Well, of course it’s a Godsend after having foot surgery. I’m getting my mobility back, one step at time. But did you know that PT is really good for writerly brainstorming?
We do mostly the same things every time—strength building, weight bearing, massage. At the end, I get “stim and cold pack” which just means using a TENS unit to give me electrical pulses and putting an ice pack on my foot. So there’s about fifteen minutes where I’m literally doing nothing but thinking. Or resting. Or zoning. Sleeping, no. Not yet, anyway. <grin>
So I hit a wall in The Vanishing, my work in progress. Reaper Girl #3. Due in August. (No pressure.) I couldn’t figure out how to get from one place in the plot to another. Everything I thought about felt lame and too easy and contrived. I’d last left Leliel and Rick at their favorite diner, sharing breakfast and discussing the <something spoilery> they found. They needed to discover the next plotty bit. I was tired of not writing (Sunday doesn’t count because Game of Thrones finale) or writing just a few hundred words (deadline) so I started poking my muse and asking her questions.
And while I am still a bit shaky on the what, I do have a bonus why. I figured out quite a lot in that short fifteen-minute period. I have literally had no other time to really dig into it. I was planning on doing a freewrite—which I still might do—but haven’t done it yet.
I realized that I really don’t have down time like that except for at PT. Which makes me sad. My reading has trickled down to nothing, and that’s another thing I need to remedy. It’s tough though when there’s so much work to be done. I’m glad I have work, but I’ve been trying to carve out that downtime and it hasn’t happened yet. But I will persevere.
Fifteen minutes of downtime for the win. \ 0 / And the story continues.