Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

I can't believe it, but I got my brain back enough today to write something. develish1, it's just in time for your birthday. It's been so long since I wrote smut, I thought I'd forgotten how, but I was very much inspired by challenge 72 at then_theres_us. Yay! I am so happy to be writing again.

It's been through one beta and is just waiting on the other one, so hopefully will be up soonish.

So after the good news on the MRI (I don't need surgery, to those who don't have access to my locked posts), and the draining of fluid from my knee and getting a cortizone shot yesterday, I was able to get back into the pool today.  Mom watched the kids (who are still sick with the yuck, but are at least on zithromax now) and I went over to the club at 1:37, which appears to be the perfect time to go on a Thursday.  Was in the water by 1:45 and there was only one other person in the pool when I got there so I got the second best lane (the best one is usually reserved and is the only one roped off) which is next to the rope so I can see it out of my peripheral vision when I do back stroke and not go so crooked.  I swam 44 laps (39 is 3/4 of a mile) in 70 minutes.  I swam with my knee brace on and it seemed to make a big difference.  I kicked only with my right leg.  The brace really made me more aware of my knee in the water so I wasn't accidentally kicking with the left very much.  I did it a couple times on accident, but it reminded me darn quickly that that was a no no.

My time has slowed down.  I have to be more careful, but that is okay.  39 of my laps were crawl stroke, 2 were side stroke and 4 were back stroke.  One hour of crawl stroke burns 1,293 calories.  I looked it up last night.  That is like...just wow.  Treadmill (even if I could do that right now, which I can't) doesn't even touch that for calorie burn.  What I really love about swimming is that it is a combination of resistance and cardio, but it's fun.

I had five minutes in the hot tub which was spent with a jet on my knee and five minutes in the dry sauna trying to bake the rest of this cold out of me.  I woke up feeling quite a bit better from the cold this morning so I hope that continues.  It was weird because I only got five hours of sleep last night, but I guess it was really good sleep.

The best part of my day though was that I wrote fic!  1,347 words on Three Hour Tour, so about half a chapter.  I will work on it more tonight.  I am so glad I have my brain back.  I don't know if it is psychological or what.  No, it's probably just the cortizone working and me not having taken hydrocodone in 36 hours, only ibuprofen.  Whatever it is, it is nice to be able to write.  That and the exercise endorphins just give me a much more positive outlook on everything.  More like my normal self and that is good.

Again, thanks to everyone who has responded to my rather desperate last two locked posts.  Your support has been incredible and I'm not sure I would have made it through this week emotionally well without you guys.  Your prayers and thoughts and good vibes are much appreciated, and please do continue them.  I'm not healed yet and would very much like to continue to improve.  And also on the other thing, as well.  It's going to be a long ten days.

Ch. 20 of Leap of Faith has been sent to beta.  Seems the writer's block has done left the building.

Ch. 33 of Hunger Moon has been sent to my betas.  Hopefully it's all smooth sailing from here on out.

I've had an incredibly productive night last night and a productive day so far today.  I finished the first two chapters of Leap of Faith and am well into ch. 34 of Hunger Moon.  Now if I could just ignore real life and stuff I'd have a good chance of actually finishing HM soon. *laughs*

After three weeks of the worst writer's block I have ever had, I got rather walloped by inspiration last night and sat down and wrote a twenty-chapter outline for A Sky Without Stars. Now I have always known where the relationships were going to go in this story, all the emotional stuff that was going to be covered and the life events {i.e. Donna's wedding to James, the birth of their baby, Rose moving in with Jonathon, Renee's plotline and Jack's plotline, as well as Caelum and the baby TARDIS (who will get her name)}, and all that, but I only had the vaguest ideas of the adventure to wrap it around. Sort of...well, it has to happen in the ocean and the submarine will be involved and Yumi and the aliens at Illuminate, and the Institute and more with the Time Vortex. But nothing fully gelled. Now I've got it in full detail, something to write towards instead of just dinking around trying to wing it as I go.

I'm going to have to do some research on magnetometers and geothermal imaging and sidescan sonar for some of it, and possibly some marine biology and geology as well, but at least I know where it's all going to go. And it'll likely be more than 20 chapters. That's just the adventurey stuff. There will probably be a good ten chapters of relationshippy stuff and smut. It is Jonathon and Rose, after all. Least if I don't deviate too much from the outline. If I do, there could be more, but I don't really want to write another gigantic fic like Zeppelins or WM. More in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range.

And I'm not abandoning Hunger Moon. I think I've worked out the final kinks of what was blocking that story so I still hope to get that finished by the end of the year. So here's hoping my muses are back to stay and I can actually get some time in writing on what's left of the weekend.

I've sent ch. 4 of This Alien of London off to Amy to be beta'd, so that should be up tomorrow, and I'm halfway through chapter five.  The smut isn't nearly as smutty as my normal smut.  More a soft R, not terribly explicit, and does a bit of a fade to black.  It just felt difficult to write and the way I ended up doing it really flowed better with the story.  And it's more in character with the other stories that are being posted in the ficathon as well.  Going all the way to NC-17 graphic just didn't feel right for this piece.  I promise, I'm making up for that with the continuation of Hunger Moon for all the smut!bunnies on my f-list.  I just had fits with this chapter and I wasn't going to push it where it didn't want to properly go.

I did uphold my threat to Nine and Rose though about writing Ten/Rose if they didn't cooperate.  Well, Ten2/Rose.  2,257 words so far.  Based off that prompt a while back about what Ten2 had in his pockets when he and Rose got dumped in Pete's world.  chissel, I think this is going to have to be your fic instead of the one with the TARDIS not letting the Doctor barge into Rose's room if she's naked prompt.  That one is not cooperating at all.

I know I'm horribly behind again in answering my comments.  I will get to them, I promise.  Maybe not until after I post ch. 4 though.  Chris comes home tomorrow so it'll be a bit of a touch and go thing.  But I read them all, always.

Chapter 54 of Zeppelins has gone to be beta'd.  Just in case anyone was, you know, hoping, or waiting.  I'm afraid the Zeppelins muse ran right over the Elephant muse, though I do plan to work on that some more tonight and tomorrow.  Cross your fingers that Elephants won't be stubborn.  I have the whole plot in my head, the entire outline is written, and I know exactly where it is going so I don't reckon it'll be a problem.  I seem to be over the writer's blockiness.

I seem to be through the writer's block or at least I just finished a oneshot based on trickstergirl's prompt and shipped it off to Amy for beta, so there should be fic tonight. It's Ten/Rose and there's smut. The prompt was along the lines of the Doctor takes Rose somewhere really cold and then has to warm her up. Smut ensues.

It's all over but the smut.  Or, in other words, the writer's block lifted last night and ch. 27 of Hunger Moon is now up to 2172 words.  I shipped it off to Amy for an opinion on their argument/discussion and then I will get on with the smut writing, which is never, ever a problem. *grins*  I don't know if I will finish it tonight or not but I'm going to try, and then if Amy or Victoria are around to beta, well, I might just get it up by midnight Pacific Time.

Also working on a little something else.  Seems to be going well.