[sniffle] I actually thought I was almost over this darn cold. My worst day (or so I thought) was Monday, when I Just Couldn’t Breathe no matter what combination of drugs I took. But then it gradually started getting better, though the sniffling remained.

However, I was wakened at about 1:30 am this morning with the sensation that someone was attempting to drive a red-hot ice pick through my left cheekbone. As soon as I determined that there was not, in fact, anyone attempting to do such, I dragged my weary body out of bed and shambled downstairs to find drugs. I took some decongestanty stuff, and an aleve, and tried to go back to sleep.

Half an hour later the ice pick was still pounding through my face, so I got up again, and went in search of stronger drugs. I finally resorted to a stash of leftover painkillers (leftover from my C-section, which tells you just how often I resort to this level of assistance.) However, I’ve seen SO many ODs, and I’m such a weenie, that I broke the damn pill into quarters (after first checking to make sure it was not the kind of pill that you are absolutely NOT supposed to break or crush) and only took one quarter. Fortunately, that 1/4 pain pill was enough to at least let me get back to sleep. But between the level of pain, the low-grade fever, and the lovely color of my snot, I was fairly positive that I’d progressed to a sinus infection. Bah.

So first thing on the agenda this morning after getting to work was to go up front and beg for a scrip for antibiotics (and longtime readers of this blog will know just how rare it is for me to want to take antibiotics, since I’m allergic to darn near every frickin’ one of them.) That’s one of those times when it’s nice to work for a doctor.

***

Now that Book One is steadily making the rounds of the agent world, I’ve been pounding pretty steadily at Book 2. Actually Book 2 was originally going to be Book 3, but the more I got into it the more I realized that Book 3 would work much better as Book 2, with just a few tweaks. So, the work I did on the original Book 2 has been set aside, and Book 3 which is now Book 2 is well underway.

OKay, I just confused myself with all of that. Anyway. I’m writing the next book. I decided to use the same process that I used for Book 1 (which was never Book 2 OR Book 3), which was basically to just writewritewrite and not worry about how crappy it was. I only put descriptions in if I really know them right then, I insert a lot of tags, like [fix the stuff with the bodies] and [something with action goes here], and mostly just write until I get to the end. Then I tear it all apart and work on it, but at least then I have the story in place.

I actually have a pretty solid outline for the next two books, which is making it easier as well.

Now if I could just breathe. Ugh.