Recovery

Update 27 6-12 Dec 2021

Gonna be blunt, I did no writing for a week, and even writing this blog is proving to be difficult.

First off, my doctor kind of lied to me. If you read last WEEK, you know I had to go into the hospital for a “quick procedure.” Only it was really a 6-hour ordeal for me. But on the god side of things I got a clear bill of health and I’m doing fine. On the other side of things, my arm is still aching nearly a full week later and typing this blog is starting to cause me agony.

Here’s hoping the Tylenol kicks in soon and I’ll be able to salvage a write session for the rest of the day?

No Words

I have no words added to the manuscript and I really do want to add more words today and tomorrow, my two best writing days. But I don’t know if I’ll physically be able to do this without a lot of pain.

Pain hasn’t stopped me before, nor other discomfort. I have written at weird hours, in hot box rooms without AC, on makeshift desks you would not believe. I remember reading that Stephen King once pushed a board into a space beside the washer and dryer, like a little linen closet. He sat in this little corner and wrote his first novels.

Anyway, I’m not trying to turn this into either a bragging station nor a pile of excuses. I’m just promising to try to get something done. Sometimes we have to accept our limitations. Pain, sickness, scheduling issues. The important thing is to keep trying and to not allow it to become a habit.

Writing when you can’t “Write”

I believe that there are other things one can do when they are kept from the keyboard. I’ve talked in the past about “head writing” when I used to work very boring jobs. Wherein I would work on scene description, character dialogue, or outlining in my head. Just over and over again working out different angles, different word choices, and plotting while my body did the physical work of my job.

I would also stop and take notes when I felt I might forget what I had worked on. Usually jotting down phrases or bits of dialogue on scraps of paper that would fill my pocket. Though most of the time I just repeated the scenes enough times in my head for them to stick with me.

Now today, my hand and wrist hurt a LOT, so typing and holding a pen both hurt.

This very much limits a lot of my options.

Mapping? Can’t hold the pencils.

Outlining? Again, pen to paper also hurts. But I could try dictation.

Dictation (or finding ways around the Problem)

I have been thinking about this. I hate text to speech, as it always messes up and doesn’t understand me. And I also hate trying to transcribe myself from an audio file… BUT…

While recording story might be a problem, recording notes and ideas… basically outlining could work out. So, I might try out various systems for recording my voice and working on the outline of either the next novel or perhaps just working on the next couple chapters of this novel.

I have a dedicated voice recorder I haven’t used in a while, and I have one built into my phone. I also believe that Word might have one built into it as well, and I know my laptop has a voice recorder as well. I’ve used it for my podcast when I’ve needed to record from home instead of in the studio.

Or again, the Tylenol might knock the ache out of my arm and I’ll be able to push on and do a short writing session. We’ll see how it works out.

The whole point is to keep producing words. Keep writing and working.

So what do we talk about?

I feel like I owe you at least a thousand words. I’ve done too many short blogs of late and I want to give you something worthy of your time.

Do I talk D&D? A lot of my games are going on hold or having issues for the holidays and such. So many games have been skipped in the last couple weeks it makes me very sad. My curse of Strahd game is on hold until January. We’ve discussed trying to do two sessions that month. One in the first week and one in third.

My Tuesday game skipped a week due to player illness after Thanksgiving, but this week we all got back together. That was nice.

My Saturday game didn’t happen this week, and if it happens next that will probably be the last game of the year. (Since both Xmas and New Years are on Saturdays this year).

I have a feeling that my podcast (which has a LOT of episodes already recorded) won’t record for the rest of the year, so I won’t get to see those guys either. And we’re supposed to start some gaming on there as well.

Sad Sack Fest

And… yeah… I guess those above paragraphs do sound like a lot of whining. Sorry about that. This blog has been about showing my thoughts and emotions on the subject of writing and gaming, and other things. I guess its more a personal log today instead of a writing journal.

To get back on track, I submitted a personal essay to an open call last week. Hopefully I’ll hear back on that in the near future. It would be really nice to get that one published as it really is a personal story that I would like to share.

I mentioned a few blogs back that my desktop computer is currently dead. I wasn’t too worried about it as I have a lot of my writing on a One Drive shared between my desktop and my laptop. Ergo, my novel was fine so I didn’t care. Except it looks like all of my query letters and my database of agents are ON the desktop and not shared with my laptop. Most of the agents I’m looking at are still closed to queries anyway, but there are a handful I could have tried.

Once again, I am dragging my feet and delayed in my schedule.

Sorry

I think I’ll call it here. I feel like maybe this one was a lot of whining… but also trying to find ways around problems. My arm is aching a little less now, so I might just jump over and try to get a thousand or so words on the manuscript while I feel kind of alright.

Sorry if this one was a boring blog, and to those of you who make it to this final line:  Thank you very much for reading. I do these for you just as much as I do them to hold myself accountable. Thank you for keeping me going.