Writing With A Chronic Illness

Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is to think. To have a coherent thought. To be able to form a sentence regardless of the pain that you're feeling. To feel motivated to finish a paragraph. To care enough to check for grammar. To feel desperate to create by smiting that nagging, blinking cursor on the screen.

It's easier to hide under a mountain of pillows, chuck some pills, and stare in a daze. It's easier to stuck in a good novel on my Kindle while my manuscripts suffers silently. My characters are left in suspended animation waiting on resolution to a conflict. Waiting for that inciting incident that's going to take their lives from order to chaos; a simple scientific lesson on entropy.

There are many days that I've sat and watched the cursor blink away at my face....taunting me that I'm not getting anything done. Then there are days that I've looked up and twenty pages have passed...and I'm still writing.

Those days I try to take advantage of because who knows when I'll be able to write again. I try not to think about other writers out there, churning out books, blogs, and articles like nothing. I try not to think of those writers who get up at seven am in the morning and write until lunch time. Or those writers that take their show on the road and have several pages completed daily. What are they doing that I'm not? Do I make excuses for myself because of my illness or do I realize that I have more time on my hands than I've ever had before?

I guess both are true. On days that I don't feel well, then I don't push it. Besides, whatever I do write comes out like crap anyway. I try to keep a pen nearby with my trusty legal pad and jot ideas down. Sometimes I like to "free write". That's when I just type whatever comes to my head. On days that I do feel okay, I try to write something...anything. This is why an outline is the best way to go when writing a book. I've been stuck on my current book so long I don't know what to do anymore. I get as lost as a toddler in a mall. Stuck and not loving it.

So excuses don't help anyone. I'm sure the writers who aren't slackers will tell you that. How else can you get anything done?

WHAT'S NEW EVERYONE?

Working on a Supernatural Thriller titled, "Father Time". Just started a first draft yesterday and it's going really well.

Also the dark comedy, Serial Me, is coming along very well. I'm still in first draft stage and I hope to finish and have everything  published by late January 2013.

Also you Diary of A Sick Chick Fans, the sequel is coming soon February 2013. Diary of A Sick Chick: Year Two of Chronic Illness.

Review of "World War Z"

I normally don't review books for other authors. While I was not certainly asked for a review, I found a great book so compelling I had to share it with my readers that like a little zombie reading material with their breakfast.

It is rare to find a voice this compelling and a book so incredibly rare that I have to remember that what I'm reading is fiction.....
-Sonya Dickerson

 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JMKQX0/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img
 

My significant other heard a friend speaking about this book and was told that he should give it a try.

So what did he do? Purchased the Kindle edition for his sick fiance with a lupus flare, with nothing else to do for six days until she was either better or forced from her bed by hospital bureaucrats.

I'm so glad that he passed the chance to me first.

I have to admit that I am one of the millions that enjoy, "The Walking Dead" series on television so I didn't mind another zombie read. There are thousands of them available for purchase right now ( I have several) and yet, I feel obligated to delete them all from my Kindle.

For the next week, I found myself engrossed into the storyline from the very first page. Yes, anything that can keep my attention going while in pain has some definite talent.

As many others have reviewed before me, you're not getting a three or four hundred page novel with a clear beginning, middle, and end. It's a series of interviews of people that survived the "War" and they are telling their stories for posterity purposes.

One may think that the interview style could make the book trudge on and on indefinitely to where the stories seem to overlap but they truly don't! That's what makes this book different from many others. From outer space to the depths of the sea, the story of The War and The Great Panic are covered in detail from the ones that had the skills, the bravery, or just sheer and crazy luck to make it through to the end.

There were times that I found myself having to put the book down for SANITY reasons. Yes...my sanity. The imagery and the characters were just too real and convincing. So much so that the moan.....the indescribable and inescapable moan of the living dead when they were upon you literally kept me peering out of the windows and the small caliber handgun by my bedside loaded.

You couldn't help but immerse yourself in the stories told by each survivor in their own little way without wondering just what you would have done in that situation. Would you have been among the living? Or one of the millions of tormenters that threatened your existence on a daily basis?

World War Z is one of those books that you just can't seem to forget. It will stay at the back of your mind as the current times show that our interest in the living dead has yet to cease its popularity. It was brilliantly written and highly recommended.