Daily Archives: August 6, 2008

Orchestrated Update

Total word count, Orchestrated: 3,061
New words today: Erm, no idea. Forgot to count before I started, then messed around with the existing stuff. Possibly 700? Not a lot, at any rate.

But I did a bunch of thinking and longhand note-jotting, discovered that my protagonist’s mom is a single mother, and made a rough schedule of events that occur within the six-month spread of the novel. All of this is very important. Now I can just refer to the timeline if I need to know what next majorish event occurs and jump to writing that if I need to. I also compressed the events from a full school year into a half year. Much better.

Jan was back for our weekly writing date! Hurrah! Only another week or so of it before she moves to Ontario, though.

Non-Cello Content

I discovered yesterday, while the boy and I tested the new bike and trailer for the first time, that the trip to the library involves going uphill both ways.

I am serious. I will be using this fact as guilt trip material somewhere down the line.

The good news is that I am not dead today. This is huge, because of the limited energy/chronic fatigue thing. And despite the bike being a one-speed (while reverting to the use of coaster brakes was surprisingly easy, many were the times I forgot I could not simply reverse the pedalling to reset my legs) it generally handles well. Sure, I wish I had at least three speeds when going uphill from a stop (which, as I pointed out above, happens an awful lot), but it’s very good for what it is. The boy decrees the trailer Very Cool. I was somewhat surprised to find that we can carry on a conversation at a regular decibel level and hear one another while cycling.

The boy had his first ever Official Pro Haircut yesterday. I’ve been trimming it when necessary, but I lack the knowhow to do it properly. So off all those lovely curls across his brow came. He was very, very good, and got a certificate and a lollipop.

Saw the doctor this morning (and a medical student, who played the role of main doctor while my doctor oversaw the appointment) and we’re upping the dosage of my meds a wee bit to help with the lack of deep sleep thing that’s creeping up again.

I have just discovered Schumann’s string quartets. Not sure why it took me this long.

I picked up Guitar Hero: On Tour last week for my DS (after wibbling about it since its release, but Ceri finally told me I could do it, so I did). After failing miserably for a few practice songs I suddenly understood what the game was asking me to do and how I could do it. Even though most of the songs are unfamiliar to me I have an advantage in being able to absorb rhythm and therefore hit things at the right time. I flew through two levels on Monday night. The grip is made for someone whose hand is slightly larger than mine, and I have to lie my left forearm on a pillow in my lap to keep my hand relaxed enough to play, though. There’s a decent amount of humour involved in it too, so it’s not as annoying as I feared it might be.

Gryffindor went to the vet last evening for what looked like an abscess that was leaking on his tail. Turns out one of our sweet little hellion girls bit him, and the bite became infected while we were gone. When we came home it was bald from his obsessive licking. He got a huge antibiotic shot and came home in a little Elizabethan collar, which he managed to ditch within the first four minutes at home. Not only did he ditch it, he hid the damn thing. After searching for it allover we found it on the lampshade of my little reading lamp next to the bed.

Monday saw 1300 words added to Orchestrated. They were transcribed from my longhand work. Maybe today there will be new words. Despite having a brief synopsis and expanded outline, I still don’t know exactly what happens where. This is frustrating, because I know how the overall story goes and how it ends (that’s new for me), and still can’t write the thing. Grr. I may choose key scenes that I know happen and write them, then figure out how to link them. Give me a break, I’m trying an entirely new process, here.