Where to begin? Well, I had to take a couple of days off from writing to adjust some things. I was dealing with physical pain from an extremely bad posture setup at my desktop. Now, I do have ways to write without necessarily being at the computer, but it helps if I have a clearer idea of exactly where I’m going with the novel. If I don’t, then it really helps to sit at the computer so I can identify little opportunities to slide in extra jokes and find synergies between different parts of the text that inform later portions of the novel. In short, sitting in front of my computer is the most interactive and informing way to do it, but between the posture issues with my worn-out chair, the hand pain from using a mouse that was too small, and the bad elevation for the desk, I was left with quite a lot of pain for someone who wanted to concentrate on working.

That’s not to compare it to cancer pain or the pain of a physical injury or anything like that—it’s the annoying, distracting pain of mild carpal tunnel, a sore back, and the ache of getting up slowly. I probably should exercise more. That said, it was a lot more distracting than I wanted it to be, and coupled with the difficulty I’ve had getting from point A to point B in the novel, I ended up taking a couple of days of very light or no writing—just a thousand words or so per day—knocking out a scene to make sure I could do it.