Enough from me - over to Cate.
The Author and CFS
Eleni and
I both have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and there are quite a few RWA
members who have it too.
The
symptoms are exactly the name - fatigue after doing things, that never goes
away. 'Doing things' can be as simple as getting out of bed for some people.
Unless we're really bad Eleni and I are both better off than that - thank
goodness!
My CFS
came about after I had Glandular Fever and Ross River Fever in 2005. I've never
picked up. In hindsight, I ran myself into the ground for the eighteen months
prior to getting sick - actually I was always running myself into the ground. Just
this time it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Prior to
CFS I was too busy to be creative. I was focused on my agricultural science
career. All my creativity went into experiments and getting out messages about
what was found.
Once I was
sick, I lost myself. My identity was my science career, I didn't know who I was
without it. I no longer had that, I had to find me.
I'd always
written. When I was seven I was going to take over from Enid Blyton and penned
me first story, Ebi The Wishing Dog.
My dog was Ebi, and I'd just read The Wishing Chair and I hadn't heard of
plagiarism! Somewhere in between uni and working, all my creative writing morphed
into science writing. I'd written some erotic stories but never shared them
with the world.
In 2005, a
friend also wasn't well. She's a journalist by trade and also had a yen to
write a book. So in one of our brainstorming discussions (we had hundreds of
these discussions) she challenged me to write a book. We settled on a category
romance because they we short, had a plan (meet, fall in love after some
troubles, live happily ever after), and had to be easy. Famous last words!
So I wrote
my story - of course I thought it was brilliant, I had not yet joined RWA - and
I sent it away to be published after much encouragement from Helen. It was
rejected. I was dejected but not deterred. The writing bug had bitten hard.
Having CFS
has allowed me to find my creative side. It's made me learn to be patient,
which is something a writer needs in bucketloads, and has allowed me to find a
different path in life.
Creativity
seems to be something a lot of people with CFS get involved with. I've been a
part of two projects with other CFS sufferers, called Creative For A Second.
The first project resulted a print book to showcase the talents of CFS
sufferers and included things like poetry, pictures, photos. (I proofread it
because I had no creativity at that stage.) The second project was journals
that travelled around the world, to a dozen people per journal, and were made
into electronic books.
I can't
say I'm happy to have CFS because it's an awful thing to live with but it has
allowed me to find new things, make new friends and explore another part of
myself.
~~~
Thanks for sharing, Cate.
I agree with you - I may not like that I have CFS but I've learned a lot from it.
You can find Cate on her blog.
