[cancer] Writing, blogging and me
by
Yesterday Lisa Costello asked me a question I’ve already been asked in several other contexts. It’s also a question I actually expect to come up in an adversarial way if my disability claims are ever audited. She said, “If you can blog, why can’t you write?”
There’s a simple, not very helpful answer to that question. Blogging is just talking through my fingers, conversation at one remove. Writing is something else entirely.
We spent some time talking out more complex answers to that question. I’m going to take a crack at them here, with the proviso that I’ll probably have to come back later and try again. Because even I don’t understand this very well.
It’s been true every time I’ve been on chemotherapy that I cannot write. It’s not that my fingers can’t touch the keyboard — they’re doing that right now, clearly enough. Rather, something in my head fails.
I’ve said for years that I don’t write like I talk. What I’ve meant by that is the part of my brain which produces fiction seems to run off an entirely different version of the English language. As if I speak two languages fluently, both of them English. I’ve long wondered if fMRI studies of writers deep in first draft mode would bear this out empirically. If you think about it, the process of learning to write well is rather akin to the process of learning to speak another language well.
The objective evidence of this assertion is available in most of my published fiction. Pick up almost anything I’ve ever written and read half a dozen pages. You’ll find sentence structures, vocabulary choices, conceptual presentations and so forth that simply would not be present in spontaneous speech. Not even speech as annoyingly erudite and obscurantist as mine can sometimes be. (Or used to be, before chemo ate my brain.) I strongly suspect that some computational textual analysis on my blog corpus and my fiction corpus would suggest two different authors.
The issue isn’t putting words and sentences together, per se. Regorafenib does in fact give me mild, transient aphasia, but that’s just a bloody nuisance. I can still talk just fine, and except for the odd moments of aphasia or anomia, do not sound as if I am ill or confused. It’s what those sentence are doing that matters.
Conversation, of which I consider blogging to be a special case, tends to be largely single-threaded with a fairly clear through line. You don’t have to think deeply or terribly far ahead to function effectively. Note that my blog posts work this way. It also comes in brief chunks. A few sentences spoken at a time, or a few hundred words typed out over twenty minutes.
Fiction requires a much deeper integration of multiple aspects of story telling. Plot, character, setting, style, prosody, world building, continuity… the list goes on and on. Essentially, it’s the same “hand of cards” theory I’ve often discussed here and elsewhere: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ].
The number of cards you need in your hand for blogging is much smaller than the number of cards you need in your hand for writing fiction.
To abuse a metaphor, in terms of my writing faculties I’ve gone from playing high stakes poker at the pro tables to playing Old Maid with the kids on the back porch. This has removed me from the Producer role I’ve played and strongly enjoyed for years, and even compromised my Consumer role in that I can no longer effectively read books, either, because I can’t keep track of that same set of complexities on the inbound side. For more discussion of this concept, see here: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ].
The same problem applies to me working my chosen profession, from which I am now vacated on disability. I can write emails, memos and even meeting reports just fine, but I cannot handle the complexities of a hundred page business and technical requirements document, as well as the financial and legal issues inherent in drafting the associated contract.
Thanks to the cognitive impairments induced by chemotherapy and the physical and psychological stresses of terminal cancer, I can no longer do my job, either as an author or in my Day Jobbe career.
Which is to say, I cannot write. No matter how well I can still talk, I don’t have the focus, continuity, or depth to write.
And this frustrates me to the core of my soul. It’s part of the price I pay for remaining alive at this point, quite literally so. But a part of me is already gone, almost certainly beyond retrieval.
I am dying by degrees.
More from my site

RT @jay_lake: [cancer] Writing, blogging and me: http://t.co/ceRGRQgPpO
@jay_lake Powerful entry. Makes me angry, too, bc it’s a common belief among non-artistic folks. They think creativity is playtime. If only…
@jay_lake Well explained. I wondered if u could share w closest people ongoing list of what you wished to write, as bright creative glimmers
@CatherineJune1 I am working on exactly that process. 😉
RT @jay_lake: [cancer] Writing, blogging and me: http://t.co/ceRGRQgPpO
I start teaching a new class of first-year uni writing students tomorrow, and one thing I want to discuss with them is the difference between conscious/purposeful fiction writing and blogging or emails or other off-the-cuff writing. Do you mind if I use part of what you’ve said here (especially the ‘hand of cards’) to introduce the discussion? It’s a great metaphor. Thanks for sharing it, and for sharing all you have on these posts. It’s been a deep learning experience for me.
