…but I didn’t.\u00a0 I remember now, I started to, was interrupted, hit the wrong button, and the post went *poof*.\u00a0\u00a0 The interruption took considerable time, and…eventually….I forgot.\u00a0\u00a0 I have no memory of what I actually said, either.\u00a0 Once it’s out of my head and the little letters appear on the screen, it’s easily forgotten, especially with interruptions.\u00a0\u00a0 It may have been about progress, or a reminder that I’m heading off to DragonCon in early September or a comment on the weather.\u00a0 Whatever it was, it’s gone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So.\u00a0 Had everything gone as planned, I’d now have 120,000 words in the file.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t.\u00a0 However, not to fret:\u00a0 words are still trickling in, albeit more slowly, thanks to interruptions and a prolonged bout of weather-related sinus and general blah-ness.\u00a0 Nothing serious, but the heat and the dust that rises with that amount of heat and a strong breeze (which may have thrown some various things at me, as well) knocked my energy down very low.\u00a0\u00a0 (A medical article I read pointed out that a particular multi-drug-resistant bacteria found on hog farms that caused unusual serious human infections after the Joplin, Missouri tornado a few years ago was probably transported by tornado–tornado as vector.<\/p>\n
It’s now finally back below 100F again (albeit upper-mid-90s) and I’m feeling a little less sick today.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well enough, in fact, to cook actual food again, properly.\u00a0 A small chunk of meat, cooked with the previously sauteed onions, garlic, carrot, celery, some diced tomatoes and green chilis,\u00a0 some corn and green beans, a slug of red wine, a few other flavorings.\u00a0 It was good.\u00a0 The rest of it will be good tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Although I’m\u00a0 a little over a week behind the original plan, there is buffer space built in (always, always, build in buffer space.\u00a0 As much as possible.\u00a0 Stuff happens.)\u00a0\u00a0 I expect to be done in plenty of time.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Certain elements in the story are falling nicely into place; others (as usual) will require having chunks lopped off, some shaping done, and a lot of\u00a0 sanding.\u00a0\u00a0 What can I say without saying too much? \u00a0 Hmmm.\u00a0 These books are shorter than the Paks books, and a layer or two less thick.\u00a0 Which makes spoilering easy and avoiding it harder.\u00a0 The usual suspects from the Vatta books are all there and being themselves:\u00a0 Great-aunt Grace, Rafe, Stella, Ky, MSgt MacRobert, MSgt Pitt.\u00a0 Treachery abounds in opposition, but natural history is also in play.<\/p>\n
For Dragon*Con, I still have just my preliminary schedule.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t know which hotel they’ll put me in this year.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m planning to wait until I get my packet of information from them and a final schedule before posting about it here.\u00a0 But I am going, and plan to be there Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning (mostly checking out Monday morning, of course)\u00a0 so any of you who are going, do keep an eye out for me.\u00a0 I have a new fancy vest that I may wear part of the time–got it in Oklahoma at SoonerCon and it’s a suitably gaudy item.\u00a0\u00a0 You’d have to see it to believe it.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a fancy vest to start with, and then someone embellished it.\u00a0 And embellished some more.\u00a0 I do need to put some gold buttons and chains on it, because although I *can* haul it together and use the hooks & eyes, it’s obvious that it’s just a bit (!!) small that way.<\/p>\n
Back to the book now.\u00a0\u00a0 People are loading up supplies, guns, ammo, and planning to head out.\u00a0\u00a0 There may be heffalumps ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
…but I didn’t.\u00a0 I remember now, I started to, was interrupted, hit the wrong button, and the post went *poof*.\u00a0\u00a0 The interruption took considerable time, and…eventually….I forgot.\u00a0\u00a0 I have no memory of what I actually said, either.\u00a0 Once it’s out of my head and the little letters appear on the screen, it’s easily forgotten, especially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[20,107],"class_list":["post-2502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writing-life","tag-progress-report","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2503,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502\/revisions\/2503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}