WIP Update

A Moon shot from our flat window taken by my partner Susan.

OK, a quick update and status report on yours truly.

Last week I went to hospital for a review of my rheumatoid arthritis and the long and short of it is that I'm slightly less well than I thought I was. My usual response to a flare-up of symptoms is to take an ibuprofen tablet (Motrin or Advil in the States) and suck it up.

This time it seems I may have underestimated my symptoms: as in my doctor gave me slow release corticosteroid injection, then ordered blood tests, a chest x-ray, and I left with a bag of medication to start on, with a second to be added in three to four weeks (two part DMARD therapy).

So it's been a bit of a week.

But the upside is that it has clarified a lot of things that were niggling me, like feeling constantly tired and unable to sleep because of being woken by pain. And, with the clarity that comes from twenty-twenty hindsight, I can see that the problem grew over about three months, because there was a drop in my productivity.

And I also note, my archery scores. Not to mention my inability to hold tools to make models.

It may take three months to get me back to "normal," for definitions of normal that are set by age and diagnosis, but I'm determined to not let this bring me down. For a start, I know that even at my worst I can still write. Frustratingly slow, but a little each day adds up.

Projects

1. The World of Drei Mission Two is now at my Beta reader. Strike Back, the next installment is now at 2,955 words (episodes run between ten and twenty thousand words apiece).
2. Two Moons, a Gate Walkers sidequel featuring Mr. Anderson, is running at 11,532 words.
3. Red Dogs, the next Tachikoma novel, is running at 6,458 words.
4. The Bureau, my first novel that has been side-tracked by writing combat armour goodness, is still ongoing with 55,134 words, which is within striking distance of being completed.

So there's a lot in the pipeline, all I have to do is keep writing a few words each day, and while I expect my treatment will slow me down, new stories are coming. I'm having too much fun to stop writing now.