Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Light Shows and Kaleidoscopes in my Eyes

As I'm sure you all know, it's NaNoWriMo time.  I have the participant badge on my sidebar.  I don't believe in writing a pile of words just to achieve a word count, but I do like the motivation it gives me to push myself farther than I normally would.  I should be writing furiously.  But I'm not.

The problem is I got a migraine yesterday.  If you don't have migraines, you might not know it's not just a headache - it's a headache with an "aura" effect.  Plainly put, it's like a laser light show in your eyes that stays with you even when your eyes are shut.  Sometimes it's a very annoying kaleidoscope in my left eye. 

For me, any attempt to look at a computer screen or focus my eyes on small things like words on a page makes the pain portion of the thing worse in intensity and duration.  The only thing to do is to lay down in a dark, quiet place for 24 hours, sometimes more.

I approached this month with some optimism that the migraines wouldn't set me back much on my writing goals - my doctor gave me some samples of medications he said would probably work really well.  They did.  And I couldn't stay awake.  I slept most of the day yesterday and also through the night from just one pill yesterday morning. 

The odd thing is that I feel fine, but my Muse is still asleep, hopefully not dead completely.

I can function - by that I mean I can do dishes and vacuum and do stay-at-home-motherly things.  But it's pretty clear to me I'm not going to be able to write fiction this morning. 

I will take the opportunity to fully feel this strange, completely uncreative feeling I'm overcome with and use it for good.  I tend to write about people with mental illness, and my current WIP is no exception - I think my MC will feel this way, but with more intensity after a traumatic event happens to her.  The thing that makes her her will go into a coma and she won't know who she is anymore. 

It's too risky to read a computer screen today - I'm starting to have a little bit of trouble focusing my eyes on what I'm typing.  I'll catch up on your posts later in the week.

11 comments:

  1. There you go - use it in your story.
    Sorry you get migraines. I've never had to deal with something that powerful, just sinus headaches whenever the weather changes.

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  2. Sorry about your migraines! That's got to be awful. Good luck with NaNo!

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  3. Migraines are awful. I hope you feel better soon!

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  4. I haven't had a migraine for years, but when I got them I had all the symptoms except the headache. It was weird and impossible to do anything. Hope tomorrow is better.

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  5. I hope you start feeling more yourself soon and your muse returns. I get sinus headaches that feel like migraines sometimes and they are TERRIBLE! I feel your pain

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  6. Sorry to hear you are feeling bad. I get migraines too and they suck! I hope you feel better soon.

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  7. Hope you feel better soon! I'm glad I don't get migraines very often.

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  8. Sorry that you've been suffering like this! Ugh, I've never had a migraine and touch wood I shall never get one. They sound awful.

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  9. oh that stinks...hope you are ALL better tomorrow!

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