Writing Related Injury

I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like. And that’s due to a swollen muscle in the outer elbow of my right arm.

A couple of months ago when I was writing Spinsterella my arm swelled up and I couldn’t bend my elbow. Pain shot through my forearm to my wrist. I had no choice but to stop taking care of SJS DIRECT’s business and take care of my health. So all the videos, blogs and book promotion I planned had to wait. This is the arm I do everything with from eating to writing with a pencil to combing my hair with.

Now this wasn’t my first time dealing with this kind of injury. I experienced it before in 2011 when I was writing The Thetas. I was on a similar roll with that novel writing close to 11,000 words in a few days. I was the process of finishing the first act of that novel when I was forced to stop due to a similar injury in the same arm at the same place.

I’ve been on a major roll lately. This year alone I’ve written the books for the Isis/E’steem Crossover, a second Edition of Stop Simpin, the novel Spinsterella, and all four of the books I’m planning on releasing for next year along with the three blogs I write every week. So for the year I’ve probably written over 300,000 words.

And for the 20l6 Kickstarter I’ve been trying to draw a character model a day. While I want to keep the creative momentum going while the ideas are still in my head my body is saying enough. At 42, I’m not as physically capable of doing repetitive tasks like I did in my 20s and 30s.   

Now my mind still wants to keep writing and drawing. But my body can’t seem keep going at the same pace I’m thinking. So it shuts down. I’m one of those guys who I expects a lot from myself. And sometimes I expect far too much. As the one man running SJS DIRECT all by myself on a threadbare budget these days I try to do everything in the hopes of pushing myself to the next level. But even I have limitations. 

Truth is I work hard. Sometimes too hard. But the reason why I push so hard is because I want to get these stories on the page. It means a lot to me to share my work with readers and if one story or one blog can reach one person and give them information that can give them a different perspective on a subject I feel like my writing has made a difference in their lives.

With God’s help, lots of asprin and alcohol I’m trying to recover from the pulled muscles in my right arm and I’m trying to get business back on track. Next year I’ll be getting closer to publishing my 50^th book and I’m hoping to be healthy enough to celebrate achieving that milestone.