This morning, for the first time in many weeks, I thought about doing pushups while I was doing my stretching. I didn’t do any – I want to have full voice for two days before I get back to working out. (And my voice is still slightly rough this morning.) That I felt strong enough today to think about doing pushups is a really good sign.

I’ve been sick since Christmas Day, almost three full weeks. All the words of the current novel, about 26K, have been written while I’ve been sick.

Am I worried about that? Concerned that there’s going to end up being something wrong with those words or this book?

Not in the slightest.

Let me explain why.

I just went back and counted. This is my 37th novel. (WOW!!!) So not my first rodeo. I might have a clue about what I’m doing.

I’m writing this novel pretty much into total darkness. I have no idea what the next scene is about, much less the next sentence.

This novel is complicated – there are a lot of moving parts. Three races of beings, who each have their own magic system, their own governments, their own biology. For example, the stone people have no gender. Their chapters are written with the ze/zir/zirs/zirself pronouns. It isn’t automatic yet, but it’s a lot easier now that I’ve gotten further into the book.

You might think that keeping track of all of that would be impossible while I’ve been sick. There are a couple of things about my writing process, though, that make writing this complicated a novel easier.

First of all, I cycle. Every day before I start generating new words, I go back over the words I wrote the day before. I remind myself where I am in the novel, as well as get myself back into writing mode.

Now, some days, I’ve been more sick than others. I’ve only produced 500 words or so. Those words do tend to be rougher. I’ll end up spending more time going over those words, making sure that every sentence makes sense. Other days, like yesterday, were easy. I did 3000 words in about 2 hours. There’s one section that my writer brain is niggling at, that I need to go over again, but other than that I think those words, for the most part, will be fine.

The other thing about my process that makes writing while sick easier is that I’m really comfortable with writing into the dark.

For me, that means that while writing, I sink deeply into the character. There’s no conscious work going on. It’s all unconscious, all back brain, all creative voice. Generally, until I cycle back the next day, I can’t even tell you what I’ve written. Some of the high points, sure. But creative brain adds a lot of details that I don’t remember until I go back.

While I’ve been sick, it has been the conscious brain, the one that has to try to keep track of things, that has taken the hit, as it were. The back brain is still working just fine, at least when I have the energy.

One of the things that I did for this novel (trilogy) was to write out the three creation myths for the three people (wind, stone, sea). I firmly believe that a people’s creation myth informs that people in both subtle and obvious ways. For me, in some ways, those creation myths are the outline for the story. They inform every choice that the characters make.

When a character proposed X as a course of action yesterday, while on the one hand, it surprised the hell out of me, on the other hand, it’s completely correct, based both on that character as well as the creation myth for that people.

Would I find it more difficult to write while sick if this wasn’t the first novel and I wasn’t making up everything on the fly? Say, if this was the third novel in a trilogy and I was trying to tie all the threads together?

I thought about that this morning, and came to the conclusion that writing the third novel in a trilogy while sick would be just as easy as writing this first one. Again, it’s all back brain. It’s all unconscious work. While there are threads to tie up, my back brain has been working on those problem for however long I’ve been writing the novels. All the solutions are already there. I just haven’t discovered them yet.

Writing the second novel might be trickier while sick, just because it’s that weird stretchy place between the beginning and the end. Except that, again, back brain would have already solved a lot of the issues that need to go on before I got there. I just have to get out of the way and let creative voice do the work.

Every novel, I pick a particular technique to practice. This novel, I’m working on a lot of heightened emotions and dread. Despite how immersive this novel is, I want you on the edge of your seat the entire time. You know something bad is coming. You feel uneasy, can smell the smoke on the air, can hear the drums in the distance. But you don’t see it, and probably won’t see it until I hit the 50K mark. Plus, there are things that the other people are doing, the sea, wind, and stone people, that will leave you uneasy as well. It’s all good.

I don’t know if this helps anyone. As I’ve said before, my process is pretty unconscious, so it’s difficult to write about, difficult to articulate what I actually do. I figured being sick gave me another lever to pry back the curtain with.

I hope that your Wednesday is going well!