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Special Needs in Strange Worlds | Kendra Merritt – A Different Kind of Hero

About the Author

Books have been Kendra’s escape for as long as she can remember. She used to hide fantasy books behind her government textbook in high school, and she wrote almost an entire novel during a semester of algebra. When she was twenty-one, she had a bad reaction to an epidural during a scoliosis surgery that resulted in partial paraplegia. While she was in rehab learning to walk again, she realized that all the heroic characters she read about could run and jump and swing a sword. She never saw any that looked and walked like she did now. That’s why she writes fantasy where the heroes kick butt with whatever they can find: canes, crutches…wheelchairs. She writes for anyone who’s ever felt different. She can be found every Friday over at www.kendramerritt.com where she talks about writing, reading, and life with a disability, and how those three collide.

Read Kendra’s post during last year’s Special Needs in Strange Worlds here. 

A Different Kind of Hero

Seven years ago, I sat in a hospital gym in Houston trying to wiggle the toes on my left foot. My therapist reminded me my tongue was sticking out, and I sucked it back in and tried harder. Not even a budge…in case any of you thought I was Uma Thurman. We quit for the day, and as I rolled back to my room, I promised myself tomorrow would be the day. Spoiler alert: tomorrow wasn’t the day. But eventually I did get those piggies wiggling and three months later I staggered down the aisle at my wedding.

There’s a surprising amount of downtime while you’re learning to walk. In between wheeling a walker around the pool and learning to cook from a wheelchair, I read. I’ve been a devourer of books for as long as I can remember, and my time in the hospital was no different. As always, I read to escape, except this time, I was running from a lot more than the hum drum existence of a biology major with good grades.

Sorry. This paints kind of a bleaker picture than I intended. I was by no means well-adjusted, but also I wasn’t about to wheel myself off the roof. I was just looking for comfort from a familiar source. And I found myself oddly unsatisfied.

Why? I’d been reading fantasy for twenty-one years and never felt this strange disconnection before. I loved watching the mage/paladin/assassin stride through a battle, swinging his staff/sword/dagger to smite the tyrant/orc/demonlord… And there it was. I couldn’t do any of that anymore. Striding, swinging, smiting was all in the past for me. Not that I made it a habit to jump unsuspecting bad guys on my college campus, but that’s not the point. I read my favorite stories and heard an insidious little voice that said, “You can’t do that. You can’t be a hero.”

I don’t hear that voice as often now. Seven years and I’ve beaten the fight out of the little bugger. I can still relate to the sword swinging ninja with all the physical attributes of Michelangelo’s David. But it hasn’t been the same since. My injury didn’t just affect how I walk but also how I read. Now I’m looking for the flaws. I’m looking for the weaknesses. And I’m looking for ways to live with them, beat them back and overcome them.

I’ve found some, a lot more than I expected when I first started looking. Those characters, those people, are the ones who have helped me reclaim my heroism. And sometimes my villainy (let’s not forget the disabled antagonist).

We all need heroes, yes. But we all need to be heroes, as well. We need to look at the page and see a little bit of ourselves. Lucian reflects our faith. Eugenides has our resourcefulness, Melody our voice, Helva our strength, and Miles our tenacity.

I look at them and see me. I look at them and see a

An Update – This and That

Special Needs in Strange Worlds is over. I always have a blast doing this event, and I find myself deep in thought for a long time after. Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed. I am sorry I didn’t have more new posts, but life kind of dumped on me and I had to work with what I had. Still, I think it worked out really well.

In other news, my two-surgery month of May has wiped me out. I have half of about four different reviews written but I’m having some pain management issues so I’m rather medicated. I sleep more than I do anything else and my mind struggles to function a bit. Things upstairs are foggy. I feel like the lights are on but no one is home. I am hoping to get reviews posted next week, but until then, it’ll probably be some radio silence.

And regarding reviews, oh, I am so behind. I have so many reviews I need to post and write it’s not even funny. I am hoping to feel good enough to keep this page busy for a while.

Thankfully the second surgery was successful. I ended up with a four disc fusion, a rod, a bunch of screws and some cadaver bones in my spine. I’ve lost mobility (you always do with those surgeries, and it sucks to lose mobility at 30, but oh well), but I think I might be getting some feeling back in my right leg and foot so that’s a plus. Doctors say it might take up to a year for my nerves to start functioning again, so it’ll be a year of waiting to see just how much of my right leg and foot I’ll be able to feel for the rest of my life. That’s fine. I don’t mind that at all. At least the nerve pain is 100% gone, and for those of you who have felt nerve pain, I dealt with it for two years. It’s bliss to have it gone. Complete and absolute bliss. I’d forgotten what it’s like to not feel that. There’s nothing like nerve pain. Nothing. And mine was constant. Even if I have to walk with a cane for the rest of my life (which is a possibility, depending on if my nerves come back. I have balance issues due to the lack of feeling in my right foot), I’ll be happy with it because the nerve pain is GONE.

To keep myself busy I’ve been doing a lot of photography. Not a ton of new stuff as I’m still hobbling around with a cane, but I’ve been editing some older shots and last weekend I did feel good enough to actually do some new photography, which was wonderful. I then entered it into a contest and my shot is currently first place, which surprises the holy hell out of me. It’s viewer’s choice, and the top 4 get published in a magazine and go on to the next round. Contest ends Sunday, so I’ve been basically whoring this photo out because life has been very hard recently, and this staying in first place in this HUGE contest thing has been the best thing that’s happened to me since I got my “cancer free” diagnosis a few months ago.

If you want to vote, please do. You can vote once a day. You have to be a member of the website to vote, but it’s free and easy. You can find the photo here.

And as for cancer, I went for a checkup last week. He did an ultrasound and found nothing. NOTHING. It’s just completely surreal that after two years of fighting the cancer monster, I’m cancer free. June 2 was National Cancer Survival Day, and it’s a little late, but I found this picture last night and it fits, so I’m sharing it.

