Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 23
December 17, 2011
On Vulnerability
This is a fabulous talk, worth the time to listen: funny and inspiring. I took notes.
Filed under: Uplifting Tagged: Ted Talk vulnerability
December 16, 2011
National Geographic Photo Contest 2011
National Geographic Photo Contest 2011 – Alan Taylor – In Focus – The Atlantic.
Click on the link above to see the other photographs–they are all incredible.
Filed under: Beautiful
December 14, 2011
December 13, 2011
Bookstores Comeback
Whoo-hoo! Sales are up 10% over last year in brick and mortar bookstores!
Facing economic gloom and competition from cheap e-readers, brick-and-mortar booksellers entered this holiday season with the humblest of expectations.
But the initial weeks of Christmas shopping, a boom time for the book business, have yielded surprisingly strong sales for many bookstores, which report that they have been lifted by an unusually vibrant selection; customers who seem undeterred by pricier titles; and new business from people who used to shop at Borders, the chain that went out of business this year.
I wonder if other people's experiences are like mine. When I bought my new kobo a year ago, I was enamoured of it and ereading. While the romance lasted, I had no use for paper books and craved ebooks. But like any infatuation, it passed and took its proper place in the scheme of things. I'm back to reading paper books and using my ereader for convenience when traveling.
There is nothing more relaxing than reading a book in the tub.
Filed under: Fun, Literary Tagged: ebooks
December 9, 2011
Schizophrenia vs DID (dissociative Identity disorder)
Thanks to Becca's comment on my previous genesis post, I thought it would be useful to post a quick explanation of the differences.
People who are schizophrenic hear voices. So do people with DID. What's the difference?
The voices that a person with DID hears are rooted in reality and only feel separate because of a lack of self-awareness. The voices that someone with schizophrenia hears are external voices. Schizophrenia is a neurological condition biologically based. In other words it exists independent of what's going on in the outside world and is a disconnect from reality.
By contrast, DID is a developmental coping mechanism that is caused by early trauma. It shapes identity (multiple) and memory (compartmentalized) and is really an extension of the normal process of having different parts. For example, you have your work part and your doting grandma part. In and of itself it isn't damaging. It's a way of managing a difficult reality. It's the PTSD from the trauma, the nightmares, triggers, anxieties and flashbacks that are damaging.
The good news for people with DID is much better than for schizophrenia, which is little understood and hard to treat because it is a problem with the brain. People with DID have healthy brains which adapted to difficult environments. As people realize that the current environment is safe and desensitize from early conditioning, the PTSD symptoms diminish.
Conditioning is something that most people have to wrestle with, so people with DID have a lot to teach. And about living together as well, because people who are multiple become experts in internal negotiation.
Filed under: Interesting Tagged: schizophrenia and DID
December 7, 2011
Delightfully Busy…the Genesis
This is just a note to say I haven't fallen off the face of the earth! I've been busy preparing material for Web of Angels–the genesis and answering interview questions for two publications, one local and one national, and writing up a submission for a conference that I may be able (and would be thrilled) to attend.
For now, here's how I came to write Web of Angels:
Web of Angels began in the fall of 2004 with a question: what would a mom with multiple personalities see that nobody else could? Then on Christmas Eve, a friend sent me a link to a news story that haunted me—a pregnant young woman was found dead, her baby crudely extracted. Miraculously, an internet trail led to recovering the newborn alive and capturing the perpetrator, a woman who wanted a baby.
At the time I was a mom with a baby and a pre-schooler at home, staying sane by hanging out in an internet chat room for people healing from difficult life experiences. We commiserated about the terrible twos, joked around, and talked about the worst that humans can do. In the chat room I encountered the strangely wonderful way that many people there had survived early trauma, by developing multiple personalities. The reality was nothing like Sybil.
DID (dissociative identity disorder, aka multiple personalities) was in the air. Stephen Spielberg produced the highly successful, prize-winning TV series The United States of Tara. But even Spielberg, with all his connections, didn't have what I had: intimate daily contact with dozens of people who were multiple, some of them becoming close friends, several my best friends.
