Submissions: 1 = 1 pt.
TOTAL = 30 pts WOOT!
NaNo went wonderfully, as you can probably tell from the above. :) I wrote just over 50K on my NaNo project, which was the third book of my Sentinels series, and another 10K and a bit on book two of the same series. Sentinels 2 (the book that comes right after A Hidden Magic) is almost 85K words and I think I'm about two or three more chapters from finishing.
Doing both at once actually worked out well. The two stories take place at the same time, with most of the team up in Seattle in Book 2, and the guy left home to hold the fort having an adventure of his own back in San Jose in Book 3. I had to go back and do a couple of tweaks on chunks of Book 2 I'd already written to make the timeline work with Book 3, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I'd finished 2 and turned it in (especially if it'd already been published before I got significantly into 3), so I'm glad I decided to start 3 even though 2 wasn't done.
The current plan is to finish Book 2 in December and get it submitted and in the pipeline, then finish Book 3 (maybe before spring?) and submit that. If I can have two novels published in 2012, I will be absolutely delighted.
Jim and I went to Reno to spend Thanksgiving with my mom and brother, and we had a wonderful dinner (on Wednesday, because my brother is a retail manager and worked both Thanksgiving and the day after) at a very nice steakhouse at the Atlantis, the same hotel WorldCon was at this last August. I had American Kobe beef for the first time, and I now understand what all the fuss is about. It's sublimely beefy, tender and flavorful and rich. I could have eaten three of them, except then I wouldn't have had room for the excellent beef-vegetable soup or the great cheesy-buns that came in the bread basket or the very good creamed spinach or the creme brulee (yum!) I had for dessert. The service was great, not at all snooty, and the little extras -- like the coffee service, which came with rock sugar on sticks, cinnamon sticks, white lump sugar, brown lump sugar, chocolate shavings, whipped cream, and I don't remember what-all else to put in your coffee -- made the whole dinner a wonderful experience. It was expensive but very much worth the price. If you're ever at the Atlantis and have a week's food budget to blow [cough] I highly recommend the steak house.
The Friday before Thanksgiving, Jim slipped on an oily metal grate or something on his way home from work, and banged up his knee pretty bad -- all scabby and sore -- so he kept it bandaged and went on with life. A couple of days after we flew to Reno, his leg from the knee down was incredibly swollen and red, and a bit warm to the touch. Mom and I persuaded him to go see a doctor; the local urgent care clinic was on our insurance, so Sean dropped us off on his way to work. The doctor took one look at it and said it looked to her like he had a blood clot, and she wanted him to go to a hospital for an ultrasound immediately. She said that if they found a clot, they'd keep him at least over night, because you don't mess around with those things. We took a cab to the medical center and after some really ridiculous run-around about where we were supposed to be and who we were supposed to see -- the urgent care doctor called and talked to an ultrasound tech and made an appointment for us, but no one else seemed to have ever heard of Jim or of the tech -- we finally got in and he got his ultrasound. She didn't find a clot, which is good but kind of weird; she said that just looking at the leg, she'd have assumed there was a clot too, but no. Apparently it's just an odd case of cellulitis, or however you spell it, and so he's on antibiotics. If it's not back to normal by the time he's out of pills, he promises he'll go see our regular doctor.
That was scary for a while, but it looks like he'll be okay. :/
I did my usual travel-sick thing, which continued after I flew home, yay. I missed going to the movies with the rest of the family, but they saw The Immortals and from all accounts I didn't miss anything. I'm used to the whole post-flight sickness now, though; I'm just glad I have my pills.
I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving, or if you're not in the US, had a great November anyway. :)
Angie
2 comments:
Congratulations on kicking NaNo butt! Sounds like the beef experience was the appropriate reward!
Suzan -- thanks! :D I hadn't thought of it like that, but that's definitely one way to look at it, heh. We're thinking of going to the same restaurant for Christmas; maybe I should do another 60K next month so I deserve it? Humm, I'm actually wondering whether that might work, as psychological self-judo. [wry smile]
Angie
Post a Comment