Tiffani – You are more than welcome to use my post, or any posts of mine. All I ask is that attribution is retained. I’d be interested in hearing any unusual outcome.
RT @jay_lake: [cancer] Writing, blogging and me: http://t.co/ceRGRQgPpO
RT @jay_lake: [cancer] Writing, blogging and me: http://t.co/ceRGRQgPpO
Yeah, I agree about the different parts of your brain thing. When you write, Jay, you have the largest vocabulary of *anyone* I have ever come across in science fiction (or possibly in fiction, period). I almost never have to look words up in other books; I regularly do in your work. And I consider myself highly, highly literate. I can easily see that vocabulary, not to mention sentence structure, overall story structure, plot planning, complexities of voice and perspective going out the window on chemo. Damn, that sucks hard. I’m sorry.
The hand of cards metaphor is an excellent boiling down of a really complex subject. I’m very sorry that you are experiencing this, and can’t even begin to imagine how utterly frustrating it must be to not be able to do the thing that you love, and that has kept the kibble on the table…
@jay_lake great post. It’s hard to watch you fading, but still I keep hope that something will happen to improve your odds.
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We have talked about this before, because I too went through a period where I couldn’t write during my severe health crisis and when I didn’t have the mental bandwidth during my husband’s cancer and chemo experience. I akin blogging emails and such to communication, which has always been something I excell at. I am very much a people’s person (for want of a better phrase), so talking has never been a problem for me, whatever the form. Writing fiction however is about the creation of conversations, worlds, scenarios – lives – that don’t exist until you CRAFT them into existence. And it is the ability to sculpt words in your mind and to shape concepts and ideas into a believeable – yet still fictional setting – that goes when you are physically or mentally compromised.
The way I always saw it is if you are struggling to keep your own life on an even keel in rough seas, how do you have the time to be able to first create plans to build a new ship (outline), then gather the resources to construct it (research), let alone then have the bandwidth to build it from scratch (write it) and then navigate it through unknown oceans (through plotting refinement and editing) to find the best path, when your own ship might be sinking. xxx
I see this with my friend and her chemo too, she isn’t a writer, but the difference in her depth of cognitive thought from start to finish is incredible and so very sad. I’m glad you can still blog, Jay, I enjoy reading about what you get up to.
Brain power for writing vs. brain power for blogging: http://t.co/RpSk3hSbsH
Tiffani – You are more than welcome to use my post, or any posts of mine. All I ask is that attribution is retained. I’d be interested in hearing any unusual outcome. https://dev.clockpunkclients.com/jaylake/?p=23356#comment-95484
You may not be able to write fiction now. but you are a powerful essayist.
Thank you, Astrid.
#handofcards
interesting pov of language&’writers deep in first draft mode’
MT “@jay_lake: [cancer] Writing&blogging http://t.co/Z4bgmbehS9”
It’s the difference between noodling on a napkin or the back of an envelope and producing a full-scale oil painting.
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[cancer] Writing, blogging and me http://t.co/Uonh1yRr6l (via @jay_lake)
What Astrid Bear said 🙂 with added hugs.
Jay Lake: [cancer] Writing, blogging and me: Yesterday Lisa Costello asked me a question I’ve already been ask… http://t.co/OHRz44CRCH
As my oncology nurse once said, “Chemobrain is real.”
It’s not permanent is it, Jay? Were you able to write fiction again after the first rounds? That’s a very bad adverse reaction to chemo.
Well, technically it’s not permanent. Once I’m off this drug, I may be able to write again. On the other hand, once I’m off this drug, I’ll be in my terminal decline (ie, actively dying), and so am unlikely to be able to write for other reasons.
I’m sorry you can no longer do something that is important and fulfilling for you.
So it’s like the difference between tactics and strategy. You still have the tactics, it’s the strategy skillset that has been taken from you by the drugs.
