Transcript Outline

00:01	Introduction to the Episode
00:34	Cicely’s Introduction
00:50	Cicely’s Bio
03:16	Experience with ADHD
07:10	Writing Challenges with Limitations
10:12	Impact of Rejection Sensitivity
17:18	Handling Feedback
26:34	Inspirations
32:05	Cicely’s Writing Piece “Phone Table”
38:15	Advice for handling feedback
40:10	Quick lit round
43:30	Ending Words

Transcript

SPEAKERS:

1. Rachel Thompson
2. Cicely Belle Blain

Rachel Thompson:

Welcome luminous writers to the Write, Publish and Shine podcast. I’m your host, author and literary magazine editor Rachel Thompson. This podcast explores how to write and share your brilliant writing with the world. In each episode, we delve into specifics on how to polish and prepare your writing for publication and the journey from emerging writer to published author.

Welcome to our last installment of this string of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities. I’m so happy to be ending this with the wonderful Cicely Belle Blain, another luminous member of my writing community who kindly agreed to join us to talk about limitations and disabilities when it comes to writing. Reading from Cicely’s bio, Cicely Belle Blain is a black slash mixed queer femme activist, equity and inclusion consultant, and writer. Their best selling poetry collection “Burning Sugar” was called an “intimately powerful debut” by Quill and Quire.** With laughter and fearlessness, they harness a passion for justice, liberation and meaningful change via transformative education.

I am thrilled that they are on the podcast today. In our conversation, they talk about their consulting work, as well as writing and how their fairly recent journey of learning about their ADHD intersects with both of these practices. And Cicely reads work on the theme of grief, aptly bringing to the fore the subtext of what is often the experience of finding out about limitations and disability or experiencing those limitations.

As you just heard their bio mentions their passion for justice and so, of course, they shared their sage perspective that underscored the enormity of this series of themed episodes, not asking for simply understanding of their or others individual limitations and disabilities, but asking for solidarity with those attempting to resist the expectations of writing, the publishing world, social media, social capital, deadlines, capitalism, resisting the expectations of all of that. So, listen to my conversation with the luminous Cecily Belle Blain.

I’m going to start by welcoming you to the podcast and thank you for being here, Cecily Belle Blain.

Cicely Belle Blain:

Thank you so much for having me.

Rachel Thompson:

Absolutely my pleasure, as I told you when we were setting up this conversation, and actually you’re the final interviewee in this series that we’ve had now of nine guest writers who talk about writing with limitations and disabilities. This series is focused on writers who write with limitations and writers who write with a disability and or identify as disabled, the spoonie and neurodivergent, how do you publicly identify yourself? What’s on your writing bio? And how did you come to this identity or a way of expressing yourself within your lived experience?

Cicely Belle Blain:

That’s definitely been a journey, for me, I haven’t updated my writing bio in a while, so that is a good reminder, thank you. I have started over the past few months to speak more openly about my experiences with ADHD and I think I have it in some bios on social media. It’s not something I’ve kind of put in, like my formal writers bio, like when I’m introduced at events or anything like that, I don’t really know why necessarily I think, I’ve been thinking a lot about my bio more generally. Sometimes, like a writer’s bio or a bio more generally, sometimes feels like a [inaudible: o3:44] of accomplishments and experiences. And so I’ve been reflecting more broadly of what do I want to convey and communicate, and I think it’s more about, I want to convey my approach to my work, whether that’s writing or consulting or other things, and the values and vision with which I approach my work and so I think that’s subconsciously, part of why it’s not something I’ve included more explicitly.

I think we’ve sort of moved through a lot of iterations in the sort of inclusion and accessibility world of using labels and identifiers to kind of like speak our truth into a space but then, with a lot of the shift of how these things are perceived. There’s also the aspect of those pieces almost becoming like a kind of oppression Olympics situation where people almost feel like they have to then in a list all of the intersections of their identity. So, I think that’s kind of why I’m still exploring how I put myself out there in that regard.

