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5/7/2023

Cheryl king's sitting on top of the world -- a book review

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How do I know Cheryl King, author of SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD? Well, in a way, I feel as if we grew up together. But not in the way one would think. 

See, Cheryl and I did not share a childhood and have never actually met in person, but we both started our author careers with a small press called City Limits Publishing based in Nashville, TN. My first published novel, SURVIVING MIDAS, was to be published in August of that infamous year, and Cheryl's book came out a couple of months before mine. 



Right when the bottom fell out of the whole scheme. 

Right after the launch of SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD, CLP closed its doors. Suddenly, all of their authors (including Cheryl and I) were left in a state of limbo. We were in the middle of a promotional campaign, promising readers, family and friends alike, a book. But was there any book to be had? 

I have not been able to keep up with all of the CLP folks, but I did keep up with Cheryl on a casual basis. Cheryl, who is not only an excellent author but a lionhearted trooper, went on to self-publish her first novel and has the sequel coming out very soon! Very recently, I was privileged enough to read this first book. 

So, what is this book about anyway? 

Summary for SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD

June Baker was just a girl when the first bank run of the Great Depression happened, and, while she did not quite know what such a thing meant, she could tell from the adults in her life that it was not good. But no one could have prepared her for how bad it was going to be. 

First the banks dry up. Then the jobs. Then the money. Then the food. 

Too bad the bills, however, remain, and if June's parents don't do something fast, they're going to lose the farm. Even though she's but a mite, June rolls up her sleeves and dives right into helping her family. But no matter how hard they try to make ends meet, things just keep getting worse and worse. From sickness to injuries to bad crop years, it soon becomes clear that June's family will be forever changed by this Great Depression -- if they make it out of it that is. Only one hope remains for this family: work found out west that June's older brother Josey rides the rails to find. But riding the rails is dangerous business. Not everyone makes it back in one piece. 

SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD is a middle-grade historical fiction novel told in the voice of young June Baker. It follows the Baker family from the start of the Depression and into the depths of it. The characters are realistic and heart-warming -- which makes the pain all the more great to see what they are dealing with. I didn't quite cry in this one, but I certainly came close! 

Cheryl has definitely done her homework as it concerns the historical context of the tale. She brings you right into the story and you feel almost as if it's happening to you! I would definitely recommend this book to any reader -- especially those looking for Charlotte Mason style "living books." 

Go HERE to find Cheryl's Book SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD!

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3/25/2023

How I conquered my anxiety disorder

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Everyone Gets afraid. Not everyone gets terrified.

And not everyone gets terrified for unperceivable reasons to the point that it interferes with daily living. 

That’s an anxiety disorder. And that’s what I’m talking about today. 

Yes, I still get afraid. Yes, I still get the jitters before going to social events or before participating in something far outside my comfort zone. I still get irritable when overstimulated and angry when facing down fears. But I no longer have an anxiety disorder. In other words, it no longer controls me. It no longer causes me to live life with limits. 

I have beaten it. 

I don’t think everyone realizes that anxiety is something that can be beaten. So many people I know live in a spiral of anxious thoughts and panic attacks. They find themselves unable to do things because of these racing thoughts, of these squeezing sensations about the chest. But you don’t have to live this way. 

Well, yours must not have been that bad, you say. Mine is way worse. 

Maybe. There are some really severe cases out there, but for the general sufferer – I doubt it. 

I could not eat. I could not sleep. In fact, eating and sleeping became triggers for my anxiety, and then the anxiety itself became one. I went days without sleep, and if I tried to take medication to alleviate my symptoms, it would only make it worse. I would nod off to sleep for seconds at a time only to awaken in terror. 
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All of this was exacerbated after the birth of my son. There was, at that time, a measurable drop in my progesterone levels that sent me over the edge. But I had been dealing with anxiety and panic attacks for years before that. Looking back, I had self-diagnosed these as blood sugar drops, but considering the surrounding circumstances I now find this unlikely. There were times when I left after vomiting from stress. I even ended up in the ER for some of these times while thinking that my gallbladder was about to rupture. All of the ultrasounds came back negative, but I was convinced this was a medical problem rather than a psychological one. 

When the panic attacks came and haunted me for hours each night, when my ER trips became more frequent and yet nothing was wrong, I had to acknowledge the truth. I had an anxiety disorder.  

But what about your progesterone levels? 

Yes, those were bad. And we found and fixed them rather quickly. Didn’t help. 

See, the sudden drop in progesterone might have worsened all this, but it didn’t sustain it. A learned thought process did. My fear, my phobia if you will, was anxiety itself. And anytime I felt slight discomfort (needing to go to the bathroom, feeling hungry, feeling sleepy), I would then feel anxious. And my first thought was ‘Oh no! Not again!’ 

Cue more anxiety, cue more spiraling.

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So, what did we do? 

Attempt 1: Modern medicine. Namely antidepressants. Toss in a few sleep aids and CBD. 

Didn’t help. 

These meds help some people. They didn’t help me, because I was so afraid they wouldn’t. My brain would not switch off. It literally would not let the meds work. So I would lay there, doped up and shaking, unintentionally fighting the meds. I would doze off for a half-of-a-second and wake back up in terror. My husband reports it being quite disturbing to observe. 

Attempt 2: Exercise

This worked decently – for a while. Basically, I would load up my child into a stroller and walk until I had no more energy to be anxious. Eventually, it didn’t matter how much I walked though, the anxiety would be back an hour or two later. 

Attempt 3: Diet

This helped – for a while. Basically, I cut out sugar. While there were some health benefits that I might consider taking up again now that I’m well, the effects were helpful in the short-term. But the anxiety crept back. 

Attempt 4: Holistic Therapy and Meditation

By the time we reached Attempt 4, I was desperate. I was not depressed when I started all this, but anxiety has a way to bring that in. And no wonder! After using up all of my energy on being anxious, I literally had no place to fall but into depression. This wasn’t just a bad weekend, mind you. At this point, we were a year into this process. 

I felt worthless. I felt like I couldn’t raise my son. I couldn’t work. I was a bad wife. Everything was bad. It was not that I did not want to live, but I couldn’t keep living like this. ​
So, I contacted a friend who had been through a postpartum psychosis event and asked her who she went to see. And I made an appointment with a holistic therapist. Meanwhile, I also downloaded the Headspace app. ​
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The first thing my therapist did was to load me up with some coping skills. I’ll mention grounding here – although there are several others – because it connects directly to meditation and the point I’m making there. 

Grounding – where you acknowledge the things around you that are in the physical realm. Floor beneath your feet, the feel of the A/C in the room, the smell of coffee brewing. Whatever is around you, ground yourself into that moment and see that the marauders are not actually at the door. You are in your home and you are safe. 

This is best practiced before an actual anxiety event. When you were learning how to be anxious, you were carving learned pathways into your brain. With grounding, you are doing the same thing. Then, when the anxiety comes, your brain will find those carved pathways easier. 

When the anxiety moves in, don’t stop it. Let it do its thing. Just ground. 

2 seconds later the anxiety is back. 

Ground again. Over. And. Over. 

Eventually, 2 things would happen. The anxiety would go away or the anxiety would take over. If the latter happened, I did nothing to stop it. I allowed it to do its thing while reminding myself that it was temporary. Often, I would ramp up the distractions. I would turn on a movie and ground myself to it. The anxiety would come, it would do its thing, but I would reorient myself to the movie. 

It was exhausting. I did it anyway. 

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Meditation – The Headspace App probably saved my life. (I receive no compensation from the headspace folks). 

In the same way that grounding helps the most while practicing it in times of lessened anxiety, meditation works best when done at the same time every day. Yes, there are ‘emergency meditations’ that can help bring you out of an attack. Those are great, but they cannot replace daily practice. 

After downloading the HeadSpace app, I found one of these emergency meditations and used it during a severe attack. 

It worked.

After months of nothing working, this one did because it combined principles of grounding into mindfulness. 

In the HeadSpace app, they had a section for ‘anxiety.’ For days then weeks you practice focusing on your breathing while thoughts come through your head. Inevitably, you get distracted and chase after those passing thoughts, but the goal is to bring your attention back to the body and to the breathing. You’re literally practicing letting go of thinking. Anxious thinking. Happy thinking. Doesn’t matter. Everything gets interrupted and the flow is returned to the here and now. To the breath. Then, when the anxiety attack comes, you are prepared to cut off that thinking, acknowledge it for what it is, and return back to the physical. Namely, to return to whatever it was that you were doing before the attack. 


Results: Two things? That’s it? 

Well, there were others, but mostly, yeah. Now, don't for a moment think that it was easy. This took about 2 years of intense work, and still, on occasion, I slide back a bit. But overall, I am much improved. At least, anxiety is no longer a major part of my life. 

The brain can be trained. With grounding and meditation, I was able to feel the anxiety in my body, recognize it for what it was, and not fight it. I would note it, ground, and move on, but I stopped resisting it. I stopped feeding it. 

Finally, I was able to see the blue sky behind the clouds. Often just for a peek, but that peek was enough to remind me of its existence. And the existence caused me to strive for another glimpse. 

This is not an easy fix. It’s a committed, every day practice. It’s looking at what scares you the most and letting it come anyway. 

Am I less afraid for this practice? 

No. But I am braver. Because I have faced down my worst fears and survived. And now I am free to face other fears and see what life will bring. 


If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please reach out to a licensed provider. This blog is not meant to be used as a tool to diagnose and treat mental illness, but to document my experience with this struggle and what worked for me. 

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12/22/2022

How to introduce characters without overwhelming readers

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How to Introduce Characters Without Overwhelming Readers
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If you’ve been pursuing writing for any amount of time, you’ve probably come across those little charts that help you list every personality quirk known to man about your characters. What’s their favorite color? Their favorite food? When was their last BM and do they have problems with this? 

Oh wait, no, that’s a nursing questionnaire. Sometimes I get my careers mixed up. 

Point being, these little charts are ubiquitous to writing blogs and can be helpful when coming up with character basics. These tools, however, don’t help you introduce your characters to your readers. In fact, the majority of the things listed on the questionnaire are completely insignificant to the story that you are trying to tell. And yet time and time again, I’ve seen writers trying to dump this information into their stories, and all it does is muddy the water for your readers. ​

​I liken the experience to those word math problems back in school. In the older grades, the test creators would add superfluous information to the scenario to see if students could differentiate between relevant and irrelevant data. But you’re not trying to test the IQ of your readers. You’re supposed to be taking them on an entertaining journey through this world you’ve created. Differentiating relevant vs. irrelevant data is YOUR job. 

But I worked so hard on this questionnaire! Now, I love my characters and want my readers to love them just as I do. Won’t they care about their favorite type of ice cream? 

No. They won’t.

If it has NOTHING to do with the plot, I assure you of this, they will not care. 

People can only take in a certain amount of data before their eyes roll back into their heads, exposing the words ‘Memory Full’ written in the whites. And the perfect way to create this scenario is to bore them with facts. While knowing superfluous information about your characters can be helpful for the author, it should not be neglected for the core things. 
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Who is your main character seems like a basic question, but when you have a cast of twenty people, it can be hard to say. Sometimes X is running the show and at other times Y takes the lead. But who, at the core of your story, is the main person? Who owns the story arc? Who’s making that hero’s journey as it were? If you don’t know, then how will your readers know? 

Start there, then build your characters around that pillar. If it helps, remove the character’s names. Reduce these people down to their titles: main character (MC), MC’s best friend, MC’s rival, MC’s brother. Then use those anchoring features to introduce them to your readers from the perspective of the MC. 

It’s okay to tell your readers who these folks are too. In fact, I urge you, especially as a beginner, to do so. This is not always one of those ‘showing is better than telling’ sort of things. Sure, do that later when you try to describe the quality of the relationship, but when you’re grounding your reader into your story, just throwing out a fact is completely fine. The reader is already going to be lining up the cast in relation to the MC anyway, all you’ve done is assisted them in doing so. Now, each time X shows up, the reader will be going ‘oh right, the best friend.’ Labeling helps people categorize and keep track, which is essential at the beginning of a relationship. 

