.
"Both of her books are fascinating period pieces, one following the legendary racehorse Seabiscuit and the other telling the story of American hero Louis Zamperini, who recently passed away at 97. Each sheds light on America by diving deeply into the eras and marginalia that came from these gripping stories. They have been bestsellers, and they have been adapted into films, the former an Academy Award-nominated drama starring Tobey Maguire and a horse, the latter due at the Oscar-friendly end of 2014 with a script by the Coen Brothers and direction by Angelina Jolie.
Laura Hillenbrand is not the showiest of writers. She does not tweet, she does not tour; rather, she keeps her head down and does her (amazing) work, with results that speak for themselves. Some of this is due to the particulars of her life — diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at 19, Hillenbrand can’t do much in her day-to-day life when she’s ill, something she wrote about beautifully for The New Yorker and discussed in a Washington Post profile. Instead of promoting her work, she’s in her house and she’s calling and emailing people for research. In order to write Unbroken, she conducted 75 interviews with Zamperini, many on the phone. The amount of time that entailed is not specified, but one imagines that it comes to full days’ worth of conversations.
Laura Hillenbrand’s ability to transport her readers to another time and place is all the more remarkable in light of the fact that she is largely homebound, debilitated by chronic fatigue syndrome, or C.F.S. The illness, a devastating and little understood disorder, is characterized by overwhelming fatigue and various nonspecific symptoms like muscle pain, memory problems, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, achy joints and unrefreshing sleep." (New Year Times: Blog: Well)
She talked to Tara Parker-Pope (New Year Times: Blog: Well) about her illness in 2011. I can relate to her and how she copes with her illness, because I have FibroMyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Her work inspire me even more, being an aspiring writer. I can only aspire to write when I feel good and rest the times I feel to sick, like she does. It is difficult to feel that you're life has meaning everyday, if you are not physically able to work every day.
Her following words during the interview describe exactly how I experience the disease and challenges in the beginning. "I had never been public about my illness at all before “Seabiscuit.” I didn’t want to talk about it very much because I had the experience of being dismissed and ridiculed. People don’t understand this illness, and the name is so misleading."
Sometimes I personally think that if I was in a wheelchair or my disease had outward physical signs, people would cut me some slack. Or is it that I'll be able to cut myself some slack.
Sometimes I personally think that if I was in a wheelchair or my disease had outward physical signs, people would cut me some slack. Or is it that I'll be able to cut myself some slack.
Q."Do you think it’s hard for people to understand how debilitating chronic fatigue can be?"
A."This is why I talk about it. You can’t look at me and say I’m lazy or that this is someone who wants to avoid working. The average person who has this disease, before they got it, we were not lazy people; it’s very typical these people were Type A and hard, hard workers. I was that kind of person. I was working my tail off in college and loving it. It’s exasperating because of the name, which is condescending and so grossly misleading. Fatigue is what we experience, but it is what a match is to an atomic bomb.This disease leaves people bedridden. I’ve gone through phases where I couldn’t roll over in bed. I couldn’t speak. To have it called “fatigue” is a gross misnomer. Most people, when they hear the disease name, it’s all they know about it. It sounds so mild. When I first was sick, for the first 10 years or so, I was dismissed. I was ridiculed and told I was lazy. It was a joke." Laura Hillenbrand
A."This is why I talk about it. You can’t look at me and say I’m lazy or that this is someone who wants to avoid working. The average person who has this disease, before they got it, we were not lazy people; it’s very typical these people were Type A and hard, hard workers. I was that kind of person. I was working my tail off in college and loving it. It’s exasperating because of the name, which is condescending and so grossly misleading. Fatigue is what we experience, but it is what a match is to an atomic bomb.This disease leaves people bedridden. I’ve gone through phases where I couldn’t roll over in bed. I couldn’t speak. To have it called “fatigue” is a gross misnomer. Most people, when they hear the disease name, it’s all they know about it. It sounds so mild. When I first was sick, for the first 10 years or so, I was dismissed. I was ridiculed and told I was lazy. It was a joke." Laura Hillenbrand
Q. "How are you now?"
A. "I’m housebound now. I had a relapse while I was working on the book in 2007. I got weaker than I’ve ever been. I’ve been too weak to leave the house for two years. I only leave the house about once a month. I’m just not very strong. A lot of days I don’t get down the stairs. It’s a slow process to recovery. The book publicity is quite difficult for me. I’m not able to do that much of it. It’s taking a whole lot out of me." Laura Hillenbrand
A. "I’m housebound now. I had a relapse while I was working on the book in 2007. I got weaker than I’ve ever been. I’ve been too weak to leave the house for two years. I only leave the house about once a month. I’m just not very strong. A lot of days I don’t get down the stairs. It’s a slow process to recovery. The book publicity is quite difficult for me. I’m not able to do that much of it. It’s taking a whole lot out of me." Laura Hillenbrand
Like Laura, I also goes through times that I feel better, feeling as if I finally have the energy to do a lot of work. If it is housework, writing, knitting, it doesn't matter, because all of them are very exhausting activities for me on my good days. So, when I feel an energy surge comes on, and pain levels are more manageable, I try to do as much as I can before the next Fatigue crash is imminent! Being a typical Type A personality, I overdo it every time! The days full of energy can be a few days or just one day or even just a few hours! But, I do as much as I can in that limited time!
