(no subject)

Nothing really new has happened in the last couple of days. Well, actually, I suppose I should put it more as I haven't really done much in the last couple of days.

The anti-nausea medication seems to be exacerbating my third trimester fatigue, so I've been sleeping late most mornings, only getting up long enough to take my medications. Of course, once I've eaten, I'm up for the day. I've been reading bits and pieces of a few books, none of which have quite caught my attention. I'll probably try to get to the library this weekend to return my books. Maybe I'll even check out some new ones.

The gastroenterology clinic has sent me a patient history form to fill out, so I called my mother last night to ask just what the esophageal problem was that I had when I was born. I remembered that I'd gotten different stories about it, at least in terms of defect, from her and from my father. My father says that it's a defective sphincter while my mother says it's esophageal constriction. I tend to trust her more on the subject since she's the one who stayed home with me.

I suppose it won't matter for a while. I mean, they're not going to attempt to repair anything before the baby's born even if there's something that can be repaired. The main thing is figuring out a way to keep everything working well enough for the next few weeks. The current medication is helping, but... I definitely would prefer to find a better alternative, something without quite as many potential side effects for the baby.

One of my mother's brothers has asked if he can attend the shower. I'm not certain if he's joking or not. Both seem equally possible. I told him that, given the socially conservative attitudes of the hostess, I didn't think I could get away with inviting any men. He's supposed to get back to me with some addresses later today.

(no subject)

Yesterday, I finished part 10 of "Rheotaxis," at least in terms of the rough draft, and started on part 11. I also got some work done on rewriting some earlier sections, dealing with LunarGeography's suggestions. I want to get that rewriting done so that I can send more sections off to my other beta reader. She's rather swamped with real life work and other online obligations, so her availability's not easily predictable, and I'd rather get things to her as soon as I can so that she's got them on hand when she finds herself with time to spare. She's currently got parts 5 and 6. I think I've got part 7 ready to go to her, but I don't want her to feel pressured.

I need to spend some serious time focused on writing because my goal is to complete "Rheotaxis" by the end of April. I figure that the baby's unlikely to arrive before then, and I want the story done by the time she puts in an appearance. I hope that I'll be able to figure out a schedule for writing while parenting, but I'd rather not have a partially finished project hanging over me if I have trouble getting to the computer.

I've also officially ended my two Saturday campaigns. I'll still play in Scott's Traveller game, but I won't be running any more weekend games. I'm leaving the Wednesday Amber game as it is because that's officially supposed to be winding down. Of course, I haven't managed to run a session in quite a while; we've met maybe five times since the beginning of the new year.

I made the decision to kill the campaigns while we were in Las Vegas and in consultation with Scott. It was difficult because a lot of my social life centers around the table top role playing I do. But it was time. Neither game was prospering, and by the time I'd managed to get either to work properly, I'd be needing to take a break to deal with learning to live with a newborn.

I usually say that running a game isn't a lot of work for me. I tend to be the sort of game master who makes things up on the spot without a vast amount of preparation (I've known GMs who'd spend hours planning for each game session). I may have a general idea of what's going to happen, what the supporting characters are trying to do, that sort of thing, but I've found that those plans can run aground when a particular player doesn't show up or something else unexpected happens, so I start each session prepared to improvise. But improvising's been getting harder. I find myself not wanting to bother.

Fortunately, none of the players have tried to urge me to continue. I don't know how disappointed they really are or aren't, but they're all being publicly supportive. At the moment, I'd kind of like to play in some games, but I've really got no time. I made a decision some time back not to start playing in any new campaigns until after I have a better idea of what having a baby will mean. It's simply not fair to a GM or to other players for me to join something and then disappear indefinitely.

The probable sudden lack of role playing is one of the reasons that I really hope I can get my act together on the writing. I suspect that I'll need some sort of creative outlet. Of course, if I finish "Rheotaxis," that will mean I have to start a new project...