April 28, 2025 • 26 mins
How do we cope as writers when life hits us with illness, injury, grief, or overwhelm? This week, we’re exploring what helps, what hurts, and what’s at stake when we find ourselves "not-okay," and how we can navigate those challenges with care and creativity.
Thank you for listening! For show notes and a full transcript of this episode, please visit: https://www.sarahwerner.com/writing-when-youre-not-okay
You can support the show here: * Patreon: https://patreon.com/sarahrheawerner * Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/sarahwerner * PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/sarahwerner
Happy writing!
— Sarah
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is the Write Now Podcastwith Sarah Werner, Episode 167:
Writing When You Are Not Okay.
(00:28):
Welcome to Write Now,
the podcast that helps allwriters - aspiring professional,
and otherwise - to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm your host, Sarah Werner,
and I am recording thisfor you from my floor. Now,
this may not seem unusual to you - thefloor is a perfectly acceptable place to
(00:50):
sit. However,
I have recorded now over 150 episodesof this podcast (more if you count my
"Coffee Break" interviews),
and this is the first one I have donenot sitting in my office chair at my desk
with my recording equipment set up.
I instead have my recordingequipment here on the floor,
and I'm kind of sitting herehunched over my microphone,
(01:11):
the curved piece of audio foam thatI use as a little booth sort of
in a circle around my laptop,which is leaning up against it,
and then beneath it are a whole bunch oftowels so that you don't hear the flat
surface of the floor, so there'sno reverb or echo or anything.
I've got everything else I need - I'vegot my tea, I've got my Chapstick,
(01:32):
normal podcasting stuff.I'm wearing my headphones.
But it is all on the floor. I am sittingon the floor right now because it is
literally the only place thatI can sit and not be in pain.
Long story short,
I really messed up the musclesand tendons in my right hip,
and they are sort of in a bundledup place with the sciatic nerve,
(01:54):
which... I don't know enoughmedical stuff to explain to you,
but if you do anything to your sciaticnerve, you end up in a lot of pain.
Many of you listening to this actuallyprobably know exactly what I'm talking
about. But I've had thisinjury now for several months,
and it is steadily getting worse.
So I am going to a physical therapistnow, and I do that for the next six weeks.
(02:18):
And in the meantime,
I have all sorts of fun physicaltherapy exercises to do at home.
Now, not being a very athletic person,
this is not something I haveever really dealt with before,
and I felt a little bit like an imposterwhen I walked into the Orthopedics and
Sports Medicine Clinic.
I don't belong in the sports,
(02:41):
let's just say. I've had my share ofmedical things before - most of the
people listening to this right nowprobably have - but it's been a long time
since I've experienced anythingthis specifically debilitating.
Way back in 2015,
I recorded a Write Now podcast episodecalled "Walk It Off" (it's episode number
006 if you want to goback and listen to it).
(03:02):
But I talked about how if we ever turnedour ankle or anything, growing up,
my dad would have us walk it off.
And at the time I talked about how thisis also a great metaphor for what you
can do if you are stuck writing- go for a walk, move your body.
It's good for you.
But I'm at a place right now whereI literally cannot go for a walk.
(03:24):
I have not been outside except to goto physical therapy in weeks because
even sitting in a car is painful.And it's definitely changed my
relationship with mywriting and creativity,
which is what I want to talk abouttoday. What now feels like ages ago,
I spent my 16th birthday in the hospital.
I had extremely severe scoliosis andI needed surgery to correct it so
(03:48):
that my spine wouldn't growinto my heart and my lungs.
I was going to be in thehospital for a long time.
And so while I was packingbefore the operation,
my - I don't want to callit "naive" - my optimistic,
almost 16-year-old self packeda huge tote bag full of...
at the time, I was writing a novelin one of those three-subject,
(04:11):
spiral-bound notebooks. So I broughtthat. I brought a pile of books,
both comfort books andbooks I hadn't read before.
I brought a sketch pad andcolored pencils because I figured
I'm going to be sitting in a hospitalbed all day and what a great time to
write. So I went in for this verycomplicated spinal surgery where they were
(04:33):
grafting bone from my hips into myspine to make sort of one giant big
solid bone. And when I came out,
I woke up and I was dizzyand sick and confused
and sort of out of it in a hospital bed.
My mom had very lovingly unpackedmy things and had set up a little...
I want to say there were little flowersand cards and stuff from my friends and
(04:56):
family and all of that.
And amidst it all was a stackof the books that I had brought,
and my notebook for writing.And the way I felt at that time,
with IVs and needlesand drains and bandages
and sutures and all of that....
I remember looking at that stack of bookson the little movable tray next to my
(05:19):
hospital bed and just hating them.And I know that's a really
strong word. It was areally complicated feeling.
And also there was a lotof morphine in my system.
But I remember looking over at thatstack of books and I remember the books.
I had A Swiftly TiltingPlanet by Madeline L'Engle.
(05:39):
I had Dealing with Dragonsby Patricia C. Wrede.
I had The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Laing.
I even had an audiobook versionof The Hobbit on something like
12 or 16 cassette tapes.
And the whole time I was in the hospital- multiple days as I and learned
how to walk again - not once did Ifeel the desire to open up one of those
(06:02):
books, to pop in onecassette of the Hobbit,
or most of all to take out mynotebook and write. I remember
that feeling of lying there,
feeling weak and helpless and exhausted.
