Tag: Writing

Priorities

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

I drifted away from recovery meetings during the pandemic. I said Zoom gave me a headache, and didn’t feel real. And because I’m socially awkward, I didn’t reach out individually to recovery friends. And because I felt sheepish about being absent, I dreaded going back and having people ask where I’d been.

Well, I’ve been to two meetings since I talked about it in my last post. There I met people who were coming to the meeting after a long day at work. People who were toting their toddlers and dealing with the frustration of having to step in and out of the meeting. People whose loved ones were sick or dying. People who’d just lost a beloved pet. All of them had one thing in common: they were putting recovery first.

I feel humbled. I see that these people have what I once had; what I’ve lost. Between all my good work in writing my book and other outreach things, I’ve forgotten the simplicity of being just an addict, just showing up and hoping to win one more day clean, grateful to make coffee at a meeting.

I need to change my priorities. As I move forward into fledgling attempts at marketing my book and working on the next, recovery needs to come first. I have to rediscover that the principles I connect with at meetings are what let me see beyond the bullshit in my head so I can write.

In Other News, Still An Addict

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

This whole newly-published book thing, with all its ups and downs, is all very nice, but I can’t afford to forget what I am. I am one pill, drink, whatever away from falling back into a place that resembles the darkest chapters of my memoir. Or maybe worse. And I have mental health issues I can’t afford to neglect, lest I put myself at bigger risk for the above.

I see danger signs recently. Struggles with food aren’t that unusual, but there are others. Over the years, I’ve occasionally had to have painkillers for surgery or kidney stones, and that’s ok. We always control them tightly and keep me ultra-accountable, and usually it is fine. But there was one time a few months ago when I found myself blissing out a bit, even though I’d only been given the prescribed dose. And I enjoyed it. And there have been a few times lately that I’ve thought longingly of that feeling. And I found myself casting an envious eye on my daughter’s cannabis gummies she uses for her migraines, and thinking, wow, if I found the right strain I bet it would make me feel really good, and it’s legal and I wouldn’t need a prescription…***ALERT***ALERT***ALERT***

Damn. Writing it out like this makes it feel more real. I’m seeing the seriousness of it more. I have twelve years clean, and if I don’t get my shit together I could lose it all. How ironic would it be to have an inspirational book gaining readers while I’ve slid back into hell?

So what to do? Gee, let me think. Recovery fellowships aren’t perfect, but for me, they’re a damn sight better than trying to fix these thoughts alone. People talk about twelve steps, but right now my plan just has three: 1) Remove ass from whatever surface it’s currently on. 2) Transport ass to meeting. 3) Repeat.

Earn Good Karma!

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

Remember, by reading my new book, you’re advocating for the decrease of stigma in mental health care and addiction treatment! You’re promoting the development of self-acceptance for everyone! You’re casting a vote against “hustle culture” and merciless meritocracy!

WordPress is giving me a bit of link trouble, but the one below should take you there:

https://a.co/d/f0vSeKF

And if you do read it, reviewing will give you the karmic equivalent of a fluffy unicorn!

There, that’s done for now. Man, telling folks they should read my book is an emotional battle I will need to get a lot better at. It requires me to ignore the all the voices I had to battle with to get the thing written! It feels arrogant, self-centered, and pushy.

I just need to remember I genuinely believe it’s worth reading and you’ll get a lot out of it if you do. And I need to break marketing etc. into tiny, separate tasks so I don’t get overwhelmed. And I need to allocate time to work on my next project, so I don’t obsess too much over how this book is selling.

Oh, and not do drugs. Can’t forget that one.

Let’s Try Again!

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

OK, this picture should be shareable! Some folks reported trouble sharing the previous one.

There’s a lot of author-type things I didn’t set up until now. Prepping the manuscript for upload was such heavy emotional labor for me that I didn’t do much multitasking. Now I’m doing things like setting up my Facebook author page.

I tell myself (and it’s true) that this is all about the long haul; everything I’ve been going through will make subsequent books MUCH easier to birth. And I’ll know more of what to expect in terms of how long various things take.

I can’t wait to dive back in to my next project, Poppytown, while I continue learning how to promote this book. This is a new beginning.

THE BOOK’S HERE!!!

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

Now you can read the whole story. Now you can tell your friends to check it out. I hope a few of you will. I really do think it’s something that would make a lot of people feel more seen.

I signed up for the program that puts the e-book on Kindle Unlimited, so if you are a subscriber you can read it for free. Otherwise, the paperback and e-book are both purchasable.

My expectations are modest, and I’m trying to keep them that way. But still…read, review, tell a friend. And it would be amazing if you let me know what you think!

That Final Resistance

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

You know that scene in Return of the King where Frodo is standing at the very edge of the Cracks of Doom, about to drop the Ring in to be destroyed? And the Ring makes one final, giant effort to dominate Frodo’s will, and he puts it on?

Sometimes the moment before a breakthrough is the most dangerous part. I plan to do my Amazon upload tonight. The files are ready, the notes are ready, the last proof has been inspected, corrected, and exported. And the last twenty-four hours have been a shitstorm of doubt and self-condemnation. The past weeks have been filled with on-and-off struggles with my compulsive eating.

I’m flailing through a last wave of accusations that I’m publishing independently out of laziness, fear, or impatience; a last wave of reminders that my audience will be tiny compared to what I might have had if I queried and hit the jackpot; a last wave of I-hate-my-book, you name it.

I need to take a moment for gratitude that I’m standing on this precipice, struggling with these doubts. I need to acknowledge the miracle that I, a dual diagnosis person, a category often written off as a poor prognosis, have survived and put in the years of work to change one nurse’s casual comment “You should write about it,” into a book.

