And staying on pace for my self-imposed return to daily keyboard time. I'm not posting much about the numbers, but basically yesterday was 500 words of fiction or thereabouts, today 750, tomorrow and the day after 1000 and then a break and start it over again. That makes me a lightweight, at least in comparison to those who make their living as fiction writers.

But I'm not counting my lines of programming or report/non-fiction writing in that number. If I did, odds are good that all in I'm in that 4000 words or equivalent. I definitely know that I've spent on average something close to 8 hours a day at the keyboard for more than twenty years.

I tell you this so that you've got some idea of where I am so far as a writer of fiction. Now, fingers crossed, I have my hopes about where I'll be later in this year, at least in terms of the daily fiction production. I hear changes a coming in how my day gig life is structured. If they come out, one of the benefits I'll have will be a different schedule and butt in seat time, the end result of which will be a shift to more fiction time, simply because it'll be available. Hope is a good thing, right?

Now, all that said, my bout of wrist warning was most likely induced by a round of spring household chores over the past couple weeks. That's an additional killer, you can be good and dutiful all you want to about pacing and keyboard time and so on, and then screw it all up by spending a few hours hammering or raking or what have you.

Or to put it another way, it's a hell of a thing getting old and listening to your joints creak, feel them ache, to the point where I know when a cold front's coming. Such is life, and I ain't whining. I just hope that if there's anyone else out there battling this sort of thing, we can all commiserate a little and feel a bit better about not being the 4000 word per day fiends we all might have been in another life without arthritis, tendinitis, bad backs, and so on.

Keep on trucking, day by day by little bit of day. It all adds up. And if life hands me the opportunity to reschedule and up my daily fiction?

I'll accept it as the blessing it is and keep on keeping on, I promise you.