Another benefit to this statement of facts is the shorthand that comes with it. A best friend is trusted, loved, a confidant, etc. A rival is none of those things and often despised. With that position alone you have helped the reader know what to expect from your characters without listing out every detail of his life. 

You can continue with locations as well. When you introduce a new setting, make it personal to your MC. MC’s hometown/planet, MC’s bedroom, MC’s college dorm room, MC’s spaceship. Again, you are signaling with shorthand something to your reader, a feeling perhaps. Nostalgia? Familiarity? Remorse? This feeling, of course, will vary according to your character and their backstory. 

Instead of starting from scratch with your descriptions, you can use these preconceptions as a foundation from which to build. Then, after you have these basics established, start to add the little details – not in excess, but slowly, as the story progresses. If ice cream comes up naturally in the flow of the story, then here’s your chance to put that bit of information out there! But don’t just fill your pages with trivia. It will do nothing but distract from what your readers MUST know. Reading is supposed to be fun. Don’t make your audience work for it. ​

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12/14/2022

Why writing friends are a must!

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My first book in the Surviving Midas Series came out two weeks ago, but for years, this book had been completed and on my shelves waiting for the right publisher to come along to bring it to life! So far the sales for this novel have been doing well, but one of the most beneficial parts of this journey has come from the friends I met along the way! 

I knew the value of critique partners. They helped me get my writing from beginner stages to where it is now. Unfortunately, the relationship on the website I used to find my buddies usually ended after the critique exchange was completed. They would leave their comments and move on with their lives, probably back to their own writing. Then I would be left with their comments and the process of figuring out best how to work with the suggestions they left. 

But, until now, I have not had many people to brainstorm with. 

My family is exhausted from being asked questions about writing scenes or changes that could be made to characters. They played nice, but I didn't want them to start hiding any time I came around. It was time to find some real-life writing friends. 
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The sequel to Surviving Midas, Escaping Midas has lived for about six months less than its predecessor. In that time of existence, there has always been this scene that has bugged me. I knew it was a bit too similar to another scene and a bit cliche on top of that. Beta readers mentioned it too, but all my efforts to change it just did not make the problem go away! It was still too alike! 

Recently, however, I became friends with an author and manga artist. We both have the same publisher, and while I’ve promised to look over her work (if you’re reading this, I swear, I’m still going to do it!), she has already read two of my books! While she was reading through book two, however, the mention of ye ole scene surfaced once more . . .

And what was worse, she described it as causing weariness. 

Weariness! Now that just can’t be. That’s the OPPOSITE a writer wants to hear, but still, what to do, what to do? 

Well, she made a suggestion. 

Immediately, I shot down the suggestion. That wouldn’t work because of X, or, if I had to change X, I’d have to change Y. Unless . . .

Whenever you hear yourself saying unless, it’s time to sit up and listen. That’s the creative juices starting to flow. Your writer’s wings are just starting to stretch. Dust will soon be flying off your pinions as you take flight with this idea. 

Unless . . . 

I wish I could describe the scene. I wish I could say exactly what she said, but doing so would give away some AWESOME spoilers. All I can say is that in this one little suggestion, she has injected more heart, more emotion, and more stakes into this novel (and the one that follows!) than I could after staring at it for literal years. The old frightful scene works and it sets up everything else that follows. 

And THAT is why writing friends are a MUST.

​

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12/7/2022

The dirty book selling secret

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The Dirty Book Selling Secret
I’m a researcher. 

Not that I like research stuff for my stories (I do, whether I’m apt to admit that or not) but I research other things in my life, often to death. This book selling thing has been no exception. For hours I have scoured the internet looking for the best way to sell this book, for the next tip, the next secret on how to host a successful signing. And do you know what I’ve found? 

There’s no secret. There’s no easy way to do any of this stuff. Sure, there are tips and tricks and methods that may work. And yes, some people might get lucky. They might stumble upon an agent who will represent their work and a publisher willing to pay out that million dollar advance (over three years with taxes taking the majority of the payout and the agent still getting their cut). Some people might immediately stumble upon their niche target audience and sell a million copies.
But most of the people whom I’ve seen have the biggest success have one thing in common: Tenacity.
There’s a woman on Twitter that I like to watch. She’s funny, smart, sarcastic, all the things that make you want to grab your popcorn, sit back, and observe. The other day, she made an off hand remark about selling 1000 copies this year. 

My stomach turned sour. 1000 copies? How in the . . . 

This was this woman’s first book! Up until now, she had not had any of her original work published! But, because I had spoken to this woman not long back, I knew that her story was not that simple.  

Yes, this is this lady’s first published book, but she has been writing and publishing for the past twenty years. Her work was just all on Wattpad. It was here that she built her audience and found her dedicated readers. Her Wattpad Readers LOVE her stories, and some of her fans have even translated her works into multiple languages. She may have just started publishing, but this is not the first year of her starting her ‘fan base.’ That has been in the works for years. ​
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So, what do you do if nobody knows who you are? Do you give up and say there’s no point? Or do you keep putting yourself out there and hoping people will notice you? 

I can’t promise success will come in my life or yours, dear reader. Even the Big 5 publishing houses can’t guarantee that for their authors. I can guarantee this, however, if you or I give up, we will fail. So let’s all look at the mountain before us, acknowledge its existence, and keep trudging upwards. It may be bigger than it looks at the base or it might be smaller, but we’ll never know if we stop and turn back. ​

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12/5/2022

Happiness is Hard

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I originally wrote this blog post the day my novel Surviving Midas launched, but I did not want the sentiment to shadow over a very happy day. But, I still think this perspective is important. 

Sometimes our happiest days are coated with a level of melancholy. We fear we will lose that happiness we find so rare in our lives. Then, before we know it, our fears have taken over our joy. So how can I ever be truly happy? 
Happiness is Hard
Happiness is hard when you are struggling with fear. And I don’t mean it’s hard to get happy–it is, but that’s a topic for another time. What I mean is, when you are actually happy, it’s hard to be in that state, because happiness is a good feeling.

And what if it ends? 

What if that elusive surge of dopamine you feel from a huge accomplishment ends in disaster? What if all you ever hoped for and saw coming to fruition dies on the vine? The following devastation is so much more dramatic when this occurs because you allowed yourself to hope. So you avoid happiness, maybe even going as far as self-sabotaging it. 

I’ve been on the healing from anxiety journey for a long time now. Maybe not as long as some, but three years is a long time for me. One of the things I really struggled with (and still do if I’m being honest) is not judging the anxiety. Yes, it feels uncomfortable but it, like any other emotion, is just a feeling. It does not mean the world is ending. It does not mean I’m going insane or dying. It just is. 

And guess what?

Happiness is too. 
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Both are feelings. Both arise from triggers. Sure, one makes you feel like you can fly while the other makes you want to vomit, but both are fleeting. 

Today, I am happy! Today, my book, Surviving Midas, launches after years of preparation and hard work! This is just step one of another journey, but I am thrilled to be starting out, seeking out the challenge! 

But I’m also not going to weigh the entire experience on this fleeting moment. Tomorrow might not be as great or things might get hard around month three. Here’s the deal though: this moment of happiness, of supreme joy is still worth having. I am thankful for this moment and I hope to have many more! 

I will not, however, measure my life on how many incidents of happiness come. I will not chase after this fleeting dose of dopamine. Something so fleeting cannot receive that much weight because the times of trouble will come–this is a fact–and the disturbance of the loss of happiness will be felt if importance has been ascribed to the feeling. So, I will look at it for what it is: temporary. And I will measure my life more accurately. 


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12/1/2022

The journey so far

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Surviving Midas Launch day!!!!
​The journey so far...

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In February of 2021, I signed my first traditional publishing contract with City Limits Publishing for the novel Surviving Midas. We planned launch day for August and preparations began. A cover was made, an edit of the text performed. Then, on an unhappy day in July, the CLP website crashed and never returned. 

Bankrupt. 

Two months from the launch of my novel, the entire company went under. Authors from all parts of the nation were dumped into a chaotic pool of uncertainty. What about our rights? 

My contract stated that if the publishing company crashed, the rights would be reverted to me, but here’s the problem: that’s not always the case. During bankruptcy proceedings, rights to the author's work are considered company assets. In order to repay debts, the company will continue to hold onto the book and sell copies to recoup losses. This prevents the author from moving on and trying to publish or self-publish elsewhere. 

I was lucky. 

Work on my novel had ceased a month before this final collapse, and so my novel sat unfinished on the overflowing work pile. My book was not considered an asset but a liability and I scooted on out singed but not burnt. At least, that was the case financially. 

Some lost thousands. 

What was damaged was my confidence. What did this mean for my book? Sure, it had been picked up by a publisher, but did that matter much if the company had little sense? Perhaps their financial prowess equaled their taste in literature. Maybe I was wrong! Maybe Surviving Midas (or the two other books that I had already written) was never meant to see the light of day! 

So I shelved it. I moved on. I wrote two more novels that had nothing to do with Surviving Midas, and then I pitched one to a local publisher, Walnut Street Publishing. 

They didn’t want that novel. At least, not right now. 

I left Surviving Midas up on my website complete with a description and the cover I had received from CLP. Walnut Street Publishing looked at THAT novel and requested that I send it immediately. After a few chapters in, they knew they wanted to sell my book–the book that I had given up on. The book that sat collecting computer dust in an abandoned file. 

On Tuesday, I received the first printed copy of Surviving Midas and held it in my hands. This was a ‘proof’ print from the publisher, the first of many to follow. Until that moment, I did not believe any of this was really happening. How could it be? How could there be this bright spot after so many dim times! 

I know this is the beginning of the journey. I know a lot more work is to be done, but my novel is ALIVE! And the future looks brighter than ever. :D

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11/29/2022

I'm struggling and that's okay

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I’m struggling and that’s okay. 

On Thursday, my book Surviving Midas will launch with Walnut Street Publishers. This is not the first book I’ve written (nor the last), but it is the first I’ve published with this press. 

I wish I could say this was the first book I’ve ever published or attempted to publish at all. I wish that my entire writing career has been marked by only successes. Perhaps then I would feel more excitement about this launch instead of a continual sense of anxiety and worry. As it is, all I can think about is how everything could fall apart. How one thread of the tapestry when pulled the wrong way could cause the entire weave to fall apart–even though that’s not exactly true. 

But that’s the way things feel when one struggles with anxiety and when bad things have happened before. 

I already decided months ago that if something falls apart this time, I’m going to pursue publishing this book on my own. The book, after all, is not the problem. I’ve had multiple people review and praise it and multiple people put their money behind their words of praise. But none of this alleviates the knot in my throat as I look toward Thursday, the day of truth, so to speak, when the launch party takes place and I get to hold the first copy of my book in my hands. 

But what if the printing press doesn’t fulfill the order in time? What if on the day of launch there are no books to sell? What if I’ve missed some critical detail that will bring everything crashing to the ground at the last moment? 

This is called disasterizing, and it’s a common thought process for people dealing with intense worry. It’s the belief that the worst possible thing will happen. The problem is, just because you’re anxious, it doesn’t mean that you’re wrong. The worst possible thing could happen. That twinge of pain in your chest could be a heart attack. That snide remark from your husband could signal the collapse of your marriage. After all, anxiety is the body’s system that warns of coming danger so that we can prepare ahead of time. What’s wrong, however, is the likelihood of those things happening. 

I think with the book launch it is hard for me to trust or expect things to go well because things have gone so poorly in the past. I’m having to trust people other than myself to get things done and I don’t control their schedules. This lack of control adds to the anxiety spiral and, since I have been down that road before, I know where it leads. It leads to all-consuming, cyclical  thought patterns that, left unchecked, can lead to sheer panic. 

