Creative Genius

Writers are an arrogant sort. There are many times I finished a book only to think I have more talent and could have written it better. I do not have sour grapes when I read author’s whose amateur drafts are printed. In fact these inspire me and make me continue to write. I tell myself, if some of these weaker works get published, certainly, I too can break through.  

However, when I read a masterpiece, I’m in awe and stalled.

There is no way I could have masterfully crafted anything so fine as Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel A Signature of All Things. http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/ I can’t even write a review that does the work justice. Her ease with language, her discipline to research, her patience to tell a story revealing its intricacies slowly without bogging down pace is admirable.

I was a fan of Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love. (In my opinion, the movie fell apart, because Gilbert’s use of language was lost on screen and Julia Roberts was poorly cast.) I remember seeing a Ted Talk of Gilbert’s in 2012, where she spoke of the creative process and the freakish nature of success. See her talk on the creative genius here:  http://www.npr.org/2012/06/01/153700920/do-all-of-us-possess-genius. She was concerned that her biggest success was behind her. I am grateful it was in fact yet to come.

Today I shall leave you with a recommendation to watch the video and read the novel. Meanwhile, I will sign off and attempt to create genius.

Words, Crazy Words in Earnest

While writing a memoir, I thought can I really reveal that much of myself. It is easier now for me to talk about my own mental health, because it does not define me. I am not bipolar. I am a person living with the chronic condition. The stories I tell of the disease do not betray my privacy in its entirety. This condition of bipolar is no more defining of who I am, than the fact that I have brown hair. The difference is my hair color can be seen and the mental illness must be revealed.

 
Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis is an unpublished manuscript. I wrote it essentially stream of conscious style in a matter of four months in 2010. I spent the next two years, off and on, revising it and trying to make scenes that came alive through fiction writing techniques. The result was a pretty damn good story. With that in my mind, I started to query big literary agents with the naïve notion they would represent an unknown former journalist.

After a round of defeat, I accepted that I would simply be content having written it; I resolved to consider the process cathartic and that its value was to help in my healing process. I didn’t see it as commercial product that deserved space among bookseller’s shelves — physical and virtual. The manuscript, then 260 pages and 70,000 words, was stored in a two black binders out of sight. As much as I tried to place it out of my mind entirely, it continued to nag at me.

Nearly three years after my episode of psychosis, someone very close to me suffered a serious physical health event. The result was a life sentence of coping with a chronic illness, and I needed to learn how to be a support. The similarities of coming to terms with any chronic illness could not be denied. The isolation and confusion that comes when you are knocked off your pedestal of ignorant normal life is the same regardless of the category of ailment. Support and answers are hard to come by in an accessible way.  

The result of my psychiatric inpatient stay was a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which can be treated, but not cured. The result of my loved one was a disease with a different name. We both were left with no choice but unending daily treatment to manage our health in the context of disease impairment. We are both healthy today, because of treatments. Yet the disease persists.

I see my story, not so much as about myself, but about the things that break us and how we heal. I anxiously set out on another round of agent seeking, again without satisfying results, this past spring.

This summer, I rewrote the memoir in its entirety with the reader in mind. The story was no longer part of me; I simply became the narrator to an event that happened. The result is something that is accessible to an audience. With a clearer understanding of the purpose of the work and its place, I sent it to better targeted agents and indie presses representing psychology memoir.  I am trying not to check my email excessively waiting for a response.

I am resurrecting my blog returning to its original goal. Words, Crazy Words was inspired as a place to talk about mental health. I chickened out and published other work. Regardless of the result of the publishing world to pick up Stress Fracture, I must find a way to contribute to the discussion of mental illness.

Every illness needs stories. People with mental illness often walk silently afraid to appear crazy. I am more fearful of secrets and vowed to live my life out loud. With prose, I have found a whisper that reveals the tragedy of psychosis in the context of a bipolar illness and the hope that treatment offers. My voice is quiet and capable of telling just one story of a disorder that manifests itself uniquely in each person who is afflicted. I aspire to lucidly reflect on an illness which has crippled my mind and efforts to the point of insanity.

