Update on writing

I decided to slow down a bit on the writing. As I told Lee, it's a marathon, not a sprint. Today I wrote only 2,154 words, bringing the total up to 38,308. The word of the day is lassitude, "weariness of body or mind from strain, oppressive climate, etc.; lack of energy; listlessness; languor." My narrator is getting pretty stressed out, so it wasn't too hard to work it in.

At this point in the story, the narrator's daughter, blaming herself for the guy hurting himself, has asked to go visit him in the hospital, although he's still in a coma. The narrator is reluctant because of his bad relationship with the parents. He has gone next door to consult his older neighbor:

            Just as I was about to turn around and go home, feeling a bit relieved to postpone things, the door opened and Miz Missy stood there.

            “Sorry to take so long, Corny. I was on the phone with Wanda Mae and she's harder to get out of your hair than pine sap.”

“That’s okay, Miz Missy,” I said, glancing at my watch. Maybe there was still a way out of this. “I didn’t realize it’s probably your lunch time. I’ll come back later.”

She held the door wider.

“Nonsense! You come in this house. I’m just going to heat up some leftover Frito pie in the microwave and that won’t take but a minute.”

I bowed to the inevitable and went in.

Miz Missy kept her house warm even in the summer. When Frank was in his last illness, he always felt cold and they kept the house at 85 degrees year round. A month before he died, a group of friends from his old Masonic lodge had driven a hundred miles in summer heat to pay a formal visit. The four old men all wore suits and ties, and Missy said she was embarrassed at making them crowd into that hot bedroom.

“Frank wasn’t in any shape for visitors,” she said, “so maybe it worked out. They didn’t hang around too long, although I did feel bad that they had come so far for so little. People are good, Corny. They really are.”