CAIT REYNOLDS: WHY SICKLY PEOPLE MAKE GREAT WRITERS

Hi there,

As part of my Writing; The Alphabet series, we are looking at 'A' is for adversity.  Sometimes writers have to cope with a lot of problems while making their dream of being a successful author come true.  One such lady  is the very brave, very beautiful Cait Reynolds who talks about the many and varied obstacles she has to tackle every day. 

 

A is for Adversity: Why sickly people often make great writers

Cait Reynolds

I hate admitting this. I hate admitting this like I hate lima beans, people who litter, and soggy running shoes.

I am what you would call “sickly.”

Let’s go through the list, shall we?

-          Kidney transplant (i.e. no immune system, lovely gastro-intestinal side effects, and just so much more fun)

-          Cervical cancer (caught early, but still surgery was required)

-          Hypertension

-          Thyroid issues

As a result having no immune system and taking about 12 different medications to make sure it stays like that, I am often tired, nauseous, dizzy, irritable, and in various amounts of pain.

Sleep is an issue. Eating is an issue. Going to the bathroom can be an issue. Exercising can be an issue. So can taking the subway, going to the mall, the beach, or basically anywhere to do anything.

Now, ask me if that stops me.

No, of course it doesn’t. I wouldn’t stand for it. I burn the candle at all three ends and will be dragged kicking and screaming into my grave, clutching a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and my Kindle in the other.

However, there are realities to be faced about my ability to work in an office and do the whole 40-hour regulated work week.

The last time I worked in an office was August of 2013. I left that job to try and get back into higher education, which was one thing I loved doing. When jobs in that direction ended up being sparse, I took a temp job in November when my unemployment ran out.

I had been out of an office for two and a half months by that point. I had been writing, catching up on projects, sleeping, exercising, taking care of my husband, mom, and dog. I had been enjoying cooking fresh dinners and running the household. I felt well-rested. I felt healthy. On the days I didn’t feel well, I allowed myself to rest, and I ended up being better and more productive in the end.

Suddenly, I was back in a commute that took me three trains and close to an hour just going one way. I was surrounded by thousands of students and thousands more people on the train. Every sneeze was sure to be loaded with pneumotuburcubronchitis. And e coli…just for good measure. Am I paranoid? Maybe. Maybe not.

I wasn’t sleeping. I was too tired to cook. I was stressed about learning everything I needed to learn at the new job. I felt antsy, chained to a desk and wanting to get back to my writing. I was eating out for lunch, letting my checkbook and my stomach take the hit.

When I woke up sick the third Monday of the job, I realized I couldn’t go in. That just as the universe had so many times had to whack me over the head with a 2’x4’, this was another signal that I was going down the wrong path.

I was meant to be a writer. A full-time writer.

So…what all of this have to do with being a writer?

Hold on, I’m getting there. Promise.

Okay, I might have been able to continue dragging myself to an office and getting pissed off when I was too tired, busy, or sick to write. But that would have been existing. I wanted to live.

I’m not an invalid, but I am getting older, and I do need to be careful. I’m not as hardy as some transplant recipients, though I’m stronger than many others. My brain is just fine, and I enjoy working hard when it is for something I want.

Therefore, as I stood on the cusp of being 40, I realized that if not now, when?

So I did it. I took the plunge and became a full-time writer. Yay me!

Here’s the payoff you’ve been waiting for. The reasons being “sickly” makes for good authors. Some will make you laugh. Some will make you cry. Some will make you cringe.

1.       People who are chronically ill often have trouble with insomnia, or their body clocks are messed up by meds. This is great because writers are universally known for working at weird times of day (and night).

2.        Chronically ill people (despite the advice of doctors) often live on a well-balanced fueling system of caffeine and alcohol that has been finely honed to provide maximum energy bursts and downer effects that are coordinated with whatever food can be tolerated at the moment.

3.       Introverted sickly people are awesome at social media.

4.       We look at surgical procedures as vacation time. I found my last round of surgery two weeks ago to be just fine, and the three-day recovery period was just lovely.

5.       We get to legit use drugs to reach a higher plane of awareness for our writing.

6.       You can write from a hospital room.

7.       You can also do selfie wars in the ER (I am known for having middle-finger contests with a friend of mine while I’m on a gurney with an IV, and he’s at home with his cats).

8.       Practically anything counts as research. Therefore you are always working. Therefore you are one of the most active and productive people in the world. Even if it’s just exploring Borneo on Pinterest.

9.       Chronically ill writers have no problem with being aware of deadlines. Living so close to the ultimate “dead”line makes us very aware of how much we have to do, how much we have to say, and how much we have to write in a very short amount of time.