I felt this panic rising just last night. Thanks, however, to the help of my therapist, I now recognize the signs and know what to do about it. I’ve felt the pressure rising for weeks now, and so I made a point to take care of myself. I’ve been sleeping as much as I can, I’ve been exercising, getting plenty of sunlight, avoiding sweets, and I’m on a 9-day meditation streak. Yet still, the cyclical thinking really took off last night followed by nausea and headaches (most of my symptoms are very physical). I knew where this was going and I hated that I was still dealing with this after years of fighting this very thing. 

But here’s the truth. It’s okay. It’s okay to be anxious. It’s okay that my body is responding to a perceived threat. This is an exceptionally stressful time. A lot is hanging on this launch: book success, money, and yes, a bit of my ego. So, maybe I should give myself a break for feeling the way that I do. 

Does that mean I should let it spiral? 

No. Panic attacks are not fun, but hating myself for my reactions will only lead to more anxiety. I will continue meditation, grounding, belly-breathing, and doing all those other things that I’m sure have names but I don’t recall what they are. I will still take that warm bath and spend time doing fun things during this period of waiting. But I will have compassion for myself as well knowing that, while my mind and body might be overreacting, it’s only trying to do its job. 

And above all, I’m reminding myself this truth: Everything might indeed fall apart, but Thursday is just one day. It might end up being a hard day, but eventually it will end and the sun of another day will rise. After all, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

For those interested in Surviving Midas, check out my link tree at: 
http://linktr.ee/rwhague

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11/28/2022

Just escapism? Or something more?

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Surely, it’s not just the voices in my head that won’t leave me alone that prompts me forward to fill page after page with stories. Surely, there’s something more besides my compulsion to enter the world of fantasy and danger while the space around me lies quiet and still. 

Why do any of us tell stories? Why do any of us stay up late to binge on movies or to get through that one last chapter? What do we gain from that experience? 

Some have speculated that stories are nothing more than entertaining distractions from the day-to-day. That writers seek only to escape the world around them, and this allows them to do just that. 

Is there an element of escapism? Sure. Why not? But I think there’s something more. 

Whenever I make up a story, I do escape the world around me for a little while. In fact, it can be hard to come back into reality sometimes. My fantasies are interrupted by phones on their final ring, by a little child who has somehow managed to get into my lap to place their hands on my face. (Yes, my concentration can get that deep).I know most of my earlier stories helped me escape the drudgeries of the never-ending school day. 

Perhaps the better question is this then: why do we write these things down or spend hours editing these words into the best pictures possible? Because that is not pure escapism. Writing is difficult. Taking images and pictures and turning them into words is a skill that takes years to hone. Is it just to extend the fantasy? 

I feel like there are easier ways of doing that. 

Writing and storytelling at its heart is pure exploration. Through little avatars, some of which may be reminiscent of real-life people but rarely a complete picture, we play out scenarios and lives without having to live them ourselves. How would a traumatized teenager overcome his panic? How would a brother to a murdered sister respond to the man who caused it all? (Two different stories, so don’t be making any plot assumptions!) But my favorite topic: who is the bad guy and what makes him bad? 

In Surviving Midas, it is not easy to figure out who the ‘bad guy’ is. The title itself might tell you, but there are mini-villains throughout the story. Sometimes, even the hero can be the bad guy–at least in another character’s story. But what acts are unforgivable? Is redemption truly for everyone?
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Are the things that I was raised to abstain from what makes the character a villain? 

Take cursing for example (one of many things I could choose from Surviving Midas). I was raised not to use curse words. Not only that, but people who used those words were uncreative and improper. Christians didn’t talk like that and they asked people around them who did to stop. So, writing a character with a filthy mouth was hard for me, and I debated for hours about leaving this element in. Perhaps, for the sake of controversy, it would be best for everyone if I took it out. 

But then it became the litmus test. Could a reader see past the rough edges of my character and see them for what they truly were? Could they forgive missteps and past deeds? Can they see, at the heart of everything, not only who the villains in the story are, but who the heroes are too? 

Can you? 

Because some people can’t, and I fear those readers most. They will stop reading because of the ‘filth.’ They will stop speaking with improper folks or bar them from their company because of their vernacular. They will, like the mini-villiains in my story, form an opinion about someone without fully getting to know them. 

So, why do that to myself? Why write about these controversies? Why explore these topics and write anything at all? Won’t they just get me into trouble? 

And the answer is yes, they will probably get me into trouble, especially when my current projects reach the publisher’s hands. But that is why I MUST write. Why I MUST explore. Because what I find during my times of exploration is important, and maybe, through these characters, if people can see through the fantasy and apply what they learn in real-life, we might just make a better world. 


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11/21/2022

Are Books better than movies?

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It's an age-old question that has broken friendships, torn apart families, and destroyed societies!

Okay, so that might be a bit hyperbolic, but still, if you want to start an argument, tell a Harry Potter books purist how much better the movies were to the books! Just be ready for a wand duel if you do! 

But who is right? Is anyone right? Or are both sides of the argument wrong? 

To determine which is better, one needs to understand the history of books and movies. 

Back in the day, and I mean WAY back in the day before people created the alphabet or any other form of writing, oral tradition was the only tradition. Stories and histories were memorized and recited to younger generations. This method was a surprisingly accurate and efficient way to recall history, and oral traditions survived over hundreds and even thousands of years. All that changed, however, when people started writing their stories down. Now the original storyteller could have their words preserved and spoken to later generations, and no one had to wonder if they were telling the story wrong. 

The next great change came from the Gutenberg Press. This combined the written word with mass production. Now, not only the elite of society, who could pay for the transcription of older texts, would receive the written histories, but the common folk could get their hands on these writings as well. 

But nothing prepared man for the invention of video. 

Now, instead of just reading words and imagining speakers, people can watch events occur on a visual plane. Of course, this all exploded when social media came on the scene. Instantaneous recording and distribution of events has changed the world forever. If a picture is worth a thousand words than a video is worth a million. 

But I write fiction, so what does that have to do with the books I write? Don't people like the book versions of classic stories better than the movie adaptations? 

Most people probably do like the book versions better, but let's explore why that might be. Books take a long time to read. Sometimes, getting through a book can take weeks and maybe even months. While in the pages you are walking hand-in-hand with your favorite characters, seeing what they see, hearing what they hear, getting a glimpse at what they think. In other words, you are bonding with these characters. 

Then a movie rolls on by showing actors that are different than your imaginative avatars. The storyline, which was so careful crafted by the author, seems to have been chucked out the window by the screenwriters. Why would they do this? Didn't they have excellent source material at their fingertips? 

But this reaction fails to recognize the limitations of movies, namely as it relates to time. The screenwriter has to squeeze ten hours worth of time into two. They just cannot recreate the quantity of time a reader spends with their favorite characters in a story meant for the silver screen. 

So, which is better? 

When accuracy is required--like in the documentation of real and historical events--video is absolutely preferrable. 

If, however, you want to bond with characters and really get to know them on a personal level, books may be the better alternative. 

But if you're just looking to unwind, to stroll with these characters rather than hike, then watching a movie might be your best solution. There is nothing wrong with either option. 

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11/20/2022

Managing time and family as writer

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Content, content content! the marketing gurus cry! But what do you do if you don't want to develop an audience and market? After all, we as writers do our best work in the quiet hours, alone and undisturbed. Most of us don't like to meet new people or to explore the world outside our little caves. But in this industry, it's not the best writers that thrive, but the ones who know how to market.

So we find ourselves forced out of our shells, beyond the walls of our comfortable little dwellings only to run into yet another problem: Time. 

Most authors starting out don't get that fabled million dollar deal. If they get a publishing deal at all, it's usually without any advance whatsoever. Then there are the self-published folks who shell out their own cash (a brave move) just so their books will see the light of day. This means having a primary job or other source of income is a must. And as for marketing? If you're expecting your publishing company to fill in that gap, think again. It's rough out there and authors are expected to do as much if not more marketing than their publishers. 

I don't know what to tell the authors who are unwilling to branch out and socialize at all. Unfortunately, we need readers to rationalize our existence. But to those lacking time, I do sympathize. 

I am more than just a writer. I'm an employee, a teacher, a nurse, a soap-maker, a volunteer, a homesteader, but most importantly, I'm a wife and a mother. My family comes first. 

I'm blessed to have a husband that works full-time so that I can spend most of my days with our kiddo. While I do work two days a week, it's nothing like the schedule full-time moms have to deal with. I know that I am blessed in this regard, and I love the adventures that this life opens me up to. I had a balance: I would write in the evening and spend the rest of my time with the people closest to me. But now marketing has taken a bite out of my time and I find it leaking into my day, taking me away from my son. 

So, that's going to require some changes. 

Sacrifices are an inevitable part of life whether they are consciously made or not. Either time with my son will be sacrificed, or time with my book will be. Now, this is not to say that I'm letting this writing dream go. My book, SURVIVING MIDAS is coming out December 1st, and I want it to succeed, but not at the expense of my family. So I'm going to get up early, write my blog, and then move forward with my day without a look back. 

I'm not going to shoot for the recommended ten posts per day. I'm not going to obsessively hit refresh on Twitter. I'm going to wall off my marketing time and pursue my other dreams as well. The chips will fall where they may, but if at the end I look up to see a well-adjusted, strong, kindhearted man, I will have succeeded in life.

I will have mothered a good man. 

And that will be my success. 


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8/5/2022

How not to lose $3k as a new author--self editing tips

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One of the most humbling adventures a writer can face is journeying back in time to their previous works. I started writing stories at the young age of twelve – fan fiction mainly about my favorite shows. I completed my first novel at 16. This is the one I’m reviewing now–13 years later. 

Thank goodness, I have learned so much more about writing since then. Unfortunately, I did not learn these things before I lost 3k by vanity publishing a book before it was ready. 

There’s a whole story that goes with the actual vanity press adventure. You can link to it HERE. But here is step one–putting your best foot forward with a manuscript worth reading. 


My first novel
​What I’m going to show you in this article is the prologue of my first novel. I completed it at age 16, reviewed and tried to publish it at age 22. Using the concepts discussed below, hopefully you will be able to give your own manuscripts (MS’s) a good spit shine before sending it out to prospective pub houses and agents.


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Prologue
    He ran. Only one thought filled his mind. “Escape.” A dog howled in the distance. They had found his trail. Another howl, closer this time. How were they gaining ground so fast? 
 He stole a glance over his shoulder and tripped over a root. His hands floundered against the slick leaves as he tumbled toward the cliff.  He started rolling uncontrollably down the slippery slope. The wet leaves gave him no traction and he fell hopelessly toward the ravine. His hands reached out to grab something-- anything. He found a root and held it with all of his might, but as he began to pull himself up, it snapped. He plummeted toward the river, too terrified to scream. 
    A dog sniffed the place where he had fallen. Its master pulled an arrow out of his quiver and notched it, aiming at whatever might surface. He waited silently until he was satisfied that the boy would not come up, then turned and walked away. The dog followed without hesitation. 

Okay, now let’s break this down a bit with some good old fashion critique tips. 


    He ran. 

Sentence One is very vague. There’s not much of a picture shown here.. Running where? Track? Through the mall? The forest? Also, weak point of view (POV)–camera angle?     You have very little time to hook your reader into your story. I’d recommend something more original and intriguing than two words that could be found in Dick and Jane. 

Don’t be afraid to add descriptive language. Keep in mind what reading is: hallucinating vividly. Give your audience something to hallucinate! 

A better POV would be to show his heart pounding (cliche) or his side aching. Tears? Sweat? Branches tearing at his pants? Is he wearing pants? 

Only one thought filled his mind. “Escape.” 

Cliche

 A dog howled in the distance. They had found his trail. Another howl, closer this time. How were they gaining ground so fast?

IMO – Not bad POV. Some people don’t like questions being asked. Personally, I think they’re fine. 

