Richard Raley's Blog, page 10

Bit of a Slow Down

Printed out what I had of this chapter and gave it a solid edit.  Easier on my back, but takes a lot longer this way.  Though its a lot funnier seeing pages covered with red pen than doing everything on the computer.  Maybe I'll take a photo of one and upload it for you lot, so you can see the absurdity yourselves.

New version of the chapter is much better, really like it.  Great humor, hits some more important character points.  Once I get back to it that will take up to the midway point of the novel.  We  just went over 400 manuscript pages or about 110k words.  Technically, I suppose I could release it as its own novel, but you'd hate it since it doesn't really have an ending.  I mean, it would, since there's a key event at that point, but there would be no resolution whatsoever for our plot lines.  It'd be like just reading the FM5 school story as its own book.  Pretty frustrating, I imagine.  I got complaints about the FM5 school story as it was, back when people couldn't instantly get the conclusion in FM6.  This would be about ten times worse.

This week is getting destroyed by doctor appointments, but after August I (so far) have September and the first half of October completely free.  The second burnination might be a go in October, so that might change.  Of course, if it does happen and it works as well as the first one did, then my work pace could drastically improve!

But for now, I'm just trying to get through the heat and the doctors and then we have 30 clear days to chill out.  Although, it's Fresno, so it will still probably be like 98 degrees even in September...

As for entertainment...I read two more Naomi Novik novels, "Spinning Silver" and "Uprooted".  Preferred "Uprooted".  Great read.  "Spinning Silver" had some great ideas too, but it has multiple first person POVs that gets really funky at times, and some of the end is from POVs that are very passive and only added near the back half and I found it frustrating.  If you're going to read any of her work, I'd still point you towards Scholomance, but Uprooted is just a small step behind.

Watched The Bear, very good.  Will give you anxiety like no other show I've ever seen.  I don't usually recommend anime because I know its not many people's cup of tea, but Summertime Rendering is very much worth a watch.  It's in DisneyPlus/Hulu jail, but it's a complete story with only the one season and it's a fantastic ride that I can't really tell you about without spoiling the many, many moments of WTF and Holy Fuckballs.  I suppose I can say that both the heroes and the villains are gloriously intelligent and constantly one up each other in a way that normal living, breathing people would.  They figure things out and then they use it to totally screw you over.  There is an English dub for people who absolutely can't handle subs, no idea if it's any good however.

GOTG 3 great, Secret Invasion stanky balls...

And of course:  THE PREM IS BACK!!!

Return of the Mini Teases

Feeling slight better and writing a tepid but not insignificant 10k words a month, so let's get a little more upbeat about progress being made again!

"As long as you don't remember what I was doing under my desk."  Earned me a laugh.  Closed one box and opened another.  Nope, that was the sex toy box.  "How's your vibrator doing, you need a new one?"

"WHAT?!?"

I picked two up and tossed them back into the other room.

"Oh my God!"

"How about dildos?  You a dildo gal?"

"Don't you dare throw a used dildo in my direction, King Henry Price!"

"I'm not a monster!  They ain't used...I think.  The vibrators are definitely not used, since they're still in their packages.  You know how much those things are worth at this place?  Especially during evaluation week..."

Better Ideas Can Be So Soul Crushing

Part of it was a better idea, another part was the writing just not being that good to start with, but I threw 3000 words worth of work into the trash bin yesterday.  Before...that's like a day, maybe two days worth of work, with the new normal it's more like a week.  So...it hurt.  I just feel kind of mentally crushed today because of it.  I do think the book will be much stronger for it.  It's not some major huge altering change, but...it does focus this one chapter a lot more.  It's something King Henry would very much do to someone and I think you'll all enjoy it...

It's also made me realize I need a chapter split.  War to End All Wars has by far the most chapter splits I've ever experienced moving from Outline to actual Novel before.  Some of this is the total session count being limited because they carry across the series, so I really stuffed them ful.  Another part of it is just me typing something like "KH has Breakfast with Welf/Hope+Old Mancy Crew to Antagonize Them" into the Outline that turns into a 10k scene by the time I end up writing it.

I have a very good sense on the session I'm working on now and it actually is OBVIOUSLY the midpoint of the novel, so we finally got there, kiddies!  Feel like I'm starting to get a handle on the story and the characters and what's going on.  I can see the end on the horizon as long as everything keeps improving with my body.

Pain wise I'm starting to feel not totally horrible.  I can very much over do it and I can't lift anything and sitting here typing still has an upper limit before my back starts screaming, but its a lot better than I've felt in the last 18 months, that's for sure.

