The author: Yours truly

The issue: Chronic illness & social media

The goal: Creating a space for aspiring authors who suffer from chronic illness

Two years ago I was starting my author social media accounts, making posts from the little space I’d created to write in: three folding desks set up with a folding chair, containers of my writing materials, all surrounded by Christmas lights. It was my first office – the place where my novel was soon to be written. Flash forward back to now, I am setting it up all over again – this time with new factors to be considered in the setup. A chair with spine support, a raised shelf for my laptop, a desk fan. All things I didn’t need before.

In the past six months, formerly small difficulties in my health have become the sun in which my life has had to revolve around. And that includes my work life. I was always driven, setting goals and meeting them by working hard and pushing through whatever roadblocks I encountered. So to say that it’s devastating to experience things that I can’t just push through… is an understatement. Every to-do list has to be cut in half, and expectations have to be decided day-by-day according to what is needed for my health. It’s not just hard to deal with the pain and exhaustion, it’s hard to deal with the fact that I can’t live the way I used to.

As you can imagine this has made an impact on every aspect of my writing output, including my social media and blog. Lately I’ve been thinking about what kind of content I could start exploring with my account, and I was brought back to my notes from a session at WriterCon that asked the question: what do you have to offer? I realized that what I have to offer is my honesty. Honesty for authors like me, about what life is like for us.

I want to use my platform to encourage the unseen authors: the ones who are too exhausted to get put together to be in front of the camera, the ones who are too sick to keep a regular post schedule, the ones whose bookshelves and desks are untidy. I want build up struggling authors by sharing my honesty about the life that I’m living and what I am doing to combat the unique set of challenges that I have been facing. My hope is that I will also be able to help authors and artists who feel alone and helpless to remember that the hardships that we face do not have to stop us from accomplishing our dreams. And most importantly that our value as artists is not found in social media content or a clean workspace, but in the things that we take the time to create.

I look forward to integrating encouragement and awareness into my content. You can find me on Instagram @marystellawrites.