All posts by celia

For the love of writing. Plans for 2015

January 3, 2015 celia 2 Comments

thinking about writing — getting your thoughts focused

I have to get my love of writing head back on my shoulders. Christmas and new year celebrations are finished. The decorations come down this weekend. The house will look bare and I know I’ll have an urge to go round cleaning everything. The fridge needs sorting out – I’ve forgotten what’s in there. There’s a heap of washing and ironing left over from before Christmas and then we got French electricity tariff ‘red days’ and I couldn’t do it anyway without running up a huge bill.

So there’s plenty of housework type stuff to do. I’ll do it. Slowly. Don’t talk to me while I’m doing it because my head will be somewhere else and I won’t answer you.

I’ll be organising my love of writing thoughts. Making plans.

Because I must write. Without writing I’m not myself. Something’s missing. When I drift off into that thinking-land you might as well talk to the wall because I’m not in. Celia is in her head but she’s not in the room.

But why must I write? Oh, that’s a good question.

It’s more than that, though. It’s so much more than slotting into a comfortable routine. So much more than any other thing that you fit into your normal daily activities. Writing is not in the same category as sweeping the floor or making the beds – small jobs which, for me, do carry a trace element of a sense of satisfaction when the job’s done.

Writing is not even in the same category as eating or sleeping – bigger jobs that are absolutely vital to your well-being.

Think about the need to breathe and you’re getting close.

Writing is as much a part of me now as is the CRPS I was diagnosed with last year. CRPS is why everything I do is now done s-l-o-w-l-y. It hurts to move. It hurts more to stretch. Constant pain saps energy and leaves you feeling very low. There are times when I feel I’ve completely lost the creative spark to begin something new. But on good days?

desire to create — the greatest love story in the world?

I have that desire. Sometimes it feels more like an affliction. It’s an itch that must be scratched. A hunger that must be fed. It’s selfish and unreasonable and is not open to negotiation.

Sorry chaps, but it’s better than sex. Or chocolate.

It is an all-consuming passion that teases and tempts. Sometimes it abandons you or flatly rejects you. Slaps you in the face and makes you feel a fool.

Sometimes, though, it loves you back.

It’s for these moments you carry on. You make your plans. You do your research. You find things you never knew. You find things about yourself you never knew.

I’m making plans for my writing in 2015. Books Two and Three of Trobairitz are in outline only. A second collection of short stories is further along the pipeline. ‘Queer as Folk’ should be ready in spring and features more ‘quirky’ short stories about ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

I’d like to make more effort keeping in touch with online writing groups but if I can’t I won’t beat myself up. On good days I have to write.

Thank you for reading my Random Thoughts page. Feel free to message me with your own thoughts. I’m on Twitter @cmicklefield and have a FB author page.

May you love and be loved in 2015.

CRPS

Christmas CRPS

December 18, 2014 celia 1 Comment

I was diagnosed with CRPS last Christmas after being knocked down by a careless driver. I still tried to sit at my computer and write. A whole year has passed. What have I done with it? How will this year’s Christmas CRPS affect me?

Keeping things positive

I could write about the effects of constant pain, lack of sleep and side effects of medication etc. etc. In fact, I could write about these things till the cows come home. Recently, I’ve had to concentrate on just these issues in order to write my personal account of how CRPS affects me to give to the medical experts who represent the insurance companies involved in my case.

Here’s a sample of what I gave them

Daily Difficulties

driving

putting on my bra

getting in and out of our sunken bath

preparing meat and vegetables for dinner

lifting heavy pans and casserole dishes

styling my hair

opening tubes, bottles, packages

fastening jewellery

fastening buttons

carrying shopping bags

taking coins from my purse

putting on tights or stockings

holding a fork properly

manoeuvring the vacuum cleaner

putting large items on the washing line

changing bed sheets

baking

sewing

knitting

picture framing

using my computer keyboard

holding the music in the choir

opening doors

holding my camera and taking photographs

In all things I am now clumsy and slow. I frequently drop things. My activities are limited. I am often very tired and lacking energy.

