#i hardly ever edit cause i get tired of re-reading. so hopefully even if it's not well-written the vibes are doing something.

[softmick]

Hi Meg! 💖

84 or 86 for the fic game?

Thanks for the prompts, Calli! I went with 86. “Fine, don’t say anything and make me worry.”

Oh boy, this got away from me! and went sad. What is even happening? Lol.

------------

Franny runs into the kitchen and wraps her arms around Debbie’s legs. She speaks with too much concern for such a small child, “Mommy? Is Uncle Ian okay?”

These days Franny notices everything, but Ian hadn’t exactly made it hard. Debbie’s face scrunches before she remembers to look reassuring. Her reply comes out weak, “Of course!” Franny considers this with a finger to her chin. Debbie tries again with a smile. “Yeah, I’m sure he is.” She isn’t really sure at all, but she remembers how it feels to believe a mom should be. “Why don’t you go get ready for bed and we’ll both tuck you in?”

Franny nods and runs up the stairs. A small win, but a win. Debbie listens to her daughter’s steps grow distant.

Ian had beelined straight to her from the door, scooping the girl up and holding her close. She had greeted him to no response. He alternated squeezing her limbs and pressing his face into her hair, taking breaks simply to stare into her curious face. Franny was patient and still for as long as she could manage. Debbie saw her start to squirm and broke up the moment.

Now Ian is on the couch alone holding Franny’s well-loved stuffed rabbit gently between his big hands.

“Ian?” Debbie whispers, sitting next to him.

He doesn’t speak, simply wraps an arm around her and presses a kiss to her head with a shaky breath into her hair. It feels so nice she could almost cry, but she doesn’t forget for a second that they don’t really do this. They’re close, not touchy-feely.

“Are you okay? Franny was asking.”

She thinks he’s nodding, but it’s hard to tell as he pulls her tighter.

“Can you tell me about it?” She asks hopefully.

He kisses her again and lets her go, but doesn’t meet her eyes.

Her heart flips against her ribs and she lets out what she hopes is a chuckle. “Fine, don’t say anything and make me worry, too.”

Ian swallows and looks down. He might resent the question from Lip or Fiona, but he’s Debbie’s big brother. He should ease her worries, not cause them. He doesn’t want to scare her and doesn’t know how to tell her why he’s so upset, why his heart feels so raw.

He tightens his grip on the rabbit and looks into it’s shiny plastic eyes. “It’s all so fragile, this,” he says nodding towards the stairs.

It’s felt that way in the past, but Debbie looks at her brother and feels pride. He’s still here, trying, succeeding, living. She thinks about Carl trying his hardest to follow in Ian’s footsteps and help this crazy world somehow. Liam, sweet Liam, bright and kind through it all. Things are looking up for Lip now that he’s sober… Debbie sees possibility for them all.

There’s an account in her name with enough money to keep the house warm, the water flowing. Her daughter is safe, fed, and loved undeniably. Whatever else happens and despite the desperation she may feel for a love that’s all her’s, her family is good.

“Gallaghers are pretty resilient.”

There’s truth to her words, but Ian knows intimately that they’re made of the same breakable bones and soft tissue as everyone else. He knows that there’s no way to protect any of them from the seemingly endless ways people come to the end.

“Bad day at work.”

It’s an immediate relief to her. It’s not an episode.

Debbie knows exactly what he means. Someone died, maybe multiple someones. Ian won’t say it that way though. When he says anything at all he says, “It was a bad day at work today. I lost someone, Debs.” He takes responsibility for each one and never elaborates.

“You always do your best, Ian.”

Ian hears her and forces himself to nod - slowly, twice. He knows that it’s true. At least tonight. Earlier. He did everything he possibly could. He would’ve given everything for it to have been enough.

Debbie waits, not expecting him to say anything else. She wants to offer something more, something comforting, and tries to imagine what someone older or wiser might say. The only voice she can conjure is her own.

The silence, unusual as it is, seems to have a magic of its own because Ian does speak again.

“Bad accident on 55. Lost three tonight.” He doesn’t usually need to share. He feels bad, he deals with it alone in any number of ways, he feels better. It’s a well-worn path. But right now the burden feels so heavy, the pain is so sharp, that he feels too weak to keep it inside. Maybe if he can get it out he’ll feel better and Debbie will understand what’s going on with him for once.

He sucks in a shaky breath, “Two young kids, babies, Deb.” His voice breaks at the last part and tears drop thickly.

He wonders what they thought about in their final moments. If they were scared, if they knew they didn’t deserve it. If they knew, the way all kids should know, that they meant the world to someone. That someone cared. All the responders had tried so hard to make those last moments as gentle as possible. They had held little hands, whispered words they hoped were soothing.

Debbie aches. She has enough grief to last a lifetime and so does Ian. They don’t deserve more. It isn’t fair. If she could stop him from hurting she would. She leans into him.

It’s her worst nightmare, something happening to Franny, to Liam. To any of them. For them to die not knowing how fucking grateful she is to have them in her life, not knowing how much she loves them. For her to die before she gets the chance to tell them all. She does her best to show Franny every day, but none of her siblings communicate as well as they should. She worries the message gets lost. They’re close, not intimate. It’s not the kind of thing they talk about.

"We’re safe. You’re safe.” She pauses as he sniffles loudly. Then she tells him what she’d like to hear. “Fran’s safe and she adores you. She knows you love her, okay? We all do. You’re a good person, Ian.”

She doesn’t know if it’s enough, if he can feel the weight behind her words. But she’s sure. In this moment, right here, she’s confident she’s right.

She squeezes his shoulder and stands. It won’t help anything if she starts crying. “Lets go say goodnight, huh? You can read us a story.”

“Up in a minute.”