I'd never been so exhaustedin my entire life.
Even the thought of reaching overfor my notebook was exhausting.
(06:25):
I still think about that today,
because there's such a differencebetween how I feel now,
where if I'm lying in bed,
I want a book to read or a cassette tapeof the Hobbit to listen to or a movie
to watch or something to doto keep from getting bored.
But it was such a radicallydifferent experience in the hospital.
(06:46):
Now I'm talking about this notto gross you out or say, "Oh,
woe is me," or anything like that.
I'm saying this because we changeas the conditions in which we
live change. Somethingthat's important to us,
like writing or creating or reading,
might not even be a blip on ourradar in certain situations.
(07:09):
And in this life,
there are a lot of situationslike that - where your priorities
shift,
where you are just trying to survive.This can look like a lot of
different things to alot of different people.
Maybe you are in the hospital yourself.
Maybe you just came home fromthe hospital with a newborn baby.
Maybe you're not living inyour usual home right now.
(07:32):
Maybe you're staying with friendsor your parents or relatives,
or you're living out of a hotelor a community center or your car.
Maybe you are at your house,but you're on bedrest.
Maybe you're taking care of someonewho is on bedrest - a child, a parent,
a relative,
a friend. And maybe it doesn'thave anything to do with where you physically are
(07:52):
at all. There are so manyways for us to not be okay,
for us to be in a space where the thingsthat we usually love to do are the
furthest thing from our minds.
Maybe you've had a loved one passaway and you are dealing with grief.
Maybe you're dealing with a mountain ofdebt and it's all you can think about.
Maybe you're sick yourself withsomething temporary - or less temporary.
(08:16):
Maybe you struggle with chronicillness or chronic pain.
Maybe you deal - as so many of usdo - with depression or anxiety.
And maybe, somewhere deep downin your heart, you want to read,
you want to write; you want to do thethings that you used to love doing,
but feel so unthinkable now. Or maybeyou're looking at the world right now
(08:38):
and it just seems like a placethat is filled with so much cruelty
and malice and anger and greed and so many
types of human suffering.
You feel like the world is falling apartaround you, and everywhere you look,
there are just other people makingit worse. Maybe you're experiencing
(08:59):
several of these things at once. I waslaying in bed yesterday - or I suppose,
grammatically,
I was lying in bed yesterday - and Imade the mistake of going onto social
media. At first,
it was just to check mymentions on Facebook and Twitter and a few other things.
But inevitably, because thisis how the apps are built,
I got sucked into scrolling,and I started reading headlines.
(09:24):
And I remember after a while,
I shook myself out of it andrealized what I was doing,
because it's so easy tosort of thoughtlessly slip into reading headline after
headline - or, as it is called,
"doomscrolling". And I was layingthere in bed because I can't
walk or sit down, and I was tired ofsitting and lying on the hardwood floor.
(09:45):
And I remember thinking, "This is whatit's come to. I'm lying here in bed.
I can't walk. I can't sit at mydesk, I can't sit in the car.
I can't go for a walk outside. I can'teven stand and do dishes," which......
you think would make me reallyhappy because I hate dishes.
But all I could think about was, "Myhip is getting worse. And from here,
(10:06):
from my phone, from social media, itlooks like the world is getting worse.
And I'm lying here in bed and I can'tdo anything about any of it." And it was
such a moment of resonance because Ilooked over at my nightstand and there I
have a giant stack of books.
It's my to-be-read pile -my TBR pile, if you will.
And there are so many exciting-lookingbooks in that pile that I cannot wait to
(10:31):
read - it's the reasonthey're in that pile.
And I remember looking at that stackof books and feeling the same thing I
felt when I was 16 yearsold in the hospital.
That pile of books looked like a chore.
That pile of books looked exhausting.Now,
I think it's safe to say that physicalinjuries can wear on you mentally.
(10:53):
You can get into kind of adark place thinking about, "Oh,
am I ever going to be able to walkagain without pain" Let alone,
"How am I going to process this storyin my brain?" Let alone thinking about
your creative projects?
The idea of opening up anotebook or my laptop and doing
some creative writing was so farfrom my mind as I was lying in that
(11:18):
bed.Now,
I did feel that twinge ofguilt - the "I should be
writing" sort of pull, the "Oh my gosh,
I am just lying here when I should beputting in words on this thing I'm working
on." But aside from the anxiety caused by
expectation, aside from that pressure,
(11:38):
I did not have a desire to write.I know that as we get
older, we hopefully get wiser.
And I remember talking with a writerfriend a few years ago who was going
through a massive amount of griefafter the passing of a loved one.
And I remember asking her,"Well, have you done any writing?
(12:00):
Have you tried writing aboutit or journaling or tried any poetry about how you
feel?" And she justsaid, "No." At the time,
I had good intentions, and Ireally was trying to be helpful.
But now that I look back on that,
if somebody would've walked into my roomyesterday when I was lying in bed in
pain and despair, and theywould've said, "Hey, Sarah,
(12:22):
why don't you try journaling throughhow you feel right now?" I might have
thrown one of my TBR books at them.
I recorded an episode at the endof 2015 called "Creating in a Time
of Destruction". It's episode031 of the Write Now Podcast.
And at the time when I recorded thatepisode, I was still learning - well,
(12:44):
and I mean I'm still learning today,
and hopefully I will still belearning 10 years from now.
But in that episode, Iquoted Maxine Hong Kingston,
who very famously said,In a time of destruction,
create something." And it is a trulybeautiful and powerful statement.
And the idea is that, when timesare hard, when we feel powerless,
(13:07):
when it seems like the worldis crumbling around us,
we need to remember that we havepower, we have creative power,
and we can use that powerto respond to destruction,
to bad things happening,
in a way that is positive andconstructive. And I still believe that is
absolutely true today. We are powerful,
(13:28):
creative beings and the words thatwe write, the things that we create,
have power. Like so many other things,
they have the power to createand destroy, to harm or to help,
to wound or to heal.
Words have the power to exposetruth and shape the future.
They can help us process and healthings that are happening to us or have
(13:50):
happened to us.But I think it's also good to acknowledge,
with no small degree of empathy,
that if you are in avery bad place right now,
if you are not okay, I'm notgoing to tell you, "Well,
you should be writing." If you'rein the hospital or on bed rest,
I'm not going to march in and throwa notebook at you and tell you to
(14:13):
start writing because "it'sgood for you." And it is.
But I also now understandand empathize that we're
really complex,
and sometimes we just have to sit withsomething until we're ready to take
action,
until we're ready to dive into ourcreative power. And if you're not
(14:35):
ready right now, if you are in themidst of it - illness, depression,
anxiety,
some kind of life emergency - it's okayto take a deep breath - it's okay to
take several deep breaths! -and process where you are. Now,
if you do feel like writing,
if you know that writingwill make you feel better,
(14:56):
if you're in a situation where journalingout some of this stuff will help
you process it, then I definitelyencourage you to do that.
But I know that when you'rein the thick of things,
it can be really hard to know,"Should I be writing right now?
Should I try? Should I push myself?
What if I slide back into grief and Inever do anything ever again?" I want
(15:21):
you to know you're not alone. And ifyou're feeling some urge to write,
whether it is guilt-inducedor delight-at-your-project
induced, I encourage you tothink, before you do anything,
given how you're feeling andwhat you're going through,
what will writing give to you...
or what will writing take away?This can be time-wise,
(15:44):
energy-wise, emotion-wise,
and it can vary project by project.
You may have absolutely no tolerancefor the rom-com you were writing last
month,
but maybe a little bit of journalingabout what you're going through right now
could help you process whatyou're going through right now.
Or maybe you just need some escapism andyou need to set aside your journal and
(16:08):
write some fanfiction.This can be project-by-project,
because another thing I've learnedis that not all writing is the same.
Some writing takes energy, and somewriting replenishes your energy,
and it can do different things indifferent seasons. It helps, in my mind,
to compare it with reading. So there'sa big difference in reading a new
(16:31):
graphic novel that you just got foryour birthday versus reading a textbook
for a class that you are falling behindon. Those are both reading, technically,
but they are wildly different situations.
And reading in one is exhausting andreading in the other one is energy- and
life-giving. I've been thinkingabout this because with my own
(16:53):
situation, I've had to put my mainproject on hold for a couple of days,
and I had not realized howmuch of my self-worth and
self-esteem came from makingprogress on that project.
And I didn't know how different it wouldbe to try and work on it when I was in
a different physical and mental state.
(17:15):
And some uncharitable little nugget-partof my brain was saying, "What,
are you just going to stop writing onthe days when you don't feel like it?!"
That little nugget inmy brain is really mean.
It's really aggressive.I thought about it the other
night, too, when I was doingmy Create-Along livestream.
So - I've been doing Create-Alonglivestreams on Wednesdays and Fridays,
(17:39):
and you can visit my website for moreinformation on that (that's Sarah Werner
dot com - S-A-R-A-H-W-E-N-E-R dot com).
But I had to do my Create-Alonglivestream from the
floor, where I am now.
And about halfway throughFriday's livestream, I was like,
I don't know if I can do this. I don'tknow if I can sit here any longer.
(18:01):
I was in pain, I was feelingdizzy, and then I thought, "Well,
I made a commitment to be here,
and these people are counting on me."And I think there were only eight or nine
people there,
but I felt like I needed to haveintegrity and follow through on what I had
said.And I thought about, "Well,
there's this streamer that I like towatch who even streams when they're sick,
and you can hear it in their voice,and maybe I should try to be like them,
(18:24):
who streams no matter what." Andso in the moment, I just decided,
"I'm going to stick this out.
I'm going to sit here and do my writingand then talk to people about how
it went and see how they're feeling,and we'll have a discussion,
and then I'm going to just immediatelygo fall down and go to bed." But on the
other side of that, I wonder: was that maybe not a good idea? (18:42):
undefined
Should I maybe havesaid, "Hey, I'm injured.
I'm in a lot of pain and I need to golay down. Thank you for understanding."?
Because I'm sure that folks would'veunderstood - just like for the streamer
that I like watching, if theysaid, "You know what, guys?
I am just not feeling great." I'dbe like, "Oh my gosh, go lay down.
(19:04):
That's fine.
Go rest." Did I do myself adisservice by pushing through it?
Am I doing myself a disservice by notpushing through it with this writing
project? And... I don't know.
That's the frustrating - not even justfrustrating - that's the irritating,
angering part of it all. In themoment, I don't know what to do.
(19:27):
Should I write? Should I notwrite? Should I push through?
Should I take a day off? If I take aday off, should I take two days off?
What is permissible?
What is healthy? And for those of uswho grew up doing our best pushing
and trying to be our best,
being one of those kids who got an awardat the end of the school year for no
(19:49):
absences (a.k.a.
being the kid who came to school sickand then got everybody else sick) - is
there merit in that? Doesit carry any moral weight,
any righteousness? And I supposethat could depend on who you asked.
If I leave halfway through alivestream of eight people,
am I ruining their evening? I mean,probably not. My ego's not that big.
(20:13):
But it still felt out of integritywith what I had said I was going to do.
When Tim got home - he's been volunteeringat a youth center here in town - when
Tim got home, he was like, "You did thatstream. You should have gone to bed!
You need to be taking care of yourself,Sarah. You need to be healing.
The people in your livestream would'veunderstood if you had left." But I feel
(20:34):
like that, too, has varying degrees. Sure,
if I was charging people $200 tobe there and then I just walked
out, that would be not okay,and I'd have to reconcile,
give them their money back, etcetera. But on a day-to-day basis,
how much we can weafford to let how we feel
(20:54):
affect what we create? And I know alot of this comes from hustle culture.
I know a lot of this comes from atoxic place of taking and taking
and taking from someone else's laboruntil they're completely burned out.
I worked in marketing for years, whichis a very high-turnover profession,
because if you workfor a marketing agency,
(21:15):
they tend to push you super-hard and getall of your creative ideas out and all
of your projects out and your time andyour energy. And then when you burn out,
you go to another agency, and you thinkit'll be different. So I encourage you:
when you're in the thick ofit, give yourself some grace.
You are going through a Thing,and that Thing has weight.
(21:36):
It has consequences. Ithas an effect on you,
on your mental and physical health.As to whether or not you
should create or write through it...I don't have an answer for you.
All I can suggest is somegentle trial and error.
Sit up (or sit down), graba pen, grab your phone,
(21:58):
grab a laptop, and put down a fewwords, and see how that feels.
If you fall asleep halfway through,
you need to rest.And I think deep down inside,
you'll know if it's the righttime to start writing or not.
Because there's a difference,
a very subtle difference that I'mstill figuring out for myself,
(22:18):
between when it's a good idea to pushthrough what you're feeling and when it's
a good idea to rest.I hope this was helpful for you,
at least in some way, even if just tomake you feel a little bit less alone.
Or to help you think through what youmight do in a situation like this if it
were to arise. Becausewhile we are incredibly,
(22:41):
powerfully human, we are also... human,
prone to illness and fear and grief.
And maybe there isn't any sort of moralimperative as to whether or not we
should write in a given situation.
Maybe there is no right or wronganswer. Maybe there's just us,
(23:01):
and what we need,
and what we need to figure outin order to survive and heal and
thrive. I would not be able tocreate this podcast without the
generous support of donorson Patreon, Ko-fi, PayPal,
and all of those other platformsthat allow listeners to help support
(23:22):
the show financially.
While I make the show available forfree to as many people as possible,
it's not free for me to make. And sothose donations are greatly appreciated.
Special thanks for this week'sepisode go out to patrons: Laurie,
Regina Calabrese, AmberFratesi, Charmaine Ferrara,
Kim, Mike Tefft, PoppyBrown, Tiffany Joyner,
(23:46):
and Whitney McGruder. Thank you all so,
so much for your financial support.
It makes a huge difference.If you - yes, you!
- would like to help supportthis show financially,
then I would be extremely grateful.
You can do so by clicking the link inthe show notes for today's episode.
Alternately, you can go out toSarah Werner dot com - that's
(24:08):
S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R dot com,
and going to the show notes for today'sepisode (this is episode 167) and
clicking the button that says,
"Support This Podcast". I mentionedin the last episode that Patreon has
made some changes to their platform,
and donations are now monthlyinstead of per episode.
(24:29):
The Patreon app on iOS - so,
the Patreon app on Applephones and other devices,
I guess - has shifted so thatApple now takes 30% of your
donations if you donatethrough the iOS Patreon app.
So if you're on an Android, you're fine;
if you're on a Mac and you're usingyour web browser to access Patreon,
(24:52):
that's fine. You don'tget penalized or anything.
But it's just that iOS app that's just,
I don't know,
hurting a lot of independent creators.If you would like to donate in other
ways, there are other waysavailable in the show notes.
I have a link toKo-fi-slash-"coffee" and to PayPal.
So if that makes sense for you to doright now, if you feel moved to do that,
(25:14):
I would greatly welcome and appreciate it. If you are in a spot where
finances are a little bit tight,I one million percent understand,
and you can actually help support theshow just by telling someone else about it
- another writer, a student,
someone you know who has a talent forwriting and maybe hasn't explored it fully
yet. Let them know aboutthe Write Now podcast.
(25:35):
If they don't know how todownload a podcast, show them...
using the Write Nowpodcast. Seriously, though,
I do appreciate you listening.
I do appreciate you sharing the showand leaving comments and thoughts,
and I'm just so grateful that you're here.And with that,
this has been episode 167of the Write Now podcast,
(25:57):
the podcast that helps allwriters - aspiring, professional,
and otherwise - to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm Sarah Werner, andI'm going to go rest.
This is the Write Now Podcastwith Sarah Werner, Episode 167:
Writing When You Are Not Okay.
(00:28):
Welcome to Write Now,
the podcast that helps allwriters - aspiring professional,
and otherwise - to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm your host, Sarah Werner,
and I am recording thisfor you from my floor. Now,
this may not seem unusual to you - thefloor is a perfectly acceptable place to
(00:50):
sit. However,
I have recorded now over 150 episodesof this podcast (more if you count my
"Coffee Break" interviews),
and this is the first one I have donenot sitting in my office chair at my desk
with my recording equipment set up.
I instead have my recordingequipment here on the floor,
and I'm kind of sitting herehunched over my microphone,
(01:11):
the curved piece of audio foam thatI use as a little booth sort of
in a circle around my laptop,which is leaning up against it,
and then beneath it are a whole bunch oftowels so that you don't hear the flat
surface of the floor, so there'sno reverb or echo or anything.
I've got everything else I need - I'vegot my tea, I've got my Chapstick,
(01:32):
normal podcasting stuff.I'm wearing my headphones.
But it is all on the floor. I am sittingon the floor right now because it is
literally the only place thatI can sit and not be in pain.
Long story short,
I really messed up the musclesand tendons in my right hip,
and they are sort of in a bundledup place with the sciatic nerve,
(01:54):
which... I don't know enoughmedical stuff to explain to you,
but if you do anything to your sciaticnerve, you end up in a lot of pain.
Many of you listening to this actuallyprobably know exactly what I'm talking
about. But I've had thisinjury now for several months,
and it is steadily getting worse.
So I am going to a physical therapistnow, and I do that for the next six weeks.
(02:18):
And in the meantime,
I have all sorts of fun physicaltherapy exercises to do at home.
Now, not being a very athletic person,
this is not something I haveever really dealt with before,
and I felt a little bit like an imposterwhen I walked into the Orthopedics and
Sports Medicine Clinic.
I don't belong in the sports,
(02:41):
let's just say. I've had my share ofmedical things before - most of the
people listening to this right nowprobably have - but it's been a long time
since I've experienced anythingthis specifically debilitating.
Way back in 2015,
I recorded a Write Now podcast episodecalled "Walk It Off" (it's episode number
006 if you want to goback and listen to it).
(03:02):
But I talked about how if we ever turnedour ankle or anything, growing up,
my dad would have us walk it off.
And at the time I talked about how thisis also a great metaphor for what you
can do if you are stuck writing- go for a walk, move your body.
It's good for you.
But I'm at a place right now whereI literally cannot go for a walk.
(03:24):
I have not been outside except to goto physical therapy in weeks because
even sitting in a car is painful.And it's definitely changed my
relationship with mywriting and creativity,
which is what I want to talk abouttoday. What now feels like ages ago,
I spent my 16th birthday in the hospital.
I had extremely severe scoliosis andI needed surgery to correct it so
(03:48):
that my spine wouldn't growinto my heart and my lungs.
I was going to be in thehospital for a long time.
And so while I was packingbefore the operation,
my - I don't want to callit "naive" - my optimistic,
almost 16-year-old self packeda huge tote bag full of...
at the time, I was writing a novelin one of those three-subject,
(04:11):
spiral-bound notebooks. So I broughtthat. I brought a pile of books,
both comfort books andbooks I hadn't read before.
I brought a sketch pad andcolored pencils because I figured
I'm going to be sitting in a hospitalbed all day and what a great time to
write. So I went in for this verycomplicated spinal surgery where they were
(04:33):
grafting bone from my hips into myspine to make sort of one giant big
solid bone. And when I came out,
I woke up and I was dizzyand sick and confused
and sort of out of it in a hospital bed.
My mom had very lovingly unpackedmy things and had set up a little...
I want to say there were little flowersand cards and stuff from my friends and
(04:56):
family and all of that.
And amidst it all was a stackof the books that I had brought,
and my notebook for writing.And the way I felt at that time,
with IVs and needlesand drains and bandages
and sutures and all of that....
I remember looking at that stack of bookson the little movable tray next to my
(05:19):
hospital bed and just hating them.And I know that's a really
strong word. It was areally complicated feeling.
And also there was a lotof morphine in my system.
But I remember looking over at thatstack of books and I remember the books.
I had A Swiftly TiltingPlanet by Madeline L'Engle.
(05:39):
I had Dealing with Dragonsby Patricia C. Wrede.
I had The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Laing.
I even had an audiobook versionof The Hobbit on something like
12 or 16 cassette tapes.
And the whole time I was in the hospital- multiple days as I and learned
how to walk again - not once did Ifeel the desire to open up one of those
(06:02):
books, to pop in onecassette of the Hobbit,
or most of all to take out mynotebook and write. I remember
that feeling of lying there,
feeling weak and helpless and exhausted.
I'd never been so exhaustedin my entire life.
Even the thought of reaching overfor my notebook was exhausting.