I am extremely grateful for the excellent medical treatment I have received here in France compared with others elsewhere who have the same condition and have waited a long time for a diagnosis. I am doing everything within my power to help myself get better. I have researched CRPS and learned what other things I might do to make life easier. I know that this condition can continue for many years. It seems nobody is able to tell me how many more years I will suffer from CRPS.

You can see how difficult it is to remain positive when all that load of stuff is going on. But this insurance question is important. I have this condition as a result of someone else’s thoughtlessness while he was reversing his car. I have to fight for my rights. Soon I’m going to need a lawyer.

In the meantime, though, look at what I have been able to do. Two books published is no mean achievement. It’s true they were already at the final edit stage but still I count their publication as an achievement. In some respects I suppose you could say that my enforced limitations actually helped me to get those novels ready for publication.

My left arm is weak but I’ve got a right one. There was a time when I couldn’t touch my head.

Now I can. Only just and it hurts but it’s an improvement.

Earlier in the year I suffered from side effects of all the medication. At the moment I’m doing okay in that respect.

Last Christmas I couldn’t do our Christmas decorations around the house. This year I’m going bananas putting them everywhere.

Christmas CRPS 2014

We have three Christmas trees: one in the sitting room, one in the hall and one outside on the terrace.

Christmastree1 — Number one tree in the living room

I’m loving decorating the house. So what if it’s taken me three days already to do what used to take one afternoon.

When the pain kicks in and it gets too much I stop and sit down with a heat pad on my shoulder. Himself has to do the high up things as I can’t reach.

I’ve even covered all the windows with Christmas clings I made years ago.

Doing all these Christmasey things has made me feel more like myself.

That’s a happy window, isn’t it? I can look forward to 2015. I know there’s going to be more pain and more daily difficulties. I’m prepared for them. I will not let them beat me.

Season’s Greetings to all my readers and a joyful New Year. To other sufferers of CRPS – hang in there. Stay warm.

Novels, Trobairitz, Writing

TROBAIRITZ the Storyteller

November 21, 2014 celia Leave a comment

Publication of TROBAIRITZ the Storyteller goes ahead. Here’s the front and back cover.

What does the cover of TROBAIRITZ tell you?

First, I want it to have warmth. A satisfying, bread and butter sort of comfort. A cover that does something to your senses, even makes your mouth water.

A cover that says it’s not quite in the world you know. An imaginary world. Almost dreamlike.

I hope it makes you ask yourself questions.

Why is it a picture of a village?

Where is it? Does it look like England? No.

Why are there no people in the design?

What does the word Trobairitz mean?

( I wrote a post on who the Trobairitz were. Here is a link to that post. You can go to the Categories section on the right sidebar and in the drop down box choose Trobairitz for all my posts on this subject.)

So, the Trobairitz were female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries. What has that got to do with my new novel set in present day Languedoc?

Bringing the past into the present

Trobairitz were bringers of news and storytellers. They sang, too, to their own accompaniment and their themes were often about current affairs and romantic love as well as traditions and the place of women within values and attitudes of the times.

My 21st century Trobairitz is a truck driver. At an overnight truck stop in the heart of Languedoc, Weed tells a story. The themes of tradition and women and relationships are woven into the tale she tells but in her real life those are the very things that cause her problems.

The fact that Weed’s story is set in a circulade is also relevant. A circulade is built in the shape of a snail shell. Curving rows of houses surround and protect the church on top of the hill. They’re designed to confuse raiders. Even today it’s possible to lose one’s way in the maze of narrow streets and alleyways.

In TROBAIRITZ the Storyteller, the shape of the village is reflected in the stories Weed tells. There is a central theme, hiding under the archways, shrinking back into narrow passageways, revealing itself only gradually. I like that kind of a tease in books.

