It has been over three months since my accident and over three months since I can finally sit at my desk, my leg at an angle that is relatively comfortable. Many people assumed that the time away from work was probably an excellent opportunity to write. It never happened: the drugs, the pain, and the depression, meant I was unable to create. Sure I could tweet and blog, and ensure that we kept the launch of Calhei No More to the rearranged schedule, but I discovered writing apparently needs a certain energy.

Apparently? You would think that after nine novels (and a couple of others unpublished) I would know that by now, but I don’t. Writing (the creative aspect of penning new material) has always come easy for me and I find time early in the morning, late at night, on the plane, etc. I have always claimed that I can write anywhere and under almost any conditions. Once I am in a rhythm, I can produce 100,000 words in a hundred days – to quote Anne Lamott as a “shitty first draft” – and I will write most of it at my desk, which is in the kitchen shared with three other humans and a dog. I swivel my chair around and, voila, I am at the dinner table, ready to play father/husband/slave to said canine.

I was excited last weekend to sit, for the first time since the accident, without the brace on my leg at my desk. I fondly cleared the accumulated detritus and wiped down the grimy keyboard. Then I sat down and wrote a chapter in about 90 minutes – old style.

I can’t speak for the quality of the chapter, but even if it all gets cut, the exhilaration of that time was worth it: kind of how one feels after a good gym workout, delivering a great speech or presentation, reaching the top of a summit, or any task that requires muscle or memory retention, constant practice, and focus.

There are no excuses for not writing if you want to become an author and remain relevant. I have always been skeptical of people who need their writing hut in the middle of the forest, smudged for good energy, and the moon in a specific phase, but when I sat at my desk for the first time in three months, it felt good.

Old muses flowed, writing muscles flexed and I became so happy. I cannot yet work out, walk my dog, or play tennis with my boys. That will come with patience and disciplined attention to the physical therapist. But the author in me is an integral part of who I am.

And the author is back!

Happy MLK Day to all. 

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Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award winner, At The Walls of Galbrieth, and five other Wycaan Master books all released by Tourmaline Books. Calhei No More is the final novel in the series and was released in November 2016.

More at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@elfwriter).