Writing during the Apocalypse

I have written 2,000 words in a day before. I'd love to say that I can do that every day, that I'm such a productive writer, the next Stephen King. Some writers are able to write 2,000 words and know they can take it to an editor. Despite my desire, I'm not that kind of writer. Not yet. Maybe I will someday be a writer like that, because by the time King was being published, he'd probably written three million words. I'm about halfway there.

Otherwise, the pulp market is dead. Publishers and agents now are very selective. Instead I have to outline, and it's finally beginning to payoff. I've been progressing about a chapter a day on the novel, but I have to do about the same thing on a few short stories. 

In between time, I'm taking care of my father a few nights a week. He has Lewy Body Dementia, which is what Robin Williams was diagnosed with before his suicide. It's not Alzheimer's, but it's just as bad. He's losing his coordination, his ability to walk. He hallucinates some bizarre things. Like when he was watching the Republican Convention he thought it was taking place in the living room. Another example, he sometimes thinks he's in somebody else's house and asks when we're going home. He generally remembers who everybody is, with some exceptions, i.e thinks my sister is also his deceased wife, which is creepy. His long-term memory is basically intact.

There's one thing you don't hear much about taking care of dementia patients, and that is you never know when they're going to lose another essential simple ability. Such as my father can't get into bed without detailed instructions. When the helper tells him to side-step, shows him how to do it, he steps backward. Or I tell him to turn, and he turns the walker but doesn't turn his feet. Or lately, I tell him to step with his right foot, I tap his right leg, and he moves his left foot. He's unable to tell me which leg is being tapped. He's also gotten to the point where he needs the wheelchair to walk from his chair twenty feet to his bed.

Now that people can grow much older Alzheimer's and other dementia are devastating the population. We have this wondrous medical science that can keep our bodies alive while our minds decay and die. It's a zombie apocalypse with very mellow zombies. It's still a horror story.