…isn’t so bad.

I do feel like I’m kinda stumbling along, especially when I go looking for the [Shift] key on a combo I would’ve done with just my left hand last week. But one the whole, it’s not so bad.

I am no orthopedist, but I feel like healing has set far enough in that I no longer notice it… beyond the stretchy-cotton-wrapped aluminum splint that’s protecting it from my clumsiness. I have an appointment with an actual orthopedist on the 21st of July, but I’m honestly not sure what they’ll tell me.

The ER doctor said something about using a rod to stabilize the healing bone in the proper position (and that it was most likely what the injury would need), but if the orthopedist tells me that it will heal well enough on its own without a rod, I’ll probably skip the rod.

I am moderately conerned they’ll want to remove the stretchy-cotton and splint for a fresh round of x-rays, though. That makes perfect sense, and I’m even supportive of the idea. I want it to heal as much and as well as possible.

But that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to it…

Writing-wise, I’m far enough along that I can do some bastardized form of typing and not lose too much speed. I’m also far enough along that my finger doesn’t hurt after an hour’s writing. On July 5th (the day after I broke my finger), it throbbed like a toothache after just six minutes.

Yay… progress!

I just put Chapter 18 of Hyperion, what will be Book 2 of Sorcerous Pursuits up on Patreon, and I wrote it start-to-finish this evening. That gives me hope that I might actually have a chance to catch up to Dean on the challenge, and if I do, it will be all the sweeter for doing so with one finger in a splint.

Dictation continues to be a mixed bag.

And if I’m being honest, it’s probably all in my head.

I have had no problem dictating letters to people who’ve sent notes along with their donation to the family cemetery fund, but when it comes to “writing,” the words feel stilted and unnatural. It’s difficult to ‘see’ the story in my mind.

With typing, the story just seems to flow when I place my fingers on the keyboard.

Matter of fact, I could probably dictate this post without much effort or issue… but I’m not going to bother with it. As I said before, I transferred Dragon (Nuance’s Dragon) to my Windows box, because the performance was just not there trying to run it in Parallels on my MacBook.

In theory, it should be. It’s an M1 Max with 64GB of RAM… but it didn’t quite perform as I expected. And since working with it on my Windows box, testing both Notepad and Microsoft Word, I’m wondering if it was just that I was trying to use Notepad. It seems to work better with Word than Notepad, which makes no sense to me at all.

Still, I’m very relieved to have progressed far enough in my recovery that I can get back to writing. I’m 40,000 words behind, and that’s just to catch him if he stops writing… which he won’t.

And no writer worth the name would ask him to.

No… at this point, I want to do everything I can to win the challenge. Meet his word count or exceed it. Like I said above, that would be a true victory after two months where I allowed myself to slough off and then a broken finger.

Talk about a comeback story… right?

All right. I think this is enough of an update for now. I have stories to write.

If you’d like to read my chapters as I write them, click the graphic below.