Personal News Blah Blah Blah NaNo is Cursed

[A. E. Lowan]

I complain a lot that November is cursed for me. I've been doing NaNo for 9 years and have never completed. Usually I start all fired up and then three days later I come down with pneumonia or something. This year, though, this year November has outdone itself in it's efforts toward my demise.

So... I have some news and some good news. The news isn't bad, it's just not great. I've had some developments while I've been gone that surprised me. About 8 months ago I had a CT scan in the ER and on the edge of it they spotted a mass on my left kidney. They said to check it out but I procrastinated until our insurance improved and then finally got it done last week. Turns out to be cancer.

Now, that's the news. The good news is I'll be fine. It's barely aggressive at all, just a malignant little kitten of a tumor... never mind, I know the little murder floofs. This isn't like that. It's pretty tame. And my doctor is one of three guys in my state who can go in and get it without me losing my kidney, so double win. We should get the surgery scheduled for sometime before January, and then it's one night in the hospital and two weeks to recover.

On a side note, I hate November. I also found out about this the DAY AFTER I had half of my teeth pulled prior to switching to dentures, so yeah, ouch and not much writing this week. But we're sitting at 60K words, so that's good.

Love you guys and hope you're having fun!

Don't worry, we're still hard at work on BENEATH A STONE SKY!

Take away - don't screw around with procrastinating about your health and NaNo can be lethal. I got super duper lucky.

 

[Chessie2]

I'm glad it's not bad news and that you're going to be okay. And 60k is still pretty good (I'm sitting about 50k below that right now). It's nice to see you still trucking away despite the challenges and isn't that what makes an author?

Sometimes life takes priority. We've had an ongoing family drama that has drained us emotionally this year. I pretty much all but stopped writing and my husband hasn't kept up with his mountaineering. It happens. We're working to get out of the funk and continuing to encourage one another in that endeavor. The past two days have been especially difficult but we've managed to stick together through it all. I still write most days and log my word count into the NaNo site even if it's like 200 words. That's....a world away from where I was a year ago. It's definitely the family issue getting to me but it involves our son so it really hits the heart feels in a way that penetrates through to my writing.

Anyway, take care of yourself.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Sounds like next year you should simply skip November and go straight from October to December. It's a bit a drab meh kind of month anyway, so you wont miss much.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Sounds like next year you should simply skip November and go straight from October to December. It's a bit a drab meh kind of month anyway, so you wont miss much.

On one hand, it's tempting. Just take the whole thing off and relax.

On the other hand, I'm a terribly competitive wench and my biggest competitor is myself. I just. Can't. Stop.