As I prepared to launch myself into the new year, I was determined to buck the trend towards doom and gloom. All around us the news is grim. So I was intending to talk cheerfully about the way book sales will boom as people seek out cheaper forms of entertainment and escape. How books will boost morale.
Hah! So much for my good intentions. Instead it turns out that I could do with some morale boosting myself. What a way to end 2008! On Christmas Day I took a nosedive off my new bicycle and shattered my right wrist. My RIGHT wrist. My writing wrist.
So I am now a right-handed writer unable to write. What good is that? Of course I know I can peck at a keyboard left-handed as I am doing now or use a dictaphone - or digital voice recorder as the techies now call them. I can even teach my computer to use a voice recognition programme. NO, NO, that's not how I write. For me the creative process works in a mysterious and unfathomable way as the words flow from my head, down my arm and into my right hand. They spill on to paper from the tip of my pen. I even think more clearly with a pen in my hand. Yes, I know there's all that stuff about use of your left hand stimulating a different part of the brain. I'll be extremely interested to see what comes out of it.
So as you can tell, 2009 has arrived with a new and totally unexpected challenge, a demand that I adapt. Okay, that is my New Year's resolution. Adapt. With a scary metal plate in my wrist and intense curiosity in my head as to how I'm going to set about it, I venture forth on my new book. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is actually Good News, not bad.
I'll let you know. Happy new year.
8 comments:
oh no, sorry to hear about your accident, I hope you heal fast and manage to get some words on paper
Hi Karen,
Thanks for your sympathy. I'm making good use of the time to develop characters and plot-lines for the new book, so hopefully all will turn out well. Bit of a pain though!
I am so sorry to hear about your accident, and having hurt myself seriously numerous times, believe me I understand the pain! That said, I would just like to say that I love your writing. I have read many, many authors and I feel very lucky to have discovered you. There are a handful of authors that I have enjoyed but I must say that it has been a while since I have so impatiently awaited a next book! I am so excited to find that you are publishing the sequel to The Russian Concubine. I could not put that book down and am currently having the same problem with The Red Scarf. If you're ever in Southern California again, please let me know as I'd love more than anything to say hello :)
Thank you for being a Writer!
Karen A.
Jenningscompany@aol.com
Sorry about your injury, I hope you recover fully and soon.
I have just finished reading the Russian Concubine and got online to see what else I could read by the same author.
I am very excited about the upcoming sequel, I was so sorry when the book ended and very curious to read about what happened next in the lives of Lydia and Chang!
Estelle
Sorry about your wrist! Ouch.
I just read and finished "The Russian Concubine" today. I probably read a novel a week, I also go to school full time and work part time. It has been a very long time since I have come across a story so captivating. I just read from another's comment below that you are writting a sequil and I will be first in line when it's released.
Get Better Soon!!
Hi Karen A,
Great to know you are drawn into The Red Scarf as intensely as into The Russian Concubine. I hope you enjoy being reunited with Lydia and the other characters in the sequel, The Girl from Junchow - due out in June in the US. I will certainly let you know if I have the pleasure of being in California again.
Hi e.e,
Thanks for the sympathy. Can't get too much of that! It was great to be involved with Lydia again and to see where she took me this time. I miss her already! But I'm into a new book now which is always exciting.
Hi Kaylin,
It's very satisfying for an author to hear that a reader is 'captivated' by a book, especially as I was a captive of the book myself when I was writing it. Hope you enjoy the sequel.
Post a Comment