In terms of how I came to this identity, it was something that I began exploring maybe about three years ago, we were in a pretty intense into the pandemic, and I think that was bringing up a lot of questions for me around. My mental health, my mental capacity, the way that I worked my ability to do work, and also particularly the way that capitalism and certain expectations require us to function in certain ways. And it was mainly just following people on social media, who talked a lot about their lived experiences of neurodivergence that really inspired me to understand more about it and seek more information and seek a diagnosis for that.

Rachel Thompson:

I really appreciate hearing your thoughts around the way that labels work in terms oppression [unintelligible 05:47] Olympics, possibly, or just like, what is the meaning behind them, and I guess what you’re trying to communicate with your bio, some of the guests previously to said, my disability or my chronic illness isn’t the most interesting thing about me. So, that’s why I don’t put it into my bio, too. I really appreciated hearing about your journey as well too because I think for a lot of people that definitely came up if my algorithm is telling me correctly, what’s happening? And what have you come up with in terms of how it’s impacted your writing, both creatively and in practice?

Cicely Belle Blain:

Yeah, I definitely think.  Especially as I look back on myself, as a younger person, my main frustrations that I experienced were just the inability to focus or commit to a project or get something done, to see something to completion. When I think about the publication of my book, Burning Sugar, really, I attribute the actual ability to finish it to be because I had such a great mentor and kind of a system where, there were deadlines and expectations and clear guidelines of what I should be achieving, and things like that. And then, with a lot of writing projects, you don’t necessarily have those parameters. If you want to pitch something or submit something, you really have to define those deadlines for yourself, which can be really difficult.

When I look back, I feel, a lot of frustration, I’ve always considered myself a really creative person, always been a writer, but it’s very difficult to commit to a practice, in a way that sort of traditionally considered a lot of the advice about writing is to have a schedule, to have a routine to plan things out, and those are just things that not just difficult for me, but really just goes against the way that I operate in the world and I think, when you grow up with these sort of limitations, especially when you don’t know what they are, or when you don’t have a diagnosis, or that’s not being noticed by adults in your life, and teachers and peers and stuff, it’s like, very very easy to internalize those things as, like, fundamental flaws of who you are as a person. I was pretty good in school, which I think is a large part of why ADHD is not something that was considered, but I think the reason that I did well, is because there were those external deadlines.

I think I do naturally have the creativity, especially with words and always kind of thrived in those areas. But when it came to kind of pursuing creative projects, or written projects, in my spare time, I just couldn’t get myself to commit. And I think if I had had the knowledge and support and access to systems and medication, or things earlier, that would have changed a lot. I especially think about, I used to write occasionally for daily extra, a queer and trans magazine, get in Canada and it was incredible opportunity. And I remember the editor kept kind of pushing me to say, we’d love you to do a column, we’d love this to be monthly or even weekly. And I couldn’t really explain why that felt so unfeasible to me. It’s not that I didn’t want to. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the opportunity. But the concept of such a consistent expectation was terrifying, and I didn’t know how to overcome that at the time.

Rachel Thompson:

I hear that around self directed deadlines and challenging they can be, the idea that knowing earlier maybe also would create another theme, I guess, that’s been coming up as well is, like you said about it’s so easy to internalize those flaws and who you are as a person. But knowing that, this is just part of my makeup, and here are some ways that I can adapt, that will work for me. But it’s not like we have to write in a specific way, even though there is some kind of messaging out there that says that writers write in a specific way, and are able to do self-directed deadlines. It’s so good to have that self-knowledge now, but it’s also kind of sad not to have had it earlier, I feel for our younger selves that didn’t know, that’s things about ourselves, too, and didn’t have the models.

Cicely Belle Blain:

Yeah, absolutely.

Rachel Thompson:

So, you mentioned self- directed deadlines, and I’m wondering if there’s anything else that’s posed challenges in your writing life related to ADHD or other limitations that kind of come out of that?

