The week so far...

As you know, I've been using the Snowflake Method to model my novel. I still don't have a name for it, but I'm at steps 6 and 7 similtainously, creating a 4 page synopsis from the one page synopsis (ok, page and a half synopsis) and full fledged character charts. From there it's step 8, create the spread sheet with the scenes. I should be all plotted and planned in time for the start of NaNoWriMo!

Here's what I have so far...

Before she got sick, Debbie Shiloh had been a very successful communications annalist with (BIG name) Company. They found the tumor in her Palfitzer gland, which as you know, nestles up close to the pituitary gland. The Palfitzer gland is thought to be the source of a person’s magic base, and in the rare case where a tumor forms, they must be removed. When Debbie when in to surgery to have it removed, she ended up having a seizure while they were removing the tumor as a complication to the surgery. After the surgery, and as part of her recovery process, her doctors put her on medication that completely surpassed all activity in her Palfitzer gland. This medication was backed up with spell support to make sure that the gland was completely paralyzed so it could heal properly. But once returned home, she started to hallucinate. At first, it was small things. Like a fire in the oven, when there shouldn’t have been one. Then it progressed to seeing people and small grey blurry images that would whip by her feet when she wasn’t expecting it.

When she was having a good day, she was out back doing some yard work and removing some vines from trees. She stepped on one of the squirrel’s network nodes (that look like oak tree acorns). She crushed it against a rock. Because the summer had been so dry, the electronics inside the communication device sparked on the dry leaves, starting the slow burn for the fire. It wasn’t a big fire, and the fire department is able to put it out without too much trouble. The one neighbor loses part of a fence, and the fire’s cause is listed as unknown. She decided that now is the time to clear the one area for a open room for summer-time sleeping and general hanging out. While Debby was out poking in the rubble of the burned out woods, she finds a burned rubber ducky (for the Seattle Duck challenge), and some odd assortment of toys. While she is working on this, Mr. Tibbles starts talking to her, and makes it known that he can talk to her. He introduces her to Marrok and together they start to explain about the squirrels and all that those strange toys she finds are not toys at all.

After speaking with Mr. Tibbles and Marrok for a while and after examining the evidence, she becomes convinced that there is indeed an invasion. She starts trying to convince people of this. Several people are convinced, but they don’t understand -- they think the squirrels she is talking about are real pest invaders from a different part of the planet, not space invaders. She gets put into a loop with the local fish and wildlife folks. They completely do not understand that she’s trying to explain that this is a space invasion, not a pest thing. Her nurse is convinced that she’s gone mental, and convinces her doctors and family that she needs to be placed in hospital for “a period of observation.” Just to make sure that her medication is stable and that she is not a danger, just slightly bonkers.

While Debbie is in the hospital undergoing tests of various flavors, the squirrels launch the first attack. However, while she’s in hospital, her husband starts to examine the weird toys, and her son explains that they aren’t like any toys he’s ever seen either. They discoverer that something else is at work, Perhaps she is not imagining this squirrel thing after all. The squirrels launch a concerted attack on several power substations, and they choose to launch their attack under cover of a massive regional thunder and electrical storm. However, they are not expecting so much of the area to be heavy magic run, so the damage is not as great as they expected, Their goal is to shutdown the Puget Sound Energy Basin and the Hydro Dam Systems, but they do enough damage to get the attention of more than just the Fish & Wildlife department

The first days after the attack have all kinds of wild speculation about just what happened. It is not until later that during the clean up that odd things are found at all the affected sites. Workers from The Division of Energy discover the mess left by the squirrels. Some of the odd things include too much plant material that shouldn’t be there, some of it is actual alien squirrel technology. Debby and her family receive a cryptic message from a mysterious person, vindicating all her warnings.



Now for real life.

I spent much of the week crashed. I ended up with one of my terrible headaches that sent me to the ER. The jerk doctor accused me of drug seeking, of not even having Cushing's. The fool obviously knows nothing about endrocin tumors. So, he told me that they won't be treating me anymore in the ER, I don't even know if they can turn me away, so I'll be calling the patient omsbusman at the hospital, and see if they can refuse me treatment. My endo faxed them information on 10/2, and somehow it's MY fault the hospital lost those records? The Jerk ER doc kept wanting to know why I haven't had brain surgery yet. Hello! this is brain surgery, not some ellective surgery for an in-grown toe-nail we are talking about.

Jerk.

Anyway, I don't know when I'm going ot be having surgery. I'm still in limbo about that. And I'm still facing yet more and more and more cycles. I feel that I will never never be free of this. I'm hurtling towards another crash and there is nothing I can do to stop it. And then the next crash, and the next one, and the next one after that.

Last night my husband and I went to the Seattle Opera's production of The Italian Girl in Algiers (L'italiana in Algeri) sung in Italian with English supertitles. It was my second opera, the first one was also a Rossini, the Barber of Seville. Madcap and silly!