{"id":54906,"date":"2025-11-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/?p=54906"},"modified":"2025-10-31T21:04:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T20:04:59","slug":"i-think-im-coming-down-with-a-cold-my-editor-will-be-pleased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/?p=54906","title":{"rendered":"I Think I\u2019m Coming Down with a Cold. My Editor Will Be Pleased."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Cartoon<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sneezing season\u2019s upon us, the mid-autumn malediction of coughs and sniffs which sets most Germans slipper-shuffling and clutching hankies to their faces. Being a Brit, I tend to skip this soggy ceremony, not wanting to rely on calendars and cough sweet adverts for my infections. However. Seems I\u2019ve a twinge in the tonsil arena that\u2019s more than the aftermath of a poorly chewed pretzel. I feel my sinuses starting to fill, have that \u201cheady\u201d feeling. The bed\u2019s more appealing than usual. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meaning? Here\u2019s what writers do: we\u2019re professional smooshers. We magpie what\u2019s lying around \u2014 sentences, sentiments, tropes \u2014 and push them together, chewing corners if we have to, using force if we must. The best of us range far and wide over cities glittering with stuff. We nab and hoard and stitch and shift until we\u2019ve reams of narra-fabric ready for our readers. It means we\u2019re often distracted. Everything catches our eye. Everything except the thing we\u2019re working on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So? So colds make damp squibs of our minds. They can\u2019t energetically entertain a hundred new ideas. They can barely draw a straight line from coffee to couch to computer. Ideal conditions for getting just one thing done. A dull thing. A deadline. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drink my second cocoa of the day and see what it\u2019s like to work with one eye shut. Maybe I can rest half my brain while the other half gets on. But which half? I\u2019m editing a manuscript, so I need the analytical bit. I remember from teenage reading that that\u2019s the left hemisphere, and because our brains are contralateral, the left brain steers the right eye. So I leave that one open and shut the other, giving right brain the afternoon off(*). <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I squint at my manuscript, I recall that in my 20s I read that the left brain\/right brain dominance business was bullshit, much like the Women are from Venus and Men are Martians madness. I smile, close my other eye as well, and consider myself enlightened. I begin to doze(**).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere between sleep and slime I hear a voice: get back to work<\/i>. It\u2019s an unwelcome voice, and furthermore, I don\u2019t recognise it. I counter with Stranger Danger<\/i> and move my head to a less congested position. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The voice intrudes again, and this time I think I catch a glimpse of a polished cosh. I reluctantly dutifully open my eyes, wake my laptop, and resume. How many more pages do I have, anyway? Don\u2019t look. Distraction.<\/i> I advance, line by line, reading aloud. I enjoy myself. There\u2019s a peace to being freed from the burden of overthinking by the ballast of congestion. I simply don\u2019t have the energy to be a constellation. I settle for being a star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, my editor will be pleased. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(*) Yeah, not quite that simple. The left hemisphere may drive the right eye\u2019s movement, but visual processing itself is shared by both sides: all the left-field stuff (for both<\/i> eyes) is processed by the right hemisphere, and vice versa. Want an info dump? Here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/span>\u201cIn vision, retinal ganglion cells undergo partial decussation at the optic chiasm, where axons from the nasal retinas cross to the opposite hemisphere, while axons from the temporal retinas remain on the ipsilateral side.[14][15] As a result, visual input from the left visual hemifields are processed by the right hemisphere’s visual cortex, while input from the right visual hemifields are processed by the left hemisphere’s visual cortex.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Wikipedia, \u2018Lateralization of brain function<\/a>\u2019.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(**) That is, do Z<\/i> e: apply yourself to the exponential growth of Z: go to sleep. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sneezing season\u2019s upon us, the mid-autumn malediction of coughs and sniffs which sets most Germans slipper-shuffling and clutching hankies to their faces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[214,289,209,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-54906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cf","8":"tag-city-fables","9":"tag-flu","10":"tag-leipzig","11":"tag-writing"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54906"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54908,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54906\/revisions\/54908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}