There are things we all love to do. But some of those things can be dangerous for you, even outright deadly.

I found this out first hand during an innocent trip to run the ATVs (that’s four-wheelers for those who aren’t addicted) on the sand dunes with my family the last weekend of summer vacation.

I wasn’t hot-dogging. I wasn’t going fast. In fact all I was doing was following my 14-year-old nephew along a narrow path in the dune grass, when the ATV when up on the high center of the trail, flipped me off the side and then ran up a steep bank, turning over on top of me. Now all of this wouldn’t have been traumatic in the slightest but for two things.
1. when it flipped me off, I landed and my leg went at a ninety degree angle outward with a crunch, pop, pop sound that let me know things weren’t good.
2. when the ATV fell, it fell on top of my “good” leg pinning me to the ground.

When my nephew found me I was screaming. Poor kid. Probably took three to five years off his life. ops:

The good news is I survived. I had surgery to replace the severed ligament, and torn cartilage in my knee and now I’m hobbling around off crutches after two months.

Here’s the thing…we were supposed to go again as a family. In a way I bummed I can’t. Despite the surgery, despite the accident, all of it. I’d still like to go.

That’s what I’d call and obsession or addiction. When you like something so much, you’d do it again even though you know there’s a chance it really suck at some point.

The thing is, it’s like that with writing too. Since being a finalist in the American Title II contest last year I’ve catalogued 29 agent rejections, 9 editorial rejections, and one sale. That’s one year. I’ve got a rejection file 4 inches thick. Considering I’ve been writing fiction almost 20 years now, that’s a lot of hurt for just one sale…but I keep at it.

Why? The truth is, like most writers, it’s a bit of an obsession. We do it because we have to. We have these stories and the only way they can get out is to share them with you. So we write.

I’m going back to the keyboard, but if you happen to be going to the Emerald City Writers Conference in Seattle this weekend, look me up. I’ll be there with all the other obsessed writers!

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