If you intend to write as many novels as I have, you must master the art of efficiency. Admittedly, my ability to write while sleeping needs more work, but I do succeed in spending nearly all of my waking hours either writing or in some other creative pursuit.

However, when I fall ill, as my fair Alexis recently did, I come dangerously close to falling off of the productivity wagon. So, to ensure that I waste no time shivering and blowing my nose, I put together a sick day survival guide, which allows me to expand my creative horizons, even as my body slowly deteriorates.  

Illness: Allergies

Treatment: Suck it up and write (don’t be such a baby)

Illness: Appendicitis

Treatment: Study Frida Kahlo paintings (notice how much more you identify with her pain and suffering)

Illness: Bronchitis

Treatment: Watch Star Wars; Lord of The Rings (they hack each other with swords and light sabers while you hack up a lung)

Illness: Common Cold

Treatment: Read Raymond Chandler; Dashiell Hammett (when clouds fog your brain, beat them to a Pulp)

Illness: Fever

Treatment: Study surrealist art (fever dreams compliment melting clocks and apple headed businessmen nicely)

Illness: Gun Shot Wound

Treatment: Do lots and lots of pull ups, ala Demi Moore in G.I. Jane (I can only assume Beckett’s recovery time consisted of brutally aggressive workout regimes)

Illness: Migraine

Treatment: Close your eyes and wish you were somewhere else (strengthen those imagination muscles!)

Illness: Mono

Treatment: Consume Romeo And Juliet however you see fit (kissing loses its appeal when accompanied by certain death)

Illness: Stomach Flu

Treatment: Listen to The Grateful Dead bootlegs (let Jerry Garcia’s masterful chords guide you as you rush to the bathroom)

Illness: Strep Throat

Treatment: Watch The Godfather; Apocalypse Now (they’ll leave you speechless anyway)

Illness: Surgery Recovery

Treatment: Listen to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz on mute (the drugs are legal, make good use of them)