Cicely Belle Blain:

Yeah, I think another big aspect of ADHD is rejection sensitivity, and I think that can be really difficult when you’re looking for feedback, and you’re looking for support, and you want to improve as a writer, but the way that critique feels sometimes is, there’s one social media influencer, who kind of mentioned, for a lot of folks, things like over stimulation, or sensory stimulation, and things like, rejection, as one example, can be sort of viewed more objectively or like, distance for a lot of neurotypical people, but for neurodivergent people, there’s like aspects in our brain that interpret those things, in the same way that we would interpret pain. And I think that was a really helpful way to sort of explain, even if I can rationalize, and talk to myself and say, okay, this feedback on your work is not an attack on you. It’s not saying that the whole work is terrible, and receiving critique and feedback is so important to growing as a person, I can rationalize all of those things objectively, but then there’s this kind of aspect, where you have no control of how your body and your mind emotionally responds to certain things. And I think, with rejection, sensitivity, it can be that kind of feeling where it feels like, painful, almost physiologically painful. And I think that’s been something challenging to overcome.

And especially, if I’m working with editors, or I’m working with other people, it can probably come across as like being stubborn or being resistant to feedback. And I think especially the added layer of a lot of my work being so personal, if I’m writing poetry about my lived experience, and things like that, and my desire to include a lot of those personal aspects added to that it’s hard to not interpret, even if it’s like the most genuine and kindly worded and compassionate, constructive criticism, there’s just kind of a part of my brain that doesn’t know how to accept that without it hurting more than it should. And I think that has sometimes posed challenges, I remember, like, ages and ages ago, I really wanted to work on a particular story idea and got some feedback on it, where they had sort of critique, like the overall flow and said that, I think basically they’d said it was boring, the way that like they said, the idea looked good, but it’s a bit slow, like the pacing is not good. But then I never looked at it again. I was like, Oh, my God, it’s terrible, there’s no hope, there’s no room for improvement, so I just was like, well, I guess that project is dead and never reopened it.

So, I think now I have a thicker skin. And my ability to like compartmentalize those things like knowing what’s happening in my brain, I’m very grateful to have access to medication and things like that. But that only really ADHD medication mainly focus and attention, and there’s obviously going to be some aspects that can’t be addressed aside from simply having the tools and the language to know what’s happening so that you can then look at them from just a more kind of rational perspective, like, it doesn’t mean that those experiences aren’t real, but at least now I can kind of say; okay, I might actually hurt or upset by what’s been said, like, is this feedback actually overly critical or mean, Or with ill intention? Or is it actually trying to genuinely help me be a better writer and therefore, what aspects of this can I take to improve my work?

Rachel Thompson:

I think of that as deregulation to sometimes when, like, feedback hits you that hard and I’m also someone who’s like early in a neurodivergent kind of journey in terms of understanding and I guess a couple things come to mind. Because one thing I’ve been practicing is like also self advocating and saying things and I’m wondering if you’ve had experience with explaining that rejection sensitivity even to critique partners and having them kind of meet you where you’re at as well.

Cicely Belle Blain:

Not specifically with that, I mean, I definitely have been better at explaining ADHD more broadly, especially if it comes to meeting certain deadlines, just small things in my consulting work, where clients will expect a presentation to be sent in weeks in advance, I can produce very high quality work, but I work with much better under the urgency of the deadline. And I also work very much in line with how my energy flows, which is definitely a privilege to be able to define my working schedule in that way. But I’ve definitely been a lot more transparent with clients and people that I’m working with to say, I want to critique the sense of urgency that’s happening here, I want to critique a lot of these processes that have been designed in a neurotypical centered way. And, ask you to think about, do you actually need my PowerPoint, like two weeks in advance or something like that? But yeah, I definitely think with the rejection sensitivity piece that I would like to open more conversations about that. I think it’s easier with friends or peers to kind of say, can we be gentle with me, and don’t be offended if I don’t take all of your feedback on board.

