i started to feel like crap yesterday at the factory.
i felt worse as the evening went on.
this morning i woke up to discover i've some sort of plague.
lots of pressure in the head, a nose like a leaky faucet that doesn't run hot or cold, only mucus.
my whole body aches, my stomach feels like someone is tying a not in my guts.
yet, i still must go to work.
i know exactly how i got sick, too. usually i blame the children (convenient scapegoats). they bring home all kinds of sickness from school. human petri dishes, they are. this time, it was not the children. it was a coworker. went around the lab yesterday, coughing and sneezing, not covering up, not washing hands. i asked him to mind the germs. he looked at me with his usual retarded-puppy stare. so whatever strange virus he picked up from any of the dozen or so gas station parking lots he hangs out in in kirkwood, he has passed on to me. hopefully the kids' immune systems are up to defending against the kirkwood menace.
enough about the plague.
i made a tough decision yesterday, regarding The Red Left Hand. initially it was a short story, to be included in a collection of other short stories, all detailing characters and events in a fictional world i have been imagining up over the last few years. the collection was to be the first of many, a world-building experiment, meant to introduce readers to a fantastic, multi-planar universe where anything and everything is possible.
The Red Left Hand, first draft completed, was too big in my opinion. i started toying around with the idea of turning it into a standalone novel, and then putting out the book of short stories after, depending on feedback (remember, i plan on self-publishing).
after a few months of outlines, plot-changes, scribbled notes everywhere, and general hair-pulling and frustration, i have stepped back from the novel idea. i want to keep The Red Left Hand as a short story in a collection along with other short stories, all centered on one of the three continents that comprise this first world/plane in my universe.
if i like how it turns out, (and honestly, if others like it), i would like to take all those scribbled notes and timelines and build the rest of Luke's story. i know roughly how it is all going to go down, who lives/dies, who wins and who doesn't.
i know i've been talking a good game about this writing for over a year now, with nothing to show for it yet. stay with me to see the end result. it will be magical.
to all of my friends, i hope all is well.