Thank you so much, Jay, for this and your other cancer posts. You’re providing a window into the experience that I’m sure will help many people to better understand what loved ones are going through. For myself, while she doesn’t have cancer, my mother at 88 is losing mental acuity and very aware of and frustrated by it. Your insights will help me support her as this continues.
Good luck and good health to her, insofar as that is possible.
Fiction *is* a rigorous pursuit. Yes, if you are distracted, it compromises your ability, like being a champion pole-vaulter trying to perform during bouts of malaria, or soprano trying to sing through a case of the flu. However, I maintain you still write well. The singer has a ring in her voice even in conversation, and the athlete still retains his poise, even in old age. He has that frame he has built. So, you still have the ‘shine’ about your words. It’s there, I promise. Just obscured by clouds.
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Jay, sorry to hear you are going through this. I truly know what you are dealing with. While I’ve never done as well, or been as prolific as you, you could replace your name with mine and it’s the same story.
I’ve been on various chemo pills for the last three years. I’ve been able to work for periods during that, until last August. But I haven’t been able to write. At least not well. I’ve tried a couple of short stories and yuck. When I write posts on Facebook I read them at least twice to make sure they say what I want. High level spit ball plotting, sure, I can do that. But taking that to create the actual story, I’m missing something.
But it was spooky how the meds are impacting me the same as they have been impacting you. Our cancers are different, but it was uncanny to read what I’ve been going through and dealing with is what you’ve been dealing with.
I hope these latest meds help you (and me). I’m an optimist and looking to be cured and return to a “normal” life, writing included.
Good luck, Alan, and I hope you find a better outcome than I have.
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Jay you are still a powerful writer, even if you can’t keep things straight for long periods. Thank you for your posts and your books. You are made of awesome.
Fiction *is* a rigorous pursuit. Yes, if you are distracted, it compromises your ability, like being a champion pole-vaulter trying to perform during bouts of malaria, or soprano trying to sing through a case of the flu. However, I maintain you still write well. The singer has a ring in her voice even in conversation, and the athlete still retains his poise, even in old … https://dev.clockpunkclients.com/jaylake/?p=23356#comment-95534
Thank you, Astrid. https://dev.clockpunkclients.com/jaylake/?p=23356#comment-95584
Well, technically it’s not permanent. Once I’m off this drug, I may be able to write again. On the other hand, once I’m off this drug, I’ll be in my terminal decline (ie, actively dying), and so am unlikely to be able to write for other reasons. https://dev.clockpunkclients.com/jaylake/?p=23356#comment-95585
Good luck, Alan, and I hope you find a better outcome than I have. https://dev.clockpunkclients.com/jaylake/?p=23356#comment-95586
Facts are always helpful when facing bureaucrats of any ilk. It also helps when these facts just happen to be true, and the facts are (broadly) these: creative writing recruits different areas of the brain than analytical or critical. That’s a fact. It is also a fact that the old right/left brain dichotomy is incorrect. Creative writing requires recruiting and coordinating many different cognitive functions and regions of the brain (just as analytical writing does). It is also a fact that, broadly speaking, chemotherapy impairs cognition and neural flexibility. Have an auditor read the side-effect profiles if he/she/it doesn’t believe you. And then make the very valid case that the one-two-three approach of blogging and analytical thought is quite different from the cognitive leaps required for creative thinking. One is not better than the other; they are different functions that are dependent on our ability to rapidly activate and then utilize different neural regions. Have her/him/it read this for starters; it should be at about his/her/its level: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/08/19/the-real-neuroscience-of-creativity/
Yes, your brain works. But for the kind of mental calisthenics required to write creatively (or even analytically since creative leaps are sometimes required there; just ask Schrodinger), it’s just not up to the task.
Or just pose the following question: “Yes, Ms./Mr./It Auditor, and how fast do you think you could run the fifty-yard dash in concrete galoshes?”
Do you remember the Kilroy Was Here album Styx put out? There was a song on it called “Heavy Metal Poisoning” that I think of every time I think of chemo.
I’m glad you can recover your writing brain, Jay. I hope there’s a possibility. Don’t write yourself off even if the scientific and medical community have. They do make mistakes. A friend of mine was misdiagnosed with prostate cancer and they put him on chemo. Despite his mushy brain I have hope and faith he’ll recover, from the treatment that is! Stoopid chemo business.
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