Last week my husband came off his mountain bike. He returned covered in mud but said he wasn’t hurt. The next day, we went with friends to a stunning valley that lies at the foot of a glacier. I drove because hubby wasn’t feeling one hundred percent. We meandered up and up, the roads becoming increasingly narrower. Cars were parked haphazardly along the side of the single track. And then we arrived at a flexible barrier, clearly electrified. After executing a hundred-point turn, I managed to park but my husband said he wasn’t up for walking with us. By the time we returned he wasn’t in a great way but was utterly adamant that he hadn’t broken any bones. Our friend used to be a nurse and she told me to get him to a doctor.
Fast forward a couple of hours and he was admitted into hospital, hooked up to morphine and told he’d need a tube inserted into his chest to remove the build-up of air. In fact, after various further X-rays and CT scans, they discovered he had a broken rib, a cracked rib, fluid on his lung and air in his sternum. Just goes to show we don’t really know what’s going on inside our bodies. Here in Switzerland, they insert a metal plate around a broken rib. Unfortunately, that day was particularly busy in A&E, with the arrival of ten helicopters within twelve hours (the busiest day since the end of the ski season), so his operation was pushed back and back. Eventually, the surgeon was called from his bed and operated on my husband at 4 am. That certainly wouldn’t have happened in the UK!
As he was in hospital, I had to navigate a couple of minor things that I’d been avoiding. Things I take for granted at home. We have our car here, which is right hand drive. I’ve got used to driving on the ‘wrong side’ of the road, but car parks are another matter. I’d hoped that I could park the car before the gate to the multi-storey parking garage, nip out the car and get the ticket. But no. You have to drive right up to the gate before the machine will release the ticket. The entrances are too narrow to open the driver’s door, so I had to switch the engine off, clamber across the central console, open the passenger window, collect the ticket and then climb back into the driver’s seat. This is not a quick procedure and I can just imagine the eye rolling of car drivers behind me. Bloody Brit! But should I care? No. I was doing the best I could during a difficult situation. The same goes for when I hesitate a little longer than necessary at a roundabout. I need to think, to double check which way I’m going (plus the Swiss are very bad at indicating!) and so occasionally I’m a bit slower than other cars.
The result of all of the multiple hospital visits is I’ve done no writing for a fortnight. Typically, when I’m mid book, which is where I am right now, I write at least ten thousand words a week. So I’m going to miss the unofficial deadline that my publishers and I jointly set. This is a big trigger for me. I am always ahead of deadlines. I get that knot at the base of my stomach and a weird guilt settles on my shoulders. But who am I actually letting down? My publishers, my readers, my family, me? Although I’ve written a book called, How To Write 4 Books A Year, (to be published later this year) and I’ve consistently produced four books a year over the past few years, does it really matter if I only write three psychological thrillers this year?
This might seem stupidly obvious, but when life gets in the way, we have to say no. We must go at our own speed. I think this is particularly hard to navigate when you’re self-employed and a creative. Because if you don’t create, then the money doesn’t come in, the momentum is lost and you’re only as good as your last book. But at the end of the day, if we don’t look after ourselves, then we end up with nothing. My next few months are going to be frantically busy. We’ve sold our house and bought a new one that needs a lot of work doing to it. My husband obviously isn’t in top form. We’re going to need to clear out our current house as we’re doing a big down-size. So, I’ve made a decision: I’m only writing three psychological thrillers this year. For some people that might sound like a ridiculous statement. Some people are happy if they write a book in a decade, but for me, I had a process that worked. Until it didn’t.
I hope you’ll be gentle on yourself too. We’re all different. We all need to go at different speeds. And that’s perfectly fine. Isn’t it?