Rachel Thompson:

That strikes me is something that I’m also working on in terms of just my practice of giving feedback to people, because just seems like rejection sensitive or not, to get the feedback that somehow what you were doing is boring, doesn’t seem to be very helpful, just in any way, shape, or form. I think there’s a previous me that thought that I had to take feedback that was that critical, too, it’s like, oh, I just to have that thicker skin, that’s what writers do, but the more that I done workshops with people, led workshops for people, I feel like people need to hear what’s really working in their writing. They need to hear what’s maybe not working, but not in a way that labels it, or specifically points to solutions for it, if that makes sense?

Cicely Belle Blain:

Yeah, definitely, I think it’s also the nature of like, especially digital feedback as well, just to kind of comment on a document or something is very different than if you were to give feedback to someone face to face, and I think sometimes going through and just kind of suggesting edits, without kind of the larger context, I guess, or without a compliment sandwich or something like that, I think that can be kind of daunting. I received feedback on a report I wrote for a client, and I have no idea what their overall impression of it was, they just kind of went in and made a lot of comments without much kind of fluff, and it was only like, when we were able to meet like a week later, they were like, this is amazing, we love this report. And I was like; oh my God, you should have started with that.

Rachel Thompson:

When it comes to creative writing, too, I think it’s really important to know what somebody got that was positive from the work too, because if you don’t know that they know that then how can you trust, what they don’t like about the work? It’s like they need to get it in order to give you the feedback anyway. I also want to honor what you’re saying about rejection sensitivity, but I also think that just in terms of critique, there’s sort of the whole way of operating that. I’m not a fan of and I’ve been trying to dismantle in some ways. You talked about that ability to compartmentalize. And we talked about treatment plans that you have around, but what are some things that you’ve done to make the work of writing better, that your abilities and limitations?

Cicely Belle Blain:

I think, more recently, I’ve been able to enjoy the process of writing itself more. I don’t know if it’s directly related to ADHD, but I think we live in such a culture where it’s hard to focus on things that can’t be monetized or feel, quote, unquote, unproductive. I’ve tried to spend more time recently just writing for the sake of writing, which is something I haven’t done in a long time. Sometimes that rejection sensitivity isn’t even real, like it’s not coming from actual people, it’s more coming from like me, second guessing myself or kind of imagining or perceiving what people might say, and I think there’s a lot of layers to that in terms of my positioning and status within the local community and sort of expectations that people often want to hear my perspective or my take on something and then I feel pressured to write an opinion piece, or a blog post addressing a specific issue. Just trying to turn inwards a bit more, and I think that’s how I’ve been able to find my groove more in creative writing recently, not everything has to be so extractive of my lived experience, and that’s really helped bring a lot of the joy back into writing recently. Just kind of like really going back to the roots of almost imagining myself as a teenager who would just write silly stories and just see where that goes, I guess.

Rachel Thompson:

I’m feeling joy, just talking about that and imagining that teenage self, because I think you mean, so many of us started writing back then and that’s exactly it wasn’t like, we had an expectation of where the writing was going to go, maybe big dreams, about our future literary careers. But that sort of leads me directly to my next question about writing practices and the kind of writing that excites you these days, like, maybe there are certain methods, genres, forms, and places where you feel momentum and excitement about your writing.

Cicely Belle Blain:

I think the best thing for me at the moment has been like finding tools to actually facilitate those processes. I love gadgets and software and things like that, and so just trying to find the right tools that work for me, like recently, I’ve been doing a lot of like voice to text while driving or walking the dog or washing the dishes. And that’s been pretty transformative, because I can’t see what I’m looking at, so it’s just, whatever’s coming out of my mouth. And then I look back at it later, and its miss heard a bunch of things, and it’s hilarious. That’s been a really helpful experience, and has really helped get rid of some of the perfectionism especially because you can’t sort of go back and edit line by line, and that is also a barrier, for me to completing something. I find it really hard to just get it out there without focusing so much on like, sentence craft, and like, making each line beautiful. Whereas with this approach, I just feel like I’m sort of telling a story to myself or to the dogs, and then later embellishing it, and improving it.

So, that’s been helpful, and I think for me, that kind of takes the place of a full plan. I think that’s just as much as I hear that advice a lot, I just don’t think that’s ever going to be me, actually having like a full outline of where something is going, I’ll have general ideas of what I want to achieve or accomplish, but I can’t imagine myself having like a chapter by chapter plan. So, this is helpful for me to sort of speed up the process of figuring out what’s actually happening, whether that’s in a story or in a nonfiction piece. And then also writing, particularly in fiction, like writing multiple points of view has been really helpful, particularly for my ADHD brain, because that adds that diversity of experience, which I think is a challenge, when you get bored or you move on from being the head of one character. There are certain scenes or aspects that just don’t spark as much joy to write. So then you can go right, from a different perspective, get into a different world, and it almost feels like you’re working on different projects. And I think that’s what keeps me going in a lot of things, a lot of people asked me, how come there’s many times when ADHD folks do have trouble focusing on one project, especially professionally, a lot of people move jobs very frequently, friends have asked, you’ve been running your business for six years, that’s quite a commitment.

And I think the only reason is because it’s such a varied role, like we work on so many different projects, work with so many different clients, come up with so many creative ideas, and each day is different from the next. And that’s the main reason why I’ve been able to see it through this long. And so I’m trying that also, with writing is jumping between projects and jumping between narratives and it’s definitely chaotic. And I don’t know where it’s going at the moment, but it’s probably the most fun I’ve had with writing in a while. And it’s still daunting to think of now going through and editing all of it to actually make any sense like that does feel like a bit of a looming chore, but at least I feel like some progress is being made.

Rachel Thompson:

Well, those are really great, concrete things that I think is great for our listener, like the listeners to this podcast to hear as well. I have used voice memos, and I have found it really funny how it misinterprets me, then I was thinking, well, maybe with your voice that they would understand you, but then unfortunately, doesn’t always understand you as well. Because I’m not sure exactly what specific voice it’s geared like, what is it actually created for? And why do we have all this AI but it still doesn’t understand, when we’re talking in the voice memo.

Cicely Belle Blain:

Yeah, it is quite entertaining, like one time I was driving and I was going through a drive thru. And then when I got home, I completely forgot, and I been to the drive thru, but I looked at the document and it said, like; can I have a coffee double double, and I was like, which of my characters was ordering coffee from McDonald’s, and then I realized that it was me.

Rachel Thompson:

I also really liked what you said about multiple points of view, and just how that kind of creates that challenge, when you may get bored from being in the head of one character. Another writer on the podcast, Shantell Powell was talking about writing very short, works like sort of getting in and out as being something but then also that change too, so it’s also, I guess, what I’m picking up from you, too, is just sort of following the energy and the joy, and maybe it’ll be daunting in the edit, but you’re enjoying what you’re doing right now, so that is awesome. You want to talk about any other writers, artists and people in your life living dead really good or not, that taught you through their own writing with limitations and disabilities related to ADHD or otherwise,

Cicely Belle Blain:

I couldn’t really think of anyone specific with ADHD unnecessarily. But I think one of my favorite books is “Reproduction” by Ian Williams, I don’t know if he’s identifies as someone with ADHD or neurodivergent, in any way. But I think the way that he wrote this book was so interesting in terms of the way that he sort of resisted the traditions and norms of literature and literary techniques. And I think it’s kind of the first time that I really engaged with a book that was so out there in terms of structure, just like even the simplest things of not using standard punctuation or sentence structure, the way things kind of merge together in a very sort of like mysterious way, that kind of leaves a lot of confusion for the reader. I just remember, as I was reading it, thinking that that is what it feels like, inside my brain. When I was writing Burning Sugar, my mentor Demetria was encouraging me to kind of push some of those boundaries and reject a lot of the ways that you learn to write poetry in school. And that was really difficult, like I knew what they meant, like I knew what they were asking me to do, but found it very hard, I almost feel like you’re accessing an extra dimension of creativity in your brain, because you’re not only being creative in the content and creative in the flow, you’re also trying to resist everything that you’re accustomed to when it comes to putting words on paper.

