The fatigue persists. I am now convinced that the good weather is screwing with my sleep cycle. I’m going to sleep in another room tonight, one that doesn’t get direct sunlight in the morning, to confirm my theory.

Had an excellent day regardless. Spent one shift working on network infrastructure–we have a couple new machines coming online as we segment different aspects of the business onto discrete workstations, so that we can use the space more effectively and get more ergonomic variety.

Spent another shift at the traditional sunday socialization and business lunch, where one of the other writers shared some very interesting information that he received from a lawyer this week–nothing that is easy to re-share in any kind of intelligible way, but it created a new research project for me that ought to be a lot of fun (and, possibly, very useful).

Third shift saw me completely sacked out on the couch listening to the BBC Radio production of Wilkie Collins’ “The Moonstone,” which is probably the most important detective novel (or suspense novel) written before The Maltese Falcon. It created the rules of the genre later made famous by Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.

I’ve read the actual book, and it is, in typical 19th century fashion, verbose and only semi-penetrable. For the modern reader it takes a bit of work to relax into an epistolary novel–it’s a very alien form and not frequently done now. But once you get into it, it’s phenomenal.

The BBC Radio 4 production of it is glorious listening. Very well acted and well-adapted (of noticeably shorter than the original book), and is a delightful, relaxing story to listen to (alas, currently out of print, or I’d link you to it).

So, the nap treated me splendidly. Waking up after, not so much. If you’re under 35, trust me, your circadian rhythms are going to start kicking your ass when you inch up on age 40. Quitet shockingly so.

Sleet woke me up. Sleet, in April. The weather around here isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Just on its own, it’s enough to keep you hopping from one foot to another and wondering what’s coming next. Keeps the mind nimble and the body agile.

So, fourth shift I dragged my ass upstairs and started trying to find things to smack into my face to help me wake up. The fatigue persisted, feels like a weighted mask pushing on my eyelids, but I did actually get a good writing shift in–only eight hundred words net gain, but also cleared out some notes, so wound up with a total shift of about a thousand. Not great, but I’ll take it. I was starting to lose my shit thinking that this book might be beating me back.

I also took a little time to record on the Nanocast block, including the longest episode to date on a topic I care deeply about. Should be a great episode when it drops 🙂

So, here’s how the campaign goes.
Words I started with: 41,131
Words I inflicted: 41,919

State of conquest:

41,919 / 120000 words