It's Dangerous Being a Writer

A few months ago I was happily sitting at my computer killing people off, rescuing my heroine and catching the bad guy.

Normally I'm kept quite safe while I put my characters in jeopardy. Not that day. You see I tend to type in awkward positions. I tuck my legs underneath my body and lounge in strange angles.

This started a few years ago when the car I was in was rear-ended by a semi-truck. Migraines and neck pain entered my life and sitting for long periods of time can become painful.

Normally sitting in odd positions is comforting. Usually I'm quite happy as a pretzel. Not that day. That day I straightened up to go fetch coffee and I heard a pop followed by excruciating knee pain.

I did what any self-respecting writer would do and went into research mode. I quickly discovered I damaged the cartilage in my knee. What followed was a series of doctor appointments where my family doc said, "You tore the cartilage in your knee." Then a specialist said, "You tore the cartilage in your knee."

Today I go for a MRI to confirm that, yes, I tore the cartilage in my knee. Just so everyone can be sure.

The very thought of being slid into a long tube for a period of time is causing me to break out in a sweat.

The awful thing is that every single day I still try and twist that leg up underneath me when I sit down. It's a habit that sharp pain is trying to correct.

So have you had a MRI and survived? Do you sit in weird positions at your computer?

It's a bouncing baby girl!

The Vancouver Aquarium as a new addition. Twenty-year-old Beluga whale, Aurora, gave birth to her latest calf on Sunday. Click here and you can go to the beluga cam and see the cutie patootie and her mom.

I've been busy trying to wrap my mind around my new work in progress. For the first time ever I find I'm writing scenes out of order. It's driving me crazy!

A friend told me that it's no different than reading a few books at the same time but it doesn't feel like that to me. I admit I have been known to read a number of books at the same time. For example, just a few weeks ago I had Mary J. Forbes's The Doctor's Surprise Family on my bedside table (great book btw!), Allison Brennan's Sudden Death in my purse (another great book!) and a third book in my car. I'm not giving you the name of the last story because I didn't enjoy it and my momma always told me if you can't say anything nice, well, you know the rest.

Some people I know never read more than one book at a time because they say they get confused by the different story lines etc. How about you? Are you a multiple reader or a single?

How's your elbow?

Once upon a time I fell off a chair and broke my elbow while trying to kill a spider for my daughter. After that I developed a live and let live attitude about spiders in the house. I also get pains in my elbow where surgery took place to remove bone fragments. I didn't think that pain had anything to do with my cell phone usage but apparently a lot of people "stress out the ulnar nerves" by over use of their phones.

Is it just me, or were other people hoping for a more dramatic injury to those who are chronic cell phone users? I'm not talking about the average person but the one whose having a private conversation loudly in public. The other day I was in the library ... the LIBRARY for Pete's Sake! ... and this woman was practically shouting into her phone. I wanted to yank the phone from her hand and beat her with it. Instead, I've decided to go non-violent. From now on I'll print out that CNN article on this elbow injury and hand out copies as a warning.

I admit I use my cell phone far more than I'd like. There's got to be some escape from the ring of the phone, right?

How about you? Are you at risk of an elbow injury?