In June 2020 I wrote a short article “Value Every Step”. This was the first time I shared details of my injury beyond our community and those treating me. The content resonated with readers, who encouraged me to write more articles. Eventually that momentum led to the decision to write a book about my journey, which was published in February 2022 as A Fraction Stronger.
Fundamentally I wrote with the aim of helping others, because I felt deeply grateful for all the help that arrived when I needed it during my recovery journey. I thought – if I can help even just a few people navigate their hardship a little better, it will be worth the discomfort, effort, money and time that is required to plan, draft, edit, design, publish and market a book.
During that process, I discovered how much writing was helping me. It was becoming integral to my new sense of purpose. And I needed that because I was struggling to establish who I was post-injury.
For much of 2019 and 2020, I pushed myself as hard as possible to physically recover, believing that I could regather my sense of identity by closing the gap from my current physical capability to my pre-accident physical capacity. Eventually that gap simply stopped closing, but more essentially than that, all the events of those years had meant that I had changed as a person.
I needed to let go of the old me to find the new me.
I discovered that writing provided a central piece of that new me.
It is my intention to continue to create books – and in the future plays – as I develop my skill as a writer, sharing ideas that can help others navigate their way in this world and expand their own sense of meaning.
