Something totally different...

 

I feel like I ought to write about something completely different than I usually do, but I don't know if it is within reach of my imagination. Sometimes, when I just wake up and I am still groggy, I feel that I can write very fanciful things that are more interesting than any book you ever read. But that is when I am under the influence of my sleep medication and I still need a cup of coffee to get over the last bit of drowsiness. My mind wanders along all sorts of interesting roads then, with all sorts of tricky twists and turns and unexpected characters in the plot. But to tell you the truth, that story probably wouldn't make much sense when looked upon soberly.

 

On top of that, I am under the influence of that pain medication, and since it is pretty potent stuff, I can't trust the direction of my imagination at all. The good thing about it, is that it is working and reducing my pain along with making me feel good, so I absolutely have no complaints. I do seem to remember reading that the best novels were written while the authors were under the influence of some substance, so maybe I ought to give it a try now. If I could count on this pain medication being a long term thing, I might be able to write the great Dutch novel.

 

Somehow, I don't see myself as a great tortured soul giving her life to the fine art of literature, because I am not willing to suffer. I have already suffered without producing anything worthwhile, and I appreciate my hard-won sanity too much to give it up for a product of blood, sweat and tears. Besides, I am too fragilely put together to put it all at risk. If one of the skeletons in my closet would rattle, I would probably run a mile in fear, and wouldn't I want to write about those skeletons? I would disguise them, and give them different names, but they would people the landscape of my novel anyway. I would write like Ibsen and expose their suffering and guilt.

 

Speaking of substances, I think I am a woman who will always be dependent on one or two of them.  I have that kind of personality and chemical interference in my brain brings out the best in me. I am not the kind of person who can go straight and not have some sort of addiction fed. If I try to do without them, I am a most miserable human being. I may as well own up to that and not try to do something that is impossible and makes me attempt things that are beyond my mental reach. There is a reason for my addictions and being in denial about that is not the way to deal with them.