I haven’t written a meaningful word in two to three years now. Since I had total hip replacement surgery, in fact. Writing is a challenge for me now, one that, if I let it, drags me down into a pit of self-pity so dark and so enveloping that I would struggle to escape.
Writing is hard enough on its own, but in my case it has become a magnifying glass for all the other maladies that I have to deal with. First of course is my Parkinson’s, which often leaves me exhausted after a day’s work, and can result in me nodding off at the keyboard. And it is advancing at a faster rate than it was before the hip surgery, which hasn’t healed right and makes it tough to exercise at the pace I was before the surgery.
I have also developed two new bodily break-downs that make amplify existing issues. First is an asthma related to the release of stomach acid into the esophagus, due to a malfunctioning valve. This leaves me wheezing after a simple flight of stairs, or even bending over to tie my shoes. Then came a condition known as “convergence insufficiency.” This affects my vision, especially when I am tired, and causes my eyes to not focus on the same spot. This happens mostly when I am looking at a computer screen or other TV/monitor, and when I am writing, it makes it nearly impossible to go on. I have glasses to help, but they are tiring, and only work for about an hour.
All of this has left me sadly out-of-shape, overweight by about 25 pounds, and unable to muster the combination of rest, endurance, and motivation to write. I’ve tried, but when the words on the page are splitting in two and moving around the screen, focusing on the story is exceedingly difficult. Combined, these things became too much for me to handle, and made me reluctant to even try writing fiction.
I just didn’t have it in me.
Thus, when my friend Kevin J. Anderson of Wordfire Press told me that he was letting my novel Shadow Blade go out of print due to poor sales, I gave up. I told him I was likely retiring from writing, and thanked him for letting me be a “published author” for at least a time.
And I meant it. Until I didn’t anymore.
I volunteer at the National Mill Dog Rescue (nmdr.org) on Saturday mornings, and one of their full-time employees—we’ll call her Jane—told me she’d read the book, and wanted to know what becomes of Ashai and Makari, the main characters. She felt the book left her wanting more, needing to follow these two through their entire journey. I didn’t have the heart to tell her there would be no Book Two, and that my time as a writer was coming to a close. Instead, I muttered something about being two-thirds finished with the next book, and that a third would likely follow.
Later that day, I found myself wanting to write. That old, familiar drive to dive back into the story had returned, driven by the desire of one reader to see more. After all, if one person felt that way, couldn’t there be more? Then I remembered a high school classmate who’d implored me years ago to bring out the next Hell’s Butcher story, saying it was his favorite series. I felt a kind of responsibility to these readers, a duty not unlike the one I have always felt to serve the citizens of our country in the intelligence business.
And that led to the re-kindling of the internal fire all writers have, that voice in our heads begging us to get to work on the story. It’s the cries of the characters we’ve created—who are living, breathing people in our heads—screaming for me to finish their stories. They hang in limbo now, withering away without fulfillment. Purposeless and dying.
It’s not time for me to give up yet. It’s not bad enough to keep me from writing. It seemed like it at first, but knowing that someone cared, someone wanted to see how things end in this world I created, lit a fire under me. So as I stand here, writing these closing paragraphs, I can feel both worlds calling me, tugging me toward them like a rip-tide. Toward writing again.
I needed to give up. I needed to disengage from writing before I could see it with the objectivity I needed to make the right decision. And I needed to know that the fictional characters I had created were living beings to readers, too. That someone else saw the value in their stories that I see. And who appreciated them.
So here I am, back at the keyboard, typing away. I make no promises but this: I will try. I will do my damndest to complete both the Denari Lai and Hell’s Butcher series, and if I manage that, I will try to do more. And I may find myself back in that place of hopelessness for trying. But I will not give up until the last asthmatic breath leaves my body. At least two readers need it. My characters need it.
And most of all, I need it.