I have wasted so much time waiting. Waiting for people. Waiting for doctors. Waiting for medical procedures.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Usually I read books or listen to podcasts, or I used to write while waiting. This is the kind of of waiting where you could be interrupted at any time, so your mind is half-expecting to be interrupted. So you can’t “get into” anything. I’m so sick and tired of waiting. Waiting for the muse. Waiting for certain people to do things with or for me.

If there’s such a thing as “active waiting”, that is, doing the things I really want to do while waiting until people get their act together. I will carry the book with me everywhere I go (at least in my phone) and read while I wait. No more staring out into space, waiting. Planning my next novel. Planning my next read. Rehashing what’s in my cards for the day. Yep, no more pointless waiting on people or things.

Been a while. I don’t know if it’s because I’m busy or preoccupied.

My OCD has reared its ugly head again. Instead of a movie playing in my head, I have a constant soundtrack. It wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t so loud and distracting. I mean, who doesn’t want their playlist in their head? It’s also not the whole song, but sometimes the first verse and chorus, sometimes just the chorus, sometimes a line that plays over and over. The only thing that alleviates it is listening to music I already know well, reading, or talking. Work is mindless and it’s really loud then. Whenever I’m alone, it’s overwhelming.

The Shrink says that I’m under stress. What stress? Work, money, dialysis, lose weight, watch my diet and fluids, Covid, kid has no job…Stress? Where?

The Shrink also said is I should get back into writing (who’da thunk). Start small. Scenes here and there. Don’t write for publication, but for my own enjoyment. If a story comes out of it, all the better, but don’t aim for it because even that causes me stress. Just write. It doesn’t have to have a point or be something profound. I don’t need a story to write. I just need characters and a set. Sometimes a story unfolds itself, sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes it ends up as a part of a story, sometimes it ends up in my “CRAP” box.

I need to go back to when I was a kid and just sat and wrote. The story would show up on its own. I wrote to stop the boredom. To get out of my life. I wrote Mary Sues, fan fiction for The Dukes of Hazzard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and fan fiction for historical events. The American Civil War was a big one. Looking back, I can see that my OCD existed even in my teenage years, because I collected everything I could find on the Civil War, the Confederate side. Because I’m a Northerner, finding Confederate stuff in the early ’80’s was difficult if not impossible because of the lack of something called The Internet–you kids don’t know how good you got it. It was also then that I wouldn’t tell people my interests. What does a girl whose family is immigrants want with a biography of General Mosby? You’re nuts, kid.

So it’s back to the old days. I saw The Umbrella Academy, both seasons. I’m not into any of the characters, but I liked the world, the music, and the action sequences. The characters were so dysfunctional that I wanted to slap them. But good story.

I started watching Supernatural. There’s a whole fan-fiction base with that, I’m sure.

Seems the body is going right downhill. My newest complaint (or symptom) is my left hand, the arm with the dialysis graft, is numb and has no strength. Now, I usually mouse with my left hand, but it’s getting so I can’t grip the mouse anymore. At bedtime, it’s the worst. I wear a brace at night. It keeps me from waking up in the middle of the night in agony because of the numbness, but it still hurts in the morning. Dialysis thinks it’s a pinched nerve, so I’m going to an orthopedic doc on Tuesday to see if they can send me for some tests.

Typing is a bugger, really. Even with an ergonomic keyboard. I can’t write, I can’t game, and I can’t sleep. The only thing I can do is read.

You can take a look (or be friends with me) on Goodreads under
https://www.goodreads.com/warwriter1939

I’ve sold stuff on ebay (warwriter1939) and made a good amount. I have one and a half shelves left and six months on my PO Box. (If you want to send me anything, it’s L.A. Jacob, PO Box 24, Lincoln, RI 02865.) A person at dialysis wants me to sell her stuff. Mostly clothes, but I told her that clothes, unless they’re brand names, don’t sell. We’ll see what happens.

Writing the newest story isn’t quite working out. I answered one of the main burning questions in chapter 3 and fell out of interest.

I’ve been concentrating on the game a lot, developing characters there. None have really stuck with me, though. None like Grim had. Well, Bomber V 2.0 is an interesting build and very good solo-able. I changed Grim from a dark/fire sentinel to a a fire/kin controller and that’s a LOT of fun to play. However, I have so many alternate characters (alts) that I can’t seem to stop making. Most of them are not role-playing characters.

I’ve also gone into my old books and decided to sell them. These were books I collected for a novel I wrote, and I really obsessed about them and went overboard. I decided that when I leave the bonds of this Earth, that no one will know what to do with these books. So I’ll make the money for them now. They’re located on eBay under warwriter1939. I think I’ll be selling them for the next couple of months.

Next is the podcast.

Just called my doc, and she told me I was negative for Covid. I can breathe now.

I’m waiting to hear from the Department of Health as to whether or not I have the Coronavirus. I’ve had a cough for about a week now, and dialysis freaked out. They put me on a special shift for the Corona-possible patients.

So they changed my days of treatment to be Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Friday, my artery was clogged.

Because I got tested at the drive-thru on Thursday, and I probably won’t have the results until Monday, when my doctor comes in, dialysis sent me home to await results. However, it’s not good to go without dialysis for more than two days.

