More On My Mom

When I first wrote this description, I told about my mom in the present tense. It’s strange to see now that she is gone; but I’ve decided to keep it that way, since my blogposts about her are also a sort of preservation of her legacy:

Where I share the journey since my mom’s diagnosis with pancreatic cancer in July of 2021. Laughter is good medicine, and we’ve certainly had a lot of that.

Someone recently described my mom by saying, “She is unintentionally funny.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I doubt anybody wants to deal with going through cancer; but my mom has used her ability to laugh at herself, and allow others to laugh with her, to make this experience feel more like being in the middle of a touching slapstick sitcom, rather than a depressing melodrama.

And now, More On My Mom is on YouTube.

My mom lived for nearly two years after her pancreatic cancer diagnosis. During that time her dementia increased, she had severe bronchitis and a partially collapsed lung, spinal stenosis, arthritis, and myriad other health issues.

I’ve decided to keep these posts up, as a way for her friends and loved ones to look back on her life; but also, hopefully to help others in the future, facing their own journeys with personal health battles or being caregivers.

Plankeye Publishing

When it comes to writing, we can all use an extra set of eyes to take a look at our work. I’m the type who is terrified to make a mistake – especially a typo. That’s part of why I struggle so much to put my stories on display.

I know I’m not alone in that.

Perfectionism can be the greatest antagonist when it come to having the guts to put pen to paper. I’d like to help people get past that fear by launching a platform to help people have the courage to write poorly in the first place, so they can get their words down, and go from there.

The concept for “Plankeye” comes from our tendency to see the speck in somebody else’s eye before removing the plank in our own. I know my own writing is often severely flawed with typos and run-on sentences, even after looking it over several times (maybe there are even a few I missed in this paragraph).

Somehow, I wind up blind to my own mistakes; but boy, oh boy, can I break out the red pen when it comes to other people’s paragraphs…

I say all that to admit, my writing is far from perfect; but I’ve had a lot of practice at pulling planks out of my own paragraphs and hope I can lend a hand in gently assisting others hoping for help with their specks.

This could include helping clients organize thoughts and storylines, spotting typos in copy, coaching in creative writing… I could squish in quite a run-on sentence here; but I won’t. If you need any kind of help with writing, feel free to send an email to [email protected].

Plasticback Books

I tried to start a site by this name about ten years ago – but dropped it, because I lost the courage to have any kind of public platform. Comments and critiques caught me off guard, and I was far too sensitive to want to stand my ground. So, I quit writing for other people’s eyes – unless it was in the form of a letter – usually to some kind, little, old lady, who I could share my words with, without worrying so much about being criticized. I’m hoping my spine has solidified somewhat since then.

This is sort of a virtual shelf, where I’m hoping to set out my books for public display.

Coming soon-ish:

Turtledove Trailers

So, I bought a cargo trailer, and I may, or may not be making plans to move into it. More on this coming soon…

What Is A Care Giver

Here, I plan to chronicle some of the things I’ve learned in my random roles as a caregiver – from practical tips, to comforting words – and possibly a lot of comic relief mixed into the middle.

About Jody Susan Writes