Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Recurring Injuries


A year ago, I was texting my best friend, Houston, while walking up some stairs. As a consequence of this foolish action, I fell and banged my knee up pretty bad. Still, I could walk on it so everything was fine. I would just deal with the pain.

That weekend I worked the football game. It was raining and the ground was very slippery. I worked at the top of a small flight of stairs and unfortunately fell three times. The third time, I wasn't able to get back up. The EMTs took me from my post to the hospital where the doctors determined I'd sprained my MCL (the tendon on the inside of your knee).

Because the actual sprain happened at work as a consequence of the rain and my position, I was given worker's compensation for it. I was on crutches for a few days and then wore a knee brace for a few weeks. Everything seemed fine afterwards.

Earlier this week, my knee started hurting again. At first, I ignored it--I am overweight, after all, and as such my legs are often sore and tired. But when the pain didn't go away, I started noticing how similar it felt to when I'd sprained my MCL last year. I was still hoping there was nothing wrong, but walking home from work today I could feel the tendon moving around under the skin. *sigh*

So I'm going to go to the doctor tomorrow. I hope it's not as bad as it was last year, and hopefully it's not even sprained. Maybe it's just a little sore...

Sometimes things that we did years ago come back to bite us. A decision we made to put our novel in third person may have been completely wrong for that particular story, and a year later when you think you're ready to query you have to go through and change it to first person. Sometimes a character's name may be wrong, or the name of a city, or some other small but important detail that effects the entire story. Sometimes we say or do something at a conference that gives an agent the wrong impression of us. I could go on and on.

The problems aren't going to go away if we ignore them. It doesn't matter how long we've been working on our WIP or how ready we feel to query, if we don't address the problems that are there they're only going to get worse.

I certainly hope my knee doesn't get worse...

♥tg

3 comments:

  1. I hope your doctor appointment goes well and you get some good news.

    You're right, problems don't go away just because you want them to and writing is no exception. Better to face them head on, easier said than done, I know.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ouch. D: I'm still dealing with a neck injury from May, so I feel your pain - literally. I hope you get some good news, and that the doctor gets you into physical therapy or something.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ouch! That was a great analogy for us as writers. I couldn't agree more. That's why I think GOOD cp's are invaluable. They need to be able to tell you straight up that 'you're doing it AGAIN'. And you have to be willing to actually listen and FIX IT.

    ReplyDelete

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