What would you be doing if you didn't have to write?
I'd like to say something very wise and insightful about the nature of work or productive effort or something, but the truth is I don't really know. I feel like I have so much less energy and so much less ability to think about anything for any length of time outside of work that my creative/social life has contracted to the point of near nonexistence.
I think I probably just wouldn't write. I wouldn't write because I want to write, I'd write because I can't not write.
This is a fairly unique situation for me. When I was in college, before I got sick, I always had a lot of free time, and I always used it to write fiction or do other kinds of creative work, because I wanted to and it was fun. But as I've gotten less and less functional, and been more and more reliant on very small doses of stimulants (30-60 mg of bupropion per day) to not be bedridden, I find I'm often too tired or too depressed to do even the smallest possible thing. Writing is the closest thing I have to an exception to this rule, and as a result is a lifeline, one that I may not be able to survive without. (Yesterday I was in a state of pure exhaustion and depression and I wrote because I thought I'd fall apart if I didn't. Since I wrote this post, I've given in to the urge to sleep and I feel like I've been cured, at least temporarily.)
I have no idea how this'll play out. I'm still working on the novel, but it's taking a long time. Since I really don't know what I'd do without it, I'm in a position of chronic uncertainty about it, and I'm constantly asking "if this isn't working out, what then?" (I don't know why I'm asking you about this. It's not like I'm looking for advice or anything.)
