S. K. Williams' Livejournal

And not just because I need one to get published. ***

I don't know what book to write next. T tells me to "write what you think will sell". The problem with that advice is I don't know what will sell. I love all my projects. If I didn't, I'd never be able to finish them, not even if I was guaranteed a spot on the NYTimes List. I can't write to the market. I can only look at my ideas and guess which one might be my break-in novel. (Break-IN, not break-out. Rachelle Gardner has a great post here on this.)

Even though there are no guarantees in publishing, an agent at least has a better idea, an inside view, of what is selling and what editors are looking for. It would be nice to have someone to discuss my ideas with so they can say, "Hey, I know of an editor who likes BLANK. Project Awesome would fit that. Work on it." But I don't have an agent, so I'm left bouncing between projects, asking myself:

"Should I rewrite my ya sci-fi? I think it has great commercial potential, but it already had a round in NY."

"Should I finish SoT? I love its characters and it's already at 45k. But will anyone else love it?"

"What about the SB novel? It's new and shiny and I'll be able to incooperate the emotional turmoil of a historical romance into a sf-romance. But will that even work?"

I could pull my hair out over this. I guess I'll just have to make a decision and stick with it.

Do you guys have any advice? How do you decide what project to work on next?

*** Yes, there are other ways to get published, but they're not easy.

To procrastinate moving on to my next project, I opened up the folder containing the millions of files of my first real attempt to write a novel. The earliest file dates back to 2001, but that was three computers ago and I think I may have started working on TFC when I was in high school (pre-2000). I didn't "get serious" about writing until 2005/2006, though, and really just piddled with TFC during college. (To all of you college students who go to classes, make the grades, and write a book, I salute you.)

Anyway, I don't know if I'll pick up this project again, but I thought I'd post a little snippet from it. It started off being straight science fiction, but a love story crept in. Oddly, this was written during a time when I would never have picked up or chosen to write a romance novel. Go figure. This is the beginning of the book. Seems kind of info-dumpy, doesn't it? It doesn't get to the action soon enough (there's action in another page or so).

( TFC Snippet )

This idea has been scratching at me since I arrived, and IT WON'T GO AWAY!

I'm partially blaming Trey for it. He keeps insisting I should write young adult books. Says my writing 'voice' is best suited for that (Really, what does he know?!) Other than my Stealing Ellum trilogy (only the first book is written), I've stayed away from YA. I love my adult books, the ones written and the ones that are still germenating in my mind.

I'm also blaming Meredith Duran. She hooked me on historical romance with THE DUKE OF SHADOWS last spring, and her other two books, BOUND BY YOUR TOUCH and WRITTEN ON YOUR SKIN are equally awesome. I've sworn not to attempt historical romance because I don't think my voice is right for it. Plus, I could never come close to crafting something as beautiful as she does.

So basically, I've vowed not to write any more young adult books and to write no historical romances. Guess what this stupid idea I have is? Yep. A YA historical romance.

Argh! (Ahem. No. There are no pirates in this...  Hmm. Maybe I can put a pirate in it. Why the heck not.)

The thing is, I could ignore this itch if I wasn't living where I am. We're in Windsor, and there's this little town on the other side of the Thames called Eton. And there's this college in Eton. It's referenced in the majority of the historical romances I've read. Seems every duke, earl, baron, and whatever other titles these books' heroes have attended Eton College. (By the way, 'college' is a deceiving term. Until just a couple weeks ago, I thought it was a college - like an American college with students 18 and up. Nope. Boys aged 13-18.) 

All these references to the character's pasts have made me so curious about Eton, and with it just around the corner, it's almost always on my mind. I have no idea who my hero will be, what he'll will do, how he'll interact with the other boys, and for the love of God I have no clue how the heroine will come into the story. It's a school for boys. How the heck am I going to hook hero and heroine up?

This will require research. How nerdy is it that I want to take a tour of the campus? But how can I pass it up? I mean, they have a MUSEUM OF ETON LIFE. Hello, research. I should do the research, shouldn't I? It would be a shame to pass up the opportunity.

But I want to write my adult science fiction romance. It's halfway written already. I could have it finished and polished in a few months. Who knows how long it'll take me to write an Eton story from scratch? Especially with the research. I've never had to research my books before, not like this.

