Confessions of a Concussed Writer: Where I’ve Been

Be careful what you wish for, people.

I’d been saying for awhile that I needed a break. Since starting my blog in July 2018 and rediscovering my love for writing earlier that year, my everyday life has become quite overwhelming. Although I love what blogging has brought into my life, balancing it with a “day job,” a long commute, and spending time with loved ones is a little tricky. So often, I’ve thought how nice it would be just to get a break from everything and just…be. No schedules, no deadlines, no constant thought of “what do I have to do next???” in a slight state of panic. Just a break from all the craziness that is my daily life.

Well, I got it. Not in the way I would preferred, mind you, but I got my break, all right.

Ideally, I would have loved a break from my day job that would allow me to focus solely on blogging and querying agents for my manuscript. Instead, I ended up getting a break from EVERYTHING. And, I do mean everything.

My 2019 started off with a bang. Literally. It was only a few days into the new year that I walked smack into the wall and gave myself a walloping concussion. While all the important brain test results thankfully came back negative, I suffered from post-concussive syndrome for over two months. If this injury had occurred even a year ago, I would have probably welcomed the break, happily nestling into my couch cushions, cat on lap, to lazily sample all Netflix and Amazon Prime have to offer.

However, this year, it’s been pure torture.

Have you ever been told not to use your brain? I have. You’d be surprised how much this rules out. This isn’t a medical post, so I don’t want to go into too much detail (though, honestly, venting about how freaking awful these past few months have been would be incredibly therapeutic). Let’s just say that I basically lived in isolation for the first six weeks, save for my husband, who works full time, and my pets. I couldn’t leave the house because a) I couldn’t drive, and b) I couldn’t handle loud noises or bright lights, which meant that even a simple trip to the grocery store wreaked havoc upon my brain.

In addition to being stuck at home, I was also barred from using all forms of communication: no texting, no emailing, no phone calls, no scrolling through the Internet. Any of these things would induce severe vertigo within seconds and further delay my recovery. The only thing I could do was watch TV, and even that had its issues: it had to be at a very low volume, and often while wearing sunglasses to guard against the brightness of the screen.

But, let’s get to the worst of it all: I couldn’t read any books and…I couldn’t write.

Think about this: I am a reader, writer, and blogger who’s basically on house arrest combined with bedrest for the better part of two months. And I couldn’t read or write. *shoots self in head*

Of course, this meant I could no longer research literary agents and craft query letters to pitch my manuscript. I’ve lost more precious time in getting my book published, and while I have no actual deadline, I of course want to see this happen as soon as possible.

And, the blog. I couldn’t blog. I couldn’t use social media. I had been gearing up the Tart for great things in January 2019, and I watched every single one of them die off day after day, week after week. I had a few posts that were prescheduled to fall back on, but my plans to get ahead in blogging had been foiled, and pretty soon I was post-less. Although my stats remained higher than I thought they would (thank you, Man Catcher Cake on Pinterest), my numbers still took a nosedive as I fell further and further away from the blogging community and my readers.

To top it all off, I had really been looking forward to using January and February to buckle down and write. With the craziness of the November-December holidays finally behind me and the next major holiday a reassuring four months away, I figured it would be the perfect time to spend every free moment happily writing. Northern NJ gets wonderfully snowy and cold during these months, and it’s the perfect excuse to stay inside and bask in all the writing hygge the season has to offer.

Apparently, the universe had other plans for me.

Life is ironic. I went more than a decade, more or less gleefully, without writing a word. And now, suddenly going more than a week without being able to write anything became the most unbearable punishment. I rebelled against not being able to do what I loved, both physically and mentally. The need to write was visceral, and I soon felt like I was having withdrawal symptoms on top of post-concussive symptoms.

I resisted at first, trying to eke out a few scribbled notes here and there in my journal, and sometimes forcing myself to work on the blog and/or social media. However, I soon realized I was only hurting myself more by doing this, and I soon abandoned my attempts to keep writing. Short-term loss for long-term gain, I figured. I was determined to get better quickly so I could go back to being a writer as soon as possible.

January wasn’t so bad, as it was full of doctor’s appointments and tests; it was busy since I was trying to figure out just what, if anything, was still wrong with me. The busyness turned out to be a welcome distraction compared to February, which was a different creature altogether.

February was the full-on recovery period. That was the month I was forced to withdraw from everything and everyone. But, after being home, day after day, watching the world roll on without me, I started to become accustomed to my new way of life. The laziness filled my now-heavier limbs (thanks, inability to attend Zumba class) and seemed to pull me into the couch, hour after hour, and I found myself thinking less about returning to writing and more about when the next Aurora Teagarden mystery movie would be on TV.

I admit: smack in the middle of my recovery, during one of my most difficult days, I debated if I even wanted to return to writing. I had lost traction on the blog, I hadn’t sent out any agent queries on my manuscript since October, and the idea of starting all over again to build up my writer profile seemed pretty overwhelming, especially since, at that point, I couldn’t even write a grocery list without the need to lie down.

Eventually, though, the fog started to lift. It took a lot of time, a lot of doctor visits and physical therapy, and a lot of doing absolutely nothing before I could go back to doing even the littlest of things. I was overjoyed when I discovered I could handwrite things again, and even more so when I found I could type for a few minutes on a Word document. Cooking and baking were the first activities I was able to do without feeling ill, but reading and writing, as luck would have it, were some of the last things to return to my life.

Fast forward a few weeks: It’s now March, and I’m mostly healed. I’m still not 100%, but I’m a heck of a lot better than I was this time last month. As you can see, I’m able to write pretty regularly now, which means – yay! – I’m able to start blogging again, though using social media on my phone still remains tricky. If I can’t do it on a laptop or desktop these days, I’m probably not doing it at all. However, this is a HUGE improvement, for which I am exceptionally grateful.

Although there was a lot of negative over the past few months, some positive came from it, too: a friend with editorial experience read my manuscript, and she sent me back rave reviews. This gave me a much-needed boost of confidence about getting my novel published, and I’m really looking forward to querying literary agents with renewed vigor in the next few weeks. Fingers crossed.

I’m also looking forward to working more on the blog, though with less intensity than I was doing pre-concussion. I’d been running at breakneck speed for the last half of 2018 in terms of building the Tart, and while I knew it wasn’t sustainable, I did nothing to curtail it, either.

This bump on the head was a wake-up call to remind me that writing is something I enjoy doing – and the Tart is an outlet that allows me to do what I love. Whether I ever make a living or not from it should be irrelevant, at least in terms of the happiness it brings me. It’s okay if I don’t post on schedule all the time; it’s okay if I miss a social media upload here and there; and it’s definitely okay if I never really get the hang of Twitter.

All that matters is that I have an opportunity to do what I love whenever and however I feel like doing it, and, as Marie Kondo would say (I told you there was a lot of TV the past few months), that it brings me joy. It wasn’t until I was forced to abstain from this opportunity that I realized how much it adds to my life…and how much I shouldn’t take it for granted.

So, kids, that’s my little spiel about where I’ve been lately, and my little life lesson about taking time to appreciate what you have while you have it. Thanks for listening, thanks for sticking with the Tart, and stay tuned for lots of new content!