 He stole a glance over his shoulder and tripped over a root. His hands floundered against the slick leaves as he tumbled toward the cliff. He started rolling uncontrollably down the slippery slope. The wet leaves gave him no traction and he fell hopelessly toward the ravine. His hands reached out to grab something-- anything. He found a root and held it with all of his might, but as he began to pull himself up, it snapped. He plummeted toward the river, too terrified to scream. 

He stole, he started rolling, The wet leaves, His hands reached, He found, He plummeted. These are all similar sentence structures. In certain situations, this can be fine, but after a while, the feel of the piece becomes redundant. One plus–great active verbs. 
I underlined “started” here–try to avoid started unless you have to. Which sounds stronger? He started rolling uncontrollably down the slippery slop or He rolled uncontrollably…    Nothing interrupted the ‘start’--he full on tumbled, so write it like that. 

    A dog sniffed the place where he had fallen. Its master pulled an arrow out of his quiver and notched it, aiming at whatever might surface. He waited silently until he was satisfied that the boy would not come up, then turned and walked away. The dog followed without hesitation. 

One good thing here–the use of shorter sentences within an action scene. The pacing never slows down. That being said, very cliche opening–someone running through the woods being chased by an unknown being. Very ominous, very overused. 

So, how can this be improved? 

I have not changed the beginning. If I were looking to re-market this book, I would have to do something less cliche than a chase scene, but I have re-written it using some of the concepts mentioned above. 

As a note– some reason, I thought it would be clever to leave the character unnamed in this scene for mystery, but in the very next chapter, it’s pretty clear who it was tumbling. And it’s not much of a pay off. By not mentioning his name, however, I feel that it makes it harder for the reader to connect with the character, to see him as a real person. So, I’ve added his name and a bit more context. 

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How much blood had they taken? Bryan clutched the bandage about the bend of his arm with his pale fingers. Behind him, the cabin stood no more than one hundred yards away, but his run from it had left him breathless. It was more than the altitude that caused his heart to race, more than the fear of those not far behind him–but they did not help either. 
    At the thought of the Watchers, Bryan forced himself onward. Branches and thorns clung to his pants and shirt, tearing the already fragile material to ribbons. He shoved himself from tree to tree, using their strength to keep himself upright. Something rose over the sound of crunching leaves and tearing fabric. At first, he thought it was the blood rushing through his ears, but it grew ever louder. 
    Bryan burst through the underbrush and out of the treeline–only to nearly tumble down the cliff. At the basin of the ravine roared a river, churning, tumbling over rocks. His vision blurred even more. 
    A dog howled behind him. They were coming. 
    Bryan raced along the edge of the cliffside, grabbing from branch to branch to keep himself going. Suddenly, the ground beneath his foot gave way, and his foot slipped into nothingness. His hands scrambled for something, anything, to stop his descent. By some miracle, his fingers found a branch and he grabbed onto it with all of his might. 
    But hold on was all he could do. He had no strength to pull himself up, and his feet found no purchase. He dangled over the raging river. 
    Feet appeared on the edge of the cliff–black boots made of deerskin. Shoes of silence. A hooded figure knelt in the grass and reached out for Bryan with gloved hands, but before they could touch him–  
    Bryan let go. 

Which is better? I’ll let you decide ;)

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7/19/2021

Why Writers struggle with mental health

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Exploring the Mad genius phenomenon

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To understand the connection between mental health and creativity, one must first know what creativity is. It’s not just the ability to come up with ideas, but the ideas must be simultaneously unique and functional. A good way to determine creativity would be to present an item to a group and have them propose various ways to use the item. You would then compare the group’s answers and tally them up by number of idea and uniqueness.
For example, you gave a brick to twenty people. All twenty of those people proposed using the brick as a doorstop. Useful? Yes. Unique? No.
One person proposes the brick be used as a shoe. Useful? Not really. Unique? Yes.
Then the star of the group suggests the brick be pulverized, dissolved into a liquid solution, and used as an additive to color paint. Useful? Yes. Unique? Yes.
There’s your creative person.
Scientists have broken down human personality into five major groups: Extraversion, Openness, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness. Each is then broken down into sub-categories. The sub-categories for openness are intelligence and creativity.
Of course, at first glance, everyone would want to be high in this category of openness. But if you’ve been reading my blog for long, you will know that being super high in any of these categories comes with its own set of problems.
A person high in openness generally enjoys exploring new ideas, loves variety, and frequently gets lost musing about fantasies or what-if scenarios. They value beauty and aesthetics in daily life. Their limitless creativity also sees the merits in having flexible social constructs and laws.
A person low in openness, however, prefers a more practical approach to the world. They are not given to flights of fantasy, but prefer concrete tangible ideas. They are not easily moved by music or art, nor do they require thrill to keep working. They are more likely to stick to principles they’ve learned from childhood rather than to be easily swayed by a new idea.
Keep in mind that trait openness is not trait conscientiousness, although there is some overlap. A conscientious person is high in orderliness and industriousness, so some things that are interpreted as rigid and lacking in flexibility are manifestations of the ‘black-and-white’ phenomenon where the person believes things should fit into orderly boxes.
So, what is it in a creative person that leads to struggles of mental health?
There’s a lot of speculation on this, but my personal theory is the rapid speed at which the mind of an open person flows. With so many thoughts running through the mind at a given time, is it any wonder they may feel anxious? Or as they find themselves moved by the arts and stories around them, is it a wonder their mood changes so easily?
Not to mention that a person with bipolar in a manic state show extreme levels of creativity. It’s like something in the brain switches over allowing them to pour forth all sorts of ideas and new creations.
But what happens when the body is exhausted from this continued ‘pouring forth?’ What goes up must come down, and heightened levels of anxiety often lead to depression. In fact, some speculate that it is rare to see anxiety without depression.
So should the artist turn in their paintbrush, the writer turn in their pen, and strive to close off their minds? I know if I did, I’d be miserable.
But it is good to be aware of our tendencies and the things that make us tick. If as a creative you need help, get it. But keep in mind that thing that causes you to stumble might also propel you to greatness. 

Puder, David. “Episode 098: The Big Five: Openness.” Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast, Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast, 17 Oct. 2020, www.psychiatrypodcast.com/psychiatry-psychotherapy-podcast/ne883a0toywa842v8ibc6htc7qw9ay.
 

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7/12/2021

The truth about evil

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*Trigger warning* Details regarding the execution of Jews during the Nazi regime.
One of the biggest shames in writing history is the mischaracterization of the mentally ill. I could go into a long rant about this point alone citing all the scenarios and atrocities. I believe there is a central misunderstanding within the population or writers that leads to these mischaracterizations—the myth that one must be mentally ill in order to be evil. Why would someone murder a child? Because they were a sociopath. Why would someone cut up their parents into tiny pieces? Because the voice in their head told them to. This waving of the hand over atrocities and claiming they had to be insane is appalling. Of course, the more uncomfortable fact is most people who commit evil are sane, rational people.
This fact should chill us to the bone. Because that means that ‘normal’ people are capable of horrible atrocities. We are capable of incomprehensible evil.
I’ve heard it said that one should read history from the eyes of the perpetrator, not the victim to prevent themselves from going down the same road. This is good advice.
One of the books that inspired my story Surviving Midas was Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution by Christopher Browning. It’s a harrowing read and one I had to take breaks from in order to finish. There is very little in terms of records regarding the mental state of the Nazis who executed the Jewish people during the holocaust. During the investigations that followed the war, very few former Nazis would admit to having taken part in any executions. For whatever reason, the men of the Reserve Police Battalion did share their stories.
So what sort of men was it that executed millions of Jewish people?
For the most part, ordinary men as the title of the book implies. These were farmers, craftsmen, factory workers, with families and children of their own. The Reserve Battalion 101 was given orders to arrive in a town called Jozefow at the break of dawn, haul the Jewish people from their homes, load the men up into trucks for a workcamp, and shoot the women and children. According to certain accounts, these men were shocked and horrified by the orders they were given. Even their commander spent most of the day wringing his hands and muttering about what terrible business they had been wrapped up in.
Group after group after group of women and children were taken out to the woods, forced to lay down on their stomachs, and shot in the back of the neck. Many of the officers did not make it through the first couple of executions before asking to be removed from the task. Their requests were granted.
They could have gotten out of it from the start, and some of them did. Upon arrival to the Jozefow, their commander informed them any could step out of line and go back to the barracks. Only a couple took him up on that offer. Others would later say they were too stunned in the moment to react with a clear mind, but that wasn’t the only opportunity to bow out. One officer states he stayed up by the trucks for the rest of the day loading the men and being sure to look busy anytime a new group of executioners was being rounded up.
So, why did they do it?
Per their statements, they feared being considered ‘too weak’ or ‘cowardly.’ They did not want to ‘lose face’ before the other policemen. As one officer stated: “I must answer that no one wants to be thought a coward.” It was one thing to refuse at the beginning, he added, and quite another to try to shoot but not be able to continue. Another stated his reason to not refuse was simply because, “I was a coward.”
One policemen, who killed as many as twenty before quitting stated: “I thought that I could master the situation, that without me the Jews were not going to escape anyway . . . Truthfully I must say that at the time we didn’t reflect about it at all. Only years later did any of us become truly conscious of what had happened then . . . Only later did it first occur to me that (it) had not been right.”
Others rationalized their actions by believing they were not going to alter the fate of the Jews by saying no anyways. In one bizarre statement, an officer stated he killed only children while his neighbor shot the mothers. His belief was by shooting the mother, the children were dead anyways.
I write about this from perspective of an author because I think it’s important for us to be aware of this. Part of the job of an author is to show the truth through lies, and it’s not the truth that most heinous crimes are committed by the insane. It’s misguided, rational people who do the most damage. People who are afraid—in fear for their life, in fear of their livelihood, or just in fear for their reputation—are the most dangerous of us all. Let us strive to know truth and goodness and not be afraid.
And let’s tell the truth with our lies (stories) so that others can see it too. 

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, by Christopher R. Browning, Harper Perennial, 2017.


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7/8/2021

Bankrupt Publisher

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Bankrupt publisher

The Dangers of Indie Publishing . . . 

I didn't get my regularly scheduled blog out last week for a couple of reasons. First being that it was the Fourth of July weekend. And second being the bombshell that came the following morning. My publisher announced it was officially closing its doors. 

Because my book had not yet been published, my contract termination and the reversion of my rights came with the announcement. Although I am starting at square one, I am free to query other agents and publishing houses. Others were not so lucky. A friend of mine launched her book with our publisher only three weeks ago. There is a giant question mark hanging above the promised pre-ordered copies (Not the ones from Barnes and Noble or Amazon. Those are still good to go.) and author royalty payments. Other authors state they have not received their royalty payments in months. Will these fund be wiped away after the company declares bankruptcy? Who knows? 

Then there comes the question of author rights. According to the contract, if the company goes bankrupt, rights revert to the author. If, however, the dispute ends up in bankruptcy court, such things can be tossed out the window. Book rights can be considered assets to the company and the courts may order them to be retained by the publisher so the publisher can pay back their debts. Obviously, many of the burned authors are seeking legal counsel immediately. 

So what shall we then do as authors? How do we protect ourselves from these problems? 

Well, that's a Catch-22. Because if you don't trust anyone with your manuscript, you will never be traditionally published. If the only ones offering to publish your book are untried, tiny houses, what is an author to do? 

If you look back at my previous blogs, you will see an article written about my decision to go with City Limits Publishing and my hesitancy regarding the company. It was a small company with limited social media presence and had only been open for a little over a year. At the time, the number of authors was few, but their covers were beautiful. Oh my gosh they are still beautiful. I'm hoping to get permission from the artists to show my proposed cover on here some day it's so pretty.

After speaking to a couple of their authors, all who were enthusiastic about the company at the time, I signed  a contract with them. And a couple of months later, tunes started changing as things slid downhill. 

Do I regret my decision to sign that contract? 

