Bad Habits
In early March, I had progressed to 7K words for the start of my newest novel - “The Girl From Diana Park”. It's book 3 of the Damian Green series. Then life happens; while hiking in the snow with a bum ankle, I stepped wrong torn what remaining ligaments I had in the ankle, broke my fibula, and then broke my hand when I landed on the ground in pain. I covered that accident in my last blog post.
It sounds like the recovery period for these injuries would provide the perfect setting to finish one, maybe two books. I wasn't in pain; I was immobile, unable to walk or drive a car. Yes, I could write all day, and I was excited to see what I could get done!
Sadly, in the six weeks since the surgery, I've written about 1500 words. Sad, sad, sad. What a missed opportunity! My excuse at first, was my dominant hand was in a cast, and the edge of the cast hit keyboard keys accidentally. Of course I have dictation software, but apparently my right hand contains my brain's creativity. So then I started on a second novel, as yet unnamed, book 9 in the Jill Quint series, set in Sicily, Italy. Completed the opening two pages there.
Maybe if I write two books at once, I'll be super-creative and get them both done. Can you say fantasy?
Had to do something in the writing field, so I went back and re-edited two books. That was satisfying, as they were improved stories when I was done.
I got the cast of my hand two weeks ago, and my leg is in regular shoes, and I'm back at the gym rehabbing the leg and driving. So my recovery is about a full month ahead of schedule!
Yesterday, I confronted the fact that I have writer's block and set about to fix it. After reading multiple writer's advice posts, I've faced the fact that I'm lazy, not blocked. There is no such thing as writer's block. My surgeon didn't say “he couldn't do my surgery as he has surgeon's block”, and that can be said about a thousand other occupations.
So this blog post is my warm-up exercise to getting back in the saddle and producing stories!
Cheers!
Alec