Ever since my traumatic brain injury, I have had people yell at me. I mean, in-your-face, sudden, top volume yelling. The weird thing is I don’t flinch. I startle when a squirrel bounces by, but I don’t flinch when some stranger sticks his face in mine and practically spits, he’s yelling so loudly. I don’t…
Category: Personal
And Last Comes the Dreaded Editing
First comes writing, then comes revising, then come the Beta Readers, then comes more revising, and last comes the dreaded editing. That’s what a publisher is supposed to do for a writer: edit. But these days, some advocate the editing step before finding a publisher or agent; other writers do it on their own because…
Side Effects
Note: Do not do what I describe in this post. I wrote this purely to share what happened to me and as a warning about side effects — not to advocate doing what I did. Talk to your doctor about any concerns you may have about your medications before doing anything. “Take this,” the doctor…
Bugs and Brain Injury
“Remember, when you have a brain injury, everthing takes longer to recover from,” she said to me. I didn’t want to hear it, though true. When I first became injured, I had a series of homemakers and a series of colds. In the beginning, when the homemakers came from VHA, they were professional. They came…
I Joined Goodreads, The Readers’ Website
This weekend I joined Goodreads. It only took me about a year or so of thinking about it. Part of the issue for me is it’s a site about reading, writers are supposed to read read read, but because of the difficulty I’ve had reading since my brain injury, read read read is not something…
Improvement is Not Meant To Be Relentless
“Improvement is not meant to be relentless.” Yes it is. “It’s OK to have a setback.” Wise and common sense words from my GP (family doc), but oh do I ever wish improvement was relentless, a never-ending path upwards to perfect health. January is a tough month, not only emotion wise with its reminder of…
The PayPal Donation Button: The Why
Update: I’m now on Patreon! Click I’m Reading It! on my home page and support the arts for as low as $1!! I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I can up my income so that I can afford to edit, proofread, and publish my two novels. Of the three, editing is the most…
Music: What Does the “New” Me Like?
I have spent the best part of two days sorting out the chaotic mess of my music collection. A “new” refurbished laptop sparked this heroic endeavour. The reason it wasn’t that well organized: most of it I ripped before Y2K, when computers were slow and file names had relatively recently broken the 8-character limitation. Although…
Eleven Years Ago, Four Drivers
It’s that time of year again, except today’s anniversary has a special twist: it’s the exact same day as the day two drivers hit the car I was a passenger in and shoved us into the car of a third driver. It’s the exact same day I sustained a closed head injury. It’s like reliving…