I miss the days when I could work as many hours as I wanted. I could dream up a new project, spent days working on it, putting in long hours, until it was just perfect! Being a perfectionist, it can take longer that usual, before I'm satisfied with the end product. Now, these days, I need to do my projects in sessions, never knowing how many hours or days I have.
I miss the days when I could work as many hours as I wanted. I could dream up a new project, spent days working on it, putting in long hours, until it was just perfect! Being a perfectionist, it can take longer that usual, before I'm satisfied with the end product. Now, these days, I need to do my projects in sessions, never knowing how many hours or days I have.
I work best of all at night. When it is cooler in the summer. I've always have been a night owl. And now my trouble to sleep, plays well into it. When it becomes day, I'm exhausted! I'll fell asleep, feeling as if I sleep deep, nothing manage to wake me, except my alarm on my phone. But, I never feel rested. The alarm will successfully awaken me every afternoon at 4 pm. Then it is a dash out of bed, the kids and I do chores, make food, clean the house, .... Hubby usually wales in at 5 pm, I try to stay awake as long as I can to spend some quality time with him and the kids, and their schoolwork, .... Then, clockwise at 8 pm, I can't keep my eyes open anymore! If I go to bed at 8 pm, I usually awake at 2 am, and can't fall asleep again. So, I'll stand up and try to do some more work, usually on my computer.
It is a very frustrating existence! I always dreamt about writing books one day when I was in primary school. Now, in my 40s, still working on books to publish, my work being interrupted continuously during the last 27 years. During that time I had to do outside work to make ends meet, trying to write and do my knitting and needlework during my off time. Being a Type A person, I've put in long hours during these years, until about 3 years ago. During the December, summer school break, I crashed! I crashed in every sense of the word. Physically: I was to tired to stand up out of my bed for 3 weeks straight. My wonderful hubby and 2 boys made food and kept the household running. For the next 2 years, I gradually start feeling better, still having days that I feel I can conquer the world, just to crash into extreme tiredness, my whole body burning and too painful to move. I would wonder sometimes what I wanted to do, struggling to concentrate on the simplest of tasks!
Q. "It’s hard for me to imagine how you could have done the research and writing for two books during this time. How did you do it?"
A. "It’s a trade-off for me. While it’s really hard to do, at the same time, I’m escaping my body, which I really want to do. I’m living someone else’s life. I get very intensely into the story, into the interviews and the research. I’m experiencing things along with my subjects. I have a freedom I don’t have in my physical life.Writing is a godsend to me that way. Without it I wouldn’t have anything. I am completely still almost all the time. A lot of time I don’t leave the upstairs. What I have is the story I’m working on. It’s a wonderful thing for me to get out of my body for a while." Laura Hillenbrand
A. "It’s a trade-off for me. While it’s really hard to do, at the same time, I’m escaping my body, which I really want to do. I’m living someone else’s life. I get very intensely into the story, into the interviews and the research. I’m experiencing things along with my subjects. I have a freedom I don’t have in my physical life.Writing is a godsend to me that way. Without it I wouldn’t have anything. I am completely still almost all the time. A lot of time I don’t leave the upstairs. What I have is the story I’m working on. It’s a wonderful thing for me to get out of my body for a while." Laura Hillenbrand
"Having to go all the way to the bottom of yourself to find the resources to survive: this is something I understand well. I understand desperation. It’s an emotion I have dealt with a thousand times in the last 24 years. You feel like you don’t know where you’re going to get the strength to go on."Laura Hillenbrand
Q. "Do you think your writing would be different if you didn’t have this illness?"
A. "I don’t remember what it’s like to feel well. I’m 43. I was 19 when I got sick. It’s a lifetime ago. It’s hard for me to imagine what I would have been as a writer without the history I have now. We’re all sitting in our particular circumstances and writing from that place." Laura Hillenbrand
A. "I don’t remember what it’s like to feel well. I’m 43. I was 19 when I got sick. It’s a lifetime ago. It’s hard for me to imagine what I would have been as a writer without the history I have now. We’re all sitting in our particular circumstances and writing from that place." Laura Hillenbrand
Fibro is my superpower because I have to work harder at everything! But in the same time, it force me to take out time and rest when my body needs it! Everybody has something that is an obstacle in their live, what is your obstacle/super power? What makes you aspire to more? What lights up the fighting spirit in you?
"I write to escape my circumstances. Body willing, and if I can find a subject that compels me, I’ll keep writing. It’s a great way to touch the world, because I’m not in this world." Laura Hillenbrand
I'm writing in my blog, because it gives a sense of meaning to my life. Maybe, by sharing what inspires me and the lessons I've learned from other people's lives, I can help someone else to have hope for their live and tough circumstances. Laura Hillenbrand is my inspiration to deal with my disease and aspire me to do more. Who are yours?
http://flavorwire.com/470743/unbroken-and-seabiscuit-author-laura-hillenbrand-is-americas-greatest-working-nonfiction-writer
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/an-author-escapes-from-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/?_r=0
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/07/07/a-sudden-illness
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/28/AR2010112803533.html
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/an-author-escapes-from-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/?_r=0
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/07/07/a-sudden-illness
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/28/AR2010112803533.html