Skunk grooming and Writing stats

Hobkin’s nail clipping and associated grooming went about as well as I expected last night. Managed to clip twelve nails on my own, and then had to get Matthew to help. I think he got three or four more before we had to let a much irritated Hobkin go. So I think we’ve got four or five untrimmed toes left. And they’re not all on the same foot either. And yes, there are paw-smears of lotion all over the house.

I also cleaned Hobkin’s ears and he put up with that with amazing tolerance. It’s strange; it was always really easy to trim the ferrets’ nails. I’d just dab a drop of ferretone/linatone on their tummies and they’d let me do anything with their feet while they concentrated on licking the stuff off. But the same trick with Hobkin doesn’t work. He contorts and wiggles to get at the linatone, and growls and nips if you try to mess with his paws. But the ferrets had to be scruffed to clean their ears. Hobkin just lies there and lets me swab at them without so much as a squirm. Go fig.

Going to try to get the remaining nails tonight. And tomorrow is bath night. I always get whapped in the face with a soaking wet, sudsy tail whenever we give him a bath. I’m sure Hobkin does it on purpose.

Writing stats:

Polished the fairy tale, actually it’s really a folktale, and am currently debating whether or not I should toss it up on Critters. It’s so short (1000 words), and a lot of times, Critters comments aren’t very useful with submissions intended for a younger audience. Maybe I’ll bundle it with another short fairy tale I’ve got lying around that I wasn’t satisfied with.

1200 words on the SF piece and the zero draft is done! Cheers and jumping up and down. Except I’m not happy with how the ending turned out. Going to have Matthew first reader it and see if he can help me brainstorm what went wrong, then up to Critters it goes.

That’s three completed works in less than two weeks. I do seem to write in fits and starts. I’d like it better if I could manage and maintain an even pace, but as long as I keep putting words on the page, eventually, I guess it’s all good.

Received another BFoD from RoF, although Carina took the time to write at the bottom that she thought this one was well written. I’ll take what editorial encouragement I can get. Out it goes again.