I decided to lighten the appearance of the cover for this first of the TROBAIRITZ trilogy. The original was too dark and didn’t give the right feel. You’ll see there’s still a bit of darkness hovering in the background and, as in real life, there will be episodes of darker happenings as Weed’s story progresses.

I deliberately chose not to have people and/or faces in the design. When I’m reading I like to make up my own images of what the characters look like. I especially don’t like those front covers showing ladies clad in silks and satins etc. which bear no resemblance to the actual story. You might want to read a previous post about book covers.

Why did I make Weed a truck driver?

Our resident teenage online gamer, aka Gollum Boy gave me the idea. We were eating dinner one night and I said,

‘What kind of a job would a woman have where she travelled about to different places all the time?’

‘That’s easy,’ he said. ‘She drives a truck.’

Duh. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I love trucks. I think they’re the sexiest vehicles on the road. GB’s suggestion was perfect for the character I had in mind: a feisty lady who knows how to handle working in a man’s world, a woman who enjoys men’s company but has issues with commitment.

Why does she have issues with commitment? And why is she called Weed?

Ah. TROBAIRITZ the Storyteller – book one of the trilogy is available next Friday 28th November. Just in time for Christmas stockings!

Wicked stepmother

Teenage online gamer Gollum Boy gets up BEFORE lunch!

October 20, 2014 celia 1 Comment

Father of teenage online gamer and Wicked Stepmother could hardly believe their ears.

There were movements from the upstairs habitat of said online gamer. Sounds of teenage person getting up. But the clock said it was still morning. How could this be, especially on a Sunday?

Gollum Boy, our teenage online gamer does not appear before afternoon as a rule. ( There are other posts about Gollum Boy. If you want to go back to the beginning here is the link.)

I’m the Wicked Stepmother. I’m the one who has had the reputation for being the negative voice in the household.

I worry that our teenage online gamer is making unhealthy choices, sitting up there in the dark, playing these games for hour after hour.

On weekends we usually see him only when he’s hungry.

What could have made him change his habits this last Sunday morning?

The League of Legends Championship final.

This is what he was watching –

http://bbc.in/1wjdC7Z

And he continued until the end, only slipping downstairs for sustenance to keep him going.

There’s no harm in watching your team play sport, even if nowadays they’re calling it e-sport which only involves having a fast hand and fingers. I understand the attraction. These team players are as much gamers’ heroes as football fans’ favourite players.

But, I think, most football fans have a life outside of football, don’t they? They can talk about other things, can’t they?

Our online gamer was still at it at 2am this morning. He’d done a 14 hour shift. Sounds carry at night when the house is quiet and I heard him simply shifting position on his sofa. (His loft room is directly above our bedroom)

I pulled the plug on our internet connection.

Biological parent is backing me up today. The plug comes out at 11pm every night from now on, school holidays and all.

What would you do?

Feel free to leave a comment. Don’t forget to FOLLOW CELIA if you’d like news of new posts.

Author brand, Novels, Writing

Finding my author brand

September 25, 2014 celia 2 Comments

You’ve got to have an author brand. Here on the Huffington Post they tell you why you need one. See, you have to stand out. There’s a lot of competition out there. How is an author to attract buyers to his/her work when there are so many other writers with similar appeal?

standing out from the rest

I used the word ‘buyers’. See what I did there? Not readers. BUYERS. Because when push comes to shove, as authors we are in the business of selling whether we like to think about that or not.

In a former life I learned a bit about selling. I demonstrated product at trade shows and discovered that potential customers respond well to a smile and a friendly approach. I had the advantage of that brief face to face meeting and the product at hand for them to see and touch and listen to me talking about it. The product and I made a lot of sales.

So how can I get to the people who might want to buy my books? I can’t meet them face to face and smile at them. I can’t demonstrate that this is exactly the book they want to read next. I can’t make them feel they’re dealing with a supplier who has a professional approach and will deliver what they’re looking for.

But I have to try.

Selling my writing is no different from any other market place.

what’s the purpose of your author brand?

