Got Muse? A Writer to Writer Meme
Got Muse? A Writer-to-Writer Meme:
1) Where do you write? In my living room. My desk is sadly three feet from the television. But it's the only place in the apartment I can put it.
2) When do you write? Usually between 1 and 4 in the morning. But I have to change up my schedule to accomodate the baby. It's both great, and a great pain in the ass being a stay-at-home DAD/WRITER. I wouldn't change it for the world.
3) Planner or Pantser? Both, and neither.
4) Coffee or tea? Coffee. Only tea with lemon, and instant tea with lemon at that. Got hooked on it in prison. It was cheap, and better than plain water.
5) Pen and paper, or computer? Both. The computer 90% of the time. But if I get ideas for other parts of a piece I'll jot them down in a notebook. Or when I'm in the hospital I have to use pen and paper.
6) What gets you in the writing mood? Sunshine and rainbows. Usually I get inspired when I'm watching some television program or movie I've seen a thousand times, when I'm really only half watching it.
7) What pulls you out of the writing mood? Not much pulls me out, but I can sometimes be distracted easily. Various life-stuff; feeding the baby,m my son also loves to talk to me when I'm at the computer. Can't wait to have a real office where I can lock the door.
8 What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever read/heard/received? JUST WRITE! Even if it's crap it needs to be put down on paper/in the computer. You can go back and change it later. And Stephen King's "On Writing" is full of little tips. For anyone who hasn't read it, it's a memoir, not an instruction manual--but it has a lot of gold in it.
9) Got muse? Got milk?
10) Who is the biggest supporter of your writing? My wife, and my Mom.
11) Sound or Silence? Depends. If I put on music it's usually Iron Maiden or Stevie Ray Vaughan. But alot of the time the TV is on because, as I said, my "office" is the living room.
Instructions: Please answer the Meme with a post on your blog, and reference the original link: Got Muse? A Writer-To-Writer Meme. Leave the link to your Meme in my comments section, so we can go read it!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Desperate Need
I seriously am in desperate need of a laptop. Who wants to give me an early Christmas present? Okay, so I know THAT's not happening, but you can't blame a guy for tryin'. I need one, with my frequent hospital stays and stuff, and how much easier it would be to sit on the couch and type sometimes with my chronic back pain, you get the picture. So, if anybody has an old notebook or netbook they would be willing to sell, and let me pay in installments, shoot me an e-mail. smsarber@charter.net And if not, just pray and wish me luck in finding one.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
I've Been Away
Well, I haven't posted anything since June 30. I have a good reason, though. And first, i want to thank BettieLee and E.Collins for their concern when I was missing. So here's the story, as best as I can tell it.
And now the baby cries, interrupting me. Hold on, folks... Okay, her nap is over. But she is being a sweet, content girl in her bouncy-seat.
So, back to me, LOL. On July 3rd I started coughing up a lot of blood. The day before I'd been coughing up bloody sputem, which is not a totally unusual experience--since the lung surgery in '07 it happens sometimes. But on the 3rd it changed over to straight blood. Mouthfuls of the stuff. Scared my wife Crystal a lot. I was leaning over the bathroom sink just making everything red. I had her get the kids into the car to take me to the hospital, and cleaned up as best I could so when she got back home it wouldn't frighten her too much to see just how much it actually was.
In the ER they of course told me I was going to be admitted. Then they did blood work, and a CT Scan to make sure I didn't have pulomary embolisms again. The on Saturday the 4th I saw my pulmologist (he works out of that hospital, and was on call over the weekend), and he told me the CT showed a possible aspergaloma. It's a fungus that can cause bleeding in the lungs. So I was scheduled for a bronchoscopy on Monday the 6th.
He couldn't go into the cavity where the most damge in the lung is, because it's a dangerous area. Given my past history with surgery--my thoracotomy ended up setting into motion events leading to a three-week coma, I'd almost died--he didn't want to take the risk. But he took cultures. The pulmonologist told me there was no aspergaloma, and my lung looked surprisingly good. If I continue to have the bleeding issues I might have to have the artery clotted off, which appearantly is not as scary as it sounds. It's fairly common. You have to blood sources to the lungs. So that issue seemed dealt with. And they did e-rays because I was sure I'd broken some ribs coughing. I did. I have osteoperosis, and really weak bones. (Right now the ribs are giving me the most problem. They friggin' HURT!) But that's a side note.
So the idea was that I would go home on Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. My body had other ideas. Tuesday morning, at 11:30, when I was going into the bathroom, my chest started hurting, and I felt a great pressure. I felt my pulse on my wrist, and it was going so fast it was hard to feel. I waited to see if it would go away, but when it didn't, and the pain got worse, at 1 o'clock I buzzed for the nurse. They checked me over, called the doctor, set me up on an EKG, and found out I had gone into atrial-fibrillation. Basicaly, the top of my heart (the atrium) was firing offat 190 beats a minute, and the bottom was trying to keep up. There's no actual heart-rhthym when that happens. It's not life-threatening, just uncomfortable. Very.
So they moved me down to the heart center, and kept me monitored. The IV meds they gave me to try to right the rhthym didn't work, and the plan was to use the electronic defibrilator to shock my heart back to sinus rhthym on Wednesday morning. The next morning the cardiologist said I was responding enough to the meds to hold off on that. They head gotten my heart-rate down a lot, but not enough, and I was still in A-Fib. But they wanted to hold off on the shocking because I'm on blood thinners for my clotting problems. Thank God, an hour later my heart went back to normal sinus rhthym on its own. That was not expected, but great.