So the short part of this story is, I have to go inpatient to get dialysis done in the hospital. To do that, they have to put a temporary access IN MY CHEST for the dialysis. With this whole Coronavirus thing going on, I don’t have the option of going to my usual hospital. I have to go to a smaller, different one that doesn’t know me and doesn’t have my medical records.

This all hinges on the test results, and I heard that it may take as long as “a few days”. If I don’t get the results on Monday, who knows what will happen.

I’ll keep you posted.

I’m just letting you know that everything’s going okay so far. Members of my household, including the cats, are asymptomatic. Dialysis is overcautious with us, because we’re a population that could have issues with Covid-19. I myself have kidney disease, diabetes, and an auto-immune deficiency.

Writing-wise, I’ll be honest, I can’t concentrate. I’ve been gaming a lot, mostly because that’s the only thing I can focus on. That, and work. Everything else, this whole pandemic, seems like somebody writing a bad novel.

I’m not going to get political, although I have plenty of opinions about what’s going on in my country and the world. I’ll keep them private (even to my friends). They’re in a hand-written journal so my opinions won’t bite me in the butt later.

Stay well, everyone. Wash your damn hands.

I finished a book called Generation V that concerns vampires in Providence, RI. (Full disclosure, I wrote Vampire: The Masquerade fan fiction that takes place in Providence. It’s nothing like this book I read–let’s just say, the Giovanni were heavily involved.) Most of the setting was pretty accurate, so I wanted to find out about the author, M.L. Brennan , and, I don’t know, strike up a conversation?

I went to her website.

She disappeared off the face of the Web in 2018.

I’m thinking, what the hell happened to her? Did she die? Decide to move on? Change her name? Her most recent book is 2014, so what happened?

This has made my newest OCD obsession (my soon demise) rear its ugly head and prompted me to start preparing for The End. I have a designated social media person who will update my socials (here, FB, Twitter, Instagram) so that if someone comes to my website after my demise, they’ll know what happened.

Looking at the empty two years of this person’s blog also made me decide to update y’all.

First, Grimaulkin Collected is on Amazon, Smashwords, etc. It’s the three Grimaulkin books available as an ebook only for one low price. Mind you, I can’t sign your Kindle, so you’ll have to come see me and get a real paperback (or hardcover, if you’re so inclined).

Second, my newest WIP. I had planned on getting it done by April, sent to the publisher in June and have it out maybe in September. Well, no such luck. Simply because I’ve been sitting on a scene, trying to think of how to forward the plot a week. Do I go into detail about the main character’s doings of that week? If so, what does he do?

I spun (spinned?) my wheels for three, count ’em, THREE weeks. Finally, this morning, in the shower, I said, “Screw it. Just go to the next plot point.” Now it’s like a dam’s broken and I’m full of what’s going to happen next, then next, then next. All I have to do is write it all down as fast as I can.

It’s unknown whether I’ll get to Rhode island Comicon, mostly because of the Cornoavirus scare and my own health issues. Again, OCD on steroids, so I’m anxious about possibly getting sick. Especially now that I’ve heard that there is a local case. What will happen in November? Who knows?

I decided to do an event, the Cumberland Library Author Expo. It was only from 1-4.

I was rusty. I couldn’t seem to get into telling people about my books. After the third person, though, I fell into the routine. Plus a fan showed up! (But she already had all my books.)

I realized, too, that I was tired after just four hours. How would I be after ten? RI ComiCon is on the docket, and I really want to do that because I think it would be a good sales opportunity for all the books that Paper Angel Press and Water Dragon Publishing have, not just my own.

Mind you, it was after dialysis, so I was probably tired from that. For ComiCon, I would have dialysis on Thursday and Friday, not on Saturday or Sunday. Setting up would be Thursday; Friday night I’m there from 3-9, Saturday 10-9, Sunday 10-3. It sounds grueling, but I’ll have my son with me helping me out. I might ask my friend and pay her some money to come help me, too.

I might also do Autumfest, but not if i have to set up the tent. I’ll be happy to share with someone else.

It helps if I pay my dues to the Association of Rhode Island Authors, though.

So far, for NaNoWriMo, I have 5000 words of garbage. No, really, it’s bad. But that’s okay. I’m not in it to get even a publishable manuscript out of it. I’m in it to be one with the many people who have chosen to enter the hermitage of National Novel Writing Month in November. I’m in it to talk to writers during our write ins at Paper Angel Press. I’ll be there–take a look at my appearance calendar to see what dates and times (Eastern).

I was very productive this morning, having woken up at 3:30. After doing some luxurious lounging (no work or dialysis to get ready for at six), I gathered my tea and went upstairs to visit with Hemingway, my iMac Mini that’s like ten years old. I work on that for strictly writing, so I don’t find myself distracted by my journal, cats (well, sometimes cats), kid, or game.

That’s also where I do my podcasts, and I did a quick six-minute podcast this morning. You can check it out here.

I’ll be doing a podcast every week during NaNoWriMo and trying to write as many words as possible during the write ins. You can come and visit, just follow the above Paper Angel Press link and join in the fun! It’s through Google Hangouts.