bronchitis – Deborah Makarios

December 2, 2016October 20, 2017

Lessons from (PseuDo)NaNo

50,000 words is a lot.
I can do it.
It isn’t easy.
7.8 is a really big earthquake (big enough to have its own Wikipedia page).
I can’t produce creative writing on three hours’ broken sleep.
Strangely, I can write scene outlines and blog posts in those conditions.
A supportive spouse is worth their weight in gold.
Rewards are good.
The right rules can help.
Sometimes you’ve just got to stop bashing your head against the wall and read.

50,000 words is a lot. I don’t know why exactly the NaNo people picked that exact number, but I went along with it. My final word count – well, that depends. (Lesson #11: I am better at writing than maths.) I made a note at the end of each session of how much I had written, and at the end of each day I added them up and then added them to my running total.

So far, so good. But here’s where it gets weird. Adding those daily totals together in a spreadsheet produced a different total to the running total in the planning document. Thinking myself terribly clever, I cunningly checked them against the actual number of words in the text, only to discover that that was a different total again.

So, the final word count is somewhere between 51,244 and 51,445, neither of which is shown in the chart below. (Chart made with LibreOffice and technical helpdeskry from the Caped Gooseberry.)

november

Not exactly the steady progress of the professional writer, is it? Allow me to decode.
First week: all went well. Knitting-in-order-to-think is a lifesaver. That spike on day four is largely due to the fact that I was editing a scene I pulled from the first draft, rather than writing a new scene altogether. It helps.

Second week: lower totals, but hanging in there. By this time, the Caped Gooseberry’s bronchitis was in full swing, and the completely missing day mid-week may not have been totally unrelated to a certain large country’s election results coming in.

Third week: Well. You see that tiny little snibbin of a blue dash, just above the 15? That’s Monday the 14th. 61 words. In my defence, I was shelled out of my bed just after midnight by a 7.8 earthquake and didn’t manage to doze off again until after dawn (for an hour or two). Despite the ongoing aftershocks, I decided I had to get some work done. 61 words was all I managed.

You might charitably suppose that the total emptiness of the following two days was due to ongoing aftershocks, but not really. Tuesday I spent in preparation for Wednesday, when I drove the Caped Gooseberry down the recently-reopened motorway to have his wisdom teeth out. (OK, I spent part of Tuesday in preparation. The rest was spent keeping an eye on earthquake updates.)

By Thursday of week 3 I was about 7,000 words behind, and starting to panic. I managed to write a reasonable amount in between changing the ice-packs on my dearly beloved’s distorted face and bringing him soft things to eat. Mercifully, on Friday I was able to use another section of the first draft (suitably rewritten) which did a great deal for the health of the word count.

From there it was just a matter of steadily trudging on, scene after scene, one bite at a time. What happened on Monday 28th I don’t know. It was a beautiful day, I felt good about the story, it was gathering momentum – and I just couldn’t get going. I scraped through 761 words in the morning, had other commitments in the afternoon, and spent the evening in that unpleasant condition where you know you should be doing something but you’re too tired and the more you fret about it the more tired you get. (And then you go to bed and lie awake for hours.)

Of course, I had a scheme of rewards planned out to boost the motivation: settling down with a book once I’d hit the word-count for the day (but not before); and three chocolate mint biscuits for each 10,000 word milestone. I also had three rules: make a pot of tea, commit the work to God, and think before writing. (I arranged for some plain knitting to facilitate this, resulting in approximately 4,737 stitches knit, though not all during thinking-time.)

Committing the work to God was a big one for me. I have been trying to make a habit of finishing what I start, and writing is an area where that wasn’t happening, despite my assurance that this is what God wants me to be doing. So for me, this was not just a test to see if I could do it, or a natty way of breaking the back of the second draft. It was an act of obedience. And as is so often the case with obedience, productivity results.

I am glad to find that I can be this productive, and I have every intention of carrying on with it. Not, perhaps, to the same extent (reaching 2,500 words per day involved a certain amount of robbing Peter to pay Paul) but something close. Maybe 1,800 words per day, or 2,000. The point is to be making steady progress (Exhibit A: Week 4, above).

I would like to leave you with these words from Randy Pausch’s book The Last Lecture: “The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”

November 18, 2016

Illness, Vintage-Style

I have, of late, been undertaking some unprofessional nursing: the Caped Gooseberry had his wisdom teeth out this week, and bronchitis the week before. (These things happen. Especially they happen during (PseuDo)NaNoWriMo.)

Unprofessional nursing… It sounds like the censure of conduct that should have been professional and wasn’t, but in fact a good many people in this world undertake such work in caring for a loved one, either temporarily or long-term.

These days it is termed ‘caregiving’ to make the distinction that nursing is done by nurses, but it used to be considered that nursing the sick was nursing the sick, regardless of the qualifications involved, and many household guides had advice for these only-to-be-expected times in life.

Take, for example, that worthy tome, Whitcombe’s New Everyday Cookery, published in 1966 by Whitcombe and Tombs. (My copy, one of the “35oth Thousand,” has my mother’s maiden name inscribed on the title page.) Chapter XXXVI is entitled ‘Food for the Sick’, and it begins with a section of advice on sickbed room-service. For example:

“3. Serve only small portions daintily, and so encourage a flagging appetite.
4. Vary the method of service by changing the linen and china and by placing a small posy of flowers on the tray. Linen must be well laundered and scrupulously clean, china and silver well cared for.”

All very well, although it does suggest rather a lot of dish-washing and laundry will be involved in Keeping Standards Up. While my dearly beloved did get a variety of linen and china in his bed-bound meals, that was more because I hadn’t washed the last lot than from some angelic wish to put a bit of spice in his life. Posies there were none.