I was called to this subject by something larger than myself. With a writer's skills and a researcher's dream database, I had to write Web of Angels. I saw it as a sacred task, and I needed that belief to sustain me through eight years of ups and downs and plain hard work. The answer to my question was a story: starting with the image of the dying girl and her living baby, propelled by internet crime, and infused with the triumph and quiet heroism of people who have an unusual way of being.
Filed under: Literary, Personal Tagged: Web of Angels
December 4, 2011
My Workspace Revised
Recently, I rearranged the corner where I write. My workspace is 6 ft by 4 ft with another 21 inches of shared space on the table where my large monitor sits, also used by my older d when she wants to participate in the "homework club."
My work table is 2 ft by 3 ft (click to enlarge):
I used to have a second table the same size right behind my chair but instead now I have this:
Note my Littlest Petshop collection. Every writer needs one.
The 2nd table I used to work on has another function. It is now my younger d's homework space, and hence the hub of the homework club, which draws my older d into the room with her binder and books so that we can all sit close by in our intellectual endeavours:
(Note the fan–you'd think I could put it away for the winter, but then you wouldn't be thinking that menopause can generate more heat than a furnace.)
Everything in a small house has a dual purpose, and my bed is sometimes my research space, with notes and files spread around it. But at the moment it's also part of the homework club as H is arranging her project on sewing machines on a display board laid flat on the bed.
Sometimes I dream about a bigger house with my own study and a sewing room, too. But right now I'm grateful for the coziness of my family and the view from my desk. Time, love, and peace–that's what is needed for my imagination to stretch.
Filed under: Literary, Personal Tagged: Writing Life
December 3, 2011
December 1, 2011
Blue Skies Again
Sunshine! Thank God I did not awake to the pitter patter of rain. I am probably the only person in Toronto who was glad glad glad when yesterday's rain turned to snow. I was late meeting a friend for coffee and ran in the snow in my sneakers and the snow gods were with me, for I didn't slip.
The reason I was late is that I'd completely forgotten. And I'd forgotten because I was working on materials for my wonderful publicist, Sharon Klein. She sent me examples of bios and genesis stories, which inspired and instructed me. Would you like to see my new bio, hot off the press?
Here it is:
Lilian Nattel's oldest friend remembers her telling stories when she was five years old, but she didn't decide to be a writer until she was ten. That was when she discovered not all authors were dead. Her life took detours, as life will. In her twenties, she despaired of ever being a real writer, because she was too tired at the end of a boring work day to write at all. Instead, she put boredom to good use and became a chartered accountant. As her own boss, she had a small consulting practice and wrote part-time in a garret, albeit a dry and relatively warm one. During that time, she signed up twice in a private (but written) contract with herself to see what she could accomplish in the next few years in return for a lot of penny pinching to buy herself time.
Alone in her garret, Lilian had no idea that there was anything like a literary scout. So she was shocked to find out that the manuscript of her first novel, The River Midnight, had been leaked to German scouts. As a result of the buzz (which she thought had something to do with bees), The River Midnight sold across North America, the UK and Europe in a matter of weeks, just in time for her wedding, thus enabling the purchase of her garret and the house around it.
The River Midnight was a prize-winning, national best-seller. Now that she'd learned the secret of success, Lilian knew that writing her next book would be easy, fast and make piles of money, and that as a new mom of two perfect children, she would spin stories, change diapers, and in her spare time learn to speak Chinese. She did change diapers, many of them, she learned one phrase in Chinese, and took to her bed with the flu for a month while deciding whether she ought to give up writing altogether. Instead she got up and slowly wrote The Singing Fire, which garnered much critical acclaim and the assurance that she had avoided the second novel curse: "Toronto's Lilian Nattel proves her debut was no fluke" (Nancy Wigston).
Now that her kids were toilet trained, life was obviously too undemanding, for she decided to embark in a new direction and write the most challenging book of her career. As a true optimist and slow learner, she again expected it to be fast and easy. The writing gods had a good laugh. Eight years and ten drafts later, Web of Angels was done. And Lilian doesn't care if the next one is easy or not because in the end the gods gave her a gift: Web of Angels is an important book and she was privileged with the writing of it.
I'll post the genesis when it's finalized!
Filed under: Literary, Personal Tagged: Lilian Nattel bio
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