It’s been a while. I am running pretty low on energy at the moment. Some brief thoughts on that:

Every time I want to write a character with my disabilities, I come up against the same problem. It’s just… not very fiction-worthy. Where is the interest in a character who takes naps after any strenuous activity? How do I dramatise a constant but only slightly elevated pain level? Where is the action in what is inherently a lack of action?

Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi—at least in my interpretation—uses extended metaphor to reflect the author’s disabilities. Our protagonist doesn’t have chronic fatigue, not exactly (though he does have some form of disassociative amnesia/brain fog in the text, which often goes hand-in-hand with ME/CFS). But he has been stuck in a strange labyrinthine House for 20 years, separated from his friends and family. He has lost all sense of his former self. He is trapped, and unable to get out of it.

It was only on my second read of the book—and only after I found out that Clarke collapsed in 2005, was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, and didn’t release a book for almost two decades—that the story of Piranesi clicked into place. He’s just like me, for real! He’s a way Clarke can explore what it is to lose yourself for 20 years—and, without spoiling too much, what it is to start to try to return to your former life.

This is a good way to do it. But I fear it has now been done, and Piranesi is one of my favourite books ever. I can’t top that! So what do I do? How do I reflect the most important facet of my identity in my writing?

I don’t know, but I think that sometimes, it happens unintentionally. I’m currently writing the story of a character who has died and is coming to terms with being a ghost. I didn’t think about this through a disability lens until about 10,000 words in, but now it seems obvious. She struggles to use her body in its new, weaker state. She struggles against her new limitations. She mourns her old life, whilst she is still able to find moments of joy and love in her new one.

It’s certainly dramatic.

All that is to say, sorry for being absent recently. I’ve been struggling, but not in a very interesting way! If you want to find me, I’m in bed. No epic adventures, no dragons1. Just sleepy times, and quiet times, and books, and at least some ghost-like qualities.