Whew!
That is really all I have to say about November. It was a hell of a month for me, with several things happening all at once.
First and foremost, November means NaNo. I had a good NaNo this year. I finished in two weeks with around 52k. It was really cool. It seemed that many of my friends struggled this time around. Usually, it is me fighting to keep up with the daily word count. Poor Jules had to write around 15-20-ish thousand to catch up the final weekend. I dunno. It was just a good year for me. The characters were cooperating, the plot was working, everything went well for me.
The next biggest things that happened were all not so good things, in fact, they were outright terrible. Our cat Bert had to be rushed to the vet one night. He just wasn't acting right. It is hard to explain. It is one of those things where you know your pet and you know they aren't okay. He let me pick him up and hold him like a baby and just rested on my chest for the entire 15-minute phone call to the vet. (a) He hates being held like a baby and (b) even when I hold him like a baby, he swishes his tail and fights to be let up. He stayed there the whole time. We took him in and it turns out he had a tumor that had collapsed his intestine and blocked his urethra. They thought he was just blocked again, like before, and wanted to keep him overnight to see if it passed. We got the call the next day that it was a tumor and they needed to do immediate surgery. I freaked out. Rightly so. I mean, this is the second time we have done this with this cat. Thankfully, the vet is working with us on payment. This happened on a Thursday. Friday we had to take in post dated checks. We do everything online so, we had to wait for the bank to open. (Mind you this is the second time this has happened. We ordered checks. Thank you for everything, Nicole!). The surgery was scheduled for Saturday. When we dropped off the checks, we asked if we could see him. They kept him there to stay quiet and medicated. Boy was he medicated. Poor guy. The tech was trying to bring him back and we heard, “Bert? Where are you going silly cat?” We started to laugh. Yeah, that was our cat. He apparently heard us and tried to hop out of the tech arms to get to the door. He was so happy to see us. We spent a good 20 minutes with him before they took him back. Pender is always amazing. His surgery went well and we picked him up. He was ready to go. We were asking the vet questions, and he was in my arms purring. He had to wear the cone for a good 14 days. We locked him up in my office because he needed to stay quiet for a bit while he healed. He was on some really good meds. He had a patch on his back leg that released pain meds. I could always tell when they kicked in. He was so loopy and seeing things! I swear that cat was growling at ghosts! He had a bad trip one night. He stood next to my chair and poofed up. I thought he was growling at me, but he was just looking at the wall. I could not calm him down. He even hissed at me. I had to wake up Brian to help me calm him down. It was hilarious. Poor cat. His cone came off early since he healed very quickly. Then we started letting him out during the nights when Brian was home and then in the office with me. We were just making sure he was okay. He healed perfectly and back to his old self.
Kinda......
The vet had sent the tumor off to a lab to a pathology report. It took a week before we knew anything. The vet was hopeful that it was just a benign cyst or something. No such luck. Bert has cancer. But we have a plan. We are taking him back in to the vet to put him on some meds and we will take him in for a check-up every six months or so. We are going to stay on top of it. It is heartbreaking that my poor cat has cancer, but he is a fighter and he knows he is loved. Also, we have pet insurance for this very reason. On a side note-- I would like to thank the Border's Refugees for letting me sit in silence and digest the news. Pender called me on a Monday night in the middle of our weekly writing meeting. I didn't want to talk about it. I was too upset and said so and they didn't push. That meant the world to me.
On the day we got the day we got the news about Bert, we got even more bad news. Brian's grandmother, Grandma Mary, had passed away. She was in her 90s and she died peacefully in her sleep. Really we could not ask for more than that. Then two weeks later, I lost an uncle. I wasn't close to him, so it didn't hit me as much as other cousins, but I have very fond memories.
During this time, I was working on a project for Golden Fleece. Jules was swamped. Like really swamped and I asked to take on the first edition of Fandom Universe. This year it is Star Wars. I didn't realize how big of an undertaking that was going to be. We didn't have enough content, first and foremost. That was going to be a problem. Some of the submissions were on the ridiculous side. One person sent something that had nothing to do with Star Wars, science fiction, or space even. I don't think they actually read what the journal was supposed to be about. Ugh. So I put out another call in a group on Facebook and the group pulled through beautifully. I didn't expect my life to get tossed around for a bit, but I was able to get it out. I was working right up to the deadline. Sorry Jules. I dunno, it felt like a test to me, you know? Like if I can do this big thing I can be trusted to do other editing projects or something. Silly, I know. I already have a lot of freedom when it comes to things. I've put together Deep Waters, I edit Jules' stuff, and, unlike other traditional publishers, I work directly with my illustrator and have a big say in editing the Abby Series. So, I dunno, maybe I am being anxious, but it still felt like a test. I hope they like it. We have gone to press already so........aaahh.....
In other big news, Abby 2 is officially launching. You can already pre-order it. Whoo-hoo! I saw the proofs and it is amazing. The colors came out so much better than last time and it is so pretty. I have an official launch on the 12th and I have my first launch to-do. The local book store, Prospero's, wants to have a thing announcing the launch. I'm so excited. I feel bad since that is my brother's birthday, but I can't really do anything about that. I hope he isn't mad. Well, he's turning 13 so he's going to be miserable no matter what. If you are parents of teenagers, you know what I mean.
So that is about it. December is for catching up on crafting and holidays. And updating the blogs that I wasn't able to do in November. I hope the holidays find you well!
