Chop Off My Legs But Don't Take My Pen Away

As the two people on Facebook will know I hurt my left thumb two weeks ago. It was a classic Writer Injury. I've had those before: There is the wrist that hurt, and I thought that only very lonely and bored men could get this. But that went away after a good night's sleep.

No Pain, No Gain

The thumb injury stayed and so I became convinced that it would fall off very soon. Since that it not practical nor pretty, I decided to do something about it.

I was told to wrap a bandage around it, put some fancy cream on it, and also to give the poor thumb a rest for at least a week. This meant not sitting on it, putting it in places where it shouldn't go, also no punching people in the face, but worse of all: no writing!

It's all very well and sensible: pause writing for a week and be able to write for the rest of my life. Or don't give it a rest and live in constant pain and misery.

So what did I do? I very sensibly and wisely chose to ignore the advice.

On the second day of "giving it a rest" I stopped giving it a rest. I had an idea, and it needed to be written down. I wanted to write that short story and not wait until I might have forgotten half of it. Neither did I want to write by hand, which would have worked since I am right-handed. But I type as fast as I think, I don't write by hand as fast as I think! I wanted to bring all the stories, ideas, and blog posts to digital paper at once. 

I can live with my thumb injured for longer, but I can't live without writing.