The biggest problem right now is probably the heat.  At a certain point, you have so many 100+ days in a row, you just don't have the energy to think.  Yeah, the AC does its best to make things survivable, but it doesn't always feel like the kind of life you can tolerate.  75 degrees at 3AM is probably the worst part of the Fresno summer.  You can't ever open those doors because what's the point when it's going to be 80 degrees before you even have breakfast.  You're just stuck inside, no fresh air, muggy, judging if your cat is really cute enough to keep on putting up with his fish farts for another day.

One of these day's I'll have enough, Sherburt!!!

It's Hot

Just still slowly experimenting and doing what work I can, resting the back and wrists as I need to.  Tramadol finally got approved and its helping a lot with me getting around and not being in PAIN pain so much as SORE pain for huge chunks of the day.  Fresno summer is here, looks like 100+ for the rest of July.

Started the last scene of this session.  This is pretty much the midway part of the novel.  So...if you remember the way the school stories worked in FM5 and FM6 as a kind of double feature, this is similar.  First part takes place at the beginning of the school year and has lots of set up and then we rush forward and the second half takes place later in the year (this time around the Winter War) as everything wraps up.

Don't have to see the spine doctors again until the end of August, so more info then on Burnination #2 hopefully.

Outside of that, everyone enjoy your summer!

Early Experiment Results

Still feeling generally better than I have been over the last couple years, if a sore and beat up generally better.  My first attempt at typing was on my back in bed with a detachable keyboard, first completely horizontal and then on my left side.  Managed 1000 words that way and finally finished a scene that had remained in statis for over a year, but I was very uncomfortable the whole time and couldn't walk at all the next day.  Well...I could stagger to the bathroom and the microwave, nothing else.  Followed by zombie shuffling the day after that and my 80-year-old-man impersonation the day after that.  Spiked my pain like 4 points at least.
Experiment #1:  Failure!
1k every five days while I'm in tons of pain in-between just isn't going to cut it or is a situation I'm willing to enter into.
So last Friday when I no longer felt like one of the walking dead, I tried another idea I'd had, which was to lounge in bed and just text everything out on my smart phone's note app.  It's slower than the real deal, obviously, its going to take more editing once it hits the word processor, but...it seems to be sustainable pain wise.  I've written 4000 words this way in the last week, Ceinwyn and Plutarch are currently having quite the conversation with King Henry Jerry Spingering on the sidelines...is this the first time they've really had a scene together?  Can't remember, might have to look it up.
It's not 100% (and Mad Scientist Mode is impossible), but it's closer than anything I've felt since before I hurt my back.  I'm rusty and my writer's mind is struggling to return and War to End All Wars is still an indulgent monster, but...
Experiment #2:  Progress!
Going to keep with this for now and see how it goes.  Been staying away from the computer (either reddit scrolling or card gaming) and just reading a ton of books in bed as my main form of entertainment just to save my back. (btw totally recommend Naomi Novik's Scholomance Trilogy, especially for fans of the magic school aspect in the KHT.  One warning I would give is that the inner monologuing is A LOT...and that's coming from ME.  But I'm loving it so far halfway through the last novel, does a lot of the same things I'm trying to accomplish theme-wise with the KHT, granted in a very different way, also the main character El has aspects of KH and Val thrown together into one person that makes me smile for...reasons...)
Tramadol order is still fubar and still weeks until we know about when the next burnination can take place, so that's where we are for now.  But, ya know...4k words a week or more as I get back into what groove I can manage...that's something.  Still have the dictating setup to try out too and I want to give a go at rigging the detachable keyboard up so it's almost like a vertical triangle where I don't have to turn my shoulders and wrists to type and see how that works.  That's really one of the main differences between texting and typing outside of finger-usage, so it's an idea...
But for now, going with what we got and finally some progress!*
*remember that progress can implode along with my spine at any moment and temper your expectations accordingly!

Edit Pass Done

325 pages down.  Pain has been up and down, but down is miles better than it used to be.  Feeling a bit better for the first time in two years I didn't quite realize just how much pain I was in until now.  The pain I'm in typing this would make most whimper their way into bed for the day and I'm just...well, could be a billion times worse, so grin and bear it!  You don't understand spinal pain until you've experienced spinal pain and you might not realize how much pain you're in until it's let up...probably why when I always tell doctors I'm at is probably just a 7 or an 8 they just look at me like I'm a fucktard.

My mind has been spending a lot of time processing what it's been through now that it has the extra emotional space to decompress and I know others have it far FAR worse, but I've been fighting serious feelings of frustration and also...I guess...betrayal.  By who?  I don't know.  My body?  The Universe?  Who knows, but it's been a battle to shake.  We're also coming up on the three year anniversary of my Grandfather's death and the anxiety and dread and general melancholy seems to rise for June every year since.  It helped a bit to suddenly realize that's why my mood has been so sour (it always sneaks up on me somehow!), but it also hasn't completely been conquered.  It's better than it was last year and the year before that, so...that's another type of healing I'm going through, I suppose.