Chronically ill writers are like everyone else on this planet. We are born, we live, we die. We know the story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We also know that the story isn’t complete until it’s over. Nobody wants the plot to be rushed, for “The End” to come too soon, but sometimes, that’s the way the story goes.

But, as long as I have a chance to edit my plot, I’m going to keep writing, keep working, keep staying healthy, and most of all, keep smiling.

About Cait Reynolds

Transplanter, writer, lover, human being. Not necessarily in that order. 

http://caitreynolds.com

Here's some news about Cait's fantastic new release:

Blacke and Blue

Book 2 of Blue Moon

At Amazon: http://amzn.to/QvzP3M

At Bookstrand: http://www.bookstrand.com/blacke-and-blue

“Keep your lovers close…and your enemies even closer.”

 A serial killer called the Butcher of Bangor is terrorizing Maine. When the killing hits too close to home, Blue Moon sheriff Ian McDade is forced to bring in FBI Special Agent Trisha Blacke.

Sparks fly high as she locks horns with the tall, intimidating Ian. Shockingly, she finds herself also burning with desire for his golden-eyed brother, Ger.

Ian, Trisha and Ger come together in an intense, volatile affair, stealing passion between life and death. She needs Ian’s hard, hot brand of passion as much as Ger’s powerful, protective love-making.

Through the haze of pleasure, she begins to suspect that Ian and Ger know more about the killings than they are letting on. Pieces of the puzzle start falling into place, one by deadly one.

Sheriff Ian McDade is protecting something…or someone, and the killer’s profile points directly at Ger.

Can she stay alive long enough to catch the killer and save her heart from being broken forever?

Story Excerpt

“This is it?” Trisha asked, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. She had grown up in Montana, to be sure, but it had been a long time since she had gone for an hour-long winter hike.

Ian nodded grimly and pointed to a plastic pole with a yellow plastic ribbon dangling limply from it.

“They left the marker of where the body was found,” he said. “Or rather, the remains.”

“This is so weird,” she murmured, turning in place to look around her. “It’s so…remote and hard to get here. Yet, his other dumping sites are very close to the highways. Maybe this makes sense, though. Hang on, let me think.”

She felt her thoughts starting to tumble around, as if in a dryer. If she could just catch them in time, they’d come out ready and smooth. It didn’t help that she was completely distracted by Ian’s presence next to her. The awkwardness of the moment when Ger had found them, and her irritation at Ian interrupting her, had melted into a confused silence in the drive out here. The only words exchanged were questions and answers about the location, distance, and average travel time. Her own silence had been confused, untamed, and worried, but it felt like Ian’s silence had almost been…hurt.

Almost sad.

As they had made the hour-long hike out, Trisha had worked hard to keep up with him, and she got the impression he was slowing down to make it easier for her. The woods had grown denser, and the outside world had slipped away, leaving her caught in an endless maze of trees and snow and clouds. She felt edgy and vulnerable, and for the first time, she had turned to Ian, glad of his presence and seeking strength and reassurance from him just being there.

Oh! Of course. That was the answer.

“He dumped this far into the woods because he—for whatever reason—couldn’t get far enough afield to his usual dump zones,” Trisha exclaimed. “He must have figured that even though he had to compromise on the site, by going this far in, he would be able to at least hide the remains well or delay their finding for a long time.”

“But, he hasn’t exactly cared about the remains being found before,” Ian pointed out, narrowing his eyes and peering deep into the woods as if searching for something.

“Maybe because he thought he was going far enough away from home that it didn’t matter.”

“You mean it doesn’t really matter to him where he leaves the remains?” Ian asked. “The dumping by the highway is just random?”

Trisha tilted her head to the side and thought about this. Unconsciously, she took a few steps closer to where Ian stood.

“I think disposal of the body is not part of his ritual,” she said. “Everything he has needed to accomplish the enactment of the fantasy is done by the time he dumps the body. The question I have about it is whether he is dumping so quickly to be done with the ‘chore,’ or whether it is some sort of feeling of disgust at the remains that is prompting him to get rid of them.”

“It’s a long walk into the woods with a body,” Ian remarked. “Heavy. And, you said that he’s probably not a very big man.”

“That doesn’t mean he can’t be strong,” Trisha replied. “And he could have devised a way of carrying the body that made it easier. Especially if it was in parts and mostly just bones.”

Ian grinned, chuckled at Trisha, and said, “You know, you’re pretty sexy when you talk about parts and bones.”

Adult Excerpt

“I was worried about you,” Ger whispered, pulling her body to his, teasing open her sweatshirt so that the only thing that was between them was her tank top.

