It's October and time for Chicken by Chicken. This is going to a long post. I will also post about my fun Halloween chicken project at the end. I've been doodling chickens for years. They cheer me up. This past year has needed a lot of cheer.
I joined the Presbyterian church recently, and have been reading The Book of Confessions. It's a book that affirms basic Christian truths. It's the response of this denomination of Christians when it has been blindsided with confusing and destructive ideas.
So here is my history. For the past year my poor noggin' failed me. It's connected to my work. Here is the deal: you fail much as a writer. It is part of the gig. But a dark cloud came over me last year and just would not budge. I never thought my work would fail. Church, yes. Friends and family, yes. Body, yes. Circumstances, yes. But never my work. A friend told me once that my work is what keeps me floating above it all. Well, my work sank, and I sank like a stone in a deep ocean. I headed to the doctor and, yes, learned I was suffering from straight out major depression.
My thoughts were not about taking my life or even dying. This was all about failing at my life's work. Here's the deal, good writers get paid for their hard work. Their books sell. I put out a book as dear to me and with as much of my soul as I could on a page, PLUMB CRAZY, and the result was no one cared. I sold less than a hundred copies.The publishing house cancelled my contract. Then, I began submitting a book called PROFIT that I believed was the best thing I'd ever put to a page. I had one partial request, and the agent never got back to me. Everyone else ignored my submissions.
Here's the painful litany: Fool. Idiot. Stupid. These words branded me. All those people who said you were full of it for wanting to be a writer, they were right. No one cares. You can't write a single word that anyone cares about. All the people who have passed on you, they just didn't want you to know that your work is substandard and will not rise. You are irrelevant. The success of reaching others and making a difference in this world. The dream you would be able to make a modest living at this, over. You could have worked for real all these years and your kids wouldn't be pulling out loans to get college educations. You messed up your whole life and there are no do overs. You chased a dream, and nada. You are a freaking failure. (It's okay, folks, these words don't burn into me like hot coals any more.)
This has been hard on so many levels. My mother suffered major depression when I was a teen. She didn't really get over it until I went to college.We had no healthcare when I was kid, so mom just suffered. Thankfully, that is not my story, but even good doctors can't wave a magic wand to make me better. It's been a long road this past year. It has been terrifying.
Depression feels like a band is tied around my waist, tight and painful. It's like being plated with metal armor that you can't take off. It like living in darkness. My art has suffered. I've thought about giving it up. Another choice mom made. Man, this has been a mess. Still, I continued to move forward, but my arms were heavy like led weights, my stomach ached, and my poor brain just sank into a pit. I cried more tears last year than I ever have in my life. I'd be standing in line at the grocery store and realize my face was wet with tears. Oh, why am I at the grocery story when every movement is agony? I refused to stop functioning through this pain. I wiped the tears and moved to the next thing on the list. I wrote a lot of lists last year.
So here is the journey. I got clinical help, and I worked on seeking goodness. I had to let some things go. I cut down on the writing events. I shoved aside the novels for almost six months and worked on picture books. It was a struggle to write one word and that is the whole picture book game. I left the church I was attending. I'd been going there for almost five years and didn't really know anyone. This was no longer acceptable. I found a church that was more open to ideas and people with differences. I planted a tree. I hugged the cats. I wrote my lists and drew my chickens. Silly chickens make me laugh, and I love to laugh. I taught teens who to write through a summer program TEENS Publish at the library (no pay). Gosh, I loved those young writers, so full of passion and dreams. BTW, this was a totally unprofessional act, I know, but it brought some happiness to my heart and mind, and this year happiness has been worth more than all the gold in California.
I am coming out of the long dark night. I'm working again. The dips aren't as deep. Positive thoughts are back. I still have a ways to go, but I am hopeful. Finally my book CHICKENS DO NOT TAKE OVER HALLOWEEN http://ow.ly/SVYcB is for sale. I was so blessed by the silliness of this book. I hope that it blesses a few of you. I will be back next week with more confessions, chicken by chicken.
Here is a doodle for you. It's a picture from the Chicken book.
A quote for your pocket: There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke. Vincent Van Gogh
We're all heartbroken for you.
Don't think words are enough today...
I consider myself a naturally bubbly person but in the recent past I stumbled into a deep valley of blues.
I was sad for several weeks due to personal circumstances and honestly writing this blog and reading and commenting on your blogs were two things that helped me through this dismal period. So I appreciate that more than you know.
Here’s the thing: As a writer, it’s very hard to create when sadness is heavy in your heart. It was true for me. I didn’t write much at all during this time and this only added to my already distressed emotional state.
Writing is hard enough without the added burden of emotional distress. The cause of the sadness — whether it’s heartbreak, loss of a loved one, or other personal circumstances — the feeling is real and can’t be ignored.
As writers, our creation starts in our minds and if our minds are muddled with mental distractions, we really can’t do our best writing. We can try of course but it can be hard writing through sadness.
