Thoughts on writing

I am the kind of person who follows the rules. I take some risks, but they usually aren't big risks and the consequences aren't dangerous or serious. (As far as I remember.) In fiction, I often create characters who are serious, rational, have absolutely no desire to procreate, and don't take crazy chances. Of all the things they are likely to do, something that is embarassing or childish is pretty much last on the list.

Today, I read some Horatio Hornblower where he takes a huge risk, although it is well thought out. Would I have written such a thing? Would one of my characters have done something so daring, illegal, and slightly rude? I also read a very good and funny Mass Effect: Andromeda fanfic. I suck at funny. I don't really make jokes, so I envy people who write clever quips and funny stories. The characters were being so childish. I know I wouldn't have written anything like that, sadly.

I'm going to be writing a D&D fic soon, and my husband has been helping. The characters we have made are so different from my usual characters. In part, this is due to their stats, which are from a game I ran years ago. However, there are lots of personality traits added by Joel that are going to move me away from my usual seriousness. I wonder if just changing the characters will be enough to add some humor and risk-taking to my writing. It would be convenient if it did. Maybe writing different kinds of characters will help with future character creation too.

Interestingly, the upcoming story about 16th century Portuguese capturing the Malaysian city of Malacca that I will also be writing already has all kinds of crazy risk-taking and other extreme behavior. I'm going to have to reverse engineer some of the characters, since I know what they did but not what they are like. Anyway, I'm interested to see how my writing changes with these upcoming works.

Being Alone and Cortisol

I woke up this morning at 4:40 with the beginning of what I think is an IBS attack. I read for a couple of hours and then went back to sleep. When I got up, I remembered that loneliness is associated with stress (I don't feel lonely), and sure enough studies show that being alone is linked to higher cortisol levels. There was another mention of DHEA in there, which I have seen mentioned before, so I decided that since I had already canceled going to tai chi to give myself more time to rest I would go and have a blood test done. I had them test cortisol, DHEAS, and insulin. I'm really interested to see what the results will be.

I haven't gotten this sick previously when away from Joel, although then I was with someone else. I still was miserable and symptomatic, but not vomiting and in pain. So, like a pet or child, it seems that I'll have to have a me-sitter come and just be in my space so that I don't get worse. Of course, I actually enjoy being alone. Interestingly, I'm not feeling a ton of anxiety, just pain. I had read that phosphatidyl serine doesn't actually decrease cortisol. It just helps the body deal with it better. It might be that I need an actual cortisol blocker. I'll talk to my endocrinologist at some point about it after I have done some more testing.

For my reference, here are some studies that might be useful

• https://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/450608
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3951407/
• https://www.nature.com/articles/1395805