How blogging and writing is saving me

“Your gift will feed you.”

I have a personal saying that I recently adopted -- Your gift will feed you. I cannot tell you exactly when I decided this was my mantra, but it was pretty recent. Accepting this mantra has been really a good thing for my spirit. I say it to myself as an affirmation many times per day.

I've been blogging now for nearly six years. Fabulous Boobies has been cathartic for me, educational and insightful for others and it has given me concrete evidence that writing is truly my gift and my calling.

I've been an avid reader and storyteller since I was a little girl. I mean, very very small. My mother tells the story that she "discovered" that her only child was able to read when I was about 3 years old. Notice I said that she discovered it... because she found me reading and realized that I would read anything that was left lying around. As an only kid, I played by myself all the time... making up fantastic stories and situations with my dolls and such. I would write little books and create the covers out of construction paper with my own original crayon art. This was how I entertained myself. I've kept a diary or a journal since I was maybe about 8 years old. I've chronicled my life and my thoughts since forever.

Writing is what I do. I just never really believed that it would or could feed me.

I have always held writers in a pretty high regard. I thought their work was magical. I never thought of my writing as either work, nor valuable and certainly not magical. It was just me... killing time, spilling words on paper. No big deal.

No big deal.

I believed that working 9 - 5 for someone else was what I should do. I believed that responsible adults worked regular office hours (if they were fortunate) and they made good money and supported themselves. So I wrote in my journals in secret and I didn't think much of it. I wrote for free for many people (sometimes I still do) and I was just grateful when someone read it who wasn't related to me.

I never thought that writing would feed me.

I had a "real" job, in a real office, dealing with real politics. Writing humorous essays about being a frivolous young adult was well... just kicks. I was surprised that people paid attention but never thought that writing would feed me. I've got more examples of me coming close to greatness (laughs) and not believing it was real... and the problem in every situation wasn't that my writing was terribly bad or that people were just being kind. It was because I truly did not believe that I had whatever magic that "real" writers had. My writing wasn't long flowing lyrical elegance like Toni Morrison. It was conversational and (to me) sort of low brow. It wasn't filled with hard to pronounce unfamiliar words or terms. It was neighborly. I didn't think people who were "real readers" would appreciate it.




I fell in love when I read Maya Angelou's autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. My life transformed a bit after that because her writing was like mine. It was warm and conversational. It was neighborly and familiar. It was comforting. And she was a real writer. I wanted to be like her. And like Zora Neale Hurston. They had wonderful, authentic voices... regular people writing about regular life with a familiarity that made you smile and feel as though you were chatting with a neighbor.

My biggest challenge was that I didn't know how to get from here (regular person)... to there (magical writer). It seemed like a large chasm separated me from being a "real writer". So I wrote on the side and figured that writing would never feed me financially but perhaps it could feed my spirit and that would be sufficient.

I went to writing workshops that buoyed my spirit, read fascinating books and magazines about writing, took writing classes and basically studied my craft without fully realizing what I was doing. In my mind, I was still chasing a far away dream. It was a hobby. And then one day, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Everything changed.

The only thing I had that could anchor me in the belief that I would, somehow, be okay... was to write. I wrote like my life depended on it. I wrote many days curled up in my bed, with the curtains drawn and the only light coming from the screen in front of me. I wrote through tears and sobs that shook my entire body. I wrote through pain, nausea, neuropathy that left my fingertips a tender mess... and when that wasn't enough, I typed for weeks with my fingertips wrapped in bandages because my fingernails had fallen off thanks to chemotherapy.

I wrote regularly, not every day -- I wasn't always physically or emotionally able to do it daily -- but I wrote. I wrote as my body was torn down and ripped apart... first by the effects of chemotherapy and then from the horror of losing my breast from a mastectomy I wasn't ready for until it was over. I wrote through the months of pain from the large radiation burn on my flat-on-one-side chest where my breast once was. I wrote when I tried to go back to work and was sent home because I didn't "look" well enough to be there. I wrote through the agony of losing my relationship with my boyfriend, of not recognizing my own body in the mirror... I just wrote.  And I've been writing and sharing since.