No different from selling toys at the toy fair or bullocks at the cattle market. There are sellers and there are buyers. I just have to find the right buyers. They are out there, but they won’t come looking for me.

So, what is the purpose of a brand? With cattle, it’s about who they belong to. It’s a recognisable mark that shows who is the owner. How can I apply that thinking to my books?

The internet is full of advice about marketing yourself and your books:

Know your audience

comes out very high on the list of things to consider when building your author brand.

Question: Who is most likely to want to read my novels?

Answer: Women like me. Curious women. Not necessarily my age.

Question: What purpose does my novel serve?

Answer: To meet emotional needs.

My author brand must give my readers a warm feeling. I want them to look at the cover of my novels and know they will be going on an emotional journey which, although there will be heartache, there’ll be some kind of hopeful denouement.

And when they have read and enjoyed their first book by Celia Micklefield, I want them to know they can expect a similar experience from the next one. There will be characters they can care about. In the plot there will be shocks and twists and tragedy and successes.

warm coloured cover

And when they turn the last page I’d like to give them that momentary sense of sadness, that small bereavement of having finished with those characters and their story. I want them to want more. So they’ll go and buy the next one.

My author brand must show in my Tweets and on my author FaceBook page and here in my posts on my website. I’d like to have book covers that say ‘Ah, another story by Celia Micklefield’

I’m working on it.

Thank you for reading my posts. Don’t forget to FOLLOW CELIA.

Wednesday Vine Report

Mademoiselle Merlot 2014 Wednesday Vine Report

September 10, 2014 celia Leave a comment

Mademoiselle Merlot is on her way to the Vigneron this morning. Harvesting of the reds began a week or so ago and today’s the day for the Merlot vine we watched all through last year.

Merlot harvest 2014 — Merlot vineyard behind our house

Our village is full of the sounds of grape harvesting.

Machinery rumbles through the vineyards. There’s the whining of gears and belts. Tractors bump along streets where there’s a slick of grape juice, blackened now and sticky and hot with wasps. From the cooperative vigneron a humming sound adds to the harvest symphony.

Merlot grape picking 2014 — grape harvester straddling the rows of Merlot grapes

The air smells yeasty. It’s the smell of the earth and grapes and fermenting. It makes your mouth water.

We’re lucky here in our corner of Hérault. Further inland, toward Carcassonnne massive hailstones in July decimated vineyards. ( To see how big these hailstones can be just click on the link in green.)

In some places more than 80% of wine growers’ crops were destroyed. Hailstones smash young grapevines to pieces.

destroyed grapes — livelihoods can be destroyed

Fortunately, our Mademoiselle Merlot has made it through safely

and we can look forward to winter warmers to accompany our beef stews.

Here’s what’s also happening today on our street.

Can’t do without log fires through the winter. Ah, a comfy chair, a good book and a glass of Merlot. Lovely. Here’s himself getting started on building a new pile near the house.

Thank you for visiting my website. You can leave a comment if you wish, I’ll get back to you. Don’t forget to fill in your details at FOLLOW CELIA and you’ll receive a short email telling you when there’s a new post from me. Don’t worry, your email remains private.

Cheers!

Wicked stepmother

Wicked Stepmother working to rule.

September 1, 2014 celia Leave a comment

Wicked Stepmother hasn’t posted for a while.

She’s been a little under the weather. These long French school holidays are a strain, particularly when coping with complications from CRPS – you know- the shortage of sleep, the constant pain etc.

So.

Wicked Stepmother was at the end of her tether

with Gaming person who lives upstairs, otherwise known as Gollum Boy who has had close to three months off school. I’ll repeat that – THREE months off school. All right then, two and a half. One is prone to exaggeration when one is at the end of aforementioned tether.

None of his chores were being completed.

emptying dishwasher — little kids can do it – picture from mirror.co.uk

A job even little kids can do – GB doesn’t get up in the morning so if you need clean plates and cups etc. for lunch (as you do) you have to empty the dishwasher yourself.

