Hurts so good

Pain.

That's the word of the week around here. I'm going through intensive physical therapy on my knee, trying to get the strength back that was there before. I've been told by my physical therapist that aching, stretching, pulling pain is good pain. Through some of the exercises I seriously feel like my knee cap is going to explode from pressure. Not pleasant to say the least.

I squirm on the massage table as he bends my knee back to screamingly uncomfortable angles. He's mentioned putting duct tape over my mouth more than once. In fact, today I think I scared onlookers.

But through the pain I'm getting stronger. The exercises are widening my range of motion. I can walk better--gimp no more! Stabbing pains are a thing of the past. And this is just the beginning. I have two weeks left of therapy and by the time it's finished I should be ready to rock the EFX machine like I did before.

When I get home from therapy, I dive right into revisions. I'm revising two books, remember. I wish I could show you the edits from Dark Tide Rising. I think there's more blue "revision needed" ink than black type ink. There's something inside me that twists and turns in my stomach as I fix the issues present on every page. Will it ever be as good as I want it to be? Will I be able to do the story and characters justice? And will people read it?

The pain continues on a completely different level...

...in the form of uncertainty.

I edit my heart out anyway, knowing if I focus a little more and work a little harder, the story will get stronger.

Just like my knee.

I think I should just get used to pain on all levels. And when I'm completing triathlons and writing bestsellers (hey, I can dream loftily can't I?--and I can make up words like loftily too!), then the end result will have been well worth the pain needed to get there.

Time to get to editing and remove that band-aid from the manuscript one page at a time!