PRESENTING YOUR AUTHOR SIDE
I set this blog post to be written last year, when I was in my 20th year as an author. So much has changed since then, but I am happy to be here, writing a blog post that has waited so long to be written out. For those who don't know, I'm chronically ill and disabled, and in October 2025, my body tried to kill me. I had sepsis, in ICU, coma for seven days and then more on a regular ward. I have a few parting gifts from the sepsis, the biggest being partial paralysis in my right hand and arm, which is, or was, my dominant side. I've been off work since then, and because of my organisation, I had three posts I'd already written ready to go, and you'll have seen them finally posted at the start of June 2026. This is the first blog post I have written after recovery.
But I'm getting off topic, and not at the same time. I have always been a disabled author, and have never been shy about people knowing that. I have, just like everyone else in either the author sphere, or just a person in general, the ability to draw a line between what parts of my life are talked about publicly, and which I choose to not share. As an author who was first published before social media was either a thing, or as big as it is now, it feels like I was lucky enough to grow into who I wanted to be seen as by readers, and what I wanted to just not share.
Obviously that is a very personal choice. I would never sit here and tell anyone that they can't make their own decisions about things like this, but in my mind, there should be some idea out there of how that information will be received and used. Now I wanna be clear that I do not speak from any other place than my own experience, and from what I've seen, and heard about from other disabled writers. From a minority perspective, I can't speak on matters of race, and while being bi, I don't feel like I have enough lived experience when it comes to that either, but I have seen it online too. So I'm gonna focus solely on disability.
#1 YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DISCLOSE ANYTHING
While it's true that there is nothing wrong with talking about your disabilities, there is also no rule that states you have to. If you don't feel safe doing so, that's completely okay and valid. While the opposite is also true, if you want to talk about your disabilities, and the impact they have on your writing and author life, you are still allowed to not share everything. I have been quite open about my disabilities both online, and with my author life content. I do it because that's what I want, and feel comfortable doing. But you don't owe anyone your medical history. It is, and should always be, your personal choice, no matter where you are in your author journey.
#2 YOU DO NOT OWE ANYONE POSITIVITY
Toxic positivity is something that is rampant around ALL online spaces, for ALL groups, but you will usually see it highlighted especially in minority groups, and especially within the disability and chronically ill sphere. Now, the majority of the time in this group, it's coming from those observing from outside of the group itself. They want to see everyone stay positive despite what they're going through as if somehow that is going to cure or help. I'll cover those more in a moment. But as a disabled author, you do not have to always be positive about anything in your life, even if that's about the things going on disability wise. Having a bad day or period of your life, that's normal, and I feel like being real with readers, and other authors, allows people to really see that we are human, and doing what we can to survive and thrive in our work, and in our lives. That's not a bad thing.
#3 YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE AN INSPIRATION
Like I said above, some people want to view disabled people, author not, as an inspiration, because, look at them, managing to string words together and make a whole book! This is so freaking dismissive and I hate every part of it. But there's a second part to this too which I feel like isn't talked about enough. We're not supposed to write fiction. we're supposed to write books which detail every medical visit, every symptom, and how hard and depressing our lives were/are, and if we don't do that, we get looks that kinda imply that the only thing non disabled people want to read from us is about our personal disability experience. We have nothing else worthy of publishing, and how wrong that is!
So while I have made it through enough recovery to be allowed back at work, I am also very aware that the way I worked before is not going to be the way I will, probably, ever work again. Disability is always changing, and when you are in those trenches, you have to roll with it and keep going.
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