Word

Random quote of the day:


"The word does not come alone."

—Dogon saying




( Illustrated version. )

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

That's because I'm an idiot

Proofread? Who needs to proofread? Besides, images generated by typo are so much more interesting.


The true word count for the rewrite of A Rain of Angels:

54,250 / 111,750 (48.5%)

D is for Deficiency, Dental, and Dead

Deficiency. So I learned my lesson about calling in for lab results after spending most of a year with hypothyroidism. Most doctors would call the patient if they found a deficiency, but this is UCLA—they don't call anyone. Good care, mind you, but you definitely have to take responsibility for your own damned self. I saw my doc in January and told him that I'd gradually started to feel better since getting the boost in thyroid hormone in early August. Mostly, I didn't know how bad I'd been feeling until I started to feel better. "That's always the way it is with thyroid," he said. A slow, subtle diminishment until you don't remember what it feels like to feel good.

Anyway, like a good little patient, I called the following week for my lab results. "Your thyroid level is good," he said, "but you've got a severe vitamin D deficiency." He put me on megadoses of vitamins to help correct this. Important vitamin, is D. I must give up my vampire habits and get more sunshine. In fact, I heard an expert talking on NPR not so long ago saying that we've done such a good job of emphasizing sunscreen to people that vitamin D deficiencies are on the rise.

I don't know if it's the vitamins, the placebo effect, or whatevs, but after three weeks on the D, I feel much better.

Dental. As of Tuesday, I will have dropped nearly $1300 on dentistry since mid-December. I needed a crown on one tooth (I'd been dragging my feet on that one, which is a disgusting thing to do in one's mouth), but when I broke a tooth in December I had to face the Musak and go to the dentist. Fortunately, both crowns were on the same side, to localize the pain, and Tuesday will be the end of the process. It would have been last Tuesday only the receptionists forgot to call me and let me know the dentist had called in sick that day. I showed up with my loins all girded only to be told I'd have to gird them again some other time. I was not well pleased.

Dead. And here comes the really whiny part, the part having to do with writing and rewriting my novel. I hit chapter 12 yesterday, and worked on 13 today. I've been okay with most of the writing to this point, but in these last two chapters it's like my voice has died. I know it's there in the opening and again at the end, but here in the oppressive middle it seems strained and stiff. One of my betas even said that I wasn't writing like my normal self, and I've sensed that's true with each draft, but I don't seem to be able to fix it. I don't know how long this dead voice thing will go on before I snap out of it—I have to read further to see—but at least the voice picked up again halfway through chapter 13. After I've finished the whole book I may go back and try to "voicen" up these chapters, but my sense is that I've done about all I can do at this point in time. I may not be able to fix them, or I may have to put a lot of time and space between me and this novel before I can. And I'd really rather start marketing it and concentrate on something else.

So that's what I think I'll do.