Vertigo. This week, my husband was diagnosed with it. It involves bad headaches, lots of nausea, exhaustion, and lots of pills. Also, lots of time in bed, IF you choose to follow doctor's orders. Mainly, he has. He stumbled in the door on Thursday, at midday, shocking Biscuit (faithful Bichon co-editor) and I. First of all by showing up, secondly, by showing up looking like he should have headed for the hospital instead of home. Turns out his hearing aids are to blame! They create some kind of airlock, which traps fluid, and starts messing with your prefrontal cortex, and the balancing stone in his inner ear was sending conflicting messages versus those from the prefrontal cortex, and this caused his eyes to "vibrate," reacting to all of those mixed messages. Thus, the nausea, the headache, the disequilibrium, and the pain. I'm writing on Sunday. He is somewhat better now. Very drained. A touch cantankerous (but who wouldn't be?). But that's irrelevant. The man literally saved my life two decades ago, and there is really nothing I wouldn't do for him. Or put up with, LOL.
Vertigo is also an apt description for my first attempt at NaNoWriMo. It is a wonderful thing. Let's call it positive vertigo. But still. I have found there are times in life during which I must redefine "progress." This is one of them. I accept that joining was progress for this year. Not forever, just this time around. The positive part is that I learned SO MUCH, there is no way not to call that progress, for those who seek shall find, and those who quest, shall conquer! I have great respect for this organization, its founders, its members, those of you slavishly writing away, as we speak! And the Writer's Resources and Forums are unparalleled, IMHO. Yes, I made progress by becoming affiliated, by summoning the courage to enroll, reading about the Youth program and sharing that knowledge with the graduate students it is my honor and privilege to work with. I PRAY one of them takes it on! And maybe next November, I can take Tara Maya's advice (see my sidebar for link to her blog), and write the novel that only I can write. The link you see above will take you to Tara Maya's Kindle store. Do yourself a favor and CLICK IT!
Vertigo is also an apt description for how I felt after reading C. J. West's The End of Marking Time. This link takes you to C. J. West's Amazon page. Do yourself another favor. CLICK IT~! But my review is not there yet, which saddens me. That situation will be corrected, very shortly, as I have finally declared today a WRITING day. But you'll find the book has 5 stars and deserves them all. Go ahead and read it. I dare you! And if you like that, follow it up with Andreas Eschbach's The Carpet Makers. I DOUBLE dare you to read that one. Takes us back to Vertigo in a major way. As you can see, he is nearly as prolific a writer as our friend J.A. Konrath, for a man who changed careers midlife and became a writer only 15 years ago. Don't think he is a Kindler like many of us, but he's worth the investment, or at least a trip to the library. And Joe, I still have Shaken ready and waitin'! Please don't think I forgot. I'm in the same boat with you that I am in with Tara and Conmergence. But I do have a good reason, and that has to do with my cousin, and author, Tom Poland. You know what they say, family first! Tom is behind (only a tad) on a deadline, and he writes a weekly column in our beloved Lincoln Journal as well as teaches journalism courses. So some of us in the family have volunteered our services to co-write a little with Tom until he catches up. So, as you can see, my own head is spinning, in a glorious way, but then there is that real case of vertigo, sitting next to me, watching a movie. I will close with this, a link to an intriguing discussion about what Amazon and Netflix have in common. It's from the Motley Fool. Enjoy, and please, comment!
