Life Goes A’Rolling…

Dean and Kris have talked and posted a lot about life rolls, and how to deal with them.  The main point they made was sometimes life hits you and you just have to deal with it before you can get back to writing in earnest.

I’ve had a couple of life rolls lately.

First (and this is a good one), the Navy just transferred me to San Diego.  Hard to complain about that, but it did entail a week-long drive across the country with three small kids and a highly pregnant wife.  And then several weeks unpacking and getting fully settled.  I got exactly 700 words written from May 10th to June 5th.  But that’s ok.  Check out the results.

Look to the right from the end of our driveway and you see the Pacific Ocean and Mission Beach.

So the beginning of this week, I got started writing again.  I had a 1,400 word day on Sunday – not awesome, but ok.  Didn’t write yesterday, but that’s not a crisis.

And then we had today….

We live just 3.5 miles away from my new duty station.  I bicycle to work.  This morning, I was heading in to work, passing the local high school, when a kid in a car parked along the street flung his door open right in front of me.  I had no chance of avoiding it.  My handlebar struck the door and I was knocked sideways…into the side of the moving car next to me in the lane.  Then I hit the pavement.

I got up on my feet quickly, sure that either I or my bike was completely trashed.  Amazingly this was not the case.  At first glance my bike was unharmed (I later found the gear shifter/brake mechanism is scratched to hell and canted to the side; it will likely need repairs).  It’s a carbon frame – it will shatter vice bend so I suspect the frame is ok.  I’m going to bring it to a bike shop to make sure.

I had road rash on my elbow and severe annoyance, bit little else…until I looked at my hand.  Ouch.

Turns out that pinky was broken in three places, and knocked out of alignment.  I spent the day in the hospital.  The Ortho Docs were able to set it no problem and put on a cast, so all’s well that ends well.  It COULD have been a lot worse.  If the car next to me was a few seconds slower, I would have flown in front of it and maybe got run over as opposed to just rebounding off its quarter panel.  So I’m one lucky bastard.

But…

I’ve got a cast on my entire right hand and forearm, and I’m right-handed.  Just signing my name is nearly impossible, and will be for the next 6 weeks, until they remove the cast.  And then after that the Doc says I’ll probably need Physical Therapy to regain full range of motion.  That sucks.

And as far as writing goes…  This post is now 531 words long.  It’s taken 25 minutes to write that much.  My normal speed is about 1,500 words an hour.  Do the math on how it had affected my typing.  I actually thought it would be worse than that.  But it’s also been bloody tiring, because I’m having to hold the cast up with my shoulder vice assume a comfortable writing position, so writing two-handed probably won’t happen for extended periods of time.  The offshoot?  Probably not going to get much writing done in the next month and a half.

Damnit.

Oh well.  Life rolls happen.  The most important thing is I’m not seriously hurt, I can still provide for my family, and they have my back 100%.

That, and I get out of doing dishes for a few weeks.  😛

Thank the Lord for little blessings, right?

On a brighter note, Glimmer Vale is just about ready for publishing.  Layouts are all done, and the ebook cover is squared away.  All that’s waiting now is the wraparound cover for the print version.  It’s going to rock!

Coming soon.