Contemporaneous: Chapters’ 4 & 5
4. This is too much too soon. It’s terrible structure. If I was editing this, I’d say there’s too much negative focus on Lana, and not enough of whatever the relationship was before. There’s no balance. It needs balance to introduce the characters and my world, although there’s no real plot – there is, sorta, in my head, although I don’t know how well it’ll be realised until my death, but more of that later, too. The morning’s a simple routine: some stretches trying to get flexibility back into my neck and back, play my shots in Words with Friends (a Scrabble knockoff) as I brush my teeth, shower, and…
The Big Goodbye
It wasn’t long after I finished my typewritten novel that I started experiencing panic attacks. The first one woke me in the middle of the night, terrifying me, and leaving me seething with anxiety. I was sure something had broken inside my head. I thought the anxiety would run it’s course, the way a cold would, but it remained omnipresent. The nights became a horror; I dreaded the quiet, where the anxiety could just spill out into the emptiness. But, conversely, sleep brought the only refuge. Finally, I decided I needed to see a GP – just not my GP, who knew my parents well. I didn’t want to risk…