Matter over mind

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been dealing with more or less constant migraine or migraine-related symptoms that have seriously impeded my ability to concentrate. We get so accustomed to thinking of our brains as multitasking miracle organs that it comes as a bit of a shock when some of that multitasking performance is reduced by illness or ailments. Yeah, so my heart is still pumping well and my various autonomic functions are proceeding properly--so what? I can't seem to form complex sentences on the first try! I'm trying to comment on someone's blog and I'm completely missing my own point! This, frankly, SUCKS.

Even in dealing with my own blog, my mind is in disarray. I want to put up a post every day--and normally, I can--but this week, it was not to be. This is not even the topic on which I wanted to write today, but the actual topic is both too complicated for my fractured mind to do justice to and too important not to get right, so instead, you're getting this. Please accept my fervent apology.

The good news (thank God, there's some good news) is that I have managed, in spite of it all, to keep up my daily word count. I've been hitting about 550 words a day and allowing myself to be satisfied with that. The plot is marching along and the writing feels good. By that, I mean that I feel that I am producing fruitful material, not that the material I'm producing is necessarily great or that it will even survive past the second draft. It's just that what I'm putting down now is at the very least seeding the plot down the road and possibly seeding the second draft.

I have no idea if that last point is at all clear, but in case it is, I'll leave it in. I hope that over the weekend, I'll get back some of my missing cognitive abilities and can write a post that better illuminates what I'm trying to say.


And before I forget to mention it, I have unceremoniously crossed the 30% completion mark on the first draft and continued right to 31%:

Feel free to celebrate as you see fit. :D But please, no fireworks. I've had enough of those, inside and out.

Of ice picks, brain cell failure, and 500 words

Yesterday, my eye exploded.

I jest, of course, but only in a literal sense. My eye didn't actually burst--it only felt as though it was about to. For a couple of hours.

And the eye pain was just the central gem in a complete jewelry setting of head pains in the form of "ice pick headaches," for which the official term is "primary stabbing headache." Both names are sufficiently and accurately descriptive; these are sudden, sharp headaches that seem to be focused on a specific point in the head that feel exactly the way I imagine it would feel to have an ice pick thrust into the skull.

Apparently, ice pick headaches are predominantly experienced by people who also suffer from migraine *raises hand* and cluster headaches, but they are not actually migraines or cluster headaches, so treatments for those ailments don't work for these. There is, in fact, no known treatment yet for ice pick headaches.

The eye pain was repetitive, but variety was provided by the fact that the other ice picks were scattered around at various cranial locations. It was a lot like having a fireworks show taking place inside my head.

Gotta get out more... and go to bed earlier!

Somehow, I have apparently skipped 23% with the 1126 words I added yesterday! I now have a grand total of more than 24,000 words. Pretty crazy!

Of course, my progress is not without a price. I decided to go out and do a couple of things again last night and stayed out until well after 10:30 pm, and still wanted to do another 400 or so words before going to bed. Needless to say, this was not a prudent decision. Today I have a persistent mild migraine to deal with.

But I don't regret going out one bit. I went to Powell's to attend Scott Sparling's reading from his newly published book Wire to Wire, and am so glad I did. Scott lives here in the Portland area and this is his first novel, although he has been working on it for twenty years. It was fascinating, and very entertaining, to hear his tale of this literary journey. I am eager to read his book now!

After that, I visited a friend on the way home and wound up staying for a couple of hours. Don't regret that, either; the lack of prudence was in staying up late to continue writing. Should have cut myself some slack and made up for it on the long weekend.