Last Friday, I wrote about my messiness of mind, how my head was clogged with a substance that is described by such an unpleasant word (mucous–ick), and how it was affecting my normal activities.

Today, I was pondering ideas for blog posts.  I pulled out my cute floral mini-notebook wherein I keep precious ideas and found some notes I'd scrawled last fall under the title of The Headache, or How to Write Through Anything.  Thought about it for a minute, and realized that's what I do.  Write through anything, to the point that I should probably give myself a break once in awhile.

I was plagued with headaches for years.  Years and years and years.  But as I've gotten older they've eased.  I quit smoking a dozen years ago and that helped.  And I'm careful to do all the things that I know will help keep headaches at bay, like drink a ton of water every day, eat enough protein and forego sugar.  I'm not always so good about that last one, but well, life's short.

But when I think back to those days when I had a searing headache nearly every day, I'm amazed.  Because of that annoying habit of soldiering through mentioned above, that's what I did.  Soldiered through.  The doctor (this was back in the day when I still went to traditional physicians) put me on beta blockers which slowed me down so much I hated them.  And he gave me a prescription for Midrin, which knocked out headaches and sometimes also me.  Once on a visit to Victoria, B.C. with my family, I sat down in a chair in the Roots store after taking Midrin to wait while my daughter tried on clothes.  Minutes later she ran across the store yelling my name, and tried to catch me as I was blissfully sliding out of the chair onto the floor. 

And yet still I wrote.  Probably its what saved me. 

Back when I was a beginning writer, I read a book that said you had to write every day.  The author went on to describe how the night before he'd had a bit too much to drink and that morning he felt like crap and yet nevertheless, there he was sitting at his computer, writing the very book I was holding in my hands.  And I remember groaning at the thought of trying to write with a hangover. 

And yet I have.

And I bet you have, too.  Because that's what we writers do.  We write.  And even though the title of this post promises some information on how to write through anything, I'm pretty much guilty of false advertising.  Because I don't really have any thoughts on that, other than this one:

You just do it.

If you have any pithy thoughts on the topic, I'd love to hear them.

Photo by goroo, from Everystockphoto. I'm pretty sure I've used it before, but c'mon, its so awesome and perfect, how could I resist?