He’d conveniently forget to take out the trash.

(We have three collections weekly here in France. During very hot summers you need non recyclables to be gone. Fast.)

taking out trash for stepmother — smelly stuff!

See, little kids can do it. GB did it when he was little. But now he’s GB. He’s only interested in online gaming and as we’ve already seen, gamers are cuckoos in your house, lady.

They take. They never offer to give.

Biological parent (BP) and Wicked Stepmother (WS) grew tired of always having to ask GB to do his chores.

He refused point blank to get up before his preferred 1pm or even later. He refused point blank to help with bringing in supermarket shopping and putting it away.

Yesterday he said he was inviting 7 of his friends to come round here for the last day of school summer vacation. They would like to use the pool and possibly stay for something to eat.

Wicked Stepmother refused point blank.

‘No,’ she said. ‘And the reason is this. Since my incapacitation last December when I was hit by a car, you have shown so little consideration for your father and me. This morning I have yet again emptied the dishwasher for you and washed all your clothes.

Throughout the whole of the summer holidays you have offered to do nothing. And yet you still expect to get what you want. It isn’t happening any more. Neither is your ironing. I don’t want to wear your tee shirts. You do. You iron them. This is what is called working to rule.

Wicked Stepmother signing out for now.

And if you think WS is being over the top in her treatment of online gamer – watch this video of what happens to some gaming addicts in China.

Don’t forget to subscribe at FOLLOW CELIA for updates of my blog.

CRPS

How CRPS is affecting me.

August 9, 2014 celia Leave a comment

I won’t explain CRPS. You already know what Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is or you wouldn’t be reading this. In previous posts I’ve introduced Lady Penelope Strongbow and made jokes about twitches and spasms. I’ve shown you the clinic where I attended 5 days a week from 8:30 am to 3:30pm. April to July.

I’m in month 8 of CRPS treatment.

I still can’t make a fist. I still drop things. I’m on leave from the clinic for what my therapist calls a therapeutic break, but I still have one hour of physiotherapy every day.

The pain is . . . now here’s the thing. I weaned myself away from pregabalin (Lyrica). I quit Tramadol after only three days. I’ve stopped taking NSAIDs because you’re not supposed to keep on taking anti-inflammatories indefinitely.

I’m coping with the pain. It’s as if my brain has taken over and, just as it blocked out the trauma of being hit by a car, it’s keeping the pain at a tolerable level without too much pain relief. At night I take strong Codeine. Not every night. It makes me constipated.

But,

Something else is happening in my CRPS brain

This week I had a bizarre experience. I FORGOT. I forgot EVERYTHING. I didn’t know what I was doing or what was happening around me. Apparently I didn’t know who was visiting us nor how they’d arrived or when. I didn’t understand why my hand wouldn’t work. I had FORGOTTEN being hit by a car.

Himself has talked me through the strange things I was saying and it’s very alarming. In fact, it’s terrifying. I slept for most of the day afterwards. But I think I’m beginning to understand.

I remember feeling stressed that the house was noisy with people. I can’t cope with too many voices speaking at once. I was worried about one lot of visitors leaving and the need for changing beds and so on for the next lot. GB arrived home with an attitude problem and charm deficiency ( there I go joking about it again). I didn’t want to have to say goodbye to my daughter and grandchildren – I’ve seen them only once this year since CRPS because I’m unable to travel alone. I was worried about how she would drive with the kids to the airport through the French péage system. I was anxious that it would be a long time before I saw them again.

My CRPS brain slipped into defence mode.

I believe this is what happened. My brain is trying to protect me from too much pain. It’s fully occupied attempting to keep my CRPS pain at a tolerable level and the added stresses amounted to overload. Something had to go.

I Googled CRPS and memory loss. It’s all there. Stuff I hadn’t noticed before. I knew what to expect in terms of bone deterioration etc. But memory loss? How much more is this condition going to throw at me?

