31,590 and done for the night. I’m headed to bed.

My ears are still stopped up, despite the new medicine I bought at CVS. We’ll see how it works–it’s supposed to be 12 hours, and that would mean I wouldn’t necessarily have to get up in the middle of the night. So we’ll see.

I really don’t want to attempt to sleep sitting up again. It wasn’t fun last night, and I doubt it would be fun tonight, either. Argh!

I have a helper today. She was sleeping on the back of my chair (supported by the cushion and my back) but then she decided to supervise my writing efforts for the morning.

Her ears look so much better now, and obviously she’s willing to let bygones be bygones and not hate me forever.

Current wordcount: 28,215.

As I was writing, Chloe came to visit too, and she decided to start playing with her current Interesting Toy, the treadle part of my treadle sewing machine. She makes the wheel go around and since it squeaks a little, I can always tell when she’s in the office playing.

She is very silly.

Last night, someone stole one of my miniature African Violets. I hope they are not considered poisonous to cats, because while the pot is still there, the plant is gone. No one is acting weird, though. And it might yet turn up. (They don’t usually eat them, so I’m assuming there was a bug or something on the windowsill that someone desperately needed to eat.)

(A quick Google search turns up the fact that African Violets are not considered poisonous. Good. I didn’t think so. I do remember reading somethign about that a while back.)

And this cold/sinus thing–oh, it’s so irritating. My ears are all stopped up. The pressure was even painful enough to keep me awake from about 2am onward, but I must have dozed off for a little while there (sitting up, even) because I had a dream that Bekah came into my room and I had to explain to her that I couldn’t hear.

In fact, I can hear, but it feels like I shouldn’t be able to, if that makes sense. My ears desperately need to pop. Perhaps when I take a shower later, the steam will help. Ugh! So not fun.

If nothing has improved by tomorrow and I don’t get a good night’s sleep, I’m calling in sick. I haven’t done that for quite a few months now, and I really want to get rid of this stupid cold/sinus whatever so I can get back to normal.

Luckily, my arm seems to be 95% healed (it twinges every once in a while, but only if I twist it wrong or something) so at least I don’t have to deal with being both temporarily deaf and crippled. Thank goodness!

Current wordcount is 27,108. I finally finished that chapter, which was rather long, but useful, I think. Now, I’m writing in Althea’s POV. She is rather merciless.

I think she’s going to stumble upon something that she shouldn’t really know in a moment here. A scene is unfolding a bit in my mind. I don’t think she’s going to understand what she saw, initially.

I’m going to see Nanny McPhee tonight. I’ve been wanting to see it; it looked good in the previews, and Midway in Bethel finally got something I wanted to see after the King Kong fiasco. (They advertised that they were getting King Kong and never got it. They’ve had not-so-good movies ever since.) I should probably say that we’re going to see Nanny McPhee. Hopefully Ethan won’t get any bright ideas from the kids’ antics.

My half-a-cold seemed worse this morning, but it’s definitely better this afternoon, despite the fact that I’m really tired at the moment. The tiredness most likely has to do with the fact that I’ve been sitting on the computer pretty much since noon, although I haven’t been writing that whole time. I did take some time to reread what I have so far, to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything out. (as far as I could tell.)

I ate the last bit of apple crisp for breakfast. It was very yummy.

There are a lot more crocuses now. I noticed them today while shaking out the tablecloth off the front porch, but I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures. Maybe tomorrow!

Mom invited the visiting priest at church to my house for dinner tonight. I knew about it Monday, so I could have spent the week cleaning, but there really wasn’t all that much to do. We got everything done by 3pm, and now the downstairs is nice and neat. Upstairs isn’t bad either, at least my half. I do still have clothes to put away, though.

It wouldn’t have taken so long to clean if I hadn’t done some things that I’ve been meaning to do, like clean the stove burner insert thingys and wash all the washable rugs. So it wasn’t like I spent five hours just making the house presentable.

I made Chicken Parmesan and apple crisp for dessert. Everything tasted good–I doctored up my normal Chicken Parmesan recipe with some ricotta cheese and cottage cheese–and we have lots of leftovers. (Not so much of the apple crisp–I’ll eat that for breakfast tomorrow.) Ethan, of course, stole the evening by singing songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas (his new favorite movie) and trying to lick whipped cream off a napkin, among other things.

Luckily, our guest wasn’t afraid of snakes, since that’s where Vincent is. But the cats (Chloe!) kept trying to get in the dining room, so that was a bit irritating.

Mabel was Very Good. I may have more than one person over yet. She was very excited initially, but she calmed down quickly and didn’t try to jump. So in my mind, she was pretty much perfect!

It was a nice evening, and now the house is all cleaned up, so I can spend tomorrow and Monday working on Heart’s Desire without a single shred of guilt. Yay!

Surprisingly enough, I did manage to get some writing done in between cooking and washing dishes, etc., today. I don’t have a current wordcount at the moment, but I’m just about finished editing the chapter I pasted earlier in the week.

I think Althea’s chapter will be next.

(And I have a sinus cold. Only, instead of my nose running all the time, it’s running down the back of my throat, which is just irritating, and it’s also irritating my throat quite a bit. And my ears are stopped up, so it’s like I’m walking around in a fog all the time. Bekah and I have the same cold. We spent today walking around going “Huh?” because neither of us could hear each other. I will probably find that amusing when this stupid cold goes away. Argh!)

Check this out!