Honestly, not really. Because I wasn't relying on this publisher to make my career: I was relying on me. Any extra boost my publisher would give me was great! But ultimately, I was the one I trusted to sell my book, not them. While I waited on the book to launch, I redoubled my efforts at building author connections and relationships, building my social media platform, and continued writing more books. 

Publishing is an extremely competitive business and getting a publishing deal, any publishing deal, is a huge accomplishment. Even if the publishing agency is small and untried, your number of sales might be enough to intrigue another publisher or literary agent in the future. I knew they were small. I knew they could go under--small businesses often do. So, taking the information that I had, I signed a publishing deal. 

Am I thrilled about re-entering the query trenches? Hell no. And I can't say I'm not immensely disappointed that this venture did not work out. But if I hadn't tried I would never have had a chance at success. So I'm picking myself up and getting back out there. I'm querying the hell out of my book, because I still think it's worth it. And I'm going forward with eyes wide open and chin held high. Because, in the end, that's all we can really do. 

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6/28/2021

Trauma Survivor Kelly Hanwright Talks About Schizophrenia and her Survival Memoir The Locust Years

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How did you become interested in the subject of mental health?

I really got interested in mental health awareness after learning in therapy that my mother had untreated schizophrenia all of my life. My mom was diagnosed with a “hormone imbalance” in the 1950’s after experiencing a psychotic break in her teens. Always terrified of being institutionalized or being on any long-term medications, she refused to ever seek treatment.


Some of my mother’s paranoid delusions were that my father was demon possessed, that random people were after us, and more. They were all terrifying. Once when I was about 10 or 11, she actually took us in the middle of the night to a preacher a few towns over who was supposed to be able to cast out demons. She didn’t even believe the preacher when he told her my dad was not possessed!

Her illness also caused a lot of neglect. She would have these fits – I don’t know how to describe them exactly. She would scream and cry. Sometimes she would take all her clothes off and beat on herself. Then she would just go to bed. I remember opening cans of corn or eating cold hot dogs out of the fridge. But hey, at least there was food around. I learned to fend for myself in a hurry!

Our house was always filthy and she never took a bath or shower. As I got older, she strongly discouraged me from bathing. When I finally decided bathing was important, I had to sneak and do it or I’d get yelled at. My neighbors gave me a toothbrush and a teacher taught me how to tie my shoes. Around age 8, my hair got so matted one time that I ended up having to get it cut really short. Personal hygiene was just not a thing for my mother at best, and at worst she almost seemed to fear it.

What do you write?

I dabble in a lot of things, but my main genre is poetry. My writing tends to explore my own mental health struggles and tries to share hope. I think I turn to poetry a lot because I’m a very visual thinker and it helps me express my feelings (not always an easy feat) when I can put them into the metaphors and imagery that poetry thrives on.

I’ve found writing poetry very therapeutic and I highly recommend it to anyone who has been through any type of trauma. This year, I published my first book – a trauma and survival memoir called The Locust Years.

Why do you write what you do?

More than anything, I guess I’d say that I write for mental health awareness. It’s a topic that is very important. As a kid, and even as an adult reflecting on my experiences growing up with an untreated schizophrenic, which was a lot like growing up in an alternate reality, I felt extremely isolated. And it was impressed upon me from a very young age that there were all these secrets no one else could know about our day-to-day lives.

The Locust Years started out as a collection of private poetry written in an attempt to process the traumatic experiences I’d been through including neglect, abuse, and the terrors of living in what felt like a daily war zone, as well as come to terms with my diagnosis of complex PTSD that those experiences caused.

​It dawned on me that even though it is a very private topic with a lot of embarrassing things intertwined, if I remained silent about my story I would actually reinforce the stigma that caused my mom to decide against seeking treatment! I look at my book, my blog, and what I post on my Facebook page as ways to be a mental health activist. 

My mom needed treatment – therapy… medicine... She needed love and support from the people around her. And I have to say that, looking back, I can trace the reactions of neighbors and supposed “friends” and realize they knew deep down something was wrong. But instead of trying to help, they turned a blind eye and avoided us. (My poem “Power of Neighbors” is about that.) Not only could I not contribute to that tradition, but I also knew I wanted to stand in solidarity with others and help break the stigma. Mental health is health! And it’s just as important as physical health. It’s high time we pay appropriate attention to it. We all have some type of mental health struggles. Lets just admit it and support each other!


Follow Kelly on Facebook and Instagram, check out her blog at kellyhanwright.com
and her survival memoir in poetry, The Locust Years. Please leave a review if you like it. It is Kelly’s sincere wish that you find it helpful in some way. <3 


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6/21/2021

Schizophrenia: Putting it all together

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​There is no cure for schizophrenia. But there is treatment. These treatments save lives, but the side effects can be hell. Last week we talked about what schizophrenia looks like when all of the symptoms are present. This week I’m going to talk about what a person with schizophrenia’s life looks like during the day-to-day.
For a person with schizophrenia, taking medications every day is of utmost importance. The delusions from schizophrenia can be traced back to an over-release of the chemical dopamine in the brain. Anti-psychotics merely plug the leaky dopamine pipe. Once the leaking pipe is stopped, however, the person starts feeling much better and may decide they do not need their medications after all. Bad idea. The hallucinations and delusions come back with a vengeance (Lewis).
But there’s another problem with the dopamine suppressing drugs: they don’t target just the areas where the delusions originate, but also the rest of the brain. And what’s another disease associated with low dopamine? Parkinson’s Disease.
A person taking these anti-psychotic medications can not develop actual Parkinson’s Disease from the drugs, but may have pseudoparkinsonism with similar symptoms such as a hand tremor, issues with balance, and difficulty walking. They develop a shuffling gait, mask-like face (a decrease in ability to show expressions on their face due to paralyzed facial muscles), muscle stiffness, drooling, slowness in starting movement.
The person taking the medications may experience dystonic reactions where spasms occur in discrete muscle groups such as the eyes and neck (the patient will have chronically raised shoulders like a tortoise shell). They might have a protruding tongue, difficulty swallowing, and spasms around their throat which, if bad enough, might lead to a compromised airway. This is obviously terrifying.
Most of these side effects develop shortly after starting or increasing the dose of medications. A more long-term side effect, however, is tardive dyskinesia. It’s characterized by “abnormal, involuntary movements such as lip smacking, tongue protusion, chewing, blinking, grimacing, and strange movements of the limbs and feet” (Videbeck).  Keep in mind the person is fully aware of the strange movements and are probably embarrassed. This bizarre, uncontrollable behavior may lead to further social isolation. Is it really a wonder they want to come off their meds?
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And in all this, the anti-psychotics are only treating half of the problem. In the previous post, I mentioned positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are those symptoms that are added experiences to a ‘normal person’: hallucinations, delusions, etc. Negative symptoms are things such as depression, withdrawal, loss of joy, etc. Anti-psychotics do not treat the negative symptoms.
The struggle of day-to-day living for a person with schizophrenia is enormous. Because of this, pharmacology is just one part of the treatment. Individual and group therapy is key. There, things such as family dilemmas and medication management can be addressed. Clients can undergo social skills training where complex social behavior is broken down into easier to manage parts. Some very creative people have put together environmental supports such as signs, calendars, hygiene supplies, and pill containers to cue clients to perform various tasks.
If a schizophrenic person has a good support system, they have a better shot than most. Family education and therapy are known to diminish the negative effects of schizophrenia and reduce the relapse rate. Unfortunately, good support systems are hard to build and even harder to sustain. It’s hard to take care of someone who believes everyone is out to get them. Or to be patient with someone who offers very little in return: no smiles, flat expressions, lack of joy. Unfortunately, this is a part of the therapy that is forgotten about the most.
So take all that together for a moment and imagine life as someone with schizophrenia or a caregiver of someone with this disease. I’m going to give you a quick example from the perspective of a writer:
Hunter moved into the apartment down the hall from his parents. He’s super excited to be independent and have a place of his own. For the past several years since his diagnosis, Hunter’s routine has been the same: get up, get dressed, brush teeth, etc. all in the same order every day. Unfortunately, just as he is about to take his medications, someone knocks on the door. It’s the maintenance guy just stopping by to let Hunter know the power might go out for a few minutes later that day. But it’s enough to distract Hunter and he forgets the meds. He goes on, grabs his bus pass, and goes to work at the deli. While he’s at the bus stop, people keep staring at Hunter. He tries to ignore it, as he leans back in his seat smacking his lips and wipes a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth.
Hunter gets to work on time, but finds Ricky working that day. Ricky laughs aloud at Hunter’s slippers. Apparently, he forgot to change his shoes too. All day, Ricky mocks Hunter’s slow movements, his shaky hands—just whatever he can to get under Hunter’s skin. But that’s not the worst of it. Hunter is used to Ricky, but the customers start whispering about him behind his back too. And then there’s one guy that’s watching Hunter just a little too closely. Later on that day, Hunter sees the guy across the street, watching him through the window. Hunter takes the bus home, and all the people are watching him now, talking about him. He sees the guys again outside the bus window. Now Hunter knows he’s being followed.
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When Hunter gets home, he locks the door and goes to kitchen. He grabs a meat hammer and sits by the window where he’s sure he hears the man outside, talking about him. The man says he’s going to get Hunter. He’s going to burn the apartment complex down and kill him and his parents. Hunter runs out of the apartment, not wanting to be trapped inside a burning building.
Later, his mom stops by and can’t find Hunter although his coat and wallet are inside. She searches the apartment complex and finally finds Hunter barefooted and hiding behind a dumpster. By now the voices have grown too loud. Hunter doesn’t recognize his mother and charges her with the meat hammer. A neighbor stops Hunter and restrains him until the ambulance can arrive, but Hunter is institutionalized until they can get his delusions under control. Unfortunately, this is the third hospitalization this year, and Hunter loses his job at the deli. Without the extra income, he has to move back into his parent’s apartment and start over.  
All because the maintenance guy stopped by.
People with schizophrenia are just that: people. I hope this information has helped you gain a better understanding of the condition so that we can portray those effected by mental illness accurately. 

Sources: Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, by Sheila L. Videbeck, fifth ed., Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2011. 
Lewis, J. (2011, March 6). The Future of Schizophrenia. Dr. Jack Lewis. http://www.drjack.co.uk/the-future-of-schizophrenia-by-dr-jack-lewis


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6/14/2021

The nitty-gritties of schizophrenia

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Last week I covered what schizophrenia looks using real-world experiences. This week, I’m going to dive into the disease on a more technical level. As per usual, none of this information is to be used to diagnose or treat anyone, but as a tool for writers to create characters who are close to life as possible and not mere caricatures of mental illness.
Life with schizophrenia is hard for the person experiencing the symptoms as well as the family providing care. But consider this, there was only one treatment plan for schizophrenia 100 years ago: institutionalization. Although institutionalization is still part of treatment, it is often not the only part. Thanks to new treatments and medications, many people with schizophrenia live at home or in group homes in the community. Some even have jobs. I’ll be the first to say that mental health has a LONG way to go, but I believe it is important to keep in mind where we came from.
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A person with schizophrenia may manifest the following (Videbeck p. 252): 
  • Ambivalence: Holding seemingly contradictory beliefs or feelings about the same person, event, or situation.
  • Associative Looseness: Fragmented or poorly related thoughts and ideas. Thoughts are tangential—not flowing from point to point but all of the place. For example, one sentence might be about baseball and the next about frogs in a pond without a coherent link.
  • Delusions: Fixed false beliefs that have no basis in reality
  • Echopraxia: Imitation of the movements and gestures of another person whom the client is observing.
  • Flight of ideas: Continuous flow of verbalizations in which the person jumps rapidly from one topic to another
  • False sensory perceptions or perceptual experiences that do not exist in reality. These can be auditory (voices), visual, smells, and tactile (feelings, like skitters across the arms).
  • Ideas of reference: False impressions that external events have special meaning for that person. (The person on the TV is talking to them specifically.)
  • Perseverations: Persistent adherence to a single idea or topic; verbal repetition of a sentence, word, or phrase; resisting attempts to change the topic.

