What I Have Been Doing

I am missing the NaNoWriMo novel at the moment. I started this novel with all intentions of having fun and writing about duels, sailing ships, and spies. And magic. I am derailed. The derailment is a good thing because I am writing biographies for paid freelance work. Money is a good thing. And the biographies are interesting.

Tonight I learned all about immunotherapy to help in the treatment of cancer. It started with metastatic melanoma and taking the white blood cells from tumors and altering them to attack the cancer. Now the researchers are further specializing the genes inserted in the white blood cells so that they will attack other forms of cancer. Dr. Steven Rosenberg who is the head of surgery at the National Cancer Institute began examining how the patient's own immune system could be used to fight cancer after he treated a patient whose cancer had gone into spontaneous remission and he wanted to know why. That was over thirty years ago and he had been treating the gentleman in question for gallstones and there was no evidence of his cancer.

I also learned about Burger King who currently has a CEO who is criticized for "not having ketchup in his veins". John Chidsey, the BK CEO, was named CEO just prior to the company going public which is very unusual. Under his tenure as CEO so far Burger King has created the freaky "The King" commercials and tried to appeal to a hipper, young, male audience that eats fast food with abandon.

Tomorrow night I have to work on the biography of Leilani Munter who is trying to green up NASCAR.

I do learn cool stuff while I am doing these biographies. It might only be useful on Jeopardy though.

Remiss in posting

I have been remiss in posting lately. Too much going on. It's probably better that I don't post because I forget my good humor at times and post the most incredibly boring or whiney stuff imaginable and who on the planet wants to read that.

NaNoNaNoNaNo

NaNoNaNoNaNo!

Please say that as if you were in a conga line. Chugging along.

I am up to 4500 words on my NaNo novel which is a bit behind, but I fell asleep last night at something like 8:30 and this morning I have some business correspondence I have to take care. Of course I fell asleep last night thinking of the Regency Era-- the beginnings of steam, the era that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution, and the inventions that changed our notions of what was to be expected of the future.

Pretty much until the Georgian and Regency Eras things had been done by hand. The Georgian Era was the beginning of the machine age. The cotton gin, the spinning jenny, and the new application of steam came during the reign of George III. William Radcliffe invented the dressing frame that used steam to continuously operate looms and patented it under the name of Thomas Johnson in the year 1803. The Regency Era started in 1811.

So I have had this swirling of ideas that have gone through my mind about this novel and places it could go. Last night when I fell asleep with the computer resting on me, I wandered through a kind of imaginative limbo between being awake and being asleep. I dreamed of steam operated ornithopters and frigates lifted by spheres that were lighter than air. I dreamt of family recipe books that were not only documenting the harvests and production of estates but contained the magic spells of powerful families. I dreamt of subtle magics to coax new varieties of apples and roses, cure sickness, and cause infatuation. I dreamt of power to rob the world of color and animate a drawing to produce water.

How do I layer all of this into a novel? So many ideas and images. So many things that pull me in delightful directions!

I worked on the plot outline. Does that count?

I now have an outline with chapters to write. If each chapter is about 4000 words I should be good. Two sex scenes, an almost duel, a hint of sailing ships, magic, murder, and mayhem are on the plan.