My totally wonderful and awesome agent, who is the tiniest object of universal fear in the publishing industry, now has three of my manuscripts in hand. I'm very happy about this--I like knowing that I have three fish swimming in the barrel. A little over a year ago, I would have been thrilled to have ONE. But now, since all three manuscripts are the first stories in series, those manuscripts represent much much more. In those three series I have eleven manuscripts written. Not too bad, eh? So I feel that last year, despite all the craziness, I managed to get a lot of good work done towards my writing career.
And we shall see how that goes.
On the Musa front, we just keep getting busier and busier. Our submissions inboxes are up to date--a very good thing considering how many subs we get--and our release schedule is already stretching its timeline tentacles into the autumn of this year. Penumbra just assumed the electronic submissions for the stranded subscribers to Realms of Fantasy, so I'm working my rear off on that too. With the addition of two columns, one by writer/editor/blogger/aikido bully Lori Basiewicz on folklore, and the other by writer/comicist/educator/Writer Beware guru Richard White on worldbuilding, our content is not only increasing but improving. And, of course the February issue of Penumbra is Shakespeare. That always helps.
Life at home, surprisingly, is quiet. With both kids grown and out of the home, it's just me and the cats most of the time. Very conducive to getting a lot of work done.
What is NOT conducive to getting a lot of work done, however, is the ongoing purgatory of my back. Yes...that's still going on. Last week, I was admitted to Ohio State; there was a suspicion that the area around the artificial disc in my lumbar spine was infect. That was not the case. However, what IS the case is that the artificial disc is dangerously displaced and has been almost since the day it was put in. In fact, some displacement was already visible six weeks after it was put in.
Did my then-surgeon tell me about that displacement? Nope. Did he let me know that the surgical screws were already visibly protruding? Nope. Did he ever let on--during the months after that artificial disc replacement--that maybe perhaps the continuing pain in my back and the horrific sciatic pain in my leg might have been caused by a problem with the surgery that he, himself, performed.
Not once. In fact, he discharged me six months after the operation and never saw me again. Funny how that works, huh?
At any rate, I'm now with one of the top orthopedic surgeons in the country for this type of failed hardware correction. He told me today I'd become a 'back surgery celebrity' since I was discharged from the hospital last week. He had communicated with some other orthopedic surgeons he knows and given them the details of my case. And every single one of them agreed with his diagnosis.
Yippee.
At any rate, I'm really glad I have my writing stuff squared away; that's one less thing to worry about. But now, I need to get Musa and Penumbra set for my absence, and that's not quite as much fun. Regardless, though, being able to walk without pain,, to drive down to see my parents or daughters, to be able to do SOMETHING...ANYTHING again is something that not even my fertile imagination can conjure up. It's been so long since I've been able to say that--I really can't let myself think I might be able to travel again, go boating, go riding, just be NORMAL for a while.
Because if this falls through and it doesn't pan out, I don't know that I'll be able to stand it.
Until then, though, I'll distract myself with work. There's plenty of it to go around, that's for sure.