But there are ways that can help you cope until you can clear your mind and find your way. The following things helped me:
Be in the feeling. This may sound counter-intuitive but suppressing the sadness only temporarily buries it. Until you face it head-on, it will stay with you. I’ve found facing your sadness and accepting it is the first step to moving past it.
Know all things are temporary. Things may seem bad now but nothing stays static. Everything is always in motion. Believe that this is also the case in your situation. Nothing lasts forever.
Ask for support. Don’t be afraid to ask friends and family for help. Ironically, until you ask, the people who love you the most may not even know there’s a problem. And seriously, don’t be afraid to take it step further and talk to a therapist.
Focus on what’s good. Although there are bad things going on in your life now, if you look deep enough, you can *always* find good things. Focus on those things and be grateful for them.
Pamper Yourself. Whether it be a bubble bath, a manicure or even the simple act of surrounding yourself with beauty like flowers or scented candles, do it for yourself. You deserve it.
The good news is that I’m feeling much better and I’ve found my way back to my writing. Operation 50/50 is just one of the ways I’m connecting back to my novel project.
For me, the lesson that I’ve learned during this time is that for every shadowed valley there is also a bright hilltop. And when you travel back up that slope and bask in the warmth of the sun, the writing will be there waiting for you.
I may have mentioned before how much I esteem the narration powers of British actor Nathaniel Parker. His performance of the Artemis Fowl books is up there with Jim Dale's Harry Potter tour de force.
Similarly, his Young James Bond readings are so well done that I only listen to the books. His patrician tones are a perfect match for the Eton College educated Bond and his facility with voice characterizations works with the different characters brilliantly.
Needless to say, I have been awaiting the USA release of the Hurricane Gold audiobook rather anxiously. As happens sometimes, there is a weird time lag between the time the book was released in the UK and over here but all is forgiven, I've downloaded the audiobook and WHAT????
C'MON!
Parker did record
Hurricane Gold and the next book,
By Royal Command and apparently I can still buy his version for a packet of $$ from
BBC Audiobooks. Apparently
, Blackstone is now the distributer for the audiobooks here in the USA. The first three were available through Random House Listening Library. The change must have been because of the money. I always tell my entlings, "follow the mo
By: Rebecca,
on 4/26/2010
Blog:
OUPblog
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Health,
A-Featured,
Medical Mondays,
Psychology,
sadness,
psychiatry,
ECT,
melancholia,
Edward Shorter,
EEG,
endocrine,
Max Fink,
Add a tag
Edward Shorter is the Jason A. Hannah Professor of the History of Medicine endowed chair at the University of Toronto School of Medicine as well as a Professor of Psychiatry. Max Fink has exensively contributed to the psychiatric community’s understanding of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), pharmaco-electroencephalography (pharmaco-EEG), cannabis and the psychopathologies of catatonia, melancholia and mania. Together they wrote, Endocrine Psychiatry: Solving the Riddle of Melancholia, which traces the enthusiasm of biological efforts to solve the mystery of melancholia and proposes that a useful, and a potentially life-saving, connection between medicine and psychiatry has been lost. Below we have excerpted the preface which explains why endocrine psychiatry deserves a second look.
In the past hundred years, medicine has tried to acquire a scientific basis. Age-old prejudices and pointless procedures have been discarded in controlled study after study. Today, we take it for granted that the practice of medicine is evidence-based.
Yet in psychiatry the penetration of science has been imperfect. The discipline has swung wildly from fashion to fashion – from asylum care to psychoanalysis to lobotomy to psychopharmacology -without having an underlying scientific rationale for doing so. More than any other medical field, psychiatry has been guided by cultural preferences and political persuasions. We vaguely dislike the notion of “locking up” people or of shooting volts of electricity through their brains; we have a natural enlightened tropism toward psychotherapy and the enhancement of human reason and against the madness of unreason. None of these prejudices and preferences is in itself reprehensible, and all flow from a praiseworthy humanism. But prejudices and beliefs are not science. In a great disjunction, science and psychiatry have passed each other like two ships in the night.
Yet psychiatry cries out for science. To be sure, we can gauge the neurochemistry of the brain and assess its structures with the devices of neuroimaging. But the questions of clinical psychiatry are more complex than fluctuations in neurotransmitters or glucose uptake in the basal ganglia, where the brain gives up a few of its secrets. Is there no other way to gain a window to the brain and gauge is activity in psychiatric illness? Yes, there is. Another system, the endocrine system, sets the biological rhythms of the brain and body. Psychiatry was once fascinated with the endocrine system. Today, the adrenal and pituitary glands, and the hypothalamus within the brain, have lost their charm and arouse little interest.
