Bad backs make for boring blog posts but a mention is necessary to explain why I haven’t posted for 7 months. Another reason was a grim, but unrealised reaction to an anti-fungal drug I was taking. It slowly cranked the ratchet on minor inflammatory conditions til they were all fairly major. I could no longer stand at the beautiful Varidesk and I couldn’t sit either. Brain fog was an inadequate description of my mental capacity!
I’m just about back to where I was; trying to write a memoir, trying to engineer a bit of company whilst I do it and trying in a haphazard way to help a few folks as I go.
The helping other people tends to be in private but did spark ideas for the Chemo Brain series and Bite Size Memoir and some other stuff in slow progress.
I am interested in lots of things but I’m trying to contain them here to Writing and Cancer Survivorship. There will undoubtably be whole load of Random that sneaks in but if you only pop by occasionally to see what’s new I hope you can easily filter the pieces you want to read. I need to do more work on categories and tags to help with that.
As my blog tries to be several things, that has inevitably meant I have two distinct types of reader.
The majority are silent – Visitors at times of need probably looking for information, possibly inspiration. They come every day whether I post or not.
A minority are a noisy supportive rabble of writers and bloggers all enjoying the intellectual exchange of creativity and mutual appreciation. They come for new posts, to comment and enjoy a social reciprocation. There’s a quick dopamine fix that comes with a ‘like’ or a comment and a significant rush from hitting the ‘publish’ button on a new post. An instant gratification I’m generally not achieving from the sporadic efforts on my memoir. So I miss it. And I want to come back but manage my presence without feeling obligated. It’s a balancing act and I suspect I’ll keep falling off the bar.
There is also a third, often quiet bunch of friends and family who support me whatever I do or don’t. They are the constants. Thank you for reading and commenting in person.
I had hoped to encourage the various types of reader to meet in Bite Size Memoir. I sincerely hoped the little exercises might encourage people dealing with cancer and other life altering conditions to benefit from the therapeutic nature of expressive writing. That hasn’t worked despite the fun the rest of us have had. I’ll return to it when there’s space again. I miss that too – Little pieces done and dusted, polished to perfection and published. Ahh… So satisfying. So addictive but not getting the main job done unfortunately.
And my time is very limited. I’m still up and down out of my seat trying to prolong episodes at a keyboard. A different Physio is trying me with some different exercises. But hey, boring..
So my needs are still conflicting. I am uplifted by the dialogue a blog generates but am always in danger of it ruling my computer time. I’m not alone in owning up to feeling the pressures this generates. On Sunday Sarah Brentyn posted about Letting Go of Social Media. (I swear I had already drafted this.) Many of us are failing to get the balance right, ending up stressed or guilt ridden trying or failing to participate equitably in the blogosphere. (Some of these people do it so much I think they’re actually more than one person..That or they’re in prison with no other commitments. I have no way of proving it though..)
I wish I could stick to the routine I determined this time last year, but dare not. I’m trialling this more magazine styled blog theme and can only plan to be haphazard and irregular with different types of posts as I prioritise writing whilst always minding my back. I will be snacking and grazing and carefully watching my intake of blogolicious materials. I’m going to try to blog lite and hope you gourmands might tolerate my picky portion control.
January 20, 2016 at 2:09 pm
Glad you’re back to blogging regularly, Lisa. Like Geoff, I met you and your blog in my early blogging days thanks to your bite size memoir, which I do miss! It’s comforting to dig up memories and condense them into something short and beautiful which can be shared with others. I’m not sure which type of blogger I am, probably too erratic to be cast anywhere! I look forward to your posts, and I love your table:)
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January 20, 2016 at 5:28 pm
Aw thanks Luccia. Great to hear from you. I will always struggle with getting the balance right as the immediacy of writing and reading posts is more rewarding than a lonely old manuscript! Hopefully finding a few things to ease that a bit and when I feel a sense of accelerated progress would love to dust off BiteSize. I miss it too xx
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October 12, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Good to see you back blogging again. Not too often is fine as I find it hard to find time to read everything I would like to.
