All It Took Was A Pinched Nerve

Yesterday I somehow had the fortune (bad or good, you decide) to get a pinched nerve in my hip. What an experience it is. I've never had pain so intense that it made me want to vomit before.

That was bad.

And we needed groceries. So The Man had to do grocery shopping on his own. (We usually go as a family to share in all the bliss that is grocery shopping.) I offered to drive one of those Hoveround carts, but the Man wasn't having it. I really wanted to drive that thing, too. Which The Man knew. Which was also why he wasn't having it. He knew I'd wreak havoc at the local grocery store on that bad boy. Especially since I haven't been out on my motorcycle in about two months (but that's a post for another day). And he really didn't want to end up in the paper tomorrow.

But the good part is that I was forced to sit. All day. And without much guilt because I was in too much pain to do the laundry or the dishes or clean the kitchen or make meals or Zamboni the toys to clear a path through the house or any of the other ten thousand things I'm usually doing. So without the guilt of neglecting my domestic engineer duties, I could write.

And write I did. I popped the steroids that I needed to take, managed the pain the best I could and finished up the edits on the chapter that has been plaguing me for what feels like forever. I'm too embarrassed to reveal how long in actuality I've been working on one stupid chapter. Suffice it to say - long time.

I sent it out for crit, even though it's not totally where I want it. The pain was actually thwarting me a bit in my thinking. But I feel very accomplished.

So now some heavy duty "do not operate heavy machinery" pain meds await on the counter to knock me into oblivion for the night.

And this is the lesson that I learned today. All I need in order to sit and write is blinding pain. Which, as any author knows, is what writing really is.

"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

Until next time when I wake from my drug induced stupor, citizens.