So here’s to you, all my fellow cancer survivors. Cancer will always leave its mark on me. I have scars on my soul that will always be there and I’m still emotionally healing. It’s a process, but it’s a great one. I’m lucky, and I realize that. I fought a battle and I won, and I’m proud of that. I’m proud of all of us who fought and won, and I am humbled by all of those who fought the battle and lost.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. Still healing. Still in pain, but life is getting better and I’m so behind in reviews it’s pathetic so hopefully I’ll have them going up on this website really fast starting next week. I thought I could do it this week but I’m still a bit foggy.

And I sincerely hope you enjoyed Special Needs in Strange Worlds. It’s always such a humbling, incredible event. I’m honored to host it.

Special needs in Strange Worlds | R.T. Kaelin

About the Author

R.T. Kaelin is a loving husband, father of two wonderful children, and a lifelong resident of Ohio, currently in Columbus.  After graduating from college, for the first twelve years of his career he has worked as a software engineer.  After creatively writing a local gaming group, it was suggested he try his hand at writing something more prodigious.  Encouraged, he finally committed to the undertaking, writing the first book of his The Children of the White Lions series, Progeny.  When he is not writing, he loves to travel and has a passion for cooking.

You can find out more about the author and various ways to follow him online on his website.

May 12th: The Mystery Child’s Birthday

May 12th, 2004:

My wife gave birth to our first child that day: Nikalys Isaac, a beautiful baby boy.

For many months prior, I had done all the typical first-time dad things:  get the nursery ready, ensure our day-of-birth plan was ready, collect a mountain of diapers, etc.

During that time, I also treated my wife’s bellybutton as though it were a tiny megaphone through which I could speak to my unborn son.  Which is why, during Nikalys’ first minutes of life, as he lay under the bright lights of the warmer, covered in birth-goo, when I called his name and he instantly turned his head toward me, I was convinced I had fathered the smartest, sharpest, bestest kid ever.

I was so proud of my son.

May 12th, 2005:

A child’s first birthday is always a big deal. When your wife is of Korean descent and has a massive family, let me assure you that it’s ten times bigger. Besides the typical “give the baby a slice of cake and watch him cover himself in chocolate frosting” activity, a traditional Korean ceremony called “dol” is held.

We dressed Nikalys in a “dol-bak,” a painfully colorful outfit and tiny hat, and sat him on the ground with an array of various items placed before him. I don’t remember everything there, but I do recall a bowl of fruit, a pencil, and a few dollar bills. Everyone gathered around to watch what Nikalys would pick up first, the belief being that his choice is an indicator of his life’s fate. Fruit would mean he would never go hungry. The pencil portends a scholarly life. Money meant my wife and I would be able to retire early and move to the beach house he’d buy for us.

I don’t remember what Nikalys chose, the reason being I was more concerned with him falling over as he sat before his choices. One-year-olds can be wobbly, yes, but Nikalys remained unable to sit upright on his own, something typical 7-9 month-olds do. And that was not the only milestone he had missed. My wife and I were concerned, but not too much so. He was a little premature, so we told ourselves he just needed some time to catch up.

Regardless of his delays, I was proud of my son.

May 12th, 2006:

By his second birthday, we were worried. Nikalys’ language development was delayed by several months, he was not yet walking, and his fine and gross motor skills were significantly behind where they should be.

He wore tiny baby glasses that hooked around his ears so they would not fall off.  The glasses were an attempt to help correct the fact he was cross-eyed and had nystagmus, a condition where the eyes shake. Ultimately, the glasses would not work. Two eye surgeries awaited him.

His second year of life was spent visiting various doctors—neurologists, optometrists, opthamologists, (there is a difference)—and having lots of tests done—blood work, MRIs, sleep studies. Yet by his second birthday, we still had no idea as to what was going on with our little guy. That was something to which we would grow accustomed: having no real answers.

Nevertheless, with all of his challenges, Nikalys was a happy—and big for his age—child, and I was extremely proud of him.

May 12th, 2008:

Ages three and four will forever be known as the “Thomas the Tank Engine Phase.” He was infatuated with the little wooden wonders. We made weekly trips to a nearby Barnes & Noble where, in the kids’ section, they had a train table covered with track and trains that had been beaten to death by countless kids. We would walk in and Nikalys would run straight for the table (he was running now!), plop down, and be in heaven. When kids his age attempted to engage him, he would either stare at them in perfect silence or hold up a particular engine or caboose and repeatedly say, “Train. Train. Train.”

Concerns that he was autistic led to a lengthy evaluation by the local Children’s Hospital, after which we were told that he did not fit on the spectrum. Their reasoning was he displayed too much emotion and affection, which was certainly true. Nikalys was a lover and hugger. We had to keep a careful eye that he did not squeeze new baby sister, Kennedy.

So, here we were: four years old and still no answers.

It was frustrating, but never affected just how proud I was of my son.

May 12th, 2010:

The Toy Story Phase.

The dozens of little wooden trains were now packed in boxes and covered in dust. Toy Story characters ruled the house, their pointy plastic ends poking the soles of our feet daily.

By the time Nik was six, we as parents had finally accepted that whatever was going on with our little guy was not something he would outgrow.

To the outside observer, Nik looked like any other kid his age, albeit a little taller. But due to his physical delays—gross and fine motor along with low muscle tone—he appeared incredibly clumsy. He could not—and still cannot—catch a ball. His hand-eye coordination was—and still is—terrible, his reaction time about a half-second slower than most people. Nik will never play high-school sports. Games of catch with him will always be more physical therapy than a carefree activity enjoyed by father and son.

He had a few friends from school but none from the neighborhood. They knew something was different about Nik and would not socialize with him. That actually hurt my wife and I more than it did Nikalys. So wrapped up in his own world, he was oblivious to the way some judged him. In this case, his delays were almost a good thing. Kids could be mean to him, make fun of him to his face, and Nikalys would simply smile and laugh.

And that made me even prouder of my son.

