nanocheatmo notes

[ritaxis]

So I am utterly cheating on nano: I've already spent a month on a detailed outline and I will spend October on it too. As I go along I am making research notes, and I intend to do that research before November also. I have a file with bits of information I might need to peruse later, and the outline is peppered with questions.

Notes like: PONIES
NEED FIRE (That's a noun phrase, not a verb phrase)
MILITARY TELEGRAPHY
19th CENTURY MILITARY ORGANIZATION (get the silliest version for the Empire)
MILITARY TECHNOLOGY MORE OR LESS OBSOLETE BY 1900
STUDENT SOCIETIES
COMMENSALISM AND SYMBIOSIS IN MOSSES
AMPHETAMINE HISTORY (but I can't remember why I wanted to know this)

I've been reading about 17th-20th century Central European history almost kind of randomly, hopping around as an enticing reference comes up. Why, since it is a fantasy set in a place that is not turn-of-the-19th-20th-century Europe? Because the best foundation for fantasy is reality. And the real history and politics and economics and anthropological stuff of the real word has solved several story problems for me already, including ones I didn't know I had. Also, fun.

On another front, I'm actually getting better vis-a-vis my legs, even though there is clearly some underlying damage to the joints. I believe this is because there is a component to the problem that is strained back muscles pressing on nerves. I think that either my old back exercises are not relevant here, or I've forgotten how to do them right, because I think I made the situation worse this summer when I was doing them. I have decided to end the practice of lifting babies over the sink to wash their hands for meals: I'm bringing them washcloths to the table instead. That's because I was pretty much all better one morning and in agony by afternoon one day and thinking back over the day it was that that stood out most clearly. I will have medical insurance on November 1st and I am sooo going to the doctor. For that, and the weird toenails, and finetuning the medication, especially the asthma medication and the pain management stuff.

On yet another front, I have a young friend moving in for a couple of months in exchange for working on the house. Now if only I would start working on the house too . . .

Comments

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I have nothing to say here except that "nanocheatmo" is the best tag ever.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I think I must have six hundred and thirty three and a half tags by now. I tag the feathers off any entry I make. I have hopes that if I should ever need to know the first time I mentioned something I could hit the tags page and be rewarded.

Hopes, of course. Who knows whether my thinking at tagging time will match my thinking at a later time . . .