2015-2021
This is going to be a sad roundup, and there’s no way around that. I didn’t get much of anything done in September.
Unfortunately, the emergent situation that I talked about in my August roundup did not have a good ending. Our cat, Shale, was taken to the emergency vet as the culmination of several months of seeming unwell and periodic vomiting and weight loss. We hoped it was IBD (inflammatory bowel disease).
It wasn’t. It was cancer, already metastasized and undifferentiated at the time of biopsy. We opted to remove the primary tumor prior to the biopsy results, and were optimistic that it might be localized or even benign. After discovering that the cancer was effectively incurable and our beloved kitty only had weeks to live, suffice to say that my priorities shifted and I was no longer concerned with attempting to stick to my writing schedule.
Shale lived for just under three weeks after his surgery, and died on September 21. The night before, he had let us know he was ready; he stopped eating or drinking, and it was clear that he just wanted to rest. He fought hard, but his tiny little body was exhausted and he couldn’t go on any longer. He passed away painlessly at the vet’s office, surrounded by his loving family.
I’m grieving for Shale, as is everyone in the family (including our two surviving cats, Ash and Shadow). It’s taken me a little while to feel ready to get back to writing, but at the very end of September I did manage to finish a second draft of The Second Sundering.
My next project, which I expect to begin at the end of this coming week, is a complete rewrite of the first book in my trilogy. That rewrite should bring it up to the level of quality I have been able to invest in the other two, and finally complete the trilogy in a form I feel is fitting. After that, it will be effectively finished from my point of view; I will resume querying the trilogy, but I will also begin working on other writing projects.
The rewrite of The Shadow of the Ruin will be dedicated to Shale’s memory. I finished typing my final chapter scripts for it while I was doing the night watch on him as he recovered from his surgery.
Rest in peace, big guy. You were a very good kitty.