Putting Your Backside in the Chair When it's a Pain in the Tush!

Patty Smith Hall has been making up stories to keep herself occupied since her parents forced her on boring Sunday drives into the Georgia countryside when she was too young to stay home by herself. Now she's happy to share her wild imagination and love of history with others, including her husband of 29 years, Danny, two smart and gorgeous daughters, and a Yorkie she spoils like a grandbaby. She resides in North Georgia.

Putting Your Backside in the Chair 

When it's a Pain in the Tush!

Writers are always told that one key to getting a publishing contract is to ‘put your backside in a chair and write!’ But what if you physically can’t sit for any length of time without being in a great deal of pain? What do you do then?

For the last four years, I’ve been going through a season of suffering. I won’t go into the whole boring medical explanations behind it, except to say that finding a chair that doesn’t leave me in tears after just a couple of minutes has become my holy grail. And yet I know, like others visiting today, I’ve been called to write.

So how do writers who face chronic, debilitating pain write?

Stay in Constant Prayer

Dealing with constant pain usually does one of two things to a person; either it sends you running in every direction, chasing every lead for a reason for the pain, a ‘why’ behind the agony or it drives you to your knees. I’ve done both. But one very important question I’ve put before God (besides the whole ‘why me?’) is if writing is in His plan for me. I wanted to make sure I was in God’s will and had to prepare myself if God required me give up writing or the hope of publication. It’s a dark place at times, but also one where your faith is stretched in new ways each and every second of the day. 

Equally important is the need to be ready to handle the pain if He sends confirmation to continue writing. Working through chronic pain or illness takes a inhuman toughness only God can give. So I’ve turned even more to His Word for encouragement. Sticky notes on my computer with scriptures--my favorites are 2 Corinthians 12:9 and Romans 8:28.

Finding a way to write

Okay, you’re prayed up, know that God wants to you write, even got your scriptures to encourage you--now what? How do you get your ‘backside in a chair’ when it’s a pain in the tush?

1)  Standing desk and ergonomic rug

One of my favorite people (and best selling novelist!) Camy Tang came up with a wonderful idea to deal with her chronic back issues. At her desk, she keeps a box that she places on her desktop when she feels the need to stand. It’s the perfect height for her computer and allows her to continue working while giving her a chance to stand and stretch.  If you have an island in your kitchen, that’s also a great place to work without having to sit. If you want something a little more decorative, there are many standing desks available on Amazon, starting for as little as $50.

Another important item that works wonders is an ergonomic rug. These are designed to help relieve fatigue on the lower extremities and is well worth the price (which can range anywhere from $30 to well into the hundreds.) I’d suggest you try it out first--yes, you may look crazy, standing on a rug in the middle of Bed, Bath and Beyond but better to make sure it’s the right rug for you than waste money.

1)  Alphasmart word processor

You’re sitting at your desk or in your favorite chair, ready to write and it’s just not comfortable. You fidget for a few minutes, hoping to find that perfect position but it just isn’t happening. Maybe the chair upstairs would work but that means dragging your computer up a flight of steps and you’re not even sure you can make it without falling down. That’s where an Alphasmart can help. Weighing under a pound, this portable word processor has eight individual files which can save multiple chapters and be downloaded into Word with just the press of a button. And you don’t have to worry about tripping over cables--four AA batteries is all you need to keep writing for months at a time.

1)  Egg Timer

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I get writing, time just slips away from me. I’ll look up and two hours would have gone by. Good for my book. Not at all good for my back. So now I keep an egg timer on my desk and set it for 35 minutes. When that bell goes off, I stand up and move. Take a bathroom break. Fold a dryer full of clothes. Anything to get moving. Then I go back to my desk and reset my timer. I may not write as much but I’m not in as much pain either.

1)  Digital pen

The pain is so bad, you can’t even sit up. So now that you’re flat on your back, what do you do? Consider a digital pen. A bit thicker than a standard pen, it has the capability to transfer your writing into Word files while also serving as a recording. It’s not for everyone, and it’s expensive starting at $119 (plus the specialized notebooks.) So once again, try it before you buy it.

