The Week Begins

Tuesday we launched the fundraiser for Julie.

Tuesday night my body said “NO NO WE ARE HAVING NO MORE OF THIS TIME TO STOP BREATHING“.

Wednesday was an emergency vet visit with Mum’s new dog.

By Thursday night, I had food poisoning.

The weekend was recovering and some house cleaning, which is just as well because mostly I just feel like poisoning everybody. And then Sunday night my elderly blind cat…well, I don’t know. Had some sort of little episode. I lean toward *maybe* some kind of seizure, though I’d like to rule out a stroke, so it’s time to see if our vet can offer anything a bit more concrete. Most of my pets are elderly. Which suits me just fine–my GOD I do not like kittens/puppies–but the bunny’s eleven, dog’s fourteen, and three of the cats are fourteen to seventeen, which means they’re all slowing down at about the same rate. I grew up with animals, have never *not* had a dog, a couple of cats, and a smaller caged mammal, but it makes absolutely no difference–I can never wrap my head, or my heart, around the fact that their lives are so much shorter and more fragile than ours.

There is a very full work week ahead of me with being knocked on my ass last week–edit letter to finish, content edit to finish, two cover drafts to get sent off, and knitting (oh god, all the knitting). And it’ll involve being offline for long periods of time as I’m ODing on the internet as it is (it’s odd, the way constant interaction seems to make me jittery and exhausted). I can’t take new work for a few weeks yet but I’m running a pre-made cover sale as those are quick to customize and a few of the critters have six month checkups soon on top of Blind Cat’s visit, so a bit of a $ cushion would be helpful.

And there in the background, the current WIP is at the point where it’s eating my brain.

I’m at around 80%, with less than 20K words to go. I might play with a chapter or two throughout the week, but then I’m blocking off Saturday through Monday to finish it, because once I get going it’s going to be a mad dash, stabbing and stabbing the damn book until it’s dead. I wouldn’t trade this feeling for the world–not after regaining it after such a long absence–but I can feel myself turning into that snarling, absent-minded, twitchy creature who doesn’t bathe or clean or move except to re-position the keyboard before diving back in again. I’m already having trouble sleeping again and carrying on conversations with humans (not the animals–they don’t mind), and it’s only going to get worse before I emerge bleary-eyed, incoherent, and exhausted next week, a total mess but one completed WIP richer.

I’m definitely looking forward to it.