They monitored me the rest of the night, and Thursday, the 9th, I was discharged. I still have to go next week to see the pulmonologist, then the following week to see the cadiologist, but I'm feeling better. Maybe 80% now. Besides the ribs, which are killing me. We had to get rid of our son's rabbit because I had just found out I'm allergic, and hopefully that will help my asthma. But I'm glad my heart is staying in check, for the time at least. I'm used to lung problems, had 'em all my life, but I've never had any problems with my heart. And now that it's gone into A-Fib, it's likely it will happen again at some point.
I wrote 5500 words, longhand because I don't have a laptop, half of them on my new novel, and parts on two new short stories, so that was good. What else am I going to do in the hospital? I finished the last 100 pages of "Life Expectancy" by Dean Koontz, read "Winter Moon" by Dean Koontz, read "The Dangerous Days of Daniel X" by James Patterson, and 129 pages of "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King while I was in there. Plus, we have a portable DVD player, so I had all kinds of movies. Gotta make the best of a bad situation. I have now finally transcribed the longhand onto the computer.
So, that's my past two weeks. Life stays interesting!LOL!
And now the baby cries, interrupting me. Hold on, folks... Okay, her nap is over. But she is being a sweet, content girl in her bouncy-seat.
So, back to me, LOL. On July 3rd I started coughing up a lot of blood. The day before I'd been coughing up bloody sputem, which is not a totally unusual experience--since the lung surgery in '07 it happens sometimes. But on the 3rd it changed over to straight blood. Mouthfuls of the stuff. Scared my wife Crystal a lot. I was leaning over the bathroom sink just making everything red. I had her get the kids into the car to take me to the hospital, and cleaned up as best I could so when she got back home it wouldn't frighten her too much to see just how much it actually was.
In the ER they of course told me I was going to be admitted. Then they did blood work, and a CT Scan to make sure I didn't have pulomary embolisms again. The on Saturday the 4th I saw my pulmologist (he works out of that hospital, and was on call over the weekend), and he told me the CT showed a possible aspergaloma. It's a fungus that can cause bleeding in the lungs. So I was scheduled for a bronchoscopy on Monday the 6th.
He couldn't go into the cavity where the most damge in the lung is, because it's a dangerous area. Given my past history with surgery--my thoracotomy ended up setting into motion events leading to a three-week coma, I'd almost died--he didn't want to take the risk. But he took cultures. The pulmonologist told me there was no aspergaloma, and my lung looked surprisingly good. If I continue to have the bleeding issues I might have to have the artery clotted off, which appearantly is not as scary as it sounds. It's fairly common. You have to blood sources to the lungs. So that issue seemed dealt with. And they did e-rays because I was sure I'd broken some ribs coughing. I did. I have osteoperosis, and really weak bones. (Right now the ribs are giving me the most problem. They friggin' HURT!) But that's a side note.
So the idea was that I would go home on Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. My body had other ideas. Tuesday morning, at 11:30, when I was going into the bathroom, my chest started hurting, and I felt a great pressure. I felt my pulse on my wrist, and it was going so fast it was hard to feel. I waited to see if it would go away, but when it didn't, and the pain got worse, at 1 o'clock I buzzed for the nurse. They checked me over, called the doctor, set me up on an EKG, and found out I had gone into atrial-fibrillation. Basicaly, the top of my heart (the atrium) was firing offat 190 beats a minute, and the bottom was trying to keep up. There's no actual heart-rhthym when that happens. It's not life-threatening, just uncomfortable. Very.
So they moved me down to the heart center, and kept me monitored. The IV meds they gave me to try to right the rhthym didn't work, and the plan was to use the electronic defibrilator to shock my heart back to sinus rhthym on Wednesday morning. The next morning the cardiologist said I was responding enough to the meds to hold off on that. They head gotten my heart-rate down a lot, but not enough, and I was still in A-Fib. But they wanted to hold off on the shocking because I'm on blood thinners for my clotting problems. Thank God, an hour later my heart went back to normal sinus rhthym on its own. That was not expected, but great.
They monitored me the rest of the night, and Thursday, the 9th, I was discharged. I still have to go next week to see the pulmonologist, then the following week to see the cadiologist, but I'm feeling better. Maybe 80% now. Besides the ribs, which are killing me. We had to get rid of our son's rabbit because I had just found out I'm allergic, and hopefully that will help my asthma. But I'm glad my heart is staying in check, for the time at least. I'm used to lung problems, had 'em all my life, but I've never had any problems with my heart. And now that it's gone into A-Fib, it's likely it will happen again at some point.
I wrote 5500 words, longhand because I don't have a laptop, half of them on my new novel, and parts on two new short stories, so that was good. What else am I going to do in the hospital? I finished the last 100 pages of "Life Expectancy" by Dean Koontz, read "Winter Moon" by Dean Koontz, read "The Dangerous Days of Daniel X" by James Patterson, and 129 pages of "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King while I was in there. Plus, we have a portable DVD player, so I had all kinds of movies. Gotta make the best of a bad situation. I have now finally transcribed the longhand onto the computer.
So, that's my past two weeks. Life stays interesting!LOL!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
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