Happy Mental Health Awareness Week "Be Mindful"

Virginia Woolf, Ghost Ranch and Poetry

The passion, the prose and the west are all rolled up in to one.

Yes siree. 

 

I don't know where this year will lead me, but it's already taking bizarre twists. And I like it!  Let's roll backwards so you can get the timeline here.

 

 

Since the start of 2013, I've moved West, inland about twenty minutes due to Hurricane Sandy. From hotel to here, our new pad. And thank you very much, my ears still feel different, like swimmer's ear waiting for them to come back.

OKAY, so... moving forwards.

My excitement is:

I finally feel alive again. 

 

Let me explain. I am writing, not congruently, but snippits for different books (currently trying to finish three).  

Some would say "concentrate on one."  But to them I would say, it is a different process for each writer.  

 

For instance, I wrote my memoir while living alone. It came spilling out over the course of a year in spurts.  I had a rhythm while I was waitressing at the diner and living alone was a plus. I could control the environment. Music or no music. TV was always off. Now it's different.  I love my girl and wouldn't have it any other way.  

 

Still sometimes I long for quiet and the same five jazz cds circling my old stereo freeing up my subconscious mind so I could write. How do you re-create your once successful environment with no office, two kitties and the love of your life (who also works from home) in a one bedroom apartment?   

I am so out of sorts I don't know what to do:

 

my iPod fell in to a cup of water at the hotel.

 

i am officially without music. 

 

(I do not count the 100+ old semi-scratched CDs)

To say I have to reinvent my writing process is the understatement of my year. I have so many books to finish this year.
Three?  I'd be content.
Four? Perhaps a bit too unrealistic.
Two?  I'm be very behind where I want to be.

But can I pull off three?

See how I get in to trouble?  I can't seem to focus on one. Is it the ADD?  Boredom?  Constant need to switch gears?  Am I settling down, finally, since the storm but not happy with my "office"?

Normally I wake up (this past year or so) and handwrite. I loathe handwriting so I started doing it again. Don't know why, perhaps it's because two very important people in my life kept suggesting it to me and I took it as a sign to start again.

I now write pages and pages with my coffee in the morning. Morning turns in to afternoon and sometimes I notice a hand cramp and it's twenty-four pages later - my record. 

 I know what you would say, stop writing in the morning and pull out your laptop.

It's not the same and any writer will tell you. Handwriting your thoughts and typing them are two different animals.  Both derive recorded thoughts, yes, but I find handwriting much more soulful. Questions and anxieties that plague me are calmed when I write.

Typing makes me feel alive. Like I am doing what makes me happy, even if I am not crazy about what I am writing. I may be critiquing while I'm typing. But I'm in the moment, alive and feeling like my puzzle piece is clicked.

A friend from my dear Red Bank Writers Group, from which I have been notably absent due to the storm and moving eight times, (yes eight...and don't get me counted on the four hotel room moves). SO where was I? Ah yes, moving west.  At least away from the shore.

Which brings me to Ghost Ranch, ah yes that's where I was going before Sandy took a front center in my ADD riddled mind.  I received an email from my friend Lynn in my writers group. In it was the information for the Writers Conference for 2013 Ghost Ranch's A Room of Her Own.  (aka: AHRO).  Being relatively new on the scene, since 2009, I am just learning about WIR, fellowships, conferences.  Typically, I'd just sigh and say someday. But THIS time, I applied for the fellowship. I cannot afford to go at this very moment, but pay my way, and I'm there!  Georgia O'Keefe's ranch, when I toured it in 2007, changed my life. I had an odd feeling I'd be back one day. I was doing real estate at the time, smack dab in the middle of my first deal. Texting in and out of coverage as we drove through New Mexico and Arizona and Utah with a very demanding buyer.  I am so glad I am not that person today. And that perhaps, if the God's align and the universe shines some extra special sparkles on me, I may get my chance to go this summer.

STAY TUNED.

Let me tell you why I've fallen in love with Virginia Woolf.

Everyone says:  you can write anywhere.  If this is your full-time job, you should do it full-time. Well, it has been officially three months since I have had a desk.  Writing on a hotel bed wasn't happening. 

She gets it, got it rather, you know what i mean.  She understood that a writer needs a room of her own. That a woman needs money of her own, preferably inheritance or landfall as she described it, so that one may able to write without economic pressure.

I love that she understood the need for good food, beyond satiation into overindulgence.  At times I believe I overindulge, at times I think eating healthy all or most of the time is deprivation. And I'd rather be curvy....but I digress.

Back to Virginia Woolf. I wish she hadn't killed herself, but I understand her motivation. I've been there, though I never heard voices.  

I certainly get wanting to be out of this world forever. Even the love of her life, her husband who she credited for the best years and a wonderful life couldn't save her from her illness.  She tried to drown herself weeks before she actually did, returning wet one day.  Unfortunately she did again with rocks in her pocket. She did in fact write two letters to her husband. I've written that letter. I tried at the same place twice.  I understand this women's brain. Indeed I do...

So I'm obsessed with Virginia Woolf. 

I've decided I want to re-read most of her work while writing my book. She's so clever and i think any modern female writer owes her a great deal whether they know it or not.

I still feel the need to defend myself in my family. Until my generation there has been no one making a living from anything creative.  I have one cousin in Iowa who is a painter.  He barely slides by I don't think he makes a lot, but he is compared to a young Norman Rockwell. The way he is able to paint intricate tractors and capture expressions is amazing to me. I have another cousin who just graduated from RISDe (Rhode Island School of Design).  My painter cousin is my age, my RISDe artist cousin is twenty years longer.  Prior to everyone, there was no one, not a one who ever, ever, ever, ever earned a living artistically.

