Because of Script Frenzy I didn’t post any new challenges last week, and I’m not doing any this week either, but I did feel bad that I didn’t blog at all. I’m dutifully writing one page of script into my diary every day, and as fortune would have it one A5 written page is about 2-3 typed script pages so I’m just about keeping my head above water and I’m only 4 pages behind. I am however having to waste precious writing time typing up the diary pages, and getting ahead is a bit tricky since I can’t go onto the next page until I reach the right day.
But enough about that. Today is a big day. It’s April 11th, which means it’s Day 100 of my writing challenge! Yay! I’m feeling very proud of myself for still going strong 100 days in. Last time I tried to set myself a challenge like this I wrote 67 words before giving up. Yes, 67 whole words. I think it’s safe to say that this year is going better. Not that it isn’t a challenge. This is what an average day looks like for me at the moment:
6:30am: Markie and I get up and get Ben ready
8:00am: I leave for work
8:24am: I catch the bus and start writing
8:40am: I get to work and carry on writing
9:00am: I start work and hope I’ve finished writing because I’ve got no more time!
12:pm: Have lunch and do OU work
1:00pm: Back to work
5:00pm: Finish work and get Ben
7:00pm: Ben’s bath and bedtime
9:00pm: Time for OU work again
10:oopm: Fall asleep on the sofa
6:30am next morning: start all over again!
Sounds fun, right? It’s not always like that. We do fit in some RPG in the week, but in general we’re busy busy busy, and if not for my diary challenge I don’t think I’d get any writing done at all. So diary, I salute you! And in honour of 100 days I think I should post something from the diary. Hubby is taking some Zombie photos tomorrow night, so I give you the product of my free writing exercise from February 13th, unedited and exactly how it poured out of my subconscious. The theme was ‘Alternative’.
Warning: contains homeopathy, terminal illness and possibly zombies, but no bad language or nudity. Sorry about that :).
Alternative Therapy
Alternative Therapy. That was how it all started. There were too many diseases that conventional medicine just hadn’t been able to treat yet, and there was so little hope of it happening within the lifetime of many sufferers at the time. We thought they deserved some hope. Our studies showed that health declined slower in patients who took our course of treatment. Our critics said it was just a placebo effect, and maybe it was at first. It was standard homeopathic treatments, but patients wanted to feel like they were doing something to fight their illness, not just sitting around waiting to die.
I can’t remember which of us came up with the idea first, not that it makes much difference now, but somehow we came to the agreement to change the medicine. Having diluted particles of the virus might be more effective if it was introduced with infected human cells, then the patient’s body would learn what the other body knew about the disease. It then followed that if we included cells from all the patients they could all work together. Hundreds of immune systems combining their knowledge to defeat the disease.
At first the patients were concerned at the thought of consuming the flesh of each other, but we assured them that through the dilution process there wouldn’t actually be any human cells in the medicine, but of course the water would remember the information from all the immune systems and transmit it to theirs. Many of them agreed. They had nothing to lose. Or so we all thought.
I don’t know what went wrong, but after a week of the new treatments the patients started to act strangely. Lethargic, slowed responses, cravings for high protein foods and offal. We stopped the treatment but they kept getting worse. Then, on the fifteenth day, the first killing happened. They devoured the doctor who came to check on them. The nurse escaped with a bite, but within hours she started to show symptoms too. Now it’s out and spreading like wild fire. I was bitten an hour ago. I thought I should write this down so someone would know what happened, before I forget…