Slow progress...

I'm hypermobile. As in many of my joints bend the wrong way. When I was a kid, this was fun and I used to revel in being able to gross people out with it.

Fast forward a few decades and I have major issues as a result of unstable joints. In order to maintain even a modicum of stability, I have muscle issues around many joints (shoulders, hips, knees, ankles). In my hands, it hasn't been possible to maintain joint stability and so I now have very bad arthritis in my thumb joints.

How does this link to progress (or lack of it)? Well, although typing is unaffected by my thumbs screaming at me, holding a pen is. And we all know how much I need to write by hand when I'm planning/writing a book.

Currently, I can manage about 1 side of A4 before my right thumb is too sore for me to hold a pen/pencil. Luckily, I can write left-handed 😃 (and indeed wrote exclusively left-handed during my PhD due to my right wrist having a prolonged unstable/painful few years).

The problem is, although I can write left-handed, I can't write left-handed as fast as I can (on pain-free days) write right-handed. And I'm still needing to plan both Realm #5 and Shiny New Thing. Which means a lot of writing. What would normally be taking me about an hour to write, is currently taking me a morning.

"So, just type then, if typing is unaffected."

Hm. I wish my brain worked like that, but it never seems to work to type my planning notes (though I am trying to do that more, to save my thumb).

Ah well. I'll keep on plodding on.


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