Jeremy Szal

Will you be okay to catch up Thursday week?

Hey everyone! Check out Jeremy’s work and be sure to request it at your local library!

All good. Easy mistake to make. :)

Gah. Get well soon.

Thanks for doing this!

I have a collection of short fiction out: Broken Stars. 2 originals and 16 previously published. All about the humanity of monsters and good people doing bad things for the right reasons.

Would love it if you ordered it in your local library!

www.amazon.com/Broken-Stars...

Not Polish. Polish doesn't have a "V". They're likely Hungarian.

Source: father is from Poland.

Thanks mate. Appreciate the kind words.

Yeah, I didn't want to talk too much about it till I was ready.

And thanks mate. So do I.

I would *especially* love it if you took a chance on the series now. And if you have discovered the books, pre-ordering or buying Wolfskin will also be a huge help. :)

www.amazon.com/Stormblood-J...

Obviously my health and body are not more important than book sales. But knowing that my career is not crashing and burning while I watch helplessly from the sidelines can only be a good thing.

So if you are able to help me out here, it would mean the world to me. Pre-ordering Wolfskin, buying my books for friends, asking your libraries to buy them, leaving reviews, it all helps. A lot.

books2read.com/u/bOev0A

I won’t pretend that my career as a writer isn’t under threat.

It is.

Surgeries and procedures will inhibit my ability to promote Wolfskin, and there will be days when the pain will be too great to go near a keyboard.

This is why Wolfskin has taken some extra long time - for obvious reasons, and also because I don't know what my career will look like, so this book *has* to be right.

But of course, nothing is guaranteed in surgery. I do not know what the next few years of my life are going to look like.

Whether or not Wolfskin will be the last novel I ever write with both hands.

If I will even have a career in writing anymore.

And that is terrifying. Terrifying.

This issue has been slowly gnawing at me over the past two years, and being about to talk about it, be public about the struggles, will help.

Ultimately, I do believe that even if I have this bone removed, I’ll regain use of my hand and will be able to write and function without pain.

My limited research has showed me that while it is a radical approach, it very often produces stellar results and a significant reduction in pain.

Obviously, I don’t want any of my bones removed. But if there’s even a 50/50 chance of taking this pain away, I’ll take it.

But that only takes care of half the problem.

In order to fix this sharp mechanical wrist pain, I will need to have a specific bone in my hand surgically removed.

Yeah.

But! There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I have had, and will continue to have, nerve blocks that cut/taser the nerves in my hand/arm. Think of it like throwing the circuit breaker on the nervous system, for a reset.

All this would hugely suck for anyone. But I’m a writer. Being unable to write at times has been inexpressibly frustrating.

And let’s not even get into the impact that it’s had on my mental health.

(Don’t shoot yourself with a nailgun, folks. It’s not good for you.)

You don’t realise how valuable your hands are, or how much you really need both of them to function, until you cannot use them both.

If anyone has read @joeabercrombie.com's First Law books, the depiction of Glokta's chronic pain is spot-on (suddenness and frustration and unpredictability of it)

Most pain from injuries go away with time. But that’s not what chronic pain does. In my case, the pain has not only persisted, but has gotten worse.

There are days when I can't even dry myself after the shower without pain, let alone sit at a keyboard and write.

Mechanical pain is easier to diagnose.

The nailgun almost blew my left hand off, and as a result, I have a tear in the wrist, along with severe inflammation and damage to the joints and tendons.

This has made twisting, pulling, carrying anything with my left hand nerve-shreddingly painful.

The pain isn't actually “there”, but because of a nerve malfunction, your body is sending weird, disfiguring messages to your brain, telling you that yes there is pain, even though there isn’t.

The pain works its way into your neural pathways, and because you believe it to be real, it is real.

As a result of the injury, I have chronic pain.

More specifically, I have developed two types of pain, both of which are radically different and are also overlapping.

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)

And mechanical pain.

It's taken me years to muster up the courage to talk about this, but here goes.

When I first had the wound, the pain was bad but not blindingly so. I thought a quick trip to the hospital would solve it all.

Wrong.

Today, I will deliver the final version of Wolfskin, completing my space opera trilogy.

And two years ago on this day, I shot a nailgun through my left hand, and almost destroyed both my life and career.

These two things are connected. 🧵

Seconded. I must have this!

I was there for almost a month in September and it didn't feel like enough. Already planning my next month-long trip.

YouTube video by JoeHisaishiVEVO Joe Hisaishi - One Summer's Day

Ah, the familiar urge to delete all social media, pack my things, move to a quiet, beautiful village in Japan and never look back.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK1I...

THE SCOUR by @richardswanauthor.bsky.social is now available in audiobook thanks to narrator Philip Battley and the folks at Podium!