Good News, I’m So Close!!

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

My proof copy came! It has a couple of minor aesthetic issues in its interior that will require an annoying pass to make corrections (I’m at chapter 4 of 39 right now, ugh) BUT the cover looks awesome, the interior text and margins look great, spine text nicely centered, the size I chose feels just right…in short, it looks like a real, live book that does not scream “self-published.”

Some might say that the amount of work I’ve put into the print version doesn’t make sense, because the overwhelming majority of people who read it will probably be reading the e-book. But I wanted the print version to feel pleasing and right to those who enjoy print books. Print versions are also what one takes to in-person readings and other venues.

Anyway, the time is coming, very soon now, when I’ll announce that the book is live. In the meantime, I need to stay focused, make sure to take breaks, and not forget to take care of my physical and mental health (because I can’t get away with letting those slide. It doesn’t turn out well).

Tomorrow I See My Book!

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

I uploaded the print manuscript for Someday I Will Not be Ashamed to Amazon on Thursday, and my proof copy arrives tomorrow. Then I get to see if they printed it upside down or whatever, fix the issues, re-upload, get another proof copy, etc….and after I’m happy with it, I take the book and e-book live!

Getting through the first round of uploading was a big bottleneck for me, because the publishing website is pretty intimidating. I have a big feeling of “Oh God, if I check the wrong box I’ll screw something up irreversibly!” And that’s nothing, I am sure, compared to the fear I’ll feel when I press that “publish” button.

Anyway, the time is close at hand when I’ll switch from “preparing to publish” to “getting the word out.” And working in earnest on my next project. Tackling the next learning curve. And, whatever the book’s fate, be proud of writing it and grateful I was around to do so.

Roll For Initiative, Losers

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

That’s what I’m saying to my self-sabotaging demons today. I got a HUGE amount of work done on my final formatting of the manuscript yesterday, and I’m in the middle of getting a lot done today, and I’ve made a “date” to sit down with my spouse tomorrow night and do the KDP upload of Someday I Will Not Be Ashamed and get the proof copy ordered.

A lot of things could go wrong. Maybe the KDP interface will reject my file. Maybe the proof copy will arrive with all the text printed upside down. I don’t know, but it’s the next step.

Live with an eating disorder? A mental illness? An addiction? More than one of these? None of these, but just a constant struggle with shame and perfectionism? You might be one step closer to feeling a bit more seen. Because sometime in May, my book’s going to be available on Amazon.

Just a Little Longer

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

When my book’s actually published, will I be able to stop torturing myself about whether self-publishing was the right road to choose?

So close. Someday I Will Not Be Ashamed (click on the SIWBNA tab if you want to know more) is so close to being ready to go. But the formatting needs one more good pass, and I won’t be able to do a proper job of it until next week after I’ve recovered from a minor surgical procedure. And I’m struggling with the urge to hurry up, for no good reason than because I am tired of second guessing myself.

Let’s go through it one more time. The reasons for me self-publishing are:

  1. Flexibility–if I have an episode or am otherwise incapacitated, I’m not inconveniencing/hurting the profits of anyone but myself. This is the most important reason, triggered in part by my latest episode I’ve struggled through, and it’s about an honest evaluation of who I am and what kind of lifestyle I’m suited for.
  2. Autonomy–I don’t have to depend on the goodwill of others for my book’s existence. (Other people are vital to my efforts at helping readers be aware of the book, of course, but my book can’t be “orphaned,” which is a thing.)
  3. Simplicity–this is a reason specific to me and my plans. I’m planning more publications, some large and some small and short. Some would definitely be self published. By self publishing this book, I’m paving the way to treat all of my books the same rather than deal with separate sets of data.

My reasons not to self-publish can all be distilled into what-ifs and FOMO and “hey, my friend got a book deal, that could be me,” and “people will see me as a failure” and “nobody will read it,” etc. etc. and I am ready for those voices to shut the fuck up.

Another Step Toward Reality

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

The book cover for Someday I Will Not Be Ashamed is done. DONE. All the revisions and changes and nitpicking, all the asking for blurbs and deciding which to use, all the coming up with the right synopsis, bio, and author photo, all the realizing that my painstakingly chosen back cover text needs to be slashed by more than half…it’s all done. The front, spine, and back of the print cover are done. The ebook, of course, only uses the front, so a lot of this sweat has been about the print version.

So where am I now? Finishing up the formatting…I confess, I caved and bought Atticus to help me. When that’s done, it will be time to upload the print manuscript to the Amazon publishing platform (KDP). The usual way of doing it is to upload the print manuscript, order a proof copy to inspect, then take the print book live the same day you upload the ebook.

So a time will come, not long from now, when I announce my launch date. It’s getting more real all the time.

The Demons Are Screaming

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

I’m on a boat, steering towards my destination, and a bunch of demons on board are shrieking at me. If I steer away from where I want to go, they settle down, but if I return to my course, they start yelling again. Louder and louder, closer and closer to my ears.

This metaphor comes from Russ Harris, author of “The Happiness Trap,” a book about the field of acceptance and commitment therapy. He uses the demons to represent the self-sabotaging parts of ourselves. There are many metaphors like this, but I took a liking to this one. It’s easy to imagine myself at the rudder of the ship, trying hard to keep a firm grip and a focus on the horizon, while progressively larger and louder demons caper around and try to distract me.

His metaphor also has a very important detail: the demons can’t actually do anything. They don’t have the power to touch the boat’s controls, or touch me, or damage the boat, or anything else tangible. All they can do is scream.

