So it's that time of year once again: I've won
Nanowrimo, again, by writing 50,000 words in the month of November; by my records, this is 28 straight wins (counting Camp Nano in April and July in the mix) for a total of ... holy cow ...
1.5 million words in successful Nano challenges.
Welp, I'm calling it: Nano is the most successful technique I've ever used to to boost my writing output --- more than morning pages, more than writing workshops, more than the Artist's Way --- with the possible exception of
Write to the End, with which Nano is intimately intertwined (for me).
Now I hear my editor calling:
How about boosting that editing output, Francis? I hear you. Writing I don't seem to have much trouble with, but between robots and the zombie apocalypse I've found it hard to get the necessary brain juice to edit the 7, no 8 manuscripts I have in the queue.
Come to think of it, why couldn't we have had the zombie apocalypse while I was writing about a zombie apocalypse? Covid would have been really thematically appropriate when I was working on BOT NET (Facebook zombies) or SPIRITUAL GOLD (actual zombie zombies).
But that was not to be. I don't know about you, but I find the whole zombie apocalypse thing wearing, not to mention the whole election thing. Add to that serious realignments at work, which meant basically reinventing everything I'd been doing to come back to the same place, and 2020 has been a full on freight train of suck.
Not that everything's been bad. I finished the bulk of a novel, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE MACHINERY OF THE APOCALYPSE, back in April, and I'm halfway through Dakota Frost #7, SPIRAL NEEDLE. We finished our patio here ...
... and started a grand new vegan cooking adventure together ...
And we even found and bought a new house, a very nice new place (it has turkeys) ...
... with a great space for my library and my wife's art studio, which we're in the middle of a slow motion move to while we renovate the old pad. These have been bright lights in an otherwise bad year. By you know how it's been: so stressful that - well, you've seen how much I've been blogging. I feel like this should be the best time ever in my life, yet 2020 has left me feeling a lot like this:
But, we have traditions which can help us through, like Thanksgiving ... oh, dangit Covid! So, ANYWAY, other traditions that do not involve Covid or Zoom, Nano traditions: the stats, and the excerpt. What did this month look like, Nano-wise?
This wasn't the hardest Nano I've handled ... I think the worst was being over 21,000 words behind in 2016 for PHANTOM SILVER, though briefly LIQUID FIRE in 2009 got almost that bad. Nor was it record-breakingly productive, like the astounding 25,000 words ahead finish on BOT NET 2017. This was a middle-of-the-road Nano, helped by really pouring on 12,000 words last weekend:
That was on purpose, so I could coast into Thanksgiving having finished, and spend a very nice dinner with my wife. (We had vegan muffulletas with
authentic olive salad filling shipped direct from Central Grocery in New Orleans, which I highly, highly, highly recommend). That left November's work on SPIRAL NEEDLE comfortably in the middle of my previous efforts:a
And so, now, an excerpt ...
Too late, I realized the thickening arms of the octopus mist echoed the ghostly glow of the streetlights. “Teleporter! We’ve got to find a weakness!” I cried, flicking and snapping my wrist to loose a crossbow bolt, a feather from my origami peacock—an analysis spell.
The feather flitted out, replicating itself in the flood of magic, its unfolding structure revealing an intricate, oh so intricate pattern embedded in the misty galaxy. Unfortunately, Nyissa, far older and faster than me, had fired her own analysis glyph.
Our spells collided in a flash of sparks and feathers.
“Damnit,” I cried, flinching. “Only one of us needed to do that—”
“Sorry, was reacting to your idea, not your action,” Nyissa said. “I—”
A long black shaft lanced out—and with a terrific report, blasted Nyissa in the face.
Nyissa flew back. Her mask shattered. It would have been so romantic to scream her name and lunge my hand toward her—but both of us had been in fights so many times before, and I instinctively swung the Waystaff up, its spine catching bayonet and flipping the long gun upwards. The hooked beak hissed, striped cloak flapping, and I saw the thing whole.
Towering. Raptor-beaked. Cloaked in tattered striped cloth, draped over a flaring dark greatcoat. Black leather straps bound a tortuously lean torso seemingly rippled with twitching muscle. But the clawed arms fighting mine held what looked like a musket, the striped cloak looked like the ruins of a flag, and atop the thing’s plague doctor mask was a tricorn hat.
“What are you?” I yelled, shoving against the musket with the Waystaff.
The thing screamed at me, foul smoke erupting from its beak, and I flinched and gagged. It wailed at me with its musket, alternately clubbing aside the Waystaff and jabbing at me with the bayonet, as sparking smoke roiled into what I assumed was the musket’s flintlock—it was preparing to fire! I leapt backward, spinning through a knight’s move version of the Dance of Five and Two, hastily pulling together a spell: “Spirit of flame, act as my shield!”
The plague knight screeched and dropped a grimy black ball into its musket—just as my Dragon tattoo uncoiled from my skin and looped around me in a helix of Technicolor scales and feathers. The plague knight fired with a clap of thunder—met by a gout of flame.
Wow! Excitement! Adventure! Tattoo magic versus magical monsters! And while we didn't get to see that much of the costumes in this excerpt, we've got cute vampires wearing sexy clothes fighting alongside our heroine in her long black vest / trenchcoat. What's not to like?
That is all for now. Until next time, please enjoy this picture of a cat.
-the Centaur
Wow, um, pandemics. SO, short story, I've been having a rough one, which is why you haven't seen me on this blog. Perhaps the story of my suffering is a story for another time, because I just found this Camp Nano post back from APRIL which was never published because, wow, um pandemics. Congratulations to you, zombie apocalypse, for throwing me off my game! Yay for you, Miss Rita, I guess?
