Status Update: Nov. 30, 2013

Hiya everyone!  And for those in the US who celebrate it, Happy Thanksgiving!

I've was looking at some of the entries from this last spring, and was reminded that I experienced respiratory problems, dizziness, shortness of breath, and throat swelling then, too.  Ultimately it went away and the assumption was that those symptoms were caused by a drug allergy, and I stopped taking that particular new drug.

However now that I've had another bout of the same symptoms I have to question whether it was an actual drug allergy at all.  Of course the symptoms could be related to environmental allergies (pollen in the spring and ragweed in the fall, augmented by the fact that I have two cats), but we just don't know.  As you saw in my last post, I'm currently working with my doc to figure it out.

I posted some blood pressure data I was collected but I'm not going to post all of it because I collected 150 data points!  The purpose of it was to see if my home bp unit correlated to the doctor's reading of my bp, and to see if there were specific times (of day, sitting or standing, etc.) when the symptoms were worse, and when it might be reflected in my bp and/or heart-rate.  Here's a non-numbers summary of my at-home readings:

1. My blood pressure sitting* is on the low end of the good range (106/68 on average).
2. My blood pressure standing** is about 15 points higher than sitting, but still perfectly fine (119/83).
3. My heart-rate when sitting is fine (83).
4. My heart-rate on standing is very high (129 on average, with some numbers up to 145).

*Sitting usually means with my feet elevated in a reclining chair.
** Standing usually means after a short period (5-10 minutes) of easy activity.

And here were the other tests run to figure out why this accelerated heart-rate on standing:

1. EKG - Normal
2. Chest X-Ray - Normal
3. Overnight Oxygen Study - No signs of sleep apnea
4. Pulmonary Diagnostic - excellent result (those 4 months of swimming 1 kilometer 3x per week has paid off in increased lung power).
5. Thyroid evaluation (scheduled for 12/11/2013)

I saw my doc to review the data to date, and his next focus is on my - eek! - heart.  I'm going to wear a monitor for two days that will be like running a continuous EKG to see if there are random or specific times when my heart goes to a tachyia rhythm (accelerates out of the blue).

The doc can listen to your heart in the office, and take an EKG, but these are just snap-shots in time, and don't give a pattern of occurrence.  Of course since I seem to have had episodes like this in the past that were there for a while, then gone, there's no assurance it will show up in the two-day test.  If nothing shows up, they'll have to do a more detailed evaluation with a heart specialist in order to either pin down the cause, or at least to eliminate it from the list.

It's so ironic that as time passes post-transplant I've undergone periods of euphoria (always following the all-clear on a recent PET scan) to periods of anxiety (any time symptoms of any sort appears and my imagination runs wild).  Now I get to add things besides cancer to the anxiety list!  Oh well, I guess that's just life.  Still, it's so irritating!

Okay, so I'll pick up the monitor early this week, wear it for two days, then turn it in so the data can be downloaded and sent to my doc.  On the 11th I'll see the endocrinologist so he can evaluate my thyroid to see if it's playing a part (the recent blood work indicates it's not, but he'll do a lot more stuff, no doubt).  My recent blood-work all looks pretty good, as a matter of fact, but there are some things that blood-work doesn't catch, and my doctor isn't going to ignore a racing heart.  I remember that early on, before my Lymphoma was diagnosed I had episodes of tachycardia, and that they were finally correlated to a hyperthyroid (fast) condition, which ultimately converted to a hypothyroid condition (slow).  I now take medicine to speed up my thyroid, but so far my numbers are in the acceptable range.  We'll see if that pans out over a more exhaustive test.

I don't have a fitness update for the month, since I avoided exercise during this time.  I had a doctor's appt. the day after Thanksgiving and my weight was up 3 lbs!  However it was 3 lbs. lower a week before, so hopefully that's just a Thanksgiving eating marathon swing that will disappear over the next week or so.  Luckily my doc has told me that I can start up my exercise routine again, but only in a moderate way, and to stop if I start feelings the effects of a racing heart.  Swimming is probably perfect, but I think I'll stick to my recumbent bike for the moment, and avoid going out in the cold for the time-being, till the other tests are done.

