Alliteratively, I was Ambushed by Allergies!

I have an allergy problem that hits once or twice a year (March and September usually). Nothing serious, I just feel overheated and sooooo damn tired. The simplest and most effective treatment is to lie around and do nothing … but I don’t have sick leave so I didn’t, I just sort of worked half-heartedly after it hit me yesterday.
Still, all-in-all a productive week:
•I think I’ve figured out how to revise my villain in The Impossible Takes a Little Longer. It lets me keep the aspects of him I like, but it makes sense. I’ll run it by my beta-readers who had reservations about him and see what they think.
•I read And He Bought a Crooked Cat to the writers group and it got huge raves—maybe the best response I’ve gotten today. That was surprising—I liked it, but I’d thought of it as a minor effort—but I’m not complaining. Though I wish I could pinpoint what made it so good and import that into some of my other works (I may bring this up again once I reflect on it).
•I finished my PG Wodehouse fantasy parody, A Jolly Bad Show (title is definitely going to change). As I said a couple of weeks back, it kept wanting to turn into a murder mystery and when I finally let go, it worked much better that way than I thought (though more parody than straight mystery).
I still have to coordinate the earlier scenes, which are much more Bertie Wooster, with the later ones where Monty becomes more competent and capable. And weed out what didn’t really go anywhere: I mention at one point that Suzu (female lead) is more innocent than the typical chorus girl, but I didn’t make use of that idea.
Still, I’m very pleased with the results.
•Eye of White Cathay is finally shaping up. I reworked the ending to make Simon even more of a loser, in way over his head. Now all I have to do is figure out how he’s going to beat one of the world’s best magicians, or whether there’s some sort of twist to throw in.
•Brain From Outer Space, alas, is still not picking up. And while The Savage Years is okay, it needs something—I’m not sure what—to really catch fire.
Ehows for the week:
•How to Update the Maps on My Handheld GPS Device
•How to Transfer Your Contacts From Live to Thunderbird
•How to Troubleshoot Wireless Speaker Issues
•How to Build a Budget for a New Hotel
•How to Become OSHA Certified
•How to Troubleshoot Hanging Emails
•How to Transfer Old Emails to Your New Computer
•How to Transfer Off of a DVR to Your Computer