Migraine Stops Play

OK, it's been a minute. This is why it's so challenging to keep up a regular schedule when you're disabled and have a lot of comorbidities. I shifted my planned publication schedule to Friday, the day I often spend on things that aren't necessarily paid (think Ph.D. corrections). Then I had a cold for the whole of last week, compounded by a three-day migraine starting on Friday.

I could write a book on how hard it is to live and live well when you're also unexpectedly sick like that. I ran through all my Sumatriptan over two days and was still taking paracetamol on Monday. So that was a whole bunch of no fun. Since I've spent the last ten days feeling dreadful, I don't have much to say about life other than, "Aren't migraines awful?"

Except for this one thing, this thing I've been trying to get to for so long. I've finally figured out the ending of the novel I've been planning for at least the last year.

Note: this is the first time I've plotted first and written second. I used to have a bit of a beginning and a bit of an ending, and then I'd write from one to the other. This time, I'm making a conscious effort to plan, think about characters and how they should develop and change, and consider how the novel should look in its final form.

In the past three months, I've entirely revised the main character, who she is, and how the story progresses. This meant adjusting the central point of view, which also changed the whole structure of the story. I had some big scenes initially but trailed off toward the end, and all I knew was it had to be BIG.

Another note: I have real problems with writing fiction. In my head, it's associated with many terrible things that happened to me in my childhood, teens, and twenties. My brain has a hard time with the idea of me having... well, ideas. I've been fighting this for a long time but felt I couldn't talk about it. So, um, here I am talking about it, vaguely. I'll explain more when I feel more confident about how I'd like to explain it.

Anyway, after this last migraine, as I came out of the weird, warped thinking that seemed to go with all that pain, I suddenly started working through the novel's crisis and climax. I have no idea what it will be called or how I'll be able to write it. But in an hour, I suddenly saw how the novel should play out from beginning to end.

So... yay! I even have that most precious of things, a mirror framework. This is where the crisis/climax scene at the end mirrors a big, significant scene at the beginning. I think I've got the essential MacGuffin, although I'm still working on that. One step at a time, migraines permitting.