Do you ever have a week when you’ve got more to do than you’ll ever fit in and there’s not a lot of time and it’s all the best work, then fun stuff but you don’t feel well and the world world becomes too much so you sit down with a big cup of tea and watch Captain Scarlet? That’s me. Today. I’m not well and I’m busy and it’s all stuff I want to do…
I have until Thursday afternoon to finish the conference presentation. It’s about how I used my ethnohistorical self to devise a perfectly formed lost culture of magic for one of my characters. I get to talk about magic! And history! And my own writing! I’m talking about the cultural contexts of the magic in The Wizardry of Jewish Women. Demons in lemon trees. Home made amulets. That sort of thing. Except that it’s not ‘that sort of thing’ – I created a complex magic system based on the history of magic, specifically, Jewish magic that my character would have inherited. You can trace where her family lived for about 3000 years if you look at the crumbs of magic I left along the path of the novel. I’ve learned a lot more about the history of Jewish magic since then, and could now create more characters with quite different family heritage and give them all equally Jewish magic.
The truth is that I’m not well. I used to simply take time off to get over the illness-hump, because I get them all the time. Right now, though, I’m busy. I’ll be busy until next June. I love being busy, but I’ve not had to handle so much work alongside the illness since pre-COVID. That’s why I’ve been watching Captain Scarlet. I used to learn new ways of dealing with things by taking long walks or by dancing for two hours. I’ve learned that watching certain types of TV gets me that same thinking, the sort that will change my world because it must. What has Captain Scarlet done for me today? I know I shall include a reading in my presentation and that I shall record the reading for Patreon. I shall also give my patrons some of my coolest research photographs this month, which means I don’t have to write the new fiction I have no time for. And I shall write 700 more words tonight and my new book will reach 50,000 words. I have to finish with all the books on my table (about 40) and have them away before I need to use the table for anything but cups of tea, and those 700 words are the first step in this process. They will also free my brain, because I have 3 essays and that paper t write tomorrow.
Another way I deal with illness is by rewards. The days shopping is delivered, I have potential treats, which I cannot open until I have done the essential work. Tomorrow is such a day, and so IO shall write 6,000 words. Captain Scarlet taught me all this, so it must happen… after a cup of tea. One of the difficulties with my illnesses is staying hydrated, so tea comes first, and stretches and the gentle exercise that will get me back the mobility I had until I tried dancing last week.
It will all work, one gentle step at a time. Until I took that time and admitted just how unwell I am this week, I felt as if the world hated me and as if nothing would ever be finished. This is the single biggest reason for admitting things are impossible and for sitting down in front of the television with a big cup of tea. Light watching and big cups of tea help me find the distance I need to handle the otherwise impossible. Wishing life were kinder is not nearly as effective.