Update: Was that Spring Break? I think I missed it

Are Writers Uniquely Vulnerable to Sc... Tracking Word Count

Update: Was that Spring Break? I think I missed it

Okay, so last week just melted away without a trace.

FINE, I admit I did get things done. I just still haven’t gotten to various minor projects — they should be minor — that have been waiting for two and a half months now. I’m going to blame all the ice and snow in January, because being snowed in for however long that was — probably about ten days put together — did not help.

The thing which is annoying me most: the new covers for the Black Dog paperback story collections. I was doing those covers myself, I have rough drafts sitting here, but I have not finalized the drafts because I have just not had the time to do it. Other things that are more time sensitive keep coming up. It’s completely annoying. I guess I said that already, but it is.

Let me see, what DID I do last week? All right —

A) I took the boys for a preliminary appointment at a new-to-me animal hospital, where shortly — I need to call for an appointment — they will go to have echocardiograms done. I’m not very concerned about the results of these echoes. They both have murmurs. I expect Ish probably looks fine, with minimal if any changes to the architecture of the heart. That’s a guess, but I think that’s likely. I hope Conner looks like that too, but I would not be surprised if the cardiologist suggests putting him on pimobendan, which I will do, of course, if that’s the advice.

I went to the new-to-me clinic for reasons which are kind of funny, so I’ll explain that briefly. Just skip down to (B) if you’re not interested, obviously. My reproductive vet used to be at a big practice that was bought by a corporation. The corporation instituted new rules that were insane, such as “emergency c-sections must be scheduled at least three days ahead of time,” which caused quite a lot of consternation among breeders who depended on this clinic, as you can imagine, and this, by the way, is ONE reason that I suggest looking for a veterinary clinic that is not owned by a corporation, because corporations often impose insane rules on their veterinarians. I’ve heard of others almost as awful, such as, “Never refer; all work is to be done in house,” for example.

Anyway, this particular vet ignored the new rules and continued to operate exactly as he thought best, the corporation found out, there was a big blow up, and he walked out, taking alllllllll his clients with him, like a line of little ducklings following behind their mother. This is all heresy, but some of it came through a veterinarian grapevine as well as what I heard via the breeder grapevine, and I think it’s basically accurate. Then this much smaller hospital, privately owned, said, “Hey, come work for us, and bring us all your reproductive clients, and teach at least one of our doctors everything you know about repro medicine — how about it?” And thus this veterinarian is now at this other practice. He’s a great guy, so this put this small hospital on my radar.

Meanwhile, I became seriously disenchanted with Veterinary Specialty Services, where all the specialists such as cardiologists are found, in 2020, and I am still very unhappy with VSS at this point. They absolutely radiate contempt for their clients, and on top of that, their staff mishandled a bitch and her newborn puppies for a friend of mine — the mother died and all the puppies nearly died, and nearly all of that was due to staff carelessness and neglect. They didn’t put the newborn puppies in a warm box, but a cold box in an air conditioned room, and left them for hours, and it’s a miracle they didn’t all die. AND through the veterinarian grapevine, I have also heard about more than one wrong diagnosis, which in one case almost resulted in the pet dying. And as a result of all this, I loathe them and worse, I don’t trust them, and so I was planning to drive to a different clinic three hours away in order to do echocardiograms. Then I found out that this other small practice works with a cardiologist of their own, and I said, YAY! And that’s why I’m doing all this through this new clinic.

And this boils down to a pair of linked public service messages:

— All the shelters, groomers, dog trainers, and reputable breeders in your county will know who the best veterinarians are AND who the worst veterinarians are, and they will tell you who they recommend if you ask them. More than that, we will tell you who the best surgeons are, who the best diagnosticians are, who is best for small dogs but not giant dogs, who is best for cats, and so on. So if you aren’t sure about a veterinarian, call those people and triangulate on the names everyone recommends. That’s my advice.

— AND, if you happen to OWN a veterinary clinic, I recommend that you avoid policies that demonstrate contempt for your clients, and prevent your staff from radiating unconcern and contempt for your clients, because your clients can tell you and your staff feel that way and they will detest you and try hard to find somewhere else to go.

Now, moving on, what else?

B) I did move ahead with Tano’s next book, but it’s been slow so far this month. We’re halfway through the month, which seems ridiculous, and I’ve only written maybe a little over 20,000 words or so, which is making me roll my eyes. This last bit should be faster and I would be surprised if I’m not basically through the draft by the end of the month. I will have a certain amount of revision to do. I’m thinking of handing the roles of two characters to two different characters and removing the first two, which is a shame, but I think I’m going to do that. (AARGH!)

I’m a little surprised to STILL be estimating that it’s pretty likely to turn out to be about 210,000 words in draft. I estimated that right at the beginning, so by now I’d sort of expect to have blown right past that estimate and be sitting way above that length and still not near the end. But, in fact, so far, that’s still my guess about how long the draft will go. Meaning about another 30,000 words, or about a hundred pages. I really am getting close to the end.

C) I’ve ordered a cover for the new DL book, working title no longer “Midwinter,” but “This Hour.” I’m most likely going to go with This Hour, Our Vigil, but I won’t decide absolutely for sure for a bit, probably.

I’m trying to decide whether to drop this complete version of This Hour at my Patreon. It should change very little from here on out. But I don’t have a cover for it, and I MIGHT tweak it a little, so I’m not sure, maybe I should wait. If you have an opinion, please drop it in the comments.

D) I started a new project for Mother’s Day. I thought my mother, who doesn’t have internet at all, might like to see some of the blog posts I’ve been putting up for the last decade, so I decided to drop a lot of nearly unedited posts into a Word document, turn it into a paperback book via KDP, and print an author copy for my mother. This will be pretty quick as long as I don’t get distracted into editing it, and I’m pretty sure she’ll like it.

E) I had two of the girls spayed last Friday — Morgan and Haydee. Morgan is about six, pyo is an increasing risk for older bitches, I just heard from a friend of mine about a six-year-old of hers who just had pyo, and whatever, no reason to wait longer. Haydee is two and there was no chance I would want to show or breed her. She is delightful and charming and very cute, but not confident enough to show, plus with a significant underbite.

I did not spay Joy, because I’m not likely to show or breed her, but still. Also, I do think it’s best to let a puppy FULLY mature before spaying or neutering. Joy is a year old, but nevertheless. Maybe this summer, maybe next year, no rush.

And I have another public service message here: I strongly recommend that, when you have a dog of yours spayed or put under for any other routine surgery, go ahead and ask your vet to give the dog both a Carprofen injection AND a Cerenia injection before they wake up from the anesthetic. My reproductive vet (same guy as above), routinely gives both injections after all surgeries except surgical inseminations, because it cuts down tremendously on pet (and owner) distress the evening after the surgery. I asked my regular vet to do Cerenia as well as Carprofen for my girls, and they had the easiest, smoothest recovery I’ve ever seen — and normally my girls don’t have a lot of trouble after a spay or a section. But this time, less. They had a nice, normal supper and were nearly back to normal the next morning. Poor Haydee REALLY does not understand why I’m not letting her wrestle and run madly around with Joy. They usually play madly for at least an hour a day, often multiple times a day.

Haydee also just wants more attention from me than she can get when she’s in an x-pen with Morgan. Last night I let Morgan and Haydee out of the x-pen and told them that they could come sit next to me on the couch as long as they used the steps rather than trying to jump on the couch. (I have to be a bit alert to stop them from jumping, but as long as I hold up my hand and point to the steps, they’ll come up that way.

Stitches can come out as early as this Friday, so I’ll de-restrict them at that point, even if I leave the stitches a few extra days.