May 12th, 2012:

Star Wars Phase.

Walk into any room in the house, and you could see a lightsaber. Nikalys had them all: blue, two red ones, Yoda green, Mace Windu purple.

At age eight, he was wrapping up his second trip through first grade. We had held him back an extra year, hoping he his maturity level might grow to match his peers. In some areas, it did. In others, not so much.

Additional tests performed in the last two years—brain scans, more MRIs, sleep studies, a second autism evaluation—revealed nothing conclusive other than a below-average IQ. And, to be honest, we’re not sure how accurate that diagnosis is. Nikalys is as good at test-taking as a trout is at jumping-jacks. His ability to pay attention to anything in which he’s not interested is non-existent.

Now, as these posts are supposed to include some literary tie-in, this is where mine begins.

Right around this time, perhaps a couple months earlier, was when I started writing the first edition of Progeny. I have written at length about what prompted me to undertake such an effort, and one of the things I always say is my kids were a big reason why.

I was so incredibly proud of my son—and daughter—that I both modeled and named the two main protagonists after them, weaving their real-life personalities into the characters. In the book (and series), Kenders is stubborn, fearless, and impulsive, just like my beautiful little girl, Kennedy.  The Nikalys in my pages—much like his real-life counterpart—is incredibly loyal, has a big heart, but can be prone to sullen, pouting moments when confronted by things he does not like.

I wrote the book—and continue writing the series—to show my children how much I love them and to encourage them to work to overcome whatever obstacles life places in their way. Let’s hope that by the time they’re old enough to read it, I will have finished the series.

On May 12th, 2013, Nik turns nine. He’s as tall as he is skinny, a giant with feet that look like scuba flippers. Seriously, they’re huge.

Presently, we are in the midst of the superhero phase—Marvel and DC, although he’s partial to the Avengers. It’s a lot of fun for us both as I will happily watch any number of superhero movies with him whenever he wants it. Sure beats Thomas the Tank Engine.

Still no answers. None at all. Doctors haven’t a clue as to what is responsible for his delays. In the last year, one of his doctors actually referred to him as her “little mystery child.”

School is a massive challenge for him, more academically than socially. He receives occupational and physical therapy, along with adaptive physical education and two hours per day of specialized instruction for math and reading. Certain concepts are extremely difficult for him to grasp. While he has a few close friends, we are starting to hear the rumblings of kids teasing him. Not cool.

He’s in a soccer league that welcomes kids with challenges. The jury is still out on how this will turn out, though. With his physical delays, he can’t run as fast as the other kids, can’t kick the ball all that well, and tires quickly. His mental challenges cause him to often completely lose focus as to what he is supposed to be doing. Last week, Nikalys was playing goalie. At one point, there he was, crouched down, picking dandelions, utterly oblivious of the clumped gaggle of children dribbling the ball toward him.

I worry a lot about what the future holds for Nikalys. Countless challenges await him, challenges I can’t fully comprehend at this point in time. Whatever they are, though, I’ll be there with him, helping when and where I am able, or rooting him on when that’s all I can do. But no matter what, I will always—always—be incredibly proud of my son.

Special Needs in Strange Worlds | Liam Perrin

About the Author

Liam Perrin is no stranger to storytelling. He worked for half a decade on the legendary Myst series selected by the Smithsonian American Art Museum as one of five featured games out of 240 in the Renwick Gallery’s standing Art of Video Games exhibition after 3.7 million votes were cast in 175 countries. Liam worked on the series in various roles including technical art, technical game design, and finally as the Live Content Director on the beloved Myst Online (formerly Uru: Ages Beyond Myst). His debut novel, Sir Thomas the Hesitant and the Table of Less Valued Knights, is available via Amazon and LiamPerrin.com.

You can find the author by clicking the following links:

Blog: http://www.liamperrin.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorliamperrin

Twitter: @LiamPerrin

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/liamperrin

——

And then she shrank literally a handbreadth. Thomas was looking right at her when it happened, but it was so quick – and so preposterous – that he couldn’t be certain what had just happened. Gorgella stood very still. Her body and face were posed in a perfect image of what they’d been a moment before, but her eyes widened ever so slightly and gave her away.

Thomas broke the silence, “What just happened?”

I was reading some of the original Arthurian legends one day when I came across this paragraph:

“Know that there were three kinds of tables there. The first was the Round Table. King Arthur was companion and lord of this one. The second table was called the Table of Errant Companions, those who went seeking adventure and waited to become companions of the Round Table. Those of the third table were those who never left court and did not go on quests or in search of adventures, either because of illness or because they had not enough courage. These knights were called the less valued knights.”

At the time I was working at my dream job on a video game series called Myst. I had been plucked out of a poorly-paying, stressful, research programming job to work on the best-selling PC game of all time (until The Sims came along a decade later). I had moved my new wife across the country to a land I was sure was full of happily-ever-after. I spent my days and many nights inside what was to me a cathedral of creativity. I quickly learned there was a difference between being in the company and being in the fellowship.

The idea of a Table of Less Valued Knights appealed to me, but I was certain their plight had been misrepresented. As I thought more about who those knights might be I started to realize they were probably a lot like you and me: We struggle daily to do the right thing. We fight battles that are heroic in our eyes but largely go unnoticed by the people we think matter. We may be an arm’s length from where we want to be, but that arm’s length may as well be the chasm that eternally separates Lazarus from Abraham’s bosom. I could reach out and touch the Round Table if I wanted, but my lot was with the Less Valued.

Gorgella fell to the ground, weeping. “I’m shrinking you great fool! Can’t you see? Oh, what will become of me?”

Thomas knelt and tried to comfort her. “How long has this been happening?”

“I don’t know, but it’s speeding up. Yesterday this dress was my left sock.” With that, she began to sob with heaves so great that she couldn’t get any more intelligible words out.