This idea of mine can't be original, can it? I did do a quick search for books set at Eton. Only found a young James Bond series, but surely someone else - someone who's a better writer than me - has already tried it.

ETA: Darn it. The musuem is only open April - Oct.

It ocurred to me that two out of my three completed novels contain love triangles. I never set out to write this type of love story - another guy always shoves his way into my books, thus complicating my MC's life. I partially blame Apopcalyptica's Bittersweet for this. Music inspires me, and I love the contrast of the high and low voices and the anguish in them both.

So I decided to do a little research. I went a-googling for more love triangle songs. I found on a Yahoo! message board a reference to a song called What About Now by Kenny Rogers and some other folk. I dashed off to YouTube it, but, alas, the KR video had been blocked (the UK blocks so much more stuff than the US). There was, however, a song called What About Me by some guy named Ryan Knorr. On a whim, a clicked it.


Love this guy's voice. And the song? Wow. It has so much emotion in it, my heart kind of aches.

Have any of you ever stumbled across good music by unknown or little-known artists on the web? If so, who? I'm always on the lookout for new stuff to listen to. :-) 

I want to like your bookstores. Really, I do. They remind me a bit of Barnes & Noble, though they're never quite as large and I've yet to find one with a coffee shop inside. Like B&N, they're in most large-ish cities in the UK. I stumble into them whenever I have the opportunity, always on the lookout for new books and authors. But, dear Waterstone's, I find that I leave all too often without making a purchase. Do you want to know why? Do you? It's a simple reason, one which can easily be remedied.

You have no romance section.

None.

This is apalling. Do you know romance is the top selling genre? A quarter of all books sold are romances. Granted, these are US stats, but I wouldn't think the English are so different. So why not give them their own shelf? I'm from Texas, a notoriously conservative state. We have aisles dedicated to romance, so it can't be that you're afraid to offend costumers with half-clothed people on the covers. It can't be a shortage of shelving space. You do carry romances, so you can just take them from your general fiction aisle and group them together somewhere else. You will sell more books if you do.

This lack of a romance section was only an annoyance in the past. I could go to Murder One, to their room full of romance and find many somethings to read. But, alas, Murder One has closed *sob* and unless I order books on-line, it's a tremendous labour to locate romance within general fiction. Usually, I don't have the time or patience to try. And to accidentally stumble across a new-to-me, interesting writer of romantic fiction? Near to impossible.

But maybe I've only stumbled upon anti-romance Waterstone's? I feel like I've been in one that had a shelf - a shelf! - of romance, but I can't remember where that one store was. It's certainly not in any of the town's I frequent. I almost believe I dreamed the ocurrence. 

So, Waterstone's, until you decide to create a romance section in all of your stores, I shan't return to any of them. I will purchase my books on-line from Amazon. *gasp*

Sincerely,

Sandy


 

In a word - awesome. In two words, conveniently awesome. My library back home in Texas offers this service and I'm super excited because I can use it over here in the UK. My only complaint is that the collection of audiobooks available isn't very extensive. I don't know if that's because publishers won't let Overdrive offer downloadable audiobooks on all their titles or if my library just isn't paying enough money to get everything that's available. I guess the limited selection is kind of good in a way. I've tried some authors/books which I never would have picked up otherwise. Books like Jay Asher's 13 Reasons Why (tragic, frustrating, but fabulous), Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn (DO NOT listen to this book!*), and Suzanne Brockmann's Body Language (simple, predictable plot but one which I thoroughly enjoyed). 

On Wednesday, I'm taking my grandmother to Paris for an overnight stay. We'll be spending something like 3-4 hours on trains and, since I get motion sick so easily and can't read and travel, I'm ecstatic I was able to download two books to my MP3 player: The Lost Duke of Wyndham and Dark Curse: A Carpathian Novel. I haven't read anything by Julia Quinn or Christine Feehan, so I'm anxious to try them out.


* The description. Oh. My. God. The descriptions went on FOREVER! I think I might have liked this book better if I'd read it, but I couldn't stand listening. Everything I don't like was accentuated, and I couldn't skim through the pages and pages of "his face is so perfect, his skin is like marble" blah, blah, blah. I was okay with the plot, even though it seemed to clash with the tone of the other books.

