A few weeks ago, I had a dream. Or maybe it wasn't really a dream, but a vision. I was half awake in that suspended time before dawn. All my joints ached, and even worse, my foot throbbed from where I'd crashed into a wooden box earlier in the day, breaking my middle toes. It was just enough pain to send me over the edge. With tears streaming down my face, I whispered, "Just let me go. I can't hurt like this anymore." You can't go yet. You have ten books to write. What? The thought had slammed into my head. Not mine. It came from somewhere else, and you can bet I bolted straight out of bed! I limped into the kitchen for water, heart pounding. What the hell? I started thinking about the books I had in process, how long it might take to finish them, and how much time I actually needed to stay alive to complete this mission. Ten years would do it, I figured. I could write a book a year, and that would be generous, with plenty of time for revision and a...

As part of the new Blood-Red Pencil feature, The Care and Feeding of the Writer , I wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day by giving love to the busy little worker bees in the writer's arsenal: the hands. As a writer, I spend ungodly amounts of time on my computer and needless to say, my tendinitis is none too happy with me for it. Even if you don't have tendinitis or Carpel Tunnel, from time to time, all writers will get the cramping in their hands or pains that keep them from writing. Because our hands work so tirelessly for us, we ought to dedicate part of our VDay to saying thank you and letting them know just how much they are loved. Below are a few things you can pick up to help in easing hand pain. Of course, if the pain is persistent, then you should contact a doctor and be examined; however, even then, these products can only help alleviate the pain. HAND MASSAGE Now, you can go somewhere and have a full body massage and tell them to pay extra attention on ...

I suppose all writers deal with writer's block from time to time, but I admit it's been decades since I've had the problem. Perhaps writing a boring paper during college was my last experience? I really don't remember. I've had systems in place forever to get me beyond the blank page. Here are a few of them: Journal Blog Draw Knit Bake Clean Any of these less "important" activities tended to divert my stressed attention enough to return to writing and suddenly have the words flow. That is until the past few months when my wrists started aching so badly, I could barely type. The pain was constant, nights were the worst, and resulted in a total lack of words, ideas, or enthusiasm for the act of putting words to paper or screen. You can easily see that my usual methods of getting rid of blockage only added to the physical problems. It I couldn't comfortably type, it wasn't likely I'd be doing much knitting. So now what? Obviously I have t...