I’m still kind of on that journey. And I don’t know if I have or will get to the level of Ian Williams. But I think it’s an interesting concept to explore. I think for me, it represents what it means to be a marginalized writer in some ways, because it’s not just about the content. It’s not just about telling stories about black folks, or queer folks or disabled folks, it’s about disrupting the readers expectations, so that you then bring them into just a different way of looking at the world.

Rachel Thompson:

I love that, I’m gonna make sure I’ll link to that book in the show notes for the episode, and I’m also adding it to my TBR list. What do you wish people would sense or know about writing with disability and limitations, or specifically writing with ADHD?

Cicely Belle Blain:

I think for me, it’s not so much about people understanding my specific lived experience, although that is helpful. And I think that, I’d probably say this because I apply kind of like an anti-oppressive lens to my work and everything that I do. So for me, it’s about kind of being in solidarity with those who are attempting to resist the expectations of whatever it might be writing the publishing world, social media and social capital for writers, deadlines, and capitalism and all of those things. I think those are the most helpful ways that people can show solidarity is to also participate in the resistance of those things.

I think, especially now that we’ve lived through four years of a pandemic, I think that has opened people’s minds and expanded people’s horizons of like, how difficult it is to complete projects or meet deadlines, when your brain capacity is diminished in various ways, or when you’re experiencing executive dysfunction, which anyone can experience when they’re overwhelmed, or burnt out or sick or whatever, but for folks with ADHD, it’s constant. I think for me, that’s kind of where my mind goes, it’s just critiquing, I think especially within the world of art and music and writing and creativity, it’s almost ironic how like the whole purpose is to think outside the box, and yet, there’s so many ways which we’re still very rigid and very in the box, and very beholden to certain industry expectations, or there’s still a lot of elitism and hierarchy and exploitation within these worlds. I encourage people to push those boundaries where they can.

Rachel Thompson:

Yeah, so many boxes, I think that’s really desolate to think about, and I’m just like saying yes to everything that you’re saying it. I know, I asked you if you would bring a piece to publish related to neuro-divergence indirectly or directly that you’d like to read. Do you have that with you? And would you like to read?

Cicely Belle Blain:

I couldn’t really think of anything that was specifically related. But I know one of your questions was about like Greece. So I do have one that’s more about that. I’ll just read kind of an excerpt of this piece it’s kind of like, similar to what I kind of shared around the Ian Williams work, just kind of this idea of the chaos inside your brain and this is specifically in relation to experiencing grief. But I think, for me, that’s so intertwined with ADHD and neuro-divergence, and I think the added diminishment of brain capacity that I think happen when you experience grief or other overwhelming experiences. I’ll just share a bit of it, so it’s called the “Phone Table”.

“Waow, There must be so many treasures in that house my friend once said after visiting, it was a hot easy summer, or last weekend spent time in the sun sweating and laughing like we were in mortal. She was gone before the photos were developed. Times linear flow is cruel that way, or is its linear Ness, a human social construction. It’s hard not to wonder what we would change if we knew what was coming to wish we could have more time the chance to do things over the opportunity to hold that goodbye, hug a few seconds longer. Perhaps there’s another knee in the multiverse, who stays a few more weeks checks their phone less plays a few more games of Scrabble, or never left at all. Perhaps in another we have the ability to see time to know what’s coming.

The next time I see the phone table, no one calls. In brief you have your mercenary moments, you’ve lost your favorite person, but maybe they had a secret bottle of cognac under the stairs that you can sell for a new house. The problem is, there are no treasures in that house. None that could provide material comfort, some peace of mind in late stage capitalism. I designate myself as the family archivist, it’s better than admitting I inherited the role of hoarder that Nana unceremoniously passed down. I prefer collector sentimentalist historian. The other problem is everything is a treasure to me. I am fascinated by the stories of the mundane objects can tell the echoes of time so in intercede into paper trodden into grass, some deal with grief by purging and that makes sense. By the time I get back to England, the contents of the bedroom closets are at thrift store and a man is on his way to trade the armchair for a few raggedy banknotes. I find one signature striped t shirt at the bottom of the laundry basket and stuffed it in my suitcase before it’s deemed disposable.