Anyway, right now, they’re very loud for me. I am navigating some of the important pre-publishing milestones for my book, and the universe has challenged me with a severe back pain episode for the last week. As I shuffle and stagger around the house, the demons try to convince me that I shouldn’t work on anything. That this publishing thing is sure to go dreadfully wrong and who do I think I am to publish a book anyway, etc.

I am worried about my back, and the fact that I don’t know how long it will be before it improves. As a previous abuser of painkillers, pain is an emotional topic for me. The demons amplify that as they try to convince me I’ll be in pain forever and that I can’t be creative while in pain, therefore the writing part of my life is over…yeah, yeah, demons, I’ve heard it all. Still sailing though.

Formatting My Brain

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

So, I still hate my book. Understandable. But I’m making progress on trying to format with Word. Word, if none of you have ever tried to format a book length document with it, is hard. There are three schools of thought about book formatting–the first is “hire a professional you idiot,” the second is “you can do it yourself, but only if you buy our specialized software,” and the third is “yeah, just do it in Word, no big deal.” Since my husband’s a computer geek, we decided to try Word, with the option of giving up and buying software from option #2 if we suffer too much.

What I’ve learned so far is that Word and my brain have a something in common. They both do a kind of “butterfly effect” chaos in response to change. For example, I commanded Word to change the chapter headings from bold to italic. In response, Word did that. Yay me. But Word also removed all italics from chapters 2, 17, and 30. Okay…

I’m trying to deal with my frustration by comparing this to my body and brain. If I change my diet, I lose weight. Yay. But I also have a hypomanic episode. Boo. If I exercise more, my legs get stronger. Yay. But I get a UTI. Boo. If I get some extra sleep, I feel less tired. Yay. But I get disoriented. Boo. Any departure from the status quo has unpredictable effects.

We’ll see what happens with Word. Trouble is, you can’t maintain a status quo when the whole point of the process is to change your document.

I Hate My Book

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

No one can read a piece of writing this many times, over this many months, without beginning to despise it. Doing the final formatting for self-publication is just the latest round of this. Sentences I once loved appear trite; passages formerly judged effective sound cheesy. The book as a whole, described by one reviewer as “a rollercoaster of honesty, insight, and courage,” has instead become a self-indulgent rant.

I know I am not alone; I take comfort in the stories about other writers’ processes. But right now it’s hard to imagine ever falling in love with my book again. And it’s hard to imagine feeling much but relief when it’s done; relief that it’s gone from my desk and I can work on other things.

Right now, I’m coping by trying to pretend this isn’t my book. I’m pretending to be a professional that the author has hired to prep the book for publication. It’s not my book. I don’t need to edit the content. I don’t need to have an opinion about it. I just need to do the work.

Ugh.

Write Faster

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

I’m worried about the future of my brain, and this is one thing behind my decision to go with the faster, more individually controlled, and more flexible process of self-publishing. Like Hamilton, I feel I need to “write like I’m running out of time.”

I really am grateful that my long process of meds adjustment is finished–but the new status quo involves the maximum therapeutic dose of two meds where there was one. My anxieties don’t like this…will I need a third in a few years? A fourth? Will everything just stop working?

The cumulative effects of bipolar disorder, treated or not, on the brain are not well known. But there’s some data indicating an ongoing impact on working memory, executive function, and other abilities. I may experience more than the normal age-related hits to my cognition as the years go by. They might form a gentle slope or abrupt drops. I don’t know.

Right now, I’m still working on formatting Someday I Will Not Be Ashamed. I hope to publish it in late April, maybe May. Once it’s done, I can turn my attention to the next set of projects, knowing there’s a part of me anxious to say everything I want to say while I still have the ability to say it. We all face an uncertain future, both inside and outside ourselves. I guess I’m just feeling especially aware of it right now.

Hoping to Reach Out

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Why did I write a book? I have to remember, every time I get overwhelmed with publishing details or start to worry about nobody ever reading it, that I had a very specific reason for going to all this effort. I wanted to reach out.

I keep reading depressing statistics about self-published books–but I have to remember that if my book makes even one person feel less alone, or gives one person a bit of a window on what a loved one is going through, or alters one stigma-supporting assumption a person previously had, then it was worth it all.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that not everyone knows the things I know! Clinical depression and other mental health shenanigans have been a normal part of my life for so long. And being an addict is normal for me too, even though it has been eleven years without drugs. It’s alive and well, not only in memories but in my current and permanent struggles with food. It’s hard to understand that not everyone knows what it is to compelled to do something self-destructive…and to lie, steal, or otherwise act in a way their own values abhor, because they are driven by an overwhelming craving.

When I do remember these things, these differences between me and the “normal,” it helps me to recall that my book has a useful purpose.

Cover Art in Progress!!

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

Exciting news about the memoir…I just got my first round of potential cover designs! My task was to review them and give detailed feedback to guide the artist in making a second round. Turns out I had a clear favorite, so that made it a bit easier.

There are a lot of professionals out there to help a self-publishing author…help with editing, with formatting, with the actual upload process, etc. My editing is already done, and due to financial limitations my computer geek husband and I are going to try to do the formatting ourselves with the help of some of the great software out there…but the cover was the one area we knew needed a professional. The cover is of paramount importance, since most people first see the book as a thumbnail online. So, I bit the bullet and hired someone. And seeing even this first round makes me glad I did.

