{"id":1712,"date":"2017-04-25T14:27:06","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T18:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/?p=1712"},"modified":"2017-04-26T09:18:08","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T13:18:08","slug":"life-finds-a-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/life-finds-a-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Finds a Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It has taken me nearly 18 months to make peace with the fact that my brain has permanently, and irreversibly changed.<\/p>\n

It has also taken me 18 months to realize how truly blessed I am because of the changes.<\/p>\n

Weird. I feel blessed because of \u00a030 strokes.<\/p>\n

Well, I’m still around. And I have most of my physical abilities. My cognition when it comes to things like strategy, numbers and logic has been annihilated, however. And I gave up my car and driving for the time being.<\/p>\n

Blessed. Truly.<\/p>\n

I can no longer do the work I’ve been doing for thirty-two years. That career has been shattered. I won’t lie to you, I was in a pretty bad funk about that fact. But life finds a way.<\/p>\n

I started writing again in rehab back in November 2015 at the insistence of one of my therapists. \u00a0I could barely walk or speak, let alone hold a pencil.<\/p>\n

I hated her for making me write, back then. My first journal entry was three words, scrawled almost illegibly:<\/p>\n

“Fuck this shit.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Now? Eighteen months later? Well, let me\u00a0quote Stephen King:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWriting is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

And so it goes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Last Friday, I was surprised and shocked to receive an acceptance letter to Emerson College–to their MFA program in Popular Fiction writing. They also threw a massive scholarship at me, to which I am eternally grateful.<\/p>\n

The application was\u00a0a bit of a lark–and like everything else lately, I had a load of help with the admission process. My wife, who is the most exquisite human to ever walk this earth, has been at my side–always encouraging, always helping.<\/p>\n

I received four brilliant references from wonderful authors who I both respect and admire (\u00a0Matthew Munson <\/a><\/strong><\/span>and Dr. Bill Kirton<\/a><\/strong><\/span> from my show\u00a0The Word Count Podcast,<\/em>\u00a0my friend, instructor and mentor, Richard Thomas<\/a><\/span><\/strong>, and World Fantasy and Nebula award-winning author, James Morrow<\/a><\/span><\/strong>). I submitted samples of my published work and an essay\u00a0(the story of my\u00a0writing\u00a0rebirth after surviving trauma).<\/p>\n

Four days after submitting my application, I was accepted.<\/p>\n

This has been the culmination of recovery, acceptance, and a desire to take this “new cognitive me” out for a spin.<\/p>\n

For all those who have helped me, I am forever in your debt. Know that I will do you proud during this next adventure.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the class of ’19, you brain-damaged old man. You are truly blessed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has taken me nearly 18 months to make peace with the fact that my brain has permanently, and irreversibly changed. It has also taken me 18 months to realize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c40-myblog","category-s6-myblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1718,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions\/1718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}