3 things: dentists, fleas, and writing

1. I had a dentist appointment this morning -- just a regular semi-annual checkup and cleaning, though they also did a set of X-Rays since I had all the trouble with small cavities over the past two years. It turns out that although I need to floss more regularly (I always need to floss more regularly), my teeth are fine! No new cavities!

This is wonderful news.

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2. In less wonderful news, Vicky's apartment in Seville has been infested by fleas, courtesy of a stray dog one of her roommates briefly brought home a month or so ago. Vicky has... not exactly a phobia of bugs (except moths and butterflies; with those she is genuinely phobic) but the next best thing, and has therefore decamped to a hostel for the immediately foreseeable future.

Fortunately she is coming back to America on June 1st. My parents are making plans to store all her stuff in the garage or something, only bringing one item at a time into the house and cleaning each one within an inch of its life in the process.

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3. In writing news, I started ch. 6 of "The Courting Dance," which is Bree's POV and will (theoretically) get the characters over the border into Narnia for reasons of plot and stuff.

I also worked a bit more on "Friends and Neighbors," which took a slight twist and is now kind of about Sakura's relationship with her mother as well as ways people react to Naruto. Well, it was always about Sakura's issues, in a way, but it got suddenly more direct at a point I was not expecting it to. This is what happens when you face a character with a question she can't answer for legal reasons (i.e., why don't you like Naruto? and "because of the Kyuubi" is a forbidden answer) and she has to come up with something anyway.

Sometimes I dislike my habit of writing myself into corners, but it does tend to reveal interesting things about the characters who then must get out of them, so I have never gotten around to training myself out of that pattern.

so, that stuff I said about hating writing...?

It is so much easier to write people talking about here-and-now -- not to mention people doing things -- than it is to condense several centuries of history and culture clashes into hopefully readable form.

Also, Bree is such a delightful blowhard. His POV is way more fun than I'd expected.

650 words in two days, and I know exactly where I am going with this.

Last chapter, I think it took me an average of two months to get that much written, and it was like pulling teeth to figure out what needed to happen next every time I finished a paragraph.

And hey, you know what's even better? In another few hundred words, I will have both Aravis and Cor on-page at the same time, in each other's presence, and actually talking to and touching each other. It is about damn time for that. I suspect the talking will mostly be an argument, but that's okay; they enjoy fighting with each other.

...

I confess: I love writing even more than I hate it. *wry*