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Tue, Oct 7, 2025

1:54pm EDT

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Seven Degrees Left of Center

by Dale Ricky

Rated: 13+ · Book · Personal · #2276168

Each day feels new, and my memory of the one before is faint. I’m learning to adapt.

In September 2019, a seizure revealed a lime-sized meningioma pressed against my hippocampus—the part of the brain that governs memory and language. The doctors said it was benign, but benign didn’t mean harmless.

Surgery removed the tumor, and three days later I opened my eyes to a new reality. I could walk, I could talk, but when I looked at my wife, her name was gone. I called her Precious—the only word I could find. A failure of memory, yet perhaps the truest name of all.

Recovery has been less cure than re-calibration. Memory gaps are frequent. Conversations vanish. I had to relearn how to write, letter by halting letter. My days are scaffold by alarms, notes, and calendars.

When people ask how I am, I don’t list symptoms or struggles. I simply say, “Seven Degrees Left of Center.” It’s not an answer—it’s who I’ve become.

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Amethyst SkellyBones Angel

Oct 3, 2025 at 8:35am
In response to "Learning Curves: Then and Now"

Wow, that's news to be excited about

Sending prayers for continued improvement and recovery

Scary_Soldier_Mike

Sep 27, 2025 at 10:16am
In response to "Instant Coffee: Freeze-Dried Disappointment"

I completely understand the recalcitrant coffee pot situation and I, too, have swilled my share of hotel-based caffeine. That being said, don't let {suser:lilli_in_fl} catch you drinking it.

Amethyst SkellyBones Angel

Sep 25, 2025 at 10:51am
In response to "Rewired"

I have the same type of problem, Dale. My mind abounds with beautiful, emotional, action packed scenes, but I have no idea how to shape them together into a coherent story. It's like having bits of five different movies all chopped up and scrambled and missing the in-between parts. Just keep doing it

1 Like

Amethyst SkellyBones Angel

Sep 9, 2025 at 8:13am
In response to "Up too early"

I used to love waking up early in the morning when I was a kid... I'd sit up and greet the sunrise with the robins and recite poetry I'd memorized... Ahh, those were some peaceful times.

All the best!

1 Like

AmyJo-home sweet home

Aug 31, 2025 at 1:33pm
In response to "At some point, you call it done"

I enjoyed reading both versions. I did like the limited version more, and now I am hooked! So many questions now...

Sandralynn

Aug 30, 2025 at 11:21am
In response to "A good story gone wrong"

Writing is a process, isn't it? I believe the starts and stops happen for a reason. I hope those words reappear and behave this time.

Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈

Aug 28, 2025 at 9:11am
In response to "Yesterday is gone"

Point of view, kind of like Rome, isn't learned in a day. It takes even longer for it to become second nature as you transcribe the internal movie that's playing your head to the page. I still catch myself sticking in little summary bits instead of staying in the character's head.

To answer Amethyst SkellyBones Angel

's question, modern novels do indeed more often than not have more than one point-of-view character. Romance novels will often alternate between the romantic leads, for example. SciFi, thriller, and mysteries often use multiple points-of-view--Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and Pournelle comes to mind. Mystery novels sometimes focus on just the detective, but other times use multiple characters. My own novel, Seeking Hyde, uses at least four POV characters. It even switches from 3rd person limited in one chracter's head to first person in a different character's head. Hemingway does something similar in To Have and Have Not.

Readers are delicate critters, and easy to confuse. Too many points of view, or poorly executed transitions from one point of view to the next, can be confusing. If you use more than one point of view--in a story or a novel--it's important that you use other tools to be sure that your reader doesn't get lost in the dust.

The most common "rules" are, first, one point of view per scene; and, second, only one point of view per short story. But...I have a little rock I keep on my desk with the word "nothing" engraved on it to remind me that "nothing is engraved in stone." Everything depends on context. The second rule, for example, depends on the story. "A Rose for Emily," by Faulkner, uses more than one point of view.

Point of view is a tool--a big tool, to be sure--but it's just a tool. It's one of the most powerful tools you can deploy in bringing your fictional world to life in the readers' imaginations. In doing that, it keeps your reader enmeshed in the here-and-now of your story. It also takes time and practice to deploy consistently and effectively.

Ok, I'll shut up now.

1 Like

Amethyst SkellyBones Angel

Aug 28, 2025 at 8:18am
In response to "Yesterday is gone"

Best wishes for getting it to stick! 3rd person limited is my favorite PoV, taught by my mentor, Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈

. It's quite useful for most situations, although I question the single-minded perspective for an entire novel. I'll have to ask him about that... Do modern novels work with several different characters, all in their own 3rd person limited chapters? Or what?

Take care

bobaturn

Aug 25, 2025 at 10:17am
In response to "Influence and Encouragement"

A powerful life story reflecting strength and courage offering an intimacy with challenge. Admiration can be a way of distancing myself from taking the action I must to deal with my own. Hopefully, writing about them will help me connect and take action. Take care and thank you for reflecting back what it takes.

bobaturn

Aug 25, 2025 at 10:17am
In response to "Influence and Encouragement"

October 6, 2025 at 7:52am

#1098746

The Book Emptied My Brain - Now What?

I finished writing about my recovery from brain surgery. "Seven Degrees Left of Center - Book"

Well, "finished" might be too strong a word. It is a polished draft, and I realized something this morning: I'm done. Not because the book is perfect, but because I don't have anything left to say about that part of my life.

The book emptied my brain.

And now I'm sitting here thinking, 'Now what?'

I wrote the book to make sense of five years of chaos. To take the fragments of memory, the gaps, the terror of not recognizing my own thoughts, and arrange them into something coherent. Something that meant something.

It worked. I made sense of it. I found the through-line. I discovered that recovery wasn't about going back to who I was - it was about learning to navigate the world seven degrees left of center from where I started.

But here's the thing nobody tells you: when you empty your brain of the story you've been carrying, you're left with... emptiness.

Not the purposeful emptiness of healing. Not the productive emptiness of making space for something new.

Just... empty.

This is the emptiness of: I told the story. I processed the trauma. I made meaning from the chaos. And now... what?

I'm not in crisis anymore. I'm not actively recovering. I'm just... here. Living a life seven degrees left of center from where I started, with no map for what comes next.

Here's what scares me: Have I been defined by recovery for so long that I don't know who I am without it?

Now? I'm just... a guy. A guy whose brain works differently.

And I don't know what that guy does next.

Maybe that's okay. Maybe moving forward doesn't require a plan. Maybe it just requires being willing to sit in this uncomfortable space between stories and see what emerges.

Comment

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