Still not sure how my spine will react to prolonged typing, so the next week will be very experimental as I figure this out.  Maybe the next two weeks even.

Pain doctors are also up and down on whether I can get the burnination done six months after the last instead of waiting until next year, since it's on a different level (Cervical vs Thoracic), so might get that relief sooner rather than later, depending on how the insurance has it all worded.  Won't know more until next month, but we're talking October instead of January if it does go through.  They've also put me on low dose tramadol for the pain finally, just to cover all the spots they aren't burning, but insurance is making that extra difficult too and I've been waiting six weeks now for all the authorization to get finalized.  The one week I was able to really write decently in 2022 was when I said 'fuck it' and popped those one day right in a row, so...that could be another tool towards productivity.  Obviously I don't want to, but...God it would be nice to be able to sit in a chair again!  Much less get out of this house for something other than a doctor appointment...

To summarize:  doing better, actually got some work done, might get some NEW work done, but it could all implode at any moment if a few nerves decide they're not going to be team players, so...day at a time!  Huzzah!

Hey, look at all that I typed!!!

Cut This, Might Be Worth a Laugh

 It would be impossibly hard.

Mostly because Class 2015 respected and admired meand sought my praise.  They’re teenagers,they’re supposed to be antisocial and shit, what the fuck is wrong with thisupcoming generation?

Always being connected to society for everywaking moment, constantly being judged for every action by every person they’veever come into contact with and millions upon millions of strangers, with theSword of Damocles hanging over their head if they make the slightest, littlemistake they’ll be digital stoned and left as a pariah?

Nope, it has to be porn!

Or the existential threat of Climate Changemaking existence largely pointless and procreation a recipe for theirgrandchild starving to death once all the crops wither and fail and…the dolphinscommit mass seppuku with severed swordfish heads or some shit?

No! No!  It has to be the video games!

Video games and porn!  Especially videogame porn!  They make that, right?  You…do you know any good ones?  A…a friend was asking about it, ya know?

Second/Right Side Procedure Tomorrow

 C7-C8, T1-2 is what they settled to work on.  Pain in the left side has been far less since last week, but I don't think it's ever going to be quite as complete as what the burnination provided in my mid back.  Still, it is an improvement and I've managed to edit 40 pages so far this week.  40 is a lot more than zero, obviously!

Still not sure how much actual full on typing I can do, probably be a couple weeks before I know for sure.  Going to be a lot of experimentation with positions and different keyboards and dictation and all of the above to figure out what works and what kind of pace I can keep at without exploding all my other problem areas.  Who knows if they might want to do another procedure lower down to help him my spasms and cramps or maybe put me on another medication, we'll see!

But, yeah, 40 pages isn't nothing.  280 to go and then we'll see about getting into new material again!

On Demand Printing Price Increase INCOMING

Just wanted everyone to know that Amazon is rising the print prices come June 20, so they've set up an option for authors to automatically keep the same royalty rates with a single button press and I'll be doing so.  Which means if you ever wanted to grab the printed version of the series (expensive vanity decorations that they already are!) now would be the cheapest time to pick them up.  Cheap being relative...especially Pit of No Return...you read Kindle Unlimited I make 7 bucks, you buy $20 print version I make 1 buck!  Does it make any sense whatsoever?  NO!!!

Anyway, if you need some really expensive doorstoppers, they'll be even more expensive next month, so plan accordingly.

Another Step On the Road

Got through post-op.

Really sucky news:  the insurance only allows one burnination a year, since most people generally only have one spot on their spine that's problematic, but for me with Question Mark Corkscrew Rattlesnake monstrosity...it's a pretty shitty policy.  Instead I'll be getting spinal steroid shots every three or so months going forward in that upper bad spot (C7-T1) until they can refocus the burnination up there.  It's become very clear with the mid back pain removed (T6-T9) that it's the upper spot of my not-so-hunchback that's pushing all the rest of the pain and not that peak part of the scoliosis curve in the mid back, so we have a much clearer picture...it's just the "best shot" wasn't actually the best shot and they're stop-gaping until they can take another.

Slightly Iffy News:  So...my dance card is very full again for May with the possibility of eight different appointments since for some stupid reason I also scheduled my yearly physical, dental cleaning, and EOE endoscopy for now too...so...just...fuck Past Me!

Good News:  even though the shot missed the big bad, it still killed a henchman.  My pain is a lot better in that spot.  So we know burnination works.  Don't know how much straight typing I can do, but editing and learning how to dictate is in the wheelhouse now that my general pain isn't just making me miserable all day long and I'm in no mood to be creative.  I know it's not what you fans wanted to hear and I know it's not what I hoped for, but after years of this lingering and then exploding we are fighting back, it's just a slog until we turn the tide and hold the nerve-hordes at bay.

May my next post after the injections have nothing but the good news!