The other major problem I had with the audiobook was I couldn't stand the way the narrator did voices. Every time another vamp spoke, the narrator would do it in voices that grated on my nerves. And the part of the book from Jacob's POV? Ugh, horribly annoying. Not Meyer's fault. Maybe not even the narrator's fault. I'm thinking I might prefer audiobooks that have only one or two POVs. I'll have to listen to more to see if this theory is correct.  Research, gotta love it. :-)

Briefly. And to be quite honest, I'm not sure which purple-clad lady was her. Who woulda thunk they'd use a decoy and order the calvary to gallop? I'm glad I took video. If I'd tried to take a snapshot, I'd have missed it.

(the YouTube video quality is horrible for some reason)

I have other photos/videos of the soldiers and band marching down the street. This is right in front of our flat. We've been here in Windsor about a week and a half now. The weather's been great - much better than back home - and the city is gorgeous. Granted, we're in a very touristy part of town, but I could so live here permanently.

We (my visiting grandmother and I) visited Windsor Castle yesterday. The grounds were beautiful. We didn't get to see the State Apartments since they're closed for the Indian president's visit, but our ticket lets us go back in as much as we want for a year. Nice. Maybe I'll take a notebook out there some time, plop down by a wall and write. If it's not too chilly.

My writing is actually going well, a relief since the whole month we were home (minus a week trip to Kaua'i - I should probably post about that) I made practically no progress. So yay for productivity!
 

I swear to God. A headless squirrel.  Ew, ew, ew!

The headless part isn't my fault. The tree might be. You see, the dogs were outside. I heard them fighting. Like really fighting, not their usual play-fight, so I knocked on the window to see what they were doing. Neither one actually had the squirrel in their mouths, but it was lying on the ground right there beside the house. WITHOUT A HEAD! Eeek!

I couldn't leave it there, right, so I grabbed a shovel. And scraped it off the ground. And took it to the back fence. And flung it over. I didn't think about the trees. I just thought Ew, gross. Get rid of it! Get rid of it! Get rid of it!  It's still there now, hanging headless just above the fence. I can see it from my bedroom window. *whimper*

But first, a huge congratulations to kaz_mahoneywho has a book deal! Actually, I should say book deals.  Her YA debut, The Iron Witch, is going to be PUBLISHED and so is the sequel!  *happy dance*

Honestly, I got a little happy teary-eyed when I read the announcement because Karen was one of the first writer-friends I made back when I decided to take my writing seriously. (Honestly, I think she was the first writer-friend.) I'm so excited her dream has come true and I can't wait to get my hands on her debut novel!

All righty. Now, the quick writing update. I completed the second draft of my paranormal romance two weeks ago. Felt like the first draft since I had to rewrite the ending, but I'm happy with it now. Well, aside from the list of revisions I need to do and the 10k words I need to cut. :-)  I must say, this has been my toughest book to write. I'm not sure if that's because it's taking so long or if it's because I'm worrying about it not catching an agent's attention.

I know, I know. I should forget about the agents and just write the best book I can. I do think this book is good - maybe even great - but I'm afraid to let myself fall in love with it. If I stay emotionally distant, it won't hurt as much if it doesn't grab an editor/agent's interest.

Anyway, it's probably going to be a while before this one's ready to send out. I have a vacay coming up this week and then another 3 month trip back to London. I doubt I'll be very productive until we settle down in the UK again.

I'll try to update more regularly, though!

I've been reading the query contest submissions over at Miss Snark's First Victim. There are several present tense stories posted there. If you read the comments, you'll see a number of people are put off by this. I can't say I'm surprised. After all, I used to despise present tense as well.

What made me change my opinion? Ann Aguire's Grimspace. I remember grimacing when I opened the book. I'd picked it up at the bookstore and, for some reason, read only the back cover and not the first page. If I'd read the first page at the store, I might have put it back on the shelf. Yes, that's how much I hated present tense. But since I'd already spent my $7.99, I thought I'd give it a few pages. A few pages was all it took. I was immediately pulled into the story, and the writing disappeared.

Still, I didn't think I was a convert. I didn't read another present tense story until a year later when I picked up Jeri Smith-Ready's Wicked Game (Vampires and rock n roll. How could I not pick it up?). I loved the way this story was told, and it just so happened that, while I was reading it, I started a new WIP (my current WIP). I'd written half the first chapter in past tense. I must have had Wicked Game on my mind because I accidentally wrote a sentence in present tense. I realized it and went 'huh'. Then I decided to do a little experiment. I went back and rewrote the chapter in present, and the chapter came alive.

