Richard Raley's Blog, page 9

Quick Update

Feeling better.  Already a lot less pain on a left side of my back into my shoulder, arm, and hand with what should be two more weeks of improvement ahead.  Still have grip strength, muscle weakness problems with my wrist and fingers though, might need to wait for physio to get help with that.  Did a full edit of the last 30 or so pages I wrote a couple months back.  Started writing new material on my phone today.  Just doing what I can again.  So far, so good.  Still don't have a date for the right side burnination because of the holidays, should know more at the start of next month.  3 doctor appoints right in the first week of December then I should have more freedom through the end of the year (assuming they don't schedule the burnination immediately).

Happy holidays to everyone if I don't update before the end of the year.

Burnination #2 on Friday

I still don't feel any pain in the spot where they did it the first time around (T6-T9) and since this area (C7-T2) is where everything is emanating out of, this could be a massive improvement.  The temporary branch block gave me two months writing at 10k words a month.  If the burnination manages at least that for the 1 to 2 years its suppose to last, then...eventually we'll have books getting finished again.  I'm hoping for a bigger improvement, obviously, since burned nerves should trump a temporary anesthetic.  Big month in turning the tide against all this pain for sure.  Since they start with the left side then in two to three weeks do the right side, it will be a month long ordeal, with about a week in bed after each procedure.
So wish me luck, send the good vibes, and all that!

Backpack Battles

 Anyone else got a new addiction to this game?

My doctors have completely overloaded me with appointments in the last couple weeks (will be 6 appointments between Oct 12th and Nov 3) and I'm just...like beaten down with a screaming back at this point.  Tramadol is literally the only thing keeping me standing.

Or...sitting on the edge of the bed playing Backpack Battles.  Which I can't stop playing.  It's especially great for my crippled ass since you only need to use a mouse to control everything and it's untimed.  Basically an inventory management, crafting/item combiner, auto battle game.  There's only two classes at the moment, it's nothing but a demo actually, not even early access.  So it's FREE (on Steam).  And I've put in like 30 hours already getting both classes into Diamond Rank, and...it's really good.  Check it out.

So My Uncle Ben Died

He was less about the "with great power comes great responsibility" and more with the "hey, try this homemade wine I brewed up" or "so I caught myself on fire last week, can you believe that shit?!?"

Fought with alcohol his whole life and it finally got him.  Like his father and his father before him, go Team Irish!  Never knew when to stop for just about anything else, including telling one story after another that would have us in stitches.  Made many a holiday extra fun for me growing up.  One of my earliest memories is him dressing me up in a tuxedo for me to be the ring bearer at my cousin's wedding.

So it's not this crazy shocking thing, but it was sudden.  It wasn't cancer or some problem we were expecting.  Just us wondering why we hadn't heard from him in a couple days and finally news today that his apartment neighbors had found him just now.  It's all very fresh, so no idea how tough things might get with my poor mom.  I'm okay, I think.  Sad, but...seem to be okay.  But, another crucible to deal with here in Raley Land.

I've picked up another couple stupid things to do with doctors pre Burnination Two, Electric Fuck You Nerves.  Which is why I'd planned to write this blog post today before all this happened.  Writing a little bit here and there, nothing crazy.  Did come up with a FUCKING AMAZING IDEA that ties like 2 or 3 plot lines together.  But, uh...it's not until like FM9ish you're going to get the payoff for that.  So...I mean...I might be laying the groundwork in War to End All Wars though...so I look all smart when you get the reveal and all that.  I would NEVER do that...in the first few chapters of the entire series for something that won't be revealed until the last few chapters of the series...as an example...

Or did I?

If only I got paid for rereads...

Love you all, stay safe, talk to you all post Burnination.

Burnination #2 Incoming

C7 to T2 spinal ablation.  Middle of November.  If it provides the same relief as the first, in a more needed area, it could be pretty huge to my quality of life, pain reduction, and of course...writing output.  Just like last time, we're talking about a month long process of getting one side of the spine done, then two weeks recovery, then the second side, then two more weeks recovery.  So we won't see the full effects of all this until probably around Christmas.

Until then I'll just be managing what I can manage texting out on the phone for the most part.  Only managed a disappointing 5k words in September.  Why, you ask?  You were so hopeful, RR!  You had three free weeks!  Did you waste your time playing the new Hearthstone Battlegrounds update?

Yes, yes I did!  At night, when the house finally cooled down because the day after I posted that last hopeful message my almost brand new just installed two years ago AC stopped working.  During Fresno's last big heatwave of the year!  Why did it stop working?  Because Fresno is a horrible, inescapable vortex of evil!  Also a dustbowl since our last drought.  It clogged the blower motor so bad it shorted out and NO COLD AIR.  Did they have the part ready?  NO!!!  Are you not paying attention to my luck lately, Noble Reader?!?

So...instead of getting all that free time writing, I spent about two weeks sweating profusely and drinking large amounts of Gatorade in a nearly completely dark room all the hopes of avoiding another bout of heat exhaustion.  Which I did!  Yay me!  But...not much writing done.  Just me and the television...oh, I started reading Tony Hillerman because he's my Mom's favorite author and she guilt tripped me into it.  Point is this:  three weeks free became one week free.

I don't think I get to post positive thoughts about my writing again.  I think the jinx is very real.  I think some other author got so jealous of how awesome I am they did some voodoo shit.

So...life is Paine!  Woah is me!  I bow before you Great Blighted Potato who wiped out so many of my ancestors!  Give me mercy and mediocracy!  I pledge to the Way of the Grasshopper!  Ignore the next two weeks until my next doctor appoint, nothing will get done.  Ignore the whole month after that with nothing until the burnination itself.  Don't worry, there will be no progress!  I will play nothing but Football Manager!  I'm not at all interested in who wins the 2015 Camping Test as King Henry gets to watch on behind the scenes!  No, no!  I have no interesting ideas at all!  Writing?  So boring!  All I care about is sixteen-year-old Brazilian wonderkids!

You guys think...you think the Potato bought it?

First Edit as Red Ink

Yes, I ran out of room.  The circled numbers are for corresponding paragraphs on the back of the page that you can't see.  There will probably be four or five more versions of this section before I get to the final one that will be published.  I suppose you can consider this a tease for you maniacs that want to try to decode it...

As far as new writing, after a dreadful back half of August and start to September, I am free from doctors (and the car drives to their offices that destroys my back for two to three days) until the 27th.  Hopefully I'll have second burnination plans made then.  But until then, I have 3 weeks free to try to finish this chapter and start in on the second half of the novel.

Wish me luck!

Fan Question/Discussion: Biggest Laugh in the King Henry Tapes

So I choked on a bit of breakfast and for some reason the Valentine "small throat hole" joke has bubbled up out of my memory and been making me chuckle all morning.  I've probably asked before, but it's likely been years at this point, and its good for an author to know what pleased the fans, so:  what scene or joke made you laugh the hardest?

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!!!