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"The power of the pen is unknown until you pick it up."

Friday, June 10, 2011

Dream Vacation


A fellow writer and I were exchanging emails and she mentioned another story idea had hit her, but she was reluctant to start on something new until the original novel was finished.  I thought about it, and decided that I don't think it hurts to jot down creative scenes or ideas while they’re fresh on your mind. The way I see it, your creativity has somewhere to go on "vacation" when the side of your brain responsible for editing is on duty.  

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

How nearly dying can help your writing:

I rarely get sick, but I periodically develop life-threatening illnesses.  Go figure.  My latest incident was totally unrelated to the others and pretty unexplainable—like all the others.

This is what happened recently:  My husband and I have been getting allergy shots for over a year.  We haven’t gone on a “date” for a while, and thought we could pretend going for shots together was one.  

About 7 minutes after my shot, I started having problems. Since my worst fear in life is being looked at as a Drama Queen I ignored a critical concern.  (Word to the wise: If you’re tongue ever starts itching that is a bad sign.)


Within another minute, I felt a lot worse. You know that icky feeling you get when you have the flu (I haven’t had it in over a decade, so I’m drawing upon memory) It’s that awful feeling you can’t really define what’s wrong, you just feel rotten.  


After letting the staff know I had issues, they got me back into the exam room, but the doctor apparently didn’t know what I meant by “really bad”.  Being the good patient that I am, I very calmly explained, "My throat is closing off.”  “I’m having difficulty swallowing.”  “There’s pressure in my chest making it hard to breath.”  My husband said it was like I was calmly documenting my death.

After a few more questions I started getting annoyed.  I just wanted them to stab me with the epi pen and get it over with.  The weirdest thing was, I knew what was happening could kill me, but I wasn’t afraid of dying.  The doctor and his staff knew what was going on and they took care of it. 

When I say this experience helped my writing, some might think, “Oh, the introspective aspect of nearly dying and wondering what happens in the hereafter, would inspire deep thinking.” 

Well not really.  My husband pampered me and made me go to bed for two days where I happily worked on my story—when I wasn’t comatose on high doses of Benadryl.  

Moral of the story: 
Don’t ever ignore an itchy tongue!  Three minutes is not a long time.  If I had not been at the clinic, this sudden onset could have killed me.  I have an Epipen, but I have never used it before and what if I had been driving when it happened?