(06:25):
I still think about that today,
because there's such a differencebetween how I feel now,
where if I'm lying in bed,
I want a book to read or a cassette tapeof the Hobbit to listen to or a movie
to watch or something to doto keep from getting bored.
But it was such a radicallydifferent experience in the hospital.
(06:46):
Now I'm talking about this notto gross you out or say, "Oh,
woe is me," or anything like that.
I'm saying this because we changeas the conditions in which we
live change. Somethingthat's important to us,
like writing or creating or reading,
might not even be a blip on ourradar in certain situations.
(07:09):
And in this life,
there are a lot of situationslike that - where your priorities
shift,
where you are just trying to survive.This can look like a lot of
different things to alot of different people.
Maybe you are in the hospital yourself.
Maybe you just came home fromthe hospital with a newborn baby.
Maybe you're not living inyour usual home right now.
(07:32):
Maybe you're staying with friendsor your parents or relatives,
or you're living out of a hotelor a community center or your car.
Maybe you are at your house,but you're on bedrest.
Maybe you're taking care of someonewho is on bedrest - a child, a parent,
a relative,
a friend. And maybe it doesn'thave anything to do with where you physically are
(07:52):
at all. There are so manyways for us to not be okay,
for us to be in a space where the thingsthat we usually love to do are the
furthest thing from our minds.
Maybe you've had a loved one passaway and you are dealing with grief.
Maybe you're dealing with a mountain ofdebt and it's all you can think about.
Maybe you're sick yourself withsomething temporary - or less temporary.
(08:16):
Maybe you struggle with chronicillness or chronic pain.
Maybe you deal - as so many of usdo - with depression or anxiety.
And maybe, somewhere deep downin your heart, you want to read,
you want to write; you want to do thethings that you used to love doing,
but feel so unthinkable now. Or maybeyou're looking at the world right now
(08:38):
and it just seems like a placethat is filled with so much cruelty
and malice and anger and greed and so many
types of human suffering.
You feel like the world is falling apartaround you, and everywhere you look,
there are just other people makingit worse. Maybe you're experiencing
(08:59):
several of these things at once. I waslaying in bed yesterday - or I suppose,
grammatically,
I was lying in bed yesterday - and Imade the mistake of going onto social
media. At first,
it was just to check mymentions on Facebook and Twitter and a few other things.
But inevitably, because thisis how the apps are built,
I got sucked into scrolling,and I started reading headlines.
(09:24):
And I remember after a while,
I shook myself out of it andrealized what I was doing,
because it's so easy tosort of thoughtlessly slip into reading headline after
headline - or, as it is called,
"doomscrolling". And I was layingthere in bed because I can't
walk or sit down, and I was tired ofsitting and lying on the hardwood floor.
(09:45):
And I remember thinking, "This is whatit's come to. I'm lying here in bed.
I can't walk. I can't sit at mydesk, I can't sit in the car.
I can't go for a walk outside. I can'teven stand and do dishes," which......
you think would make me reallyhappy because I hate dishes.
But all I could think about was, "Myhip is getting worse. And from here,
(10:06):
from my phone, from social media, itlooks like the world is getting worse.
And I'm lying here in bed and I can'tdo anything about any of it." And it was
such a moment of resonance because Ilooked over at my nightstand and there I
have a giant stack of books.
It's my to-be-read pile -my TBR pile, if you will.
And there are so many exciting-lookingbooks in that pile that I cannot wait to
(10:31):
read - it's the reasonthey're in that pile.
And I remember looking at that stackof books and feeling the same thing I
felt when I was 16 yearsold in the hospital.
That pile of books looked like a chore.
That pile of books looked exhausting.Now,
I think it's safe to say that physicalinjuries can wear on you mentally.
(10:53):
You can get into kind of adark place thinking about, "Oh,
am I ever going to be able to walkagain without pain" Let alone,
"How am I going to process this storyin my brain?" Let alone thinking about
your creative projects?
The idea of opening up anotebook or my laptop and doing
some creative writing was so farfrom my mind as I was lying in that
(11:18):
bed.Now,
I did feel that twinge ofguilt - the "I should be
writing" sort of pull, the "Oh my gosh,
I am just lying here when I should beputting in words on this thing I'm working
on." But aside from the anxiety caused by
expectation, aside from that pressure,
(11:38):
I did not have a desire to write.I know that as we get
older, we hopefully get wiser.
And I remember talking with a writerfriend a few years ago who was going
through a massive amount of griefafter the passing of a loved one.
And I remember asking her,"Well, have you done any writing?
(12:00):
Have you tried writing aboutit or journaling or tried any poetry about how you
feel?" And she justsaid, "No." At the time,
I had good intentions, and Ireally was trying to be helpful.
But now that I look back on that,
if somebody would've walked into my roomyesterday when I was lying in bed in
pain and despair, and theywould've said, "Hey, Sarah,
(12:22):
why don't you try journaling throughhow you feel right now?" I might have
thrown one of my TBR books at them.
I recorded an episode at the endof 2015 called "Creating in a Time
of Destruction". It's episode031 of the Write Now Podcast.
And at the time when I recorded thatepisode, I was still learning - well,
(12:44):
and I mean I'm still learning today,
and hopefully I will still belearning 10 years from now.
