Driving & Relaxation (or not)

Drove myself to the plasma place and writer's group today. This was the first time I've been daylight driving in a while. I was plenty spooked, but managed to drive very well.

I'm so very glad that Darkside and iroshi have hacked so much at my startlement reactions, because I otherwise might not be so safe. I am very incredibly nervous when I am between two vehicles, especially two larger vehicles: I get what amounts to a claustrophobic reaction, and I have to consciously restrain the little muscle-jerk that travels down my arms. Controlling that is becoming second nature, because I don't really have any other viable choice (I'm supposed to not control it, and slam myself into the other vehicle?) but I'll be very glad when I've hacked my head enough that my body only exhibits sane and safe responses to danger or perceived danger on the road.

I really don't like that twitch. That scares me more than anything else about my driving. Even though I am a very safe driver, I get very nervous over driving maneuvers that my head tells me I can pull off safely, but my Inner Alaskan thinks is an unnecessary risk.

I grew up in a small town with very little traffic. What Fairbanks calls unreasonable traffic, Phoenix calls normal. What Fairbanks calls normal, Phoenix calls deserted.

The more I'm behind the wheel, the better I get. By the time I was at the plasma place, my pulse must have been over 120 from sheer driving stress. By the time I got back home after dinner, I was ready to grab Marx and go out and do a grocery run, just because I wanted to keep driving.

Writing Group Fun

I sort of went apenuts in writing group tonight -- not out of control, not unless you count the massive amount of material that I brought. I've been very busy writing in the past week, enough so that it took me around half an hour to share. With the writing group, at least, the people who are regulars, I have very little compunction about sharing anything my wacked brain comes up with. I got a lot of shudders at some of the spookier details of the novel. I really wasn't going for shudders, because my mind's taken the premises of the novel as a given and not really worried about them, but it was nice to think that people could be spooked by the laws of nature in this novel.

I really do have to track down a copy of On Writing somewhere: not only has cadhla pimped it, but tonight the general consensus of the group was that I am the Stephen King of the group. Erm... weird? I think I might rather be the lmbujold ... or maybe the Phillip K. Dick or Alfred Bester, hee...

We made up a giant nanowrimo progress chart that the women's center staff is going to hang up prominently. We'll be charting our progress. I can hardly wait to get started on the new book, or at least, I ought to -- right now, I can hardly wait to finish The Necromancer's Prayer. I know most of what happens, now -- things are winding down; I've already figured out the climax, which is coming right up, so there aren't many surprises left for me -- but I need to get it written out as soon as possible. And that's what I've been doing.

Scents

The scent of Phoenix winter air is forever going to be inspiring to me. This is the air I smelled when I found my first bondmate and cried out the beginning of my healing from all the things that no one had ever tried to heal before.

Hooray for cameo appearances!

Someone who might or might not be very much like kellinator cameos. I am Heroically Resisting making the Snarky Librarian more crucial, because four major characters to wrangle at once is tough, and I've already got a bunch of supporting characters.

Also, Ginger was right, and I do have a problem with one-syllable names.

Words

41,200-some, up from 38,000-some at the start of freshstartwrite this evening.

I think I can do it. I think I may be even able to crack 100,000 this November, which is why I've joined witchofrock in the attempt to hit 100,000.

Seriously, this is establishing to me that I can too do this. I just have to treat it like my second job. Gods, I'm going to be whacked for time this month... my social life is going to be killed, which sucks in the presence of Actual Car, but ... my words are something that's just hitting me over the head with necessity.

I've been neglecting my actual writing for so long. LJ's an escape, a practice, a chronicle, but not my words. I need my words. I get high on this edge of focus. I also have to be careful with my caffeine; I had coffee at Coco's tonight, and I'm wired.

Our favorite Bastard Operator

Happy Birthday, eng1ne!