The above list are considered “Positive Symptoms” as in they are added to the person. Most positive symptoms are treatable, but there are “Negative Symptoms” or symptoms that seem to be lacking in a person that generally linger after the positive symptoms abate. These are them:  

  • Alogia: tendency to speak very little or to convey little substance of meaning
  • Anhedonia: Feeling no joy or pleasure from life or any activities or relationships (characteristic of depression, but is it any wonder with everything else possibly going on? Geez.)
  • Apathy: Feeling of indifference toward people, activities and events.
  • Blunted Affect: Restricted range of emotional feeling, tone, or mood
  • Catatonia: Psychologically induced immobility occasionally marked by periods of agitation or excitement; the client seems motionless, as if in a trance
  • Flat affect: Absence of any facial expressions that would indicate emotions or mood.
  • Lack of volition: absence of will, ambition, or drive to take action or accomplish tasks. 

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Keep in mind that the person experiencing these bizarre behaviors or thinking patterns may be fully aware of them. I once entered a patient’s room to find her smashing invisible bugs on her bedside table. She told me she knew the bugs weren’t real, but smashing them made her feel better. The extent of the awareness of symptoms is difficult to know since there is a huge communication barrier in many schizophrenic patients. The number of delusions, hallucinations, and their strength are all difficult barriers to break through.
Not every person with schizophrenia will have all of the above symptoms. In fact, schizophrenia is less of a single illness and more of a syndrome. Here are the five major types according to the DSM-IV-TR:
  • Paranoid Type: Has persecutory (feeling victimized or spied on) or grandiose delusions, hallucinations, and occasionally, excessive religiosity (delusional religious focus) or hostile aggressive behavior
  • Disorganized: Has grossly inappropriate or flat affect, incoherence, loose associations, and extremely disorganized behavior.
  • Catatonic Type: has marked psychomotor disturbance, either motionless or excessive motor activity. The excessive movement is not influenced by external stimuli. May also have mutism, echolalia (repetitive nonsensical speech) or echopraxia (imitation of the movements and gestures of someone the person is observing.)
  • Undifferentiated Type: Sort of a mix of the above
  • Residual Type: Has a history of one previous, but not current, episode.   
Schizophrenia generally starts around age 15-25. There is a genetic component to the disease, but having a genetic predisposition to the illness is not a guarantee it will present. Studies on identical twins show a 50% chance of the previously unaffected twin getting the disease. Through various imaging techniques, we have been able to see that those suffering with schizophrenia have alterations in their overall brain structures. How these came about are still a mystery although some theorize it comes about through viruses, trauma, or immune responses. Basically, the theory is that certain people have a genetic predisposition to get schizophrenia if a certain thing occurs to turn on those genes. For example, a virus comes along and triggers those genes and the brain deteriorates. There’s a similar theory regarding the onset of juvenile diabetes.

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While there can be a sudden onset of schizophrenia, most people generally develop signs and symptoms slowly over time. It starts with social withdrawal, unusual behavior, loss of interest in school or work, and neglected hygiene. Generally, the diagnosis is made when delusions, hallucinations, and disordered thinking begin to appear. The age at which schizophrenia appears often determines the overall impact of the illness. The younger the onset, the worse they tend to do. Also, a slower onset predicts a worse outcome than a sudden onset.
Two years after initial onset, two patterns typically emerge. Either the person continues to experience psychosis and never fully recover (although symptoms may shift in severity over time), or they alternate between episodes of psychosis and near complete recovery.
The intensity of the psychosis also seems to diminish with age. Some may be able to function, live independently, and succeed at jobs with stable expectations and supportive work environments. Most, however, have severe difficulty functioning in their communities.
It is important to keep in mind that a person showing initial signs and symptoms of schizophrenia might lose all symptoms within a period of six months. This is called Schizophreniform disorder. Others might experience a brief psychotic disorder where delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized speech may last from 1 day to 1 month. It may or may not have an identifiable stressor or follow childbirth. 
There is SOOOOOO much to tell when it comes to schizophrenia and this post has already become way to long. Next week, I’ll be creating a post that brings together all of this information in a usable form.
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As I was researching this, I came across this article I found very informative but did not use as a source: http://www.drjack.co.uk/the-future-of-schizophrenia-by-dr-jack-lewis/
Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, by Sheila L. Videbeck, fifth ed., Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2011.

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6/7/2021

Schizophrenia for writers

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​The half-moon serrated teeth of the knife gleamed in the overhead light. One quick jab and—
“Get out! Get out!” Michael pounded his fists against his head, and Randy, his son, jumped in his seat at the kitchen table. A pencil fell from Randy’s hand clattering onto the half-filled math sheets.
The numbers, if only he could decipher the numbers. The boy is hiding them from you. 
Michael’s fingers brushed across the cool metal. At the sight of the blade, in his hand Michael retreated, chest heaving.
It won’t even hurt. You’ll make it quick. But it must done or—
Michael ripped the blade from the counter and rushed for the front door. Barefooted, he stepped into his lawn, barely noticing cold snow.
“Hey Michael!” Louis next door waved at him, a paper sack of groceries in hand.
Michael fell to his knees, studying the blade bouncing light from the setting sun. The voice continued to call to him, telling him what to do. Michael pressed the blade against his arm and pulled. His teeth clenched as the skin tore.
“Oh my god! Michael!” Louis dropped his groceries to the porch. “Michael, what are you doing?!”
“I will not hurt my son!” Michael snarled as blood dripped into the snow. 
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Schizophrenia is probably the most well-known illness, as in most have heard about it, but do people really know what it looks like? Probably the best image brought up by the population is a homeless person walking around in circles talking to the air. It can be startling to encounter someone in the middle of an episode like that. Schizophrenics have a tendency to be more aggressive and hostile than the general population. But after working with several schizophrenics, I have less fear and more sadness for those suffering with this debilitating illness.

I was initially going to crack open my textbook like usual and tell you all the ‘official’ things about schizophrenia, but I’m going to put that off until next week. Instead, I’m going to tell you what I’ve seen from my nursing practice.
My first up-close encounter with schizophrenia in the clinical setting was with Mary*. Mary was a well-known frequent flier of the psychiatric institute I was completing my nursing clinical hours in. I was given Mary’s file to read then sent to speak with her for an hour. Since my previous vision of schizophrenia was of homeless people walking talking to the air, I was quite nervous about even approaching Mary, let alone sitting in the drab stone-walled courtyard on a bench and chatting. 
Mary, however, acknowledged me with a courteous nod. She never smiled at me, but she was never hostile or aggressive toward me. Instead, she talked about her life as I would expect anyone too, with earnestness about her life experiences. She had no verbal slurring or strange repetition of words. I could have walked up to this woman at Walmart and never known she was schizophrenic.
Mary told me all about her conniving sister who was hell-bent on destroying her life. If Mary had a chance at getting a job, her sister would call the manager and convince him not to hire her. When Mary tried to move away, her sister followed her to the next state over and continued to keep her under her thumb.
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Even while she was being institutionalized, her sister was stealing her social security check and paying the people inside to watch her. And the people here—oh she’d tell you about them. ​
Everything you ate or drank was laced in parasites that would eat you from the inside out. The pills were laced too, which was why she was refusing to take hers.
Of course, very little of this (if any) was true. But Mary believed it was. Because everyone was out to get her, she had no hope of securing a good job, good employment, or establishing any lasting relationships in her life. 

The next week, I met Todd*, a 20-year-old schizophrenic who, per the staff, had been practically abandoned in the institution by his family. Todd was heavily medicated when I met him. His posture was stooped, his speech was slurred, and his reaction time was comically slow. I asked him about his life, and my heart broke. Todd had accepted his diagnosis and knew he was mentally ill, but with this knowledge came the fact he would never be able to have a family or a real relationship of any kind. Or have sex. When he said this last part, he slapped his hand over his mouth—with exaggerated slowness due to the meds. It would have been funny had it not been sad and possibly true. He drew me a picture before I left. The drawing was the skill of a 3rd grader in markers. I still have it.
Then we have Johnnie*. Johnnie was a patient of mine at the hospital. He came in for a bacterial gut infection which we treated in half a week, but while he was in our care, the psychiatric hospital discharged him. Getting an empty bed in a psychiatric hospital is nearly impossible, but Johnnie was so unwell we could not discharge him to the streets either.
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Hospitals are not designed for long-term care of anyone, especially psych patients. Johnnie would walk down the hall outside his room and bang his head against the walls. Because of this, he was forced to stay in his room the whole time. Johnnie would scream and wail so loud you could hear him throughout the whole floor. Patients would complain, but what could we do? He would try to hit nurses and fight. He jammed his hand into his mouth and bit until it drew blood. We tried to place him in an institution somewhere—anywhere, but no one would take him. I don’t know how many combinations of medications we tried, but we couldn’t find the right balance to keep him calm. So what was the solution?
Johnnie was tied to his bed. Still screaming, still fighting. His wrists became sores from pulling against the restraints. He stayed in the hospital like that for a month.
Johnnie was pretty much non-communicative, but we can imagine his thoughts knowing how Mary thought. He thought we were trying to kill him, so we tied him to a bed. That helped.
Johnnie was just a little older than Todd. Similar dreams, similar hopes—like all of us, but this was his life. Terrified, trapped, and being harmed by the people who should be helping him.
Our system is broken.
And so is our view of mental illness. Yes, schizophrenics commit violent crimes more often than the general population, but they are victims of crimes more often too. What if someone raped Mary? She could report it, but would anyone believe her? What if someone beat up Todd? He could report it, but would someone think it was self-inflicted?
I don’t know what to do about our broken system. But I do know, as writers, we have a responsibility to portray characters accurately. So, think on this before you write a schizophrenic character. Are they flat and cartoon-like? Or do they have hopes, loves, and broken dreams as well?

*names changed

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5/31/2021

Bringing back that loving feeling . . . About books! --Guest blog by cheryl King

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BRINGING BACK THAT LOVING FEELING . . . ABOUT BOOKS!
A reading specialiST and dyslexia therapist's take on why kids stop reading
Cheryl King

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     After 13 years working with mostly struggling readers in some capacity, I have learned and used a plethora of before-, during-, and after-reading strategies, activities, and lessons. And I’m absolutely certain that at least some of them have made an impact on my students.
            At this very moment, there must be a group of former students sitting around a reading circle and saying, “Hey, remember when Mrs. King taught us ‘Say Something’?” (Hat tip Kylene Beers, whose literacy expertise has kept my toolbox filled to the brim with fantastic resources.) Or there’s a young lady in a college writing course thinking, “Mrs. King was so right when she told us to read like a writer and write like a reader.” (I honestly can’t remember where I first learned this, but it has spread like wildfire in the world of literacy education.) And most definitely, somewhere there are young men who years ago claimed to be nonreaders and are now saying, “Man, I’m so glad Mrs. King had us do the ‘Tea Party’ before-reading strategy and then taught us Notice & Note.” (Again, hat tip Kylene Beers, and add in Bob Probst.)
            No doubt these strategies, plus dozens more, are important when teaching struggling readers, but it’s unlikely any of those fantasy conversations are actually taking place. However, there is something else that may truly make a difference in young readers’ (and nonreaders’) lives. One of the common threads I’ve found as a literacy educator working in public schools is that around sixth grade, many students stop reading for pleasure. Even my eldest son, who grew up with his nose in a book and has never struggled with reading, dropped off of the Reading Is Fun bandwagon between sixth and seventh grade. When pressed for reasons, he always answered that school took the fun out of reading. With standardized reading passages and forced analyzing a story to death, it’s no wonder. But if that’s happening to strong readers, imagine the plummeting interest in pleasure reading of not-so-strong readers.
            With this knowledge, one of my topmost goals each year in the classroom was to help bring back the love of reading for middle-school-aged kids. I studied and listened to and read such greats as Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher, I researched and learned and tried so many methods to achieving this goal, and I’d like to share three ideas:

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1. Book talks and read-alouds
There is almost nothing that gets kids as excited about a book as when their teacher (or librarian or any family member) talks it up. Read an excerpt from your favorite part and tell them why you love it. Whenever I did this in the classroom, students were lined up to check out the book. And don’t be fooled – even teenagers enjoy being read to, though they may deny it. One of my favorite trends from the past few years is Classroom-Book-A-Day, which builds community in the classroom with a pleasure reading of a picture book each day.