I almost wished I hadn’t landed the job. Someone will say, “I’d rather be a janitor in heaven than a celebrity in hell.” I understand the sentiment, but talk to me again after a few eternities cleaning proverbial toilets – after your conviction has really been put to the test. I decided to make the best of it. I intuited that I could either let this experience harden or soften my heart. I made a choice of the will to soften.

And then things went from bad to worse. My wife suffered permanent nerve damage in her abdomen during labor with our one and only daughter. We didn’t know this until years later when a lingering, manageable pain suddenly became persistent, unmanageable and debilitating. We embarked on a long and torturous road in search of healing. That road would prove fruitless. The last procedure involved removing a 3 inch section of abdominal nerve. It had no effect. The doctors believe her nervous system has centralized the pain – pain has become her brain’s ‘normal’ chemical state. My wife now spends most of her life in a special bed fighting pain she equates to giving birth on a daily basis.

Suffice it to say, we have different dreams now than we did when we began. What do you do when your heart’s desires are denied you with such clarity and finality? We entered a life or death battle with nihilism and depression. I am happy to say we won that battle but not without sacrifice. That experience finds fable-like expression in the relationship between Gorgella and Thomas in my debut novel, Sir Thomas the Hesitant and the Table of Less Valued Knights.

Our society measures a person’s worth by what she can do. For many, the mentally and physically handicapped are invisible – or worse, a burden – until they can find a way to do something productive either through a Herculean effort on their own part or through well meaning assistance of some sort. The thing is, you can be productive and still feel invisible, alone, worthless. Perhaps we beat depression because being productive was completely off the table – we were denied the saccharin self-worth that comes from doing things. We had to face the enemy head on, and in doing so we found a legendary weapon of unimaginable power.

To make a person feel valued. To make a person feel like her life has meaning. To make her think, “He can see me.” There is only one way to do this. Love her.

On his way to Camelot, worried his idea of becoming a knight might be as ridiculous as his family believes, Thomas is sent on a quest by an enigmatic healer. He must retrieve a bottle of tears from a giantess whose weeping is the source of a nearby stream. The tears, says the healer, have remarkable healing qualities. The giantess in question is the last of her kind and had been exiled to her mountaintop for the crime of failing to be loved. Believing herself guilty of the crime of unloveableness, Gorgella the giantess sits on her mountaintop and sinks into a deep depression. When Thomas arrives he finds her physically shrinking. In a bond of mutual terror at the prospects facing Gorgella, Thomas fashions a tiny boat out of a leaf and carries Gorgella to the healer in a bottle of her own tears. Gorgella shrinks beyond sight before Thomas reaches the healer. He is frantic, but the healer is dismissive. He assures Thomas he will keep Gorgella safe and disappears to fetch Thomas’s reward. When he returns, Thomas leaps at him.

“You have to help her! You’re a healer! Can’t you make her herself again?”

The healer paused with one hand ready to pull the veil and reveal the thing beneath. “My dear boy, looking like a thing has little to do with being a thing. Be the thing first, and you will grow to resemble it, if not in this life then when God’s trumpets blow at the end of days and all of us are changed. Gorgella started out a giant, but she believed what people told her she was. In her heart, she saw herself diminished and she became so, shrinking bit by bit. Though your mind might be of one conviction and proclaim it with steep vigor, your heart will find a way to betray you. Your heart is who you are, all else follows. Guard your heart, Thomas. Guard your heart.”

Then he whipped back the cloth with a flourish.

Special Needs in Strange Worlds | Robert Jackson Bennett

You can find the original post here.

About the Author

Robert Jackson Bennett‘s 2010 debut Mr. Shivers won the Shirley Jackson award as well as the Sydney J Bounds Newcomer Award. His second novel, The Company Man, is currently nominated for a Philip K. Dick Award as well as an Edgar Award.

You can find out more about the author, his books, and ways to stalk him on his website. 

Now, welcome the man himself, and please read his brilliant post.

I remember when my high school French teacher taught us about Classical French Theater, he said one of its key characteristics was that the plays always had to be about powerful or noble characters – kings, queens, emperors, mythological characters, etc. “It can’t be about a garbage man, in other words,” he said. “No one wants to watch a story about the garbage man.”

And I remember thinking, “That’s ridiculous. I’d probably identify more with the garbage man than some king or queen.”

I think Mr. Swope might have been exaggerating to maintain our interest in Classical French Theater – a tough thing to do for a bunch of 15 year olds – but I think the same struggle’s still going on in fiction, and it probably always will. A lot of the time, we don’t want to hear about ordinary people: we want to hear about the rich, the famous, the beautiful, the powerful – the people without a blemish, either physical, spiritual, or financial.

This is, of course, simple escapism. We watch Entourage because damn, son, that’s the life, isn’t it? We watch Sex and the City because we’d like to have those sorts of glamorous problems, like fashion faux-pas and which rich, handsome man to date. And it’s a powerful impulse to resist: fiction is a realm where one strategically edits in order to manipulate time, emotion, imagery. Why not edit ourselves? Why not clip away all our flaws, all our troubles, and concern ourselves only with fantastical, desirable problems, like saving the world and getting the girl?

The older I get, the more this style of story feels like a gallon of Diet Coke to me: hard to swallow, and completely lacking in valuable content. All I’m left with is a superficial sweetness that makes me hungry to taste something real. The characters are cauterized like victims of plastic surgery gone wrong:  you can tell where the human parts used to be, but what’s there now is something taut, plasticine, and as numb as a bundle of dead nerve endings.

Beauty is shaped by reality. It does not exist separate from it. That which is real, that which is true, is beautiful. So I don’t understand this impulse to look away anymore: if you look at the world, at real people, and see nothing but ugliness, then I can guarantee you that the problem isn’t with the world.

And, true, that doesn’t mean that you can’t write about gods and kings and the trials of the powerful. But the best of those stories, for me, are when the characters show genuinely human flaws and problems, and try to deal with them in genuinely human and frequently flawed ways. And I love, love, love when huge, god-like characters are faced with problems with no easy answer, or even no answer at all.

