First the good news; Wisp’s bandage came off Wednesday. They applied some topical steroids to her foot so her cone had to wait another day. Here she is Wednesday afternoon, snoozing with me.
Now she has the next couple of weeks to strengthen her leg while staying indoors. If everything goes smoothly we don’t need to bring her back to the vet. And while she’s sleeping better, which means I sleep better, if I get up to pee, that’s her cue to get lively. So it’s about three to 3.5 hours a night; better than when this started, still not ideal.
Worse this week because I didn’t get my usual sleep on the weekend when TYG takes all the pets. Friday night TYG was out until late and I woke up when she came home (not her fault — I’m a light sleeper). Saturday night I took an Ambien and slept alone in the spare bedroom. Trixie, however, puked on the master bed and while TYG changed the bedclothes Plushie decided to come and paw at the spare bedroom door until I let him in. Without those two good nights of sleep I felt exhausted for much of the week. At Tuesday’s Zoom writer’s group, I fell asleep during the final reading.
So while I put in a full week of work, that’s partly because I counted a lot of stuff, like blogging, as writing hours, that I don’t normally do. That said, I got various household tasks (e.g. calling contractors) done; got a little more written on Let No Man Put Asunder; did some editing on a collaborative anthology I’m in; and got a little done on Savage Adventures. Plus taking cats to appointments and having tea with a friend (I budget part of my writing time for weekday socializing).
I reread the redraft of Oh the Places You’ll Go that I finished last week and it looks much better than I thought. The ending still feels off, though. I want the ending to feel like a resolution: character arcs settled, plot issues resolved. As written it resolves them, then raises more questions, like it was Part One of a larger work. It’s not and I don’t see it becoming one. I can’t get rid of the questions but I need to write the ending so that even with questions it feels finished.
The largest chunk of time went to work for The Local Reporter. Figuring out how to manage the work and fit it in with my own projects has been challenging, partly because I’ve been bouncing from lead to lead trying to develop a steady stream of stories. But I got one done this week (not out yet), I have another ready except for a final proofing and a couple more in progress. If I can get it down to about six hours work a week in most cases, I’ll be satisfied. But that wasn’t this week.
Meanwhile, over at Atomic Junk Shop, my Silver Age reread looks at editor Jack Schiff’s retirement and the characters who vanished with him, from Animal Man and Immortal Man — 
— to the Green Glob and Automan in Tales of the Unexpected.
#SFWApro. Covers by Carmine Infantino (t) and Jay Scott Pike, all rights to images remain with current holders.