Seriously. It started singing. Sure, it was okay in the past, but changing it to the present tense gave it spark. I love it. There's no way I would change it back. But I do worry. There are a lot of people out there who are like I used to be, and I have to wonder how many agents and editors might also have an aversion to present tense. Does writing my book this way limit its chances for success?

Plus, I really want to know why. Why did I hate the present tense? Was it just because I wasn't used to it? Was it because the present tense stories I read before Grimspace were poorly written (though I can't recall a single one of them)?

Do you hate the present tense? If yes, can you say why?


ETA: Just read Jodi Meadow's comments to Post #6 in which she says "First person present is *really* hard to pull off." *sigh*

I have exactly six chapters left to edit. I've reached the last 20k of the book, the part where I really started struggling and muddling through. I'm amazed at how many unnecessary words I have. These 20k are nothing like the first 80k where I just had to smooth things over and make better word choices. Honestly, I didn't delete hardly a word from the first 4/5ths of the book.

Deleting words is painful on one hand; on the other, it's fascinating. I think it's really helping remove some of McKenzie's wishy-washyness (that's totally a word!). I hope so, at least, because sometimes I worry that she's not the same person at the end of the book as she was at the beginning, and I totally love her at the beginning. I admire her. I want my readers to admire her at the end too, but that won't happen if she gets on their nerves.

So, anyway, even if I edit just one chapter a day, I should be finished with SKOF in a week. I'm preparing to do my victory dance!

I just woke up and learned that Joanna Bourne's historical romance, My Lord and Spymaster, won the Rita Award! I LoveLoveLove Bourne's spymaster books and cannot wait until her next one is published. I read her books at the beginning of my (ongoing) historical romance binge, and I think I keep trying out new authors in hopes of finding someone whose books can entrap me as much as hers do.

I'm so happy she won. It's truly deserved!

Ooh, and I just saw that Rosemary Clement-Moore won the YA Rita with Hell Week! Sweet! The Maggie Quinn novels are so much fun to read.

Can't she?

I just learned that my Author Idol, Linnea Sinclair, won the PRISM Award with her book, Shades of Dark, (Congrats Linnea!) and I started daydreaming about how completely awesome it would be to win that award. Then I started thinking about other awards: the Golden Heart, the Rita, the NYT Bestsellers list (not an award, but just as good). I'm not published yet, not even agented, so it seems kind of silly to think about achieving any of these recognitions. What seems downright insane is the thought of one of my SFR's competing with Sinclair's books. Or any of the books nominated for these awards. Don't get me wrong - I love my stories - but when I read what I've written, it doesn't seem like something a Real Author wrote; it seems like something I wrote.

That's the dream, though. Yes, just getting my books published and read by anyone is an accomplishment. I can't tell you how giddy I get when I learn an agent actually makes it to the end of one of my novels. I don't care when I receive the rejection because the agent ENJOYED MY BOOK ENOUGH TO FINISH IT! (Okay, I care a little bit about the R.)

Still, I want those awards.

Anyway, gotta get back to revisions!

It took two weeks and the reading of nine novels (three of which I didn’t make it past page 100, though) to finally reach a point where I could try my hand at revising SKOF. It’s going quite well. I even wrote the Dreaded Chapter Seven which I put off working on for a couple of months. I *think* I might have pulled it off.

I feel much better about the book now. I’m amazed at how solid it is so far. Not that it’s perfect by any means, but because I don’t rush through the first draft like it seems every Real Author recommends doing, I don’t have quite as many problems to smooth over and make pretty. Of course, I’ve been working on this baby for nine months so it better not suck.

God, I really hope this book is The One. It’s really grown on me. If this one doesn’t get interest from an agent, my self-confidence is going to plummet. On my first book, I didn’t expect much because it was, well, my first book, and I’d read how rare it was for those to get published. With my second book, I was able to use the excuse that it’s a vampire novel, a good one, in my opinion, but a difficult sale with so many of them crowding the shelves already. With SKOF, though, I don’t have any excuse. If it doesn’t get attention, I can only blame my writing. *insert expression of horror here*

Anyway. My progress so far (in single spaced pages):

72 / 172 pages. 42% done!

