I went to the Nanowrimo write-in and it was exactly what it said on the tin; a bunch of people with their lap-tops writing their novel in silence (mostly because they had headphones and music – like me) until the last fifteen minutes, when the conversation turned to Pokémon. Seriously. It was at that moment that old age took a bat and a surly attitude to my psyche. I remember when Pokémon first hit the shores of the US. Heck, I remember when crystal meth was ‘the new danger looming on the horizon’. To hear these kids – admittedly, one of the more knowledgeable people there was 15 years old – talk about them with a depth of knowledge reserved for medical doctors or war weary vets made me want to tell them to turn down their dagburn rock-n-roll and get off my lawn. The writing itself wasn’t too bad – same as if I was back at home. Of course, I didn’t speak that much since I was writing. Might go to another one just to see what else can happen.

Now, onto the freaky dream I had. If anyone here is an expert on dream analysis, or is an armchair psychologist (why armchairs need psychologist is beyond me – unless you have some 500 lbs. guy sit on you, then I can see where trauma could occur), this is your chance to flex your analytical muscles. Granted, I don’t remember a whole lot of the dream, but I can remember a couple of things very clearly (coming to a novel soon):

• My right arm is greatly diseased and possibly rotting – I did comment on the smell. I remember being concerned that it’s going to just drop off. Parts of the arm are discolored like I’m bruised and some of the discoloration is accompanied with lumps, or pustules. I remember noting that I have no feeling in that arm at all. In fact, I was holding it up with my left hand (for the record, I’m left handed).
  
• I also remember walking up a sandy hill (one of the settings in Borderlands 2 – Washburn Canyon, I think) while holding my arm.
  
• Another concern I had was my right thumb. There was a cut, or a split in the skin in which I could move it around freely, even take it off on a hinge of flesh near the knuckle. I kept tamping down that piece of flesh, commenting that while it was fascinating that I could lift it up and over, I knew I shouldn’t do it.
  

Good luck on figuring this one out! I’ll be in the back wondering about my sanity.

The novel is coming along well, I finished the first chapter and there seems to be a conflict within the main character between her logical processor (the robot side of her) and her quantum processor (the human-like side of her) as she tries to handle these issues and problems that arrive. It’s shaping up to be less of an id-ego conflict and more like a squabbling married couple. How this is going to fit in with the rest of the novel is going to be frankly a mystery. I’m not a pantser in the strict sense of the word. I do have some organization to it – I know generally where the story is going, but the smaller details I don’t get into until I start writing. It’s kinda neat when I see something start that I didn’t think of immediately and have it develop in the course of the novel… which I should be getting back to about now.

Hope you all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy