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!
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 8th) 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:
****
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.hallowedwriters.spruz.com
(a new community for writers and readers)
Facebook fanpages:
Facebook Groups:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/181132068589571/
(literary lunes group)
Twitter:
@theworldamongus
@literarylunes
@hallowedwriters
Goodreads
