Jay Lake: Writer

[writing] Endurance progriss riport, day 17

5,000 words in two hours today, broken over three more abbreviated writing sessions. Manuscript is now at 75,700, and I’m at 9,800 words towards my week (Mon-Sun) goal of 17,500. Also, passed the pivot point in the plot today, which means a while lot more action happening now. Set up? Set up? We don’t need no more stinking set up!

And some WIP for you all:

Flipping my knife around, I struck him hard at the base of the skull with my fist, using the handle to armor the blow. He collapsed, while the other brother shrieked, then cursed in a language I did not know.

The Rectifier roared, something shattered, and there was more cursing.
I bent to cut this one’s throat when I heard the pardine shout out, “Do not kill them, Green. Leave with me now.”

Point against skin, I stopped. Did I trust him or not? These men were dangerous, hideously dangerous, but the Rectifier knew something, or he would not have spoken so.

Leaving behind a single ruby drop beading against the twin’s leathery neck as my calling card, I raced swiftly toward the door and followed the Rectifier out into the late afternoon’s snow flurries.

Tags: Books, Endurance, Writing

Posted: 8:20 pm Tue June 30 2009 | Comments(2) |

[cancer] The Magic 8-Ball

The magic cancer 8-ball continues to say “Reply Hazy, Try Again Later.” and I had my second opinion visit today with the oncologist at UCSF. Her take on my situation was roughly the same as my OHSU team’s take. That is to say, suspicious situation, but too soon to tell for certain. She seemed more focused on the issue of there being multiple possible sites, whereas my oncologist in Oregon was more focused on the liver site. This doctor was careful to hold to the line that as this was still unknown, it would be premature to call this cancer without affirmative evidence.

The radiology group here will read my existing scans and present their own report. I’ll do followup scans both at UCSF and OHSU (they use different CT protocols, which the oncologist at UCSF thought might be relevant), and followup consults at both institutions in the second half of July.

In other words, the results were inconclusive and I continue to be in a state of ambiguity. No factual variations. It is somewhat comforting that a completely different practice and medical team came up with essentially the same answer — hold and re-image. But I’m still in the grip of the magic cancer 8-ball for the time being. A bit fashed, run down, even depressed at the lack of progress or resolution.

Onward I go.

Tags: California, Cancer, health, Personal

Posted: 2:38 pm Tue June 30 2009 | Comments(3) |

[cancer] No one expects the Spanish Inquisition

Flew into San Francisco last night. Plane was only a little late, and the airport van was completely full, so it took a while to get home to . Whereupon I discovered her in the Witchnest with the building alarm shrieking and the power out. Some fiddling with the alarm panel took care of the shriek, but the power was a couple of hours coming back. This crimped our evening routine, but we successfully improvised.

This morning I have the oncologist appointment here at UCSF for the second opinion on this year’s New Adventures in Cancer. Though I’ve been looking forward to this, I find myself tinged with dread today.

A lot of new words have entered my life in the last fourteen months. I didn’t used to be able to pronounce “metastasis”, and “tumor” wasn’t something that came up in conversation very often. Likewise “resectioning” and “chemotherapy” and “oncologist.” Hush words. Scare words. The kind of words that if you’re talking in the elevator or on the telephone in the departure lounge, people around you fall quiet and strain to listen while pretending to unobtrusiveness. The experience of cancer has inflected everything from my travel schedule to my vocabulary. I don’t suppose I ever understood the miracle of my good health until it was undermined by the enemy within.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is the unexpected nature of all this. Cancer is like the Spanish Inquisition in my life. Prior to April, 2008, if you’d asked me to list my likely causes of death, I’d have put heart attack first, followed by a more generic listing of cardiovascular disease, followed by a none too imaginative set of possibilities ranging from falling in the shower to airplane crash to death by jealous lover.

But cancer? No one in my family dies of cancer. Not that I’m dying now. But no one in my family gets cancer. We’re a heart attack family, pure and simple, on both sides. As a doctor of mine said years ago, we don’t live long enough to get cancer.

So the rearrangement and derangement of my life continues. I’m coping pretty well with the current uncertainty, and rather afraid of finding a bad certainty this morning. Or in last week’s MRI, whenever the read comes in. Or the upcoming CT scans.

The only thing worse than a bad certainty would be continued uncertainty. I’m tired of the unexpected, at least in this regard.

Life is for living with all the knobs set on full tilt boogie. I’m doing my best, damn it.

Tags: Calendula, California, Cancer, Personal, Travel

Posted: 4:49 am Tue June 30 2009 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad goes to the oncologist today

A reader with small love for Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders ]

The New Space Opera 2 is out [ Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders ] — Including my novelette “To Raise a Mutiny Betwixt Yourselves”, set in the Sunspin universe.

