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June 2nd, 2008

Adventures in the Martian Death Flu.

I've been sick for over a week now. There have been a few flashes of feeling better, but they've been short-lived, and always seem to be followed by things like last night, where I woke up at one o'clock in the morning feeling like I'd been gargling flesh-eating alien spiders. (I wasn't. At least, I don't think I was. If I'm wrong, I suppose we'll find out when they hatch. Also, it should be noted that Brooke supports my theory that alien spiders are responsible for many of the ills of mankind, although this may be because she thinks it's cool. She's right.)

Sadly, the ongoing construction of a tiny viral empire inside my body has left me with the laser-like focus of an eight-week-old cocker spaniel puppy. I can focus on small things, like peeling an egg or inking a single line. Larger things, like folding my laundry or excavating the bedroom floor? Not so much. My room has achieved a level of trashed previously known only in myth and legend. I simply lack the energy to deal with it. All I've eaten today is a cup of sugar-free Jello and some egg whites, because nothing else has any real interest in staying down. I am, in short, being punished for my sins by an angry plague-based god.

Despite my illness, I've been industriously processing edits, which is good, since otherwise, I think they would crush me beneath their weight. I think there may be a ground war over my opinions on comma usage sometime soon. I support this notion, because it would be funny. We've hit the stage where they're almost entirely pedantic things, like 'you have broken another obscure rule of grammar whose existence you never really considered before, but which will be used to sentence you to an eternity of torment if you don't fix it right now' and 'you spelled 'Rayseline' wrong.' This is the most pleasant stage of editing. The stage where I can actually fix things with relative ease.

I managed to get a good start on one of the drop-in chapters for Newsflesh on Friday, to my surprise and delight. Georgia Mason is one of the easiest point-of-view characters I've ever worked with -- most of them take a few pages or even a chapter to come all the way 'on', but she was there, and absolutely herself, from the very first paragraph. She's not the easiest person to live with, mind you, but she's an absolute ball to write for. Even if I do need to regularly restrain myself from going off on six-page rants about the state of virological research in her version of modern America. Depending on the density of editing to be done, I may be able to finish the first drop-in chapter tonight, get it all integrated with the rest of the text, and start in on drop-in chapter number two. Progress is exciting!

Of course, it's also likely that I'm going to crawl home tonight, fall on my head, and not acknowledge the world again until Tuesday morning. Because Martian Death Flu is also exciting.

Wheeeeeeeeeeee.

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