my journey as a civil war novel writer

I have been on the quiet side lately but life feels like a bit of a strugle at the moment. For two weeks now my jaw muscles have been giving me hell. At first I thought it was a toothache but two trips to the dentist confirmed nothing wrong there. Photo's taken and teeth examined, nothing. So.... it is the old devil jaw clenching again! I thought I was dealing with my stress in a constructive method and was really very proud of myself. But deep down having to deal with the UWV to get permission to get back to work slowly has stressed me out. I am so afraid they will take my money away all at once. And dealing with them is such a joy anyway. Takes them 4 weeks to figure out who my contact person is, then they lose the papers the first time we send them. Now I know they have the papers and will decide within the next 2 weeks. Scary! I am left with so much pain that it is hard to sleep and it radiates into headaches half the time as well. Postive in this is that it does motivate me to

Finally back to books as I promised. I am reading a very delightfull trilogy, the black jewels trilogy, 1200 pages! It is kind of fantasy, but all of the main characters are so appealing, flesh and blood characters that I find it difficult to put down. Usually I am not so into fantasy anymore, finding it more of the same but this is a happy exception. I will want to read the other books in the series as well. On the history front I have started a biography by charles Spencer on prince Rupe rt, Charles I nephew who was one of his commander during the english civil war. This is all stil in preperation for the Easter reenactment coming up. I have only just started so I can't say much about it yet. But if I like it I will get back to it here. One book I finished recently is Red fire by Deirdre Knight. I am in two minds about it. Basically I did like it. But it is yet again a novel about immortals being brought back by a god and forming a brother hood. Writers have to be carefull not to

I had not planned to blog today, a lot of things to do, but something that I found out by accident last night shocked me so much that I do have trouble concentrating this morning. Maybe writing about it will help. Last night a dutch programme mentioned Natasha Richardson being in hospital declared brain dead after what seemed to be a simple fall on a ski slope. She is hard ly known in the Netherlands so they had to show pictures and mention her husband Liam Neeson to make clear who is was. But for me, a theater lover it was a shock. I have been a theater lover for over twenty years and especially english theater. THE theater family in Britain are the Redgraves and I have always followed this family. I love the old movies with the grandparents, Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson . My favorite member in the dynasty is Vanessa Redgrave who has been my favorite acrtress since forever, surely the early eighties. I have managed to see her on the stage in London several times and she is also

I promise I will get back to reviewing books fairly soon but right now my life is moving so much that I want to write about that. After being off the meds I returned to normal pretty fast. By sunday I was able to participate in a boardgame again. And a long one at that! We played the full version of through the ages this time. It is a civilization like game and great fun! This could become one of my favorites easily.Pitty it is very expensive or I would buy it myself. But 80 euro is a bit steep. Monday was nice and quiet, fystiotherapist and preparing for my client on tuesday. On tuesday I had a low level headache and decided not to do any thing anymore and just relax. At that moment Sandy called and she and Nina came by with some boardgames. Great relaxing combo, doggy and games! First we played two games of Attika, another one of my favorites that they own. this game is fun with two or three people and doesn't last too long so nice to play inbetween. If I ever see a cheap deal fo

My last post was pretty optimistic. I was going to try the meds, I was motivated and really pretty confident it would be okay. The first week was, then from saturday night on it all went terribly wrong. Saturday night a headache started that hopefully, hopefully is finally going away. I spend a lot of time in bed this week and that is something I rarely do even when I will but I was litterarly to weak to lift a finger let alone my head. And the pounding in my head just would not let up. Then more fun, from monday evening onwards I stopped eating. No nausea or anything, just couldn't force the food in. or with the greatest difficulty. Knowing this was one of the danger signs for the meds I called the neurologists office on tuesday, they promised to call me back, didn't and called again on wednesday. The nurse finally called me on wednesday afternoon. She was shocked when I told her what was going on. Nice when a professional is shocked when you tell your story. She told me to st

I talked to my pharmacist this afternoon and she gave me the information that my neurologist should have given me on monday. These are the key points: Topamax does work for tension headaches. Recent studies have shown that. Now that motivates me to try it a hell of a lot more then the one migraine I get a month. If I don't have the side effects yet there is a good chance I won't get them. The very heavy cases of side effects have to do with people who take them for epileptic fits, they end up with at least twice the dosage that someone with headaches has to take. Driving. Not in the first few weeks, after that take someone with you to assess your driving and if they and you don't think it has changed you are safe to drive. most of the side effects you might get go away after a few weeks when your body is used to the drug. Now this all makes it sound a lot better. An it motivates me to try it after all. Especially the little tidbit that it works on tension headaches. I can&#

Yesterday I went back to the neurologist. I don't know what I expected but it certainly wasn't what I got. I was out again in five minutes. He is a nice enough man but I did not have the feeling that he was really listening. They keep insisting that the migraines are the worst part of my problem with the headache. While I think it is the tension headaches. And I think they are worse because of my muscle problems. I can have terrible tension headaches when I am calm and enjoying myself for the rest and not a care in the world. It doesn't fit their mold. So I am still not allowed to take painkillers, bleh! And they have given me topamax for the migraines. I have to take that day and it is supposed to stop the migraine attacks. So far so good untill I got home read the instructions and started to nose around on the internet. Then I started to read about the side effects and the frequency of those side effects and I freaked. Completely!!!! I said I was not going to take them, p