Paksworld

The new 30th anniversary edition of Sheepfarmer’s Daughter is now out and about.   Hard to believe it’s been that long (though some days I feel more than 30 years older, but that’s another issue.  You will laugh–the other night I was awake and picked up a copy of it just to glance at…and two hours later I was hooked by my own book *even though* I knew what was coming.   Thanks to all of you–and all my other readers–who kept it in print and made celebration of its 30th birthday possible.

The year of fixing things is proceeding, with a consult on eye surgery coming up the first week of September, and renewed work on “What to do about the fact we aren’t getting younger and our wills have aged out and the guardianship on our son needs adjustment…”   Then I need a consult on the concussion aftermath, because we’re over six months and some things have bounced back to normal-for-me-before-this-concussion and some haven’t.   Reading speed picked up markedly in July and is now below what it was in my 20s  but way above where it was after the concussion.   (Honestly, nobody *needs* do read Dick Francis mysteries and other fiction of that length in an hour and a half.)   I can gulp an entire new book in one sitting again….no problem at all with holding concentration.  I’m also reading solid nonfiction as I had been doing (science and medical journals.)  But there are some things still not “there” yet, including balance.   OTOH, the teeth–wow, I did not realize how much they’d been hurting until (past the rather solid and definite pain of serious dental surgery over many weeks)  until after the final stuff healed…they didn’t.   At any rate progress has been made, and more will be made.

On the writing side, the very dry well is now wet at the bottom and Sunday, chatting on the phone with a writing friend, suddenly a plot fragment showed up in my head.  Not connected to anything I’d been doing, but in response to a joke my friend made.  And so…I think the writing of fiction may come back if I don’t strain it while it’s so small and fragile.  The fun of writing (nonfiction, about horses or knitting) is definitely coming back.  So there’s life in the old girl yet, and I’m looking forward to next steps.