A novel walk

I snapped the following pictures on the Ice Age Trail in Manitowoc, Wis. around 9 a.m. this morning. The scenery is inspiration for a fictional setting in my novel in progress. Enjoy the view, my friends. And, forgive my amateur photography skills.

How I write

The beautiful and blank fancy journals. 

The pristine journals are beautiful, inspiring, arty, and full of possibility. I have received many of these notebooks to inspire me and prompt me to write, a validation my vocation as a writer is a worthy pursuit.

Pictured are gifts from friends. The one in the background was a surprise gift brought to my front door at a time when I had "quit" writing. It was a thoughtful gift to inspire me to keep penning and remind me of the value of poetry and prose. I received the one in the foreground at my book launch party, it a ribbon of accomplishment, a celebration of those 75,000 words bound in my first published book. 

The ugly work-in-progress truth. 

My current project is a big mess! Note cards, legal pads (pink, yellow, and white), composition notebooks, binders, folders, sketch pads, markers, and that's just on the desk. On the computer are jpegs of character composites and settings, One Note files, research PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, several word docs containing some of the forty-eight original poems that will accompany the novel, and The One Main Word Document, sadly shy on word and page count.

The blank, fresh sheets intimidate me rather than inspire me. I need color and mess. I need legal sheets that easily tear and can be crumpled before being tossed in the general direction of the waste paper basket. I take comfort in the clutter.  

I apologize to Laurie and Sharon for keeping those pages blank. I do love them, and keep them as pure treasures. Someday, I may feel focused enough to be able to just write directly on the beautifully bound pages, confident in the worth of my words straight from thought to page. Until then, I can rest assured no one will publish my work posthumously, as it would be impossible to interrupt.

In case you are wondering, my novel in progress has a working title: "Poetic License." Of course, there is a legal pad sheet with a list of at least twenty alternatives — was that a pink or yellow sheet and where did I file it?

Happiness and Love (and power)

 

New Years Eve was five months ago. Yet, I somehow have managed to keep up to date with my resolutions. Before 2013, I started each year trying to quit smoking, lose weight, or write more. This year I took a different approach and gave myself three things:

                1) A goal

                2) A mantra

                3) A trio of words to appreciate

First, the goal is to publish or perish. Most of my adult life, I held delusions that I would have a book picked up by a power publishing house and maybe even change the world with my words. Ha! So rather than dreaming this little dream, I decided to set a tangible goal: I will move the heaps of words stored on my terabyte, in copy paper boxes, in notebooks and legal pads, and collected in desk and file drawers. The new location for these will be in front of an audience. In taking advice from Seth Godin, I am hoping just one person reads it. Maybe that one person will recommend some of it to another person and so on until a crescendo of readers could occur — maybe not. Either way, the goal remains. If I do not publish, the work will perish and therefore my voice will remain absent despite the time I spent developing it. I’ll end this thought with another respected authority’s perspective on creativity, “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art,” Andy Warhol.

Second my mantra for the year is, “If you don’t change directions, you will get where you are going.” This is pretty silly and straightforward. Yet it reminds me to not be tempted or lured to other worthy pursuits, but rather stay the course! It also reminds me of something my middle son said to me on a walk around the block. The then 3-year-old boy kept sitting down on ant piles or picking dandelions from the terrace while I rushed him ahead. He said, “Mom, I don’t ever quit. I just take lots of breaks.” So I may take a break now and then, but I’m not quitting and I’m not adjusting the sails.

Third, my three words: Love, Happiness, and Power. A friend put a word search on FB late in December and the task was to pick out the first three words that came to you. These were my words. Again silly, but I journal each day what in my life gives me love, happiness, and power. This is usually just a word or two and occasionally a phrase. Generally, the variation is that I garner love from my family and friends, happiness from my writing and hobbies, and power from stomping out doubt and making measurable progress.

So far these three things work for me; I am living with more peace and optimism than before I set up this system. It takes away the anxiety and calms me into a sense of purpose.  

As a writer, each day I pick up my journal and see a blank page. I write the day of the date and time just to start the ink and remove the intimidation of the pristine sheet of paper. From here I write something new every time. My two real jobs in life have been as a journalist and as a waitress. These both have something in common — made fresh daily. This mentality of making/creating something new daily is a good metaphor for setting goals and resolutions. There is no need to wait for Jan. 1, your next birthday, or the beginning of swimsuit season. Today is open. Start, take breaks, resume the pace.    

One Day at a Time

Good morning! I wrote this reflection in 2011 about a year after experiencing a psychotic break, which is commonly referred to as a nervous breakdown. I kept in the present tense, because it was written that way and I like the flow of it. Today, in 2103, I am better than okay. I have experienced just a few break-through symptoms of bipolar, which have been well managed with treatment. Yet, I choose to remember those dark days when one day at a time was all I could manage. I did complete a memoir, titled Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis, which details the year of recovery. I am not sure if the manuscript will see publication, yet I am shopping it to agents and considering self publishing.

--

Today, I am okay. And really that is all anyone can have or request.

Someday, I may kill myself. It happens to people like me: people who share my diagnosis. But as for today, I am okay. The symptoms do not infiltrate with devastation.

People like me make up an approximate 2.6 percent of the population. People like me sit in prisons. People like me destroy families. People like me are feared. But, today I am okay.

I have a mental illness. It’s not just a case of the blues or an episode of extravagance. It’s something rooted with a firm grasp attempting to rob sanity.

Bipolar is what they call it today. They used to say Manic-Depressive. They think the word Bipolar offers a better description of the teeter totter of symptoms. It is classified in the mood-disorder family residing with Unipolar Depression. With Bipolar Disorder, the pendulum swings from this hopeless pole to mania: a welcome reprise from the other. Back and forth seems more accurate that up and down, but it’s a mixed bag of extremes that are often swirled together.

This companion of mine, a steady uninvited guest, is less straightforward than what is written in a text or reference book. Trumping the predictable highs and lows, have been episodes polluted with hallucinations and delusions. I have seen things that are not there. I have believed distortion. The truth was hard to recognize. They tweaked my diagnosis: Bipolar Disorder with Psychotic Features.

The researchers work. They believe. They try to find a way to understand. They seek wisdom, validity, and solution. They break this illness farther into categories I and II, which describe variations of the disorder. The outcomes of bipolar manifest uniquely in each person afflicted.  

Without a measuring stick the doctors probe and jab and question. They find commonalities to their lists, they make educated assumptions. Believing their assessment is the way to hope. The alternative hurts too much.

Denial, a cousin to the disorder, tempts logic. It casts Doubt’s shadows. Denial’s attraction is to believe instead this category of sickness is hogwash. It classifies the previous description as weakness. It serves to forego a scientific treatment and rather prescribes to dress with gumption and arm with willpower making a way without treatment.

I put my faith in the doctors. I believe the research. I owe it to myself to have a majority of days where I am okay. I owe it to society to be productive. The hope they give is balance. With this, I can navigate life with promise.

I keep a belief in a higher power. I ask the creator for grace as I carry a burden. Hurdles do not make us special: we all come across one or another. I call mine bipolar. You may have a different obstacle. Call it a cross to bear if that resonates with your education. Mine is real. It comes, it stays, and it’s chronic. I treat the symptoms; I walk with optimism waiting with anticipation for the advancement that cures this monster.

I keep hope. I trust those who love me, when I know not to trust myself. Today, however, I am okay.

--

Thank you for reading.