Hmm - political quiz

( behind the cut )

It's all gone to pieces, and God alone knows why...

...except that it hasn't, and I too know exactly why.

For yes, this is Tot-Up Tuesday, noon as near as; and the numbers are horrible this week, and yet it hasn't really been a bad week workwise, despite all the social stuff and then the antisocial stuff and the Unutterable Gloom and so forth.

So, the numbers: the new book has progressed to

12,919 / 150,000 (8.6%)

or in my preferred page-count metric:

41 / 450 (9.1%)

which gives me only 5,806 words for the week, 17 pages, which would be appalling. Happily, I do know that secretly it's more than that, because much of the previous week's count had to be torn apart and utterly rewritten, so you can probably add another dozen pages, another four thousand words or so to this. And, of course, I have been proofreading for much of the week; and I have also been out almost every evening, and getting upset about stuff that I won't talk about here, and so forth. So it hasn't really been as slow a week as it pretends.

Still, long way to go before I have anything I can usefully show to agents. And I am aweary of proofs already, with a whole lot more to come; and I have to write a story for the Phantoms gigs, in four weeks now. And it's cold, and I'm depressed. Meh.

Whoops, I think I'm broken

I should've been in town two hours ago, maybe three. Proofreading my little socks off. But I didn't go when I should've gone, and I still haven't, and I'm starting to think maybe that I won't. Maybe I'll stay home and write. Maybe I'll stay home and read. An hour back, I sat down to put my boots on, essential prerequisite manoeuvre to the going-out meme - and picked up a book instead. And then Barry jumped into my lap and settled down for a snuggle, and that's still so rare an event, I am inclined actively to encourage the notion of my lap being a good place for snoozing. So I stayed. And the way I feel right now, I might even go back for second helpings, if available. I like reading, and I like making my cat happy. Two out of two ain't bad.

Also, my brain is melting. It's never been good for much, but it has always been a ferociously good speller. These days, I keep having to check words that I have known all my life how to spell. And at least I don't have to look this one up, but all this year, every time I've typed 'stayed' I hesitate, because some fraction of my mind wants to have typed 'staid' instead.

Now I know I'm broken

My agent phoned an hour ago, to say how much he liked the new book. This is a good thing, and ought to make me happy.

And yet, since then I have spilled cooked rice all over the kitchen floor, shouted at Barry, bitten my tongue (not a metaphor: metaphors don't bleed) and generally find myself absolutely at the ragged edge of functionality.

I am going to give up on the day altogether and retreat to the sofa with a bottle or two of wine, and no ambition beyond making a better fist of tomorrow.