For example, I love Neil Gaiman’s Dream as he starts to understand, well, he used to be kind of a dick to his friends and family, and he’s not sure what to do about that. I love him in the same way I love John le Carré’s George Smiley, a short, fat, cuckolded bureaucrat in the Cold War, who struggles with trying to figure out if his compassion is a strength or a weakness in what seems to be a cynical world.

Flaws and problems are real. We all have them. And when your characters – god, king, or garbage man – learn to deal with theirs, or fail to, that can make the characters strong, and real, and memorable.

Orson Scott Card – though many of his views are indefensible – can be commended for contributing a very valuable perspective on the disabled in his fiction. Most of it was probably informed by his son, Charles, who had cerebral palsy and died a teenager. I remember reading about these disabled characters in his stories, and never once feeling, well, pity for them. They weren’t cripples. They weren’t helpless. They got by. And we all get by, don’t we? Sometimes just barely, but we get by.

Now that I’m older, and writing my own stuff, I see now that the reason his disabled characters work is that he didn’t start by writing them as disabled characters. He started by writing them as characters, as real people with real problems – the same way that the fantastical, powerful characters work the best. Sometimes they got over those problems. Sometimes – maybe a lot of the time – they didn’t. And I felt for them because I knew them because they were real.

Your stories and characters don’t have to be set in reality. But they must have some kernel of reality in them somewhere. Life can be hard, but it is also true, so it is also beautiful. I don’t mind beautiful characters – but they should have to earn it, as we all must do.

Special Needs in Strange Worlds | Depression in a Place Where Depression Is Not a Thing

Find the original post here. 

About the author

‘Anon’ hails from a far and distant land, but has found a cozy spot in the English-speaking SFF community. ‘Anon’ enjoys everything dark and weird in every medium possible. Occasional reviewer and a writer of SFF fiction, ‘Anon’ currently dips toes in the world of editing and personal branding and marketing.

Depression in a Place Where Depression Is Not a Thing

I’m probably the poster child for the argument of fiction as an escape (I find it quite funny, considering your don’t know who I am). I fell in love with fiction, because I wanted to escape my life. My teenage years brought almost nothing worthwhile for me. I have been teased and ignored at school, then oppressed at home.

In all honesty, this is not something uncommon. I am painting a familiar picture, but the main difference is that I have been living with an acute depression, since my early teens and I’ve lived with it in a culture, where depression is not a thing, because my society has chosen for it to remain invisible.

Invisibility is a spell, which we cast every day. Honestly, in my country, you, as an individual, remain invisible, until you become something more or something else. Something that can’t be ignored and then you suffer for it. This is why I turned to fiction and I have found people, who don’t quite fit in their societies based on their scars, their limps and pieces missing.

Disability creates a counterpoint to the vantage point of the ‘perfect’ protagonists, whose one main fault has been their heritage (of course, I’m referring to the clichéd tropes, which more or less now have been pushed to the background), but otherwise possess a special power, the charm and the looks to get their ‘perfect’ happy conclusion.

I have found disability (even in villains) and the otherness to be far more interesting, though I have read about physical disability in my reading. Save for Nicodemus from Blake Charlton’s series, I haven’t met a character, who suffers from our modern conditions. Perhaps, there is a character suffering from depression somewhere in the speculative fiction spectrum, but I have yet to read it.

Depression in itself is unpredictable. It hits hard. It hits out of the blue. It turns the person into someone else completely. I doubt depression would be easy to transfer into fiction, because it would mean for the author to break every convention of proper character development and if an author can’t say outright what the character’s problem is, especially in a world, where this condition is not a thing, yet, the reader is confused.

I live in a community culture, where mental disorders are not a reality. You’re either sane or you’re not. If you know how to spell and speak, not stab random people or drool, then you are sane. Stop whining, stop asking for attention and get back to work. What is this bullshit? Are you trying to be special, take the easy way out?

ADHD, OCD, bi-polar disorder and depression speak nothing to the majority of the people here. Depression, in my country’s vernacular, means ‘having the blues’. It’s not the crippling condition that forces you to hate yourself and everything you do or say.

No, depression is that lazy, dull state you are in, when it rains and maybe you feel a wee bit sad. It certainly doesn’t impair your judgment, nor does it make seeing your reflection one of the positively worst experiences you will have to do in your day. I’m sure that more than one or two people will relate to me, because depression is common. You’ve probably sought one or two professional opinions. You have been diagnosed. You have received professional help in terms of sessions, ideas for exercises or when necessary, medication.

To have depression in a place, where depression isn’t a thing, amounts to a whole different experience. I’ve not been officially diagnosed for one, because then my family doctor would alert my family that I have seen a psychologist and once your family thinks you are crazy, it’s a nightmare ride. I have no professional to help me, because doctors’ mistakes, miss-diagnosis and clinical negligence are the norm. I take no medication, so when I go through a depressive period, I lose momentum at school, at work and at home. No one knows though, so I have to smile and pretend I don’t want to fall on the floor.

It’s only me, the Internet, a close friend and some contacts abroad, who understand the battle I have in me, because their culture recognizes depression. When society doesn’t understand or try to distinguish one condition from another, it tends to generalize, lump everything together and stamp it with a large social stigmata, which makes existing all the more difficult. Who’s to say I’m not bi-polar or have a dash of OCD in there? What are the things I have to work on to surpass my anxieties or assume control?

It doesn’t matter to other people, though. They will judge, they will discriminate and this one of the reasons I’ve decided to keep my identity a secret. Finding professional realization in a country like mine is complicated. Companies want the normal, the uncomplicated and who wants to deal with a person suffering from a mental condition.

This is how life is for people with depression in a place, where depression is not a thing. As I read this, I know my words sound dramatic, even melodramatic, but that’s depression for you. It amplifies everything beyond reason, beyond proportion. I know I’m fighting this. I know I am loved, but damn, there are days, when I feel less than nothing.