Oh yeah, my monthly INR (for blood thinner protocol) was perfect, at 2.5, so no changes there.

Okay, another update to follow soon!

Status Update: Nov. 19, 2013

From my 11/14 list of things to do before my follow up visit with my primary care doc:

1. EKG - done (looks normal)
2. Chest X-Ray - done (looks normal, but results not finalized yet)
3. Overnight oxygen readings - done (data will be transferred to my doc when I return the device)
4. Blood Pressure and Heart Rate readings - on-going (see data below).
5. Pulmonary Diagnostic - Scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 21
6. Calibration of my home/wrist BP unit - when I meet with my doc on 11/29
7. Endocrinologist appt - Dec. 11, 2013

I've been taking multiple blood pressure and heart rate readings each day for the past week, and will continue to do that until I meet with my doc on 11/29.

A 'good' BP reading is 120/80 (systolic/diastolic) and on my home device I'm commonly getting 97+/-10 systolic, and 65+/-5 diastolic now.  If my home/wrist unit is reading accurate or high, this is definitely a problem, since my readings are 20 points lower than average.

Either my home/wrist unit is really reading wrong, or my BP is too low.  In order to compare to someone else, I've had my mom read hers on my unit a couple times a day.  She has chronic low blood pressure, but her readings are higher than normal on this unit (higher than at the docs), and yet also higher than mine.  This indicates to me that a) my device isn't accurate (it's reading high), and b) my BP may actually be lower than the reading shows, which is definitely a problem.

Another big problem is that my resting heart rate is fine (80-90) but my standing heart rate is high (125-145).  This would explain why I'm getting dizzy and short of breath upon standing/walking, etc.  The other symptom I'm commonly experiencing is a tightness in my throat, from under my chin, through the curve of my throat.

I'm hoping that a change to my current BP med (either in type or dose) will address all of these problems.

I'll update again within a couple of days as more data is collected - most likely after the Pulmonary diagnostic so that I can tell you about that test during this cycle.

Here's my blood pressure and heart-rate data collected so far:

Notes:	1. Several readings are those of my mother to use in comparing/contrasting to my own, and the
	calibration of the home/wrist unit.  My mother has low blood pressure problems, and has had
	several medical incidences that required urgent care, the emergency room, and hospital.
	2. Standing = after activity, Sitting = usually with my feet up in a reclining chair.
	Time	BP	HR	Comments
11/13/2013	10:00	125/85D	105	Standing
	12:00	110/70	75	Sitting
	17:15	111/66	71	Sitting
	17:30	107/72	78	Sitting
Mom:	17:30	125/80	95	she's typically 110/60-70 (w/low bp problems)
	18:30	125/78	83	Sitting
	20:00	135/77	134	Standing
11/14/2013	8:00	?	high	Note: Waking up, I could feel my heart beating pretty fast.
	8:25	104/84	120	Standing	Morning chores
	9:30	127/82	76	After coffee
Mom:	9:45	110/83	93	After climbing stairs
	12:56	134/79	78	Standing
	16:50	99/79	80	Arm/wrist sl. Lower than heart
	16:50	127/68	78	Arm/wrist raised to heart level
	16:50	129/66	75	Arm/wrist raised to heart level
Mom:	18:30	126/82	105	Much higher than her norm
	20:50	109/69	80	Sitting
Note:	Generally sitting for me is in a reclining chair with my feet elevated.
Note:	If it's reading high on mom's then it's prob. Reading high on mine.
	Mom typically has low bp, and was in ER once because hers tends to lower when she's active,
	when she's standing, etc.  She's typically 100/60, HR=82-83 at the docs.
11/15/2013	8:30	124/72	77	Standing	but took test sitting (after morning chores)
	9:50	101/69	77	Sitting
Mom:	9:50	106/76	105	Sitting
Mom:	11:00	97/66	90	Sitting
	11:00	114/70	82	Sitting
	19:30	104/62	82	Sitting	Usually take my bp med in the AM, but forgot till 17:30
	21:30	106/69	80	Sitting
Note:	The tightness in my throat/neck usually gets worse toward evening.
Question:	Is Pulmonary Hypertension a possibility?  My symptoms and readings are in line with it,
	including the hyper-sensitive/sore/bruised-feeling legs.
11/16/2013	9:50	108/81	145	Standing	Morning chores, took Flonaise & ProAir after reading.
	10:00	103/62	73	Sitting	10 minutes rest time from last, standing reading.
Mom:	10:10	99/71	110	Standing
	12:15	110/71	91	Sitting
	16:45	129/76	96	Standing	Tightening of the throat appearing late in the afternoon
	18:45				Used Flonaise - tightness in throat reduced.
	18:55	103/67	86	Sitting	After Flonaise
	20:15	109/70	82	Sitting
	21:40	136/76	92	Standing
11/17/2013	8:50	125/94	137	Standing	Morning chores
	9:00	107/71	78	Sitting	Used Flonaise and ProAir after reading
	9:15	97/75	80	Sitting	15 minutes after Flonaise and ProAir
	9:50	98/73	79	Sitting	Finished first hour cycle
Mom:	10:00	107/58	70	Standing	(sat to do reading)
	13:15	99/60	82	Sitting
Mom:	14:15	100/78	104	Sitting
	14:50	130/87	133	Standing	Slight tightening throat, slight headache.
	17:00	99/69	83	Sitting	Symptoms of 14:50 dissipating now.
	18:00	108/69	85	Sitting	Took daily Warfarin (5 ml.)
	20:00	101/66	86	Sitting	Took evening Flonaise and ProAir after reading.
	20:15	111/65	87	Sitting
	21:00	102/71	89	Sitting
	23:20	102/68	83	Sitting
11/18/2013	1:00	107/68	81	Sitting	Throat feeling tighter, slight headache.
	9:40	131/86	133	Standing	Morning chores
	9:50	107/69	80	Sitting	Used Flonaise and ProAir after reading
	10:10	97/69	88	Sitting	20 minutes after Flonaise and ProAir
	10:40	103/70	87	Sitting	Finished first hour cycle
	11:05	130/81	132	Standing	Post-shower and dressing
Mom:	11:05	100/66	96	Sitting
	11:25	106/70	96	Sitting	Left to run errands, grocery shop, etc. after.
	13:10	Errorx10	V. Fast	Standing	Couldn't get a reading - too high/low for home unit?
	13:20	101/70	109	Sitting	Finally able to get a reading after sitting for 5-10 min.
	14:00	97/66	93	Sitting	Used ProAir after reading
	14:05	98/65	90	Sitting	5 minutes after ProAir
	16:00	108/62	86	Sitting	~20 minutes after eating.
	18:00	107/75	91	Sitting
Mom:	19:50	107/80	95	Sitting	from standing
	20:20	105/70	92	Sitting	Used Flonaise and ProAir after reading
	20:30	98/62	90	Sitting	10 minutes after Flonaise and ProAir
11/18/2013	8:30	113/80	123	Standing	Morning chores (out of Claritin)
	8:50	97/65	83	Sitting	Used Flonaise and ProAir after reading
	9:05	98/61	83	Sitting	15 minutes after Flonaise and ProAir
	9:30	87/67	78	Sitting	Finished first hour cycle
	10:10	101/71	84	Sitting
	11:40	97/61	91	Sitting	Tightness under chin/curve of throat
	14:10	98/67	80	Sitting	~20 minutes after eating, used ProAir after reading.
	14:50	99/66	87	Sitting	Still tight under chin/throat.

