Progress!
Over the past couple weeks I think the last remnants of the post-covid brain fog has finally lifted, and I've even been able to start exercising again. Hooray! As a result Book 5 of the saga is pushing ahead and as of a few minutes ago the draft for Part 3 was completed. This puts the word count at just under 60k and halfway to the suspected finish line.
This being said though there's always a chance that the book could require more than 6 parts as things go. That happened with Light and Shadow which ended with 8 of 'em, much to my surprise. Sometimes I feel I'm just along for the ride as it all hits the screen.
But things are definitely moving forward! Whew!
Thanks again to everyone who has read the first four books, and to all the folks who've commented and sent me such wonderfully supportive messages. They are treasured and really help whenever the monsters of self-doubt creep in. So thank you!!
- Erisian <3
Comments
Great news
Not about the story progress necessarily but the fact you've managed to shake off that Covid, mostly.
Still, it is irksome that there (still) diehard 'Covid is just the Flu' idiots out there.
Hopefully you still retain your sense of taste/smell.
Really, the biggest stupidity
Really, the biggest stupidity is those that actually believe that SARS-CoV2 _is_ a flu. Coronavirus != influenza. Even if it WAS, there have been strains of influenza that kill easily. For me, it's six weeks of not feeling good, even if the fever breaks in two days.
If they tried to say 'it's just a bad cold', I'd somewhat forgive them. (Coronavirus are roughly 60% of "the common cold")
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Reports from those who've had Covid19
I have had two family member and several friends that have endured Covid19. Their description of their experience sounds like the flu on steroids. All the same kinds of symptoms but more like flu to the 20th power. I know two who were hospitalized with it and they confirm that that is not an adequate description for their experience.
Covid19 is far more contagious than any flu or cold for that matter. It's far more devastating and takes much longer to recover after the symptoms subside. With flu, after the fever breaks it's 24 hours and your back on you feet pretty much 100%. After Covid19... well your experience not unusual.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Flu
It depends on the strain.
I had the 1968 Hong Kong flu which was a novel strain back in the day and that was misery even for a young child.
It took me over a week to feel sufficiently human to go back to school after the fevers subsided even with the resilience of youth. This was after at least 3 weeks of recurring episodes of high fever, vomiting, nausea.
Corona virus sounds like pretty much on the same level of that flu and possibly even beyond.
To this day I am reluctant to risk travel to a faraway place: what if you catch it and you are too sick to travel afterward?
And don't forget, like all coronaviruses, they can mutate and people will have the repeated fun of these long recoveries. How many people have the sick time to recover? Maybe one time, if you have a lot saved up, but what happens the next time? And the next? And the next?
Actually, all viruses mutate.
Actually, all viruses mutate. Influenza mutates quickly. Coronavirus mutate slowly. That's why the original immunizations still work against current strains like Omicron, if not as effectively as their original tested strain. It's also part of how they've been able to track the strains as well as they have. Notice that unlike influenza, the CoV-2 strains aren't overlapping that much. One strain dies down, another rises up, but there aren't dozens of them at a time like Influenza A and B. (Where going from one person to another, influenza can do a major mutation jump)
The slow mutation rate is also a bane, in that all viruses mutate to become less lethal - the faster the mutation rate, the sooner that happens.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Fortunately
I was lucky in that I never lost taste or smell. Not that my nose has ever been that great - I'm the dork who has to ask others to sniff the milk to see if it's still any good. My sinuses are usually too clobbered to really tell the difference, and I'm too chicken to try a taste test.
My friend though took over a month for everything to stop tasting like pepper, and last I heard his son still hasn't gotten his taste back. :/
Some of my best work
Some of my best work is a result of me scrambling to keep up with my muse while the story and characters take on a life of their own. In those times it's all I can do to guide my muse toward my desired end and sometime I have to modify that end because the story, as it developed, added aspects the didn't neatly fit into the end I had envisioned when I started the tale.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Today's effort
Had some of that today while working on the next chapter. The direction the dialogue went was different from initial conceptions, and then popped out one of those moments of realization of 'oh, need to show this and not tell'. Voila - another mythic flashback was on the page that from a story point of view did all kinds of interesting and powerful things.
Hard hitting emotional scenes like that do take it out of you though. :) Time for dinner and to let the subconscious prepare for what follows this in case I have any time tomorrow to do more.
Insert a misquote from Forest Gump here: "Writing is like a box of chocolates..." lol
Forrest Gump
also said, "Shit happens!" I think that's what occurs when stories are first written and then edited. Stuff always happens.
Keep it up. Erisian!
There's hope then!
Given your quote you are not at risk of not seeing the Forrest for the plot trees.
And shaking off Covid AND still managing to write means you have Gumption.
Let's hope you don't pick a cordial cherry point, I hate cordial cherries ^_^