Technical Difficulties

So.

After two years of wandering disconsolately from specialist to specialist like the bird with no feet, I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

ON THE ONE HAND, this is a relief. It means I have a name for why I feel tired and achy and depressed all the time. (And, yes, it probably started cascading back in 2010, when I broke my ankle.)

ON THE OTHER HAND, I'm trapped in a good news/bad news joke. The good news is, I'm doing everything right. The bad news is . . . I'm doing everything right. Diet, exercise, sleep, biofeedback/mindfulness, etc. I already take the most commonly prescribed medications for fibromyalgia for the RLS. There wasn't very much the fibromyalgia specialist could recommend, and I appreciate that he was upfront about it.

(Additionally, because this is the internet, and I know how the internet works, please assume that I have already explored my options thoroughly. I am grateful for good wishes, but I do not need advice.)

So I find that I have to rethink a lot of things. This is not the person I wanted to be at 42, and I'm trying to figure out how to manage myself to get closer to that person, who writes stories and plays music and rides dressage and loves what she does. (And who answers email. Jesus Fucking Christ.) My principal focus is on my writing, because for most of my life if the writing goes well, everything else goes well, too, and hence this blog's new name (all the content from Notes from the Labyrinth is here; I deleted my LJ account, but I did not burn down my blog), because I am in fact experiencing more than a few technical difficulties. As I have the energy to spare, I'm going to try to blog about them, on the theory that other writers and creative persons may be experiencing some of those difficulties themselves, whether because of fibromyalgia or for some other reason.

(Book reviews will continue as they have been.)

We do the best we can with what we have, and this is what I have.

So, one of the pieces of writing advice I tend to endorse is the idea that you need to write every day, or as close to it as you can manage. And I still think it's true, or at least helpful, to think of writing as something you have to practice frequently and regularly, like music or baseball or dressage.

But I swear to god I had no idea how hard it is.

I knew about how hard it could be to find the time, especially if you have the pieces of a real life to try to assemble around it. And I knew how hard it could be when you felt like there were no words in your head, even when you had time to write them down.

I stopped blogging last year because of tendinitis in my right thumb (and, yes, that word really is spelled correctly, wrong though it looks) and carpal tunnel issues and the fact that my day job was all data entry. Thumb and wrists have improved, especially if I am NOT STUPID; temporary day job, being temporary, ended in November, and I am still waiting for another assignment; it seems like this would be the perfect time to write things: An Apprentice to Elves, for example, or Thirdhop Scarp, or any of a score of other projects.

But then there's the Restless Leg Syndrome, which revved up about the time my day job ended and has been relentless ever since. I learned in 2010 that creativity and RLS exist in inverse proportion to each other; in 2012 I learned that not only does RLS scour the creativity out of my head, but on the occasions when I do manage to write something, or to think seriously about writing something, it also deploys the worst of all the inner voices any writer (or artist or musician or anyone who loves what they do) can be afflicted with, the one that says, That's stupid. No one wants to read that. God, that's just puerile. This isn't working. The more words you put into it, the worse it's getting. Stop before you destroy whatever good you'd managed at all.

I know that voice is a liar. But I'm also tired and stressed and unhappy (see above re: neither job nor writing), and you know, that write every day advice seems smug and self-satisfied, and dear god don't you think I would if I could?

My RLS specialist and I are working on adjusting my medications. I am trying to get the things done that I can and not to beat myself up about the fact that right now there are things that I can't.

But it may be a while before I'm blogging regularly again. Thank you for your patience.

60 minutes. 36 laps, plus 1 helping the lifeguards get the lines across the middle of the pool for the free swim. So, 37 laps.

304 miles, 26 laps.

I am exhausted from being unable to sleep and having to get up early for the electricians, and because I'm exhausted, I'm depressed. Can't write, either, which NEVER helps. So I'll stand here in the rain and feel sorry for myself. Probably I've already lost my tail and just don't know it yet.

Today has not been one of my better days. Depressed, disheartened, misanthropic. And my uterus decided that what would be REALLY FUN tonight would be unscheduled, unannounced, and copious menstrual flow (for certain values of "copious" which I realize are a mere nothing to some women). However. I did exercise. And I paid the quarterly taxes--which did not exactly help with the disheartened and misanthropic part. (Dear Federal Gummint: LIVIN IN THE FUTURE, UR DOIN IT RONG.)

On the unambiguously plus side, the experimental bread (two cups rye flour, two cups whole wheat flour, two cups and change white flour) has turned out rather shockingly tasty. Hopefully, it will turn out to be good sandwich bread also, and then I only have to work out how I think I'm going to store three different kinds of flour, plus oats.

And now I have 1,000 words of wolves to write. As the man in Ngaio Marsh says, Excelsi-bloody-or.

I need to write a Storytellers Unplugged post today, and I cannot for the life of me think of a topic. Anyone who wants to offer one will be hailed as a Hero of the Revolution. Anyone whose idea I actually use gets a statue in their honor in the Square of the Glorious Dawn.

---

Many thanks to sasha_feather and jesse_the_k and the two other people whose LJ names I don't know for coming to the Q&A yesterday. I appreciate an audience. *g*

---

I am told that I have four stories listed in the Honorable Mentions of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror XXI: "The Bone Key," "Listening to Bone," "Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home," and "Under the Beansidhe's Pillow." Two of those are Artist's Challenge pieces (thank you, elisem!). The other two are from The Bone Key, and since "Drowning Palmer" actually made the cut for YBFHXX, I guess I can feel pretty good about that collection of stories.

---

I am Eeyore today. With possibility of emo. I find this very tiresome.

Also? I do not need to dream about being exasperated with people. In the unlikely event that I have an exasperation deficiency . . . well, that's what Al Gore invented the Internet for.

---

Q: ( spoilers for The Mirador )

---

The poll winner seems to be The Emperor of the Elflands. Which, by a happy coincidence, is--of the three--the closest to being finished. So I guess I'd better get to work on that GAPING PLOT HOLE. Tra la la lally.

---

ETA: cristalia has saved my bacon this month. However, since I'll have to do this again next month (and the month after that and so on and so forth), please feel free to offer more suggestions for things you'd like to see me write about.

ETA 2: and blogged