I want to bang on the drum all day

In answer to the most Frequently Asked Question re: yesterday's post - I'll probably run the contest through the end of the week, at least. Most likely, I'll start randomly picking winners and/or launching into shipping on the sixth of next month.

To answer the second most Frequently Asked Question - sure, international applicants are fair game. I won't disqualify you for being a long way away.

But on a related side note, fully 1/3 of the people who've entered the drawing thus far have great faith in my psychic abilities, it would seem; and initially, I would poke these lovely souls with a *hint hint hint* to remind them that I don't magically know where they live.

But I give up on that.

If you do not include a snail mail address, I cannot send you snail mail goodies.

I love you guys, but I'm too busy to police this thing with hand-holding for a week - so if you can't follow directions, you can't be in the running. Sorry.

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Warning: Quotation marks ahead.

In other news, yes, I know I've been "distant" lately. When it comes to the internet, I've been forced to institute a policy of "log off, and stay off" during my "office hours." (My "office hours" are "however long it takes me to get all my work done.") And lately, I've had a positively epic amount of work - much of it pertinent to my day-job.

Never mind that the deadline for Inexplicables looms around the corner, and I still have perhaps 20,000 words left to write on that bad-boy. So...yes. I'm spending a lot more time offline than usual.

Besides, I've actually been pretty sick. Long story short - I got nabbed by a couple of pretty serious spider bites, and I have a bit of an allergy. I very nearly went to the hospital to see about some cortisone shots; but my fever never went anywhere, I never showed any signs of blood poisoning ... and after four or five days, the swelling finally went down and the oozing finally stopped.

I dragged myself out of the house last night for a friend's birthday shindig, but other than that, I've been a huge homebody for the last week - as a matter of necessity. Not much to blog about, I'm afraid. Just restless sleep, antihistamines and hydrocortisones, itchy bandages, and work.

My apologies for being so damn boring.

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Here's today's progress on my fifth Clockwork Century novel - a book about teenage juvenile delinquents, hypothetical ghosts, and gangland mayhem within the walled city of Seattle ... now with Bonus! zombie Sasquatch and the return of everyone's favorite elderly cross-dressing Native American princess:

Project: Inexplicables
Deadline: September 15, 2011
New words written: 2975 (pretty good)
Present total word count: 99,593 words

Things accomplished in real life: Daily run/climb + yoga; epic ton of day-job work including four rounds of revisions long-distance, wee!; absolutely nothing else.

Other: Note that I have changed the estimated final word count on my widget. It may well run longer. I never finish up drafts as quickly as I expect.

Revenge of Other: Almost 3K for the day isn't bad, especially considering everything else I'm working around - but this was the first bit of writing I'd done in days. I need to average this every afternoon for the next week to get anywhere near my goal - if I want to revise for a few days before handing in the draft. And believe me, I do.

Total narrative fiction word count for 2011: 99,593 words