I’ve learned a lot during this process so far. Before the artist did the first round, they asked me to provide them with a lot of information about what I wanted, including references to existing book covers I liked in my genre. I did a LOT of scanning through Amazon and library software to find a good list. It was illuminating…what do I like in a cover, and why? What turns me off, and why?

Anyway, I can’t wait to see the second round. And it was delightfully surreal to see my title on what looked like a real book.

“Normal” Problems

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

My meds adjustments are done for the time being, and I’m so grateful. For about the last four months, I’ve been in this adjustment process–tapering down one med, tapering up another, waiting to see results or lack thereof, tapering up a new one, et caetera. It has to be done carefully and gradually (which is why the “ask your doc-in-a-box about New Drug X!” commercials annoy me so much). And it’s hard, so hard, to be patient and endure side effects and not give up hope.

Now, I’m back to my baseline! My baseline is not a symptom-free status. I have plenty of symptoms; I have good days and bad days. But the worrisome level of hypomania isn’t there. I’m sleeping a little more. I’m less disoriented. I have more energy to focus on “normal” problems.

“Normal” problems are scary…and when you come out of your skull and engage with them more than you have been, it can feel overwhelming. Money. Relatives’ needs. Medical tasks. The nuts and bolts of the business side of my writing and publishing what I write. I haven’t been completely out of touch, not the way I have during some points of my life, but I do feel more connected now than I have in a while. I’m talking and thinking and strategizing about longer-term problems…and coming up against the ones I don’t have a solution for yet. Or maybe ever.

Recovery literature reminds us to be grateful for “normal” problems; all the problems we wouldn’t have if our addiction had killed us. Mental health advisors caution us to up our self-care as needed so we won’t subconsciously drag ourselves down into the familiar darkness to avoid the things we fear we won’t be able to deal with. And both of these tell us to break it down: one step, one phone call, one errand, one brainstorming session, at a time. And to accept doing what we can, not what we think we should be able to do.

It’s Raining in My Head

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

As a Californian, I am contractually obligated to be grateful for every precious drop of rain that falls. And I am. But as my region deals with huge rainfall and flooding, it can be challenging. And the varying pressure triggers my back pain. More seriously, it triggers spikes in my daughter’s chronic migraines. And I can’t go out. And the dog wants to go out every 20 minutes, and she can’t understand why we don’t turn the rain off, and we have to put on her doggie raincoat and leash her and take her out each time because there’s a giant puddle in back, and it’s all a giant hassle. And it’s dark.

I know I’m too sensitive to my emotional environment sometimes. The more down those around me feel, the worse I feel. It’s hard right now to get excited about publication tasks, especially since I was already feeling a bit overwhelmed. A heavy depressive fog has settled over me. I’m always cold. The silence required by my daughter’s headaches is oppressive (there is only so long I can tolerate headphones without needing a break).

Here’s the part where I introduce a clever metaphor and link all this to the general experience of living with one of my conditions. But I haven’t got one today. It’s raining in my head, and I have to wait it out. I have to remember all the things I’ve been excited about, even if I can’t feel the excitement right now. It will come back. It always does.

No Promises

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

My life is littered with a trail of broken promises, each one giving me more material to shape into self-loathing. Which ones were fueled by bipolar disorder, which ones by being an addict, and which by simply being a flawed human, I’ll never know. But I’ve learned, the hard way, that my promises need to be small, short-term, and specific. That’s why I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. It’s not that I don’t think setting intentions is a good thing, or that doing so in a spirit of camaraderie with others isn’t helpful. But they aren’t right for me.

So, for 2023, I do not vow to get my first book, or my first two books, published–but for today, I set an intention of doing the next step of cover designer research. I do not vow to lose weight–but for today, I set an intention to eat in a way that doesn’t hurt me. I do not vow to make a little money with my fledgling tarot reading business–but today, I set an intention to participate in my favorite forum. And so forth.

I need to accept that I live in cycles. No matter how many meds I take, my ability to do things–including basic self-care like exercise and eating well–is going to fluctuate. And when I get into shame about that, it only prolongs the down phase, because people who are in shame don’t take good care of themselves even if they can again.

I Surrender

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

To live with conditions like mine is to live life in a cycle of denials and surrenders. “Sure, I can do the thing!” is followed, days or weeks or months later, by “well…no, not in a consistent or sustainable way, so I shouldn’t have said yes to anyone who is now inconvenienced or even hurt by me not being able to do the thing.” Knowing where to draw the boundary between what I should and should’t commit to is a lifelong learning curve.

I’ve had a dream of finding a literary agent for my memoir. I dreamed of what might follow if I hit the jackpot and got one. But recently, I had an extended bout of hypomania bad enough to require a meds change and its own struggles with side effects. It made me remember how unpredictable my life, and my ability to function, is.

It was time for me to take a look at what kind of lifestyle I’m suited for, and what kind of lifestyle I want. The answers led me to a surrender and a shift in my plans…I’m going the self-publishing route. A route on which, if I’m unable to do promotion efforts during a dip, I’m impacting nobody but myself. I had already planned to do this for my subsequent poetry and smaller prose books, but wanted to do otherwise for the memoir. Now, I’m going to treat them all the same, for simplicity’s sake.

Self-publishing is not easy. It’s a lot of work and a whole new set of tasks to learn. But I can do it at my own pace, and I can manage my promotion efforts according to my abilities.

My body knows my decision is the right one (have you ever felt your body react to a decision? It’s weird, but unmistakable). I feel better than I have in months. Let’s hear it for surrender.

Channeling Oliver Twist

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment
“Please, I want you to read my book.”

