We had one heck of a thunderstorm last night and I was glad I'd brought along my UPS. No writing accomplished but I'm increasingly convinced that one true cause of true writer's block is writing yourself dry. Just write and write and never do anything else and eventually you will have nothing left to say. It works for me, anyway.
Today, my Disposable Children will be under the knife and I am anxious to see how this is perceived. This is also our first day with Samuel Delany and I've heard he is really tough on his students.
Am I writing better than I was when I arrived? I haven't a clue. I'm writing more and I'm trying things I've never tried before without regards to whether or not this will be publishable.
My story about foster homes becoming comparable to animal shelters received very mixed reviews. I had to remove my hearing aids after the first round of critiquing on someone else's story because I had/still have another one of those potentially vomit-inducing headaches. The feedback from the hearing aids was fingernails upon the chalkboard for me. I feared I'd make a run for the bathroom if I didn't do something and thus I first turned them off and then removed them. This time, the headache is entirely on the upper right side of my face and feels very much like I've been kicked by a Clydesdale. It hurts. And every time I try to read the stories for critiquing tomorrow, I fear I'm going to vomit on them. I've spent most of the afternoon in bed and I'm somewhat glad that I bought along that cold pack. I think what I really need, however, is a hotpack.
My internal editor has now adopted the voices and forms of some of the Clarionites. I hope I can shake this after I return home. I already have too much difficulty tuning out the internal editor. It can stop me dead in my tracks if I listen to the voices which are making mutually exclusive statements. Too much description. Not enough description.
I am very much becoming an isolet again. I'm on the second floor and most people are on the third. I don't play Analog because my hearing isn't good enough to follow what's going on and thus I'd slow and possibly disrupt the game. There's an internal editor critiquing my personal interactions now and that one is really driving me batty.
For my next trick, I'm going to try writing a story in external third person. Maybe. I've got a long list of stories to do and things started. I'm writing for myself now. I have to. I just wish I could see an improvement. Thus far, nada.
I don't know if I fell asleep for a few hours or just finally passed out from the pain. At any rate, it was a relief. I woke not feeling like the Clysdale had kicked me. Instead, I felt someone had dropped the Clysdale on me from a height of about 50 feet. It hurts! But I had critiques to write and not feeling well is not a good excuse, imho. So I stayed up until midnight, took Tylenol, and did the best I could with them.
I plan to take the peanut butter with me tomorrow and buy untoasted toast. It'll tide me over as I suspect part of the problem is going too long without eating. I only had toast this morning. The other possibility is that I did have some candy earlier and I may simply be going through sugar withdrawal. I am absolutely not going to indulge in any more sugar products. I'd like to keep that Clysdale at bay.