Then all of a sudden, something unexpected will send one of us crumbling to the ground, folding over our knees into the tea stained green carpet solving without recruiting. Usually me, Mom keeps it together because that’s what moms do. At the end of the dark corridor in the museum, down the road, you can see a small house right on the cusp of the light and dark a moment bathed in Charisse girl and the worst of the trench smell is behind you. And what’s left mingles with the sweetness of ration sugar, and the material smell of modernity. That’s what the draw of the phone table smells like. It’s only me who smells it? It’s almost like an imaginary friend or it goes to appears to share secrets I can hold and still trying to decipher the message it whispers to me, Amanda massive death is the admin the full time job of personal secretary to the disorganized deceased. I call the multitude of charities and regretfully inform them their monthly donations will be 10 pounds short. Some still send junk mail. I imagine a memo school on a post it note lost in the fray of monotonous office life never quite made it to the right person, mums spends hours at the solicitors we try to determine if a life insurance policy from 1978 is valid. Suddenly, we know words like probate and executor and we hope to long time before we use them again. It’s not.

Eventually the workload slows down. But this is complicated and persistent, and occasional forgotten task becomes urgent. Something we’ve put off becomes unavoidable. When the internet company calls mom tells them we no longer need the landline. They tried to upsell us on a new mobile service. Instead, the phone tables inevitable obsolescence catches us off guard it has sat by the front door for two decades. Watch children grow into adults. Listen to one half of innumerable conversation. I wish the table itself was like an answering machine wish it could play the jubilant greetings. The blooming laughs the grief, the scratchy asthmatic cough, a table without a phone, or granddaughter without a grandmother. We stare at each other in silence. I pull open the small drawer the address book touched only to send out funeral invitations. I then go live reassured by the fact that people have done weirder things in grief and inhale. The draw smells like World War II and the smell rushes up to greet me. Homemade Bread, gunpowder mildewed, fresh flowers, boiled potatoes, wax polish, antiseptic, tonic, damp wool tea, and stewed apples.”

Rachel Thompson:

All the objects in that feel the family archive is coming across and everything as well. It’s beautiful, you read a piece of grief that feels very fitting of our topic. Other things that help you apart from processing I guess grief through the writing to move first, she’ll grieve and celebrate your efforts wins and losses.

Cicely Belle Blain:

I think spending time with loved ones friends, community is the most helpful way to celebrate and to heal and to rest, I think very lucky to be surrounded by people who are excited for me and support my work and who I think have a similar kind of creative approach to problem solving. And being able to kind of strategize through things is really powerful. It’s nice to get away when I can, I find it difficult to properly rest at home, I think especially working from home for the past four or five years, the work and life lines blur, where I can get outside or go away on a little trip.

Rachel Thompson:

And then finally, before we move into the quick lit, fill in the blank round, what advice do you have for all writers, but especially writers facing limitations and disabilities on handling feedback, both good and bad about writing? This sort of harkens back to what we were saying about rejection sensitivity? Is there any specific advice that you would want to frame for writer?

Cicely Belle Blain:

I think most of the time I think a lot of us, especially folks from marginalized backgrounds, feel a sense of pressure to conform to a lot of systems and structures. And I think when we encounter especially neurotypical folks, or folks who have more power and privilege, telling us to behave or act a certain way, we often don’t have, or sometimes we don’t know, we can critique those things, or we don’t have the confidence or the social capital to critique those things. But I think a lot of times where I’ve just kind of showed up as I am, and just, being unapologetic of like, this is my experience, this is how it’s gonna be, you’re gonna get good work from me, but it’s going to come in my way, on my schedule, most of the time that’s been met with positivity, and I think a lot of people are actually grateful for when that’s kind of spoken into the room.

Even something as simple as I always have, like, often has out of office responder on my email, just kind of saying, we work a four day workweek. And we’re trying to resist a lot of urgency that happens in capitalism. And we often get positive feedback from people just saying, Wow, that’s refreshing to see that approach. And so I think deep down, a lot of people are yearning for that flexibility in life, especially and worse than I think even more so when it’s a creative project that just can’t be rushed. My advice is just too kind of give it a try, like, give it a try showing up authentically and asking for the accommodations that you need.