Special Needs in Strange Worlds | Sarah Chorn

(This is posted exactly one week after my surgery)

I usually don’t like the idea of writing things for my Special Needs in Strange Worlds events, but I woke up this morning staring down the barrel of surgery number ten and I guess it’s making me a bit nostalgic.

I don’t think Special Needs in Strange Worlds is about disabilities – at least, not to me. To me, Special Needs in Strange Worlds is about heroes. The real heroes. The heroes that get overlooked in daily life and literature. Special Needs in Strange Worlds is about honoring our trials, and the strengths those trials bring us.

As I just mentioned, I’m having surgery number ten this morning. In fact, if I don’t write this out soon, it won’t get written before I get sliced and diced. Why might I be having another surgery, you may be asking? Because my daughter is twenty-one months old, and she likes to run and I’m sick of telling her, “No, baby, don’t do that. Mommy can’t move like that.” Maybe that’s a small thing to the rest of you, but to me every time I say that, it makes me feel like less of a mother.

I’m thirty years old, and this surgery is my last ditch effort to ever feel my right leg again. It’s my last try to ever be able to walk at a normal pace, or without a cane or some form of assistance. It’s my last chance to live a pain free life. Maybe that’s not a big deal, but to me it’s huge. I’m thirty, and I’ve already beat cancer, I can beat this, too.

At least I hope.

The thing is, it’s not our abilities that make us heroes, and it’s not the abilities of characters in books that make them heroes. I don’t relate to the urban fantasy woman who can leap over buildings in single bounds and attract every man in a ten mile radius by her ravishing good looks. In fact, at this point in my life, after cancer, after signing up for my tenth surgery and saying, “I just beat cancer, haven’t I been through enough?” for about a day complete with tears streaming down my cheeks, characters like that make my stomach churn.

They are fun. They are common, but they aren’t real.

We all have our own stories. We go through what we go through for love. Whether it’s love of your family, kids, friends or life itself, we go through our trials and adversaries because of love and it’s love that defines us. It’s love that pulls us through, supports us, wipes our tears, gives us the will to try again so I can run with my twenty-one month old like a mother should. It’s love that makes a five day hospital stay worth it and love that fills those cancer hospitals all over the nation with patients that have nothing but hope and families to cling to. It’s love that makes people heroes, not looks or abilities, or special qualities.

It’s the trials, the errors, the mistakes and pitfalls, the things that are quirky and wrong that make us interesting. It’s love, and the strength love gives us to pull through the hard times, no matter how changed they make us, that creates heroes.

Maybe I’ll be able to run with my daughter after this surgery. Maybe I’ll walk with a cane for the rest of my life, but no matter how it ends up, it’s love that’s pulled me through. Now that I’m staring the possibility of a “legally disabled” life in the face, I’m realizing that I might not be disabled at all. In fact, the things that limit me are the things that make me interesting and it’s the same way with books.

The things that limit characters are the things I love about them. Those are the very things that make the book memorable,  the story unique, the settings, world building and trials so easy to relate to. I don’t know if any author actually sits down and thinks, “I’m going to write a special needs character into this chapter,” or not. I know that in my various forays into writing, I’ve never done so, it’s just happened. Why? Because no one is perfect. No one. We are all so incredibly unique and we’ve all learned to work with, and despite our unique qualities.

We do that because of love. We love living, loving, laughing and learning. We read because our passion for literature can only be satiated by that next book we run across. Characters in books aren’t limited, but they are driven and enflamed. They can get things done just as well as anyone else which means they aren’t “special needs” at all, but passionate and realistic. That’s life and it’s love that stokes that fire.

Along with physical discomforts come emotional ones, and those are often overlooked, for whatever reason. We tend to live in a society where it’s easier to talk about someone losing an arm rather than all the emotional upheaval that lost arm will cost that person. For example, I spent over two years fighting cancer, and learning that it has spread (twice) before I was clear. Cancer, while not physically disabling, mentally is so. I have some deep scars that and emotional wounds that haven’t healed, and I wonder if they ever truly will. This doesn’t make me a special case. In fact, anyone who has to work around what is perceived as a “limitation” has emotional backlash from said limitation. It’s this emotional backlash which seems to define us, or ruin us. Is can be disabling  but the scars I wear on my soul are hard won and just add to my ever present drive to continue on. No matter what I face. I’m not physically or emotionally limited. All this says is to say that, should someone tell my story, it would probably be an interesting one and what got me through was what this post is all about: love.

My life has certainly been filled with its ups and downs, but I’ve learned to deal with more than I ever thought I’ve needed to. I always tell myself, “If I beat cancer by thirty, I can do damn near anything.” I might have to do it a little differently than you, but I can do it. Why? Because I love my life and my family too much not to.

And that’s what makes the characters I love in the books I never forget so memorable. They have a love, drive and passion to push through those hard times, to make it through to the end despite whatever has waylaid them. They have the love and ambition to define their lives the way they choose, no matter their “limitations” and their inner scars are just as interesting and hard won as their outer ones.

This isn’t about Special Needs in Strange Worlds.

It’s about love.

Special Needs in Strange Worlds | Tim Marquitz

About the Author

Raised on a diet of Heavy Metal and bad intentions, Tim Marquitz has always been interested in writing, but it wasn’t until about 1995 the urge became a compulsion. However, it would be many years later before the ability matched the interest. Fortunately, the two have reconciled…mostly.

Writing a mix of the dark perverse, the horrific, and the tragic, tinged with sarcasm and biting humor, he looks to leave a gaping wound in the minds of his readers like his inspirations: Clive Barker, Jim Butcher, and Stephen King.

A former grave digger, bouncer, and dedicated metalhead, Tim is a huge fan of Mixed Martial Arts, and fighting in general.

He lives in Texas with his beautiful wife and daughter.

You can learn more about Tim, and various ways to contact and follow him, on his website.

