Wrote my one thousand words (1022 to be exact) by noon. Had lunch, popped RX, took my new toy downtown.

My new toy consists of a keyboard for my Palm. Hurts too much to write, but not to type.

Went to my favorite writing place, Coffee People over on the South Park Blocks, and set up shop. Velvet Hammer, a piece of pumpkin bread, sitting in the window as I watched the peace march across the street. Got in another 700 words! WOOT! Then I wandered around downtown.

Saw a couple of really cool things. At Pioneer Courthouse Square there were about twenty people in a circle. It looked like they were praying, standing with heads bowed, hand in hand. The cool thing for me was the hippy dude in dusty clothes and dreadlocks standing next to the neatly dressed little old lady. Those are what I consider true Christians, not the rabid asswipes in DC.

Which got me thinking about the difference between Muslims and Christians. Basically (though I could be wrong since I'm not learned on either religion extensively) Muslims are similar to the Jewish in that they don't believe Jesus Christ was the savior. (Of course, the Jews don't believe that Mohammad was a true Prophet which is where they avidly disagree.) And Christians firmly believe that Christ existed and was the messiah, sent to save their immortal souls. So, if Christianity is the following of Christ, how the hell do all these right wing extremists get off on killing in his name? I don't recall Jesus ever saying for man to turn the other cheek and be sure to lock and load. Am I missing something?

The next cool thing I saw happened in Pioneer Place, a downtown shopping mall. Couldn't afford anything but I did lots of window shopping for the day I win the lottery. LOL! There was a group of older women, mid to late fifties or so, each wearing combinations of hot pink. They were singing and flashing peace signs to everyone they met. I sent 'em one back and laughed as the security people kept close eye on them. Gods know these little old ladies might do something drastic like throw a bench through one of the shop windows or something.

Anyway, it was wonderful to see people coming together in positive and peaceful protest. (Though Portland's not cosidered 'Little Beirut' by the Shrub clan for nuthin'.)

Hope everybody else's day was just as nice.

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1k in before 11am! Great!

My hands and back are a bit stiff this morning. I think I forgot to take my ibuprofen last night. It happens upon occasion. I remembered to take my RX . . . don't know why I spaced the anti inflammatory when the bottles are sitting there together. As Homer Simpson sez: "D'OH!"

Gotta work today. Yuck. Wonder what my schedule is for next week. Slloooooooowww week at work. My boss took me up on the offer of two days off and two days PTO. Last I saw, he tried to give me Saturday and Sunday off. We'll see if it made the final round of cuts from his boss.

I'm still plugging away.

Imagine Jenna's surprise when the man she's friends with attempts to kill her. "Nothing personal. It's just a job." And the man she's fleeing saves her ass.

Talk about one confused little Sanguire.

You know, I'm glad that world building constitutes this Dare. I'd be about 2k in the hole if it didn't. I'm also getting into the habit of leaving things off at a point where it's easier to slip back into it the next day. When I stop at a transition point, it's much more difficult to get into the story well enough to move the characters from Point A to Point B. (And no, I can't just skip what I don't want to write and write the candy bar scenes. If I do, the not so pleasant transitions will never get written.)

Soon, it will be revealed to Margaurethe that Valmont is perhaps a bit more true to his word than she believed. And an assassin will be stopped before killing Jenna who has yet to reach her full vampiric potential.

Work was pretty solid last night. Almost made eight hours for the first time in weeks. Travel and hospitality industry is screwed, big time, with this economy. I hear tell that it won't be really picking up until May. Usually, we have a lull in conferences and the like through February which picks up in March. Not this year. My last paycheck was for only 18 hours. While it's good to have the time to stay home and stay focused on the story, it's not doing too well for the checkbook.

Next week will be less work than this one. I think I'm going to suggest to my boss that I'll take two days off and two days PTO. That, at least, will give my shift leader a few more hours that he wouldn't have. He's just had a new baby and used up quite a bit of PTO to stay home with his wife (it was a Cesaerian) so he can't afford the vacation time as easily as I can.

Made it through the first week of Forward Motion’s April/May Dare! WOO HOO! Grand total of 7,666 words this week. That's better than the last two months!

I've also reached 2400 of my 8000 goal for world building. I gained the first half by researching my Iditarod story and spent this morning developing several potential storylines with notes. I would have written more on Born of Silence but the time change and screwy schedule caused me to sleep in late. I don't have that much time in the morning to write – if I'm not awake and committed by 10am, I'm screwed. So, I figured I'd do the development, instead. I'll be up to snuff for tomorrow morning's session.

Today's number for the day. It was a bit tougher today. Took me almost two hours to do it. Usually, I don't have to keep looking at the clock. (I have to work today so I have to pay attention to when I need to prep and go.)

Yes, I was rude and interrupted a kiss by a knock on the door. (Shades of Warlord Metal?) I also gave Jenna a brand new set of clothes and am conniving to get her and Margaurethe to a gallery opening that evening. Wish me luck. Keeping these two out of bed ain't easy.

. . . Nico for sending me her muse. Little brat didn't stay too long but I've got an idea for another story. After some development, it can go either way – short story or novel.