Images from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland — Wow.

Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre — Hahahaha. Serious art humor. (Thanks to .)

Daguerre, Painter — Some awesome apocalyptic art.

Enceladus: Riddle of the Plumes — Centauri Dreams on oceans in space.

Igniting Fusion — Technology Review with some very big science, indeed.

?otD: Have you ever been to heaven?

---

6/30/2009
Body movement: 10 minutes of stretching and meditation (overslept for walking)
This morning’s weigh-in: 220.5
Currently reading: P.S. Your Cat is Dead by James Kirkwood

Tags: Art, Books, Cool, Funny, Green, Links, Movies, Personal, reviews, Science, stories

Posted: 4:35 am Tue June 30 2009 | Comments(0) |

[writing] Endurance progriss riport, day 16

4,800 words in 1.75 hours whilst in transit to California. Manuscript at 70,700 words. WIPs will resume tomorrow.

Tags: Books, California, Endurance, Travel, Writing

Posted: 8:16 pm Mon June 29 2009 | Comments(1) |

[cancer] White tube blues

Ever had an MRI? Me neither, until last Thursday. Let me tell you…

As previously discussed, the MRI is part of the ongoing diagnostic process of the new mass in my liver which is probably a metastasis of last year’s colon cancer. This hasn’t been confirmed yet, but there are no good (or even bad) alternate theories about it. We’re trying to nail down the diagnosis before pulling the trigger on surgery and chemo. Having previously subjected my internal organs to a CT scan and a PET scan, my medical team determined that it was time for me to go for the trifecta and complete the set with an MRI scan.

I’ve for years been generally aware of what an MRI is and does, but I’d never had occasion to experience one for myself. My first clue was the fact that I was asked at least five times by four people if I was claustrophobic. My answer was, “Not clinically so, no.” My answer should have been, “Not yet.”

Last Thursday morning at oh:God:30, and I toddled over to OHSU to sign in for my MRI. met us there. I was checked in via the usual manner, though the disclosure form was kind of bizarre. A lot of really weird questions, all aimed at answering this life-affirming query:

“Do you have metal anywhere in or on your body that will be ripped out of your still-warm flesh by our giant magnet like a zombie going for your brains, you goofy sack of shit?”

To which I dutifully replied, “Um, no.” I didn’t mention the CIA mind control implant, either.

I was then permitted the delight of another IV, which led to a delightful conversation about the virtues of teflon needles versus steel needles. (I am the kind of patient who asks a lot of questions.) After that I was escorted into the Giant Magnet Room.

An MRI a biiiig white tube, about three inches wider in interior diameter than the width of my hips, as it happens. I was strapped down to a motorized pallet, much like the ones used for CT and PET scanning. Except this time, I was really strapped down. Bracket device against my back and against my abdomen. Sensor lead across my chest. Leg straps. Waist straps. Arm straps. Chest straps. Headphones. Panic button in my left hand.

This is not so bad, until you consider the fact that I am a born fidgeter. Anyone who’s been around me for more than five minutes knows I’m constitutionally incapable of sitting still. Ok, I can suck up it. Cancer isn’t going to win just because I can’t hold onto my shit for a little while.

Then the MRI tech ran me into the little tube.

I felt like one of those 1950′s movie cutaway shots where the train speeds into the tunnel, then the waves explode in white spume, to stand in for the sex scene. I mean, talk about loading the torpedo tubes. The curve of the top of the tube was two or three inches above my nose. My head was strapped in, so if I rolled my eyes way back, I could see a fingernail sliver of room light and open space somewhere behind me. If I rolled my eyes forward, I saw more tube. All the while, a little voice in my ears kept telling me not to breathe, while a small army of dwarves played the anvil chorus rescored for magnets and medical equipment.

For forty-five freaking minutes.

Whenever it got bad inside the tube, or I started seeing red flashes behind my eyes, I would resume the silent mantra, “Fuck cancer, fuck cancer, fuck cancer.”

If I were into being a bound sub, I might have paid good money for this experience. (Actually, I did pay good money for this experience, or at least my insurance company did.) As an ordinarily ambulatory human being of strong mind, fidgety body and toppish tendencies, this did not sit so well.

Every now and then the table would move a few inches. I would pray for daylight. The hammering would begin anew. I would be told when to breathe, when not to breathe, admonished to hold still. What, I have a choice? Closing my eyes most of the time did help a little, and for a while, I actually managed to meditate.

Finally, when I emerged exhausted and sated from being thrust deep inside the tube, I knew how a lone sperm feels after swimming upstream to spawn and failing.

When I got out, I asked the tech if they had to drug some people to get them inside the machine. She laughed ruefully and said there were folks who simply couldn’t get in the MRI, even under sedation.

