Carpal Tunnel of Love

I am often in pain when I write. Not from emotional trauma that I am unleashing onto the blank page, but from an actual physical ailment affecting my extremities or buckling my back. Writing hurts, but no pain, no gain.

When I am in heavy duty novel writing mode, I often develop carpal tunnel syndrome. I once had it so bad, that my hands were literally shaking. The pain made me take a day off here and there, and perhaps the respite made that book more organized.

My carpal tunnels are flowing well today, but there a traffic jam of pain in my left shoulder. It is like there is a black hole of pain in the deltoid muscle. I honestly don't know if I got it from a sports injury or it is just the reservoir of all stress in my life in one small knot. It just came out of nowhere a few months ago, and won't go away even after a massage. For some reason, the pain also shoots down to my left bicep as if there's some kind of expressway of angst between the two.

The knot on my deltoid seems to throb as I write, especially if I write for more than an hour of intense emotional drama. Ironically, if I laugh really hard my deltoid hurts the worst. My goal on some mornings is to get myself to laugh hard enough that it does cause a pain.

You've heard of the Picture of Dorian Gray, where Dorian didn't age, but his picture did? Well, I've got the deltoid of Dorian Gray. I am a relatively young man with a very old deltoid.

And yet, I've been able to do the best blogging of my life the last few months. I wrote an 80,000 word novel with only aspirin for the pain.

The late Roger Ebert was able to write through cancer, and tweet without being able to talk. He never mentioned his pain, and was able to out-write the able-bodied.

I won't mention my own pain again...