Lethal Tracker began years ago after most of my healthcare team at the time suggested I write my story. Psychotherapists, neurologists, naturopath doctors, acupuncturists, pain specialists, and others that had been working with me knew enough of my history and had enough of my medical files to understand the complexity and sensitivity of my earlier life. They also told me how important it could be to get it out and write it down.
Since my early teens, I had kept a journal, so all the details of my life had already been recorded. All I had to do was turn the journal into a book. Of course, at the time I had no intention or wish to write my story down. There was no drive to document my life in a book for the world. Actually, I had a complete aversion to the suggestions to do so. The severity and chronic nature of trauma in my past had been so extreme, the last thing I wished to do was dredge it up and write it down, especially to turn it out to the world. There was also the legality of writing my story. It was another reason running through my head to avoid the project altogether. However, after much prompting for over a year, I decided to start writing. Originally I wrote with the notion of doing so for me and me alone. I wrote to get things out of my head, and perhaps gain some resolution to it all. At the end of the year, some of my medical team asked if they could read the book so far as I had written it. I agreed. They were all so moved by it that they began telling me the world should have access to such a story. I cringed and denied the suggestion. Once again, time passed and my focus shifted. I returned to the project. However, having never written a book before, and not understanding how editors and everyone else worked, I stumbled the entire way. After sharing pieces of the manuscript with people through mainstream email, I was contacted by various parties about legal issues concerning what I was writing. If I wanted to continue and eventually publish, much had to be altered in ways I found absurd. Begrudgingly I made huge changes to the text that made me cringe. What I ended up putting out, though popular among many, was in my mind horribly written, and so much was seriously pulled away from facts. I also had issues with the editors by not understanding they only made suggestions and didn’t actually edit the book. So, the book went to press basically unedited. What a disaster. Time passed and I was so disgruntled, disturbed, and disappointed that I pulled the material from the shelves completely. More time passed and I became disabled with conditions related to the traumas and injuries of my past. I was diagnosed with neuroimmune diseases; encephalomyelitis, post-exertional malaise, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, Hyperadrenergic Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia, chronic pain, lung damage, compromised vision, dysautonomia, and cptsd. Living with these conditions over some years, the disability became more severe. This ironically gave me the time to return to the book project. I saw it as an opportunity to set things straight and rewrite the story without pulling punches. Therefore, I began again. I was told by a great many people that in order for the story be able to go public and remain factual, I would need to publish it as fiction. I could live with that. I was more comfortable with that avenue anyway. I could tell the facts of my history and simply call it fiction. More people I figured would be acclimated to taking in such a story from a fictional tag, rather than taken as stone-cold reality, though as most understand, the fact is many times wilder than fiction. One might ask then why I’m bothering to write this blog post. The main reason is that I’ve been prompted as much to write another book, as were the suggestions and urges to write Lethal Tracker. Part of my healthcare team spans three continents and includes some of the top trauma therapists and medical specialists in the world. Between my own studies into trauma, my severe history, and my interactions with such therapists, they have urged me to write a book concerning trauma from a very personal view. Combined with this would be my many grueling trials with the medical field concerning my neuroimmune diseases, the historical facts leading up to the conditions, and what I’ve found to work and not work. I finished the writing of Lethal Tracker while bedridden with my medical conditions from the autumn of 2021, through the winter of 2021-2022, and into spring. On many days my condition was so severe I couldn’t even sit up in bed or concentrate. But on the days that I could, I would sit there with a laptop typing while the world did its thing outside my windows. Lethal Tracker was a huge accomplishment for me. I never, and still don’t consider myself a writer. With the intensity of my neuroimmune conditions, there are far too many days where just being awake is grueling. Therefore, finishing a book with 816 pages and 42 chapters was something hard to believe I accomplished at all. With my advancing conditions it may be the last book I manage to write. I hope not. I do have plans for others, but life will inevitably dictate what happens from here. Nevertheless, my entire healthcare team is reading Lethal Tracker, claimed they all love it so much they continue urging me to write more. Time will tell. If you do end up reading Lethal Tracker, please take a few moments of your precious time and energy to leave a review for potential readers. Many thanks!
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AuthorWhite Wolf Von Atzingen has traveled the western hemisphere extensively. He is a Northman, teacher, author, artist, nature lover, and martial artist living in the remote mountains of Vermont. Archives
January 2023
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