A brief and unfortunate hiatus

Hello campers,

I seem to have contracted a silly back injury, so I am coming to you now via dictation. I leave it to your fertile imaginations just how long it would take to polish off one of my patented super-long posts in this manner. (Even now, every fiber of my injured being longs to wrench myself up, drag myself across the room, and check the punctuation.) Until I figure out how to defy doctors orders to stay away from my desk and/or figure out how to type while lying flat on my back, my posts will be reduced to the briefest of updates.

I don’t even have the wherewithal to include a link to our fabulous ongoing contest; in order to find out how to win a critique of your first page of manuscript, I am afraid that you will have to scroll down a couple of posts. An activity, I am pained to report, that is currently beyond my physical capacities, so flaunt your healthy backs by checking it out.

I will be getting back to you and our ongoing series just as soon as I am able — or, knowing my constitutional incapacity for extended idleness, just a bit sooner. Sit up straight, everyone, and keep up the good work!

21 Replies to “A brief and unfortunate hiatus”

  1. Woah there. As the fiance of someone with the back on a 90 year old let me urge you to go to the doctor. Backs are as important as knees and when they start giving you trouble you should take care of the immediately (especially if you’re having trouble moving). Take care of yourself, and eat lots of pudding. Feel better soon!

  2. Oh, you have my sympathy. I blew my back out several christmases ago picking up a trash can at work (two days after falling on the stairs, so it wasn’t ENTIRELY work related). That was NOT FUN.

    I have no advice past take care, lounge, read many good books and sleep a lot. It will keep you from being bored.

  3. I just wrote a series of articles on back pain, which just needs time (according to the research) to heal. I hope it’s brief for you!

  4. Feel better soon! My multiple-protagonist WIP needs you! (But it’s not anything to wreck your back over).

  5. Your health is more important. We’ll be here when you’re better. Get well soon! 🙂

  6. I also wish you well, Anne–and not just because your mulitple-protagonist series is extremely pertinent for me at this time. But I have a lot of catching up to do, since you usually write faster than I can read 😉

  7. Good Lord! What happened?
    I sometimes long to have uninterrupted time to lay down and… write! I do not know what I would do in our place, other than catching up with sleep!
    Take care!
    Nuria

  8. Thanks, everybody! And don’t worry, Kim — so many medical professionals have had their fingertips on my back within the last week and a half that I’ve started to picture my vertebrae as black and white, like piano keys.

  9. I’ve been a silent reader for quite some time now, but I thought well wishes might be a good time to break my silence. I hope your piano-like back starts playing sweeter music soon!

  10. This is how I imagine the conversation happened when the medical professionals were discussing how to fix you:

    “Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic woman. Anne Mini will be that woman. We can make her better than she was before. Better, stronger, faster.”

    Anne Mini is: THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR ANNE

    Probably not that far off 🙂

    Get well soon!

    -Ken

  11. Anne,

    Now I’m really beginning to get worried! Long time no post. I hope you’re not in too much pain.

    No need to try to respond to this post — I just wanted to tell you about a little victory I had today. I had been dreading for months broaching with my editor the subject of multiple protagonists, especially since his first comment was that the story “lacks a single central protagonist.” I knew there was no way (for me) to reduce it to a single protagonist, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to adequately argue the point.

    Well, I finally did bring it up, and lo and behold, he agreed with me! Maybe mentioning your fifteen and five point processes gave me an air of mastery of the subject (ha! Won’t catch ME changing heads between paragraphs. Not for a long time!) But now I get to go number my two million scenes.

    By the way, I went to some SF writer’s Web site (can’t remember who) and read that he had trouble with injuries to his wrists, so now he uses (a poplular brand of voice recognition) software to dictate his novels. I just mention.

    Get thee well anon!

    1. That’s marvelous to hear, Horton! Good for you for defending your narrative choices so effectively.

      Unfortunately, voice-recognition software only works consistently for about 80-85% of the population; high sopranos and bassi profundi need not apply. I volunteered for a certain software-producing megacorporation’s trials of voice-recognition software, actually, so I have it on cutting-edge professional authority that it may well be another decade before they wouldn’t toss me out of the beta test. The technological leap required to get that last few of us is apparently a rather large one — which is why, in case you’d been wondering, some of us have to shout our way through voice mail systems.

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