Writing and relationships

The freelance work isn't going as well as I hoped at the moment (personal problems rather than a lack of work coming in.) I have recently got a new boyfriend, a wonderful, caring, intelligent, good looking, funny...I can go on for quite a while! Now it's been a long time since I've had to seriously juggle life and relationship commitments, before it was only ever university work and that could be skidded around...

We live about an hour apart so it means making the most of it and often staying away for a few days or having him stay here for a few days. This hasn't had such a bad impact on my emotional happiness but writing is getting pushed back in favour of spending time with him, so I need to be either managing my days away from him better or just get a better paid job! I had been feeling quite stressed out and self punishing about my lack of care for clients and missing a couple deadlines, but today I've gotten on with some emails, written a few blog posts and had generally happy clients. 

I don't feel as if I have risen anew but I'm organising my schedule a bit better and trying to see how and when I get work done. I recently received advice from a few good sources about what to do with my freelance copy writing career, if I focus on the creative and get a normal job. I've given up one of the more stressful clients, even if it is less money, the blog work is a bit more varied and I'm building up a few return clients too.

My boyfriend is wonderfully understanding and I knew he was a keeper when he offered to get a takeaway one night when I was stressing over some late work, even though we had both dressed up to go out. I don't feel many people would have said what he did, and I fell a little bit harder for him that night. 

Don't worry, I won't be writing gushy emotional poetry any time soon, that's for a bit further down the line! 

There's click clacking but it's not the keyboard....

I've been to see a local chiropractor. After nearly a year of putting up with weakness and pain in my left knee I finally made the important call and got myself checked out. I did try the GP first but I got sort of waved off and sent to the physio. The physio was a lovely, lovely young woman about my age, and she did mean well but I felt the treatment she offered me wasn't right for me (stretches weren't going to cut it.)

So I had my first consultation a few weeks back, and here's the list of all my aliments:

• flat feet (that was a shock)
• Kneecaps getting pulled in
• twisted pelvis
• Trapped nerve in lower back,
• my head isn't sitting quite right on my spine ( I always knew that was the case, just a 5 minute chat with anyone could confirm my head isn't on properly.)
• plus other issues in my neck and arms.

He's been strapping my knee up, generally unpleasantly twisting and cracking my head off, the first time it took my by surprise that I swore. The next one I call the 'Russian', I have to lie on my side in a positon like a drunk cockroach trying to do a Russian kick, and then my chiropractor will somehow twist and push on my back to get the most horrible click from my spine. Thankfully he only does it once. Then I pay him for the pleasure of shifting my bones about and merrily and loosely wobbly my way back home to wait to repeat it again next week. 

I think all the typing over the last few months has got my left wrist feeling very sore and bad at times, I've invested in a wrist rest, moved my chair into every position imaginable, tried to sit better, sit worse, the pain if just horrible. So last night I downloaded dragon naturally speaking. Now this is an alien concept for me, having to speak to my computer. My mouth and brain are loosely connected at the best of times, my brain and fingers are probably on better speaking terms. I think I need some mental training to bridge the gap of what my brain says to what my mouth actually says. It's going to take some getting use to, but the idea of lying back on the sofa ditacting my story to the laptop is quite appealing, it'll give my arms a bit of a break too. I can have the horrible ordeal of lifting a glass of wine to my lips once in a while. Sounds like a good plan to me.