That is really all I have to say about November. It was a hell of a month for me, with several things happening all at once.
First and foremost, November means NaNo. I had a good NaNo this year. I finished in two weeks with around 52k. It was really cool. It seemed that many of my friends struggled this time around. Usually, it is me fighting to keep up with the daily word count. Poor Jules had to write around 15-20-ish thousand to catch up the final weekend. I dunno. It was just a good year for me. The characters were cooperating, the plot was working, everything went well for me.
The next biggest things that happened were all not so good things, in fact, they were outright terrible. Our cat Bert had to be rushed to the vet one night. He just wasn't acting right. It is hard to explain. It is one of those things where you know your pet and you know they aren't okay. He let me pick him up and hold him like a baby and just rested on my chest for the entire 15-minute phone call to the vet. (a) He hates being held like a baby and (b) even when I hold him like a baby, he swishes his tail and fights to be let up. He stayed there the whole time. We took him in and it turns out he had a tumor that had collapsed his intestine and blocked his urethra. They thought he was just blocked again, like before, and wanted to keep him overnight to see if it passed. We got the call the next day that it was a tumor and they needed to do immediate surgery. I freaked out. Rightly so. I mean, this is the second time we have done this with this cat. Thankfully, the vet is working with us on payment. This happened on a Thursday. Friday we had to take in post dated checks. We do everything online so, we had to wait for the bank to open. (Mind you this is the second time this has happened. We ordered checks. Thank you for everything, Nicole!). The surgery was scheduled for Saturday. When we dropped off the checks, we asked if we could see him. They kept him there to stay quiet and medicated. Boy was he medicated. Poor guy. The tech was trying to bring him back and we heard, “Bert? Where are you going silly cat?” We started to laugh. Yeah, that was our cat. He apparently heard us and tried to hop out of the tech arms to get to the door. He was so happy to see us. We spent a good 20 minutes with him before they took him back. Pender is always amazing. His surgery went well and we picked him up. He was ready to go. We were asking the vet questions, and he was in my arms purring. He had to wear the cone for a good 14 days. We locked him up in my office because he needed to stay quiet for a bit while he healed. He was on some really good meds. He had a patch on his back leg that released pain meds. I could always tell when they kicked in. He was so loopy and seeing things! I swear that cat was growling at ghosts! He had a bad trip one night. He stood next to my chair and poofed up. I thought he was growling at me, but he was just looking at the wall. I could not calm him down. He even hissed at me. I had to wake up Brian to help me calm him down. It was hilarious. Poor cat. His cone came off early since he healed very quickly. Then we started letting him out during the nights when Brian was home and then in the office with me. We were just making sure he was okay. He healed perfectly and back to his old self.
Kinda......
The vet had sent the tumor off to a lab to a pathology report. It took a week before we knew anything. The vet was hopeful that it was just a benign cyst or something. No such luck. Bert has cancer. But we have a plan. We are taking him back in to the vet to put him on some meds and we will take him in for a check-up every six months or so. We are going to stay on top of it. It is heartbreaking that my poor cat has cancer, but he is a fighter and he knows he is loved. Also, we have pet insurance for this very reason. On a side note-- I would like to thank the Border's Refugees for letting me sit in silence and digest the news. Pender called me on a Monday night in the middle of our weekly writing meeting. I didn't want to talk about it. I was too upset and said so and they didn't push. That meant the world to me.
On the day we got the day we got the news about Bert, we got even more bad news. Brian's grandmother, Grandma Mary, had passed away. She was in her 90s and she died peacefully in her sleep. Really we could not ask for more than that. Then two weeks later, I lost an uncle. I wasn't close to him, so it didn't hit me as much as other cousins, but I have very fond memories.
During this time, I was working on a project for Golden Fleece. Jules was swamped. Like really swamped and I asked to take on the first edition of Fandom Universe. This year it is Star Wars. I didn't realize how big of an undertaking that was going to be. We didn't have enough content, first and foremost. That was going to be a problem. Some of the submissions were on the ridiculous side. One person sent something that had nothing to do with Star Wars, science fiction, or space even. I don't think they actually read what the journal was supposed to be about. Ugh. So I put out another call in a group on Facebook and the group pulled through beautifully. I didn't expect my life to get tossed around for a bit, but I was able to get it out. I was working right up to the deadline. Sorry Jules. I dunno, it felt like a test to me, you know? Like if I can do this big thing I can be trusted to do other editing projects or something. Silly, I know. I already have a lot of freedom when it comes to things. I've put together Deep Waters, I edit Jules' stuff, and, unlike other traditional publishers, I work directly with my illustrator and have a big say in editing the Abby Series. So, I dunno, maybe I am being anxious, but it still felt like a test. I hope they like it. We have gone to press already so........aaahh.....
In other big news, Abby 2 is officially launching. You can already pre-order it. Whoo-hoo! I saw the proofs and it is amazing. The colors came out so much better than last time and it is so pretty. I have an official launch on the 12th and I have my first launch to-do. The local book store, Prospero's, wants to have a thing announcing the launch. I'm so excited. I feel bad since that is my brother's birthday, but I can't really do anything about that. I hope he isn't mad. Well, he's turning 13 so he's going to be miserable no matter what. If you are parents of teenagers, you know what I mean.
So that is about it. December is for catching up on crafting and holidays. And updating the blogs that I wasn't able to do in November. I hope the holidays find you well!
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