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A Writing and Health Tip…

Drink a Beverage of Choice…

As some of you know, and that I talked about a week or so ago because I am slow reading stories sent to me, I somehow got Optic Nuritis in my only good eye. Pretty much blind for a few days, most spent in doctors and emergency rooms. Since then I have very limited vision which they say should get better over the next month to six months.

(No idea what caused it, no cure, and no I do not have MS. I am typing this with the letters blown up way, way large.)

So as I learn to live with this, I am needing to limit my session on my computer to less time than I normally spend. My normal session is one hour before standing and taking a break from the screen to move around. That has kept me over the millions and millions of words and decades of writing from being injured.

But with the eye issues, at the moment my range seems to be about thirty minutes before I just get exhausted from the eye-strain and other stuff. So I have increased my beverage intake.

I drink iced tea, so one extra large mug or bottle of that over my normal intake gets me out of my chair every 30-40 minutes.

Kris drinks mugs of hot tea and that gets her up every hour and away from the screen.

So if you think you can go hours and hours without leaving the screen, a word of warning. Your body won’t take it for long. So just start drinking more tea or coffee while writing or doing covers or whatever.

Your shoulders and arms will thank me.

One Comment

  • Alison Naomi Holt

    Thanks for this, Dean. There’s also a great little (free) writing app I use called Be Focused. You can set intervals for the time you want to write, and in between, you can set an interval for the break.

    For mine, I have it set at 25 minutes writing, 15 minutes break, 25 minutes writing, 45 minutes break, and then repeat the two 25-minute intervals with the 15-minute break. By using this, I consistently get 2000 words/day since I get about 500 words each 25-minute interval.