Early Onset Blog Book Wins Book of the Year Award

I went to the Ozarks Writers League (OWL) Awards banquet hoping, but not expecting, to win an award for my contest entries. After winning third place in the Gene Andereck short story contest, and third in the Dan Saults essay contest, I felt good about the recognition. Sixty-six of OWL’s 263 accomplished authors submitted more than 200 entries in nine categories, and though I was elated to win, I calmly walked forward to receive my checks and certificates.

One of the last awards was for the Book of the Year. When President Delois called out my name and announced that Early Onset Blog: Essays from an Online Journal was the Best Book of the Year Award winner, I hopped and skipped toward the front to accept. I bounded forward propelled by a mixture of excitement and the urge to get to the front of the room before they changed their minds.

The blog book didn’t win Book of the Year because it has an outstanding plot or colorful fiction characters. The characters are real people, with fear, anxiety, hope, and humor weaving us together as we share the bond of life with dementia. My blog isn’t flowery prose or a literary masterpiece. Each idea, phrase, or observation comes from my heart or it doesn’t hit the page.

For the past five years, I’ve wanted to write a memoir about Jim’s life. Although, I’ve never pared down my copious journal, I have shared many of my memories through the blog. The blog has become a memoir of our ten-year journey through dementia. Our story is the thread that binds the essays together that make up two books: Essays from an Online Journal and The Friendship Connection. Now, the third book is almost finished.

The books are not bestsellers, and were never intended to be. I give them to legislators during our Capitol Hill visits at the Advocacy Forum in Washington, DC. I hand them out during Memory Day at the state capital. Then, I distribute them free of charge at our Sedalia Memory Walk. The worth of the books is not based on sales, and the rewards I receive are not monetary. I am more like the old time vendors who receive something of value in exchange. No, please don’t send me a chicken or side of beef—my rewards are finding out I wrote something that helped or encouraged you. I prefer emails, comments, or a hug when we meet in person.

Readers have many different views of bloggers and bloggers have different goals, or agendas. My goals are simple: Encourage, Inspire, and Inform. I know how alone a caregiver can feel, and I understand those middle-of-the-night moments when you need to be encouraged. No matter how much family, friend, or church support you have, your inner strength occasionally needs to be shored up. You need to be reminded that the days may be dark, but moments of joy will break through the clouds, and you will once again walk in sunshine.

I don’t write this blog to win awards. Yes, it is great to be recognized and it validates the time and effort to keep on writing even when I get no comments or emails. I can look at the stats and know hundreds read the blog on a regular basis. My writing comes from a passion of knowing how alone a caregiver can feel.

When I lose my passion, I’ll close this blog down. Until that day, if it ever comes, I’ll keep on encouraging, inspiring, and informing. Simple, but important goals, as long as Alzheimer’s erases memories, erodes skills, and reduces our abundance of life.

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Early Onset Blog: Essays from an Online Journal and Early Onset Blog: The Friendship Connection are both available at http://www.amazon.com/ when you type in "Early Onset Blog."

Copyright © November 2010 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

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The Write Way to Handle Grief

It probably wouldn’t come as a big surprise to any caregiver to learn that when the University of Indianapolis surveyed 400 Alzheimer’s caregivers, 80% identified grief as their No. 1 challenge. When your loved one has dementia, your grief is ambiguous because it doesn’t have a defined beginning. It just sneaks up on you when you think you’re doing a great job of handling everything.

Each time Jim lost a skill, I grieved. Not only did I grieve the losses, I anticipated more to come. Yet, I was determined not to become mired in a world of sadness without hope of better days ahead.

Writing helped me chip away at the seemingly insurmountable task of being a primary caregiver. My journal became my therapy as I wrote about my thoughts, fears, and frustrations. Along with the bad, I interwove moments of joy and humorous incidents.

I wrote throughout our ten-year journey including April 18, 2005, the day Jim left this world for a better land. Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis realizes that writing helped me through the years I was a caregiver, and has turned me into a woman on a mission. I hope sharing our story will help others who travel this same journey.

Caregivers and people who blog tell their story, and while they write about the abnormal that has become their norm, they find spiritual healing in the midst of chaos. Writing is therapy for those who struggle with grief. While collecting and editing 37 true stories for Alzheimer’s Anthology of Unconditional Love, I often received notes from the authors telling me how cathartic it was to write about their experiences.

I’m a believer in the therapeutic benefits of writing and have completed a first draft of a manuscript on writing as therapy. I began blogging in 2008 and a year later published my posts in Early Onset Blog: Essays from an Online Journal, and this year released Early Onset Blog: The Friendship Connection.

Sometimes the intensity of re-living the most difficult decade of my life helped me put everything into perspective, but it also left me emotionally drained. My blog is filled with my non-fiction writing, and you may not realize I also write fiction.

Although all therapeutic writing research is based on non-fiction writing, I find fiction writing to be therapeutic too. The best thing about fiction—you can make it turn out anyway you want. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never figured out how to do that in the real world.

Now, I am working on a fiction project, an anthology—A Shaker of Margaritas: Hot Flash Mommas. This book is going to be a fun project. Submissions are open to everyone! Visit www.mozarkpress for details about the Hot Flash Mommas Fiction, Fun, and Forties Writing Contest and the anthology.

Writing may not work for everyone, but I think of it as my lifeline. When I write my problems down, or craft a story, I can almost feel the tension flowing from my fingertips onto the paper.

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Available at www.amazon.com: Early Onset Blog: The Friendship Connection, Early Onset Blog: Essays from an Online Journal, and Alzheimer’s Anthology of Unconditional Love.

For a book review of the Early Onset Blog books: http://plantcityladyandfriends.blogspot.com/.

Copyright © April 2010 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
Baby Boomer Blog: http://boomerobics.blogspot.com

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