On Writing: Writing Despite Illness

Jane Friedman hosted a guest blog in 2017 by Audrey Berger Welz.

An author with Parkinson's Disease and a survivor of an abdominal aneurysm, Ms. Welz shared how chronic and acute physical events intertwined with her writing.

Ms. Welz wrote How I Used Writing to Survive. An excerpt:

I was very proud of how I was dealing with [Parkinson's]. Emily and Bess melded into the Circus of the Queens after my husband had asked me who the queens were and I couldn’t come up with an answer. It also slowly became a full-blown adult novel and it grew and grew as I wrote and rewrote until I fell in love with my own pages. Then in just a second my world changed. Like a tsunami crashing its way to shore with all the force and destruction it could muster, an undiagnosed aneurism exploded in a major abdominal artery as my novel was nearing completion.

... While in my coma I saw my novel written out word for word. It was in a triangle surrounded by a circle and encompassed by a square. I used it to draw out every ounce of strength in me. Even though I couldn’t move, talk, and could barely see, I would recite passages in my head trying to communicate with the doctors that I was the same girl who had written this beautiful book. Though now disabled, my brain was intact, and I wanted to live. I was worth saving and I needed to hold my finished novel as a book, in my hands.

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite their personal challenges. 



Image credit: “Life of Nichiren: A Vision of Prayer on the Waves” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese, 1797–1861), Japan via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0