The Isolation of Storytelling

Creating content in a vacuum isn't for everyone, but my chronic illness constantly reminds me that it's my only option.

I was born sick. This isn't a tragedy so much as it is a fact of my life; the good Lord saw fit to make me this way, and while I'm not happy about it, I do have to live with it.

I was also born to tell stories. I've been obsessed with storytelling since I was a little kid, and the natural progression of reader to writer has felt like second nature. From fanfiction to poetry to original fiction, writing is as much a part of who I am as my chronic health issues are.

Which is why it's so infuriating that the two are often so at odds.

This or That?

Creative energy is something I have never had in spades. While I reblog the funny memes on Tumblr about how I either write 11k words in a single sitting or nothing for three months, inside I'm crying as much as I'm laughing. Because not only do I have to get my mental health to cooperate, my physical health has to keep up too.

And lemme tell you...it doesn't.

It's not just my creative output that worries me, but my business prospects as well. As a writer who wants to be traditionally published, the expectation is that I'm active on Twitter, where publishing lives (yes, really!). But Twitter is...well, Twitter, and I don't have the energy to talk about my WIP in snappy tones, let alone constantly promote myself and my work. (And, also, I'm neurodivergent and constantly feel like I missed the day in kindergarten where they handed out the "how to be a person" handbook, so the anxiety around public interactions is real.) And yet I know that there will possibly come a time where - God and publishing willing - I have a book deal, a publishing pipeline, and will thus have to promote myself.

YIKES.

So yeah, if you're wondering why I randomly vanish from Twitter, now you know.

The thing that gets me is that there are times that I do have the energy to tell stories, write columns, engage on Twitter, etc. And when that energy comes, I try my damndest to bank as much content as possible so people have something of mine to enjoy.

But sometimes I wish I could always be that person. I want to be wildly, insanely inspired to write at all times – or, at the very least, at more times than I am, and maybe even the same amount as my not-chronically-ill counterparts.

In a Vacuum

I wrote a Twitter thread once about how my writing process can either be palatable to others or helpful for me, and I stand by that. (There'll be a blog post about it eventually!) That said, there have been so many times when I wish I had it in me to share what I'm working on with the world; I'm proud of what I write, often very excited about it, and getting other people as invested as I am is one hell of a drug.

Plus, I'm used to the world of Archive of Our Own, where comments and kudos provide a microdose of encouragement. But that's a blog post for yet another day.

My point is that it's often frustrating to feel as though I can't share what I'm working on one day because the next day may find me without the energy and stamina needed to be consistent. It's not laziness or ineptitude. Just my body being my body.

So while I do want to tell stories, and while I do tell them often, I tell them in the quiet spaces between what my brain and body can do. It's maybe not enough to make me marketable or interesting, but at least for now, I think it's enough.