But in that episode, Iquoted Maxine Hong Kingston,
who very famously said,In a time of destruction,
create something." And it is a trulybeautiful and powerful statement.
And the idea is that, when timesare hard, when we feel powerless,
(13:07):
when it seems like the worldis crumbling around us,
we need to remember that we havepower, we have creative power,
and we can use that powerto respond to destruction,
to bad things happening,
in a way that is positive andconstructive. And I still believe that is
absolutely true today. We are powerful,
(13:28):
creative beings and the words thatwe write, the things that we create,
have power. Like so many other things,
they have the power to createand destroy, to harm or to help,
to wound or to heal.
Words have the power to exposetruth and shape the future.
They can help us process and healthings that are happening to us or have
(13:50):
happened to us.But I think it's also good to acknowledge,
with no small degree of empathy,
that if you are in avery bad place right now,
if you are not okay, I'm notgoing to tell you, "Well,
you should be writing." If you'rein the hospital or on bed rest,
I'm not going to march in and throwa notebook at you and tell you to
(14:13):
start writing because "it'sgood for you." And it is.
But I also now understandand empathize that we're
really complex,
and sometimes we just have to sit withsomething until we're ready to take
action,
until we're ready to dive into ourcreative power. And if you're not
(14:35):
ready right now, if you are in themidst of it - illness, depression,
anxiety,
some kind of life emergency - it's okayto take a deep breath - it's okay to
take several deep breaths! -and process where you are. Now,
if you do feel like writing,
if you know that writingwill make you feel better,
(14:56):
if you're in a situation where journalingout some of this stuff will help
you process it, then I definitelyencourage you to do that.
But I know that when you'rein the thick of things,
it can be really hard to know,"Should I be writing right now?
Should I try? Should I push myself?
What if I slide back into grief and Inever do anything ever again?" I want
(15:21):
you to know you're not alone. And ifyou're feeling some urge to write,
whether it is guilt-inducedor delight-at-your-project
induced, I encourage you tothink, before you do anything,
given how you're feeling andwhat you're going through,
what will writing give to you...
or what will writing take away?This can be time-wise,
(15:44):
energy-wise, emotion-wise,
and it can vary project by project.
You may have absolutely no tolerancefor the rom-com you were writing last
month,
but maybe a little bit of journalingabout what you're going through right now
could help you process whatyou're going through right now.
Or maybe you just need some escapism andyou need to set aside your journal and
(16:08):
write some fanfiction.This can be project-by-project,
because another thing I've learnedis that not all writing is the same.
Some writing takes energy, and somewriting replenishes your energy,
and it can do different things indifferent seasons. It helps, in my mind,
to compare it with reading. So there'sa big difference in reading a new
(16:31):
graphic novel that you just got foryour birthday versus reading a textbook
for a class that you are falling behindon. Those are both reading, technically,
but they are wildly different situations.
And reading in one is exhausting andreading in the other one is energy- and
life-giving. I've been thinkingabout this because with my own
(16:53):
situation, I've had to put my mainproject on hold for a couple of days,
and I had not realized howmuch of my self-worth and
self-esteem came from makingprogress on that project.
And I didn't know how different it wouldbe to try and work on it when I was in
a different physical and mental state.
(17:15):
And some uncharitable little nugget-partof my brain was saying, "What,
are you just going to stop writing onthe days when you don't feel like it?!"
That little nugget inmy brain is really mean.
It's really aggressive.I thought about it the other
night, too, when I was doingmy Create-Along livestream.
So - I've been doing Create-Alonglivestreams on Wednesdays and Fridays,
(17:39):
and you can visit my website for moreinformation on that (that's Sarah Werner
dot com - S-A-R-A-H-W-E-N-E-R dot com).
But I had to do my Create-Alonglivestream from the
floor, where I am now.
And about halfway throughFriday's livestream, I was like,
I don't know if I can do this. I don'tknow if I can sit here any longer.
(18:01):
I was in pain, I was feelingdizzy, and then I thought, "Well,
I made a commitment to be here,
and these people are counting on me."And I think there were only eight or nine
people there,
but I felt like I needed to haveintegrity and follow through on what I had
said.And I thought about, "Well,
there's this streamer that I like towatch who even streams when they're sick,
and you can hear it in their voice,and maybe I should try to be like them,
(18:24):
who streams no matter what." Andso in the moment, I just decided,
"I'm going to stick this out.
I'm going to sit here and do my writingand then talk to people about how
it went and see how they're feeling,and we'll have a discussion,
and then I'm going to just immediatelygo fall down and go to bed." But on the
other side of that, I wonder: was that maybe not a good idea? (18:42):
undefined
Should I maybe havesaid, "Hey, I'm injured.
I'm in a lot of pain and I need to golay down. Thank you for understanding."?
Because I'm sure that folks would'veunderstood - just like for the streamer
that I like watching, if theysaid, "You know what, guys?
I am just not feeling great." I'dbe like, "Oh my gosh, go lay down.
(19:04):
That's fine.
Go rest." Did I do myself adisservice by pushing through it?
Am I doing myself a disservice by notpushing through it with this writing
project? And... I don't know.
That's the frustrating - not even justfrustrating - that's the irritating,
angering part of it all. In themoment, I don't know what to do.
(19:27):
Should I write? Should I notwrite? Should I push through?
