so, this post is coming from a place of love and a place of exhaustion. i’ve been privy to conversations surrounding the accessibility of writeblr with nd and disabled friends of mine and well…
writeblr is not a very accessible place.
i don’t know if y’all have noticed that. there’s a very heavy assumption that writers are in perfect health, both physically and mentally, when writing advice posts. and it needs to stop. this is not meant to be an attack on anyone who has shared this advice before, it’s meant to be eye-opening. it’s intended to be benefit people writing advice posts / talking about writing by making sure they keep nd and disabled people in mind.
DISLCAIMER: i am one single person, and this is mostly my own opinion, so read the rest of this post with that in mind. not everything stated is going to fit every single person. i don’t want this to fall into discourse, i want this to make people aware of how some advice can feel nd & disabled people. let this spark a conversation that uplifts nd & disabled voices.
without further ado, here’s a list of things that simply do not work for everyone:
writing every day / sticking to a schedule
i don’t know how to say this except that some people just can’t. whether it’s because of health or mental blocks or anything else, this is extremely difficult for some, and nearly impossible for others. if you can do this, im happy for you, genuinely, but please stop spreading this as the “best way to finish your wip”.
again, in the same vein as the last piece of advice, this can just be impossible. i’m speaking from experience when i say sometimes my brain literally doesn’t work when i try to do something, and pushing it to do that thing can make it even worse.
outlining is the only way
i’m simply tired of black-and-white advice. saying that things are the “only way” is tired, and exclusionary, and makes people who can’t do those things feel like they aren’t allowed to write. i know that this isn’t as big a thing on writeblr as it is on places like youtube, but i think it needs saying.
alongside this comes the idea that being unable to write is because you’re lazy, or not trying hard enough, and that’s wrong. writer’s block is something quite literally blocking you from being able to write, be it burn-out, neurodivergence, or health issues. it’s not a personal failing, it’s just something that happens (and it can happen to anyone, regardless of their health), and we as a community need to be spreading that taking breaks is okay.
every interaction online is for self-promotion
this is simply exhausting. my existence online is not for the sole purpose of promoting myself. not to mention, this is mentally taxing, and can lead to some extremely nasty burn-out. people should be able to exist online, sharing their art, without it having to tie back to self-promotion.
these next couple aren’t really about advice but:
publishing as the only goal
i know plenty of writers on tumblr who simply don’t want to publish. the publishing industry itself is highly inaccessible (i mean, just see the current conversations on twitter surrounding literary agents dropping neurodivergent writers because they don’t want to “deal” with them!), and i don’t want to see everything writing-related also be publishing-related. writing is art, and art does not have to be commodified and sold.
lack of image descriptions / using fancy text
please stop this. this is something i see talked about a lot, but i still see it happening all the time. image descriptions help everyone but are explicitly necessary for people who use screen readers. using fancy / different fonts makes it both difficult for people not using screen readers and people who do (i saw a post today using a fancy gothic script font, and i could barely read it myself). and keep your image descriptions out of a readmore, too.
