I have a cold, or a virus, or whatever the heck you
want to call it.
What, you may ask, does that have to do with being a
writer, writing or anything related.
Well let’s take this step by step. I’m at the later stages of a nasty,
mind-numbing cold and therefore I am now more coherent. If some of you read my blog posts over at
Larry Brody’s TV Writer then the latest on there was written just as this thing
was settling in so I wasn’t totally crazy yet. It started coming on later on
Monday and this is later on Thursday so I have a lost week on my hands.
Now, if I had a day job and was lucky enough to have
some benefits I would have had to call in sick (because this thing wouldn’t
even let me move, I who never spends sick time in bed. So a couple of days off
with pay, not having a good time, but not losing too much. And the day jobs I’ve
had in the past would have served that function. But ultimately Mama raised a
writer so I don’t have that day job. In the interest of full disclosure I have
a husband who does have said day job with said benefits and I may add, health
insurance. He even took a day off to stay home with me and take care of me. But
if I was an average writer that wouldn’t be true. Food for thought.
So I’ve lost an entire week of work alternating
between fever and chills. My brain is barely emerging from its bubble of
unconcern and I’m hit with the realization that yes, I have deadlines and a
proposal out there and a few other things that I’m going to have to scramble to
play catch-up on; which is worse than when I take a vacation because a vacation
is actually ‘planned’. You’ll need to be
patient here if I go off on tangents, I still can’t hold a thought securely for
more than about a minute, so I tend to mentally wander off.
Okay, back on track. The thing is, the writer’s most
important tool is the brain. When it’s messed up like what a virus can do to
it, things get really bad. When I’m sick, not only do I feel sick, but since I
can’t do anything I also get very grumpy, irritable and whiny (that last one I try to keep to myself, but it’s in
there, roaring to be unleashed). I kind
of want to snarl at whoever is near but haven’t gotten so sick that I can’t
control that impulse yet. When I’m a little old lady on death’s door somebody
better watch out because if I figure out I can’t complete that script or novel
at all I’m going to be really pissed and there’ll be hell to pay.
So this is why having a cold, in this case a
particularly nasty one, has something to do with being a writer. It does, after
all, have something to do with being a human being. We all cope, or don’t, in
our own manner. Thank goodness I have three concerned dogs who pile into bed
with me determined to protect me from whatever evil has caused his downtime. Of
course that doesn’t help much with the fever aspect of this mentioned above,
but they’re sweet to care. So is husband who brought me soup, juice and lots of
unreserved love in the face of coughing, whining, bitching and bemoaning lost
time.
Whether you’re a writer or not, how do you react to
enforced down time? What do you, or someone you love do to make it better?
Share your war stores.
Oh, and unless you should think I forgot, here’s
this week’s Writers and Readers Websites Wednesday site: Archetype Writing
