Read Christine Kohler on keeping an emotions journal [yours truly is quoted]

Photo by Jacek Halicki

It’s been a long time since that idyllic trip to the Adirondacks: cue the big sigh. Cobwebs are dangling all over this blog since then, however, but before I go into “poor poor pitiful me” mode to make my excuses for that, let me first do a little crowing. My friend and colleague Christine Kohler—author of the YA historical novel No Surrender Soldier—has a new blog post over at UncommonYA that is well worth reading. It’s about how keeping an emotions journal can help writers create more vivid, compelling characters. Christine did me the honor of quoting me on the subject, too, so please head on over and check it out. 

So other than contributing, in a small way, to that blog post, what has been keeping me silent here? Well, first I had to pay for my month in the mountains kayaking by coming home and working through a mountain of manuscript critiques. It’s work I love, mind you, so I’m not complaining. But it took a while. After which I dashed off to DisneyWorld with my sisters and parents in mid-September. It was the first time I’ve ever been there without kids in tow, and it was fun enjoying it as a grown-up: despite the punishing 104 degree heat. I love the Haunted Mansion!

Then I came home and had a total knee replacement on Sept. 30th: ouch. I’d been dreading this for years, but when you can’t keep up at the Magic Kingdom with your 83-year-old mother who’s had spinal surgery, you know it’s time.

Not my knee, but close

According to everyone, I’m having the most phenomenal recovery in the annals of medicine—so much so that I’ve scheduled the second op for the other knee in early December.

Still, this surgery has knocked the wind out of my sails. What I call “Pain Brain” makes it hard to string three coherent words together into a sentence, much less be creative. So I hope you’ll forgive the silence of the past few months, and the silence to come. But it will all be worth it: and next year I’ll come back stronger than ever.

The walking orthopedic disaster zone strikes again!

Meet Rowdy, my new ride for the next four to six weeks. Although I did manage to make it through October without heading to the OR—the first time in four years that has happened—the heady freedom didn’t last long. Because on Nov. 12th, I will be ending up in surgery after all, this time to repair my Achilles tendon. I will have to be off the leg completely for at least a month, part of the time in a cast: hence the nifty little red knee scooter. Do I know how to have fun or what?

And yes, I fully intend to decorate Rowdy with tinsel and a string of battery-operated lights for Christmas!

This surgery isn’t exactly a surprise. I’ve been hobbling around since last January on not just one but two bad Achilles tendons, which I ignored for as long as I could. Then I went through all the standard conservative treatments, including several weeks of painful physical therapy and a fashionable walking boot, but the tendons only continued to get worse. So finally my orthopedic surgeon—who really ought to name his next child after me, I’m such a good customer—said we could avoid the scalpel no longer. I got to choose which side to do first—because yes, I will have to have another surgery just like this one next year—and I picked the right leg, which is a bit worse.

I knew this surgery was looming even before my orthopod weighed in: my PTs were honest with me about how bad things were in my poor heels. So I took myself off in early October for what seemed like a decadently selfish thing to do: one week in the mountains, all by myself, so I could write. I’m so glad I did that. It helped me get back in touch with my own characters and stories after so much time helping other writers with theirs.

And who knows? Maybe the enforced down time after my surgery will give me the opportunity to have another writer’s retreat. It won’t be anywhere near as pleasant as my time in the mountains, but maybe it will still refresh my creative spirit.