5) Pen and paper

Old fashioned, yes, but when you’re flat on your back and desperate to write, it’s an easy alternative. Not much of an added expense - I can buy my favorite pens and writing tablet for under $5. With the back-to-school sales beginning, you can stock up on notebooks and pens for later. Yes, your writing will still need to be typed into the computer but writing freestyle is very liberating. I’ve written the first draft of my last four books like this. It’s slower, but still gets the job done. 

Hearts in Hiding

Engineer Edie Michaels loves her life—she has a good job, close friends, even a chance at romance with former soldier Beau Daniels. But she could lose everything if her secret comes out that she's the German daughter of a devoted Nazi. When her father sends spies to force her loyalty, everything Edie values is at risk.

Time in a Nazi POW camp changed army medic Beau Daniels. When he discovers a letter of Edie's written in German, he can't help his suspicions. Is she truly the woman he's started to love? Or has she been the enemy all along? With Nazis on Edie's trail, the pair must fight for truth, for survival—and for love.

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Ignoring the H8Rs. Tess Gerritsen

Tess Gerritsen left a successful practice as an internist to raise her children and concentrate on her writing. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of medical suspense, the New York Times bestseller Harvest. She is also the author of the bestsellers Life Support, Bloodstream, Gravity, and The Surgeon. Tess lives with her family in Maine. (PHOTO CREDIT: Paul D'Innocenzo)

Ignoring the H8Rs


by Tess Gerritsen

Recently I came across the premise for a new reality TV show called "H8R," which, for those of us who are text-message neophytes, translates as: "Hater." Here's the description:


On this reality show, celebrities go head-to-head with regular people who don’t like them. They try to win their adversaries over and, in the process, reveal person behind the famous name. Mario Lopez hosts the program which includes two celebrities in each episode.


The haters are not told about the show’s actual premise when they’re recruited. Producers tell them a different type of documentary or show is being shot but extensive background checks are done to ensure the haters are not also stalkers. In some cases, the celebrities nominate their haters, who they know from the Internet or Twitter.


For people who aren't celebrities, it may come as a surprise that celebrities can, in fact, feel personally wounded by cruel remarks made by complete strangers. When Gwyneth Paltrow started amassing hordes of such haters, I wondered how she felt about it. I also wondered why anyone would bother hating a woman just because she's a blonde, beautiful, talented gal who likes to share lifestyle tips. It's the same thing I wondered about people who hate Martha Stewart with such gusto, investing a great deal of emotional energy attacking a woman they don't personally know. When I thumb through her LIVING magazine to gawk at her impossibly elaborate craft projects, I don't feel jealousy or disdain. What I feel is resignation, because I know I'd probably end up hot-glueing my own head to the ceiling fan. I'll never be as capable as Martha Stewart, but that's okay with me.


You don't have to read the National Enquirer to know that the most-envied celebrities are often the public's favorite targets of vilification. It's the people we want to be or look like, the people who have what we want to have, that catch the brunt of public hatred. Celebrities aren't really human, so how could they possibly have human feelings? They're rich, they're beautiful, they're successful, so why should they care if complete strangers spew hateful things about them?


Some people think it's fun and amusing and harmless to hate the Marthas and Gwyneths and Brangelinas, and to express that hatred online so the world can share our bile. But celebrity is only a matter of degree. Just about anyone can be considered a public person these days. Restaurant chefs. Athletes. Policemen.


And writers.


A few weeks ago, novelist JA Konrath posted a blog entry called "Not Caring," about how important it is for writers to develop thick skins.


One of the greatest skills you can acquire as an author is a thick skin.


Once you unleash a story onto the world, it no longer belongs to you. When it was in your head, and on your computer during the writing/rewriting process, it was a personal, private thing. But the moment your words go out into the world, they are subject to the opinion of strangers. What was once personal is now public.


Do yourself a huge favor, and don't listen to the public.


This goes for more than your literary endeavors. If you blog, or speak in public, or tweet on Twitter, you are a Public Figure.


That means some people aren't going to like you.


And you shouldn't care.


