Sunday, July 27, 2008

vacations, pneumonia, iphone and books

So it's been quite some time since my last blog post. Many factors have contributed to this, well not many really just two main ones.

1) I was on vacation for nearly a week
2) I've had walking pneumonia for the past 2 weeks.

I've been feeling very grumpy, probably due to the whole pneumonia thing. It certainly makes you appreciate a good pair of lungs when things like going up the stairs make you winded and doubled over in a coughing fit. Walking Pneumonia is basically Pneumonia lite, which means I don't have to be hospitalized and I can "walk" around....but not hike (i found that out the hard way). I've had the worst cough ever for two weeks, and I'm not exaggerating even a little bit. I coughed so hard one morning that I made myself vomit. Supposedly the cough will linger for quite some time although the breathing problems should go away soon, that part is getting better. I haven't used my Albuterol inhaler all day!

Being sick has stifled the creative process greatly. In fact, pretty much all I've been able to focus on is keeping my coughing under control and you know...breathing. However, while I was in Washington I did have an opportunity to set my laptop up facing a beautiful mountain lake and do some very peaceful writing. I'm happy to say that during that afternoon in between coughing fits I filled out the rest of my book. I now have a chapter summery for every chapter from here until the end. Isn't that lovely news? Also I did a lot of actual writing but that's not nearly as exciting to me as having everything down plot-wise for the rest of the book. I have something like 50-70k MORE words to write. It's a higher number than I originally thought but probably more accurate given that it's all planned out now.

Of course it's a bit sad that the reason I spent the afternoon writing was because I couldn't go on the hike with my friends. I went on a short hike the previous day and thought I was going to die so the longer hike was out of the question. My lungs still haven't forgiven me.

In other news, I finally got my iphone. Huzzah! BTW, Todd I couldn't respond to your comment because you don't have a blog on which I could comment! Yes I got my iphone, yes it's the same phone number (unlike yours, what is it again?) so you have no excuse not to call me! Seriously, it is THE coolest piece of technology that I've ever owned and I don't care what anyone says it's the coolest PHONE ever. All you blackberry fans out there may think the blackberry is "better" but it is certainly not cooler! Or sexier. So Fie on you Blackberry!

I'm going on vacation the first week of august, this time to a much warmer climate. It's kind of cool that I will have visited the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean in less than a month. I'm going to Myrtle Beach and I sincerely plan to spend the entire vacation on the beach, unless it's raining. I'll do lots of writing I hope, but I'm going to also focus on soaking up the sun.

I've read a couple books during the past week or so. It was kind of nice to actually read something, I didn't have the brain power to do anything creative myself but I haven't sat down to read a book in ages. The first book I read was Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman . I'm not interested in doing a book review but I enjoyed it. I did struggle, at first, with the main character. He just seemed exactly like Arther Dent from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. But I got past that fairly quickly and really enjoyed the book. It's very clever and well done. The second book, which I read this weekend actually, was Sunshine by Robin McKinley. I liked the book but it was written in 1st person which sometimes throws me off (not always though, she did a good job) but there were a lot of internal that felt very long and wordy. However, it was probably one of the funnier vampire stories I've read and the "romance" is pretty atypical. Also her depiction of an "Earth gone bad" is very cool. They're both good and I'd recommend them both. Especially if you like the supernatural as they both deal with that.

Well it's after 10 and I have a very uncomfortable pressure on my chest which means it's time to take my steroid inhaler and get some sleep. I'm sure I'll write again before the week is up.

2 comments:

ditty said...

I feel I've taken a bit of a dent as a Neil Gaiman fangirl since you finished Neverwhere before I did. That's what I get for trying to read three books at one time, I guess.

And I am very jealous of your little excursions to the coast while I'm stuck here in 108-degree heat indexes and non-beach or otherwise beautiful and/or relaxing writing locales.

I am not, however, jealous of your immune system. I'm perfectly happy with my bionic one, so at least I've got that going for me.

Lee Horne said...

I don't think you've taken a dent. In fact, I doubt I would have picked up Neverwhere were you not such a fangirl. I certainly wouldn't have known the author. However Neverwhere did peak my interest more than American Gods did which was also on the shelves (so was Stardust actually but I wanted to read something I hadn't seen the movie of at the time).

Also I forgot to mention, I (finally) finished Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire. The last half of that book is really fantastic and totally negates the slow pace and info dumping at the start.