Okay, so progress is progressing! With a few unanticipated bobbles provided by life.

So far, I’m managing 2000 to 3000 words per workday, 4000 to 5000 per day on weekends, for an average that is about where I’d hoped. No super annoying slowdowns, as I mostly know what I’m doing. SO FAR. I’m likely to hit something I’m not as sure about eventually.

Quite a few characters, but relatively few super-cluttered crowd scenes, so that’s not as bad.

Two plot lines, plainly related but very separate so far. A vague notion how to get them to converge, which is, of course, taking longer than I hoped, but I’m moving toward the convergence. A much clearer idea of what happens when they do converge. I mean broadly clear, not crystal clear. A reasonably good idea of the roles Aras and Ryo will play, which need to be peripheral and might be semi-off-screen. Not sure. The dramatic ending, yes, that’s all set and has been since I realized I could set up something neat for Tathimi’s second book. Not her first. I’m thinking incredibly far ahead. Far for me, I mean.

***

Also, last week Magdalene, my gray tabby, abruptly got sick.

Very sick, very abruptly. I whisked her to my vet for the day, they worked her in and called me to discuss her excitingly high fever (nearly 106F).

Wow, I said. Abrupt onset, very high fever, that sure sounds like Connor a few years ago, and we decided that was a tick-borne disease. Maggie was bitten by a tick a week or ten days ago; I made a mental note when I took the tick off her.

Hmm! said my vet, and immediately added delicious liver-flavored Doxycyline to Maggie’s daily schedule.

Two days later, Magdalene was much better; two more days, back to normal. She gets to finish the whole bottle of Doxycyline, which seems enormous at one cc per day. She does not agree that it is delicious, but she is thankfully The Cooperative Kitty. If this were Maximilian, it’d be awkward. Ticks were just absent during the drought, but I Frontlined the dogs after it rained and ticks once more appeared. Now the kitties have been Frontlined as well, for this last month before cold zaps the ticks again for the winter.

This was not dramatically distracting, in fact. There wasn’t a lot to do for Maggie except coax her to eat and wait to see whether the antibiotic worked. I now have a list of treats she especially likes, which no doubt she will enjoy for the rest of her life.

I know of two Cavaliers who developed seizures that were clearly, obviously caused by flea preventatives, by the way. (Application of flea treatment on the first of the month, seizures only during the first week of the month, seizures stopped after flea preventative was discontinued.) This is conclusive, full stop, and that’s why I don’t want my guys continually on anything when that’s unnecessary, despite the risk of erlichiosis (probable culprit). Frontline Plus has the best safety record I know of, which is why I use it.

MEANWHILE

Magdalene is now just fine, this is a four-day weekend for me, and therefore I’m going back to work. We are breaking out of a prison. It’s not a huge part of the story, but I have always wanted to do a prison break, and now here we are.

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