Seventy percent of the individuals accosted by an aneurysm bursting within their head will slip into a coma and then pass away that particular day, without realizing what has burst within them.  As I got ready for a full day of writing fiction on Tuesday, March 27th this spring, I felt an odd sensation within the frontal left of my head.  I told myself that it'd be wise to sit down for safety.  Roughly an hour later, I found myself lying on the floor and unable to get up and walk at that moment.  I crawled across a small room until I could grab a phone.  Having called an ambulance, I then waited, still aware but feeling odd and vulnerable.

By the end of that day, I'd been delivered to a highly credentialed and enormously gifted neurosurgeon in Atlanta.  Fortunately, he turned attention toward surgery and advised my wife and family that I seemed to be within the thirty percent standing a better chance of getting through alive.

I spent two weeks in intensive care, recovering well.  The most important part of recovery involved my own awareness of my ability still to write.  The pieces of characters began coming together within the context of the story I had been ready to begin on March 27th.  They began coming together within the friendly home of my head, a head seemingly repaired.

It normally takes a year for full recovery after delicate surgery such as this.  I seem to have progressed at a faster pace than that, according to comments from the surgeon.  Now I can sit and continue the creative work I had planned for March 27th...and for other days.  I can focus as sharply as ever on the drudgery involved in the art and craft of writing fiction, concentrating on keeping that fiction alive and well.

Each and every day when the writer is able to take on another blank page, or set of blank pages in any way, is a gift...appreciated more than ever.

J.P. Cunningham

author of Somerset and of The Emerald Amulet