Carole
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October 18, 2015 at 11:03 am
Thanks Carole. No danger of too often at the moment! Lxx
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October 10, 2015 at 2:07 am
Hello Lisa, I just noticed your gravatar on my sidebar – in the ‘my community’ widget – and wondered who the pretty face belonged to. Very pleased to follow it up and find you. I’ve deleted all my email notifications and I forget to check the reader.
I love your cherry-picking presentation on your home page and I did pick this post over the others. 🙂
Take care of your and yours.
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October 10, 2015 at 2:08 am
[sigh] you and yours … why does my attention drop of at the end of a spellcheck!
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October 12, 2015 at 4:48 pm
Hi Christine. How lovely of you to notice my updated gravitar! Can’t beat a bit of red lippy for attracting attention! I see you are posting at the other end of the spectrum from me. I keep having a peak. Lx
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October 12, 2015 at 8:27 pm
The red lippy emphasized that lovely smile. 🙂
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October 9, 2015 at 3:40 pm
Hi Lisa, glad you’re doing better and venturing back into the blogging world. I understand about balance and getting caught up in the quick fix of social media. I haven’t blogged much over all these months either. I’m currently facilitating OctPoWiMo so I’m doing more right now. My daughter, granddaughters and their menagerie of pets moved in at the beginning of summer and it has been a time of chaos. Please tag me on Twitter if you start your #BiteSizeMemoir back up again as I really enjoyed writing to your prompts.
Happy to see you, so to speak, and I’ll be back to read more later. Much love and hugs to you.
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October 12, 2015 at 4:43 pm
Hi Morgan. How lovely to see you here. I’m missing #BiteSizeMemoir too and do hope I get that going again. Enjoy your busy month of OctPoWiMo. I’ll try and pop in and soak up some of your brilliant reflections xx
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September 30, 2015 at 10:29 am
Lisa! You’re back! Oh I have missed you, and thought of you many times wondering how you are, how things are going for you…and now I know. So sorry for all that you have had to deal with but so heartened to see you back here. It seems a long time ago since those days of Bite Size Memoir, I thoroughly enjoyed being part of your noisy rabble and putting my two cents worth in…thank you for that!!
Through our little group here I found my way back in the saddle, so to speak, and galloped over each week to Carrot Ranch. Who would have thought it, as memoir writers, that we would have so enjoyed our interludes with flash fiction? I have missed it these past few weeks and so look forward to grabbing those reins again soon…
I read Sarah’s post and yours from last year (has it really been a year?) and the comments. A year on, and I can see I was still feeling overwhelmed and needing to get more balance with writing/blogging/social media if I was ever to get my memoir written. In fact, I am only just returning after a five week hiatus, a break from blogging I agonised over taking, but it was crunch time and I knew that the only way to get my first draft written at long last, was to do it. And even then, it’s been a struggle but I did it (just!).
I was spending entire days glued to my chair blogging away and then another day went by and still nothing else written on my memoir, and another and another after that…something had to give.
I hope that ‘blog lite’ works for you in every way. But I did just want to say ‘welcome back Missy’…great to see your lovely smiling face again, great pic and love the new, clean look 🙂 ❤ xxx
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September 30, 2015 at 1:50 pm
Hi Sherry. Congratulations ! A first draft. Feeling envious but I am focused too. I think there’s a whole ‘behaviour’ to learn around social media and with no previous generation at it, we are the pioneers.
Can’t resist the odd bite of carrot flash fiction. Something entirely creative is quite a good antidote to difficult memoir. Learning it’s probably part of the balance rather than part of the problem.
Great to see you here. I’ve missed you too 😘
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October 1, 2015 at 8:55 pm
Ahh…thanks Lisa! And yes, I rather like the idea that we are pioneers 🙂
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September 26, 2015 at 5:43 pm
Will meet you wherever your balance lands, love. And yes, I’m writing “that blog post” too. This weekend, in fact.