No results yet, but as will attest, I wasn’t right for most of the day. As annoying as the PET scan was in some ways [ LiveJournal ], the MRI was a lot more overwhelming. Big science, annoying your hindbrain up close and personal. Necessary, not evil, but overwhelming.

Tags: Calendula, Cancer, Funny, health, Science

Posted: 4:55 am Mon June 29 2009 | Comments(6) |

[links] Link salad comes back from Iron Springs

Jay Lake’s Green: A Departure for the Clockwork King — with a brief interview of me about Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders  ].

comments on Escapement [ Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders ]

1909 Russia in living color: The photos of Sergey Prokudin-Gorskii — A piece of history most of us don’t see much of.

7 Man-Made Substances that Laugh in the Face of Physics — (Thanks to .)

SETI: A Detectable Neutrino Signal? — Oooh. With bonus Antarctic science pr0n.

To fight deflation, abolish cash. Could Japan make reality of ‘science fiction’? — Curious news from the economic front.

The Redder They Are, The Harder They Fall — WaPo somewhat disingenuously asks why Democrats “get away” with more sex scandals, apparently ignores their own answer – it’s the hypocrisy, stupid.

Ante Up or Leave The Table — Conservatives and climate change denial, specifically the low cost of such denial in personal, political and social terms. One thing this analysis leaves out is how conservatives have been dead wrong in their opposition to just about everything in the past century or more — child labor laws, women’s rights, civil rights, minimum wage, interracial marriage, opposition to entry in WWII, support for the Iraq War. An America run on the principles espoused by conservatives in every one of those losing battles would be a much bleaker, harsher place. Why do they have any credibility on climate change?

?otD: Who put the “Mon” in Monday?

---

6/29/2009
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride, 10 minutes of stretching and meditation
This morning’s weigh-in: 221.4
Currently reading: P.S. Your Cat is Dead by James Kirkwood

Tags: Books, Cool, Culture, Escapement, Green, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, reviews, Science

Posted: 4:30 am Mon June 29 2009 | Comments(0) |

[calendula] A grand weekend away

and I spent a four-day weekend at Iron Springs, at the writer’s retreat and conference there. We were among old friends and new, including , , , , , , , , Chrissy, , a cast of almost a dozen others whose LJ handles are unknown to me or have slipped my mind, and of course our host, . Iron Springs is an ageing (to the point of being nigh post-apocalyptic) resort that is completely off the grid with respect to cell phones and Internet, so it was a very focused weekend.

This is where and I first met last year, and such a long, strange year it’s been. At least two of the folks there last year tried to warn her off of me (Hah! Take that!), but everyone this year seemed quite happy that we had eventually worked things out and are quite happy our own selves. Lots of walking, lots of writing, lots of workshopping, some good conversation, a guerrilla underwear signing, and a fair amount of romance.

Came back this afternoon and put on a plane back for San Francisco. I’m exhausted, and so is she. I’ll fly down tomorrow to hit my second opinion appointment on Tuesday for the cancer stuff, then spend the rest of the week with her. So indeed a grand weekend away, with a grand week to come.

Tags: Calendula, California, Conventions, Northwest, Personal, Travel, Writing

Posted: 7:52 pm Sun June 28 2009 | Comments(0) |

[writing] Endurance progriss riport, days 12-15

Having gone off the grid for several days, I’ve missed a series of progress reports. Here’s the last four days of production, through today:

6/25/09	2,500 words	1 hour
6/26/09	3,400 words	1.5 hours
6/27/09	1,200 words	0.5 hours
6/28/09	3,700 words	1.75 hours

On the 27th, I had a two+ hour writing session planned, lay down to rest for a minute, and woke up two hours later when came back to the cabin from a workshop meeting. So that was kind of a bust, as the rest of my day was committed. Still, under the new rubric mentioned last week, I don’t consider it a failure.

I’m going to measure a Monday-Sunday week, as that best reflects my writing pattern. This past week I wrote 20,000 words, to a current 65,900 word manuscript length. That includes a completely missed day due to illness and the short day due to extended napping (which was almost certainly recovery from illness). I’m vaguely disappointed in myself, but recognize that feeling as pointless chaff, as it’s been a perfectly productive week that meets my measurement criteria.

This coming writing week will be complicated due to traveling to California tomorrow to seek my second opinion on the cancer, and sticking around through the weekend to meet ‘s family for the first time and celebrate the holiday with them. I think I’ve got it laid out well enough, though, to meet my goals.

Tags: Books, Endurance, Process, Writing

Posted: 7:20 pm Sun June 28 2009 | Comments(0) |

[personal] Service interruption

We’re out of here and off the grid til Sunday evening. Talk amongst yourselves.

Tags: Calendula, Personal

Posted: 4:45 am Thu June 25 2009 | Comments(1) |