Belated New Year Update
Oh, boy, I think this is the longest I’ve gone not updating this space. Life has been exceptionally busy, and I got hit with a multiple sclerosis diagnosis back in the fall that’s thrown a wrench into things. It feels like my life is now full of managing doctors appointments, medications, and dealing with insurance companies. Writing has fallen down the list of what I simply have time for. It’s been a bit frustrating honestly.
Despite all that, I have made progress, but at nowhere near the rate I wanted. Which seems to fit the pattern of my life lately. With the MS diagnosis I’m spending a lot of time coming to terms with what I used to be able to do, to what I am actually capable of doing. I finished the edit of MK1, and only this week finally finished compiling and organizing the series bible.
I still have a butt load of edits to do to get it into shape, and I have a good idea of how to solve some of the more thorny ones, but now it’s a matter of finding the time. Writing is like riding a motorcycle for me, momentum plays a key role and at the moment, I don’t have any. I finished the read through of MK1 probably close to two months ago now. That’s enough time that much as fallen out of my head such that the edits are going to be tough to get back up to speed on. I will continually have this feeling I’m forgetting something in some chapter somewhere.
Which means, I’m looking at another read through when I’m done. Another one! If you can’t tell, I’m kinda sick of that right now. The fun part is writing. I had hoped to start writing MK2 by April 1. There’s no way that’s going to happen now, but I hope to get to it by July now. We’ll see what the next three months have in store.
It hasn’t been all bad though, I did get to go skiing twice this year. Once at Big Sky and once at Revelstoke in Canada. Big Sky was amazing and I loved it, although I had to learn where my limits were the hard way with my MS diagnosis. One of the primary symptoms is a weakness in my left leg the more I use it. So the more I used it, the weaker it got, the more I fell. Took a bit of experimenting to find the right ski/rest rhythm. Revelstoke on the other hand was rougher for my leg. I got lost on the very first run and ended up on more technically challenging run than I wanted to right out of the gate. It destroyed my leg for the rest of the day and into the next. It was a bit of a rough trip mentally with my leg, but was an absolutely beautiful experience.
I’m curious to see how my leg holds up the next time skiing. It’s a bit ridiculous, but with the issues and my leg and MS I decided I was going to try and ski as much as possible before I couldn’t anymore. And with the trip to Revelstoke I worry that might be a lot sooner than I hoped.
Pics from Big Sky. Lone Mountain in the distance. Going down Liberty Bowl from Lone Mountain (hard times on my leg). And night skiing! Easily the coolest experience I had, can’t recommend it enough.
Pics from Revelstoke. The first pic is the long trail I got lost on the first time out. It looks clear, but that second pic is what the top of them mountain looked like before I dropped out of the clouds. It wasn’t the bumps or steepness that did me in, it’s the length of runs. Revelstoke is known for super long runs–which is why I picked it in the first place! I spent much of my skiing youth on small hills in upstate NY so these long runs are the epitome of luxury to me. Unfortunately, I did not know about my leg when I booked it and now long runs really run me down. The rest of the pics are just some gorgeous scenery. It was stunning.
My plan is to move into edits on MK1 and then assess how they’re going in-situ before deciding on how long I think they should take. Hopefully, I’ll have a good handle on when I might actually get to move on to MK2 next. I suspect it will be on the order of months.