 

 

Thoughts on Book Clubs

Today guest blogger Elaine Drennon Little, author of A Southern Place, shares her thoughts on Book Clubs.  A Southern Place is work of fiction about Mary Jane Hatcher, who everyone calls Mojo. As the story of the Mullinax family unfolds, Mojo discovers a family's legacy can be many things: a piece of earth, a familiar dwelling, a shared bond. She likes to think we all have a fresh start. A Southern Place is available as a print and e- book at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Place-Elaine-Drennon-Little/dp/1937178390/?tag=wowwomenonwri-20

Thoughts on Book Clubs

 

When I hear the term “book club,” it sounds like a dream day in the life I was meant to have, but haven’t found yet. We meet in someone’s warm, cozy living room (not mine if it means cleaning it!) that smells of chocolate chip cookies and cinnamon potpourri. We’re all dressed in jeans and trendy tops with coordinated jewelry that makes us look a casual party in the Chico’s catalogue. None of us are overweight, tired, or filled with angry stories about our jobs, spouses, children, or life in general. We have no problems of our own, so we’ve gathered together to discuss the trials and tribulations of our grown-up imaginary friends, created by close associates who vary from Harper Lee and William Faulkner to John Grisham and Lee Smith. The wine flows freely and so do our tongues; we give equal time to the voices of wise Scout, simple Benjy, dreamy Ivy and a host of legal eagles. We read our favorite passages, we debate whose pain and suffering is greatest, we cry when they “kill our babies.” We relive bits and pieces of these lives we know as well as our own, and our love for one another grows stronger with each new book. Sounds wonderful, right?

I have never “belonged” to such a group, but my name has been on the list of several kinds of book clubs. In the 90s, there were several heated arguments between my husband and I over my “memberships” in the Book-of-the-Month club, the Doubleday Book Club, and some other book club that specialized in paperbacks. It seems that although I could always find “alternate” books to mark as my selection each month, the automatic picks looked good, too, and I too often hid them in the back of my closet instead of sending them back, causing some pretty astronomical bills by the time I got “caught.” There seem to be few books on Oprah’s Book Club list that I haven’t read, and I can honestly say I’ve never read anything with her endorsement that was less than impressive. I currently belong to a Goodreads off-shoot called “On the Southern Literary Trail.” I love reading the discussions and have added a few comments myself, yet I don’t seem to be “technologically savvy” enough to add the books I read or actually start a discussion on my own.

Though I still plan to start a book club, one day, hoping it will totally fulfill my dream described in the first paragraph, I like to believe that the “unofficial” book clubs I’ve continued through most of my life are probably better anyway. Never being an outdoorsy or sports enthusiast kind of kid, my first real friendships congealed over favorite books. A best of all weekends for my high school best friend and I involved a trip to the library, a bag of pretzels and a 2-liter soda. We’d gossip, then read, stopping to read to one another when a passage really intrigued us. (Our earliest knowledge of sex came not from other girls’ experiences but from Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon!)

Talking about books was always a comfortable way to make new friends in new places; to be honest, people who don’t like books probably won’t like me, so it’s a safe and easy way to find “my” people quickly. It’s also been an easy way to stay connect to those friends no matter where in the world our jobs and families might take us. With my friends in other states, usually one of our first questions is “what are you reading?” followed by the list of our own that we can’t wait to share. Books bring us together and keep us tied; characters we both love and hate create a kind of alternate universe of imaginary friends.

Today on Days of Our Lives, the ladies of Salem engaged in a book club meeting that started out much like the one I described earlier. When the homemade doughnuts Jennifer shared turned out to be laced with her son’s marijuana, these well-dressed, educated women aged 30 to 70 began to eat like pigs, giggle like tweens, and tap into humor perhaps never before gleaned from reading Lewis Carroll.

Looking much like a colorized version of when Andy arrested Aunt Bee and her church ladies from over-medicating themselves with snake-oil-elixir, this example of a ladies’ book club meeting looked to be pretty FUN as well.

The book club I dream of is a little duller by comparison, yet its effects would last far beyond when the “high” wore off. I love seeing the current trend of adding “book club discussion questions” at the end of recent novels. Whether for an established and maintained group, or just two acquaintances talking across the frozen food aisle, book discussions can draw people together, bonding both readers and their interests. Though I dream of the commitment of regular meetings, I never intend to give up the friends-without-borders and come-as-you-are groups of social media that welcome all to share and comment. I guess what I’m saying is that to me, a book club can be as organized (or unorganized!) as you want it to be—and I pretty much like them ALL…

Which kind of book club do YOU fancy?

 

About the Author:

Adopted at birth, Elaine lived her first twenty years on her parents’ agricultural farm in rural southern Georgia.  She was a public school music teacher for twenty-seven years, and continued to dabble with sideline interests in spite of her paid profession.  Playing in her first band at age fourteen, she seemed to almost always be involved in at least one band or another.  Elaine’s writing began in high school, publishing in local newspapers, then educational journals, then later in online fiction journals.  In 2008 she enrolled in the MFA program at Spalding University in Louisville, where upon graduation finished her second novel manuscript. Recently retiring after eleven years as a high school chorus and drama director, Elaine now lives in north Georgia with her husband, an ever-growing library of used books, and many adopted animals.

Find out more about this author online:

Author blog: http://elainedrennonlittle.wordpress.com/

Author Faebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/elaine.d.little

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