Who dares, wins!
I’ve been formatting for Kindle, preparing for print, writing a new story, researching… so much work and the thing is, at the same time, I have been aching. In the neck, shoulder, up over the back of the head. I have been kayaking recently and I thought I had torn a muscle. I’ve not kayaked for ages and am desperately unfit in all the required places.
But then I started talking to fellow writer Barbara Silkstone who was in an edit phase. Sore neck, sore shoulder etc. I mentioned that my jaw joints were miserable. She said she had been grinding her teeth while editing. I told her I ground teeth not only editing but asleep and had got a dentist to make up a specialist guard for same.
Sometimes I love my chair, sometimes it’s a bed of nails. Sometimes my computer is as easy to read as large-print text. Sometimes it feels like playing a game of Scrabble with all the wrong letters.
Barbara and I ended up falling about laughing, thinking that writing, and editing in particular, was like Survivor. Outwit, Outlast, Outplay! Survivor of the keyboard, the demands of indie publishing, of life. Winner takes all.
So how many writers out there suffer for their art? Let me know. Who dares, wins!
I took a lot of tumbles off horses in my pre-adult years which messed up my back and since had several surgeries leading to scar tissue in my abdomen and an inflamed nerve in my back that sends ‘pain signals’ through my hip and down my thigh.
Suffer for my art? Indeed… but the good news is, i usually don’t notice it until I’m finished reading / writing. The stories are a great distraction 😉
As for your tension stuff, sounds like OOS. Are you familiar with that? 5 minute per hour mini breaks to stretch all joints and consciously relax groups of muscles would probably help a lot. (I had to do that when I worked in administration).
Perfect advice Aimee, its what we do for embroidery.
But I’m rarely in my seat for more than 15 mins at a stretch… the dogs need to go outside for a pee, the oven bell rings because something might be cooking, the phone will ring, husband will yell out a question from the bowels of ‘outside’. ‘Outside’ is like ‘Wardrobe’… a magical place that deserves visiting now and then.
I can’t speak for Barbara, but editing/e-formatting is like embroidery… very fine. Every word, every comma, every line, every para break, every tap of the enter button, every remove of a tab stroke, checking on Kindle format to make sure fonts read as per Kindle requirements… it is painstaking work. As for print formatting: I leave that to the professionals.
It’s so good to see you here, Aimee. We haven’t spoken for ages and i shall be ‘stretching’ now, each time I get up. Thank you.
In my case it manifests in a variety of more mental punishments. And wifey thinks I’m mental too, I suspect. I woke at 3 this morning and said to myself: “of course! It would be Balbus’ daughter!” and then settled to 20 minutes of mental meanderings that I texted myself so I’d remember in the morning.
Scotch helps!
My heaven but I’d hate to sleep next to you, Simon! Poor Wifey! But was rather charmed by the idea that you texted yourself. Me being old fashioned, I just write myself notes and re-read in the morning.
Anyway, I want to know, just what had Balbus’s daughter done, or is going to do… is this for Marius’s Mules III?
Hmmm. Prue, I dare… recently more in the embroidery realm than the writing realm, though I do write for my embroidery! And it’s mostly my own fault. I forget to take those breaks!
I’ve thought about publishing on kindle… though I’d be much better at print formatting than e-formatting, I think!
(I’m reading the Stumpwork Robe on my Kindle now… the descriptions of the embroidery are so vivid that I’m finding it tempting to try to recreate the robe itself… If only there were about 10000 hours in a day, eh?)
Hi Romilly,
I forget to take the breaks from embroidery too. Inevitably it is my eyes that makes me stop but with the computer its just ongoing and I am seriously remiss at the break thing.
I look forward to you reviewing TSR if you have enjoyed it… it would be wonderful to have more reviews across Amazon and Goodreads etc. Mostly it is the only way that readers find out if a book is at all worth while.
And just because you think it tempting to re-create the robe itself, you may be interested in this:
http://mesmered.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/stunning/
Best wishes.