After a July so full of pain that I could hardly do anything, I've written two drafts of a new fictional project in August. I hesitate to call it a novel at a mere 185 pages but it could grow into one through future drafts. I didn't bring it up here to brag about it or anything. I'm bringing it up because I've been able to exceed my expectations by so much here in August and because of the topic. It's a story of love and loss due to a fictional terminal disease.
I'm a writer. It's how I self identify and how I choose to interact with the world at large. I'm also someone who lives with chronic pain. I've struggled with the idea of writing a novel about someone surviving my own illness and thriving but that just seemed like wish fulfillment. My abortive attempts felt more like times when I tried to write football stories with me as a star quarterback.
My favorite author, Stephen R. Donaldson, once wrote that he needs the connection of two ideas for a story to come to life. He calls those two ideas the familiar and the exotic. His most famous books are about a leper hero named Thomas Covenant who refuses to accept the magical land he's transported to as real. Donaldson wrote that his father was a specialist doctor in a place where leprosy was common so that was the familiar. The exotic was the idea of someone who didn't believe the story. That was the genesis of "Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever."
I liked the idea of the familiar and the exotic so I started off with the idea of writing about a sick and dying person. I thought that the exotic might be switching roles and having the sick person not be the protagonist. I would write about a caretaker who loved her instead but that wasn't exotic enough. There was one time when I believed that Melissa had cancer and the idea stuck with me long after cancer was ruled out and the real problem was healed.
The exotic came to me in the form of the "Twilight" books. Why not write about young love and focus my ideas on loving descriptions of people. Forget writing about real looking people! I needed to let myself write through the eyes of someone who had just fallen madly in love for the first time. There was also no reason to be realistic about the illness that's killing her. I needed symptoms that would make a reader wince. I also needed to write something to show how being disabled is okay in the eyes of those who love you. It may not be easy to care for someone like me but that doesn't stop Melissa from loving me.
My main problem with the "Twilight" books is that they promote the idea that a 17 year old can know exactly what she needs in life. I was sure I knew everything at 17 and I can't tell you how many things I had dead wrong. Therefore, I decided to play out a little dark fantasy of my own. If I were to die and leave Melissa behind, I would want her to be happy. In my moments of doubt, I wonder if it might not be better for her to find happiness with someone else now. That's just the doubt talking, of course. Why not give my healthy protagonist a happy ending of sorts.
Since he's not the disabled one, why not make him a tiny bit of a hero? It was the "Twilight" influence again. Why not show that someone who is terminally ill holding the attention of the guy who is just a little tough? Why not mix in some action to ease the "in your face" morals of the story? I would have absolutely no problem with writing a commercial success, of course.
There's a moral to this story as well. I feel crappy again. One part of the trinity of surviving chronic pain is accomplishments. Therefore, I used my insomnia to be productive in between sessions of day sleeping and twitching and I wrote between severe pain attacks. Now I feel crappy but I'm still pleased with myself. It's easier to feel crappy after wearing myself out. It's too damn hard when I start off that way.
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