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Chapter 74 of Victory Tour has been submitted for posting. Gary endures his appeal hearing, then has to deal with more grief from his girlfriends.
This one took some time because God apparently decided that one productive week in late June was too much and I needed to be humbled.
July 3 — I somehow broke the screen on my laptop.
July 5 — A thunderstorm knocked out power all over my little town. It also caused a tree limb to fall on the line to my house, ripping it off the wall. I finally got power restored on July 8. That only cost me $450.
July 9 — Finally hustled up a ride to the computer shop in the nearest big town, about 40 miles away. I don't drive since having aa stroke seven years ago and basically have to find someone with a doctor's appointment. Wound up buying a new laptop, much fancier than I need, for about $1,100. Then had to leave it behind so the computer geeks could load all my files from the busted one.
July 12 or 13 — A work crew somehow cut through the main phone cable in the community, knocking out landline and cell service. The cable wasn't marked, making it AT&T's fault, Communications were restored late on July 14.
July 25 — Finally hustled up another ride to the computer shop. I should have accepted the geek's offer of a tutorial, but I had other errands to run. None of which were accomplished. One place didn't have what I was looking for, another wasn't open on weekends, a third was no longer in business. At least my driver was agreeable to me buying barbecue for lunch. And I filled his gas tank on the way out. Only took 14 gallons. Good thing we took his wife's (relatively) small SUV instead of his one-ton work truck.
July 27 — Finally got back to writing (really should've taken the geek's tutorial), then ran out of steam after just a couple of hours. Since then, it's been write as much as I can on days I have brain function, sit in my chair and maybe watch YouTube videos on day I don't. The last chunk of 7,100 words was knocked out in three days, but required two days off in between.
So, the story is still progressing, just not as fast as we might want. I'm hoping cooler fall weather will help. But in this part of the world, that may not come until November.
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After several months of sluggishness, I've finally figured out some things that I hope will result in more consistent posting. I am currently prescribed four different medications for high blood pressure after suffering a stroke in 2019 that left me partially paralyzed on my left side. Having spent more than 30 years in journalism, being able to type with just one hand was effectively a career ender.
I was hospitalized last spring after a fall (the one that resulted in rhabdomyolosis) and one of the doctors added Lisinopril to the list. Earlier this year, a different doctor added Amlodipine. The combination basically left me zombified.
For weeks at a time, I did little more than sit in my recliner and play solitaire on my phone. I couldn't focus enough to even watch TV. In addition to constantly being fuzzy-headed, my sleep cycle kept getting off (wake up a little later each day until I was staying up all night and sleeping all day), it disrupted my digestion (one huge toilet-clogging bowel movement per week for most of the spring) and probably did some other things that I've managed to block from my memory. Just going to get a bite to eat was iffy because every place in the little town I live in shuts down by 8 p.m. The one 24-hour convenience store in town isn't exactly the best dining experience out there.
April was bad, but May was even worse. I had three days the entire month where I was mentally functional enough to get any writing done. And they were short days. I don't think I wrote 5,000 words the entire month.
Finally, I junked the meds over Memorial Day weekend. I was getting to where I couldn't remember if I'd taken them or not. I got more done the first two weeks of June than I had the previous three months. After a couple of weeks to get it all out of my system, I started back on everything but Lisinopril. The docs won't be happy, but I ain't touchin' that shit again unless they can prove to me that it won't cause such severe side effects.
"But you could die!"
News flash, folks: I never thought I was immortal. I'd rather be productive as long as I can than waste away playing solitaire on my phone.
With all that said, I finally got enough work done to submit Chapter 73 of Victory Tour for posting on SOL. It covers the day of Wednesday, Oct. 24.
You can read the story up to Saturday, Nov. 18 on my Patreon page, but the formatting's different. I write until I reach a stopping point and post the latest part. Those parts are collected into chapters for SOL. There's still a lot of work to do since I've mapped out things for the story to cover another six weeks. Gary Robinson still has virgins to deflower.
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The final part of Chapter 71 of Victory Tour has been posted. Chapter 71 is complete.
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I've added to Chapter 71 of Victory Tour. The updated version should be posted sometime tonight.
This update includes two parts because I never got around to doing it last week. Go on a bit of a roll writing and stayed with it while the ideas were fresh in my mind.
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The first part of Chapter 71 of Victory Tour has been submitted for posting. Back to the grind for Gary after a fall break that wasn't really much of a break. At least he makes it through his first class with Dr. Robinson without incident.
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