Status Update: Nov. 14, 2013

Health Update

I've continued to have some respiratory problems - tightness of my throat, shortness of breath, dizziness upon standing, so I called my oncologist.  She wanted me to see my primary care physician, with an eye toward having my thyroid re-evaluated.  During that meeting we reviewed my symptoms, and though he had a good/low bp, he noted my heart rate was fast.  I told him that was happening when I was active but not sitting, which was, along with the respiratory issues, why I'd curtailed exercising.

The area he immediately keyed in on was my blood pressure.  He thinks it's possible my bp medication is over-dosed.  Apparently a lowish (even good/normal low) combined with fast heart rate can point to this.  So here's the course of action:

1. I have a home bp wrist unit.  I've been taking multiple readings over the last two days and will continue this for the next two weeks, taking readings both at rest (sitting) and active/standing, noting the bp, heart rate, date, time, condition, etc.  At the end of two weeks he'll review this data and correlate my home unit to his office one.
2. He had an EKG done in the office (I don't know the results of that yet, but since it was yesterday I assume it wasn't bad, otherwise I'd have a call asking me to come back in.
3. He sent me for a chest x-ray, which I also did yesterday.  I don't have the results of this yet either.
4. I'm going to pick up an oxygen unit at a medical sleep center on Monday.  It will be programmed to read my oxygen levels throughout the day and night for 24 hours.  I'll return in on Tuesday, and they will immediately download the data and send it to my doc.
5. They're going to set up an appt. for me to have a pulmonary diagnostic test (more on this below).
6. I'll be getting a referral to an endocrinologist to follow up with the thyroid issue.

Pulmonary Diagnostic

I've had the pulmonary diagnostic test both pre-transplant and post-transplant, and describe the test in those sections (see the pages listed to the right side of the home page if you'd like to review the test in detail).

In short, you sit in a both and seal your mouth around a tube that measures your pulmonary abilities while you breath out under controlled conditions.  They use several patterns you have to replicate as seen on a screen inside the booth.  The very first time I did this test they took an arterial blood sample.  Most everyone has experienced blood draws for lab work, but this is typically venal blood - from a vein.  Taking blood from an artery is not fun.  They generally do it at your wrist, and they have to deep and often probe a bit to get in.  The needle is large, and there are a lot of nerves in that area.  It was one of my least pleasant tests, but luckily I only had to do it once.  I hope they won't need that piece again, since they have my baseline and some follow-up tests for comparison.

At any rate, my post-transplant tests were all lower than the baseline, which was expected early on, since pulminary function would decrease with a new immune system, and hopefully stabilize as the immune system grows and health is regained.  There is a general expectation that it will come back near to the baseline level eventually.  We'll see if it's near the baseline this time.

Endocrinologist

I detailed my thyroid history early on in the early pages where I discussed my history prior to and during diagnosis.  For the 8 months I was feeling progressively more and more sick, prior to diagnosis, my thyroid was working in overdrive.  During a 4 month time period I lost over 70 pounds, averaging 3-4 pounds a week.  If you ever experience this degree of weight loss, you will know it is not normal!  This is, at least in part, why I've been happy with a slow but steady weight loss.  As much as I want to lose weight, I never want to lose weight at that rate again.  As long as my progress is reasonable, and matched to my own efforts, I can fairly comfortably conclude that the weight loss is a healthy one, and not indicative of disease.

At any rate, they diagnosed my hyperthyroidism at the same time as they diagnosed the lymphoma - both on the heels of the pulminary embolism diagnosis.  I immediately started chemo, and medication to treat my fast thyroid.  However it turns out that the 8 months of the progressively worsening hyper-condition meant that my thyroid was stressed and beginning to burn out.  It slowed, and then moved into the hypo condition, resulting in an even bigger weight gain than the proceeding weight loss before they had the treatment set and stabilized.  I've been under the hypothyroid protocol ever since then, to artificially speed up my thyroid.  I've been on this medication ever since that time.

My doc drew blood yesterday, and had the three thyroid tests run: TSH, T3, T4.  The first two were in range, but the T4 was out of range high.  I think the range is something like 7-12.5, and I was at 14.5.  I haven't heard from him on this, whether it's significant or not, in light of the other two in-range readings, but I'm sure it's something we'll discuss, or at least I will with an endocrinologist specialist.

