It's Been Awhile...

...i.e., also an occasional function of writing with a day job and/or other factors

So a lot has happened since I last posted. The big thing is that I was diagnosed with breast cancer and have started treatment. Six months of chemo, surgery, and then radiation and possibly more chemo. The cancer is small but aggressive, so my prognosis is great but we are taking a bit of a salt-the-earth approach to ensuring it’s fully taken care of.

As a result, my writing schedule has been significantly tweaked. I am writing more but in different places. Mostly I am journaling my feelings and writing small rough drafts of essays and poems. I’m still updating my main blog regularly and also maintaining a site to keep people in my personal life posted about what’s going on with treatment, needs, mental health, etc.

This is a good example of how even the best plans can be derailed and will need to be adjusted, especially if writing is not your main job/source of income. When this happens, it’s often seen (mostly by the writers themselves but also occasionally by a hater or two) as a failure or something to justify. I know my reason for pulling back here is legit, but I still had to fight the urge not to start this post with an apology for not living up to the promise that I made to post every week to the handful of you who read.

But even without a cancer diagnosis, this would have eventually happened. If not cancer, it would be some other life event or even just a particularly busy time at work that prompted a sabbatical.

It is common. It is normal. I would even go so far as to say it is healthy. To recognize the need to pull back and then actually do so instead of trying to struggle along and feeling constantly disappointed is a habit I have been working hard my whole life to master.

I think I’ve finally got it.

(Well, today, I’ve got it. I recognize that I may feel differently about it tomorrow or if my writing hits a bigger slump.)

My hope for you is that you give yourself both the space for creative pursuits but also the grace to adapt when needed.