A question!

Because I know you enjoy these things. These glimpses of doubt and moments of legitimate enquiry.

Consider grace: that quality, that attribute. I'm trying not to be fancy or theological here; divine grace is a wholly different issue (I hope). But can I reasonably call grace a virtue?

Oh, all right. Context:

If there was only one thing Grace did well, with a natural confidence and the virtue she was named for, swimming would be that thing. Water became her.

I wrote that, and then hesitated, and did a dictionary-scramble, and cycled through - well, "quality" and "attribute", largely - and came back to virtue, as I do, because that's what I want. But if readers are going to stumble and cry "grace is not a virtue! it's a quality/attribute/gift!" then I should probably avoid it. (Note for the curious: yes, this is absolutely how I read a text, I argue with it all the time. I stopped reading one author altogether because he perpetrated one clumsy double-meaning that I was sure he did not intend.)

Breathe, two, three...

Today was always going to be short, I guess. I slept atrociously last night, on the back of too many nights not sleeping well; and then I had a lunch-date with a friend, and good though we were - she drank not at all, I barely had a pint - I came out of there feeling weary to my bones, promising to head back to the library and heading home instead.

Even then, though: I might have done all right with a decent final session, only that I have spent all the evening wheezing like a leaky bellows. I haven't been this asthmatic in an age. Don't know what's brought it on: some physical trigger, or just general stress & anxiety or what. But anyway, here it is. I am half dead and probably quite lucky not to be the other half.

Anyway. Those are my reasons, and these are my numbers: just 1387 words in the day, which puts us rather shamefacedly here:

 

34326 / 80000 words. 42.9% done!