I’ll have to learn to deal with it. Himself will warn me if it looks as if it’s happening again and I’ll get myself out of the way – go and lie down – whatever it takes.

I won’t beat myself up about a day’s writing time wasted or the days when I don’t feel like cooking or getting out the vacuum cleaner. I’ll stick to the eating plan – Dr Hooshmand’s Four F’s. By experimenting with this eating plan I believe I’ve identified certain food culprits which can make my pain worse.

I’ll do whatever it takes to get part of my life back.

The battle with the French insurance companies is going to take a lot of my energy. But that’s another story for my next post.

Please feel free to leave a message. I’ll get back to you. Or share with friends on FaceBook, Twitter etc. CRPS sufferers benefit from hearing others’ stories. They don’t feel so alone. Thank you.

creativity, Novels, Patterns of Our Lives, Writing

How sad is ‘The End’ ? Missing your characters.

July 23, 2014 celia 2 Comments

The End of the book — image from ‘The Guardian’

Some people feel sad when they finish reading a book or a series. There’s a new hole in their lives, they say, when the last page is turned and the characters they’ve come to know and support fade away.

Here on Reddit, there’s a discussion about how finishing a book causes sadness.

Bailey laments the coming to the end of a series in 2013 in her BookBlogging blog.

In Yahoo answers the discussion mentions sadness at finishing a book because the reader has become so attached to the characters.

On GoodReads, too, there are readers who explain how they feel sad when they’ve finished reading a book they’ve really enjoyed.

So how do writers feel when they’ve finished?

If you can feel sad when you’ve finished reading a book, how much sadder are you going to feel when you’ve finished writing one?

The writers at Jungle Red discuss it here. Most writers feel something of a kind of emptiness but deal with it in different ways. Some jump straight back into the next novel. Others enjoy taking a break.

Flaubert said this –

“I love my work with a love that is frenzied and perverted, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt that scratches his belly. Sometimes, when I am empty, when words don’t come, when I find I haven’t written a single sentence after scribbling whole pages, I collapse on my couch and lie there dazed, bogged in a swamp of despair, hating myself and blaming myself for this demented pride which makes me pant after a chimera. A quarter of an hour later everything changes; my heart is pounding with joy. Last Wednesday I had to get up and fetch my handkerchief; tears were streaming down my face. I had been moved by my own writing; the emotion I had conceived, the phrase that rendered it, and satisfaction of having found the phrase–all were causing me to experience the most exquisite pleasure.”
-Flaubert

He must have been depressed beyond imagination when he actually finished.

I admit I’ve made myself cry

when I’ve killed off characters. I’ve got myself all riled up during arguments between my fictitious people and found it difficult not to take sides. I’ve felt for myself the heartwarming/heartbreaking bits, but the act of finishing, actually coming to ‘The End’ has been a very strange feeling indeed.

When I finish a short story, I can’t wait to submit it and see if a magazine is going to take it up. I don’t grieve for the fact that story is finished. I’m not so invested in the characters. I’d be wrung out like a rag if I became so deeply involved as with the characters in a full length novel.

So, now I’m missing the characters in Patterns of Our Lives. They’ve been a part of my life for so long. The best I can do for them now is market the book and find ways to promote my work and persuade people to read it so they can come to love Sandra and Jean, Polish George and Ronnie Logan and all the others. Like grown up children, they have to go out into the world.

I’ll leave the final words to the Bard:-

Juliet:
‘Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone—
And yet no farther than a wan-ton’s bird,
That lets it hop a little from his hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silken thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.

Romeo:
I would I were thy bird.

Juliet:
Sweet, so would I,
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow. [Exit above]

Romeo And Juliet Act 2, scene 2, 176–185

creativity, CRPS, Inspirations, Writing

A pain in the Arts.

June 29, 2014 celia 2 Comments

Pain shut off my creative spark. I didn’t have the faintest glow. Not even a hint of warmth, never mind sparkle. So, I got to thinking where does creativity come from? And where has it gone now that I’m battling this CRPS diagnosis?