Along the way, I discovered that blogging was saving me. I hated my job. I can finally admit that. It wasn't their fault... I just didn't like it. I was still settling for that 9 - 5 life that I had always been told was the path that mature adults took. But I am a writer. When my job was gone and I was looking at life through a pink ribbon lens... nothing I did before made much sense anymore. My life seemed so frivolous and empty. I needed it to have some meaning now. Breast cancer changed everything for me.

I kept writing. I discovered social media and twitter friends and facebook friends and Pinterest buddies... and they saved me from the wretched loneliness of being so heartbroken that no one could understand my pain. I found a new tribe online. There were tons of survivors and other people who didn't mind talking about or listening to someone yammer on about breast cancer. The writing was saving me.

A new career was born.

It took me a few years to realize that writing the way that I was doing on my blog wasn't going to make me rich and there was a lot more to blogging than just writing my thoughts. So, I decided to learn more. I went to blogging conferences, read books, watched videos, listened to podcasts and realized that if I wanted blogging to feed me in a real way, I had to approach things differently. Slowly I changed and started adopting new practices and I started seeing some changes. The writing was now feeding my pockets. But just a little.

I will be candid and say that I've gained more experience than money, made more memories than coins... but the tide is turning. Blogging and writing have rewarded me more in these past few years than I received in the 15 or so years I spent working in government affairs. Prior to my diagnosis, I was in a crisis state. My friends in the field were doing well, but they all loved what they did. They wanted to work all the time. They went to fancy schools and got fancier degrees... and I could never pull that trigger. I never felt the way they felt about the jobs. It didn't occur to me that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to. I just felt that something was wrong with the jobs I accepted or the people I worked with. It was never a good fit.

"If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you". ~Gospel of Thomas

"Your gift will feed you". ~Nicole McLean

I picked the wrong lane when I went to college. (I picked the wrong school initially and the wrong major ultimately - but going to college was a great decision) And because I picked the wrong path for the wrong reasons -- I didn't think that writing would feed me -- I spent fifteen years in misery. I tried. So very hard... but it took being stripped down (literally) to a weak, frail, fragile and utterly dependent mess to recognize that the thing that I've been doing since I was three was the only thing that my spirit wanted to do. I tell stories. I am a storyteller. I write about my life, about the lives around me... about the lives I envision in my head. That's what this vessel was created for.

I can, and often do write all night. Writing comes to me in a way that working in government affairs never did. It gives me a purpose and rarely feels like work. It is challenging sometimes, but it never feels bad to do it. Finally, what is within me (writing) is saving me.


You were created for a reason and I understand that life is life and we've all got bills to pay and families to feed and support... but believe me when I say this... your gift will feed you. Find your lane and then pursue that thing. Take it seriously. Find the business aspect of it, and then take to it with positive energy.  I am not telling you to quit your job (heavens no). But if you are given a chance (and sometimes closed doors are actually opportunities)... take it. Your gift will feed you.  It may take a little bit of effort and some learning but you'll get there. We will get there.

In the meantime... the three conferences that I am speaking at this fall are listed below. *pinching myself to be sure that it is real*  I hope to see you and at least one of them.

I will be speaking about blogging your breast cancer experience on Saturday, Septempter 27th. in Philadelphia. Click the image to learn more information about this conference for breast cancer survivors.

I will be participating in a panel discussion about using social media to connect with patients in an authentic way. September 17-19, Philadelphia PA. Click the image to learn more about this conference.

I am speaking at the ePatient Connections Conference on September 15-16, 2014 at the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District Hotel in Philadelphia, PA. Use discount code C491SPK to save 15% off of the standard registration rate by clicking here http://bit.ly/1nC3EfK