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October 28, 2005
Doldrums
It's been an iffy week here at Chez Bedford. The headaches are now pretty much constant, and for the first four days of the week there was a dose of nasty free-floating depression to go with them. This was particularly bad last Sunday evening when my folks and Michelle and me were having a big celebratory dinner, paid for with some of the proceeds from the "Project Mimosa" money. It should have been a wonderful occasion, and it was for Michelle and my folks. I felt awful, just dead and hollow inside. This is not the way you want to feel when, just that previous week, your new book arrived. It makes it terribly difficult to enjoy things, anything at all. And, because it's the bipolar thing flaring up, you know full well it's nothing personal, in that it's not that you're all feeling dismal because you had some bad news or something awful happened. It's not that at all: it's just that your brain chemistry is temporarily out of whack. Too bad it happened right when you're trying to celebrate something.
Writing this week has likewise suffered. I've been focussing on one key scene which, once it's finished, will set up the proceedings for the middle of the book, with things getting more complicated, the stakes higher, and so forth. I think I must be on about the third version of this scene. As of today, I cut a bunch of stuff and came up with a bunch of new stuff, but the word count did not budge: 41,600 to start with; 41,600 when I finished. I swear I did a whole heap of actual scribble, but the word count alone doesn't reflect that. Despite this, the big scene is nearly done, and our hapless artificial protagonist is learning just who his enemy is. Exactly why this person is out to get him he's not at all sure about, but there you are. Anyway, it feels like I've been stuck in the low 40K area for ages now. I really want to press on, but I don't feel like I can until I get this scene right. It's nearly there. Tomorrow Michelle is off for an afternoon with her mum, so I might take advantage of the free time to do a bit of scribble, and sort out this bloody scene once and for all. (Assuming the headaches let up, of course...)
My fun with Linux is going well. It's now something I play with in the evenings, once I've done my scribble shift for the day. After some alarming teething troubles, I think I've now good a decent handle on it, and starting to learn more. Last night I ordered a book from Amazon.com that deals with this particular distribution, which should help even more. I can certainly see that future computers of ours, unless they're Macs, will be Linux boxes.
Last, if you're one of the brave souls who have so far managed to get your flippers on a copy of ECLIPSE, thank you very much indeed! I really appreciate it. Tell your friends! I'd also be quite happy to send signed bookplates to anybody who'd like one. So far, customer number one for a bookplate will be a certain Charlie Stuart, who reports that he's finished his copy already--zoinks! This sort of heroic above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty reading effort will not be forgotten!
Posted by adrian at October 28, 2005 06:57 PM
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Comments
[peeking out from behind Adrian's chair]
hey there Author Boy, good on ya for that second book! Can't wait to get mine in the mail.
Glad to hear you got your holiday in Mandurah, and sorry to hear about the recent headaches. Hello, too, to the glorious Michelle from everyone here in the CA desert, where fall temps are currently 8c/38f and will be around 26c/80f on Monday, till the overage Halloween marauders come out after sundown.
Will catch up with you soon in a personal note. Keep bangin' on those keys, Adrian, I wanna see #3 as soon as possible.
Salud!
Victoria :o)
Posted by: Victoria at October 31, 2005 06:00 PM
Reading Eclipse was my great pleasure! It truly is one of those books that is hard to put down, it's been a long time since I've devoured a book like this. Seat belts should come standard with every copy.
Imagine I'm giving you great big manly thumps on the back for a job well done. Oh, and I give you permission to use any of my enthused gushings here to promote Eclipse in any way you see fit.
w00t!
Posted by: Charlie at October 29, 2005 04:47 AM
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