Giant spells and magic pills: writing blogs and novels, taking beta-blockers for migraines

Writing blog posts is like casting a small spell. I detail a development in my life and then publish it. The publishing makes the development real. It is recorded for posterity (whatever that is). I can’t back out or slide back. I have placed my foot on another rung of the ladder.

Writing novels is like casting a giant spell. You write what you want to happen, or even what is happening while you are writing (the real and the imaginary lives are hard to tell apart), but neither takes effect until the novel is published. The publishing is a vital part of the spell.

Unfortunately.

Because I’ve worked in publishing, I’m loath to entrust my baby to it. Is it ready for the commercial world? Is the commercial world ready for it?

But it’s got to be done.

And, yes, I’ve finished the latest draft of The Novel, and now I have to try and get it out there, somehow.

With the completion of The Novel I decided that I really had to do something about my migraines as, for the last few years, I’m been feeling ill most of the time. It’s become a vicious circle. I’m stressed because life is piling up while I’m too ill to do anything about it. I’m depressed because I have to back out of so much ‘in case it gives me a migraine’. I’m exhausted by the illness. And the stress, depression and exhaustion lead to the migraines. They are both the cause and the result.

I’ve had migraines for forty years and for forty years I’ve pursued the complementary way. I wanted to deal with the migraines myself. It didn’t seem right to take some magic pill. They started for a reason and I needed to find out what that was and mend it. Taking a magic pill, say the complementary therapists, only stores up trouble for the future.

Well, I’m 64. When does my future start? How much future do I have? I want to be well NOW. I need something to break me out of the vicious circle and show me a better way to live.

‘I want to be completely free of migraines,’ I said to Frog this morning. ‘I don’t ever want to have to be thinking “I can’t do that because I might get a migraine”.’

    ‘It’s like a parent,’ he said, ‘holding you back all the time.’

Which is a very interesting thought – since that’s what the novel’s about.

As I said, it’s hard to separate the real and the imaginary worlds.

So, 10 days ago I went to the doctor and she prescribed me beta-blockers. And I’ve sent the novel to a couple of publishers.

. . .