Rachel Thompson:

And we hinted at our equipment round, which is a misnomer, because you can go quick or slow as showing up authentically doing it as you’d like. But I will begin a sentence and then ask if you’d like to complete it. The first is being a writer is…

Cicely Belle Blain:

An opportunity to share your deepest truths and to create new worlds.

Rachel Thompson:

Literary Magazines are…

Cicely Belle Blain:

A great opportunity to get your work out there in a way that feels more achievable, and has slightly quicker gratification than other traditional publishing methods.

Rachel Thompson:

That emphasis on the slightly, that’s great.

Editing requires..

Cicely Belle Blain:

Patience, sometimes a thick skin and an open mind.

Rachel Thompson:

And then rejection for a writer means…

Cicely Belle Blain:

An opportunity to reflect not only on your work, but also on your priorities, in the sense that you get to decide, I think, whose feedback matters to you and whose acceptance matters to you. Sometimes, when you’re rejected, if it’s something you really wanted, that’s a lot. It can be painful, but I think it’s also an opportunity to think maybe this just wasn’t the right place for my work, or these weren’t the right people to read it. And it’s not as much as they think feedback could be, of course, taken seriously. And is most of the time well intentioned.  There’s also a lot of biases that impact feedback givers or people who are in charge of rejections, and so maybe there’s just somewhere else that might appreciate your work better.

Rachel Thompson:

And then finally, writing community is…

Cicely Belle Blain:

An opportunity to connect with other writers and share highs and lows and feel a sense of validation in your experiences and be inspired.

Rachel Thompson:

Yeah, so true about the validation and the inspiration. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, you’re the closing interview on this little mini run of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities. So, thank you for helping us finish that series as well.

Cicely Belle Blain:

Thank you so much for having me.

Rachel Thompson:

So, that was Cicely Belle Blain, I so enjoyed their writing full of so many objects and images as the work of the family archivist. And I love hearing about their foray into writing for the sake of writing. Imagine that writing without all of those pressures to perform, which of course, is part of resisting the expectations of writing, the publishing world, social media, deadlines, capital, all of that. And as well as showing up as you are unapologetically. And it’s something I also aspire to for myself, and I hope you were as inspired as I was by this conversation. I’ll link to Cicely’s book Burning Sugar, as well as the other people in books mentioned in our conversation.

Thank you so much for listening to this run of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities. I hope everyone listening gained some strategies or ideas for how to write in their own way, or their own pace. And maybe even not strategies or ideas but just permission or the ability to again, show up as you are unapologetically. That’s certainly what I hoped when I started the series and I hope for always in all ID with writers.

The Write, Publish and Shine podcast is brought to you by me Rachel Thompson, Sound Editing by Adam Linder, transcripts by Diya Jaffery. You can learn more about the work I do to help writers Write, Publish and Shine podcast at rachelthompson.co. When you’re there, sign up for my Writerly Love Letters since every week and filled with support for your writing practice. This episode encourages you to maybe record a voice memo and see what funny misinterpretations come up, or to try multiple points of view in your writing to keep it interesting. I would love to hear all about it. You can always email me at hello@rachelthompson.co and tell other luminous writers about this episode. You can do this by sending them to the podcasts at rachelthompson.co/podcast or searching for Write, Publish and Shine wherever they get our podcasts.

Thank you for listening. I encourage you to resist those expectations and show up as you are unapologetically. Cicely Belle Blain spoke to me from the stolen unseeded and traditional territories of the Musqueam Squamish and slay with tooth First Nations. I am in the south Sinai Egypt on land to historically and presently inhabited by the el Muzzina Bedouin. This is near Palestinian lands occupied by Israel. I’m honored to be part of a growing movement of people and organizations worldwide condemned the ongoing apartheid and genocide perpetuated by Israel on Palestinian people.