Being a writer with a cold is very odd because, for some reason, being sick makes it difficult to work on any writing projects. And that would be understandable and relatable if writing were a physically exhausting activity or a task that requires a lot of energy.

But it isn't.

Writing literally just requires sitting at a desk or on a comfy sofa and grabbing a notebook and some colored pens, or maybe just one of those newfangled fancy laptop machines. That’s it. There are no jumping jacks and push-ups involved and no speaking aloud in front of a crowd while wearing your Sunday best. You can literally just lie in bed all day and write while wearing your favorite pajamas.

I bring up such a specific topic because I had to go through this recently. I was just lounging around at home, enjoying my holiday break when one night I went to bed feeling a small insignificant scratch in my throat. The next morning, I woke up with a pain in my throat, barely able to talk, and my body tired and not wanting to move at all. All I wanted to do was relax and enjoy myself before the spring semester starts, but that was all ruined because of a stupid cold.

The New Year was just around the corner and I really wanted to start off 2017 with some furious writing but as my cold grew stronger, I just felt lazier and could not motivate myself to write. I pretty much just spent my days laying in bed watching Re:Zero on CrunchyRoll, getting up only to grab a new bottle of water in an effort to stay hydrated or to take a warm shower.

When I finally decided to make the attempt to write, I ended up getting extremely distracted. Sure, I got distracted by YouTube and Tumblr, but I was also put off track because I had to hack and cough every few minutes and I would fall asleep every other hour. Writing became an uphill battle against internal and external forces, like running a marathon in the freezing cold with a pebble in your shoe (okay, maybe that’s completely different, but you get the picture). In the end, I ended up writing for about five minutes at a time before succumbing to my affliction.

I eventually just accepted that I was not going to get any writing (or, at least, no quality writing) done and I just climbed back into bed and finished watching Re:Zero. Writing proved to be too much of a challenge while sick, but thinking about writing is a whole other story. Laying in bed all day and night gets boring and there is only so much anime that I can watch without becoming a complete weeaboo, so I would take some time to just lay around and think. I would think about writing. I would think about future articles for Odyssey (I have several drafts in Google docs) and I even came up with some pretty interesting ideas for new stories and character designs.

Fortunately, I have finally gotten over my cold...kinda. I still have to cough every now and then, but I have my energy back and have gotten back into the habit of writing. I have no idea if others have a similar experience with writing while being sick. I might be the only one who has trouble with doing such a relaxing task as writing while having a sore throat and a runny nose. Hopefully, this article was not at all relatable and you do some fine writing when you are sick. I really hope so, because writing is fun and I do not want any of you to miss out on such a fun activity while you are in bed with a cold like me.