Simultaneously, psychiatry also said adieu to another familiar historical concept, melancholia, as a diagnosis of severe depression. After the introduction of a new system of disease classification in 1980, the diagnosis of “major depression” – a heterogeneous assortment of varied illness entities and unhappiness states – swept in the field. This is very interesting: At the same time that psychiatric interest in neurotransmitters such as serotonin quickened, the discipline embraced such new illnesses as “major depression” and “bipolar disorder.” In understanding the seat of illness, there was a shift from the endocrine periphery to the neurotransmitter central, and in classification, there was a shift from such sturdy historical concepts as “melancholia” to the more faddish notions of “major depression” and “bipolar disorder.” These two shifts are related. In b
Author Sid Fleischman died March 17 in his home in Santa Monica, Calif., at the age of 90.
I write what I am.
When I sit down to a blank sheet of paper,
I may become a yellow-haired boy,
a snarling pirate,
a prankish wizard's ghost,
or even a dog with arrogant worlf's eyes.
But beneath all the makeup, the wigs and putty noses
- that's me
off on a fresh adventure and having a much fun as I can.
From
Sid Fleishchman.com
100% digital
Zoom:
Yesterday, the family of Tasha Tudor announced:
It is with great sadness that we must tell you Tasha Tudor, 92, passed away in her Vermont home on June 18, 2008 surrounded by family and friends. We have created an online memorial website and invite all who loved Tasha to share their feelings and memories in the Memory Book section. Memorial Website
Her books brought our family such joy. Her nostalgic, yet, timeless illustrations and themes were a part of our family's childhood.
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 4/20/2008
Blog:
PaperTigers
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Picture Books,
grief,
sadness,
Books at Bedtime,
The Tiger's Bookshelf,
reading to children,
Bologna Book Fair,
IBBY,
Andrea Petrlik Huseinovic,
Andrea Petrlik Huseinovich,
BIB,
Biennial of Illustration Bratislava,
Chihiro Art Museum,
ICDL,
International Children-s Digital Library,
Kasmir Promet,
The Blue Sky,
Add a tag
Among the hundreds of publishers from all over the world at the Bologna Book Fair was Kasmir Promet from Croatia. Aline and I were immediately attracted to their booth by the amazing book-sculpture furniture at the front. We liked the posters on display too and bought some postcards. I’m so glad we did as it was only at that point we realised that the artist Andrea Petrlik Huseinović was there and that one beautiful set of her artwork, all in shades of blue, black and white, was from a book which is available in English: and it really is something special.
The Blue Sky is about a little 10-year-old girl who has lost her parents. There is nobody in the world to love her so she shuts herself away in the high tower she builds around herself and looks towards the sky in search of her mother. First the birds become her friends and then, as she remembers happy times with her mother, she starts to make friends with the different sky creatures her memories conjure up. Finally, a blackbird appears. The bird, which had been rescued as a fledgling by the girl and her mother, has come to reunite them. “Nobody has ever seen her again. The birds that fly in the blue sky say that she is somewhere in the clouds, together with her mother”.
This heart-breaking story has a fairy-tale quality which means that children will find it sad, yes, but not unbearable. The fact that the girl is reunited with her mother (and it is a fact, as far as my children are concerned, for example) means that the outcome is positive. However, this is also a cautionary tale with a stern message made clear from the outset: “Had someone hugged her with care and love, had she only experienced a little warmth, the story would have been different”.
Andrea Petrlik Huseinovic has won many awards for her work, both at home in Croatia and internationally. Her illustrations for Pinocchio earned her a place on the IBBY Honour List in 2002; and in 2003 she was awarded a Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (BIB) Plaque for her illustrations for The Blue Sky and Alice in Wonderland. The original paintings for both these books were bought by the Chihiro Art Museum in Japan for its International Collection. Appropriately enough, the idea for The Blue Sky came to Andrea during a UNESCO-BIB art workshop in Bratislava in 2001. In an afterword she talks about her own background, including “the 
saddest thing in my life”: she lost both her parents when she was ten years old. This knowledge, of course, adds poignancy to the story but it is clear that it is not meant to be taken as autobiographical. It remains an allegory for what happens when children are alone and we do not stretch out our hands and hearts to them. It’s an extraordinary book that works on many levels, for children and adults. It’s the kind of book that needs to be read together, whether as a family or as a school group; and it offers scope for enriching and soul-searching discussion. I bought two copies: one for my boys and one for their school library.
You can read it for yourselves straight away here as it is in the International Children’s Digital Library. If it proves hard sourcing a personal copy, it can be ordered directly from the publisher…
Phyllis A. Whitney died on Friday. She was 104 years old.
Whitney's books were a large part of my high school reading life, along with Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt and Daphne DuMaurier.
Sparky Mail
I got a postcard from Sparky last week. He is obviously havng a great time living with Roz and even sent me a very glitzy keyring - that cat can't resist shiny things.
Oh and thanks Roz, for packaging it up and mailing it :)
.jpeg?picon=3075)
but this is James Bond!! 
Fleur, you are right words are never enough for a tragedy of such proportion. Prayers and thoughts are all one can offer to the families of the innocent victims.
Absolutely. Let's hope the healing can begin for these families soon...