Painting With Light

An excellent question.

Regardless of the genre in which you write, the best way to make your stories come alive is to write exciting, clear, descriptive prose and believable dialogue.

If that sounds like work, I suppose you could always try what I described in my last post. Grab a bare live electric wire … and hope you live to tell someone about it. It was definitely exciting.

However, it’s not something I would recommend.

I was fortunate to have only brushed the bare wires, not grab them … which could have created a whole different and, in my view, quite unwelcome outcome.

My brush with electrical stupidity didn’t mean the big nasty that electrocution could be … it just threw me to the ground and caused me to make a complete tear of the rotator cuff ligaments in my left shoulder.

The orthopedic surgeon figures with a couple hours of surgery, six weeks of immobility and months of rehabilitation, I’ll be something (hopefully) approaching normal again.

Given my history of normal, that could scare some people.

I’ve been through a similar scenario once before and remember the weeks of discomfort it meant. I’m not looking forward to it. The good news is I recovered … and I can now tell when the weather is going to change by the ache in my arm.

I also once broke the elbow in the same arm, trying … and failing … to prove I could still play football with seventeen-year-olds. I can’t, but at my age that’s not a bad thing. Is it?

I figure with this latest injury I’ll at least now have the weather-change info in stereo.

Unfortunately, it also means my writing and typing process is considerably slowed. I’ll be forced to type with only my right hand. I know for many this isn’t a problem. I’ve seen some of you type, and you’re only using a couple of fingers anyway.

But for me it’s a real problem. I wanted to get the third book of my Reichold Street trilogy published before the end of the year. Certainly by the first quarter of 2015.

And I do know how to type, so this slows me down considerably. I’ve already thought about recording my thoughts and transcribing them later but, while this is a good way to review my work, I find it cumbersome to begin that way.

Perhaps I should use this time to do some of the things I’ve been meaning to do … like go to book-signings, visit reading groups, talk to classrooms and generally get out and hobnob with some of the folks I’d like to reach with my books?

Perhaps I could do a reading for some of them and talk about how I come up with ideas?

Without both arms to gesture with as I talk, I’ll effectively be whispering … but, perhaps, they’ll pay more attention that way.

What do you think?

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You can find my books as eBooks or paperback on Amazon, or at Barnes & Noble. You’re also invited to visit my web site, BROKEN GLASS, or like my Book of Face page. You can also follow my shorter ramblings on The Twitter.

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Tags: award-winning author, award-winning writing, indie writers

This entry was posted on June 24, 2014 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Award-Winning Fiction, Lifestyle, Storytelling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.