If you've been following this blog for a while, you've probably noticed that on occasion I will talk about how I've been late with a post or gotten less done than planned due to a bad headache. In my case, "bad headache" generally means "migraine." Now, thankfully, these aren't the completely incapacitating, "12-hours of crushing, vomit-inducing pain" migraines I used to get when I was a kid, but they are, according to my ENT, that type of headache.
What does this have to do with writing, aside from the fact that sometimes my left eye socket hurts too much to focus on a screen? It occurred to me this weekend (a substantial portion of which I've spent laying down due to a "bad headache") that I have several stories where characters are affected by similar issues.
In Bright Fire, the main character's brother suffers from migraines and chronic sinus and ear infections (though they don't call them that). In Brinyor, the main character's little sister and mother suffer from sinus headaches like this - which means that she knows what to do when a friend of hers is dangerously ill and their healer doesn't know what else to try. Her grandmother's remedy for this type of sinus issue ends up being an important clue to something else later in the story. I have another story I haven't started writing yet, but have a solid story-line in my head, where the main character is a young queen who has identified 4 distinct types of headaches that affect her; the story begins as she develops one of her weather headaches as a "storm of the century" moves in. Later when the same symptoms return, she realizes another monster storm is imminent in time to get people to safety.
Oddly enough, the last story above is the only one in which the main character suffers from these kind of headaches (though Bright Fire has issues with being inexplicably cold, which is another issue I have).