Off the bike, the hard way

I have not been riding my bike much lately, and that's good news for the writing of the sequel to Forsaken.
Aug. 9, while riding my bike, I crashed hard and landed on my left side on a local street not far from my house. I was riding one of my regular training routes where the streets are normally clean and clear.
As I approached a corner in the Bomar subdivision, I pulled out an intersection ahead of some traffic. I crossed the street and headed down the hill. I leaned to take a quick corner on to the next street.
The next thing I knew I was bouncing across the street. I could tell as soon as I hit that I had hurt something, probably my ribs. I sat up in the street and declined an offer of help from the driver of the vehicle that was following me. I had hit a patch of gravel, apparently left there by a recent rainstorm.
When I stood up, my left side was covered in blood, from my left hand, down my forearm, my hip and my leg down to my ankle. It was hard breathing, but not so difficult that I couldn't stand and straighten out my bike. I had to adjust the right brake lever.
That's when I noticed that I had soreness in my right hand, specifically the thumb.
I wiped away some of the blood, but had to blot it a couple of time to stop the flowing. I got on my bike and continued to ride, not sure how bad I was hurt.
After about a half mile, I knew it was time to ease my way home. About a half mile later I realized I was not seeing very well. My vision was blurred. I wondered if it was because I had hit my head on the pavement, but soon discovered that the prescription insert in my sunglasses was missing. It apparently had been knocked out when I slammed into the ground.
I continued home without much effort but was starting to feel the pain more by the time I arrived. After announcing my arrival and telling Susan not to worry too much, I made a call to arrange a doctor's visit. Then we went back to the scene of the crash to find my prescription insert.
After a short inspection of the crash site, a home owner announce she had found them on the road and came out to inquire as to my condition.
We then went to the doctor's office and after much longer than I expected, they cleaned me up, patched my road rash and did some X-rays on my ribs and hand. They found two broken ribs on my upper left side and a broken right thumb. I was sent home with some pain meds and a splint on my thumb.
After a week, I got a cast on my thumb. The first ride after the crash came on the Monday following the Wednesday that I received the cast. It was not easy trying to manipulate the gears and brake with the right hand.
In addition, I got a flat and tried to change it with one hand. A passing biker helped but the spare tube I had was no good. Fortunately, I was near a bike shop and got me going again.
I took another short ride about a week later. I went for a couple of more short rides on my mountain bike in the next two weeks. After four weeks I got the cast taken off and replaced with a splint. By that time the ribs were almost healed but the thumb was, and still is, very weak.
On Sept. 16, I went for a 40-mile ride with some friends. The splint worked well to support the thumb but my shoulder was still sore and caused me the most pain.
I will ride again soon. Probably tomorrow, Sept. 19.
What this has done is to redirected my attention back to my writing. In the last month I have written more on the sequel to my novel, Forsaken.
At this point I have developed a good plot line that involves several actions scenes and sets down the basic foundation for three sets of points of view. One of the main protagonist, the antagonist, and a new set of characters who will influence the overall course of the book.
I have written about 27,000 words so far and only have a few more chapters to go before all of the timelines will be in place.
Writing this book is proving to be more difficult. The plot lines are more complex and the characters are going to require much more work as to how they relate to the theme of the book and the final outcome. Another issue has been the distractions. We are traveling more, Susan is home now, home chores and other volunteer stuff seems to intrude more than in the past.
I have not gotten into the habit of spending concentrated time on the novel. Soon we will leave on a 3-1/2-week road trip to the east. I will try to write some then, but don't have much confidence I will get uninterrupted blocks of time. I suspect most of the writing on this book will have to take place later this fall and winter.