NovelsByNeenah.com

Well, I seem to be fighting off a bout of cellulitis without having to spend a week in the hospital. First time in years. :O

I don’t know if I’ll ever use this particular illness in a story, but I have used my experiences with concussions upon occasion. Thomi, for instance, got the dubious benefit of my worst one. I’ve had them from mild to severe. None were fun.

I’ve fallen out of hay lofts, out of trees, off horses, for some inexplicable reason have passed out while riding my bike as a kid and ridden off a four foot drop into the road . . . in front of a car about to head off into traffic, skating accidents, car accidents, being hit by a car . . . I could go on, but you can see where I’d be declared accident prone by friends and family. In fact, some friends suggested I ought to become a stunt woman. Get paid for my pain . . . Nice thought, but I never took them up on that idea.

I just wanted to write.

But had I done that, just think what I could be writing now! Haha! Moreover, my experiences would have been about more than just accidents and pain. My characters–some one or so of them–would have been a stunt person. Hey, maybe they still will be, who knows. Thomi did her own in the movies and shows she was in. I just don’t really show you that; the story doesn’t need it since it takes place in her home state and town of Kingsdale, RI. She’s had her share of accidents, but I think I top her, no question.

In any case, I’ve used my experiences of every sort in my stories. They lend credibility to the scene. I’ve been there, done that, had it happen kind of thing. I sure do know how it feels! Some things though, like riding off the wall, I have no actual memory of doing. Just remember riding my bike around and around the house, coming around again to the front . . . . and waking up in my mother’s arms with her in frightened tears. I can do that scene though. And there certainly was pain after I woke up!

I’ve had three sons, plus two miscarriages. Lost my parents just hours apart . . .

What gets me through all this pain is my faith and the proverbial adage, “Nothing bad ever happens to a writer.”

Not saying you don’t suffer like others; you just eventually find an outlet for it in a story. Might even prove therapeutic.

So, go ahead, use these sad bad times to advantage. Conflict is the name of the game, right? Change things up a bit. Give your character a limp left over from that moron running her down while she was riding her bike to work, the park, or the store. Was to work for me . . . don’t have a limp though. But the site of the break is where that miserable cellulitis first rears it’s ugly head multiple times a year. :\

All kinds of possibilities, wouldn’t you say? And, as I say, it could prove therapeutic.