's not fun anymore. 

So, there we have it. There were some positives. My sister came in May 1st and stayed the month to help me because I couldn't do anything with the arm. Embarrassing but unavoidable. I mean, I couldn't even brush my hair! I hadn't seen my sister for 4 years and it was truly lovely to have her here. I had such a good time with her.

My sister went home at the end of the month and my granddaughter Sarah came on June 5th. She stayed till July 5th. I was so happy to have her home. Sarah is a ray of sunshine when she's here and we had great fun. We enjoy one another's company so much. 

Now, here I am in the middle of July. I have thought about working on the writing but I'm so depressed over it I don't know where to start. All I've been doing lately is cleaning out closets and drawers, trying to get rid of things. I realized recently, someone is going to have to deal with all this junk, eventually. I'd rather do that myself. So, I'm taking one thing at a time and clearing it. When that's done, I've moved on to the next thing. It's working, but it is so slow. 

The doctor's released me to go back to the gym and I want to do that, but getting started is tough. I know once I get back I'll be better. But the first step, that's the hardest.

I guess it is a summer of recovery. At least, I hope we recover something. Cause it feels like everything is just messed up. 

How Are We Doing?

For several weeks now, I've been back working on All That's Holy. I started one night, and it was like a string of dominoes someone tipped. I'm through the first 10 chapters of Act 1 and now working on Act II. 

The graph below I created to show my writing progress since January. My goal for the first complete write through is May 1. I don't honestly think I can get through 95,000 words in three months, but hey, I'm up for the challenge. I think. Yeah, I am. Pretty sure.

 Originally, I scheduled it for February but I had so much going on and then I was sick. So that didn't work. Some days I forced myself to write, but I've found if I alternate between writing and some other project, my brain recovers from the writing overload. 

In fact, I started this post on Feb. 14 but as usual, something happened and I had to move along. I've done a bit of crochet, rearranged my desk/computer setup for better access to some things. I've done a bit of sewing, and I've taken some walks at the lake in the cemetery. I've cleaned house, done laundry, dishes, and vacuumed floors. Oh, and the toilets, I did the toilets. And tub. Yeah. 

Writing it down makes me realize I've done more than I thought. And looking at that chart, while it isn't as much as I wanted to do, it is a lot of writing. Remember, I'm doing a rewrite that includes a lot of editing. You wouldn't believe how many words I've taken out and how much stupid text I've had to rewrite. A few times, I had a negative word count. In fact, on one day I had a -3. In January, I wrote 3233 words but ended the month with a net of only 649. Meaning I subtracted over 2000 words. Ugh. 

I don't have a word count goal so the subtraction is meaningless at this point. I don't really check it a lot, although Scrivener had a target tracker you can leave up. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. The record keeping is nice, but outside NaNoWriMo I simply don't track daily counts much. It is fun to see the totals sometimes and they're available if I want them. And sometimes, it is fun to set a goal of so many words and see if you can reach it. The tracker makes that easy.

One thing I realized this week is I've reached the point in this story where there are huge gaping holes. There is also a skewed timeline. I've written this story from the point of view  of three characters and that makes the timeline crucial. They all come together at a certain point and I have to work in alternate POVs to string this thing together. It's hard. I've never done a story like that and juggling one timeline is hard enough. However, I think I can do it. 

I'm going to do it. I said, I'm going to do it. 

I am. 

Really. 

Busy Week of Progress - More to Do

It has been a very busy week. I was not feeling well on Sunday, extremely fatigued, and lay around in the recliner all day. On Monday, I was still tired; however, I sat down as a computer and worked on one book. By the end of the day, I was astounded to realize that I'd been there for almost 3 hours. However, the first seven chapters are lined out to my satisfaction.

On Tuesday, I was back at it for part of the day. I did not get as much done, however; I started on a couple more chapters, adding things, taking things out, and correcting errors. There remains a lot of the old text, some of it going back to when I wrote the story for Nano. For those sections, I have to rewrite or delete things.

The same day, I also worked on one the cat scratching post that I've been dealing with for a while but still have about half of it left to wrap with rope. I was exhausted and had to stop. Wednesday, I paid for it in spades. I sat on the floor to work on this thing and my back was sore from stretching. My legs, knees, and hips took a beating, too. I alternated between stretching one leg out and bending the other and sitting Indiana fashion. I enjoy sitting this way on the floor but forgot my old bones do not. 

I haven't decided if this was cheaper than buying a new one, but I don't think so can the long run. The rope was a 40 foot roll for $3.50. I have used three roles as so far. I have one rolled left but I think you will need two roles. So, it cost of roughly $17.50 of rope. I had to buy a glue gun because someone "borrowed" my good one and never returned it. And I needed glue sticks to glue on the rope. If I had it to do again, I'd probably go with an application glue but it would be so messy and since it is winter, I have no circulation to do that in the house safely. You can see I still have to finish it, but I'm pleased with the results. I learned a lot doing this and will be better at it if I do it again. 

They covered this post in a "fabric" for the cats to scratch. I have another one I bought when I got my cats. This belonged to Chaz and lasted about 5 years, but he eventually shredded the fabric at the top. I thought about buying another, but they're nearly $70 each now. Each of the two I bought cost about $50. I suspect when the second one becomes worn out, I'll be covering it too. 

And now it is 2:30 a.m. on Thursday. Yep. I went to bed about 6:30 p.m. and read for a till about 7 p.m.but I was in so much pain I could hardly move. I've had 5.5 hrs sleep and woke at midnight. Ugh. Not quite enough sleep, but I'm not sleepy now and rather than rolling around in the bed, I got up. I've done some updates on the computer and finished writing this post I started yesterday. 

Yesterday I looked in the backyard and thought my pond was drying up and was concerned about the fish dying. Just kidding. We've had so much rain it looks like a pond out there. Then heavy wet snow showed up and further exacerbated the problem. Last night it rained again. 

And that's the week to date. Hope you're all having a good one. I'm going to be working on the book again. I'd love to get this one completed in the next month and have someone read over it! We'll see how it goes. I've been here before.

 So much to do and so little time.