Writing Left-Handed

Earlier this week, I had my right wrist injured by an angry cat. Let’s just let it go at that. I pressed my luck with said cat. I paid the price. (If you really want to know all the gory details, check out The Best Laid Plans of Mice & Men on Classical Paintings.)

The result is that I am currently sporting three very nice teeth wounds and one that’s rather puny on the top of my right wrist. They actually look pretty good now, after the passage of a couple of days. The redness is reduced to just the area around the wounds. The swelling is likewise down to a tolerable level. Why, I even have wrinkles in the back of my hand when I flex my hand upward! It’s been a couple of days since I could say that.

Treatment for these wounds has included soaking my wrist in warm water. I started out with Epsom salt water, but have found dish soap to be much more soothing. The oxidizing kind also provides some great cleaning qualities. Besides, that warm water just feels good and the ten or fifteen minutes I sit there each time also provides time for some serious vegging.

But my writing is interrupted every time I have to soak my wrist, so I’ve been trying to think up things I can do to further the writing goals AND that can be done left handed. So far my list is quite short.

#1
First on the list is reading. While that may not seem at a glance to have much to do with producing words, I can legitimately count it if I’m doing genre research. If you’re anything like me, you can make any kind of reading fit into some form of genre research! I spent an hour doing ‘genre research’ that first evening. In fact, I read The Black Stallion’s Courage cover to cover while soaking my poor, aching wrist (it was bad that night!).

#2
Second on the list was writing. Maybe, I told myself, I could jot a few notes left handed and go from there. So today, I tried writing left handed. That was a miserable failure. I sat for nearly half of the ten minutes just trying to decide out to hold the pen and where on the paper to start. You wouldn’t think that would be such a big deal. Start on the left side of the paper and work to the right. Start at the top of the paper and work down. But that didn’t feel right at all.

After all the deliberation, I managed to scratch out two words. “Writing” and “left handed”. I guess that’s three words, isn’t it? I have to tell you, I’ve done gesture drawings that made more sense than my left-handed writing! So scratch that off the list.

So what else could a right-handed writer do with only a left hand? Mmmm.

#3
If I had a tape recorder or dictaphone, I could dictate text to be transcribed later.

#4
Even better, if I had one of those fancy computers and can take dictation, I could do that. That sounds like a good idea.

But I don’t have either, so those two things are out.

I have to confess that that’s all I have been able to come with so far. I suppose the fact that I get my arm in that nice, warm water and my mind tends to wander might have something to do with the lack of usable ideas for writing left-handed.

Or, it could be that there just aren’t any! Unless, of course, you can use either hand equally well, which I most certainly cannot.

I have gained definite respect for those natural born lefties out there, one my own sisters included. If any of you could provide any insight on this matter, it would be appreciated.

Otherwise, here’s to a rapid healing!