This summer has been one of the most stressful in a while. With my mom’s spinal issues and one of the biggest projects of my IT career winding down, I’m finally coming up for air. In a week, I am finally taking some vacation (my last one was in Feb/early March – the writing workshop). My hands are still all kinds of messed up. This is the first day I’ve been back at the keyboard in about a month. Okay, looking at my last post, six weeks ago. I see a hand surgeon in a week or so. Still wearing braces on both hands. Still have pain in both and both my middle fingers have “trigger finger”. So adhesions on both tendon sheaths on my middle fingers as well as my thumbs. I dread seeing about this because they’re probably going to stick needles into my palms and shoot them with cortisone. Don’t want!!! Guess I’ve been flipping the bird too much. 🙂
So, needless to say, there has been no writing for quite a while. But yesterday and today, I’ve started working on my SF trilogy, getting book one ready for a copyedit. Have to add a few things into book one so book two’s revision will work. Need the story arc of two other characters completed (they run alongside the other main characters). I’m three chapters in and God, it feels good to be into my fiction again. I’ve been so depressed all summer, feeling like an ex-writer. I can’t wait to retire and write full time. It’s the only thing keeping me going right now.
Typing is still tough and really hurts, but fuck it. If I can’t write, I don’t want be a part of this world. Now, that I’ve survived this huge work project, I want to get back to living/writing.
My favorite quote is from Ray Bradbury: “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” This is my mantra. Because reality is a bitch and I admit, I’m a pretty fragile writer. It’s something that I struggle with daily. I never feel good enough, smart enough, etc., etc. I always feel like the imposter with that horrible voice in my ear telling me how bad I suck at writing. Being drunk on writing for me means getting lost in the worlds, the characters, so deep that voice is drowned out by the wonder. So, trying to get my writer’s buzz back on, write through the pain, and just get back to it. If I didn’t have to work full time, I’d be so in the zone and writing my ass off on the books I want to write instead of trickling words onto the page a couple of hours a night, forced to stop because of work the next morning. God, will that time ever come?