Three and a half things I'm embarrassed to admit

1. Yesterday was the end of NaNoWriMo, and I didn’t finish my novel.

After writing nearly 33,000 words I realized the tingling and numbness in my hands and pain in my wrists that started around 20,000 words, wasn’t getting any better.  I bought Speech Recognition software and I wrote another 1000 words or so, but the learning curve for the software was steep. I still had to do a fair amount of mousing and typing.

Ultimately, I decided that meeting the deadline wasn’t worth the pain. It wasn’t easy, tears were shed. Once I’m healed I’ll continue to work on the novel at a slower pace. After all, I’m anxious to find out what happens!

2. I miss being online. A lot.

To rest my paws, I went on a computer fast for four days.I glanced at e-mail on my Blackberry and responded only to urgent stuff. Other than that, no Twitter, no Facebook, no Kitchen Table, no Google searches, no reading my favorite blogs. Virtually no computer time until yesterday. I found myself wondering, a little too frequently perhaps, what was going on online, what my friends, colleagues and clients were doing.

The good news is I picked up the phone to connect with people, read some great books, watched some interesting movies, spent time with friends and family, and went on a couple of beautiful walks.  And now, I can poke my nose in online for a few minutes a day.  As long as I use a timer and pay attention to my wrists.

I’m also getting the hang of Bixby, which apparently is the name of the voice recognition software, because every time I say, MacSpeech, it types Bixby. I wrote this post with it.  Blame any typos, weird words or odd punctuation on Bixby.

3. I lived in the land of frustration for far too long.

As I mentioned in the post about my carpal tunnel coaching special, I’m just about ready to release my first product. I’m super excited about it, and can’t wait to let you all know more. But there’s a certain amount of typing and mousing that needs to occur before it’s ready  to go.  So,  it’s on the back burner for now. And then of course the novel, also on the back burner. And then there’s e-mail, filling the library of the Tuscan villa that is my inbox.

All of this equals mucho frustration. Plus the pain. Did I mention tears were shed?

And then, my mastermind buddy suggested I use my own product. It was a  forehead slapping moment, hello I’m my own best client! I listened to the Boring Change recording, went through the process, and let my unconscious mind takeover. It’s been so much easier than struggling.  The angst and emotional pain are gone, and the physical pain is definitely decreasing.

3 1/2. I love the song, Cum on Feel the Noize by Quiet Riot.

I’m only giving this a half, because it’s not nearly as embarrassing to admit now as it was in the mid-80s when my zippered cassette case was full of Depeche Mode, INXS and Pet Shop Boys tapes. But still.