I Give Up

This shop is closed until further notice. I refuse to write or read or do anything else for the foreseeable future. I will not exit my house. In fact, I'm thinking about purchasing one of those environment bubbles to live in for at least the rest of spring.

I'm not ill. My family is not ill.

I now have the tooth ache to end all toothaches. It began earlier this afternoon while I was more concerned with back spasms from crappy chairs at the course I was on. The pain from my back and legs kept my mind off a slightly irritating sore throat. I figured it was the return of my ills from the last few weeks and that I'd not knocked on wood hard enough.

No such luck. I think my tonsil has blown up again due to something wrong with a molar. Can't be wisdom teeth, I had them out years ago.

I'm still going to read my alloted stories as I promised to do tonight. I fear for those who have submitted, I'm not in a good mood, but I shall do everything in my power to be fair and honest in my appraisal.

Only two more hours before I can have more drugs...

Where's Wally

It seems like only yesterday I was calling out to all and sundry about how my family were finally breaking free of the dreaded winter lurgy's and bursting forth into a healthy spring. I forgot to touch wood and throw salt over my shoulder.

I've been ill...again. I won't go into details but it's been enough to stop me focusing on anything other than sleeping and watching the occasional bit of TV.

I am marginally better today and hope to get some reading done. I don't think I'll be able to sit at the keyboard long enough to get any real writing done.

I didn't post a WIP Wednesday yesterday as there has been nothing to report. I'm in the home stretch and I've suddenly hit a week where I accomplished zero words - even though I know what happens, how it happens, who is involved, the sub plot intervention - everything! And I still wrote zero words. I know I've been ill for most of that time but still - nothing?!

Time to go get back into bed and cuddle up to a couple of books. My Google reader has exploded out to 129 unread posts so I'm sure some of you have great news to share, but I just can't wade through everything at the moment, so I extend to you my best wishes and my hearty congratulations (and my apology which will be issued as I no doubt get to the announcements belatedly).

My Mistake...It Was A Train

Not happy! Saturday and Sunday were merely false dawns of a new age. Monday saw me doing my best impression of a seal and attempting to cough up a lung. Today I feel almost as bad as I did last Wednesday as if the cycle is starting all over again.

If I don't have Swine Flu - I've got the next best thing. I've never been this sick before, and now Jodi has it as well. The kids are all a little snuffly or have just got over it. The worse bit is my eldest is due to have our first grandchild at anytime (she was due at the end of last week), and none of us will be able to enjoy it or be part of the event because we're all too sick!

To top things off, no writing has led to no blog posts on writing, so last weeks numbers have dropped significantly. Let this be a lesson to you all. If you intend to have a blog about writing, make sure you blog everyday and post worthwhile comments or people will stop coming :c( My numbers steadily increased to peak at just over 250 individual visitors a week. Last week saw that drop by around 80!

I haven't managed to read* or write anything in sometime. I tried doing some work on my partial story idea from my dream last week but it's coming out forced so I've dropped it. If it reoccurs so be it, if not...

* - Not quite true. I did read about half of ME2 yesterday in three sittings. My eyes get tired from focusing on the screen (and I cant focus on printed text at all), but I did learn two things:

1) We have some great writing talent in Australia

2) I should have sent Dreaming, Digging Up The Past (DUTP), or God's Piscatorial Church (GPC) to ME2 submissions instead of Wamphyri.

Of course, DUTP & GPC have been entered into the AHWA comps so if successful they'd end up in ME3 or 4 and Dreaming has ended up in the Apex anthology Blackness Within.

Today I'm going to try and get a couple of things done. I'll finish reading ME2 and I'll pull my story for The New Bedlam Project out of mothballs. I'll reread it, do any revisions I need and then send to the guru (Pharo). On return, it will go through another round of revision and then go to my beta readers for comment. Next week - the second week of July - as promised, I'll be submitting it to Jodi Lee.

I've also got two pieces I need to finish polishing in preparation for sending to NT this week. So much to do, and so much snot to wade through. If I can just keep my lungs within my chest, I should be able to get some of it done.

Time to get to work!