I’m Back Baby!!

I have been out of sight because I didn’t have any updates. I wasn’t writing rather I was wringing my hands in abject horror because I didn’t know how to move forward. Frozen in place, I whined and whimpered to myself that it was all so very useless and that I would never write again. Ever! It was THAT melodramatic and no one was going to convince me otherwise.

Then a funny thing happened, I dislocated my patella sometime last week. I was working on my yoga poses and I pushed my body into the wrong pose. My knee tweaked and the patella shifted. Holy hell did that hurt! I popped it back into place and then lay there waiting for the pain to bloom. Sure enough it came in waves. By Monday morning I was unable to put any weight on my leg and my knee was the size of a small grapefruit.

I took a couple of Aleve, propped up my knee with all my pillows and an ice pack and stared at my ceiling feeling pretty pathetic. The pity party I threw myself was epic. Sorry you missed it.

By the end of the day, a thought occurred to me. It was a splinter of an idea regarding my novel. And it woke me up. All of a sudden the grey day that I was having had a sliver of light. Just a hint of a new possibility. Then I had a serious talk with myself.

This knee issue has been a long neglected issue. I’ve needed to have it MRI’d and X-ray’d ages ago but without proper health coverage for the past three years, I’ve let it go and let it go for far too long. This was a minor setback and it should not impede me from continuing with healthier practices, eating right, exercising and writing every day. I’ve managed to do light stretching these past couple of days (babying my knee). The inflammation is starting to subside. The pain is in the lower scale range. And I have managed to make it into my day job without too much hassle.

I have also been writing again every day too. If I can show up to my day job then I have no excuses not to spend some time working at my craft. Yesterday, I managed 500 words, the day before I managed 325 words. It’s rough but I keep reminding myself that it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be put down on paper. That’s all I can manage right now and it’s enough. As my daily practice grows, this novel will be written and it will be finished, come hell or high water.

Oh, the other thing that occurred to me as I was staring at the ceiling is that Stephen King wrote a couple of books after his terrible accident while he was recovering. And he was much worse off than a swollen knee. So what the hairy heck was stopping me from finishing this story? What am I so worried about? If it’s not perfect, then I can revise and edit. If it’s not a great story then the next one will be better. I need to accomplish this very simple goal for my own sanity. Yes, it is that easy. It’s worked for me in the past and I just have to trust the process. I have also seen other writers who write every day make quite a bit of headway on their projects. So there it is…I’m taking up the gauntlet (braced knee and all). Let’s see what kind of damage can be done.

Peace,


L~


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