The Uncomfortable Reality of Fiction

 

I’ve very little experience with special needs in fiction or in real life. While my dominant hand was injured years back and is technically crippled to a small degree, and has sufficiently altered my approach to daily function, it’s not what anyone would consider a true disability. It’s frustrating and occasionally painful and often inconvenient, but it does little to limit the quality of my life.

However, as minor as my injury is in the grand scheme of things, it has allowed me the slightest sampling of what so many people face day in and day out and to far greater extremes. I can only imagine what it’s like to be forced to survive every day, a person’s own body or mind conspiring against the basic functions most of us take for granted. In fact, I’m not even sure I can imagine it, which I suspect is why I’ve excluded it from my fiction, however unconsciously that decision has been.

Looking at it now, it’s a glaring exemption of a part of society I had even realized I’d exempted from my work while diligently including others. Sadly, I believe that’s the true burden of the special needs, to be hidden in plain sight, little thought given to their plight outside of the dedicated and compassionate few who work with them on a daily basis, made to experience true disability as close as anyone can and yet still be outside the affected group.

Given the novels I’ve read over the years, it’s clear I’m not the only writer to have dropped the ball on this part of our society. And while I don’t believe this is intentional on any of their parts, the story needs often far outweighing the reality aspect of life, it’s telling to note how rare such instances are in my own reading experience.

Ultimately, while I don’t feel it’s necessary for an author to include a special needs person in their fiction simply to do so, I do believe it’s an underappreciated minority whose story is just as compelling, if not more so, than many of the hale and whole protagonists that populate the world of fiction. And since conflict and challenges are such an integral part of storytelling, who better to exemplify the battle against adversity than those who have to deal with it every moment of their lives?

Mending the Moon – Susan Palwick

About the Book

Melinda Soto, aged sixty-four, vacationing in Mexico, is murdered by a fellow American tourist.

Back in her hometown of Reno, Nevada, she leaves behind her adopted son, Jeremy, whom she rescued from war-torn Guatamala when he was a toddler—just one of her many causes over the years. And she leaves behind a circle of friends: Veronique, the academic stuck in a teaching job from which she can’t retire; Rosemary, who’s losing her husband to Alzheimer’s and who’s trying to lose herself in volunteer work; Henrietta, the priest at Rosemary’s and Melinda’s church.

Jeremy already had a fraught relationship with his charismatic mother and the people in her orbit. Now her death is tearing him apart, and he can barely stand the rituals of remembrance that ensue among his mother’s friends. Then the police reveal who killed Melinda: a Seattle teenager who flew home to his parents and drowned himself just days later.

It’s too much. Jeremy’s not the only one who can’t deal. Friendships fray. But the unexpected happens: an invitation to them all, from the murderer’s mother, to come to Seattle for his memorial. It’s ridiculous. And yet, somehow, each of them begins to see in it a chance to heal. Aided, in peculiar ways, by Jeremy’s years-long obsession with the comic-book hero Comrade Cosmos, and the immense cult of online commentary it’s spawned.

Shot through with feeling and inventiveness, this is a novel of the odd paths that lead to home

336 page (hardcover)

Published on May 14, 2013

Published by Tor

Author’s webpage

This book was provided for me to review by the publisher.

You can purchase a copy of this book by clicking on the following links: Mending the Moon, Mending the Moon – Kindle

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Mending the Moon wowed me on first glance because of the cover alone. It’s simple, somber and artistic. It automatically drew me. It wasn’t busy, but instead it has an atmosphere about it that sets the stage for the atmosphere of the book itself. As cover art goes, this one is a slam-dunk. Busy isn’t always better, and Mending the Moon proves that with its attractive simplicity.

Mending the Moon isn’t what you expect. In fact, when you first start reading this book you might wonder why Tor published it. It takes a while to realize if there’s any SFF elements in the book at all, and the elements that are there are rather subtle and toe the SFF line. This is actually rather a benefit for the book itself, as I’d have no problem lending it to my mother (who struggles with SFF and anything to do with it) and I know she’d read it and enjoy it. Sometimes books that toe the genre lines are good for that. It allows books like Mending the Moon to appeal to a wider, more varied audience.

Mending the Moon is a somber story dealing with murder, suicide and the effects both acts have on all parties involved. It’s not a happy tale. There is a somewhat golden, hopeful ending, but it’s after a long emotional struggle. The book itself is written in a truly interesting way. First the reader is introduced to one character and his family and friends. Then the reader is introduced to another character and her family. Then, suddenly, there’s a chapter about a bunch of computer science majors who created a superhero comic book-verse. The chapters continue in this vein, and it might take a little while for the reader to understand that the comic book chapters aren’t just thrown in for the hell of it, but they are thrown in to mirror the real-life stories that are tearing two families apart. These comic book chapters are a genius way for readers to connect with a very raw storyline in a way that might not emotionally overtax you.

The interesting thing about Mending the Moon is that everyone, on the surface, is falling apart. Relationships fray, even before the murder, relationships and friendships aren’t what they could be. Then the murder/suicide happens and things get even more tense and frayed. These are real life situations that are usually so hard and uncomfortable to talk about, people usually don’t do so. It takes a brave author not only to talk about relationships in the face of life altering circumstances, but talk about them so candidly, honestly and believably and with such incredible kindness. Hats off to Susan Palwick for braving territory many people (including myself) would be far to afraid to venture into.

Mending the Moon is told on a number of levels. There’s the human level where readers will associate with the characters – the son, wives and friends. Then there’s the academic level, where almost every character is somehow tied to education somehow and it shows in the plot. The plot is smart, and while the story the that surrounds the characters is interesting, it’s truly a plot that has quite a bit of depth and symbolism, from an evergreen tree given to Jeremy at his mother’s service, to Veronique, a professor looking to retire and the books she has her students read. Every part of this story is put there for a reason, and that, coupled with the interesting comic book aspect really makes this book shine.