Today I sent out my first book blurb requests. These are the brief, eye-catching reviews/comments that get displayed on your book’s back cover or dust jacket. Hopefully, they’re from someone authoritative in the field the book is about, or the author of better-known works like yours. So requesting them means asking for the time of someone who’s probably pretty darn busy/in demand/gets lots of mail like yours.

Eeeek.

I chose the first round of attempts carefully, and I hope realistically. Let’s face it, getting someone to read a first book isn’t easy. But I did include two “swinging for the fences” people in the batch, people who’ve been inspirational to me for decades. It was more of a symbolic gesture than anything else, to be honest, but there’s always that one-in-a-billion chance.

The process was a lot like querying, but even more individual…I did make a basic “blurb request template letter” but I altered it a lot for each person to reflect why I chose them and why they might want to consider the book.

I feel good about getting the first batch out. Now I need to relax and focus on other things for a bit as I wait for positive or negative answers, or for cricket noises of sufficient duration to let me know no answer is coming.

Micro-Learning

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

It’s still hard for me to learn new things when I start out sucking spectacularly at them. I think we all get discouraged if we don’t show any kind of talent at the beginning…part of it’s embarrassment; part is more pure ego (If I can’t be the best, why bother?).

One area I’m weak in is technology. I’m not the worst for my age, but I need to get better, and right now my nemesis is video editing. I am learning how to use iMovie, and to say I am finding it bewildering would be an understatement. But with perseverance, and a bunch of humility, I am improving.

My secret is micro-learning. With the invaluable aid of YouTube, I learn one or two itsy-bitsy things per session. I’ll search something very detailed…how do I rename a project? how do I import an audio file? Not trying to tie it all together yet. Then I take notes for myself on the thing I just learned, because my messy brain is almost certain to forget it the next time I sit down with a project.

It’s an accomplishment for me, because it goes against a very old pattern. I got into a good college on the strength of some natural talent and a lot of natural test taking ability. When I found myself dealing with much harder material there, I had no idea what to do when I was bad at something. I didn’t know how to learn…and I definitely didn’t know how to ask for help.

It’s taken decades, but now I know how. And as long as I can learn, whole worlds are open to me.

Waiting for the Other Shoe

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

Uh-oh…I feel good today. The side effects of my meds change have died down, and the new med is looking promising. I’m a bit less hypomanic, I’m sleeping a teeny bit better, and my morale is up. Thinking about my writing projects and publishing issues, while still chaotic, doesn’t feel quite as overwhelming.

So, I’m waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. I’m waiting for a relative’s health to take an abrupt turn for the worse, or for the dog to start throwing up, or for the nearby oil refinery to have a toxic leak. Because people with brains and/or backgrounds like mine are wired to expect disaster.

That’s one reason I carry a deep conviction that feeling happy is always the precursor to trouble. The other reason has to do with the deep shame I still battle–not the shame over things I’ve done, but the unexplainable shame I seem to have been born with. It tells me that there will always be a price for any happiness I experience; that in taking anything for myself I am stealing it from the world.

All this makes it harder to appreciate days like this, but I try. It’s a gorgeous fall day here in Northern California. We won’t be on fire again for several months, and the air is crisp and fresh. I got five glorious hours of sleep last night. My favorite jeans are clean. So is my hair. And there’s nothing I have to do for the rest of the day. Life is good.

New Name

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Just a quick note to any repeat visitors…you’re not imagining things; I did just change the name of this site. I decided that, in the coming years, having it and its address just be my name will make the website easier for people to find. It also reflects the fact that the site has become a bit more eclectic. The things I’m sharing have always been diverse, but most were focused on mental health, addiction, or, more recently, the psychology of writing. But now I’ll also be sharing news about what happens to the varied stuff I write–and, someday, links to my work itself. And how awesome is it that I’m thinking years ahead; that I fully expect to keep writing different things? Even when I’m scattered and frustrated with myself for being unable to focus in on one sometimes, I am aware that every dream is a gift.

Don’t worry, though, there will still be plenty of words about other aspects of what it’s like to be a bipolar recovering addict with an eating disorder! The conditions I live with sit with me, write with me, and dream my dreams with me. They will always be part of how I present myself to the world, because it’s a way of reducing stigma and perhaps making a reader here and there feel less alone.

Yay! I Suck!

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

ENOUGH got its first rejection letter! And I’m trying to celebrate, because this is a milestone I’ve been waiting for. You see, to get a rejection letter you have to have sent a query, which means you have to have finished something to the point of being ready to send a query. You have to have done a proposal. You have to have come up with a query letter. And then, you have to have navigated the requirements of the particular agent you’re querying and done the annoying chore of altering your materials as needed.

I did all that. It feels like the final rite of passage from the realm of “I’d like to write a book” through “I am working on a book” to “I have written a book.” Even though I’ve had a full manuscript and been revising it for more than a year, sending it out for the first time makes it feel like a Book.

All through this process, I’ve been managing my expectations. I’ve planned to query for a certain amount of time and then, if nothing happens, look at hybrid or self publishing. My hypomanic brain jumps ahead and tries to plan for that stuff now, even though it’s not time yet. It doesn’t help that I do need to learn more about these realms for my other projects.

But right now, celebration. I’m told that everybody’s really backlogged between now and the new year, so I’ll probably wait until January before sending out the next batch. In the meantime, I want to focus on other projects and not worry about publishing…because the question of how to publish these is irrelevant until they actually get done.

You hear that, brain? Would you kindly turn off the hypomania and let me focus on one thing? Consider it a holiday gift.

Gratitude. Ugh.

