{"id":2387,"date":"2021-07-07T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/janetalcorn.com\/staging\/1364\/?p=2387"},"modified":"2021-07-04T09:27:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-04T16:27:24","slug":"what-would-make-me-quit-writing-iwsg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janetalcorn.com\/staging\/1364\/2021\/07\/07\/what-would-make-me-quit-writing-iwsg\/","title":{"rendered":"What would make me quit writing (#IWSG)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This post is part of the\u00a0Insecure Writers Support Group monthly blog hop<\/a>. On the first Wednesday of each month, I and my fellow insecure writers post something related to writing, and then we visit the blogs of our fellow members and read and comment on their IWSG posts. This month\u2019s optional question is, What would make you quit writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes these IWSG monthly questions are timely. Back in April, I wrote about a problem I was having with my right arm<\/a>. In looking over that piece, I realize I failed to explain exactly what went wrong and why I included a pretty diagram of arm veins in the post. Ah, well, I wasn’t feeling great when I wrote the post, so I have an excuse. Anyway, it turned out I did, in fact, have a blood clot that restricted blood flow in my basilic vein (that’s the vein phlebotomists like to draw from when you get a blood test). It knocked me out of action for 3 days, the only 3 days this year that I didn’t write, because using a mouse and keyboard (or even pen and paper) hurt too much (and really, just being conscious hurt too much, making it hard to think around the constant internal monologue of, Ow ow ow ow ow<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does all that whining have to do with this month’s IWSG prompt? Unfortunately, I’m still having pain in that arm. I’m not one for catastrophizing, but dealing with whatever the hell is wrong with my arm has forced me to consider what I’d do if I lost the physical ability to write the way I normally do, i.e. on a computer. Even if my job didn’t require it (hello, reams of emails), I can’t imagine giving up writing, so I’d have to learn to use dictation software. I should probably do that anyway, because I’m also having some other issues related to typing and mousing, not to mention sitting in front of a computer for the majority of my waking hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s hard to wrap my head around writing that way. For me, the intellectual process of writing is bound up with the physical act of typing on a keyboard. But then when I was in college, I used to insist I had to handwrite my drafts, because I couldn’t think without a pen in my hand. I overcame that limitation, to the point that handwriting large amounts of text feels awkward to me now. So I suppose I could embrace dictating my words. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This entire post is a wordy way of saying that I’ll write as long as I have the ability to write: <\/p>\n\n\n\n