Ahhh, the joys of life...

Falconry - we noticed a chip and a faint fracture line in SgianDubh's beak. Took her into the vet and he applied acrylic to the beak to reinforce it. Was not bad enough to need a removal and prosthetic, thank goodness. Of course, five days later, she managed to pop the acrylic off and i had to take her back in to have it reinforced. The vet likes the way it looks and it was growing out rather quickly, more quickly than he expected. Two more weeks of it on and then if it pops off, it won't be a problem. Until then, we're not hunting her. She's been getting fed tidbits so she's not putting stress on the beak by pulling and tearing at her food.

If that wasn't all, my daughter starts coughing. Dry, hacking cough. I thought it sounded more like the cough one gets from congestion and having post nasal dripping into the throat. Of course, she suffers allergies all year around as well, so having a cold is just acerbating the problem. Sure enough, she has a cold. Was given some allergy prescriptions to try.

As most of you know, I've been struggling through a long bout of writer's block. Nothing I've written sounded remotely worth keeping, so I've been pecking at the keyboard here and there.

Last night, as I lie in bed, waiting for sleep to claim me, I slipped into a lucid dream state...watching my characters enact what I'd written so far. Nearly 60,000 words...they would come to the end of the manuscript, where I'd stopped, then start over. Over and over, I was watching this "movie" on replay...until I noticed there were some near imperceptible changes taking place while it replayed.

Changes to what the characters are, certain plot points, motivations...

With that, I must say...cut and paste in Word has become my best friend. Rewriting and editing into a manuscript template...is much easier than rewriting the whole story.

Maybe, just maybe, I can get this finished!