Heart still ticking, writing too

Got the standard “you are fine” checklist from my echocardiogram. My heart’s still beating a-ok, they say. Well, I’m glad to hear that, but that does leave the “why am I getting short of breath?” question unanswered. Of course, right now, the wracking cough is a bigger concern, but y’know, priorities. The winter months are always the worst on my system. Damn chill. Damn dry air. Damn lungs. *hack hack cough*

Writing stats:

A story I’m quite fond of passed the 2nd round of reading at Andromeda Spaceway’s Inflight Magazine. Hurray! Now . . . more waiting. They’re on a slush break, plus it’s the holiday season and all, so they say it might take them a little longer to get a final decision to me than usual. I need to learn to channel Michael Valentine Smith: “Waiting is.”

Also got paid for “An Interesting Week for Emmy.” There was some complexity after all, even using PayPal to transfer funds from UK to US, but we got it worked out. I have an overwhelming urge to kick the PayPal folks in the shins as I feel gouged by them, but I’ve been paid. And if I’d sent it through my bank, I would undoubtedly be wanting to kick my bank people someplace more tender than the shins, as they would have gouged me more. Fortunately, the editor/publisher was very cool and understanding about the whole thing.

Managed 1000 words on the novel. Uncertain about the quality of them, but they’re on the page.

One thousand words just does not feel like a lot of progress on something as complex and huge as a novel. Maybe I should do Nanowrimo next year if I can’t finish this thing so that I don’t find the length so intimidating. I mean, I’ve written 1000-word full, complete stories before, dammit. This was barely scene-setting. Argh.