Writing While Disabled: What’s A Process, Anyways?

Writing can be tough. Writing while disabled can be even tougher. Every writer in the history of ever who’s Made It will always tell you that you need a “process” in order to be successful. But how exactly do you do that when every day is a chore, and you never know what’s going to happen next with your health and life?

What Is Writing While Disabled Like?

Surprisingly, it’s just like everything else. Spotty and unpredictable at best. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Some days are fine. We like those days. Days when everything goes according to plan, or at least as close to “according to plan” as anything possibly can in this chaotic universe. A day when things aren’t too bad, when my brain isn’t too foggy, when I can sit in front of my computer with the word processor open and actually have words come out and go onto the page.

But then there’s the days that don’t go according to plan.

I break those into two categories: the days when my brain won’t cooperate, and the days when my body won’t cooperate. The days when BOTH happen are dark days that warrant no further explanation other than that they freakin’ suck.

Some days, my brain won’t work. Part of my dysautonomia is brain fog, which has only gotten worse ever since I got The Plague back in May 2022. Brain fog is a real delight. I can sense that the thoughts are there, just through the curtain. I can see their outline, hear their echoes. But they’re just too layered in a thick, heavy London fog for me to really see properly. And unfortunately, you kind of need to think to write. It’s not like music where you can just sit back, relax, and let the performance happen (hey, don’t @ me, I was a music major in college and have been a classically trained violist/violinist since I was 3 years old).

The other days are the ones where my body won’t work. Those usually fall into one of two categories. Category the first being those days when my back has once again decided it’s giving up on life. I really should think about getting a replacement; I’m only 26 and it’s giving me such issues. I should contact the manufacturer about a warranty issue. When my back is acting up too much, I can’t exactly sit at my chair at my desk for hours on end, unfortunately. The other bad body days are the ones where my joints decide they belong to a 106-year-old arthritic man (I mean, I do have arthritis, but that’s neither here nor there…). How am I supposed to type when I can’t get my fingers to move?! Clearly, someone needs to reset to factory default on my model.

So how exactly do I write?

Every Writer Has Their Process.

Or at least, we’re supposed to. It’s supposed to help us stay consistent and make sure we’re not slacking. I’ve already talked before about my thoughts on writer’s block, and a Process is designed to make it that much easier. So how do you have a process when you’re never going to have any sort of consistency in your health?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

You’re kidding, right?

The best thing I can do is give the appearance of having a process. I’m lucky in that I have a fairly consistent work schedule, and no social life to speak of, so my only real conflicts outside work are the numerous medical visits I have. But I’ve still been able to carve out several chunks across the week that I have designated as Nick’s Writing Hours. During those hours, I’m either writing, doing nothing, or scrolling through Twitter on my phone while pretending I’m either writing or doing nothing.

I’ll happily write outside those periods if I’m physically/mentally able to do so and/or have the time, but having those set slots helps me stay on track. I don’t like tracking daily word counts, because that can be wildly inconsistent for me. One day I may only pump out 600 words over one of my 4-hour periods, the next day I may pump out 6,000. Having these set slots helps me do my best to stick to a calendar of sorts. It’s a soft calendar, due to my health, but it’s a calendar nonetheless.

The other advantage that I have is I tend to have a very slight bit (okay, very large bit) of an obsessive personality, and I tend not to lose interest in things until they’re 100% completed and/or consumed. So I’m lucky there, I tend not to run out of motivation for a project.

The last part of my process that I actually count as a part of the process is my scores and scores of countless documents full of world-building information. We all know how much I love world-building, and as someone who writes exclusively fantasy and science fiction, I need to do a lot of it. So by the time I actually get to the writing of my draft, I know basically the whole history of the world, its geopolitics, trade patterns, internal politics, important familial lineages, immigration patterns, hell, even the damned weather sometimes. I have never felt comfortable starting on a draft of something unless I could tell you all the information in that world that could possibly be relevant in leading to the events of the story. Even a lot that maybe isn’t, because the world is super interconnected and the butterfly effect is a thing.

So What Should I Do For My Process?

Hell if I know. I just sort of gradually scraped mine together over years of trial and error. There’s parts of it I’m still changing, and probably will continue to change for years to come. I may never have a 100% set-in-stone process. And what you do for yours is up to you. Find what works best for you. Sacrificing three earthworms to the elder gods during the full moon? Pretending you’re a piranha? Throwing darts at a board covered in plot points? Totally up to you. Just don’t say that your way is the only way, because that’s pretentious and not true and is a good way to make people dislike you.

That’s all I’ve got for today, unfortunately. I’m more than a tad sick right now, so this entry was a little less filtered than usual, but hey it’s all for the art, right?

Anyways, updates outside of “oh wow shocker Nick has another sinus infection, real original, dude”: TikTok is officially a thing now, so all y’all follow me there if you want vaguely amusing writing and book and disability themed content in a small, easily consumable, mindless form. First draft of The Novel is on course to be done by the end of November, as long as there aren’t any unforeseen catastrophes, such as another epidemic of clown sightings in the woods. I’ll do a title reveal for it sometime in November.

Until next time, y’all.

-Nick




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