We discovered yesterday that our neighbor's name is Mario. Trey, who suffers from social anxiety just as much as I do (but in an oddly different way), took the two steps across the hall to knock on his door. You see, Mario is the building's fixer-upper, and after a day of heavy (for London) rain, we noticed several leaks in our ceiling. Not dripping bucket-full leaks, but definitely dampening-the-ceiling leaks. Trey pointed them out to Mario and got the typical guttural "huh" in response.

Come to think of it, I don't recall ever hearing Mario say anything other than 'huh'. A couple days ago when I was returning from the Ghetto-Gym, he was outside folding up cardboard boxes to put into the Mini-Dumpster. The front door was shut, so I had to use my Stupid Key to open it. The key was incredibly stupid that morning. I stood there for at least two or three Very Long Minutes trying to find that perfect, exact location where the key would turn. I can usually find the spot within thirty seconds or so, but of course not that morning when I had an audience.

I finally heard keys jingling. Mario approached me, held up his key and went 'huh'. I stepped back and let him open the door, noticing his key wasn't any normal key. It was a Super Key which went all the way into the key-hole and, thus, was guaranteed to open the door every freaking time. He's been holding out on us. I want a Super Key too.

I also suspect he has another secret. I put a load of laundry in the washer sometime around 1:15ish today. Based on past experience, I know it takes about two hours and forty-five minutes to wash clothes. Well, I forgot about the laundry because I got swept up reading Kresley Cole's If You Dare, so I didn't head downstairs to switch the whites to the dryer until about 5:00pm. As I headed into the backyard, I noticed Mario was in front of me. I hurried so I could get my clothes out of the washer for him. Before I entered the Laundry Shack, he exited, gave me the requisite 'huh' and continued on his way.

I entered the laundry room. His clothes were already in the wash (he wasn't carrying them when he entered, so he had to have put them in earlier). Mine were sitting in my basket on top of the dryer (a totally acceptable thing for him to have done). The thing is, if my clothes were put in at 1:15, there's no way they were finished washing until 4pm. If he put his clothes in at exactly 4pm, he would have at least another hour and forty-five minutes before the wash cycle was complete. The question must be asked: why did he check on the clothes after only an hour?

Everyone has to know it takes FOREVER to wash clothes here. Right?

UNLESS, there's a SECRET to the washing machine.

I think Mario's holding out on us again.

I had a blast yesterday at Wimbledon. I don't normally pay attention to tennis, but I think I might be a convert. The news here is saturated with talk of Andy Murray this and Andy Murray that. The entire country is obsessed. I was starting to catch the disease too until today when I saw him:



My loyalty has totally reverted back to the good U S of A. Friday, it is on. Andy Roddick vs. Andy Murray. I so wish I could be there!

Trey and I weren't able to get into Centre Court yesterday. We spent most of our time on Court 3 watching doubles. We got to see Martina Navratilova and Nadia Petrova, who apparently are famous. When I had no clue who these two women were, Trey just about dropped dead.

We did take a few pics why we were there. I'm sorry these aren't behind a cut, but my LJ doesn't give me that option for some reason. I blame T-Mobile.



Trey and me in front of Court 3.



I liked this guy's hat.



In the States, little kids run lemonade stands. Here, apparently grown men do. :-)



That Nadia girl signing autographs.



View from the top of the hill. I think it has a name, but I think people are calling it Murray Hill now? Anyway, one of the Williams is playing on the screen.

Quick Status:

94500 / 90000 words. 105% done!
Yeah. This is a problem. The book isn't finished. It's somewhere close to the end, but I'd guess I have another 10 to 15k to go. And this word count doesn't include chapter seven, which I've been putting off writing for a while now. SKOF's first draft is looking like it's going to hit 120k. Not good.

I know, I know. It's okay for the first draft to go long. That's why there's a second draft: to cut out words. But there are so many words that need to be put INTO the story still. It's that whole 'fleshing out' thing I mentioned in a previous post.

*head desk*

Okay. Deep breath. I have six days to finish this first draft. I can do this. Focus on the good stuff, like the fact that I've written 30,000 words this month. That's pretty awesome.

I'm loving "Sometime Around Midnight" by the Airborne Toxic Event. Absolutely beautiful lyrics. Can't you see the bar, the people standing in the background, and then this one, beautiful girl who seems more colorful and full of life than all the rest? Can't you feel this guy's pain? His catch of breath at seeing his ex and how much it hurt to have his heart ripped out?

