Month: October 2005

I rode home last night, and although it started raining just about at the halfway point, it felt just fantastically invigorating. To show up, at home, panting from that last bit of exertion, my glasses fogged, and then jump right into the game: a wonderful thing. We had pizza and did battle against an owlbear, who we almost took down. (“Did I cleave him this time? Did I?”)

And as I was drifting off to sleep, a bit of a poem started unwinding in my head, something directly to do with the novel, and rather than just let it go, I turned on the light, scrounged for pen/paper, and wrote it out, past that inspiration point and only then went to sleep.

Yesterday I went to a writing workshop that was held at the college — focused on play/screenwriting, but still quite excellent — actually, that helped. For the first time *ever* I wrote a bit of play dialogue, and it clicked together a key scene in my novel that I’ve had trouble envisioning. Something about focusing on (a) the conflict and (b) what they say and do, exactly.

And then this morning in the van I even finished it off, so it’s a complete scene. Which means the exercises I did yesterday, combined with Sunday’s writing, is the most writing on my novel that I’ve done in, what, a year? Hurrah.

I rode my bike to the van today, and found $16 on my way. There’s a 60-80% chance I’ll be putting my bike on the bus this afternoon, ’cause the rain started up again, but I’m okay with that. Still planning on riding as much as I can, for as long as I can.

Tonight we will be gaming again, which the last few times have been some of the best. games. evar. Me and my Jayne-inspired halfling. 🙂 The guys say I should go for more of a Zoe thing, but I like playing with Jayne’s bloodthirsty cluelessness.

Been feeling more organized at work too, not that I really mention that all too much. (This rocks.)

Still more tired than I’d like to be, but I’m afraid there’s no getting around that, at least not until 10pm – 5:30 am equals 9 hours of sleep. 🙁

So, yeah. Another day with a headache, which didn’t really go away until late this afternoon. Bleh, bleh, bleh.

On the other hand, I was riding in the car this afternoon, and had my notebook, and got actually inspired to write actual fiction. I only had a teeny-tiny notebook, so I didn’t write that much, but damn, that felt good.

And here’s a random thought, following Pandemic Flu Awareness Week: I read Barry’s Great Influenza and put a review on my site, and rant at my friends. GWB reads it, and “he decides that the military should run quarantines”:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051005/BUSH05/TPHealth/ in the case of an actual flu pandemic. WTF?

headache came on this morning sometime between 4 and 5 am. took excedrin after my shower, around 9:30. same spot as Friday, same sort of pain. feeling a little better now, but definitely in a snappish mood.

also, last night had to take an aleve for achiness in my knee, which I haven’t done in a couple of weeks. definitely need to get back to my stretching and exercising.

Today I had one of those headaches that I get every once in a while that just lays me completely flat. As in, can’t even look at the screen because the white light makes things dance behind my eyeballs. As in, neither sound nor silence is bearable. As in, leaving work early and going to bed.

I thought I’d figured it out and could make it home on the bus (because I don’t want to wait for a taxi like I did the last time, and don’t want to waste the gas on our car), only as the bus I was on pulled into the transit center, the bus I *wanted* to be on next was pulling out. And they only run that one every few hours during the middle of the day. So I broke down and called C and he came to get me, all solicitousness and neck rubs.

Then home, and Excedrin, and more back rubs, and a nap, and now I feel a little more like a human being, and a little less like someone who’s been stabbed in the side of the head with an iron spike.

Thank goodness for that.

I will note that the headaches are picking up in frequency again as they did, not this last spring but the year before. I think I need to start keeping a headache diary again, and to get back to my neck & back exercises. I’ve definitely slipped…something bad enough to send me home from work hasn’t happened for a long, long time.

(and, whoa, just crackled my neck, and that was the last lovely bit of coming back to myself. hurrah.)

Maybe later I can finally write that post that was floating in my head on the van this morning, about things I’m enjoying about fall.

tonight was a good evening for craft. we built a table together, out of pieces of a defunct Ikea bed and the big tabletop thing we used to put on top of a giant cardboard box. now it looks darn near elegant…and it folds, which is nearly as good as being on wheels.

I’m getting crafty with code again, too; finally going back to my work on my little book/movie review program. it does almost all the basics (display, search, post, edit), so I can clean up the code and then look towards things I *really* want to do with it. Like pull movie titles from Netflix and book titles from the library. Like some kind of textile/markdown formatting. Like a properly formed Atom feed. Like a way to associate books together loosely, not just by category or tag, but by how they remind me of each other. But that last is probably way too meta for me to play with for a while yet.

so it’s good just to bask in the craftiness.