You hear this very wise advice from non-writers as well. That we writers shouldn't give a damn about reviews. That writers should stop whining and pull on their "big-girl panties." That being published means you have no right to be sensitive to whatever anyone, anywhere, says about you. But that advice isn't always easy to take, and I know many authors who are still personally wounded by a bad review or snarky comments on Amazon. One very talented debut novelist, a man who's hitting bestseller lists around the world, told me that the hardest thing about being published was learning to take the blows. He knew he was thin-skinned, and he tried to prepare himself for public criticism, yet he was taken aback by how much it hurt.


"Crybaby!" I can hear the public sneering. "Why don't you man up and grow a pair?"


On a readers' forum, I came across comments by two teachers who smugly observed that, unlike crybaby writers, when teachers get performance reviews, they're mature enough to deal with the negative ones. They said that writers are a privileged and lucky group (whose average income, by the way, is less than $10,000) so no one should sympathize with them. Writers should stop whining and be as tough as everyone else whose work gets reviewed by superiors. For crying out loud, writers should learn to be as tough as teachers.

Then, a few months later, a tragic thing happened. In a new policy introduced by the Los Angeles Times, L.A. public school teachers' performance ratings were published in the newspaper. A highly dedicated teacher, despondent over his merely average rating, committed suicide.


I'm wondering if it suddenly became clear to those teachers that public criticism, public exposure, feels like a different thing entirely than does a private performance review. When your boss tells you you need to shape up, that can sting. But when that performance review is online and in the newspapers for your neighbors and colleagues to see and talk about, that's a level of embarrassment that not everyone can deal with.


Not surprisingly, many teachers were upset about the dead teacher's public shaming and suicide. Just as they're upset when they're called lousy teachers by students on Facebook.


Yet that's what writers routinely put up with. It comes with the job -- a job that pays the average writer about as much as a part-time dishwasher -- and we have to learn to deal with it.


But it's not easy.  First published at Murderati

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Weddings, Wakes and Whitefish~ Sally John

Sally John is the author of sixteen novels, including the three popular series: The Other Way Home, In a Heartbeat, and The Beach House. Her stories run the gamut from small-town dynamics to Chicago emergency personnel to Pacific beach epiphanies. Initially inspired to write after penning a computer software manual, Sally has also published nonfiction articles, and she speaks at workshops and conferences about writing and family issues. Three-time finalist for The Christy Award, former teacher, and Illinois native, she lives in Southern California with her husband Tim. Writing fiction takes a backseat only to her cherished roles of wife, mom, mom-in-law, and grandma.

Weddings, Wakes, and Wisconsin Whitefish

How do you tell your editors—six weeks before a twice-extended deadline—that you no longer give a hoot whether your characters ever resolve their issues? That as a matter of fact, if they walked off into the sunset, you would laugh and laugh until your sides ached?

This had never happened to me before. For me, writing fiction is life and the rest is just details. I’d rather be writing fiction than doing almost anything else. The line between real life and make believe life has blurred to the point that “real life” is the one in my imagination. All that other business tends to be ho-hum or annoying.

Then my daughter got married.

My son’s wedding several years before hers did not affect me in the same way. A mother-daughter thing? Or the fact that his was on the beach and hers was traditional church and slew of attendants? I don’t know. Suffice it to say this one undid me.

The buildup to the wedding was not to blame. Elizabeth basically organized the event singlehandedly. My role was simple. I made two pre-wedding trips from California to Iowa and “mommied” her. Most days while she taught, I sat in her apartment, wrote, and did her laundry. The only interruptions were the UPS man’s knock and the cat’s attempts to walk across my keyboard.

So far, so good. As usual, my heart hummed along, recording moments and emotions to draw upon later for future stories. In the meantime, I slashed away at my heroine, ripping apart every support system she had. I took her to Vogler’s darkest cave. She made it through. She began her journey home, armed with lessons learned and determination to live them out. Then the unthinkable happened and she was truly crushed.

Ah. It was the perfect time to leave the story and enjoy the wedding. Afterwards, I could put her back together and carry her safely home, easy breezy.

Wrong.

The week of wedding festivities translated into an indescribable joy and I learned an important lesson: indescribable joy is not fodder for fiction.

Nope. Pain is. As are fear, anger, terror, uncertainty, sadness, and doubt.

