by Lynn Blackburn @LynnHBlackburn

Writer, get out of your chair!

Wait? What? That’s not right, is it?

This is a site for writers. Writers write.

BICHOK, right? (That’s Butt in Chair Hands on Keyboard).

Let me tell you a little story. We’ll pretend it’s hypothetical but between you and me it is 100% true.

Once upon a time there was a writer on a deadline. This writer wasn’t just on a deadline. She was behind on the deadline. So she wrote. And wrote. And wrote more. She wrote all.the.time for about six weeks.

Her deadline was still two weeks away when on a Sunday morning she woke after significantly fewer hours of sleep than she needed. She dragged herself through her morning routine as she prepared to go to church. She pulled out the hair dryer.

And then…she couldn’t move her neck.

Y’all, she injured her neck while drying her hair. (She still says she won’t tell anyone how she did it, so, um, if you could keep this between us, that would be great, m’kay? Thanks.)

Anyway, she thought it would be okay if she took some Advil and maybe iced it. Because, really, who messes themselves up drying their hair?

Um, turns out, you can injure yourself drying your hair. Two days later, she was calling her physical therapist to see if he could work her in because our writer friend was in a world of hurt and remember that deadline? Yeah. It was going anywhere.

When she saw the physical therapist, he shook his head, disappointment filling his eyes. His “What did you do?” came with a hefty dose of, “I told you this would happen” and a lot of “didn’t we talk about this?”

The sad truth was, that she had no defense! Because her PT had told her. Repeatedly. See, she had injured herself a year earlier. Her ankle was all messed up, but it turned out that the problem originated much higher. And all this time, while he was working on her leg, he’d been telling her that she really needed to take better care of herself. She needed to get out of her chair. She needed to stretch.

The thing is, she agreed with him. Believed him. Had no doubt that he was right, but when she sat down, she was so focused on the writing, she forgot.

It turned out that all that writing had led to her chest muscles getting so tight that eventually something as simple as drying her hair had been the final straw and her first rib decided it didn’t want to behave. (Side note: She had no idea her rib cage started so high up, just below the collar bone, and is still hoping to find a way to use this in a book somewhere because everything is story fodder, right?)

Turns out that the first rib wasn’t where it was supposed to be and since it wraps around to the base of the neck, it had messed me, um, I mean, this writer we’re talking about, all up.

The story has a happy ending. Several physical therapy sessions and a massage later, she was back to normal (well, as normal as she ever is), and she hopes she’s a bit wiser than she used to be.

The moral of the story?

Writer, get out of your chair. Set your timer and stretch. I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV so I’m not giving you specifics. You’re a writer. Research it. Look at some YouTube videos, read some blog posts. There are a ton out there.

But for the love of not missing a deadline, get your rear out of your chair. Stretch your neck, your shoulders, and open up those chest muscles. Give your back twists and turns, and don’t forget that the largest muscle you have is your gluteus maximus and you’re just sitting on it. It needs to move unless you want it to cause you a world of hurt in your hips, quads, hamstrings, knees, calves, and…you guessed it (or maybe you didn’t, but it’s true), ankles.

There’s nothing wrong with BICHOK as long as every thirty minutes to an hour you make sure you add in some BUTS (that’s Butt Up To Stretch – I just made that up, but I mean, if you want it to go viral I’ll be okay with it).

Trust me, I mean, trust this poor writer friend of mine.

The more you make sure the BUTS happen, the more you’ll be able to spend time BICHOK.

Grace and peace,