stop. start. stutter.

Three things that are sucking this week:

1). Asimov's passed on "Shuffle Up And Deal" (which, okay, I was expecting them to, honestly -- it's of a type that they buy very rarely, although not never, and the main markets for that one are closed to new subs for right now). Still. MY SHATTERED DREEMZ, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM. (Okay, more like, my next submission, let me show you it. STILL.)

2). I am at That Part Of The Book on Strange Waters. The part where you know most of what happens from now to the end, where you really like the characters and the setup, and think that you should have your fingers broken lest you try to put words together, period.

Neil Gaiman said it best in this week's NaNoWriMo pep talk: "...you don't know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you're pretty sure that even if you finish it it won't have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began---a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read---it falls so painfully short that you're pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing."

Yeah. That Part Of The Book.

3). I have something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the flu. Major symptoms: complete inability to be out of bed for more than about twenty minutes without dizziness, full-body ache (although with my various disabilities, it's often tough to tell), a body thermostat turned down about three degrees from where I usually run (everyone around me always knows when I'm sick; I suddenly bust out the fuzzy socks, put on something other than a tank top, and turn the heat up over 65 degrees) and, perhaps the most worrisome, a sudden need to re-read the entirety of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series.

(I jest. They make grand comfort reading. And I am vastly entertained by imagining Kaden and Dan -- the main characters of Beside Strange Waters -- as Heralds.)