        2. Make it fun
Anything is better for kids if you turn it into a game. There is a reading game I found online called Bring Your Own Book. Everyone grabs a book, and you draw a card and read it out loud. The card may say something like, “A line from a teenager’s diary” or “A sentence in a fortune cookie,” and everyone flips through their book and skims for something that fits. They now have additional versions of the game, including a Scholastic one for younger readers.

       3. Exposure, exposure, exposure It’s important to give kids exposure to a wide variety of reading material, from all genres of fiction to graphic novels to informational texts. One of the ways I loved to do this was to have a “Book Tasting.” I set up my classroom like a restaurant, and on the menu were collections of books of all types and reading levels. Kids got a few minutes at each table to sample the selections and write down their thoughts. In the end they had a bookmark with their top choices to refer to for independent reading time or library visits.

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There are myriad other ways to get kids excited about reading, but these have been the biggest hits for me. Now maybe my former students will pick up my debut novel, Sitting on Top of the World, read it, enjoy it, and say, “Hey, remember when Mrs. King taught us that cool annotation strategy?”

Sitting on Top of the World releases June 15 and is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble .
 
Check out her author website, Cheryl King Writes Things and her 
TeachersPayTeachers! ​

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5/24/2021

​How I Published My Novel:Using INdie Presses

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If you have been following me long, you will know I wrote my novel, SURVIVING MIDAS, with intentions of getting it published. I went through the process of querying agents, taking part in #PitMad, and checking out countless manuscript wish lists. I am proud to say that my new novel will be release on August 24th, 2021. This is my story.
When I first wrote SURVIVING MIDAS, I thought ‘this is the greatest novel ever! People are going to love it!’ Actually, no. I didn’t think that. I thought it was crap, but it was the best crap I could produce. I had been down this publishing route before, spent more money than I’d like admit, and for nothing. My biggest fear is that it would happen again. So I did what I did not do last time: RESEARCH!
It’s amazing how many things you can learn if you just do a little research. I’m going to take you a bit on the journey that took me several years. If you are an experienced author, this probably won’t be new to you.
First off, I found out the press I went with last time was called a ‘vanity press’—a press that will print just about anything one sends them, but makes it sound like your novel was stupendous! Even if it’s littered with errors, plot holes and inconsistencies! I wrote another blog post on this if you are interested in this (not technically) scam. (click here for previous post). They prey on inexperience writers, getting them to pay for something they should be paid for. It’s a well-known racket too, but I was not plugged into a community of writers, so I had never heard of it. So the very next thing I did was get into a critique group.
I found my home on critiquecircle.com and have made several friends through that website. The site works on a point system where you receive points for critiquing someone else’s work so that you can post your own work. I put my first chapter up for review and immediately found out that it sucked. Like REALLY sucked. It was tough facing up to it, but I learned so much so quick! Then, as you critique other’s works, you begin to recognize mistakes and inconsistencies in your own work as well making you an excellent self-editor.
After getting my work critiqued (and swallowing my pride so I could make changes), I started the tedious and soul-crushing work of querying literary agents. I queried over 150 agents and I still do not have an agent. Here’s the deal: the barrier to entry is super high for writers. There are thousands of debut authors out there trying to gain the attention of a single literary agent. Publishing houses are looking for certain things, usually trending things. If your story is not on trend or so unique that a bookseller will have trouble setting it on the bookshelf, you will not get an agent.
My story is an older young adult novel dealing with drugs, trauma, abuse, and underworld crime bosses. It has a little romance, a few elements of literary fiction, and drama. It’s a lot. It doesn’t fit neatly into a box (and is far more unique than most things on the shelf today IMO). I’m marketing it as an older YA contemporary suspense. But you see my point: there’s not much on the market like it today.
So how did I get a publisher?
I participated in #PitMad on Twitter last November. You create a small blurb the length of a tweet and promote it all day in order to snag the attention of literary agents. Within fifteen minutes, City Limits Publishing liked my tweet, which is a request for querying. I did not receive another like from an agent the rest of the day.
I looked up City Limits Publishing. It is a small agency that opened in 2020. They publish a wide variety of books ranging from children’s to romance to mystery. I did not recognize any authors, and the literary agents I spoke too had not known of them. Keep in mind I have been scammed before, so my suspicions were on high alert. But they did not charge for publication and the royalties were higher than the general market.
I deliberated on this group for a long time. And finally, I gave them a chance.
And now my novel is coming out on August 24th!
So, what is the biggest fear I’m facing now with my publisher? Of course, the size of the press is concerning for the following reason: most of the marketing is going to fall on the author because of the small size of the platform; they might not be able to afford top of the line editors; the cover designs might be cheap. But go to City Limits Publishing and tell me what you think about their book covers. I think they’re gorgeous!
So what about marketing and editing?
City Limits is still a small press, so I’m going to have to do most of my marketing. Thankfully, the group has sent me a guide on developing social media presence, targeting audiences, designing websites, etc. and I’m actively doing all that. As it relates to editing, I don’t really know the quality of their editors because my piece did not require much editing! I mentioned my critique partners before. Thanks to their input, I had no plot holes and my scenes were written clearly. The story structure was intact, and received quite a bit of praise from the editing department about that!
Would I recommend all authors going indie? I honestly don’t know. It depends on what you want/can do. I could not afford to self-publish, so having someone pay for the creation of my book was important. I am doing most of the marketing, but in this day and age, who’s not? My book is not being put out by one of the Big 5 presses, but my percentage of royalties earned is much higher. My book will not be on the bookshelf in most of the big box stores, but will be available online for purchase at those outlets.
There are pros and cons to every method of publishing. This is still a risk, but so is all of life. But we make the most of it no matter what! 

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5/17/2021

An Overview of Major Depressive Disorder for Writers

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​An Overview of Major Depressive Disorder for Writers
Society as a whole is getting better at understanding mental disorders and sympathizing with those who experience them. I believe that much of this advancement is due to the arts and the fictional portrayal of characters who live these experiences. Fiction is a mirror on society. As we tell our stories, our readers see themselves and those around them reflected back. Which is why I believe having our information about mental illnesses correct when trying to create characters is so important. That is why I have focused so heavily on what mental illnesses really look like in my blog. Today, I’m going to share you a gross overview of clinical depression and what it looks like in a person.
Feeling depressed is something everyone experiences on occasion whether that be through prolonged stress or just having a bad day. It’s not unusual to have a day when you simply don’t want to get out of bed. Generally, pressures of society keep us going and we force ourselves forward to meet our obligations. Often, those around us know we’re having a bad day because we are irritable and just generally unpleasant to be around. This, however, is not clinical depression. Clinical depression is characterized by at least 2 weeks of continuous depressed mood or loss of pleasure in nearly all activities as well as four of the following symptoms: “changes in appetite or weight, sleep; decreased energy; feelings of worthlessness or guilt; difficulty thinking, concentrating, or making decision; or recurrent thoughts of death or suicidal ideation, plans, or attempts” (Videbeck p. 281). These symptoms also impact social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
This last part is key, because it separates being sad and having a mental disorder. We all have periods of sadness whether it be from the loss of a loved one, a loss of a job, or broken heart, but depression impacts day-to-day living with a significant impact on the person’s life.
There are many causes of depression: chemical, hormonal, genetic, or depression can come from an extended period of grief. Short term depression if left untreated can lead to chronic depression.
Depression can occur in tandem with anxiety which I’ve written about extensively. Basically, the body has used up all its reserves for the anxiety, so it crashes. It is rare to see chronic anxiety without some form of depression.
Depression does not always look like one would think. It’s not just someone who sits around crying all the time feeling bad for themselves. I’ll paint a quick picture for you:
Anna lays facing the wall, staring at nothing as she has done for the past twelve hours. Outside her door, she hears her youngest squeal with laughter and the thud of footsteps chasing after her. Anna cringes as she draws the covers in closer. Why doesn’t the sound of my own child’s laugh make my smile? I’m a horrible person.
“Mama, would you like some dinner?”?” Joel, her oldest cracks open the bedroom door, but Anna continues to lie on her side in the dark away from the door. She shakes her head, and the door closes back.
Joel shouldn’t have to make his own dinner. I should have made it for him. I just—I feel so tired. Why do I feel so tired? And why can’t I sleep? I’m a worthless burden on my family. I should just end it all so they don’t have to put up with me.
And that is often the case with depression. It’s a lack of motivation, a lack of energy, of joy. It’s not that the person experiencing it is particularly lazy. They literally do not have any energy. This inability to function takes a toll on the person’s self-esteem and the depression feeds into itself making it worse and worse.
There are some treatment options for depression. Unfortunately, these do require some energy expenditure, and there is no guaranteed cure, just management. Sunlight, healthy foods, and better sleep patterns are some of the treatments, but consider a person like Anna who doesn’t want to eat. She lies in bed most of the day, but has trouble sleeping. In order to get sunlight, she has to have the energy to get out of bed. As you can see, the spiral of depression can swallow a person whole.
This does not mean a person should stay in the spiral. Yes, it’s hard living day to day without a functioning incentive-reward center in the brain, but if you don’t get out of the spiral, it will consume you. It will take a bit of faith to get up day after day, sometimes for a very long time without results. But those suffering from depression are not alone. Others have gone before them and succeeded.
Exercising, removing junk food from your life, treating the underlining conditions such as anxiety, and receiving therapeutic help are key to getting out of depression. But you are worth it. Your life is worth it. Get help. Surround yourself with people who will hold you accountable—not by belittling you or abusing you, but by supporting you and your efforts to get better.
I write this last bit to the writer themselves because I have seen many writers speak about their depression and their battles with mental health. Writing is not just for the entertainment of the masses. It can also be a pathway to healing for the writer themselves. As you create these characters living their struggles, reflect on your own life as well. How will Anna get out of the depression cycle? How will you?  
Disclaimer: This is a writing blog and not intended to be used as a tool for diagnosing or treating anyone with mental illness.
Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, by Sheila L. Videbeck, fifth ed., Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2011. 

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5/10/2021

Using anxiety to create a character arc

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Using Anxiety to Create Character Story Arcs
​My last few blog posts were discussing what anxiety is from a clinical standpoint. Today, we’re going to bring all the pieces together and discuss how you can use this to form a character/story arc.

I discuss some of this information during my personality series specifically on trait neuroticism, so if this is information that interests you, be sure to check out THIS ARTICLE to read more about this topic. As always, this information is not to be used for diagnosis or treatment in any capacity, but is only a guide for creative writing and character development.


If you have been exposed to any writing theory at all, then you are probably at least a little familiar with standard story structures. This is the form in which most stories go: First there’s an introduction followed by an inciting incident, then there’s the middle stuff as the character tries to manage the change in their world that was caused by the inciting incident. Everything comes to a head in the climax followed by the resolution. Now I’m going to describe this using what we’ve previously discussed in anxiety terms.  
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Most characters are living life a relatively normal way whether they be a young teen or an expert secret agent. Then a stressor occurs: teen is in a major car accident and loses her leg; secret agent is betrayed and watches helplessly as his entire team is killed. This stressor will cause a psychological and physiological response in the character (see post: Anxiety for Writer’s Summarized). Depending upon what type of story you are writing, you may want to linger here for a bit. If your character is a teen suffering from loss of limb, a good portion of the story might be spent on failing to accept herself, falling into a depression, and journeying out. (Keeping in mind that these mental health conditions are linked and anxiety often leads to depression. For more information on types of anxiety disorders, what they look like, and why they might manifest, see post: Writers Guide to Mental Health: Anxiety Disorders)

At some point in the story, a decision by your character, conscious or otherwise, needs to be made. Are they going to live in a continual state of anxiety? Or are they going to move forward and out of that state?