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Sometimes I worry that a person in pain will take gratitude-related advice as “suck it up, whiner!” I feel that inappropriately-timed reminders of gratitude’s importance can be condescending, minimize the importance of someone’s pain, and make them feel it’s not safe to express said pain.

That being said…yeah, cultivating gratitude is vital. Ugh. It’s as necessary as air for me, because self-pity was the biggest saboteur of my early attempts at drug abuse recovery and at managing my mental health. I felt sorry for myself when it become clear that recovery wasn’t going to make my brain normal, or let me sleep, or get me to a level of functioning suitable for the kind of work I wanted to do.

Today, it’s helpful for me to at least attempt a gratitude-centered perspective when things are tough. And my past gives me lots of useful fuel. Annoyed that my back hurts after doing dishes? Remember the many times dishes weren’t even an option. Feeling frustrated that I can’t be of more help in my daughter’s health struggles? Remember how close I came to not being there for her at all. Tired or scattered about my writing projects? Remember I could have died without writing anything.

My place is a mess? Got a place to live. Hate cooking? Got food to cook. Getting old? Beats the alternative. I can go on and on–if I’m willing to go there. But does it really do anything? It doesn’t fix everything, that’s for sure. And it won’t help if I try to force it because of a sense of duty or shame…”why am I sad? I should be grateful…”

But if I can let gratitude in, let it coexist with my other perfectly valid emotions, it will help balance my tendency to dwell on the negative. And I can use the help.

Off Switch

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How do I get my brain to STOP? When I know it’s tired enough not to be productive, or I know I’m not well enough to be productive anyway, what button do I push that will convince it that it’s OK to relax and not learn or create anything right now?

Well, what button BESIDES drugs, compulsive eating, and other destructive things? For over a decade, I used ever-increasing numbers of sleeping pills because my brain wouldn’t yield to anything less than a chemical hammer. Opioids during the day also soothed my hyperactive brain. A box of donuts is usually good for shutting it up, but eating large amounts of junk comes with a high physical and mental cost.

I know, I know…I should exercise and meditate. Well, my Tai Chi classes finally reopened, so that’s a step in the right direction. But except when I am actually doing it, it doesn’t seem to change much.

Right now, for example, I just stopped in the middle of typing this to grab a piece of paper and write down an idea about how to fix a problem with the video editing I’m trying to learn. I had to remind myself that I’m in the middle of something.

What I really want to do is unplug for the day. It’s Friday afternoon, there’s nowhere I need to go, and I only slept 2 hours last night. I want to zone out and play Minecraft, or put an old, comforting movie on. And my head hurts from the video editing stuff. And I don’t want to think about the different projects I am working on, or how messy the house is, or my latest NEW writing idea. I don’t want to think at all. But the mild hypomania that has been in play more often than usual for the last few months means I spin, and spin, and spin.

The Parable of the Cursed Axe

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So there I was, playing my old-fashioned dungeon crawler computer game when I should have been doing paperwork between counseling sessions. My character had survived and prospered long enough to have excellent armor, strength and health, but I was still wielding a lowly dagger. So I was pleased to find an axe, and picked it up, even though I knew some weapons were cursed.

On the next floor of the dungeon, I found myself surrounded by orcs. They aren’t too strong in this game, which is why they travel in large packs. So I was surprised when my attacks on the first orc seemed ineffective. Maybe I’d better switch back to my dagger…but when I tried to drop it, I saw the dreaded message: You can’t. It appears to be cursed. I was stuck with my axe. Checking my inventory, I realized it was minus-2 power. Ugh. This orc pack was going to take a while.

I’ll get to my metaphor soon. Honest.

Then, a rust monster appeared. With every hit, this feared being damages your weapons and armor. My minus-two axe became minus-three, seven…minus-twenty by the time I managed to kill the thing. I was now fighting the swarm of orcs with what amounted to a shapeless hunk of iron too heavy to lift. But I couldn’t put it down.

Wielding a cursed weapon sucks. But we’ve all done it, haven’t we? Haven’t we had a response, or a coping mechanism, that has become ineffective at best and destructive at worst, but we just can’t put it down? We swing it helplessly at the problems around us, unable to pick up a healthier method even if we know of one. We have trouble accepting that our old weapon isn’t working, hasn’t been working for a while, and is never going to work again.

Addiction is one example, of course. We wield our drug or behavior of choice to the point of self-destruction. But there are so many other cursed weapons out there, and some of these became part of our arsenal when we were very young. If we learned to shut down, avoidance becomes our default response and is difficult to change. If we learned angry confrontation as the go-to reaction, that’s our cursed weapon. If we learned to please and placate others, we hack our way to a lifetime of inauthenticity.

What are your weapons? Are they working? If they’re not, can you put them down? Or are they cursed, cursed in a way you can’t uncurse without magic?

Brick and Acid

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There’s a huge brick sitting on my chest. My stomach feels as if it’s trying to eat itself. I jump at the slightest sound. The cause: my dog has been sick. Nothing too catastrophic, it seems, since she is better than yesterday. We just came back from the vet where they drew some blood for tests.

Anyone would be anxious when their beloved pet is ill–but my spouse, unlike me, has been sleeping at night. He seems to be able to draw a deep breath. I’m obsessively listening for every tiny sound the dog makes, at every hour of the day and most hours of the night. I did catch two hours of sleep last night, and I am grateful for that much.

My limbic system, the part of the nervous system responsible for sensing and reacting to threats, is hypersensitive. It always has been, and it got worse when the bipolar disorder came along. Abusing drugs that relaxed me, and thus neglecting to exercise the parts of my psyche that manage anxiety, probably didn’t help either.

