One equal temper of heroic hearts

Just a quick update to let everyone know I'm on term break, not dead. I spent last weekend with Tim in Muncie, then came back home to Fort Wayne on Sunday evening. I've made some progress on my NaNo project this week, which was kind of a big shocker, because I usually just say I'm going to work on something like that and end up watching back-to-back documentaries about giant jellyfish instead. But no! Real progress! I admit that I'm kind of daunted by the idea of actually starting to write this thing, though. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to finish by the November 31 deadline. To be honest, I'm just going to be glad to start the project. NaNo just gives me an excuse to pretend I'll stick to deadlines.

Today I am going to hang out with my dog and read Game of Thrones.

I am also going to try to watch Third Star without crying so much that I throw up.

My shoulder is nearly back to normal, thank god. It was a rough weekend. I thought I was doing better on Saturday but midway through the evening I turned my head a particular way and felt something pop again; I managed to drive to the store to pick up a heating pad and a bottle of extra strength pain reliever. I've been doing a series of stretches with it every morning and every night before I go to sleep and I've pretty much decided that I've not torn anything. Not irreparably, anyway. It seems to get better the more I use it, and the only time that it really gives me any grief is when I wake up in the morning. In any event I skipped yoga on Saturday and gave myself another day off from the gym today. I might go back for Zumba tomorrow, depending on how it feels. At this point, I'm so relieved it's not as bad as it was on Saturday. My mom was worried I'd torn a rotator cuff, which freaked me out a little because she's a nurse and I'm nowhere near as cognizant of how my body works as I should be. And because our conversations about the injury almost always devolved into her thinking that I might have permanently crippled myself and me imagining my future as a one-armed panhandler who sells picture post cards and flattens pennies between her back molars for tips.

Panhandling future averted. For now.

I'm making slow but steady progress on The Transformation of Things. The details of the story change in my head from day to day but I have a pretty good idea of the overall plot, and think I will be ready to start outlining in the next couple of weeks. What really lets me know I'm on the right track is the fact I've set up an iTunes playlist and have started adding songs to it that I think fit the mood/characters of the novel. So far there's a lot of Muse, Pulp, and Michael Giacchino on there. And this stage of the writing process is my favourite, because it's the beginning and you're generally optimistic about everything and every idea is a good idea. It's like going to the grocery store when you haven't eaten anything; everything looks and sounds good and you must have it all.

I think I'm going to continue my trend of retiring a bit early with an episode of The West Wing and a book. I'm about halfway though Anno Dracula and President Bartlet just creamed Governor Ritchie in the presidential debate. If this show had corporeal form, I'd marry it.