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September 26, 2015 at 6:14 pm
Thank you Paula and looking forward to ‘that blog post’ and your insights on the issues! Lx
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September 23, 2015 at 9:58 pm
Well I know which group I’m in without being told. Along side the Carrot Ranch you’re memoir prompt got me into the companionship of blogging. For that because I enjoy it so I owe you much gratitude. And as others have said if you blog once in a rainbow of moons I’ll be looking out. Welcome back Misssy. Ps you’ve made me walk past my house reading this. Grrrrr
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September 24, 2015 at 8:32 am
You’re the noisiest and naughtiest in my cybersphere! Hello Geoff! I see you’re busy throwing new titles around left right and centre. How’s a plodder like me supposed to feel?! Tell me there’s years behind them both please!
And your blogging’s so prolific you’re one I suspect of having a clone. I apologise I can only attempt random reading on your site, good as it all is! Lx
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September 24, 2015 at 11:55 am
Happy when you dip in your toes Lisa. I suspect there’s someone impersonating me sometimes given I don’t remember half what I write. And yes there are any number of back stories lurking below the surface like ink dripping krakens. Noisiest and naughtiest . Easily the best and most accurate of compliments. That was a compliment?
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September 24, 2015 at 1:11 pm
Absolutely!
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September 23, 2015 at 10:15 am
As one of the noisy few, and despite my reluctance to write memoir, even in tiny bites, I hope you can hear my cheer to see you back. But I urge you to continue the blogging in a similar vein (bite-size); ditto anything that puts pressure on your back. It’s lovely to have you around but you’re not responsible to anyone but yourself and your child (I’ll maybe condescend to let you take care of your husband so long as he reciprocates).
PS, love the new streamlined blog theme.
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September 24, 2015 at 8:27 am
The Reluctant Memoirist.. Have you read The Reluctant Fundamentalist ? No.. Let’s not get started. Way off topic although not entirely.. So grateful to everyone who’s had a go at Bite Size but especially those who find it discomforting .. But then you owed me having made me have a go at Charli’s fiction prompts and that was so uncomfortable to start with. Agonising! But I learned a lot about letting go of perfectionism with that seemingly innocent exercise! Lx
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September 23, 2015 at 3:51 am
Yay! You’re back! (And, ouch, your back. I am finally getting a varidesk. I remember it from your last post about it.) Yes, well, as you mentioned…balance. It’s extremely difficult to find. But I’m glad you’re here and I love your new theme here and you do what you can and post when you can and that’s what matters.
Haha! I believe that you had already drafted this and I am sure we’re not alone in the stress and pressure. Wild. Because your post made me think about that first post last year and here we are again. Looking forward to your memoir so keep writing. ❤
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September 24, 2015 at 8:21 am
So punny! And great post on Letting go of Social Media. Gave me a kick to finish this draft which I’d had hanging around and now I’m out of the starting blocks I’m off again! .. Busy replying to all these lovely comments – this time. It’s the chat a successful post generates that’s actually the hardest thing to manage. I want to talk at length with everyone.. Agh!
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September 23, 2015 at 1:15 am
Crikey Lisa. I hope my ramblings about the medications I took for a similar problem weren’t contributory to your problems.
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September 24, 2015 at 8:16 am
Keep rambling Oliver. One day we’ll have you blogging.. You would be brilliant 😎
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September 25, 2015 at 8:39 am
Er… I think I’ll take that as a compliment. Here is my one and only blog on WordWatchers:
http://www.wordwatchers.net/my-holiday-of-calm-reflection/
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September 22, 2015 at 11:44 pm
Glad to see you back Lisa. I too am one of the rabble that enjoyed our discussions relating to writing memoir and the like. Look after your back. That is more important than spending hours on the computer and no-one will mind if they don’t get a response or if you intermittently post. Writing that memoir is important for so many so good luck with being able to proceed on it and bringing it to its conclusion.
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September 24, 2015 at 8:15 am
Thank you Irene. I don’t know why I need that confirming but it really does spur me on. I guess it’s like being told you are loved. Once is never enough – I think it’s a joke from Fawlty Towers when Basil says to Sybil he told her he loved her back in 19??. If it changes he’d let her know..!
