How to be a productive writer when you have Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia Awareness (Photo credit: Kindreds Page)

Having lived with Fibromyalgia for more than 10 years and been writing on the internet for 6, I know what a struggle it is sometimes to come up with ideas, titles and actually writing an article when you have a disabling illness. Fibromyalgia causes pain, fatigue, fogginess, forgetfulness and depression.

It's not easy sometimes to sit down and write, especially if you are in a lot of pain or are tires. But if you have a passion for writing, as I do, you will find a way to push through the pain, the fatigue, forgetfulness and fogginess. You may have to do things a little differently than others, but you, like me, will find a time and a way to write.

I get discouraged sometimes when I haven't written a blog post for a week or more because I had other obligations and “ran out of spoons” , but I always come back.

I still struggle at times, but I do things a lot differently than “normal” writers. Here are some things I do to be a productive writer while living with a painful, sometimes debilitating disease.

Find ideas in like sites:

There is nothing wrong with reading your favorite blogs and coming up with ideas based on something you read from them. If you can't come up with any ideas because your fibromyalgia brain fog is working overtime, this is a good way to find ideas.

You can also go to the forums to see what everyone there is asking about. Find out what the most frequent, non-answered question is and write an answer article based on that question. You may even produce an article that goes viral if enough people need the answer that you are answering in your article!

Write things down during research:

People living with fibromyalgia generally have problems with memory. They may also forget things that they have known for years. This makes it difficult to do even simple research.

Writing all the most important stuff down is a must for me. I have to be accurate as I'm sure most writers want. When I am referencing someone, I want to get the referencing site correct. So, I write it down. If I don't, then when I am writing my article, I am likely to forget where I found my reference and have to spend extra time retrieving it.

Break down your article:

Because those of us with fibromyalgia have a hard time writing an entire article all at once either because: Their fingers go numb halfway through (mine do) or they just can't come up with that much information all at once.

Break down your articles into several pieces and only do one at a time. If you can do more than that, go ahead, but sometimes you may have to be happy just getting one piece done.

People with fibromyalgia sometimes have Reynolds syndrome along with fibromyalgia. Reynolds is a condition that causes pain in the hands usually when they are cold, by not always. Some people with Reynolds have hand pain all the time. This makes it hard to write or type for long periods of time.

Sometimes I get on my computer and just write a title in Open Office and save it. Or, I will pop on here and write my subheading or a paragraph. There are times when I can do a lot more, but when I can't, that's all I do.

I'm also a very slow typist by anyone’s standards. Lol...I have been typing since before 2006 and I have only gotten a little better, but not much as I was starting to have fibromyalgia symptoms by then.

Find ideas in your old articles:

Go through your old articles and find ideas to write on new angles. Revamp an old article that needs new information put into it. Add pictures to your old articles that don't already have pictures in them.

You can also add video to your articles, but I personally think that an article can become too clogged with stuff.

If you have the article, a few pictures, a side article (added information), a video, Amazon, E-Bay and every other thing on there, I think it's too crowded. I think there's a limit to the amount of apps you can put in an article to make it look nice and appealing to the eye.

In my opinion, an article starts to look crowded if it has more than 4 items, other than the article itself. Such as, a video, a picture, Amazon and E-bay, Or 2 pictures, 2 Amazon and a side article (added information).

But, sometimes all that is too much for me. To keep it simple, but nice is good enough for me, because it has to be. I would never get any articles out there if I put everything there is out there in my articles'.

Organize your workspace:

People with fibromyalgia work better among organization, and not so well under a mess. So clean up your workspace everyday or just keep it organized so you can find everything. People with fibromyalgia need a space that is quiet and where there are no interruptions.

Fibromyalgia can cause confusion, memory loss and vision problems, all of which make being a productive writer harder. Having a quiet, clean workplace with no distractions can help a person with fibromyalgia get more of the important articles written.

People with fibromyalgia also get frequent migraine headaches. These headaches are sometimes debilitating which makes it impossible to do anything, including writing an article. So, there are days when, no matter what you need to do online, you just won't be able to.

On the days where nothing is helping you write that important article, take a well deserved brake. It takes a person with fibromyalgia longer to do some tasks, but don't sabotage yourself by trying to write an article when your fibromyalgia is working hard against you. This invisible disease is not invisible to you, unfortunately.

And last...give yourself a pat on the back for what you did get done. Be proud of yourself everyday, because even on those awful days when you can't write...you are still a writer!

Here's to all of you fibrowriters out there that get the job done through fogginess, pain and anxiety!!!

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