Not only was every difficult thought and emotion missing from this wedding experience, they were annihilated from my being. I went home and grinned at my desk, not writing a word, remembering the ceremony, the family and friends, the laughter, the dinner, the luscious Midwest spring day, my husband in his tux, my glowing daughter and son-in-law, my precious granddaughters in their flower girl dresses.

I was satiated.

In the fifteen years that I’ve been immersed in writing fiction, nothing has stopped the process. Of course there have been intrusions and obstacles and delays, but life always fueled the work.

There was the season of two teenagers. The empty nest. My father’s last days and death. Our nephew’s cancer diagnosis. A significant marital struggle and healing. The cross-country move from Illinois to California. The wildfire that destroyed our house and every memento we had so recently and so carefully packed while pitching everything that didn’t matter. The loss of our twenty-seven year old nephew.

All of it carved within me a hole, a longing for something that is beyond words. And, as you fiction writers know, this is where story begins, in that place where there are no words.

I grinned for days on end. The writing floundered. Real, real life had poked its amazing essence into my imagination and I could scarcely remember my heroine’s name.

But I didn’t want to worry my editors. Reminding myself that the secret to writing success is showing up, I just showed up, day in and day out. I wrote junk. I deleted. I wrote some more junk. I recalled unpleasantness, like the taste of boiled whitefish in Wisconsin thirty-some years before and the endurance test not only of that meal but of sharing vacation time with my in-laws.

Eventually the wedding receded. My heroine once again tugged at my heartstrings. Real life got back to normal.

I think my editors had an inkling of what was to come. When I first told them about wedding plans, they laughed and offered to extend the deadline. God bless those wise women.

Ransomed Dreams

With the flash of a bullet, Sheridan Montgomery’s world ceased to exist.

Her husband, Eliot – the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela – may have physically survived the assassination attempt, but he would never be the same again. And Sheridan had accepted that neither would their marriage.

But when a man that Sheridan had hoped to never see again brings new information about her past, it spins her life down a side road—a path that makes her question everything she thought she knew about herself, her husband, and their life together.

Does a promise last forever when everything has changed? With honesty and grace, best-selling author Sally John tells a moving story about the unexpected detours our lives can take and the hope that it’s never too late to find our way back.

“A wonderful story about the twin truths that forgiveness is costly but love can meet the expense head-on. Sally John is an insightful, inspiring storyteller.”

-Susan Meissner, author of The Shape of Mercy

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Pain

A homeschooling mom, Anita Mellott writes and blogs “Words of Encouragement and Hope” at From the Mango Tree: http://amellott.wordpress.com/

“Lord, what will I do without my eyes?” I sank to the floor of my walk-in closet and buried my face in my hands. The darkness was a welcome relief to my eyes after the probing, bright lights at the ophthalmologist’s. The check-up confirmed that my recent bout with iritis had altered my vision drastically. In addition, the doctor found a troubling spot on the macula of the other eye. Fearing the worst, he referred me to a retinal specialist.

The days that led up to that appointment were difficult: medical tests for me, a car wreck, and worst of all--a tragic situation that blindsided our family, leaving us reeling. Through it all, a contract for my devotional book lay on my desk.

“Have you sent in the contract yet?” a critique partner asked me one day.

I remained silent.

“Anita?”

“How can I sign it now? You know what’s going on. I feel like a hypocrite…What hope can I offer anyone?” My words weren’t so much a response to her as much as a cry to God, “Don’t expect anything of me right now. Maybe once this season of pain has passed, I’ll write again.”

“Oh, Anita.” My crit partner’s gentle tone reached through the phone and embraced me. “I like you so much better now that your life isn’t perfect.”

Her words stayed with me.

Pain sears the life of every individual. My valley is giving me a deeper perspective, a greater empathy with and compassion for hurting people. It’s providing a connecting point with others.

Pain brings a greater vulnerability to His work in my life; it deepens my need for Him. It’s on my knees that I can acknowledge His sovereignty and rest in it.

Contrary to my expectations, He didn’t lead me to write after the pain, but rather through the pain. So I signed the contract. It’s through the valley that my faith and obedience is tested. It’s not what I can do for Him, but what He can do through the pain. And, it’s because of the pain that I write. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (1 Corinthians 1:3-4).

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