So naturally everyone in my family fears for my future.  I am learning to do it less and less because I feel when you are in alignment with your purpose in life, a way is made. And for the first time in my life, I am able to support myself without having to punch in anywhere except my desk writing. Thank God for royalties.  

I believe everything will be okay.

And that I am a writer, full time, that this is all I want to do. And I am doing it.  Even though right now as I blog, I should be working on one of my books.  And when I am hand writing in the morning perhaps I should be blogging.

Does every writer go through this?  Believing that while doing one thing, they should be doing another?  And PLEASE don't get me started on technology.

I didn't know when I started out as little ole me writer that I'd also have to become a webmaster. (It's not the correct word, web developer? Designer?  Surely master is misleading.)

So I've designed my website, blog, tweeted, facebooked, and done all things media. Emailed my brains out to my fellow Red Bank Writers and all of it, necessary, yes, but all of it takes away writing time. I wish I was so successful that I didn't have to do all that.  I really really do. It's my hope for 2014. To be able to have an assistant.  I don't ever want to stop blogging, and some emails are necessary, yes. But I have no business trying to create and maintain my website.  I don't know what to tweet. I'm not a good tweeter nor am I exciting. And I don't feel that sharing silly details of my life is advancing the world at all.  In fact, perhaps I'll cancel it.

Decision made?   Let's see if my editor/partner lets me get away with that one. 

Okay, off now. Time to eat.  My cat has decided to bat a ball around and "Lockup" is on tv. My partner loves that show. Personally, it gives me nightmares. I will now resume working on a little six page story I began this morning. Odd as I don't write short stories.  Perhaps it's another book.

We shall see.

Bravo Hollywood

Hollywood gets on board

Silver Linings Playbook was an ode to the director's eighteen year old son Matthew who has bipolar disorder.  He decided to do the movie so his son would not feel so alone and I look forward to seeing it.  Given his son has the disorder, I think we have a chance, finally, for an accurate depiction of our illness.  Hollywood is getting on board at last.  Sure, they've all touched on depression but anyone can do that safely.  Bipolar disorder takes balls and someone out there had a heart to the cause and took a stand choosing our mental illness.  Thank you, David O'Russell for your movie.  I expect when I see it this week that it will ring true of a realistic portrait of our disorder.  I don't know how to reach him, but perhaps I could mail a copy of my book to the director if I approve.

Either way, we are finally getting some press. And not the typical, someone has shot someone else and they MUST be mentally ill.  Don't get me started on that.  Tonight's post is not going to touch this subject.  In honor of the SAG Awards, I'll stick to entertainment, thank you.

Back to the arts...

Don't get me wrong, Silver Linings Playbook is not the first.  There was Michael Clayton, the actor's name eludes me at this hour.  Also, I believe much earlier than that They Call Me Anna paved the way.  I remember I went alone to see Michael Clayton and it definitely rattled me for good and bad reasons.

First, the lead character was in an extreme manic state and I, even having been manic myself found it a bit off.  I haven't seen myself on the outside looking in like a movie while extremely manic, so it's hard to gage.  

Naturally, we bipolarians are the toughest critics.  I liken it to if someone is battling cancer, they damn well want to see it depicted properly. And let's face it, mental illness is especially delicate because they are talking about our minds.  You better do it right when you are tackling someone else's sanity or at times, lack thereof.  Delicate stuff and I wish they did it better, just like ourselves, though, there is always room for improvement and no one, no thing and certainly no movie is perfect.

Roughly five years ago, we had our first bipolar main character emerge in the theater in Next To Normal. I used to work smack in the middle of the theater district in NYC in my early twenties but have since been rather disconnected from it. Despite my proximity to the city, I haven't had the funds or gumption to pay attention while in my writing bubble of a world.  So this factoid was told to me as I was preparing query letters but a friend in the publishing industry as a positive point to make regarding my book's popularity.  I thought: 'Wow, a main character.  Now that is progressive and it's about time!'  Hmmm, bipolar had hit the stage and I was thrilled!  We were infultrating and people were paying for this entertainment.  I wish I had seen that play; however my timing was off. Precisely when I had the money and time, it was closing that week and I lost my opportunity.

From the stage to television, I'm happy to report last year Showtime's Homeland marks the first time, I'm quite sure, we have seen a main character with bipolar disorder on tv.  I was elated to hear Claire Danes was the one to play her too, though I realize it all depends upon the script. Without having Showtime, I had to wait until I subscribed to assess the reality of her character depiction.  I've only caught a few episodes but from what I've seen, they bring the issues of medication and sleep to the forefront. I see her taking meds and missing sleep. I realize their job is not to educate, but am happy she at least is seen taking medication.  To me, it's a no brainer to take a medication that solves a chemical imbalance.  But there are people out there that disagree and I respect decision of others to do what they will. Congrats to her for winning yet another award tonight on the SAGs.  After seeing a few episodes (gosh, I remember when that word was nails on a chalkboard in our house) being a great actress certainly helps us.

All in all I'm pleased with the direction we're going.  Tonight, I will rest well.  And I look forward to going to see the movie.

I only wish tomorrow I wasn't attending yet another funeral. Another suicide. This makes number three in five years.  Although they weren't a friend and I am going for support, I am tired of funerals. I am tired of suicide but grateful I survived. 

Many are not so lucky.