I am now just over 2 weeks past my latest knee surgery. The stitches came out 5 days ago. I am healing and moving. I am in much less pain, which means much less pain meds. I am even able to get some small things done. But, I still have one big problem… I can’t seem to write.

One of the things I hate most about post-op life is the fact that I have a hard time putting words together. I love to write. In fact, I can’t keep myself from writing much of the time. But when I have had surgery, my brain takes time to get back to where I can put words together in a meaningful way.

Some of it is probably the pain meds, I will admit. Some of it is also just the energy it takes to heal. Some of it is plain old procrastination. But even with all of that, I still have a hard time with it. Writing coherent content takes so much energy that I write at less than 1/10th the speed I usually do.

I have lots of things I want to write about, both here in the blog and elsewhere. I have 10 different posts started, none of which have made it past the first sentence. I am supposed to be creating a book proposal, which is getting nowhere fast… Even though it was 30% done when my knees got bad this round. I am also supposed to be writing half of a book… that’s not coming either.

So, why blog about this?
First, because I am wondering if anyone else has similar problems. If you have had surgery, do you have trouble moving back into the real world afterwards? Does your creativity seem to be bottomed out? If so, how do you get back on track?

Second, because this is a piece that is coming out somewhat coherent, it has actually made it live. If I have learned anything over my life, it is that sometimes you take what you can get. Even if it isn’t everything you need. Most of the writing I have been doing gets to two or three sentences in and then stalls out. This piece is at least making it a little longer than that.

Third, I am blogging about it in hopes that it will get enough of the juices flowing that I can write something else real. I don’t know if that will work right away or not, but it should at least get things going. Maybe, I hope. I also hope that it keeps all of you around long enough for my brain to get fully back in gear. I am getting there. I think…

(By the way after writing this, but before posting it, I managed to make the PodCamp AZ post make sense. Maybe I just needed to write this entry to clear the brain a little :) )

Tags: surgery, writer’s block, energy level, creativity