Sunday, November 06, 2005

NaNoWriMo and the Chronic Illness

I posted this at the NaNoWriMo boards this morning in a thread about writing with chronic illnesses. (My count is at 7200 if you are keeping track and the column is around 500 words.)

I've got a central nervous system disorder (intracranial hypertension or pseudotumor cerebri), asthma and chronic blood clots. My laptop makes NaNoing possible because I can lie down and type at the same time. Sounds ridiculous but it works for me.

I think the biggest problem I have is that I write a weekly entertainment column and this week I also have a feature article due on the 8th. When I get tired I get aphasic and since I am working on three projects at once (plus my regular full time job) I start feeling like the words are all jumbled together, as though puzzle pieces from three different jigsaw puzzles have all ended all over the floor and I'm supposed to make sense of them, but I can't even access them.

This is why I quit halfway through last year. I was away from my computer for a week (at the Fiddler's Green Sandman Convention) and came home to find out that the column idea had been greenlighted and I got so mentally bogged down doing both that I decided I had better stick with the project that already had a home, the column.

This year I wasn't sure if I was going to even try NaNoing because I'm still somewhat sad that I didn't finish last year, but I figure if I get really stressed out I can stop and then start again when I feel better.

The absolute best trick that works for me is laughing. No matter how sick I am (and since my illness mimics a brain tumor that's pretty sick) I always feel better if I laugh. I've got a very dear friend who can always make me laugh and can always make me feel better.

So what works for me is take breaks when my brain starts feeling like it's sprained, get support when I need it, and don't get down on myself for not having the word count where I want it to be. If I were to count my column and this article my word count would actually be about 2500 words higher at this point.

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