The First Cut Is The Deepest

 

Both Brad's general fiction novel (Alice's Misadventures Underground, self-published) and his young adult novel(The Little House in the Dark Woods, unpublished) have made the first cut in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest! For more information, see the contest site.

Probability that at least one novel would make it in: 36%. 

Probability that both novels would make it in: 4%.

So that kind of rocks.

Now he merely needs to crush the remaining 999 competitors in either category. Probability of at least one novel winning: 0.2%.

(So y'all could, you know, pray or whatever it is that you do.)

Thursday Cat-Blogging

I swore I wouldn't become a cat-blogger (not that there's anything wrong with that, Two Bad Kitties), but even The Neil does it on occasion, so please indulge me here.

Our cat Erasmus was diagnosed with inoperable oral and lymphatic cancer last month. Most folks reading this blog know that Brad has fought off lymphatic cancer before... twice, in fact. So this feels like a real pot shot on the part of the universe... a sort of "OK, I didn't get you, so I'm gonna kill this adorable kitten" kind of thing. At moments like this I wish there were a god, just so that I could smack him for being so fucking vindictive.

The good news, though (and we'll take what we can get) is that Erasmus qualified for a clinical trial at a world-class veterinary school, which means that he's getting several thousands of dollars worth of chemotherapy for nothing more than the cost of some blood work and gasoline. Not a bad deal.

Odds of success are slim... based on canine trials probably only a 40% chance of a 50% reduction in the tumor sizes. But Erasmus has always been an extraordinarily healthy cat (strangers cannot believe he's just shy of 15 years old) and he's kind of... well... demanding.

So we're hopeful.