SO ANYWAY, what I'd like to announce, what I planned to announce at the end of April but forgot to post, and now what I have to doubly announce at the end of July, is that I have completed the Camp Nanowrimo challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of April!
And, um, then, I did it again in July.
For those who don't know (how long have you been reading this blog?) 
What was I working on?
This April, I mostly finished 
Well, Gabby had his stitches out and his collar off for all of twelve hours before we were back in the emergency room. He was cleared for activity, but then re-opened the wound.
The lesson: I should have said something. I knew we were taking the stitches out and returning him to activity too soon; they doctor gave us a window of 10-14 days, but the technician scheduled us for a 10-day return. That day, I was a bit iffy about the stitches, but they went ahead and removed them. I clarified: is he ready for activity? Can he go out? They said yes.
Well, they were wrong, and I should have said something at the day of the original appointment scheduling, at least putting it off until Monday. Failing that, I should have said something before the stitches came out. Failing that, I should have used my own discretion and left the collar on for a few more days.
Failing that, I failed my cat.
The late-night emergency doc didn't think the cut had reopened the underlying wound and that it didn't warrant stitches ... but it looks worse today. I kept him inside overnight and today; let's see how he's doing and whether I should exercise my discretion and take him back in.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Cancer cat, abscess cat, aka Lenora and Gabby. 
A predator has landed on me. Send ... heeellllp ...
-the Centaur 
One of our cats 
In theory, mast cell tumors of the skin don't kill cats, at least not directly. They can lead to lesions that can't heal and further infections, but its MCT of the spleen or gastrointestinal tract that are really dangerous.
For Lenora, our precious little wimp cat, this cancer is aggressive enough that we may need to take proactive steps. She's gone from one lump to 10 to 30 to 40 to 50 to 70, with a brief dip back to 40 after her surgery to remove her spleen ... but now the MCT has exploded, going from 80 to 100 to probably hundreds at this point, many of them showing lesions and scabs.
The first two combinations of cancer treatments failed; this one does not seem to be having an effect. Lenora is still active, but she no longer wants to spend time indoors, instead choosing to find high spots on the exterior podium or the fence. I think she thinks fleas are eating her alive.
I fear she's on her way out. I'd love to say "I know" but everything I've learned over the years tells me (a) you don't really know and (b) foreclosing an opportunity in your mind is a precursor to getting it foreclosed in real life. We sometimes like to think that we're tough minded people making hard decisions in the face of difficult circumstances, but if you're that guy or gal, I have bad news for you: you're selling yourself a line of bullshit.
Far too often we get tired of dealing with something and choose to perceive it as hopeless, then take all the bad decisions we need to in order to make the bad outcome we've decided upon happen, then telling ourselves "there's nothing else we could have done." This is particularly common with cars: cars rarely die until we decide to kill them by not maintaining them. It's even more common with politics: the other guy's plan rarely fails on its own until we take steps to sabotage it, just so we can then say "we told you so."
With your health, or the health of a loved one, what does this translate into? Never give up. Stephen Hawking lasted something like five decades after his doctors told him he'd likely be dead, and he didn't last that long by crawling into a bed and not fighting every step of the way. Sometimes heroic measures are not called for, but just giving up hope will make things far worse far faster.
So we're here for you, Lenora, even if you're on your way out.
Have a scritchy behind the ear. Yes. There you go.
-the Centaur 
SO RECENTLY I had a very vivid dream in which my veterinarian said to me "There are some cats you save … and some you make comfortable." I think the context behind that dream is worth a little unpacking, don't you?
Loki the Loquacious is a cat that we saved. I came home one day to find him yowling and lethargic, sensitive to the touch yet unwilling to move, with a bloated feeling to the touch, and after a brief search online we rushed him to the nearby animal hospital who quickly diagnosed him with a urinary tract blockage, put him on a catheter, and 
Now, he hates the urinary tract pet food we feed him and the occasional water droppers when he’s not drinking, but unless this outdoor cat gets too adventurous, he’s probably got a long life ahead of him.
Caesar the Conqueror is a cat that we made comfortable. He’d been made frail by a long battle with a thyroid condition when he decided to start peeing inappropriately indoors, so we had to make him an outdoors cat; but we were able to set up a relatively nice outdoor area for him. But then some nasal obstruction began interfering with his breathing, and he ultimately wheezed himself to death.
We kept him comfortable, of course, until he took a rapid turn downhill, and then we had him 
She’s a healthy-looking, happy-looking, active cat, and even though she from time to time got pencil-eraser sized moles, and once even a larger lump on a back leg, they were always benign … until a month ago. Then a new mole appeared, and another, and another, until she had dozens of the tiny, not-itchy, not-bleeding, not-discolored bumps all over her body. We took her to the doctor, who found two more walnut-sized lumps in her abdomen; biopsies revealed these to be mast cell tumors (MCT or mastocytoma).
Our doctor’s recommended regimen - a cortisone shot, followed by predisone and possibly other medications - tracks with what I’ve been able to research. Cortisone and similar drugs are recommended, and sometimes even can cure it, especially if it’s on the skin; but prognosis for lumps in the internals are more guarded - and she’s gotten another lump since the biopsy.
So now we’re researching, weighing the options of continuing treatment vs seeing an oncologist now (our vet is of the opinion that we’d have to wait a few weeks for an oncologist to get good readings on bloodwork because of the cortisone shot, but if I was an oncologist I’d want to see that third lump right now). Cats with this condition can last three years with surgery, a year with palliative care … or can die within weeks if it’s serious.
We don’t yet know if Lenora’s a cat we must make comfortable … or that we can save.
Here’s hoping.
-The Centaur