Pushing Through It: Writing With Chronic Pain

I have been struggling with pain for years. Dealing with being forgetful and blaming it all on, “I’m getting older.” I don’t think you can use that excuse at 36. I’m usually the type of person who keeps their struggles to themselves, but I’ve recently discovered that sometimes sharing your experiences can help other people who are going through the same thing. This page is all about being a resource for other independent authors. I want it to be a space where you can find help and advice for all of the struggles that an independent author might face and one of those is writing through illness.I suffered for years with the pain of Fibromyalgia before I finally gave in, went to a Doctor and received an official diagnosis. I wrote a blog post about how living with it day to day made me feel and was surprised with the response I received. The problem with Fibromyalgia, as one of the readers, pointed out, is that it’s not just all about the pain, it affects other areas of your life as well.

For about a year, I started to have what people call the Fibro Fog. My brain just completely stopped remembering anything. At first, I wrote it off, lack of sleep, mom’s brain, getting older, I always had an excuse. Then one day, I had my kids in the car, and I couldn’t remember how to get home. I was scared, scared enough that I finally saw a Doctor.

Today, I’m writing this post, and my hands are killing me. They feel like I’m trying to write with two hams attached to the nubs I call arms. There is no posture or height correction that will help, it just is what it is. There have been days where I just can’t do it. I sit at my desk and everything from my feet up will start throbbing. My concentration begins to wane, something that I have to fight to keep on a good day, and I know I’m beginning to lose the battle. Today, I am losing the battle. On a good day, I can write a thousand words in an hour, sometimes less. On a bad day, like today, I struggle to write three hundred. I lose focus, forget words and have trouble recalling where I was going with a thought.

Writing The Most Important Thing, was no easy task. Most people, “normal” people have enough problems writing a novel. This added a whole new level determination to my life. I had to find a way to work around my pain and lack of memory. To deal with the pain some days I wrote it out by hand, on good days, I typed, but there were some days where attempting to do either was too much. I’ll be honest, on those days, I hated myself. I doubted my ability and everyone who believed in me. Overcoming my memory issues was an easy fix. I outlined everything. I wouldn’t have to worry about remembering where I was going or what had already occurred in the story with an outline sitting beside me. That outline saved my butt on the days where I couldn’t even remember the characters names.

I’d love to end this post on an upbeat note, something that tells you; you can do it. I know you can, but I also know that it’s hard, and it requires determination and discipline above and beyond just getting your butt in the seat to write. You have to want to finish it. My Fibromyalgia tells me every minute of every day that I won’t, but I say, “Yes, I will.”