When your passion clashes with your prison
Writing is my passion. It always has been. It doesn’t matter what you ask me to write about, I’ll love it. College was an oasis of wonder for me. I loved writing essays. I loved to challenge the status quo or argue a point or share what I thought on a topic. And when they dropped creative writing in my lap, I practically melted on my keyboard. But wait. Then later on people started paying me *in real cash money to write. I was published in several publications and even in a couple of books. When an agent came to me (yes-she came to me) asking for a query and signed me with her agency? I died, went to heaven, made St. Peter slap me upside the head and came back to do more writing. I love it that much.
And then came the chronic daily headaches. And the migraines. And the bone crushing fatigue. Those are not good conditions for writing. In fact, it’s like I’m in prison with these health issues when it comes to my beloved passion and that isn’t fair. In fact it sucks. Someone recommended I try Dragon or another voice to text app but that isn’t the same. It’s not the fingers flying over the keyboard. Or the rush you get when you almost feel like you are no longer in the driver’s seat because the words are flowing so fast the story has taken over and your hands are merely the method to bring the story to life. Now, when I write for a long time, I pay the price in pain. My head. My eyes. My joints. I’m being literal here. I literally pay a physical price to write every word on this blog.
Oh, but what a beautiful price it is. I love writing so much. I love every thing about it. It is truly my passion. So when you see a blog post from me, know that is truly a labor of love. I wrote it from the prison my body locked me in and I refuse to let it hold me back. Words. My words. My stories. I won’t stop. This is my passion. My love. The one thing I know will always be soothe me even when it hurts me.
3 thoughts on “When your passion clashes with your prison”
I know from an earlier post that you have some chronic health conditions, some of which don’t have very good treatments available, but– on the off chance that your writing set up is making things worse, do please check into the ergonomics of your office. And also see a good physical therapist who specializes in movement retraining. I was getting severe daily headaches that I thought were migraines, and it turned out that they were being driven by a supremely non-ergonomic office. And the movement retraining has helped with so many things that I thought were permanent problems.
Take care of yourself. When you find the source of the pain and the remedy, you will appreciate your passion more than ever.
I truly hate the fact that the physical act of writing brings you such pain, because reading your words has for many years been something I have enjoyed and back in the day when blogging was almost a daily item, something I new I could look forward to no matter how bad my day was otherwise.
I am glad you are back to writing, at least as far as you staying strong a refusing to give up on something you love. I hope that someday there is something that can be done that will make the physical toll go away. In the meantime, I can only hope that it adds a little bit to your pleasure of writing that you also know, that for as long as I am around, your words will have an appreciative audience as well.