On Finishing And 146

Finished story 146 tonight and sent it out the door. Wouldn't it be great if the rest of the year rolled on like the last couple of days?

What happened is I thought I'd write a new story for Charles Coleman Finlay's guest issue of F&SF within the two week submission period. But I got off to a bad start this year because of my crazy, dizzy head (which is all better now, thank you), so I figured I wouldn't finish in time and submitted another story.

Yesterday after a couple of false starts at even newer stories, I realized I had literally hundreds of partial stories lying around on my hard drives, and why not finish them up? "Finish what you write" is an old maxim that Neil Gaiman, for one, always offers when asked for writing advice. I made a new wallpaper for my computer that's just a white background with the words, "It's all about finishing stories." Then I remembered a roughly thousand word story that seemed good to me even though I once thought I should add more. I reworked it and that was 145. Today I finished that story that was meant to be for F&SF and that was 146. So there you go. Tomorrow, I'll look for another unfinished story I can finish.

Maybe you've got some unfinished business too. Of course you do.

Now I'm off to record and post a couple of Mangoes!

145

Finished and sent out story 145 tonight. And then I celebrated that by submitting another story.

Harlan's New Glass Teat

Have you subscribed to Harlan Ellison's YouTube channel yet? Why not? He's not only a writer worthy of being one of my literary heroes, he's also lots of fun to watch. The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1XrlRQsRxYfuc47CCJN05w The channel seems to include all the brilliant spots he did for Sci Fi Buzz in the nineties (Harlan Ellison's Watching)! Here's a little taste:

My Head Is Spinning

I woke up dizzy on the 2nd. That's not normal. Checked my blood pressure, it was good. Went light-headed through the day, hoping I wouldn't get dizzy while driving. Whenever something funky is going on in my body, I assume I'm going to die, it's just a question of when. I got home without being dead yet. I lay down that night and my head went nuts. The lights on my digital clock zipped back and forth like Katherine Hepburn's maracas. "That ain't right," I wisely told myself. I asked my daughter to bring me to the ER. They did a CAT scan and EKG. Fortunately, it was just Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, which sounds horrible, but focus on the "Benign" part. If you care, you can read about it here: http://vestibular.org/understanding-vestibular-disorders/types-vestibular-disorders/benign-paroxysmal-positional-vertigo

My doctor had me lie down with my head over the edge of the table or whatever you call that thing I was lying on. She tilted my head back and to the left and I got crazy dizzy. She said she'd never seen such a clear reaction. She called in another doctor and four nurses to watch the show (after she asked my permission). She did the trick again and they all enjoyed my dancing eyeballs. She later went through the whole Epley maneuver with me (referring to the following video, in fact) and the worst of it was over.

 

They gave me meds and sent me on my way. Yesterday I still felt weird and got progressively dizzier as the day went on. I took the day off from work and got the medicine, Antivert, which unfortunately did not make me less dizzy, but made me super tired. I spent about seventeen hours in bed, twelve of those sleeping. I probably won't take anymore unless I'm having trouble sleeping. Today I feel odd in a different way. My head is thick and I don't necessarily feel vertigo, but things aren't exactly locking into place. My moves are slow and deliberate. I'm hoping I'll feel progressively better as the days pass.