Transition Girl

Why transition girl?... Best answered by a quote from the Iliad....."The soul was not made to dwell in a thing; and when forced to it, there is no part of that soul but suffers violence."

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

distractions

I have been making steady progress on the drafting of the short stories I want to include in my next book. I have even lined up a mentor to help me workshop my stories mid-year and improve their potency. This is so despite multiple distractions above and beyond my usual procrastination efforts.

February and March have been punctuated with warmer than normal long heat spells. I struggle in the heat - hot body (not model hot just always run with a temperature) - suffered heat stroke far too often. Not in itself an issue - I find hot days provide a good excuse to stay inside and write to my heart's content.

My normal writing space, in the coolest room in the house, is currently occupied by a house guest so I've been writing in my bedroom upstairs. It has a great view but the equivalent of a sauna if there is any hint of heat outside. 

In those conditions I think about the 1990s film by David Cronenberg - the Naked Lunch - and am grateful the heat is not frying my mind so much that hallucinations might manifest. No typwriter that transforms into a cockroach though I imagine my laptop might fly out the window and migrate south to Antartica for the rest of the summer to escape the heat.

Sleep proved hard on top of sweat soaked sheets, though the tossing and turning was not a complete waste as drafting ideas for the short stories under development come thick and fast. When the spell finally broke a little over a week ago, I slept for ten hours straight. It was my last good night's sleep.

One form of heat was replaced by another. A medical diagnosis that has forced me to think about whether my life expectancy is going to be three months, three years or thirty years. The uncertainty continues while the testing continues. And the distractions and sleep deprivation remain square and centre.