Standing On Boxes

This has been one of the least productive writing months I’ve had in a while. I wrote a few things at the beginning of the month but the only real writing was a really short installment for my TtH100 entry.
And I’m behind in it… it’s actually been almost a year since I started it. I should have 50 ficlets or so by this point but I only have 27 — 23 short.
Part of it is the length – I’ve been writing, on average, 1500 words/prompt. Which tends to take me longer. I think I’ll try to write a bunch of drabbles/double drabbles (200 words) to catch up before Halloween. One a day or so? Maybe.
Also, I’m trying to finish one of the 4 current story lines before doing anything else. 2 more to go in that part and I can go completely random.
And then I need to get back to my other fics — there are two I want to finish before the end of the year…
Or more… I haven’t decided — there are four possibles.

I’m testing a new wireless access point/hub/router. The next level up – 802.11g
In theory it’s 5 times as fast at my 5 year old 802.11b gadget… we’ll see.
Definitely seems to work better with my Mac mini in the back bedroom (Once I figured out the correct encryption settings…)
I also bought better antennas for it – which cost more than the router (which was on sale for $50 since they want everyone to buy the new/faster/better one) — and seemed to help – so far. (I was having serious connection problems with the old router/hub thing…). I hope that doesn’t make life difficult for anyone nearby (I can pick up 3-4 other wi-fi networks in the back bedroom but only one other near the router itself…)

As the saying goes…

Ouch!

Looks like it’s gonna be 2 teeth out and one root canal (My dentist took another look at the “maybe a root canal” tooth and said that its cavity is too far along… after the root canal and cavity there wouldn’t be enough left of the tooth to restore.
(I’m having both teeth out in… 12 days or so? And the root canal the following week…)
Oh well… better to find out now than after the root canal ($850/molar around here).
Of course, a “replacement” isn’t cheap. Because of where the two bad teeth are… there aren’t many choices… the best are ‘implants’ but those are expensive (more than $3K a tooth (Just $3K for the implant part. That doesn’t even include the replacement tooth itself. Yikes!)).
Not sure how I would pay for it (for two teeth — it’s about the cost of a small/cheap car. But they’ll last a lot longer.) but I’m going to try to figure it out… even if I’m broke afterward…
Wouldn’t you?
And don’t forget what I said about dentist visits… don’t avoid the dentist like I did… until it was too late.

It’s been a while…

• Found out what happens if you don’t go to a dentist for a LONG time… it’s going to take at least 6 months and lots of money to straighten my teeth out. (Among other things – a root canal and a tooth removed (It broke and a filling fell out and it broke again, and there isn’t enough of it left to fix it – and it hurts a little but will hurt a lot worse if it breaks any more before it comes out…), a third tooth will either get a root canal or come out. I expect to be broke and my credit cards maxed out at that point (dental insurance only goes so far. I’m going to end up paying for most of it myself.) and I’ll probably have to get a loan to pay for whatever replacement thing I’ll need if that third tooth comes out. To say nothing of any other not-so-major work my teeth need.

  So what’s the lesson kiddies? Don’t forget to visit the dentist if you crack a tooth or lose a filling — ASAP. Or you too could be broke like I expect to be by next summer. dentist-phobia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

• I didn’t do much writing… I ran across “Kim Possible” fan fiction and have spent the past two weeks/week reading the few really long ones. Of the KIGO sort. Some good… some bad…

  Some are just plain creepy — when you think about that pairing — KP (Kim Possible) is just a teenager. And Shego (KIGO = KP/Shego) must be 4-6 years older. At least. So the ones where KP is still in high school? “Ick” — on the order of Buffy/Angel “ick” Or High School Buffy/Giles.

  I’ve basically run out of KP fics to read… at least the ones I would dare go near… without giving myself nightmares.

• The T broke the screen on her iPod nano. It still works but it’s like flying blind… or using a shuffle. How do you control it? Apple just came out with some new ones — they look like the older iPod mini’s except the size of a nano. The 2GB is silver, the 4GB are in 4 colors, and the 8GB is black. I actually like the older design, even if it isn’t as durable. (And I just bought a 4GB in June and gave the (now broken) 2GB to the T.

  Best Buy is dumping the 1st Gen iPods at approx. 20% off right now. Not sure I want to buy the T another one to break… they still aren’t cheap. Maybe a new screenless iPod shuffle when Best Buy gets them in stock?

There are people who write quickly, pounding out several thousand words a day, if not more. They don’t seem to think it is a big deal… I don’t know how they do it.
There are people who write maybe two or three hundred words in a month and think they are writing a lot. I have sympathy for those folks… I’ve had weeks, seemingly on end, like that, where nothing comes out…
Me? I’ve been writing fan fiction for 3 years now. Before that – most of my writing was in e-mail or on USENet. Or when I was in school (for much too long)… it was writing papers of all sorts.
I find that the longer I write, the longer what I write becomes. But in some ways it has slowed me down. Because, now that a part chapter of a fic I’m working on averages 3,000 words… they take longer. Fewer chapters, more words.
I really need to finish things that I start… that was my goal for this year and we’re already three quarters of the way through it and I haven’t finished anything.
And it’s time for bed.. so I can get up in the morning and be productive at work. And not a word written today for any of my fics…

So… almost two weeks in… and no new battery yet.
Last week, one week after I’d ordered a replacement battery, I DID receive a notice (e-mail) from Apple that there was a recall.
(And in other news, a month after buying a Mac mini — Apple quietly speed-bumps it (not enough to really notice (from 1.66GHz to 1.83GHz – every other spec seems to be the same – so they just popped out the chip and put in the faster one.) except the low-end version is now using the same chip as the one I bought – I could have saved $200 — gee thanks Apple!
And the iMac now has the 64bit version of the Intel Core Duo 2 – though I wouldn’t buy one of those since the only computer I’ll buy with a built-in screen is a laptop.)

Part 3 of “Gypsy Tales” got a little out of hand this weekend It’s already twice as long as I like to make fic parts. Several scenes I’d planned to put in it will have to go into the next part (The ‘When Giles Finds Out’ parts). And what was originally Part 4 is now the Epilogue — but reading it… I don’t know how much I’ll be able to keep from the original fic parody. Probably not much.