Should I take a day off? If I take aday off, should I take two days off?
What is permissible?
What is healthy? And for those of uswho grew up doing our best pushing
and trying to be our best,
being one of those kids who got an awardat the end of the school year for no
(19:49):
absences (a.k.a.
being the kid who came to school sickand then got everybody else sick) - is
there merit in that? Doesit carry any moral weight,
any righteousness? And I supposethat could depend on who you asked.
If I leave halfway through alivestream of eight people,
am I ruining their evening? I mean,probably not. My ego's not that big.
(20:13):
But it still felt out of integritywith what I had said I was going to do.
When Tim got home - he's been volunteeringat a youth center here in town - when
Tim got home, he was like, "You did thatstream. You should have gone to bed!
You need to be taking care of yourself,Sarah. You need to be healing.
The people in your livestream would'veunderstood if you had left." But I feel
(20:34):
like that, too, has varying degrees. Sure,
if I was charging people $200 tobe there and then I just walked
out, that would be not okay,and I'd have to reconcile,
give them their money back, etcetera. But on a day-to-day basis,
how much we can weafford to let how we feel
(20:54):
affect what we create? And I know alot of this comes from hustle culture.
I know a lot of this comes from atoxic place of taking and taking
and taking from someone else's laboruntil they're completely burned out.
I worked in marketing for years, whichis a very high-turnover profession,
because if you workfor a marketing agency,
(21:15):
they tend to push you super-hard and getall of your creative ideas out and all
of your projects out and your time andyour energy. And then when you burn out,
you go to another agency, and you thinkit'll be different. So I encourage you:
when you're in the thick ofit, give yourself some grace.
You are going through a Thing,and that Thing has weight.
(21:36):
It has consequences. Ithas an effect on you,
on your mental and physical health.As to whether or not you
should create or write through it...I don't have an answer for you.
All I can suggest is somegentle trial and error.
Sit up (or sit down), graba pen, grab your phone,
(21:58):
grab a laptop, and put down a fewwords, and see how that feels.
If you fall asleep halfway through,
you need to rest.And I think deep down inside,
you'll know if it's the righttime to start writing or not.
Because there's a difference,
a very subtle difference that I'mstill figuring out for myself,
(22:18):
between when it's a good idea to pushthrough what you're feeling and when it's
a good idea to rest.I hope this was helpful for you,
at least in some way, even if just tomake you feel a little bit less alone.
Or to help you think through what youmight do in a situation like this if it
were to arise. Becausewhile we are incredibly,
(22:41):
powerfully human, we are also... human,
prone to illness and fear and grief.
And maybe there isn't any sort of moralimperative as to whether or not we
should write in a given situation.
Maybe there is no right or wronganswer. Maybe there's just us,
(23:01):
and what we need,
and what we need to figure outin order to survive and heal and
thrive. I would not be able tocreate this podcast without the
generous support of donorson Patreon, Ko-fi, PayPal,
and all of those other platformsthat allow listeners to help support
(23:22):
the show financially.
While I make the show available forfree to as many people as possible,
it's not free for me to make. And sothose donations are greatly appreciated.
Special thanks for this week'sepisode go out to patrons: Laurie,
Regina Calabrese, AmberFratesi, Charmaine Ferrara,
Kim, Mike Tefft, PoppyBrown, Tiffany Joyner,
(23:46):
and Whitney McGruder. Thank you all so,
so much for your financial support.
It makes a huge difference.If you - yes, you!
- would like to help supportthis show financially,
then I would be extremely grateful.
You can do so by clicking the link inthe show notes for today's episode.
Alternately, you can go out toSarah Werner dot com - that's
(24:08):
S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R dot com,
and going to the show notes for today'sepisode (this is episode 167) and
clicking the button that says,
"Support This Podcast". I mentionedin the last episode that Patreon has
made some changes to their platform,
and donations are now monthlyinstead of per episode.
(24:29):
The Patreon app on iOS - so,
the Patreon app on Applephones and other devices,
I guess - has shifted so thatApple now takes 30% of your
donations if you donatethrough the iOS Patreon app.
So if you're on an Android, you're fine;
if you're on a Mac and you're usingyour web browser to access Patreon,
(24:52):
that's fine. You don'tget penalized or anything.
But it's just that iOS app that's just,
I don't know,
hurting a lot of independent creators.If you would like to donate in other
ways, there are other waysavailable in the show notes.
I have a link toKo-fi-slash-"coffee" and to PayPal.
So if that makes sense for you to doright now, if you feel moved to do that,
(25:14):
I would greatly welcome and appreciate it. If you are in a spot where
finances are a little bit tight,I one million percent understand,
and you can actually help support theshow just by telling someone else about it
- another writer, a student,
someone you know who has a talent forwriting and maybe hasn't explored it fully
yet. Let them know aboutthe Write Now podcast.
(25:35):
If they don't know how todownload a podcast, show them...
using the Write Nowpodcast. Seriously, though,
I do appreciate you listening.
I do appreciate you sharing the showand leaving comments and thoughts,
and I'm just so grateful that you're here.And with that,
this has been episode 167of the Write Now podcast,
(25:57):
the podcast that helps allwriters - aspiring, professional,
and otherwise - to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm Sarah Werner, andI'm going to go rest.
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