The Little Bugger

I'm not referring to my cutie pie toddler or the gigantic bumblebee trapped inside our screened-in porch that I need to free; the little bugger in this case is this darn flu bug I can't shake off. First it started off as a stomach virus last week that had my little girl throwing up for a few days and me trying my hardest to keep it all in for the sake of the baby growing inside me. Thankfully it wasn't the Swine Flu (or H1N1 strain as they're starting to call it). Then the virus left and in its place a flu bug now plagues my daughter and me with horrible coughs and head colds. Other than increasing our intake of vitamin C and tea, we're just sitting by waiting out the storm. The recent news of the swine flu came after we were sick with the stomach virus, but it is quite alarming how quickly a flu strain can travel.

Our little visitor, however, brings to mind how our world treats illnesses with the use of antibiotics and flu shots. Unfortunately it's an arms race between antibiotics and infectious vectors, like evolving bacteria, and between flu shots and flu strains, like morphing strains of viruses. Do we elect for the preventative band-aid or not?

I constantly wonder every time my daughter is sick, which isn't too often thankfully, how to treat her. How will the treatment affect her now and in the long-term? Are proactive measures really good for her future?

Spinning off on this idea as a writer-mama, sometimes my writing is sick. A particular piece of writing may get stuck in a rut full of text or a character or a direction in the plot that just isn't working. How do I shake the little bugger off? Was there something I could have done before hand to prevent the illness?

Time is the first step towards healing a manuscript. As a perfectionist too often impatient to see a manuscript completed, I have to step away from the piece of writing for a long time. Time away (weeks, even months) helps the bug to fester until I return to the writing and then it's so obvious to me what is wrong with it.

Then it's time to extract the bug before it evolves or morphs into another problem. This requires extreme editing. Not just chopping out a few words here or there, but working on the entire backbone of the writing. Sometimes I have to begin rewriting the entire thing from a new angle with a different voice.

Is there anything I can do to prevent a writing piece from falling ill? The two things I've learned that work for me are outlines and brainstorming. Whether I am writing an essay, article, or story, an outline gives me guidance to follow after giving everything (characters, plot, timeline, etc) a lot of thought. Brainstorming involves research, character descriptions, possible writing styles, etc.

Thankfully bugs and viruses in writing are easier to treat than those in our bodies; however, trying to treat a little bugger in our writing and in our bodies at the same time is not a simple task. Treating flu strains in entire populations is even harder, and I pray this swine flu doesn't reach pandemic levels of seriousness.