A is for Awesome by Beth Ann Masarik

Welcome to Unwritten's part of the worldwide A-Z Blog Challenge!! Every day in April (except Sundays), we'll have a new post related to the letters of the alphabet from A-Z. Our theme here on Unwritten is "I Will Survive". I hope these stories will inspire and uplift you. Comments are VERY appreciated!

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A is for AWESOME

By 

Beth Ann Masarik

Thank you so much for having me on the blog today, Mysti!  Hello everyone, my name is Beth Ann Masarik. I’m an author of the new saga called The World Among Us, which will be this month! This is a very exciting and triumphant time for me.  Why is that you ask? Well, I will happily explain J.

For those who don’t know me, I have learning disabilities in addition to rheumatoid arthritis.  Both of these can make writing a novel VERY difficult.  I’ve had the learning disabilities since I was a little kid, starting with speech issues, on top of abstract and critical thinking disabilities, and thought processing issues.  For example, when I was a toddler, I couldn’t say the letter “S”. This was mostly due to the fact that I learned how to talk with a binky. But, with speech therapy, I eventually overcame it.

But I am not here to talk about those. I am here to talk about writing with Arthritis.

When I was 18 years old (maybe closer to 19), I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I have it in my knees, and every so often it flares up, and when it does its excruciating. Now, I know what you’re thinking…aren’t I too young for arthritis? Well, no, I am not. There are people out there younger than I who have it and there are people who have it much worse than I do.

So what does this have to do with writing books and writing in general?  Well, as a writer, we tend to sit for long periods of time. For someone like me who has arthritis in the knees, this can be quite difficult. Often when I have to sit (or stand) in one place for more than an hour at a time, my knees get stiff and sometimes its difficult to move. I can’t bend them as well as I used to be able to. I can’t even remember the last time I

was able to sit with my legs crossed in “Indian style”.

Since I’ve been diagnosed, however, I’ve been given special medication to keep it at bay. However, when it flares up, it’s never fun. It usually flares up on me once a year around November, so I have to go back and get an injection (those are never fun btw). And within three days the pain and stiffness goes away.  It sucks big time, but I WILL SURVIVE.  

Whenever this happens though, my muse usually goes into hiding, because she knows that I’m not feeling well and not to bug me. It sucks, but hey, that’s life. I’m not telling you this to feel sorry for me. I’m telling you this because I know that there are others like me who either have arthritis or learning disabilities and want to write books. I’m here to tell you that YOU CAN.  You can do anything if you put your mind to it.

Between my learning and physical disabilities, it’s a miracle that I’ve written three books since I graduated college in 2005, and one novella. I’m coming to the end of the third book in The World Among Us, and am ready to jump into the fourth and final book. On top of writing books, I also run a promotion blog for authors and writers called Literary Lunes which can be found at www.literarylunespublications.com

So, the moral of the story is, I WILL SURVIVE and I will overcome my disabilities. Writing is a sort of therapy for me and I don’t know what I would do if one day I couldn’t write any more. Thanks to the advances in medicine, I can now sit in a chair or in my bed for long periods of time and pen out 1,000 words every time I sit down to write in one of my novels.

Thanks for reading, and hope you pick up my books To Hell and Back (releasing on April 8^th) and The World Among Us (Prince of Darkness) which comes out after Easter. To Hell and Back is a novella set in The World Among Us.  More information on the books can be found on my website at www.bethannmasarik.com or the book website at www.theworldamongussaga.com

Here is the cover:

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Beth Ann Masarik was born and raised in a small town on Long Island. Ever since she can remember, Beth has always loved writing and completed her first book at the age of 15. That was when she knew she wanted to be an author. It wasn't until her second year of college while reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that Beth realized that being an author was her dream job. She writes YA/fantasy books, and is slowly breaking out into the New Adult world. She has several projects in the works, all in the Fantasy genre and all involving different species. Her favorite species to write about are gods, werewolves, angels and witches. Beth works part time at a NY law firm as an office clerk, and writes books in her spare time. In addition to writing, she also runs Literary Lunes Magazine, which is dedicated to promoting authors and helping first time authors build their platforms.

Follow Beth:

www.bethannmasarik.com

www.theworldamongussaga.com

www.literarylunespublications.com

www.hallowedwriters.spruz.com (a new community for writers and readers)

Facebook fanpages:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/bethannmasarikauthor

https://www.facebook.com/#!/TheWorldAmongUs

https://www.facebook.com/#!/Literarylunespublications

Facebook Groups:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/theworldamongus/

https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/181132068589571/ (literary lunes group)

Twitter:

@theworldamongus

@literarylunes

@hallowedwriters

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4667718.Beth_Ann_Masarik