Me and My Wrists. A Writer's Life.

My weak point

Carpal Tunnel is the occupation disease of authors, I guess.

I'm very foolish.  I start typing and I get all involved in the story.

I'll be sitting typing any which way with my laptop in my . . .  well, in my lap, and the wrists are all awkward and hanging at the wrong angle.

Not ergonomically correct

I don't notice, even when the muscles start to hurt.   In fact, I'll get to the end of a scene and straighten up and every muscle in my body will suddenly let out a long-suppressed scream.  Head to foot, I ache.  I mean, like, my jaw will hurt.  My auricular muscles will hurt -- those are the three muscle that allow you to wiggle your ears, (if you can wriggle your ears.)  My fingers hurt.

You remember the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Harrison Ford points to a spot on his elbow and says, "This doesn't hurt.  Here."  I'm like that, except I don't have a spot on the elbow.

So anyhow, the other aches go away, but the wrists keep at this ouching thing and I feel very stupid. Is there a Carpal-Tunnel-Stupid Syndrome?  That's what I have.

Me, in a couple few years

CTSS was interfering with my ability to get work done, so I went to a drugstore in California, being as I was in California at the time, and I bought a wrist brace.  (They had a selection of twenty.  Who knew?)

So now I put on a brace when I sit down to work for a long session.  Everyone who sees this thinks I have injured myself in some accident, so I try to look like I ride horses or ski or engage in other enterprises more interesting than staring at a computer screen.
Somehow this role playing makes me feel less like the old body is just falling apart.

There is interesting and useful information about this over at Word Wenches.  Here