The crisis is over for the time being. She’s feeling better and eating again. But tell my limbic system that…I know that tonight, and probably several nights after that, will have me straining my ears for the tiniest clue, the tiniest sound that might mean she’s throwing up or having trouble breathing or being abducted by aliens. And my sleep debt, already large this last week, will grow and grow.

I hear my poet and writer friends talk about serious stresses going on in their lives, and I wonder how they manage to write through it…how do they focus on anything else when the brick is pressing so hard and the acid is so sharp?

The Arena

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes, for me, dissolving a block requires brute force. Screw letting my creativity flow and bubble spontaneously–been there, done that, and this poem still won’t yield even a rough draft. I haven’t written a new poem for months–got preoccupied with memoir tasks, then found when I returned to Poppytown that my efforts at creating drafts for the missing poems met with internal silence.

Yesterday, I vowed to make a rough draft of something. No matter how rough. Jagged, uneven, sharp-edged, whatever. I dragged this title into the arena and swore that only one of us was coming out alive. I took out the paper with the poem title on top. I set a timer for one hour. Go.

And it worked. There’s a draft now. I’ll worry about revision later–what matters is that there’s something to revise. Is it as good as the version of the poem that may or may not have ever come to me in a gentler way? I will never know. But I’m pretty sure it is better than a blank page.

Turn the Faucet Back On

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I can’t get out of “edit” mode. I’ve been in “edit” mode for so long (to me, this mode includes things like proposal writing, research into agents and publishing options, etc.) that I’m having a hard time switching back to “flow” mode and actually creating something. Right now, I have some waiting to do in terms of getting my memoir queries ready to submit, so it makes sense for me to be working on other projects in the meantime. Especially Poppytown, which is slated to be the next thing completed. There are poems still to write for that…and I can’t seem to turn on poetry-writing mode!

Yesterday, I did some useful organization…created a binder with everything I have, then inserted a blank page with title only, placed in its proper order, for every poem that is conceived but not yet finished. The idea is that when I’m ready to tackle a certain poem, that blank page will serve as initial brainstorming space. Having it in order will let me keep the book as a whole in mind. So that’s all good. But it won’t help unless I can take one of those pages and produce a poem.

I know anxiety/information overload is part of it…half an hour of research into the world of publishing can leave my overactive brain whirling and lead me to a night of nail-biting ruminations. Maybe it’ll be less overwhelming as I learn more, but right now every fact I learn sends me down a new rabbit hole of information, some of it contradictory.

If I’m going to be an author, I have to learn to switch between modes. I have to learn to compartmentalize. When writing and revising my memoir, I managed it by deciding I wasn’t going to think about what to do with it until it was done. But that won’t work any more. I’m sure I am not the only writer to struggle with this, although my weird brain chemistry may add a bit of exotic seasoning to the brain stew. It’s just another new thing to learn, at a time when I’m already learning a ton of new things but can’t afford to let any of them compromise managing my conditions.

Birth is Messy

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I was hesitant to put information about my in-progress projects up on this site. I thought I should wait until each one reached a certain point…talk about Enough, but no, maybe not until I get it farther along the road to some kind of publishing. Don’t talk about Poppytown until the manuscript is actually done. Don’t talk about my Tarot hobby-turned-serious-study until I have a business identity, website, and YouTube channel up and running.

The trouble with these ideas is that the process is at least as important as the product. By talking about it, I have the opportunity to share a process; to let someone observe the gestation, birth, and development of something new. Pregnancy takes time. Birth is messy and inconvenient. And have you ever seen a newborn baby, as in minutes old? They’re funny-looking, they can’t do much, and they really need a bath.

So, I’m going to try to be honest about where I am with everything. My readers will get to watch my learning curves as I struggle with being the new kid in school in the realms of the literary world, technology, and business. I’ll look scattered, and inconsistent, and clueless at times. And?

Once More, With Feeling

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This is what happens when you awaken the creativity of a middle-aged person with a mild form of bipolar disorder and decades of expression squished down inside them.

I’ve been neglecting this blog because there’s so much going on that I thought I would need to start a new one about my memoir project. Then I thought I’d need two new ones, because of my other book project. Then the experience of having finished a book fired me up with the knowledge that if I wrote one book, I could write others…and I thought I’d need a blog for those.

Argh! Enough! I’ve made peace with the fact that, like me, any blog I do is going to be multifaceted. So this’ll be the hub for it all…you’ll hear about different book projects. You’ll hear about living a creative life with bipolar disorder. You’ll hear about my successes and failures in self-care, my ongoing journey in recovery from opioid addiction, and whatever is helping me get by on a particular day.

Sometimes I’ll post old essays that never made it onto here. Sometimes I’ll write new ones. But mostly, I’ll try to write with honesty about my breathtakingly imperfect day-to-day life. The life of someone who used to live on the edge of suicide, but now lives on the messy, jagged edge of possibility.

Murdering My Darlings

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An English author, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, coined the phrase “murder your darlings” to describe a good editing process. I’ve had to murder a lot of darlings while shaping my first draft, and I can only imagine how many darlings will meet destruction as the thing gets polished.

It’s hard! Especially when the darling in question is really–well, darling. Well-written. Poetic. Touching. A sentence, or paragraph, or even a chapter, that is wonderful writing but doesn’t belong where it is.

The chapters I wrote, one at a time, over the last two or three years contain a lot of writing that has to stay out of the book. Not because it isn’t good. It is. But the book has to have a story arc, and the content has to serve the arc. Not to mention issues around word count.

