Write every day? Sure. But can you really keep it up when you’re ill?
I’ve found ways to write on vacation and through the holidays. But I can not write while I’m sick.
Christmas day and night were miserable, but I also spent the next four days coping with the residual effects and still not eating. Thought or energy to write? No way!
As far as writing goes, though, it wasn’t a total loss.
When you’re ill, you experience a lot of physical sensations that you try to quickly forget. Write them down instead! What do those cold, clammy sweats really feel like? Can the tight acid knot in your stomach be compared to anything?
What does your mind think about while you’re laying, miserable, in bed? When an illness doesn’t go away, what dark thoughts enter in? What do you really think of daytime TV? Do you worry about dinner for your kids even though you can’t stand?
And how does your family react? Solicitous, impatient, worried, grossed-out?
My appetite and brain function returned at about the same time, although I felt weak and wobbly for another day or two. So now that this is here for you to read, I’m off to record all those feelings before I forget them. They’re great fodder for characters in dire straits.
A note about New Year’s Resolutions, postponed because of all of this, will be coming next.