I was working in one of the function rooms in the Lobby last night and passed by the shoe shine stand. BAM There it was! This scene took place in me 'ead and wouldn't let go!

A dapper young butch, top o' the world, in 1920's Chicago (or thereabouts, timewise.) She (He?) wanders up to a shoeshine stand where a sweet young thang is working with her father.

I've passed this stand hundreds of times over the years. It had to be Nico's muse! So I spent the rest of the night ruminating on whether or not to do it entirely from the shoeshine's POV as she watches the butch get into a huge mess with the Mob. And what exactly would be the crisis of the piece? What kind of trouble can they get into? Would they fall for each other or would it be unrequited on the shoeshine's part? Ah, questions, questions.

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..will I read the NY Times online. For some reason it crashes my browser. Anyway, once I've sent a talkback to Mozilla, my browser will refuse to start. I have to dump it and re-setup the thing all over again. And then it still won't work until I shut everything down. And I'm too lazy to shut everything down. LOL!

So, now I'm using IE (blech) because it's better than Safari, in my opinion. But my up to date bookmarks are on Chimera Navigator so I can't go to the sites I normally would.

On a lark, I did the ol' self search on Google. Actually, I searched for my latest book, Warlord Metal. Just to see what was out there. And here's what I found!

http://www.libertas.co.uk/acatalog/Catalogue_Warlord_Metal_by_D_Jordan_Redhawk_761.html

That's a BRITISH bookstore! I'm overseas now! W00T!!

(Yeah, I knew my publisher was working on an overseas distributor, but that's the last I heard. I hear tell they were also working to get an Australian one.)

1087 today. (But then, I'm an over achiever, right? LOL!)

Of course, the two MCs are running through the major gamut of emotions. In one scene they've gone from suspicion to accusations to hysteria and now they're this close (holds finger and thumb an eighth of an inch apart) to kissing. Thank gods it's happening in a hotel. Room service is about to interrupt.

I know. I'm mean. If my characters had something to tell me it would be to demand I stop furkin' around with their libidos.

Off to shower, have my wife call the doctor regarding this lumpy elbow of mine and prepare for work.

. . . and still on track. 1139 total today and now I'm prepping for work.

Something really icky I found today. Happened to be rubbing my elbow (which is, of course, sore from RA) and felt something weird. When I looked at it, it looks like Popeye’s. You know, very very pointy. There’s a lump there, just under the skin on one side. Pretty good sized one, too. Don’t know if it’s part of the RA or something else. It’s probably just a cyst…feels rather squishy and moves about a bit. Eeeww. Not hard like the joints of my fingers and not liquid like the fluid on my knees.

sigh

I have an appointment with Dr. D on the fourteenth. I'll point it out to her.

I've noticed since starting hydroxychloroquine that my joints are popping more often than usual. My other elbow and my knees seem to wanna crackle and pop quite a bit these days. Wonder if whatever this drug is might finally be taking effect. It's been three weeks. I've noticed I'm not in so much pain anymore and my right knee holds up better – but then it's been so slow at work, I haven't been wearing myself out, either. Could be either of them causing this.

Anna tried to do my taxes yesterday and it was a no go. I sold off my stock purchases from work last year and now the IRS wants specific dates of when I bought the stock and how much it cost at the time. Unfortunately, I can't remember what year I was enrolled. Now I've got to dig in our file box and see if I can locate the paperwork.

Of course, I didn't know this until this morning, and now I'm off to work. No time through Friday to do the search if I'm going to keep up on the FM Dare. It'll just have to wait until my next days off. Or maybe it'll be slow at work like last week and I'll be home fairly early in the evenings to do so.

Lunch eaten. Pop a pill and head to work.

...and I'm only at 1004. Don't get me wrong! I had that before noon. Then I slacked the rest of the day away running errands (I have to walk the mile or so and back to the store to keep the joints limber) and watching Law & Order.

S'okay. I'll get another grand tomorrow, no problema.

Today's the day. Forward Motion's April / May Word Count Dare. I've got 61 days to write 61,000 words.

After tallying up March, I've discovered that (even with my seven days of not writing a solitary thing) my word count has been increasing. I started keeping count on January 9th and each month, I've totaled just a smidge more than the last. This Dare will definitely kick me higher – probably about a third more than I've made so far.

Additionally, I've joined a couple of other Dares since they'll all fall under the 61k anyway. I've joined the Novel, New Material Dare which completes at 8 chapters for a minimum of 8k words. Also, the World Building Dare to the tune of 8k words. The more I write on the Sanguire, the more I realize I need an encyclopedia for them. I've got quite a bit handwritten which I'll transfer to the Mac but I'm nowhere near done. (And the transfer doesn't count for the Dare, either, since it was written before today.)

It all depends on how much more I have on Born of Silence, I guess. If I don't have a full 8 chapters, I'll have to start my Iditarod tale sooner than expected. And, since my last handheld PC ate all the notes for it, I could make the World Building word count with recreating all the necessary data for a family of kennel owners and the reporter who shows up to be trained for the big race in March.

We'll see how it goes.

And, Jean? You're welcome. Go ahead and keep emailing! It's no bother! That's what friends are for, ya know?! LOL!