Thank you x
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September 24, 2015 at 8:50 am
LOL. I know what you mean but I know I missed you but I knew your back was giving you hell so I understood.
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September 24, 2015 at 1:11 pm
😘
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September 22, 2015 at 10:53 pm
So good to see you on the page, Lisa! As one of the rabble, I’ve missed the stimulating intellectual and creative exchanges you crafted on your blog. You even got me to write memoir, something I didn’t think I’d ever do. And, in return, you wrote fiction! I respect your focus on what needs your attention most and feel confident that you will find the right diet of blog that suits you. Being one who is satisfied with quality over quantity, I’ve found ways to make blogging work. In fact, when I suffered my own cancer loss, my best friend, it was the blogging that anchored me or else I fear all my writing would have unraveled. Now I’m working out my own plan for fulfilling my publishing goals and blogging is a part of it. Wonderful to see you in print! Keep on that memoir. Your story matters to many.
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September 24, 2015 at 8:09 am
Hi there rowdy ranch hand. I totally agree blogging and sanity are clearly correlated. The support I get from even a few people is wonderful. I just feel guilty when I’m off task (book task) but that’s clearly a self-imposed hair shirt I need to take off. Monitoring my task versus reward and remembering it’s progress that counts not perfection. Still sorting out the balance – I think it would all be achievable if I could manage more hours at the computer. Grrrr!
Big hug Lx
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September 25, 2015 at 12:33 am
Did we ever talk about the Pomodoro Technique? http://pomodorotechnique.com/get-started/ I’ll try to get a post out in the next few weeks about my schedule modifications and what seems to work. I use some of the technique. It’s all in what works…take care of the back!
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September 25, 2015 at 7:24 am
I do use a timer – when I remember! I’ve always been more focused when up against the clock.
I confess you and Irene did get me onto the pomodoro – bought the book, the terribly noisy tomato but felt reading a whole book was over-the-top at the time 😁 So a post Charli would be a mega-awesome delicious way of consuming the tomato! Yes please but only when it suits you. 😋
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September 22, 2015 at 7:37 pm
Welcome back, Lisa, and best wishes for energy, renewal and continued sharing of your very important story. At a core level, we really are in this together, and you are surrounded with tremendous support.
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September 22, 2015 at 8:01 pm
Hi Marilyn. You are absolutely right. We are in this together and that’s why I need to be here at least a little bit because the support is clearly heartfelt. Thank you
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September 22, 2015 at 2:59 pm
I’m glad you are back, too Lisa. I missed your writing. Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Looking forward to your blogs, whatever form they come in.
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September 22, 2015 at 7:59 pm
Thank you Maureen, so lovely to hear from you. It has been too long!
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September 22, 2015 at 2:06 pm
I am probably one of the “watchers” but it is high time I let you know how very much your personality and continuing story meant to two very different people I knew and loved. They may not have contributed as such but both left a legacy of words and a defiant finger of bravery in the face of cancer. Thank you.
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September 22, 2015 at 7:55 pm
Thank you can be inadequate words at times and they feel that here. I dissolved in a pool of tears when I read this because this is what it is all about for me, hoping some good might come of my efforts but also recognising the terrible loss despite defiant bravery that continues every day. Thank you for watching. It is enough to know you are xxx
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September 22, 2015 at 1:43 pm
Oh I forgot to mention. On your recommendation I bought a varidesk for Bec. She doesn’t use it. But her partner does. He loves it! You could say he stands by it, so thanks for the recommendation!
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September 22, 2015 at 1:40 pm
It’s wonderful to see you back in the blogosphere, Lisa. I have been waiting for the moment when you would be ready to join us again. I’m sorry that things are still so difficult for you, but I’m happy to receive whatever you have to offer. There’s no need to dress up or perform – come just as you are!
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September 22, 2015 at 7:57 pm
Thank you Nora. I know you’d take me in my bathrobe and slippers and I always will appreciate that! xx
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