Blood Pressure/Heart Rate Readings

When I quote this data in my fitness updates, it's generally from my home/wrist unit.  Generally these devices aren't really accurate, but I use it primarily to keep track of trends, since I assume that it may be consistent, even if it's not accurate (consistently low or consistently high, but showing a real trend-line for any changes).  We're now going to find out how accurate it is, and therefore where my blood pressure really is.

Generally my readings have been low during the dozen or so readings taken in the last two days (low good).  However I definitely had a low heart rate when sitting, and a high one upon standing.  I also measured my mothers bp several times for comparison.   She's very small, and has had low bp all her life, and in fact sometimes has the problems associated with low bp.  Her readings were higher than mine.  This may indicate my unit is not only not reading accurately, but is reading high.  If my measurements are actually higher than my real bp, my doc may be right, and my actual bp is too low.  Once we figure this out he can adjust my medication downward.  It's lucky for me there is an easy fix - if this is the problem.  I'm hoping it is, as reduced medication AND a problem solved are two very good things!

So for now, no exercise, but continue doing the above.  My next INR reading (blood thinner level) is scheduled for Nov. 27th, and on that date I think I'll be meeting with my Primary care physician again to review all the data.  He should have it all with the exception of (possibly) the pulminary diagnostic.  I'm quite sure I also will not have met with an endocrinologist yet, as those specialists usually have quite full schedules and new patients are often out a ways.  We'll see.  Here is my blood pressure and heart-rate data so far, from my home/wrist unit:

My readings

125/85  105 (doc's office, after walking the corridors)
110/70  75 (home - sitting)
111/66  71 (home - sitting)
107/72  78 (home - sitting)
125/78  83 (home - sitting)
135/77  134 (home - standing)
104/84  105 (home - standing)
127/82  76 (home - sitting)
134/79  80 (home - standing)
99/79  80 (home - sitting)
127/68  78 (home - sitting)
109/69  80 (home - sitting)

My mom's readings (for comparison):

125/80  95
110/83  93
126/82  105

In the doc's office, my mom's bp is generally 110/65 (sometimes lower), so on average the home readings have been high for her.  With a few exceptions, my readings are lower than hers, and definitely show a big difference in heart-rate between sitting and standing.  I can't wait to resolve this, as a fast heart-rate is distressing and exhausting.  Luckily I've been busy writing, which is a sitting activity.

Can't wait to resolve this issue!  I should have another entry before the month is out.

Status Update: Nov. 1, 2013 (2 of 2 - Viewers by Country)

Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome!

Here is my monthly update for country viewers.  The latest addition is Georgia - welcome, Georgia!  The continent missing is still South America!

1. USA
2. Germany
3. Russia
4. United Kingdom
5. Canada
6. Romania
7. India
8. Ukraine
9. Sweden
10. France
11. United Arab Emirates
12. China
13. Netherlands
14. Ireland
15. Poland
16. Australia
17. Israel
18. Turkey
19. Serbia
20. Japan
21. Malaysia
22. Indonesia
23. Georgia

Ciao for now!

Status Update: October - December, 2013

1. Nov. 1, 2013
2. Nov. 1, 2013 (2 of 2) - Welcome Georgia!
3. Nov. 14, 2013
4. Nov. 19, 2013
5. Nov. 30, 2013
6. Dec. 6, 2013
7. Dec. 6, 2013 (2 of 2)
8. Dec. 8, 2013

Status Update: Nov. 1, 2013

Another bad month for exercise, with almost the exact same profile as October, but I still lost a couple of pounds, so not a complete loss:

Fitness Summary for Sept, 2013

Exercise days: 5 days out of 30 (an average of 1.2 days/week)
Lap Swimming: 3 days (10 laps/60 minutes = 1000 meters/60 minutes, pace = 6.00*)
Land based/Bike: 2 days (8 miles/50 minutes)
Water/Land ratio: 60/40
October Weight Loss: 2 lbs.
Total Weight Loss: 15 lbs.
Avg. Blood Pressure: I forgot to measure my bp in October!  Nov. 1: 115/73
Resting Pulse-Rate: Nov. 1: 72
INR: 2.4 (range on blood-thinners is 2.0-3.0)
Glucose: 93 (<100 is target)

I had my monthly INR reading yesterday, and asked them to run a glucose test as well.  I did this because a month ago my oncologist did some labwork, and my glucose was a bit on the high side (113).  It never has been before (it's always been in the 90's) and there's a strong presence of diabetes in my family tree, so I asked for a retest this month to keep on top of things.  I fasted for this one (as you should) but hadn't for the one before, since it wasn't planned.  Luckily my reading came in at where it's always been, a very safe 93.  And even though I completely forgot to measure my blood pressure and heart-rate in Oct. the test taken today looks very good (see above).

October started with some of the respiratory issues hanging on from September, but they mostly cleared up as the month went on, so I can't blame them for most of the lack of exercise.  The real reason is that I had a very prolific month writing, and was very distracted from almost everything else.  I'm going to update that part later in this post.  Things I'm still doing for the respiratory/allergy problems:

1. Taking a 24-hour non-decongestant allergy tablet (1x daily)
2. Nasal irrigation daily (reduced from 2x to 1x daily, but 2x is always better)
3. Topical steroid nasal spray (reduced from 2x to 1x daily)
4. Albuterol inhaler (reduced from 4x to 2x daily)

The ragweed allergy season should end sometime this month, and then I'll try to go without the allergy tablet.  The problems could persist since I have cats, and the dry winter season is a problem for dust and pet allergies - we'll see what happens.

Writing Update:

Many of you know that I'm writing a children's series.  The series will span 4 years of time, with the primary characters starting out at the top end of the Middle Grade level (ages 11-12), and ending with them solidly in the Young Adult level (ages 15-16).  Because of this progression, I'm identifying it as a MG/YA/Cross-over.  This means I'm hoping the story will draw in a wide-span of readers, ranging ranging from high middle grade through young adult, with some incursion into the adult readers (due to the history/mystery elements of the story).

Books 1 and 2 are finished, however I spent the last few weeks working on what I hope is the last draft of both.  That draft is finished on book 1, and should be finished on book 2 in about 3 days.  Here's the interesting part: The last draft of book 2 should be the third draft, but the last draft of book 1 is the 17th!  Here's why:

I got the idea for the series when I first became sick, and the first draft of book 1 was written when I was experiencing some extreme brain-fuzz symptoms from chemo.  Additionally and to be honest, I had some bad writing habits that needed to be fixed.  Over the course of the 3-4 years that followed I did many drafts trying to address the many issues I thought the first draft had.  Here are some of the major changes made:

1. Reduced the core group of young characters from 8 to 6 to 5 (took 3 drafts).
2. Reduced the expository/descriptive scenes, cutting the word count by 40k (3 drafts).
3. Revised the writing to make it a more active (as opposed to passive) 3rd person voice.
4. Revised the writing to include more action scenes and dialogue (several drafts).
5. Revised the scenes where I'd deviated from the main character's POV (point of view).
6. Revised the plot structure to match a 3-act drama structure, including new elements.
7. Switched from US std. units to metric (with some caveats).
8. A whole bunch of other misc. stuff.

In short, although the basic plot remains pretty much the same, the draft 1 manuscript doesn't look anything at all like the draft 17 manuscript!  The story, down to all dramatic details, has been completely and drastically rewritten.

A better way of delineating the different drafts would have resulted in a smaller number, but I often counted editing and polishing drafts separately, when I should have included them in the revision and rewrite drafts.  Here's what a draft should constitute, in my opinion:

1. Original or revised (in some significant way) material.
2. Editing.
3. Polishing.

I suppose if I had counted the drafts this way from the start, I would have ended up with a number closer to 10-12.  That's still a lot of drafts for one work, though!