Where New Everyday Cookery really excels itself, however, is in the suggested dishes. Most of it is sensible enough: soft, easy to digest foods etc. However… Things I would not like to see on my tray, were I sick, ill or invalided, include a raw egg beaten up with a little sugar, sherry and cold water; gruel; beef tea (which contains about a teaspoon of actual nutrition per half-pint, according to Florence Nightingale); and fricasseed brains or sweetbreads (with white sauce, presumably by way of disguise).

Especially not the fricasseed brains, although I might well make a sudden and miraculous recovery, if the alternative was to be eating brains (fricasseed or otherwise, and with or without white sauce). I feel enough like a zombie when I’m sick, I don’t need to eat brains to enhance the illusion.

Needless to say, I did not inflict these horrors on the Caped Gooseberry.

Aunt Daisy’s New Book of Handy Hints is also an invaluable vol., and also published by Whitcombe and Tombs, though it doesn’t say when. Prices are given in shillings and pence; and my grandmother’s maiden name is inscribed on the cover. (Answer: 1951, according to Te Ara.)

While Aunt Daisy doesn’t mention the nursing of the sick (apart from recommending a brisk massage of pressure points with neat meths to avoid bedsores), she does include a number of First Aid hints, not all of which would be looked upon with kindness by the medical authorities of today. For example, if someone drinks a corrosive poison, soothe the burnt membranes with something bland, like milk or egg-white – and then “a little brandy for a stimulant.” If there is one thing I would not like poured down my throat after a corrosive poison, it is brandy, little or otherwise. Ouch.

Aunt Daisy also suggests liver tea for anaemia, made by pouring warm water over minced liver, steeping, and then adding marmite, pepper and salt. This can be made palatable, she argues, if you heat all the utensils before you use them. Personally, I have my doubts. For neuritis, she recommends neat lemon juice, first thing in the morning, which would at least take your mind off it!

But it’s Eileen Ascroft, in her book The Magic Key to Charm (first published 1938) who really takes the cake for vintage sickbed advice. While she doesn’t touch on the work of caring for a sick person yourself, she has plenty of advice for women in those difficult times of life when it is harder than usual to show your inner charm.

“Change your nightie every day and keep your curls brushed and combed and tied up with a pretty ribbon to match your nightie,” she advises. “Keep a soft big baby shawl to cuddle into when you are alone and a pretty, fresh dressing jacket for visitors or when the doctor comes.” Like this one, perhaps?

“Keep the skin of your face nourished with face cream and your nails prettily manicured.
If you can’t do them yourself, nurse will be only too pleased to do them for you.” One can only assume she is not talking about a hospital nurse here; I am sure they have much better things to do with their professional qualifications than give people manicures.

She does, however, suggest that you give up worrying about how people will cope without you and just enjoy the chance to rest and relax. After all, “it gives you time to pause in your life and think where you are going… to take stock of yourself and make plans for the future. So lie peacefully and dream and plan for your career, your home, your husband, your children, your clothes, your hobby, your interests, your games and your future behaviour.”

Once you are convalescing, she recommends improving your mind by reading the newspaper from cover to cover, reading the latest books and catching up with your correspondence. And keep your hands busy: “Embroidery, sewing, knitting, crochet, drawing or painting – there are a dozen exciting things to do.”

After all, if you’re going to be ill, you might as well enjoy yourself.

What are your tips for sickness in style – or unprofessional nursing?

December 21, 2013

December: A Sense of Faith

Confession time: I didn’t think when this year began that I’d be able to withstand another year in the Dreaded Day Job. I cried, I begged, I pleaded, I fasted and prayed – and I stayed stuck. It was like fighting with the Tar-Baby – the more I fought the stucker I got (and like the Tar-Baby, He say nuthin’).

Twelve months on, and I’m still at the DDJ, and none of the myriad resignation letters I have composed in thought have yet been set to paper. (A question for any employment lawyers out there: what’s the legal status of an employee who sends in several different resignation letters in one envelope?) But the year has not been wasted.

During the year I have worked through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. (Although I did miss some exercises due to a bout of ~~zombieism~~ bronchitis and I did get a couple of months behind at one point.) This has involved fun things like starting a scrapbook, playing with bubbles and making a jester’s hat. Less enjoyably, there was the dire Week Without Reading. Never Again.

While I haven’t been exactly religious in my observance of the ‘basic tools’ of the Artist’s Way – morning pages and Artist’s Dates – I have used them, and found them useful. One of the best things about the Artist’s Way is that it’s adaptable – not everyone has to do it the same way. It’s alter-to-fit, not One Size Fits All (which it never does).

The exercises for Chapter 12 include restorative and expansive tasks like mending something (in my case a summer dress that I can now wear after 18 months in the mending pile) or repotting a plant. I have brought home Bob the Parlour Palm (named after my favourite Simpsons character) and am on the lookout for a larger pot for him.

In the meantime I shall remove the freesia bulbs which ended up in the same pot (long story) and give them a taste of the fridge. For some reason they sprout in autumn, bloom in winter and die off in spring. Are they hemispherically confused?
I dare to dream that bringing Bob home from the DDJ is just the beginning of the longed-for ritual of Cleaning Out The Desk.

I am becoming unstuck. (Not in the two-sandwiches-short-of-a-picnic way. I think.) I wouldn’t say that the Artist’s Way is the key to creative freedom and the solution to all your problems, but it’s helped me push the boundaries of what I thought possible in my life – and to my delight, some of the boundaries give. (Although they do need to be pushed pretty hard…)

I am glad I did the Artist’s Way, and perhaps someday I shall do it again. But for now, I’m going to look back with gladness – and look forward with hope.