This week I cut the first chapter of the book. Just cut it, outright. I slipped a little exposition into what was Chapter Two, but all the writing from the previous Chapter One is gone. The book now begins in a completely different way.

Oh, darling. I’m so sorry.

Interrupted

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I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by how far my two book projects have progressed…well, the universe found a cure for that! For two weeks, I’ve been flattened by a flare-up of my old back issues. On bad days I shuffle, stagger or crawl from bed to bathroom to recliner. My creativity is blotted out by pain and worse insomnia than usual. It’s frustrating as hell not to be able to do the dishes, take out the garbage, or even pick up things I drop.

In my counseling training, I met many folks who were in the field of “somatic psychology;” that is, the study of how the mind’s issues can affect the body. It’s a growing field, full of promise. But, like people in any field, students of this one can go to extremes. It made me crazy when anything from a sneeze to a sprained ankle caused classmates to start diagnosing some kind of emotional source.

That being said, mind/body connections are real…so am I somehow the author of this flare-up? Is there more going on than “shit happens?” Did my body arrange for me to be forced to take a break, to put everything on hold, to step away from all the “what now” questions about my manuscripts? All I can do is try to engage my thoughts with honesty as I heal from this.

Whether they are related or not, my mind and body both need to know that they don’t have to break down to get a break. Fallow periods are normal for any creative person. I’m allowed to have them without a physical or mental crisis existing as a reason.

Scary Progress

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Here’s the thing…I wrote a book.

I have to say it that way now, because the rough draft exists. I’ve even let a few people read it and give me some basic feedback.

I have written a story about a young girl with an eating disorder who grew up to be a scientist, a mother, a person with bipolar disorder, a counselor, a drug addict, and at last a person who tries to balance all of these things.

It’s still got some editing ahead of it before I begin trying to take the next steps, but the fact that it exists is scary.

My second project, a full-length poetry compilation about the opioid epidemic, is also making frightening progress. I’d say it’s 60% done, including the hard part of deciding how to structure it.

What the actual fuck. How did this happen? If anyone had told me ten years ago…

F Is For “Fuck It”

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The ultimate metamorph, the “fuck it” feeling can be good or bad, destructive or liberating. It can be the moment of casting aside recovery efforts and popping a pill, or the moment of turning away from a useless argument to direct your efforts to more important things.

Recklessness. Apathy. Liberation. Anger. Dismissal. Rejection. Exasperation. Spontaneity. It can mean any of them. And any of its meanings could be playing out in a healthful or unhealthful way.

“Fuck it” is not appropriate when faced with politics…but it’s appropriate when looking at the hundredth headline about the same thing when what you really need is sleep.

“Fuck it” is not appropriate when faced with a difficult relationship…but it is when the same specific argument has happened a hundred times and you have to start looking for a solution that doesn’t involve convincing the other person you’re right.

“Fuck it” isn’t useful when it comes to your health…but it is when you hear the same outdated lecture from your doctor for the hundredth time after they’ve forgotten your logical response to it for the hundredth time.

“Fuck it” isn’t good as a general approach to parenting…but it makes a lot of sense when your kid’s finally dressed for preschool, except they insist on wearing their rain boots on a sunny day, and it was time to leave five minutes ago, and it’s just not worth it.

We need the “fuck it” feeling or it would be hard to let go of anything. Oh, there are more serene ways to let go–but they require a level of confidence and self-acceptance that few of us can sustain all the time. Whatever emotion comes with of “fuck it” helps shut up that voice telling us we can’t stop until it’s solved; until we win.

Stop Writing Right Now!

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That’s what my brain has been telling me for a few days. Whether it’s the result of my latest biochemical dip, or the stage of my projects, or environmental factors, is unimportant. And there’s no writer who doesn’t live with frequent self-doubt. Still, I hate it when the “stop writing” thoughts take over for days at a time.

They lay out, in excruciating detail, an array of reasons why my two big writing projects a) suck and b) are meaningless.

Sometimes they focus on the book and tell me it’s boring, self-absorbed, and won’t actually help anyone. Sometimes they focus on the poetry compilation and tell me it’s trite and not topical any more; that the pandemic means nobody cares about addiction even though overdose rates continue to rise.

I’ve done some reading about the nature of thoughts, especially the usefulness of being aware that what I think of as a thought is, in fact, nothing more than a set of words. It has no power. Whether a true story or a false one, it is a story.

I don’t beat myself up for buying into thoughts more when I’m in a depressive dip. It makes sense that my defenses get exhausted then. But it helps to know that I’m doing it; to see the process happening and know it is a process.

Five Minutes

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I just sat down and wrote a list of five-minute activities. It felt pretty cheesy, but I need to find the willingness to pick one when I feel adrift instead of turning to eating or video games.

As I’ve written before, I’m fine with video games to a point. And I know where that point is; I’m not getting any fun or relaxation out of the game if I pass it. So unless I’m in near-crisis and just have to buy time, it is better to get up and do something else.

Why five minutes? It’s an attempt to break through the block that says something’s only worth doing if I’m going to go the whole nine yards. A walk has to be a long one, scrubbing a toilet has to involve cleaning the whole bathroom, etc. This perfectionism feeds into the “well, I’m not feeling up to all that, so I’ll wait for a time when I am.”

I’ve been ignoring my physical therapy exercises for a hip pain. The whole routine takes a half hour twice a day and feels as far from me as the moon. But wouldn’t it be better to do a few of the stretches than nothing?

Nonzero is always, always better than zero for me. Staring disgustedly at a poem draft for five minutes is light-years ahead of not bringing it before my eyes at all.