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My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

Writing About Writing Returns (We're BACK!!)

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System Rebooting… …

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Hello!

It seems I'm now a cancer survivor. 

Well, there's a little more to it, and I'll include an update with some medical details on Thursday—and, believe me, a couple of them are pretty gnarly. 

I just wanted to make sure folks know that I'm through surgery, through the make-you-loopy pain meds, through the can-barely-feed-myself phase, through the holiday season, and ready to bring Writing About Writing (and Not Writing About Writing) back online. Thank you all so much for your patience these last three weeks. It was literally the worst thing I have ever gone through, and I'm so excited to get back to writing.

Unfortunately, this isn't a switch to flip, and suddenly I'm 100% back to normal. It's a non-linear process, and I have been wrong so far about almost every prediction (both what I could do and couldn't do). Neither is my treatment exactly "over" in the strictest sense. (More deets on Thursday.) So an update schedule might be too ambitious for a while and things might be a little hit-and-miss as I transition back in. 

  • I'm not going to do that thing (that I've done so often in the past) where I don't "count" writing as work because it can be done from a relaxed position. 
  • I'll be working up to full speed instead of jumping into the deep end, so expect a slow ramp up. It might be a couple of months before I'm running at full steam (longer if I need chemo, but more on that Thursday).
  • This slow ramp up will affect my ability to post on my Facebook Page as well. I'm back (and thank you so much to a wonderful assistant who kept some content going while I couldn't so y'all didn't forget about me), but it's going to be a while before I'm churning out the memes quite as fast and furious as before.
  • I'm probably going to be running several guest blogs in the next few weeks to try and keep some content going but take the pressure off of me. It'll be a bit more than my usual "maybe-once-every-couple-of-months" pace.
  • It might be a while before I can hit my pre-surgery posting speed (and even longer before I get back to where I was before all the health stuff started that I eventually learned was cancer). I still have lots of follow-up appointments, ongoing therapies, and some further diagnostics, and every one of those is a half a day's productivity lost.
  • I usually do some end of one year/start of another updates before I jump back into my regular blog stuff, but that takes a couple of weeks even when I'm posting four or five times a week. So this year I'm going to trickle them in or I would still be at it by mid-March.
  • I'm going to lean a bit more on posts that I always worry are "fluff." Most readers seem to like them, but I always feel a little guilty if they go up at any time other than when I've been slamming out high quality content for days (so like…not since the pandemic started), but now I'm going to need some lower impact days on the regular.
  • I will need to make more appeals posts than I usually do. I really try not to be a content creator that passes the hat every post, but my medical bills are REALLY adding up. (I'm already in the mid-four figures at this point, and that's A) not counting the surgery itself or the hospital stay and B) JUST the medical bills, and not the incidental stuff around the surgery like lost work or hotel rooms for grandparents who came into town to do childcare.) And folks are still asking me how they can help. [I promise the answer is going to be a couple of bucks if you have it or becoming a Patron if you can.] I'll go back to my old appeals post rate of once every month or two soon enough. It has never been my intention to spam people or guilt them beyond what they are able to give freely and joyfully in support of my work. However, in while I'm looking at bills that are twice my monthly income with a twitch in my eye, and while I'm facing down algorithms on social media that can, for months, keep even an active reader from even KNOWING that I crowdfund, it might be closer to every couple of weeks.
What I'm saying is that things might be erratic and a little different than our update schedule for a while. And they might take a little while to get back to the pace we're all used to. 

But I am back. I survived. And I have so much more to say….er….write.

8 comments:

  1. Great to see you! So glad you have posted! I'm glad you're working on a plan to keep your health paramount. Happy New Year!

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  2. Appreciate all the laughs you’ve provided and look forward to all of those to come. Thank you for being you. Stay positive and may you bounce back swiftly!

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  3. Take your time - happy to see you back in whatever capacity works for you. Blessings!

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  4. Welcome back!
    As someone who has had a slow recovery from major surgery, I like to remember: two steps forward, one step back isn't regression, it's a cha-cha

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  5. I'm really, genuinely, redundantly glad that you're back, and that you're taking it easy on the way to full productivity.
    Please, continue to take care of yourself.

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