Your character may not come out of it. They may fall into a depression and that’s how the story ends. Keep in mind that is an option. A tragic option, but an option nonetheless.
If your character does seek help and healing, they will probably go through some sort of a process where they face their fears and become more courageous. This can be through self-initiative or with the formal help of a therapist. How this happens will be determined by a lot of factors including your story type, setting, and character’s personalities. For information on how anxiety is treated in a clinical setting, check out my post: Writers Guide for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders.
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Probably the best, well-known story to use as an example in bringing all this together is Batman. Bruce Wayne is afraid of bats. They cause an anxiety related response, so he exposes himself to these bats until he is braver. Then he channels the bat in order to defeat the underworld.

Of course, this is just a superficial representation of what is taking place in the broader story as a whole. Bruce Wayne experienced a trauma when his parents were murdered by members of the criminal underworld. For years, he struggled with the grief and fear of this event. Then he channeled his fears, became a criminal vigilante, and confronted them and defeated the criminal underworld.
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It’s a simple formula, really, but it is scientifically and psychologically based and serves as a good formula to create story arcs and character arcs. If you can think of other stories that follow this similar pattern, please name them in the comments below. ​

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5/3/2021

Writer’s Guide for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders

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Previously, we talked about what anxiety is, the different types of disorders, and now we’re going to talk about how each of them is treated. Keep in mind that none of these posts are to be used as a way to diagnose or treat people in real-life scenarios. It is merely a broad-overview of mental health disorders intended to help writers create as real-to-life characters as possible.
In a following post, I’m going to be bringing all of this information together to show how you can use the mental health diagnosis of anxiety together to create a plot and character arc. I try to post weekly on Mondays, so if consider following my page if you haven’t already.
In modern medicine, clinicians generally use a combination of medications as well as cognitive behavioral therapy. I am not going to focus on this medication aspect because it is not relevant to the point I’m trying to make.
Often, the first part of treating anxiety is to realize it is taking place. Sometimes it can be hard to admit that anxiety is causing that racing heart sensation, the nausea, and the heart palpitations. Often a person will show up at the ER thinking they are having a heart attack before showing up at their therapist’s office. Or a person with chronic anxiety might turn to less healthy alternatives of stress management such as binge eating or drinking. In cases like OCD, they may participate in ritualistic compulsion practices. In cases like agoraphobia, they may refuse to leave the house.
In this day and age, we are getting better as a society that does not demean people with mental health related illnesses, but we have a long way to go. If a person who previously perceived others with mental health illnesses as weak or crazy, when they develop symptoms themselves, they can be very hard to accept. A major hit to their self-esteem or self-perception can occur. Acceptance may not occur, so the person keeps presenting to the hospital with the same symptoms, but refuses to see a therapist. All this needs to be taken into consideration as it relates to treatments for anxiety. It’s also little details you can add into your character’s profiles to make them more real.
In a controlled environment such as a therapist’s office, the therapist will probably teach their client relaxation techniques to manage their anxiety symptoms when they arise. They will probably discuss different triggers that cause the anxiety to flare up. These triggers might phobias such as claustrophobia or the thought of eating in an anorexic patient. Together, the therapist and client will formulate a plan on how to face these triggers without having an anxiety related response.
For an example, we’ll us a woman with claustrophobia, specifically a fear of elevators. They are probably also afraid of closets, cars, and other tight quarters, but there’s an elevator down the hall so it’s the most convenient problem to deal with at the moment. The therapist may try ‘systematic desensitization’ where the therapist exposes the client to the threatening object in gradually increasing intensities (Videbeck p. 241). For example, they may spend a session looking at pictures of elevators on the computer. Next session, they may stand ten feet from the elevator and watch as it opens and closes while people get in and out. Then they take a peek inside the elevator. Basically, these steps are performed until the client is bored of them—which is the mind’s way of saying something is thoroughly processed. Finally, the client is able to step inside the elevator, not without fear, but without having a full-blown panic attack. They survive their small trip unscathed. This does not mean that elevator rides will be easy from now on. In fact, the client will still probably be scared of elevators, but they, themselves, will be braver. The key to this, however, is that the person must face the fear willingly. If the therapist drags them down the hall and shoves them into an elevator, the effects will be disastrous.
Often, this bravery translates into other parts of their life as well. They’re still scared to go to the grocery store, but they survived the elevator and are willing to give the shopping trip a try. They’re still afraid of their overbearing husband, but are willing to stand up to him for once. In the end (theoretically) the client become a braver person overall.
Thing is though, the overbearing husband might not like this change in their wife. They may have preferred being the strong, controlling man with the mouse-like wife. (Think Carol in the Walking Dead). Maybe she will have the courage to leave him. Or, perhaps the husband will have the courage to go to therapy themself to find out why they are the way they are. Who knows? It’s your story.
Next post I’m going to bring together all the elements of my previous posts on anxiety and show how you can use them to create a story/character arc.

Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, by Sheila L. Videbeck, fifth ed., Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2011. 

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4/28/2021

Writer’s Guide to Mental Health: Anxiety Disorders

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Different Types of Anxiety Disorders:
Last post was a broad overview of anxiety as a whole. Now we are going to dive deeper into individual anxiety disorders and what they would look like in your characters.
Agoraphobia: Literally “fear of the marketplace,” agoraphobia is ‘anxiety about or avoidance of places or situations from which escape might be difficult or in which help might be unavailable’ (Videbeck p. 233). This is more than just being a ‘shut-in.’ Many people with debilitating medical conditions can be homebound. The agoraphobe could physically leave the house or be alone, but the overwhelming anxiety is either too much to handle or makes life incredibly difficult. They have trouble shopping, making it to meetings, spending time with friends or family, etc. They may avoid travelling in vehicles. And often, they know their responses to the anxiety are extreme. The agoraphobe often feels trapped in their homes.
So how does agoraphobia develop? It can start with a panic attack at the grocery store with an overwhelming sense of doom and fear of death. The person may end up in the ER only to be told there is nothing wrong with them. They go back to the store a week later and have a panic attack in the parking lot as they think about what happened last time. So they turn around and go home. Then it happens going to work. Then in the car going to the park. Then walking to the mailbox. A person avoids these triggers one-by-one until they just don’t leave the house anymore.
Panic Disorder: ‘is characterized by recurrent, unexpected panic attacks that cause constant concern. A panic attack is the sudden onset of intense apprehension, fearfulness, or terror associated with feelings of impending doom’ (Videbeck p. 233).
Last post we discussed what a panic attack looked like and I have other posts on this subject as well. Visit my website at rwhague.com for more information.
After the first panic attack, the person is left waiting on the next. Soon the anxiety itself is being fueled by anxiety regarding panic attacks. As more panic attacks happen, the more the anxiety increases. The person often feels as if they are going crazy. All they can think about is the next one coming. Every sensation might feel like a threat—even hunger, thirst, tiredness can be interpreted as anxiety coming on.
Specific Phobias: These are things such as claustrophobia (fear of tight spaces), arachnophobia (fear of spiders), etc. Anxiety responses are extreme and can lead to avoidance. This seems as if it would be fine—just don’t go into closets. But when the tight space is an elevator or a car, life can be hampered. Most adults recognize their fear as unreasonable.
Social Phobia: ‘characterized by anxiety provoked by certain types of social or performance situation, which often leads to avoidance behavior’ (Videbeck p. 233). This can lead to isolation or interference in work or habits. The person recognizes their anxiety is unreasonable.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD): ‘involves obsession (thoughts, impulses, images) that cause marked anxiety and/or compulsions (repetitive behaviors or mental acts) that attempt to neutralize anxiety’ (Videbeck p. 233). The person experiencing these obsessive and compulsive thoughts and actions do not want them. They are intrusive, recurrent, and persistent. Any attempt to get the thoughts to go away are ineffective. The individual recognizes that these obsessions and compulsions are excessive and unreasonable.
OCD is probably one of the most misunderstood disorders. Keep in mind there are two parts: the anxiety trigger (obsession) and the attempt at solution (compulsion). So fear of germs or contamination can lead to compulsive cleaning—but this is only one type of OCD. Obsession with the number 3 may require things to be done in 3s. Open the door three times before going through it, brush three times before moving on to next section of hair, etc.  Here is a good video that helps explain this disorder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhlRgwdDc-E
People with OCD are also fully aware of these irrational obsessions and compulsions. They do not want them and feel powerless to their mind’s whims.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: is ‘characterized by 6 months of persistent and excessive worry (Videbeck p. 233). A person might be anxious through a stressful time of life, but usually these parts of life do not last for more than a few days to a few months. If after 6 months, the person continues to have uncontrollable worrying that impairs social or occupational functioning, they may have GAD.
Once again, the person knows their feelings are irrational. They do not want to be this way. But like a panic disorder, the anxiety often provokes more anxiety. The heart palpitations, tremors, tightness in the chest become intrusive—and when the symptoms abate the fear of their return remains prominent in the sufferer’s mind. This is often accompanied by sleep disturbances and insomnia.
Acute Stress Disorder: ‘development of anxiety, dissociation, and other symptoms within one month of exposure to an extremely traumatic stressor; lasts from 2 days to 4 weeks’ (Videbeck p. 233).
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: ‘characterized by the reexperiencing of an extremely traumatic event, avoidance of stimuli associated with the event, numbing of responsiveness, and persistent increased arousal; it begins within 3 months to years after the event and may last a few months or years (Videbeck p. 233).
It is important to note that not all suffers of PTSD are the victims. Often, they can be the perpetrators. For example, a soldier who shot a non-combatant accidentally might find themselves struggling with what they did. Usually after a traumatic event, a person has suffered a change in their view of the world. If something evil was done to them, their previously naïve self has endured something beyond their imagination. If they previously viewed themselves a good person, but they committed a travesty, this is a change in their fundamental view of themselves.
Often times, the mind will play the event over and over again as it tries to rectify their previous perceptions to form a more accurate view of the world and themselves. The mind is trying to protect the body by re-living the event and trying to solve it, but this is very distressing for the person to live through again and again.
Symptoms of PTSD include: intense fear, helplessness or horror; reexperiencing (intrusive recollections or dreams, flashbacks, physical and psychological distress over reminders of the event); avoidance of memory-provoking stimuli and numbing of general responsiveness (avoidance of thoughts, feelings, conversations, people, places, amnesia, diminished interest or participation in life events, feeling detached or estranged from others, restricted affect, sense of foreboding); increased arousal (sleep disturbance, irritability or angry outburst, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response); significant distress or impairment.
Not all flashbacks are obvious to those not experiencing it. The person may ‘zone out’ for a moment or two. Often triggers are very subtle and those around them will not know why the flashback occurred. This is important to keep in mind in regard to children or individuals ho are not fully able to articulate the trigger or even the event that lead to the initial trauma.
And with all of these things, depression is often a common compounding problem that arises. Being anxious all the time uses up a lot of energy and often the body and mind just crash into a depressive state from being keyed up all the time. It is rare to find anxiety without some level of depression present.
Next post will be an over-view of different treatments of anxiety. Keep in mind, none of this is to be taken as medical advice. It is just a writer’s guide for character development.  

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    RW Hague is a registered nurse with over eight years of experience within the medical field. Using her medical expertise, she writes stories that are gritty and compelling.

    Hague obtained her Associate's Degree in Nursing Science at Chattanooga State Technical Community College and later obtained her Bachelor's at East Tennessee State University. She has experience in med-surg, urology, nephrology, home healthcare, neuro-intensive care, and education. Currently, Hague teaches nursing students at a local university and lives
     on a mini-farm with her husband, toddler son, clever dog, loveable cat, and growing number of chickens and ducks. ​​

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