Samhain Publishing

I’m in the middle of writing a book. Not the next, long awaited, oft asked for sequel to Savage Retribution (sorry bout that to everyone who has sent me emails) but another book that has become bigger than Ben Hur. I’ve become obsessed with it. It’s consuming me. My husband is getting sick of hearing me chew over dialogue aloud while I’m preparing dinner, driving the car, changing my youngest daughter’s nappy…well, just about any time grin This blog entry today isn’t about that book however. This blog entry is about my hand. Of more to the point, what I did to it today.

You see, I normally carry around a notebook and pen with me everywhere I go. Comes in handy entertaining Peanut when we are stuck in doctor’s waiting rooms, traffic jams and over-crowded restaurants, but its main purpose is so I can jot down any plot points, dialogue or characterization issues regardless of how close or far away from my computer I am. Today, I was at the physiotherapist. Another painful session to try and alleviate the pain in my shoulder from too many hours sitting in a rocking chair with a laptop on my lap, typing away (guess where I’m sitting right now? grin). I’ve been there for an hour and a half. I’m aching. I’m sweaty. I’m sick of the smell of liniment. And bammo! Just like that a plot issue of my latest WIP smashes into my head. I look around, desperate for pen and paper – of course, my bag is locked in a locker on the other side of the room, in which sits my notepad. Useless to me. Aarrrggghhh!! The best I can find is a pen sitting on the weight bench beside me, forgotten by my torturer…err, physiotherapist after he’d merrily and cheerily drawn lines all over my shoulder and arm showing me just how screwed up sitting in a rocking chair with a laptop has made me (I really ought to move. Hmmm).
Anyways, I grab the pen, look in futile vain one last time for something to write on, realise there IS nothing to write on and, in an act of sheer frustrated desperation write on my hand instead. See?

Now the thing is, after scribbling down what you see in the picture, I had to finish my session – involving bicep curls and some hideously painful thing he called rotator cuff extensions (or some such thing) – pack up my stuff, retrieve my bag from my locker, pay the bill (even more painful than the rotator cuff thingy), drive home, catch Chickpea before she climbed over the stair rail to greet me and catch and drag the dog out of the living room where Peanut was enthusiastically feeding him Chickpea’s Fisher-Price Little People Carnival set. ALL WITHOUT SMUDGING THE WRITING ON MY HAND!! I did it, as you can see, but I really don’t know how. The second I’d returned order to the world, I grabbed my camera and took this photo. My husband walked in just as I’d pressed the button and said “What the blo*dy hell are you doing?” I swear, he doesn’t get me sometimes.

But this got me to wondering…I’ve scribbled notes on all sorts of different little pieces of paper (cafe napkins, beer coasters, business cards, toilet paper) but resorting to my hand in front of a room full of serious people with serious letters after their names was a first for me. Has anyone else been struck by their Muse while in a particularly inappropriate or inconvenient moment? And if so, how did you handle the crisis? What did you do to capture that glint of plot/dialogue/prose?

I have to go back to physio on Saturday and I will be sure to not leave my notepad and pen in the locker this time. What are the odds my Muse will stubbornly stay away? Hmmmmm