I did not have a public blog until after I was done with treatment and had already written the entire manuscript for my book. I have a lot of grim and foul thoughts about cancer and its impact on my life. These thoughts are not on this blog. They are in 12 spiral bound notebooks in a big storage box in my closet. And I intend for them to stay there.
When I was going through treatment I never thought about journaling as a task. The word alone conjures images of haggard ladies sitting around a new age bookstore with purple notepads on their laps scribbling experiences that I’d rather not know about. So, no, I did not journal. I just spewed thoughts on the page at all times of day or night. My notebooks did not contain full sentences, fleshed out ideas, nor a sense of composition. Most of my handwriting was illegible. I was just trying to survive and my instinct was to put words on the page.
I love being a blogger and an author and using the screen and page to share ideas, resources, personal experiences, and coping tricks and tips with other young adult cancer patients. But the best advice I have for any cancer patient wanting to write is to have a separate writing space where you don’t have to think logically, where no audience is present, and you can let the shit hit the fan in whatever way it wants to. In a culture where the need to share via twitter and facebook is often a compulsion, it is quite peaceful writing for nobody but yourself.
“Everything Changes is, without doubt, the most forthright, emotionally sophisticated, and plain-old valuable book of its kind I've seen.”
