Dear Diary

A 3831-post collection

Urgh...

So we finally edited Adapting, yesterday. And it was a slog. One of my dear Betas did not like the way I introduced all the concepts in the first chapter. I'm halfway compelled to start every single one of the first five Amalgam books in the exact same way.

I mean, sir Pterry started all of his earliest books by yatting on about A'Tuin for about three pages and nobody complained. It's setting the scene. It's a small amount of showing exactly where things take place.

A sort of text version of the slow zoom-in, as it were. Not everyone knows as much about my pet universe as the people who have to beta-read it for me. [And by the way, thanks for spotting an erroneous name of one of the characters in Adapting. That was awesome]

I really need to get back to editing facts into my Wiki. That way, I'll have a single place to look this crap up. If anyone wants to help me edit the damn thing together, go for it. I'll keep an eye out for notifications and authorise anyone who looks genuine.

Mayhem is home crook with a virus. So I have plans to cook up a nice soup with some extra ginger to help cure what ails him. In the meantime, he's sleeping off the infection. After I'm done here, I'll drag him off for some shopping and a doctor's visit. I have plenty of work to do, even without a novel to write.

I have to read through Beauties and edit what I can spot. Then I can pass it out and wait for my Betas to tell me exactly how badly it sucks. I also have a few other stories I'm working on for my own giggles.

No word from A2B just yet. They have until Wednesday before I get alarmed. And I'll send a polite inquiry come the following Monday. Assuming I don't get rejected before then.

I really hope Mayhem's bug is a 24-hour thing. I'll keep fluids into him and otherwise make sure he's looked after.

I also have a parcel to fetch, shopping to get, and dinner to arrange. Which may include side-trips to fanfic town.

Statistics Sunday, exercise, and other impediments

We're still not exercising regularly. Alas, alack. It's just not going to happen, what with Beloved going to work at Sparrow Fart in the morning. Morning was our best window for working out. And when Beloved comes home, tired from all the nonse they had to do during the day, they're hard pressed to have a conversation.

But we're both making sure we at least walk every day. I remember the old tricks I used when I was suffering under the high-carb

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Happy anniversary, babe

It's almost been twenty years of togetherness for Beloved and I. Twenty years of them putting up with my crap. Plus all the time we had as mere cuddle-buddies, which doesn't count apparently. Otherwise, it'd be twenty-two.

We have plans to go see Logan in a Gold Class cinema, which means I pretty much have to hurry up and do this thing as fast as I can.

No sign of rejection from A2B.

Chaos is officially critter-free, and I owe the school

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F-O-C-U-S

Today's my last day for writing Beauties and the Beastly so of course I'm procrastinating harder than ever. With all good luck, Beloved and I will be editing Adapting and then I'll be sending out Beauties to my lovely beta readers.

All of whom, I sincerely hope, will get back to me promptly about the contents of said novel. Instead of taking most of this novel's writing to do so.

Yes, I am still salty about that.

When I am of a

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Finding that new swing

Okay. So I no longer really have free time in the mornings. I have my alarm set at 5AM so that I have time to bathe before Beloved racks off to work. Then it's pretty much pure chasing my little darlings until it's time to go to school. And each little darling has a different delivery time.

Mornings after dropping off Mayhem are the best time to go shopping for fresh veggie matter so I can have dinner be all delicious and

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Small Progress

It's the first of March, and that means that I have seven more days to live through whilst simultaneously fearing acceptance and rejection. Acceptance means I get money, but I also have the possibility of going on book tours and talking at conventions and meeting fans.

And I have social anxiety.

If I am rejected... well, I have to go through all this AGAIN, and with a different Agent-to-be. Or, as I've been starting to shorten it, A2B. Which means another three

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Average, ordinary, everyday... disorder

So here's how things are going for me...

  • Shitty time getting to sleep, because:
  • Anxiety over the book being accepted
  • Anxiety over the animation/animatic I'm planning
  • Anxiety over whether or not the finished thing will get me hated and exiled over the fandom because someone thinks I want to make money about the thing
  • I have a tablet glove on the way and NOT being tracked by the Australian postal system
  • I have a neat fan-comic on the way that has
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...uuuuuuurrrrrgh...

Bad things I did, yesterday:

  • Talk up a big game about eating food but not actually make any
  • Consume half a packet of sugarless caramels
  • Stay up 'till eleven because laundry

The results from those bad things:

  • I'm frelling tired
  • I'm feeling a little weak [A bout of artificial sweetener-induced intestinal issues will do that to you]
  • I am not fully functioning

Worry not, dear readers, I did actually get two actual meals in. Breakfast care of the Coffee club, and bunless

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Statistics Sunday

I forgot about gathering my statistics, yesterday. And I'd eaten a rough quarter of a packet of salted macadamias before I remembered.

To quote Homer Simpson: D'oh!

So, with last week as a reference. This week's stats are:

Weight: 77.2
Fat Weight: 29.6
Waist/Height: 0.547
Blood sugar: 2.8
Blood Ketones: 5.8
Breath Ketones: 18.9

The blood sugar and blood ketones are slightly in the danger zone. I forgot to eat, yesterday, and ended up with

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Scary stuff

I'm going to spend some time every weekday learning a little about how to animate. Starting with sourcing the best, cheapest, dummins-proof animation software and learning how do deal with that.

Recommendations are welcome, by the way.

This is as well as spending some time every day doing all my writing projects, the daily doodle, and squeezing in a little good old-fashioned fun.

I'm also pondering going to Lulu to print some hardcopies of some of my eBooks. Legal obligations prevent me

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::Yakety Sax at 10rpm::

There's a party to go to in scenic Coominya tonight. There's cleaners coming today. I have to shop for nice clothes [I've shrunk and the kids have grown] and help clean the house.

Somehow, I have to fit in my Instant, my novel (1000 words on Fridays!) and a doodle to up my leet art skillz sometime this afternoon.

Update: I got an email from the cleaners saying they can't come and clean. FUN.

On the plus side, I have the free

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Smooth mornings!

Hooray, I have life figured out enough that the mornings move like a well-oiled machine. Now, if only I could do the same thing for myself.

Alone, I clog up with fascinating things until a half-hour task takes most of the firkin day. And then I complain about having zero time to fart around and play games.

Sometimes, I am a complete dummins.

But I have learned a few things from some of it. Including a new word that I plan to

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Some terrifying things I learned

Thanks to my friend, RecklessPrudence, I've learned that, though autism is older than we think it is, how autistes were treated hasn't really changed so much.

An autistic child before the true rise of the Industrial age would be called a "Changeling". And, despite the entire "be kind to the fae" mind-set, a Changeling child would be horrendously mistreated until the Fae gave the 'proper' child back.

This included beatings, being held to hot items, and tying them to a chair and

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Exercising again

We went on the first walk for a fortnight, and I was just about wiped out from a walk around the block. I'm gonna regret the sprint session this afternoon.

But at least we have some stew in the slow cooker, so I don't need to fret about food.

Still no rejection letter, just yet. And I have a fluttering underneath my sternum and panic-related asthma. Hooray. Anxiety firkin sucks!

So I took a Seretide this morning to try and live normally,

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Whooopsy

We went to the movies, yesterday. And picked up a whole lot of sugar-free lollies. And made the mistake of eating huge amounts of them.

Commercially-available artificial sweeteners are usually the kind that have the side-effect of loosening your stool.

You can guess that some of us had a very interesting night.

Mayhem is going to have a very interesting day, too, because I just discovered some outright fraud on his behalf. I had told him to fold and sort, and it

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