Feeling Better!

This week I saw my spine surgeon for my two week follow-up. I’m happy to report that my cervical fusion is doing well! He cleared me to drive, but I can only do so with the help of pain medication. I made the mistake of driving to my pain specialist before taking them and had a difficult time turning my head while driving and was so relieved to make my round trip safely.
It still hurts to stay on the computer for longer than five minutes, so I will end this post by asking: Are you ready to celebrate Christmas? Does anyone celebrate Hannakuh?

Recovering from neck surgery

I'm afraid of getting shots and blood work done, and I never thought would willingly have neck surgery on December 5th as a result of my two cervical herniated disks. Actually one of the disks had completely worn out and I had bone-on-bone, with some bone spurs and arthritis in surrounding it.

Eleven long days later, my neck and shoulders still hurt when I get out of bed or bend down to pet one of my cats, and sitting in front of the computer for longer than ten minutes feels like someone hit me in the back of my neck.

The huge plus for me is that my mother, who is terrified of flying, flew from Pittsburgh, PA to Houston to help and pamper me. I hadn't realized until now that it would take getting my throat sliced open for her to come visit me for the first time.

So, does anyone have advice they would be willing to share for a patient who wants to write/edit her novels without over doing it?

Enduring to the end....

Writing 50,000 words in thirty days was a test of endurance for me, to see if I could write almost all the time. Even when I was tired, or had terrible neck and back pain.

I realized something about myself from NaNoWriMo: whenever life's challenges get in my way of accomplishing one of my goals, I find creative ways to get through them. When it seemed like I wrote every scene that I thought of but my word count was only a little over 20,000 words, I wondered how the heck I could ever add another 30,000 words in two weeks.

So, I read through the novel and knew there were many details to add to each scene, it seemed more like a short story than a novel. So, instead of panicking and giving up, I thought of things to add that could cause both my protagonist and antagonist obstacles. These thoughts were added into the novel, some as scenes to add in later, and some scenes were written as fast as they entered my head.

The Time Control: Deception novel now involves kidnapping, a twist on the typical teenage romance, and an advanced method to remove brain damage and tumors that result from using the time machine.

Do you find writing to be a test of endurance? Or do you write no matter what happens in your life?

I'm a NaNo Winner!

I'm so happy to have my certificate after a hectic month of writing a very rough draft of the time travel novel that has been in my head for 2 1/2 years now. But I'm far from finished writing this draft now that my characters are so fully developed.

Did you participate in NaNo this year?