How can we measure suffering?

pain scale — on a scale of 1 to 10 where would you place your pain?

Doctors usually ask you to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10. What I’m looking for is proof that there’s a connection between pain and creativity so I can understand why my light went out temporarily.

Doctor Joy Madden who’s the self development editor for Bella online says that, actually, we might need suffering because it can have a positive effect on our creativity.

(Not mine, Doctor Joy)

Indeed, her article goes on to say, and I quote: “Some of the most famous creative works have been accomplished when experiencing the greatest pain.”

(Oh dear)

In Pain and the Creative Process, author K. Ferlic says:

“Although pain is not inherent to the creative process, it is integrally tied to the creative process as performed by humans because of how we create our experiences. Pain and the creative process are related in several different ways.”

Similarly, in Pain and suffering and developing creativity,

Cheryl Arutt, Psy.D., a psychologist specializing in creative artist issues, says “Many creative people carry the belief that their pain is the locus of their creativity, and worry that they will lose their creativity if they work through their inner conflicts or let go of suffering…”

(Oh, double dear)

It seems to me that in articles such as these they’re talking about the need to have experienced pain of depression, loss, longing and desire to fire up the creative processes.

I’m not talking about the ‘tortured’ artist who creates on the agony in every brush stroke or word of what it felt like to be dumped by her precious ‘other’. I think it’s only common sense to see that if you want to write about heartbreak, it helps if you had it yourself at one time.

I’m talking about having CRPS right now.

It hurts. It really hurts. Now. And now. And NOW. Over and over like Groundhog Day.

‘Look out! Your wrist just got broken,’ mine tells me. ‘Look out! Your wrist just got broken. Tell your arm your wrist just got broken. Tell your elbow your wrist just got broken. Tell your shoulder your wrist just got broken. We’re all broken. NOW. Broken. BROKEN.’

You get the picture. But other people don’t. They’re so happy to see you out and about they slap you on the shoulder or they rub your arm and don’t realise they’re putting you through agony. I try to anticipate and turn to the side but I’m never quite quick enough.

Chronic pain is tiring. Exhausting. Medication gives you nausea on top of everything else you’re putting up with. You can’t sleep so you’re even more fatigued. You begin to avoid going to places where people will rub your arm and tell you they’re glad you’re all better now. And, yes, from time to time you get a little depressed.

With all of the above going on, how could anybody find the energy to be creative?

So where do ideas come from?

Read Neil Gaiman’s thoughts on this. I like his thinking. I like the reference to daydreaming. I like how he says ideas come often when you’re doing something else.

But, when you’re in real, excruciating pain, right now this second, you don’t do something else; you don’t do daydreaming. You’re not relaxed enough for those things. All you can do is try to cope with your pain and get through the day, the hour. When you are relaxed it’s because medication got you there and you probably wouldn’t even remember how to write a shopping list in the state you’re in, never mind write the next five thousand words.

I found I could edit, though. I could look at what I’d already written and reshape it, get it ready for publication. So there is a positive to come out of it. Maybe without the enforced limitations on my capabilities I might never have got around to editing Patterns of Our Lives. I’m pleased and proud it’s out there and selling.

But, don’t tell me pain is conducive to creative arts. It only works in the past tense.

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Keeping things positive

Christmas CRPS 2014

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What does the cover of TROBAIRITZ tell you?

Bringing the past into the present

Why did I make Weed a truck driver?

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Selling my writing is no different from any other market place.

Know your audience

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Our village is full of the sounds of grape harvesting.

Fortunately, our Mademoiselle Merlot has made it through safely

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Wicked Stepmother hasn’t posted for a while.

Wicked Stepmother was at the end of her tether

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I’m in month 8 of CRPS treatment.

Something else is happening in my CRPS brain

My CRPS brain slipped into defence mode.

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So how do writers feel when they’ve finished?

I admit I’ve made myself cry

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How can we measure suffering?

So where do ideas come from?

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write from the heart