Ian never knows what will happen when he opens up which is why he mostly doesn’t. But maybe he’s just tried the wrong siblings. Somehow Debbie cut to the root, excised some of the pain. Helped him. He turns out the lights and heads upstairs, rabbit still in hand. With each step he feels a bit lighter, a little younger. How many times has he made this trek, to put little Gallaghers to bed? Debbie, even. And now her daughter. A lot, he thinks, but never enough.

[falling-in-fiction]

I’m A Writer With Cerebral Palsy

As many of you know, if you’ve read the intro to my bio of what my blog is about, I address being a writer with cerebral palsy in the first line. Although I openly mention it, I have never discussed it with you guys before. What is being a writer with cerebral palsy really like? How do I even write at all, with a physical disability? This topic just came to my mind on a whim, and I thought-no, I knew-that I wanted to write about in a blog post. (Since I’m beginning to be more vocal about having cerebral palsy).

For me, being a writer with cerebral palsy is no different-it’s really not that complicated. My physical disability doesn’t get in the way of me being a writer either, in case you were wondering. (Well, in the case of handwriting vs. typing...while I do still have full use of both my hands, and CAN still handwrite, handwriting can be very hard for me at times, and takes me physically longer. With typing, I am much faster, and it’s the one out of the two that I prefer the most. That being said, though, I do like to write in a journal from time to time, and do so when I feel like I need to get something off my chest. That’s what journaling is for, after all).

As I said, my physical disability doesn’t get in the way of me being a writer-it really doesn’t. As a writer, I primarily write just novels, but have even bigger dreams of expanding my craft to writing scripts. (Mainly for stage, but I’d be very open to possibly writing for screen as well). I also write short stories as well, and while it’s something with my writing that I enjoy doing, it’s not something I do very often, but I have written a few. In fact, I’ve actually thought about doing this really cool thing with posting them. If any of you would be open to that, feel free to let me know. (I might just end up doing it anyway-might-not sure yet). 

But when it comes to my writing process-the act of writing as a whole-how do I do that with a physical disability? Well, with each of the three books I’ve written so far, I type all my books, and will continue to do that with everything I write in the future. If I were to ever handwrite an entire book, that would take me AGES to complete, because my fluency with writing by hand is not nearly as fast as my fluency with typing is. Now, as far as typing goes, I don’t type the way most people do. I don’t do it the way your taught. I don’t do it in a way that’s considered “normal”. I do it in my own way, a way that’s unique to me, and is one in which I’ve always known. To clarify, yes, I was taught the proper way to type-the using all your fingers on the keyboard way-and I did attempt it. I did. It’s just, typing on a keyboard with all my fingers is difficult for me, because of my hands, which tend to shake a lot. (They do, and at times, the shaking in my hands can vary. I sometimes have days where the shaking in my hands is really bad, and days where it’s not so bad).

The way I type is by using my two index fingers, and only my two index fingers. I’ve been using this method for years, and don’t see myself stopping. And I’m not self-conscious about it, either. And no, typing this way doesn’t take me very long at all. A lot of people might wander whether or not typing this way might take me, a person with mild CP, a long time, but I can say truthfully that it never has, Typing with my two index fingers doesn’t hinder me. My fingers don’t hurt, and my wrists hardly ever get tired. (With writing by hand, both my wrist and dominant writing hand tend to ache a lot more, but with typing, it’s not like that). In fact, with the books and short stories I’ve written, I’ve typed them all this way. I’m just glad that I found a way to type that works for me, and one that’s easiest for me, given the fact that I have a physical disability.

So, the point I’m trying to make with this blog post is that being a writer with cerebral palsy (at least in my experience) really isn’t that much different. Sure, I may do things differently than other people would, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t find adaptive ways to do the things that normal people would. Writing has been a part of my life for seven years now, and I don’t see myself EVER giving it up. Writing is something I’ve been very passionate about since I was eleven, and it’s something I have the motivation to try and make a career out of. My dream has been to establish myself as a writer, and I want to put myself out there, and hopefully make myself known in some way or another. My goal as a writer is to reach people with my work. I want to write things that other people can connect with, relate to, and truly enjoy. I’ve never been in writing for the money, and while making money doing what I love would be nice, all I care about is just getting my work out into the world, and hoping that it al least reaches someone-or better yet, a whole mass of people and fellow readers.

I have so many writing projects that I’d like to work on in the future, and I have an intense drive to make that happen someday, in some way or another, even if it’s on the side. I have so many visions for how I want my various projects to turn out, and my imagination is very vivid. The books I’ve written so far include Saving Emblem City, This Damaged World, and The Burning Land (previously known as The Ruined City). All three of these books are part of a trilogy called The Stacey Williams Chronicles. Saving Emblem City is the only one of them that is published, and I have plans to do some major editing/re-writing for it, as well as the other books in the trilogy. My hope is to get it republished after this happens-I would actually love to publish the entire trilogy someday. In addition to those books, I’m constantly outlining and thinking about other books that I want to write. Currently, I am in the stages of outlining a completely different book titled A Heart of Shattered Glass, which is not a part of the Emblem City Universe.

I would like to close this blog post by saying that it’s okay to be different, and it’s okay that others may do things different. It’s also important to mention that not all cases of cerebral palsy are alike, and that CP comes in a spectrum of physical challenges, and what someone with it can and can’t do, and whether they are high-functioning or not. (I have it mildly, and I am on the high-functioning side). As I always say, it’s important to never give up, and even though it may seem hard, don’t let the opinions of others bring you down.  It’s important to keep a positive mind, and to block out whatever is causing negativity in your life. Perseverance is key. (At least I think so). Finally, I would like to actually end this blog post by saying that if you have any questions, feel free to ask me any questions on Tumblr. (Just as long as they aren’t personal). I hope to post on my page more frequently.