NOVEMBER FLU BY
Posted on November 29, 2011
This was a first for me. As a teacher, I found my sick days comprised mostly of a day off here or there for the 24-hour bug or taking time off because of a sick child. I was getting pretty consistent at only missing one or two days a year. Well, along came the last week of October and that record changed. We had just tracked in for only a day and I was feeling altogether funky. I woke up the next morning sick as a dog. I took the day off, thinking it was another 24-hour bug. Twelve days later of being bedridden and very out of it, I had to admit I had just endured my first run-in with the full-blown flu. And it was nasty. Constantly weak, achy and no appetite. I dropped fourteen pounds in the first two weeks and it showed. In all my years of teaching, I had avoided the flu shot every year, thinking my mighty immunity streak would hold. After this illness, I can safely say that won't be the case anymore. I was out for two weeks, nine days from my class. Even when I came back on the third week, I mustered only two half days and barely got through two full days before the week was over. Now, five weeks after the illness began, I still have a breathy cough that flares up after I speak for any length of time. The dreadful aspect of being so far gone was that my ability to concentrate was next to nil. I didn't read a single book or comic for two weeks. That was unheard of. I was always running around with my nose in a book. Forget even trying to write my own creations.
So November passed on by, and I didn't do any writing of TURNCOATS. If I had, I would've been done. It's the first real break I've taken from writing in the three years since I started seriously working on novels. I'm happy to say that Thursday and Friday night this week are dedicated to wringing out another chapter, and that I'll be forging ahead on completing a chapter a week of TURNCOATS for the next three weeks. With my long December/January track-out looming large, I know I can knock out the end of my zombie book and also put a big dent in GRAHAM 2.
My students during my absence were so patient and kind. I really appreciated their understanding as I came back and struggled to make it through those initial post-illness work days. Look for blog posts to resume on a regular basis with the advent of December. Just wanted to post this to let you know why my long absence from this site.