State of the Mris report

[mrissa]

So I realized that I had not put this clearly anywhere: the vertigo has been quite bad since Christmas. I had hoped that it would get a bit better when I recovered from my cold, but it has not. I am going to the neurologist soon, and when I do, the likeliest outcome is the same meds I’ve been on before, which are fairly effective but which (among other side effects) make writing somewhat harder. (Still possible! But somewhat harder.)

In the meantime I cannot drive, which complicates alllllll sorts of things around here.

So. Combination of these factors means that I am trying to get a whole book’s worth of revisions done before I go on the meds. Brain is not cooperating–the good kind of not-cooperating, the kind that is generating lots of new material for other projects. Still. Focus required. Revisions required.

And the upshot of that is that you shouldn’t be surprised if you don’t see me on social media for the next week and a half, two weeks or so. I will probably be ignoring Facebook and Twitter completely and checking in with lj less frequently (once or twice a day rather than having the window open and refreshing when I feel like it). I will still do my midmonth book post so that I don’t fall behind (yes, I recognize that that only matters in my own mind), and I’ll be checking my email, because, well, email. If you’re someone who has long-duration correspondence with me just for fun, though, rather than topical timely communications, don’t be surprised if my long-duration correspondence pieces don’t arrive very much before the end of the month.

Determination, go.

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

That is the pits. Will you be able to drive after the meds kick in? I hope so. Revise on, dude.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I hate to make categorical statements in this area, but I've always gotten back to the point of being able to drive in the past, so I have every reason to think it'll happen this time also.

(I am at the moment unable to sleep due to the dizzy. Guess what contributes to dizziness? Yes. Exhaustion. WHEEEEE.)

[brooksmoses]

There is perhaps a pun to be made there about that causality loop going around in circles, but I shall merely suggest its existence and instead offer condolences. This sounds like many kinds of no fun indeed.

And, though I know it is basically the sort of thing one has because there is not much alternative, I admire your determination.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There really is not much alternative, so thank you for taking that into account.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope your brain cooperates enough to get your revisions sorted in a comfortable timeframe.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[teadog1425.livejournal.com]

Ugh - sorry to hear this and hope that things improve in a timely fashion!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear this! Do whatever you can for the most important things in your life, and we will see/read you gladly whenever that is possible.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Yay, revisions, focus, book fixing. I am fixing my book too! Not as much fun as generating new stuff, but necessary.

As for the meds etc, I don't remember the timing, but if it's a short patch of on the meds and harder to write, followed by a long patch of being fairly good and having the spigot, followed by a short patch of vertigo, rinse and repeat, that seems like something a person could live with if they couldn't have world peace and a pony.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's a bit more complicated than that: 6-9 months on the meds and harder to write, then a few months of getting my head back, and then an indeterminate amount of time of being fairly good and having the spigot, then the vertigo creeps back. But yes: it is a thing a person could certainly do. There are, as we have discussed in person, other life complications one is still trying to figure out. But the writing piece: this is a piece a person could live with, if world peace and a pony did not present themselves.

(The pony would want cleaning up after anyway. Hmm. Probably world peace would also.)

Also, the last time I was in a "bad, hard to write" period on the meds, I wrote ten short stories, of which nine have sold to good markets and the tenth still has prospects. Plus some parts of novels. So I also need to keep perspective that while I have it harder than some other people in the falling down the stairs department, some other people have it harder than me in what their difficult phases look like.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

So I read this and then I went into the kitchen to make rysmiel's sandwiches for work and I was thinking about difficult phases and how they are better than being stuck. This started quite sensibly as "Yes, I'd rather fall down stairs than be stuck," and went on into "I'd rather be tortured than be stuck... no, wait, it would be hard to write while being tortured..." and then I remembered Savonarola. Savonarola wrote a book in between being tortured and being executed, and as the way he was tortured was by having his arms repeatedly dragged out of their sockets, and as he hand-wrote it, this was even harder that it might have been. And in the book he explained how being tortured is useless because people will say anything, and recanted his forced confession and laid it all out again, clearly, even though he knew he'd be tortured again. And when, after they had tortured him again, they took him out to burn him, they said they were casting him out of the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant, and he said they only had the power to do the first and not the second and they said "Oh. Sorry." Honestly, that man was a saint, I don't care what anybody says, and the only reason he's not considered to be a saint today is because it's the heirs of the people who were torturing him who get to make the decisions on that. Savonarola should be the patron saint of people who keep on writing despite difficult circumstances.

(Ada gave me a gelato maker for Christmas. When E saw it, on an incredibly cold day, she said "Now you will never have to go outside the apartment again!")

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The thing about falling down the stairs, though, is that you can't guarantee that you'll only make yourself uncomfortable. You can't guarantee that this won't be the time that you get a head injury that knocks out the writing completely. I mean, I'm a good fall-er. For someone who does not do stunts for a living, I am probably six or seven sigmas out on people who are excellent at falling down the stairs and doing themselves no permanent damage. (I may even be on a par with the stunt people for unplanned accidental falls down the stairs, which even they try not to do.) But you can't plan on it always going like that. So I really do sometimes need to choose the med and fall down the stairs less even if it makes me more likely to have to work through stuckness.

Also the longer I have serious bad vertigo, the more anxious it makes me--and pretty much everyone else who has serious bad vertigo, from what I read; it's just not good for anxiety management when the world does not have a reliable vertical--and the more likely that is to get to stuck eventually. So: choosing not falling down the stairs, yes.

And you are absolutely right about Savonarola and he is absolutely right about the Church Triumphant.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The whole vertigo thing really sucks. And I wasn't at all meaning to imply that I thought you were making a wrong choice.
You wrote ten stories and sold nine of them! That's not not-writing.... but it's a horrible position to be put in to even think of needing to make that choice.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for understanding that.

[guppiecat]

I am now wondering if the zero-G training that astronauts go through would be useful in helping someone with vertigo deal with the lack of a reliable vertical.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: the zero-G training that astronauts go through are for times when there actually is not a reliable vertical, not for when there is one and you are sensing it incorrectly. The two are not very similar problems.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Feh, and best of luck!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry that damned vertigo is still harassing you, but your game plan sounds excellent.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I was hoping that I would have enough time to get a serious bit of work in on the new thing too, but it's not looking like that, so I'll just have to see how it goes while on the meds.

[zelda888.livejournal.com]

I will still do my midmonth book post so that I don’t fall behind (yes, I recognize that that only matters in my own mind)

Umm. I pretty regularly give out your name as my favorite book reviewer. When people ask me for book recommendations, which they do these days with a frequency that surprises me, I will say, "Here are my three favorite novelists in the genre you mention, and also my favorite reviewer to help you explore more." I often buy stuff based on what you have said about it, and you can tell Tor or whomever that I said so. Plus they are good reading in themselves, and get me to do interesting mulling about what makes writing "good."

So I hope you mean that the *timing* matters only to you, because no, I am not watching the clock and being impatient for your posts at some specific moment. But the *posts*, they matter to more of us.

Wishing you well.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I did actually mean that the timing mattered only to me, but it's still awfully nice of you to mention the rest.

[blue-hat-guru.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[mkille.livejournal.com]

<3

[rosefox]

Thinking of you. If you ever want to vent to someone who understands this world-suddenly-tipped-over thing from the inside, feel entirely free to ping me.

As a lovely person once said to me, hang in there.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks muchly.