All Too Solid Flesh

I have been very hesitant about this trying to blog everyday thing, but between Dave Freer and my agent, they’ve convinced me this is absolutely necessary. I note I already missed a day in the last week, but I will try to persevere.

However, I suspect, like a lot of other daily blogs written by writers, you will have to endure my occasional whine about not being able to write. This one is actually special. It’s a whine about not being able to write OR read.

I usually can gage my levels of tiredness and neurosis by what I read. If I’m going along at a fair clip, I read a lot of new stuff – like six to ten books a week, ranging from sf to mystery to romance. Yeah, it’s not that much compared to some of you, but consider that I also write two to four books a year and do assorted furniture refinishing and such.

When I’m not doing so well emotionally – and it can be anything, ranging from a worry about the kid’s school to a worry about a friend’s health, to (all too often) a worry about my career – I re-read stuff I’ve read before. Usually stuff I read before a long time ago, like Heinlein or Simak or Christie or…

And then there’s the times when I’m so near the snapping point – for any of the reasons above, but usually also because of some physical issue – when all I can read are Disney comics.

I’ve only twice in my life come to the point when Disney comics were hard to understand. The first was when I was very ill at around twelve and the other when I had bad pneumonia.

For the last year I’ve been stuck at phase two. For the last two weeks at phase three. This is weird since I’ve written less this year than normal and while one kid’s school is worrying me, it’s not that bad, just not excellent and not at the level he could do.

Unfortunately, while I’ve pushed through and written some, when I read what I wrote it reads like it was translated. Possibly from Mandarin Chinese. It was also written by an alien, in that the emotions get “Threaded” funny. I.e., people will react to things out of turn… before they happen, when they happen to someone else, etc. Editing is as much effort as writing.

Now, I have no clue why, but at least in the last two weeks I think it is just a sinus infection – at least judging from other symptoms. So, today I’m taking myself to the doctor and seeing if I can get this under control. And then I need to figure why the long-term issues. I suspect they’re physical, I just don’t know in what way yet. Of course, it would be just that I’ve been working hard at losing weight, and that takes its own toll. Unfortunately that’s on for the next two years or sixty pounds, whichever comes first. So if that’s the issue, I need to find ways to cope.

There is this tendency among writers – maybe among people in general – to think our minds are divorced from our bodies, but what I’ve found is that when I’m doing something inexplicable and can’t stop myself from doing it, no matter what the will power (like… binging on bananas seems to mean my potassium is low) there is a physical reason.

As a reader, I find this fascinating. What books would Heinlein have left if his health weren’t always between bad to indifferent? In what ways has health affected other favorite authors? Are some of the more blah books by very good authors the result of an illness that wouldn’t let go.

It is humbling and sobering to realize that a writer is both mind and flesh and blood. No matter what the worlds in our minds, our minds are still trapped in this world.