Bill, I Believe This Is Killing Me
The Seasonal Affective Disorder is really fucking with me this year. I’m on medications, which helps, but not really.
See, the Paxil means that it’s not slamming me for ten days. I’m feeling okay for a day at a time, and then the SAD slips in and WHAM. The whole afternoon vanishes because I’m just sitting here crying and breaking down and I don’t know what to do.
With the old SAD, it sucked, but I got used to it. A constant suck was horrid, but I could adjust, keep working, get everything done. This is a horror show where I’m okay, I’m okay, then suddenly I’m through the trap door. And I can’t handle this.
I’m struggling harder now that it’s lessened. I honestly don’t know what to do. And I guess maybe that’s not what a blog is for, but I try to chronicle my existence and today I was about to get back to work and then I was all like, “I shouldn’t be trying to sell The Upterlife. I’m reading Saladin’s book, it’s so much better, I’m an awful writer, no agents are interested anyway and it’s just going to be a long slow haul to the inevitable stop of my talent, yes I lucked out once with the Nebulas but this book isn’t it and it sucks and I should just toss it away and hope the next one is better and oh God why am I bothering it takes so much fucking effort just to get anything halfway decent.”
How can I work like that? When I’m just assaulted by ghosts?
I don’t know if this will help but I believe in the Upterlife! And I believe in the next one too.
As for the rest…it does suck. I do not have any deep insight except that I hope you hang in there through this really fucking annoying period of up/downness.
I frequently stall out as a fiction writer which is one reason I’m not finished, but one trick that does help is moving location sometimes – as long as it doesn’t have ‘net access. 🙂
For what it’s worth, I think you’re good, and I hope you get through this batch of SAD soon. Feel better. If there’s anything I can do, holler at me.
When you’re assaulted by ghosts, your main responsibility is to defend yourself, not to work. You’re an involved, productive person, and when you need to take care of yourself, you should do so. When you can’t work, you shouldn’t.
I thought The Upterlife was a solid read. It reminded me of Sheckley’s Immortality, Inc. in a good way. If it’s put into the public eye, it will find an audience. I recently read a couple of brief excerpts from Saladin’s book; you’re on crack, dude. Unless there are subtleties in his work that are only revealed on a thorough reading, he is not your superior. Period. I don’t lie about this shit.
That’s all I got, dude. Just crawl over the dunes to the next oasis, that’s all I got.
Get your ass to a medical professional and tell them the Paxil ain’t working. I know it’s not fun, but you’ve gotta. I’ve gotta, too, every so often. Tell you what: I’ll keep slogging if you will.
Oh, and *toss water bottle* have this ’til your next oasis.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this post since I read it yesterday. Since then nothing particularly profound has occurred to me to say, but I thought I would comment anyway, just to say, hey, you’re fabulous and I’ll read your novel when it’s published. I was blown away by the 3 stories you had on PodCastle and Escape Pod recently. Writing and publishing your first novel is such a damned morass. It would swallow you up sometimes even if you didn’t have SAD. Stay strong. People you don’t even know are thinking good thoughts for you.