Elgin Award Nomination, Writing Through Chronic Illness, and Cleaning Up the Blogroll

Elgin Awards
Happy to say The Robot Scientist’s Daughter has been nominated for the SFPA’s Elgin Award. Yay! If you’re in the Science Fiction Poetry Association, just like the political nominees these days, I ask for your vote! (But there are a ton of wonderful nominees there, including Laura Madeline Wiseman, Matthea Harvey, Marge Simon and E Kristin Anderson.)

Blogroll Cleanup
Yes, it’s my once-yearly update of the blogroll, and it’s made me really sad to go delete the names of lots of old friends who have stopped blogging – some not since 2014. I guess with Facebook and Twitter and such, people have stopped blogging, but I still really like it as a way of connecting with other writers (with more than 144 characters at a time!) Call me old-fashioned. Anyway, blogrolls themselves have sort of gone out of fashion, haven’t they? My little brother tells me “no one has those anymore.” If you don’t see your name there anymore and we’re poetry friends and you’re still blogging, let me know in the comments!

Women, Chronic Illness, and the Desire to keep Writing
Some very interesting and touching essays on women writing with chronic and invisible illness, as well as chronic illness and capitalism:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2016/01/tender-theory/

http://www.maskmagazine.com/not-again/struggle/sick-woman-theory

These both make interesting points and both women are admirably strong, great writers and doing good by calling attention to our society’s willingness to ignore or let fall through the cracks people who aren’t whole in some way. I definitely identify with “the girl not meant to survive” – in fact, I just finished writing an essay for the HWA newsletter on just that subject, or rather, the subject of writing the world being a mutant/monster/outsider/etc. But I’m not sure the chronically ill do necessarily fall completely out of the capitalist system – after all, I’ve still been writing to earn money – not as much as I made as a tech manager, but something – through all kinds of crazy chronic and acute illnesses for the last ten or so years. Writing is one of the few ways you can earn money at home in pajamas, whether you feel great or not, sitting at your laptop. I have a handicapped placard in my car – a nod to the fact that I often can’t walk or do stairs and am stuck with a cane or wheelchair – but I have never registered for disability – due to the fact that I eke out enough of a living as a writer/editor to make “too much money” (i.e., in Washington State, $1000 in any one month gets you kicked off, or at least that was the case the last time I checked). No, I don’t like the fact that I can’t travel or do book tours like I could when I was younger and marginally healthier – and hold out the hope I’ll be able to do that stuff again. And no, I don’t write as much or as well when I’m in acute situations – say, in a hospital – but I give myself a pretty strict writing and submitting regime pretty much all the rest of the time. Am I inspired when I’m fatigued and discouraged, frustrated by the endless loops of medical visits/medical tests/new medications? No. Does this bring out the best in me? Again, no. But I fight against the idea that as a chronically ill person, I’m useless. I do require more support than I used to – and I’m thankful for the things that allow me to keep writing: several pretty good doctors, pretty good insurance, and a husband who cooks and cleans and does laundry when I can’t. The basic mechanics of life can be hard to scale when you’re chronically ill, but also when you have children or loved ones who are chronically ill (for instance, writers Daphne du Maurier and L.M. Montgomery both had to support their families with their writing because their husbands, both mentally ill, required constant care), or you have to work two jobs to pay the bills…Life seems easy for some, and harder for others, but everyone, everyone has challenges.

I hope I’m not being unrealistic or overly cheerleader-y, but I hope to maintain a writing career despite the health challenges!

And to end on a cheery note, this terrific “note to self” from sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, an excellent example of willing yourself successful as a writer.