Poor hurt puppy

Dave's German Shepherd Dog, Oka, has got to be the most expensive pet we've ever owned, and that includes the horse I had in high school. He's a wonderful, wonderful dog, but has had a string of bad luck in his 5 years. First, he inhaled a foxtail -- one of those seeds with a very sharp point -- that worked its way through his diaphragm and under his skin, where it formed an enormous abscess. It took 2 surgeries (incisions hip to shoulder) to get it cleaned out. Then he got heartworm (yes, we do know about ivermectin, but Dave got careless, and now we have proof it's endemic in the mosquito population here) and went through the treatment with nasssty arsenical salts. Then he developed pannus, a chronic eye disease peculiar to GSDs and Siberian huskies, that if untreated results in blindness, so he will be seeing a veterinary ophthalmologist and receive steroid eye drops for the rest of his life.

Now... he slashed open one of the pads of his front paws (glass?) and I'm waiting for the vet's office to open so I can take him in. Poor baby keeps jumping up from the floor with his usual boundless energy and then getting this puzzled look when it *hurts* to put any weight on it. More updates later...

Writing diary 10/28/05

A great writing day -- rearranged Chapter 27 of SHIELD, moved a chunk to the next chapter and then fleshed things out with love and sex and spooky things and hints of dire things to come. It's now looking like 29-30 chapters total. Getting exciting! This last 1/3 will need major, major revisions, but at least I will have the armature in place. I am a writer who loves to revise; not everyone does. Sometimes the battle is just getting something down so I know where not to go with it.

Felt so good, I sat down with THE CHILDREN OF KINGS, the next Darkover book (after THE ALTON GIFT, which I turned in in June). I'm still on the first chapter, no prologue (yet) and so am still in the flopping-about, trying to get all the necessary elements in the right places. The trick here is to push on through and then come back to it. Often I don't know when many of these elements are best introduced, so I just throw them all in -- like a crockpot stew. Then, as form emerges, I see where some could be placed later and that uncomplicates things. Beginnings are tricky -- you want enough movement (note I did not say "action") to pick the reader up and carry him along, but you also need a comprehensible world/situation, as well as introduction to characters.

I am not sure I will be able to use this opening, but I do like it:

Every year at Midsummer Festival, Gareth Elhalyn y Hastur, the uncrowned and in all likelihood uncrownable King of the Domains of Darkover, had made a single prayer: Let nothing happen this year.