Today: 1,892 words
Total: 8,858 words

I am so tired. Got the words cranked out, washed the bedding, dragged the vacuum upstairs to vacuum our bedroom, my office, and the hallway (I do not go into Ramón’s office for Here Be Dragons), and I just kinda want to collapse.

But I had another nice achievement today in addition to making my word count. One of the unintentional side effects of a surgery like mine is weight loss, at first because all you can eat is clear liquids followed by soft food (and you don’t really have an appetite anyway), and then because when you can start eating more normal foods you have to cut it up into small pieces and chew carefully. I suppose this is what people mean by mindful eating. And things like chips, anything crispy that scratches the inside of my mouth (like toasted bagels or pizza crust), or spicy foods remain off the menu because my mouth is still healing. Since those foods often contain a high percentage of carbs and fat, the effect of removing them from regular rotation becomes noticeable after a bit.

In associated news I am currently wearing a lovely pair of mint capris that I bought years ago. They didn’t quite fit me but I loved the way they looked and thought, “Well, maybe someday.” Apparently someday is today.

I’m not looking for congratulations or anything on this, by the way. This wasn’t deliberate weight loss—it’s a side effect of having cancer and really shouldn’t be celebrated. But it’s nice to be sitting here in these capris.

Today: 1,680 words
Total: 6,966 words

The work continues, although today was kind of a slog between writing, doing a mountain of laundry and putting it all away, hitting various stores so that the J Crew and we have food, and generally taking advantage of the fact that Ramón had headed off to his rolepaying game to blast music in the living room and kitchen while I prepped spaghetti for dinner. But hey, I got word count which is all that really matters.

And yes, I can eat spaghetti, although we use shells as the pasta because that’s what Ramón likes. As long as I overcook the pasta to a certain degree, let it cool down before I eat it, and chew carefully I’m good. Which I kinda have to do anyway because some not bad but still really weird shit is going on in my jaw right now—mainly, the nerves that were cut during surgery are starting to heal.

And man, it’s really hard to describe the sensation of a healing nerve. It’s not exactly painful, more like Icy Hot has been applied to my lower left lip and chin along with a low level intermittent electrical current. But while I still have limited muscle control and sensation on that side, I can’t honestly call it totally numb anymore. So hey, that’s an achievement.

Today: 1,708 words
Total: 3,419 words

I think I’m running into a bit of a problem with High Tide. Namely, I don’t really have a solid outline for it, and when I don’t have a good outline I have a real problem getting words on the page (I am not a pantser by any stretch of the definition. If I don’t have a roadmap for where I’m going, I can’t move).

See, back when I came up with the concept for the series I had an MFM trio in mind for this book until I realized that, well, let’s just say that a female romantic lead wouldn’t face the challenges I needed her to face. Switching the romantic menage to MMM fixed this, but it also changed a lot of plot elements of the story that I probably should have sorted out months ago. But hey, cancer and all that.

So I spent today with earbuds in blasting my song list for this book and hammering out the details of the new outline. It helps that when I moaned to Ramón abouta sticky plot point he asked me what the problem was, then came up with a couple of possible fixes. Turns out one of them prompted a very apropos subplot that is probably going to get me some hate down the line but what the hell, I stand by what I’m writing.

Once I got the outline massaged into shape the words started to flow again and I churned out 1,708 words for the day. So I’m still hitting my daily word quota and the story is progressing, tra la!

In associated news I had the last visit to my surgeon this morning for 2023. Everything looks good, he snipped off the remaining stitches on my neck and one long little bugger inside my mouth that was annoying me, and I’m to schedule an appointment with him after my scans in January.

I am still pretty swollen and my face is a little lopsided but I can feel tingles in the numb part of my lip, chin, and earlobe so hopefully the nerves are healing/decompressing and I’ll get full sensation back. To be honest the left half of my chin has been throbbing more than tingling, so I take that to mean that healing is in progress. More importantly, new gum tissue is growing over the bit of exposed jawbone in my mouth, as expected, and my remaining teeth are quite white and clean from my 3 times a day brushing habit and gargling with dry mouth mouthwash twice a day. My hygienist should be happy when I have my cleaning appointment this month.

As for potential reconstruction possibilities, implants are verboten for the time being because he wants to be able to monitor the area, but I’m cleared to get a partial denture if I want chewing surfaces. Dunno how my dentist is going to feel about that (I mentioned the possibility of a partial the last time I talked to him and he said very flatly, “You’re getting implants”) but I literally *have no bone* in which to put implants for at least the next six months so it’s a moot point. If a partial will help me chew on that side of my mouth once the stitches finally dissolve, I’m all for it.