The Cookie or the Cigarette?

 This is why I so enjoy going down the rabbit hole of research.

In my work in progress, one of my characters, Lawrence, third footman, started out as a Welshman with a lilting voice, in his mid-20s.

A problem arose. I had set my story in Sussex, England in the year 1917.
England was in the middle of WW1. And draft age was between 18--41. So why wasn't Lawrence off in the trenches?

(I had to raise and lower the ages of several other male characters.)
I chose asthma. That was one of the few ailments that would keep him out of the war.
So much for the lilt. But I could work with the short breath and wheezing of an asthmatic. He's an excitable boy, prone to conspiracy theories.

But then I thought: how did people treat asthma in 1917, well before modern inhalers?
I researched, and found an answer: CIGARETTES.

Yes, cigarettes. Proust used them for his asthma, as a matter of fact. From a letter to his mother:
"Yesterday after I wrote to you I had an attack of asthma and incessant running at the nose, which obliged me to walk all doubled up and light anti-asthma cigarettes at every tobacconist’s I passed, etc. And what’s worse, I haven’t been able to go to bed till midnight, after endless fumigations, and it’s three or four hours after a real summer attack, an unheard of thing for me."

But these were not nicotine delivery devices. They were medicine delivery instruments, mainly stramonium cigarettes. Datura stramonium (also known as jimsonweed), a type of flower akin to deadly nightshade, has anti-spasmodic properties and relaxes the air passages.

One brand which first came on the market in the 1880's (and remained there until the 1950s) was Page's Inhaler Cigarettes:

Memory is Iago

 

“I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.”—Othello

I’ve been feeling my bones lately. No, not as in “I can feel my achy old bones,” but literally, beneath the skin. It’s partly because I’ve lost a great deal of weight this past year, due to the good offices of GLP-1 and long daily walks. (It’s also because, as we age, our skin loses collagen, literally becomes thinner. Yes, old folks really are “thin-skinned.” Don’t mess with us.)

And it feels … strange. I don’t remember my bones being right beneath the skin, in such intimate contact. Specifically, I’ve been feeling my rib cage. I’ve come to think of it as a cage—not metaphorically, but literally. It’s a cage that holds the heart and lungs not only for protection, but as a prison, the beating and the breath. Think about that for a minute. Your heart is actually in a cage, like a wild animal, pacing back and forth, unable to roam free. Think of the mighty breaths we could take if our lungs were not knocking against the breastbone! Metaphor is destiny.

What about the mind?

I’ve never bought into the ghost in the machine theory. The mind is not separate from the body, like an air traffic controller directing traffic from the tower. Duality is a myth meant for little kids. Every part of the body is essential. I am my body.

The brain doesn’t sit on a throne, signing executive orders. It goes out to visit every cell in the body through its neural network, like the caliph Harun al-Rashid in The Thousaand and One Nights, going out among his people under cover of the night.

Or, more aptly, the body is a democracy. Every part of the body is in communication with every other part through the exercise of bioelectricity, electrical potentials and currents generated by every living cell. The brain only makes these messages conscious, clothing them in words. When Walt Whitman sang the body electric, he knew what he was talking about.

As Michael Pollan puts it in A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, “the brain exists to keep the body alive.” It’s servant, not king. Trust your gut. Follow your heart. Vote with your feet. These aren’t just sayings. They’re directions.

The brain is literally reformed, rewired with every experience. You’ve got a contractor working in your head who never finishes the job.

The Case of the Editor's Error

 So I should mention that I have a new (self-published) short story available now on Amazon as an ebook.

Ta da!

"Dr. Watson discovers a problem in The Final Problem, and unveils the real murderer of Sherlock Holmes."

It's 99¢, which is highway robbery for a 19-page story, but I'm still test-driving KDP and they wouldn't allow me to price it any cheaper.

Eventually I'll probably be able to price it at a nickel-ninety-five, but for now, if you'd like to fill my coffers and read a fun little story that pits Dr. Watson against Arthur Conan Doyle, now's your chance.

Armistice Day

 I want to let you in on a gold-plated investment. And you don't have to pay a dime. It's my own private holiday, scheduled for March 17. That's right, tomorrow. No, not St. Paddy's Day, though I've got nothing against the wearin' of the green.

It's Armistice Day.

It's got nothing to do with the war in Iran, or any war, except my personal wars, your personal wars.

It's the day I forgive anyone any wrong they''ve done me in the past year. I lay down my sword and shield. I shed the weight of all those grudges.
Does this mean forgive and forget? No. To forget can be dangerous. You can let yourself in for further wrongs, further hurts.
But it does mean giving up playing those hurts over and over in your mind, indulging in revenge fantasies, crossing the street when you see them coming toward you.
It means shirking the work. Doesn’t that sound nice?
And you'll find it harder to form those grudges in the first place, knowing they've got an expiration date.

And here's a bonus: while you're forgiving that person who's hurt you, or forgiving the world that's wounded you, you can forgive yourself, too. Give yourself a break. Don't forget what you've done to hurt other people, you have to learn from your wrongs, so you don’t repeat them. But forgive. It doesn't help to beat yourself up.

Set down all that baggage. Straighten your back and move on down the road with your load lightened.
Armistice Day. Yeah, it's a thing.

 

Character as algorithm

 

If you’re a writer, you’re familiar with this phenomenon: a character takes on a life of their own, dictating to you what they will and won’t say, will and won’t do. What the hell, you say. I brought you into this novel world, and I can take you out of it.

Well, yes—but that’s your only choice if a character gets uppity. Kill off the character, or delete them. You cannot discipline them.

Why is that? Why can’t you do whatever you want with a character?

Because a character is essentially a set of rules you’ve created. An algorithm, to use a despised word. A series of nested if…then statements that guide the character’s actions.

Take my old friend Sherlock Holmes, for instance. Here is rule number one of the Holmesian canon: Holmes solves puzzles. 

Corollary: he solves them with his mind, not his fists.