He was all heat and hardness. His hands felt enormous on her waist, giving her the oddest sensation of being small and feminine. She felt his cock and the ridge of his zipper press against her pussy folds, rolling and tickling her clit. Drops of lead-heavy lust fell to the pit of her stomach as he slowly ran his big hands up her chest and over her breasts, his work-roughened hands catching on the fabric of her tank top. His hands came to cup her face, and he leaned in without hesitation, pulling her lips to his and then engulfing her in a hot, demanding kiss.

Trisha was quickly melting into a frighteningly unorganized puddle of thoughtless lust when she realized that Ian was moving in on her as well. Her pussy clenched and released as she reacted to the sensation of Ian’s rock hard cock pressed between her ass cheeks.

Gasping from shock and pleasure, she realized that the feeling of two cocks rolling and pushing against her front and back filled her with a blisteringly white-hot desire she had never in her life experienced. Every nerve in her body was shivering and shimmering, and her pussy and ass felt achingly empty.

Ian molded himself to her back, wrapping his arm around her waist and teasing her by letting his fingertips dip just inside the waistband of her pajamas. Slowly, he began to grind his cock against her ass, and the movement forced her to grind her pussy against Ger’s cock.

“Ungh!” It took Trisha a moment to realize the desire-drenched sound had come from her, and the only reason she could make the sound was that Ger had relinquished her mouth for her neck.

“So beautiful,” Ger murmured, deliberately nipping and licking his way down from behind her ear to her collarbone. “So damn beautiful.”

“God yes!” Ian’s voice rumbled in her ear even as she felt the vibration of his speech against her back.

Trisha couldn’t say anything because thought was impossible and speech would only end in verbal goo. She was uncaring, mindlessly hungry for this wild new pleasure she instinctively sensed was just over the edge of…of something. Something big. Something amazing. Something…

“Ohhh!” Her voice sounded a million miles away among the stars. Having two men touch her, their hands everywhere, was the most carnally indulgent assault she could imagine.

She felt Ger’s hands slip away from her neck, brush her breasts, and come to settle on her hips, the fabric of her waistband clenched in his fingers. Ian had slid his hands up to her breasts and was cupping them and holding them up as if to present them. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized she wasn’t wearing a bra but couldn’t find a good reason to care.

“She’s perfect,” Ger breathed before he traced his tongue over the swells of her breasts. He grabbed the neck of her tank and pulled it down over one breast, sucking her nipple into his mouth.

“Oh Gah!” Articulation was impossible for her as Ger rolled her nipple on the edges of his teeth, his tongue digging into the supersensitive tip. She felt her legs go to jelly as Ian’s fingers began to pinch and roll her other nipple.

“Beautiful, baby,” Ian hummed, his baritone filling her mind as he licked the shell of her ear and gently teethed and teased her lobe. “Goddamn beautiful.”

She whimpered and squirmed and launched herself into a bowed arch as Ger firmly thrust his hand down her pants and into her panties, his fingers easily finding her clit and pussy.

He slowly stroked her clit with his thumb while he slipped first one, then two, and finally three fingers into her. With his hand, he pumped and rocked her, forcing her back even harder against Ian’s cock at her ass.

“This is so right, love,” Ger gasped, the strain of his own withheld desire showing plainly on his face. “You were meant for us, and we were meant for you.”

Ger’s words rattled oddly around her head, desire keeping her from being able to process their meaning fully. Ian said nothing but continued to worry one breast. He then slipped his hand down the backside of her pants, squeezing her ass cheek and dipping his own fingers into her moisture.

The feelings were too much. Too many hands, tongues, fingers, cocks. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. She was pressing herself into the knife’s edge of pleasure, waiting for the cut that would let all the joy and flow of her climax through.

She felt Ian’s finger at her asshole and tried to stiffen, but she couldn’t. She wanted to be filled there. It wasn’t a decision. It wasn’t a concern. It was a simple, primal need.

Ian’s finger was large but slick going in, burning and stretching her in ways that taunted her with dark, unspoken desires.

“Please, oh God!” she slurred out, now trying to buck wildly between the fingers in her pussy and the fingers in her ass. Lips on her nipples, fingers on her nipples, lips on her neck, fingers on her hips, cocks and fingers and tongues and…ohhhhh!

Her pleasure contracted, coiling the spring tight before launching her into a bliss she felt like she would die from. The experience was pure, so brutally intense, so amazing.

Wow - can't wait to read the rest of this!  Thanks so much to Cait for being my guest today.  Join me again on Monday for Bella's World to find out what I'm up to next week and a review of my latest read.  Have a great weekend and enjoy whatever you're reading and/or writing.