I’m Canadian, so when I say I’m Sorry, I must really mean it
Posted on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010Sorry I’ve been gone for a while. I’ve recently started a new diet, hoping to get my body healthy and perhaps even off its addiction to sugar. Because of that (and because I’m finally seeing some evidence of it working) I’m not sure if I’ve been feeling ill due to actually catching a summer cold or if my body is cleansing, a term I’ve heard used that means “flushing out unwanted/unneeded chemical buildup from the body” . I’m guessing that it’s actually a cold since last night I had a touch of fever and I’ve started developing a headache along with a few muscle aches as well. Either way, that’s a small excuse for my delay in posting.
Sometimes I really wish that I’d been smarter a year ago than I am now. You see, last year, severely understaffed at work, I decided that my “minor” aches and pains could be ignored. So, when I started having trouble clenching and unclenching my hands (more so my right than my left), I got annoyed at my hands. I didn’t attempt to slow down… after all, if it only bothered me when I attempted to use a dishcloth or a pencil I was fine. I use a computer every day and it wasn’t as though the inability to unclench or fully grasp something was stopping me from typing after all. I was also trying to write as much as I could on my breaks and whenever I wasn’t working.
Now those of you who have had tendonitis before are probably already wincing in horror. After all, most people would consider the inability to use their hands a relatively serious condition. I really have no excuse other than to say that I was obviously abusing myself for no better reason than I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, either my bosses or myself. When my hand finally started hurting just to type though, I had to stop. I worked till the end of the day and then went into the doctors to see what was up. It was then that I found out the cold hard truth that I still live with today. There is no cure for tendonitis, in fact, Western Medicine doesn’t even have a fool proof way of dealing with the pain.
I ended up having to take a week off, in which I was told to not use my hand at all. For the first day or so, I tried to peck the keys like a chicken, using the two-finger style so popular among the aged who never used a computer until they were adults and aren’t interested in learning such a skill now. Even so, I would occasionally forget and the pain would flare up, and I would put away the computer hoping that reading would help. At the end of the first week, I went back to work on light duties… which meant that I spent the next week or two printing off emails, since sorting paper required too much use for my hand to be of any help.
Nowadays, my hand still hurts, even though I started taking better care of my hand after that. I suppose that once you’ve damaged your hand that badly it never truly heals. Which is why weeks like this one, I remember that I really need to start using my DragonNaturally Speaking program on a more regular basis. The ability to let my hands rest for evenings at a time (if not the days my hands would like) would be immensely helpful. I don’t know about you guys, but one day, I would like to be able to live pain free.
In other news, I have finally begun actual editing on my Seirei story. I have finished a rough draft of the book, and now I’m going through and putting my scenes in order, writing new scenes that I realize need to be added and making certain that everything is ready for a polishing rewrite.
I understand that I’m probably using the terms wrong, which annoys me, but stick with me or better yet, correct me if you can. This is my first time really working on editing a manuscript. I had tried once before, but I was trying to edit for content and doing line editing at the same time. Later, my notes were a mess (as though the story itself wasn’t already) and I could hardly read them. That first novel should never see the light of day, but it did teach me that edits should be done, first for missing content, then a second time for altered content, and thereafter for line edits.
Yes, Holly Lisle may be disappointed with me for doing 3 edits, when she can do it all in one, but the way I look at it, she’d probably just be impressed that I was trying to get it done and out professionally. On the other hand, I’m hoping to take her classes eventually, and perhaps after I’m more used to the editing process all around, I can try her One-Pass Edit style.
On a final note, I have been listening to a book recently, that I would like to endorse wholeheartedly. I first found out about this book from Philippa Ballantine on Facebook, when she mentioned that she was hoping to read it soon. Knowing that I love what she writes, I decided to take a chance that we’d have similar reading preference. I’m still not certain if we do, since this book seems much more like Science Fiction than a Fantasy, but either way, the book is worth finding.
Called www: Wake, this book by Robert J. Sawyer is brilliant. I’m about ¾ way through it and it’s awesome. The idea is that a girl who has been blind from birth receives a new bit of technology that allows her not only to see the world she lives in, but the world wide web as well. It’s a great science fiction tale that revolves around the themes of consciousness, vision and the idea of how do we decide what is sentient and what is not.
I haven’t reached the end yet, but I am willing to say immediately, go out and buy this book. I have the audio version and I don’t think I can rave enough about this novel! I’m enjoying it so much that I’ve already bought the second book in the series, www:Watch because I know that if its anything like my Wake, I’ll love it!
I’ll be waiting eagerly for the conclusion to the trilogy, www:Wonder, coming out soon!
Tags: Blog, Dragon Naturally Speaking, Holly Lisle, motivation, Nanowrimo, Novels, One-pass revision, Philippa Ballantine, Robert J. Sawyer, Seirei, Writing, www:Wake, www:Watch, www:Wonder
Posted in Blogs by B.A. Matthews | 47 Comments »