National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) 2014
Right. So. It's basically that time of the year again. For those in the know, that means NaNo, or 50,000 words for the month of November. Now me, I've participated successfully in NaNo every year since I first found out about its existence, even that year I had a broken wrist from an injury at work and had to get someone to help with some of the actual process of getting what I had of my NaNo project typed (and believe me, that wasn't much fun for either of us), even the year I found out about Dad having multiple myeloma and the entire family was basically just a wreck, and even the year after we found out about Dad, when he had gone through his stem cell procedure and it was basically hell on all of us, trying to wait the side effects out to see if it was going to end up having been worth it or not to even put him through that.
This year is arguably the worst year since I first heard about NaNo.
My grandmother died in August, after about a month in which she spent more time in hospital than out, due to complications from rheumatoid arthritis leading to . . . well, her kidneys basically finally shut down. Less than two weeks later, her older brother, Paulie, died of sepsis, where he had been fighting stage 4 cancer. About two weeks after that, Cousin Patty’s husband died (autospy's confirmed that it's variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or the human form of mad cow disease). In the meantime, my Dad’s relapsed, has had to have surgery to fix where the multiple myeloma ate through the neck of his femur, had a new drug make the cancer go bonkers, thought he would be in a drug trial for Filanesib, had to have four bone biopsies because they couldn’t get a good sample (and I am NOT forgiving the asshole that sent us all into a week-long panic by saying he had no blood plasma in the first biopsy when what the fucker really meant was less than 1% of the bone marrow is involved with the cancer and he’s apparently too bloody healthy for their damn study), was finally told he’s too healthy even though he’s in constant pain and there is a myeloma that’s gotten so big it’s pressing on his lungs and his white blood counts have been shit since June, and will apparently be starting a different drug next week, instead.
I’m arguably bloody insane, because I’m doing NaNo anyway, even though I’m in the middle of entirely too much schoolwork on top on everything else and honest to goodness I HATE anatomy/physiology as an online class.
I am not really sleeping, folks. Dad hasn’t been very mobile since the week before 4 July when things really started to go to hell, regarding his remission and my grandma’s first hospitalization in the month leading up to her death, and I have been beyond frazzled pretty much since that week (the week after 4 July, that is) and pretty much increasingly physically/emotionally exhausted ever since. I’ve been deliberately ignoring emails because I don’t have the emotional fortitude to talk to anybody and trying to make it a little less obvious I’m ignoring things by sending out random updates when I have the time/energy or am really upset about something. My friend probably deservedly hate me right now.
This will probably make things worse.
I should probably not be doing this. But it’s either attempt to tackle one of the longer unfinished projects that I already have in the works and could conceivably work on for at least 50,000 words over the course of the next month (without ending up producing something insane, like, oh, that really nasty, darker than Dark take on Ferus Olin that was the result of the stress and fear about five or six years ago when we were sure Grandma had to start dialysis, which I still don't really know what to do with), or completely give the fuck up, and apparently I’m too stupid to do that, so . . .
I am going to finish that blasted AU of AotC I started too many years ago to remember how many off the top of my head or it’s probaby going to bloody kill me, one way or another. Wish me luck, eh?
This year is arguably the worst year since I first heard about NaNo.
My grandmother died in August, after about a month in which she spent more time in hospital than out, due to complications from rheumatoid arthritis leading to . . . well, her kidneys basically finally shut down. Less than two weeks later, her older brother, Paulie, died of sepsis, where he had been fighting stage 4 cancer. About two weeks after that, Cousin Patty’s husband died (autospy's confirmed that it's variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or the human form of mad cow disease). In the meantime, my Dad’s relapsed, has had to have surgery to fix where the multiple myeloma ate through the neck of his femur, had a new drug make the cancer go bonkers, thought he would be in a drug trial for Filanesib, had to have four bone biopsies because they couldn’t get a good sample (and I am NOT forgiving the asshole that sent us all into a week-long panic by saying he had no blood plasma in the first biopsy when what the fucker really meant was less than 1% of the bone marrow is involved with the cancer and he’s apparently too bloody healthy for their damn study), was finally told he’s too healthy even though he’s in constant pain and there is a myeloma that’s gotten so big it’s pressing on his lungs and his white blood counts have been shit since June, and will apparently be starting a different drug next week, instead.
I’m arguably bloody insane, because I’m doing NaNo anyway, even though I’m in the middle of entirely too much schoolwork on top on everything else and honest to goodness I HATE anatomy/physiology as an online class.
I am not really sleeping, folks. Dad hasn’t been very mobile since the week before 4 July when things really started to go to hell, regarding his remission and my grandma’s first hospitalization in the month leading up to her death, and I have been beyond frazzled pretty much since that week (the week after 4 July, that is) and pretty much increasingly physically/emotionally exhausted ever since. I’ve been deliberately ignoring emails because I don’t have the emotional fortitude to talk to anybody and trying to make it a little less obvious I’m ignoring things by sending out random updates when I have the time/energy or am really upset about something. My friend probably deservedly hate me right now.
This will probably make things worse.
I should probably not be doing this. But it’s either attempt to tackle one of the longer unfinished projects that I already have in the works and could conceivably work on for at least 50,000 words over the course of the next month (without ending up producing something insane, like, oh, that really nasty, darker than Dark take on Ferus Olin that was the result of the stress and fear about five or six years ago when we were sure Grandma had to start dialysis, which I still don't really know what to do with), or completely give the fuck up, and apparently I’m too stupid to do that, so . . .
I am going to finish that blasted AU of AotC I started too many years ago to remember how many off the top of my head or it’s probaby going to bloody kill me, one way or another. Wish me luck, eh?