The girl’s a bitch, making sure he sees her leave with another man. That's when the song changes. The guy tries to drink her out of his mind, but he can't, so he stumbles outside under the streetlight, anguished and singing:

I just have to see her
I just have to see her
I just have to see her
Even though she’ll break me in two.

Ah, I love it. I love music like this that rips raw emotion out of me. Just fabulous. And it's the perfect theme song for the beginning of my Spacebabies*** book. *grin* I only hope I'm able to capture the emotion of this song with my words and without the help of instruments and a heart-wrenched voice.

Seriously, guys, you must listen to these lyrics.

*** I so need to find a better temporary title for that book.

Found this via agent Lucienne Diver's blog. This should be required reading for some people. *ahem* Trey *ahem*

The Significant Other's Guide to Dating a Science Fiction/Fantasy Writer by Chloe Neill

Have you noticed your significant other (let's abbreviate to "SO") wandering around, mumbling to herself about orcs or vampires? Does she spend inordinate amounts of time scribbling antiquated names on a handmade map? Is she trying to weight the relative strengths of crossbows, Glocks, and katanas?

Then, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, you might be dating a science fiction/fantasy ("SFF") writer.

You might have some interest in SFF on your own. Maybe you enjoy a little CosPlay, a ittle Steampunk, some ST:TNG, or a little SciFi (or are we calling it SyFy?). Or maybe you might indulge your SO's ridiculously fertile imagination and her lectures on the biological imperatives of vampirekind. Whatever your position, if your SO is a writer in the SFF genre, your awareness of the life cycle of a manuscript could be the difference between the misery and happiness. Here's a handy guide:

1. Submission: At this point, your SO doesn't yet have a deal for her manuscript. She's just spent months (or years) sweating over 100,000+ words of SFF, and she's hoping for a little validation and a promising offer. These are very nervewracking days, during which your SO is probably questioning her abilities as a writer, the marketability of her product (are elves the next vampires?) and whether her query letter would spark enough interest to get the agent/editor's thumbs-up. Tread carefully.

Read the full article at Grasping for the Wind.

First, the Public Announcement:

My T-Mobile internet is screwy. Some days I get a decent connection, other days I'm kicked off every other minute. I *think* all my e-mails are getting to me, but I'm not so sure about the e-mails I send out. When my internet spazzes, I get an error message telling me my message hasn't been sent. However, a quick look at Outlook's 'sent' folder says the messages did go out. I really have no clue if they've gone or not. I've resent some messages (my apologies if you get anything twice!) but if you've been expecting an e-mail from me in the last week or so and haven't received one, it might be T-Mobile's fault. You can send me an e-mail nudge or leave a comment here if you think my message to you has been lost.

Now for the Water Wars:
(I'd put this behind an LJ cut, but my internet hates LJ; it doesn't give me any options for editing this.)

My studio's water pressure is screwy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This makes doing the dishes a major feat and taking a shower a risky endeavor. The hot water is more reliable than the cold. Problem with that is it's HOT.

The other day, the shower decided to put up a fight. I had a trickle of warm water only, but I'd gone to the gym and HAD to get clean. I managed to do this by turning on and off the water in between sudsing up. I got out of there clean-ish and without any major scalding, though it was close there at the end once the pipes *really* heated up.

I should probably tell the building caretaker, but there are nine studio flats here, including his. I find it hard to believe this water pressure thing is affecting only me. Besides, the caretaker scares me. He's not quite friendly. When I've passed him on the stairs, I've barely managed to get out a 'hello' before he trots off. I don't want to bother him, so I developed a strategy to combat the water.

I tried to take another shower today. The water worked at first, but by the time I undressed, the water pressure was gone, signaling that the trickle coming out of the showerhead was all hot water. I rolled my eyes, shut off the water, and redressed. As soon as I opened the bathroom door, the toilet ran, refilling its basin. Suspicious, I tried the shower again. Full water pressure. Full water pressure that lasted.

It's just odd. One second, I can get zero water from the faucet, the next, it's perfectly fine. I've decided now that, whenever the water throws a fit, I'm just going to flush the toilet and wait however long it takes to hear the water refill the basin. Sometimes, this is only a minute or two. Sometimes, it's half an hour.

I think I can make it two and a half more months like this.