Best Sellers in Fantasy

1. Moon Called by Patricia Briggs [Fantasy]
2. Cold Spell by Elisabeth Waters [Fantasy]
3. Midsummer Folly by Elisabeth Waters [Fantasy]
4. Salt and Sorcery by Elisabeth Waters & Michael Spence [Fantasy]
5. The Eighth Room [Jacob Lane Series Book 3] by Jennifer St. Clair [Fantasy/Young Adult]

Whoohooo! I believe this is the closest a Jacob Lane book has gotten to #1. Not too shabby at all!

And Nine Lives and Three Wishes is sitting pretty at #6 in the YA Bestseller list, which is a good thing as well! Wow. What is it with February and bestselling books for me?

EDIT: And The Dead Who Do Not Sleep is #4 in the Dark Fantasy Bestseller list! Wow!

I find it quite interesting that this version of HD is now 112 pages long.

The version of HD I’m using chapters from is 135 pages long, and I’m on page 55 of that version at the moment.

So it looks like I’m working on a storyline that is twice as long as the previous version (if that makes sense; I’m tired.) Which is a good thing, because one of my concerns was that the other versions were moving far too quickly.

I just jumped from 22,890 words to 25, 696 (and 125 pages) when I just added an old chapter. That sounds better than it actually is, since this chapter needs some editing to work it into the current storyline. But I don’t think I will be much less than 25k after editing.

And I think Althea will get a chapter here soon. I might even write Althea’s chapter next, and use this old chapter as Chapter 8 instead of 7. We’ll see. At the moment, though, I have to hotsync, and then go to bed.

And a snippet, poor Kyren:

“You could truthspell me and find that I have not been assimilated by the person you are so afraid of,” Amalea said, quite seriously. “And I give you leave to do so, if you are that far gone.”

“And if I do, and you are bluffing–” Kyren couldn’t help himself now. It was almost as if her words had loosened some dam inside of his mind. Perhaps that had been her intention. “Cousin, you say you’ve not been–assimilated. But I have. Oh, I have.”

“Then tell me,” Amalea urged, her gaze intense. “Tell me. Please, Kyren. I fear for your life as well as your sanity.”

It was little enough that she cared. Kyren’s throat was so dry that he had to swallow twice to speak. “Perhaps–Perhaps I should show you, then, Cousin. I do not spend all of my time in my rooms.”

“Show me?” For the first time, Amalea looked uncertain. “Show me what?”

“I do not think she will dare attack you,” Kyren said as if he had not heard her question. “You are too close to the throne and she has not achieved her goal, just yet.”

“Who is this you speak of?” Amalea asked with little hope of being answered.

“This may mean my death,” Kyren said, standing. He did not dare look at her. “But at least I can die with a clean conscience.” When he turned away, Amalea caught his hand.

“Kyren, please.” She gasped a little at his touch. “You’re freezing cold!”

He shook her off and took a few steps, but not before he realized something wasn’t quite right. He swayed, alarmed now, struggling to push past an almost overwhelming urge to succumb to the darkness that now swirled at the edges of his vision.

“When was the last time you ate a meal?” Amalea asked, her voice calm, but the expression on her face worried.

Kyren tried to answer her, but he couldn’t find enough strength to speak. It wasn’t a spell, this numbness, just simple exhaustion. The effect of living in terror for far too long.

She slid a chair under him as he collapsed. “This has gone on long enough! Kyren, what is wrong with you?”

“I’m lost,” he whispered, and gave himself up to darkness.

I really don’t intend Kyren to be a sissy, but boy is he asking for it. Pitiful!

I do wonder, though, why Kyren is one of my favorite POV characters.

Of course, the above snippet is copyright 2006 Jennifer St. Clair.

Misty went to the vet on Tuesday for a pre-spay checkup and so they could check out her ears. It turns out that she has a yeast infection in her ears, which means eardrops! Twice a day, even.

This morning went ok, but this evening she sprayed my face with the stuff and zoomed out of the room as if the very Hounds of Hell were after her.

Luckily, I don’t think any got into my eyes. Thank goodness for glasses!

Poor kid! I have to do this for two weeks.

And then she gets spayed on Mar. 13. She’s just not going to have a good month, I think.

And this current version of HD (HD 2-06 is the name of my file) is now 22k. Onward!

I should have probably known that wanting to achieve novel (which is 40k) by the end of the evening wouldn’t happen. However, I did manage to both write and mesh up to 20,210 words, which is a great accomplishment for the weekend. (That is the 7k+ prologue, two new chapters and three old chapters. So not shabby at all!)

So far so good. I will continue working tomorrow. When I’m on a roll, it usually is best just to let myself write it out. One week of not getting much housework done won’t kill me, after all.

And I did do the dishes tonight. I also made a huge pot of chili, which tasted pretty good, even if it needed another hour or so to simmer down.

I did not, however, get any laundry done. But I could actually survive until next weekend if needed. We’ll see.

Misty goes to the vet tomorrow morning for a pre-spay checkup. They’re going to look at her ears, too, since she’d still having trouble with them.

The Eighth Room is currently #18 on the Fantasy Bestseller list at Fictionwise. Not bad!

Nine Lives and Three Wishes is currently #25 on the Young Adult bestseller list at Fictionwise. Not bad either!

And I don’t think I mentioned that The Dead Who Does Not Sleep has been released. It’s now at Fictionwise as well. This was my three-day novella. (It’s really too short to be called a novel.) It was fun to write. There’s a sequel in my head, but I don’t have it on my list for this year. But we’ll see.