Here's an interesting tidbit: The average published author writes 4 books before they get published.  This means that a writer who is good enough to get published, usually has to write 3 or so weak novels before they refine their craft to be publishable.  Since 2-4 drafts is not unusual in a well-written novel, this means they've probably gone through somewhere between 8 and 16 drafts on the 4 books in total.  Those are learning curves.  If they weren't, the author likely wouldn't get that 4th novel published.

Strangely enough this puts me right in the average profile, except that I wrote '10-12' drafts on the same single story, rather than 2-4 drafts on 4 different stories.  I made a conscious decision to do that for 2 reasons:

1. I had already done a lot of world building, setting up the back-history of the series, and the details of each of the 4 books, as well as two related series (a prequel and a sequel - in fact I already have 1/3rd of book 1 of the prequel written).
2. I was fairly sure what my weaknesses were and wanted to eliminate them one-by-one, and see the results in one story, where the differences would stand out more clearly with each subsequent manuscript.

These last drafts for books 1 and 2 took into account feedback from 4 entities:

1. A professional editor.
2. One of my critique group members (he reviewed both full manuscripts).
3. My primary care physician (a big Harry Potter fan - he reviewed both full manuscripts).
4. My own notes.

Here's something interesting.  After spending much of the first 16 drafts taking material out, in the last draft I'm actually increasing the word count a little.  I knew I had far too much descriptive and expository narrative initially, and that it made my story-telling too passive, so the early draft objectives were largely focused on reducing this.  I think I did it so well, that I pared the book down a bit further than it should ideally be, based on a few of the insights from those above.  The material added back in clarifies and illuminates, but keeps the pace moving quickly.  I think I finally found the right medium!

Anyway, with 2 books essentially done, I'm now preparing to write the first draft of book 3.  My 3-act, detailed chapter outline is done, but I'm going to do one more rework of that to make sure I have everything there for continuity with the first 2 books, as well as for continuity for the final book that follows.  Each book has a puzzle and mystery to be solved, and in that way each book stands alone, but each of the puzzles are put together at the end, for the over-arching plot of the series.

I was hoping to get the final drafts of books 1 and 2 done, along with the final research and outline for book 3, so that I could start writing book 3 as a NaNoWriMo project.  For those of you unfamiliar with this, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and takes place every November.  It's a project for jump-starting novels, especially for authors who have a hard time gaining momentum and keeping it going on their work.  I've never taken part in it, but I would have, in an unofficial way at least, had I been ready.  I still have a few days of final draft work to do, however, as well as perhaps 1-2 weeks of additional research and outline work on book 3, which means I won't be writing the first draft of book 3 in Nov. unfortunately.  I hope to do this in December, though, if all goes well, so I suppose I can consider this December my very own NaNoWriMo project.

Here's one of the things I learned during the 17 drafts I did on book 1 that has been hugely helpful to me; Doing a detailed, chapter-by-chapter outline, based on the 3-act dramatic structure, has allowed me to do the first draft very quickly.  In fact once I finally had an outline system down that worked for me (during one of my book 1 drafts), I was able to complete a chapter a day on the first draft of book 2.  Not only did I complete the full first draft manuscript in just under 1 month (it has 29 chapters), it was in excellent shape for a first draft.  So far feedback on it has been very good - most think it's better and tighter than book 1, which is why I'm fairly certain the 3rd draft I'm currently on will be my last.  So it's unfortunate that I couldn't make the November NaNoWriMo deadline, as I think I could have finished the first draft of book 3 in that month.

Oh well, November or December - not much of a difference.  The important part is getting it right, and as book 4 (the final book) will be more complex than the others, as multiple threads come together for the over-arching conclusion, it's important that everything is correctly staged in books 1, 2, and 3.  In other words, it's more important to do it right, than do it fast.

Okay, that's my update for today.  I'll be back with more health, fitness and writing status updates throughout the month!