When it’s said and done, Mending the Moon isn’t a book you read when you want to laugh and have an easy mental vacation. This is a book that makes you think about family and relationships and exactly how these two things work together to create our own little realities. Mending the Moon is a story told on multiple levels. It’s deep, somber, raw and incredibly emotional. This is one of those books that sticks with you long after you finish reading it, and it’ll have you analyzing the people in your life and what they mean to you. This is a story about bonds of family and friendship, and even a bit of hope in a hopeless situation. Plus, it’s light on the fantasy, which makes it appeal to a wider audience. Basically, Mending the Moon isn’t what you’d expect, and despite that (or perhaps because of it) it’s one of the most emotionally charged, unique and well written books I’ve read in a while.

 

5/5 stars

Special Needs in Strange Worlds – Jay Lake

You can find the original post here.

 

About the author

Jay Lake lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His 2012/2013 books are Kalimpura from Tor Books, and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime Books. His short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay is a past winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. Jay can be reached through his blog at jlake.com.

Cancer and Writing

My name is Jay Lake. I made my first professional sale eleven years ago, in 2001. My first small press novel was published in 2005. My first trade novel was published in 2007. In the last eleven years I’ve sold about 400 short stories, ten novels, five collections, and over a dozen anthologies edited or co-edited by me. I’ve won the John W, Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and been nominated multiple times or the World Fantasy and Hugo awards.

In other words, I’m a writer.

Four years ago, in April of 2008 on the day my first trade novel was released in mass market paperback, I became a cancer patient. I’ve spent the last forty-eight months living with stage IV colon cancer, through multiple metastases with repeated surgeries and chemotherapy. (For those interested in more on that story, the Sunday Oregonian recently interviewed me.)

Cancer is not a disability in the usual sense of that term. It’s not even really a chronic disease, like lupus or MS. Rather, it’s an acute disease which can recur on an overlapping basis until one is cured or killed. Some cancers, such as indolent forms of prostate cancer or lymphoma, can be lived with until one dies of other causes. Other cancers such as pancreatic cancer can move like wildfire, with a patient lifespan measured in weeks or months from diagnosis to death.

My cancer falls somewhere in the mid range between the two. And though I wouldn’t think to claim it as a disability in either the social or legal senses of that term, it has a lot in common with disabilities.

Cancer has affected my writing in two basic ways. First, the disruptions of treatment. Second, the shifts in my own thoughts and inner life as I respond to the distorting presence of the disease in my life.

The treatments are brutal. Surgeries are rough, but they’re fairly time constrained. I’ve had four, a major resection of my sigmoid colon, a minor resection of my left lung, and two major resections of my liver. In each case, I spent three to six days in the hospital, followed by several weeks at home in a fairly serious recovery mode. I was back to writing within a month every time. These days, when I contemplate future surgery (far more likely than not, given the odds of recurrence for my cancer cohort), I budget a month of time lost and all it good.

Chemotherapy, though, is a truly vile beast. Both courses I’ve undergone were six months of biweekly treatment. The first time, in 2010, we ran from January to June. The second time, in 2011, we ran two months in May and June, broke for surgery, then ran again from August to December. Where surgery disrupts my body and my calendar, chemotherapy disrupts my mind. My cognitive abilities are compromised, as are my emotional abilities. I know from experience that somewhere around the end of the second month of treatment I begin to lose my ability to write first drafts. By the end of the third, my ability to revise goes. Then I’m shut down until at least a month after the end of treatment.

In effect, it steals almost half a year from my writing.

This from someone who’s never been blocked for more than a weekend. Except by cancer.

In a large scale sense, cancer has caused me to significantly revise the way I schedule my writing projects. Every year I make a ‘healthy’ schedule and a ‘cancer’ schedule. I know about how long it takes me to draft a movel. I know about how long it takes me to revise one. I plan my calendar in elapsed months. Healthy years, I get twelve. Cancer years, I get six.

My productivity is cut in half, in other words.

In a small scale sense, cancer has caused me to shift my expectations for daily and weekly writing, at least in those marginal times when I’m undergoing or recovering from treatment. I’ve also begun doing things like negotiating longer deadlines into my book contracts, as after three rounds of this, I know I can’t predict when I’ll fall ill again. It’s frustrating, as I’ve always been very time-efficient and deadline-oriented. But this is life with cancer.

Secondly, that shift in my thoughts and inner life has driven some changes in the way I view the themes of my fiction, and the characters I choose to dig into. I don’t write directly about cancer, at least not in my fiction, but time and mortality and the failings of life have become larger topics for me. I have lost a certain innocence that it seems strange to claim having as late as age 43, when the disease came upon me. But even now, at 47, I have yet to lose anyone close to me to death. Not a parent, nor a sibling, nor a loved one. I may well be the first of my immediate circle to die. It would be very strange to go to my grave having never known that kind of loss.

And it weighs on me. This disease levies costs on my parents. On my teen-aged daughter. On all those who know and love me.

All of this is a form of introspection, of course. One of the worst pieces of writing advice I ever got, well before my professional career ever started, is that writing is not therapy. I’d say precisely the opposite. The pain of life is one of the strongest drivers for gut-wrenching reality in characters and plot. In my case, some of my close friends have observed that my writing has grown stronger, though at the cost of a tuition I would never have willingly paid.

One of the biggest reasons cancer is not a disability is that I may yet be cured. You can’t walk away from crippling arthritis or cystic fibrosis or spinal bifuda. But I might be able to walk away from cancer. I have times, right now is one of them, where I have all my pre-cancer health and energy back. Waiting for the next tumor to arrive, surely as trees in the forest wait for lightning.  But this is ultimately a kill-or-cure disease, at least my form of it.

For now, I walk free and write freely. My next checkup is in August. I could lose another year of my life to surgery and chemotherapy, another six months of my writing. Or I could continue to journey under the open skies.

This changes me, and it will change me again and again before it claims me.

—–

Jay Lake can be found on Twitter and his webpage. He has written a ton of books. If you want more details on any of his projects, I recommend his website, or hisgoodreads page.