S.K. Nicholls's Blog, page 26

Writing on the Edge of Insanity

In the Western world, there has always been some hopeful connection between genius and mental illness, between creativity and insanity.

Famous Quotes:

���I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.���

�����Edgar Allan Poe

���Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence��� whether much that is glorious��� whether all that is profound��� does not spring from disease of thought��� from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.���

�����Edgar Allan Poe

���There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.���

�����Oscar Levant

���THE EDGE, there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.���

�����Hunter S. Thompson

���The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.���–Albert Einstein

The truth is���no studies prove any correlation between creativity and mental illness. In fact, to the contrary, psychosis and poor mental health seriously compromise the ability to function.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-r-keith-sawyer/creativity-and-mental-ill_b_2059806.html

However, the medications used to treat mental illness can also seriously compromise the ability to function.

I have not been totally satisfied with my writing since Red Clay and Roses in 2012. Lately, since I started on a new medication in 2013, my writing seems stilted, choppy, not nearly as fluid as it once was and I���m not able to readily pull up words that once came easily to me.

To enhance my writing capabilities and overcome some of the hindrances of my bipolar meds, my psychiatrist and I are undertaking a huge joint project.

I���ve kept no secrets about my bipolar disorder. I���ve been in treatment since the age of nineteen, and unlike most, have always been compliant. There were times in my life when my psychiatrist worked with me to reduce side effects of meds���to get through my five chemistry classes in school, to carry my three children, and so on. It has been a very long time since I have been off meds.

Altered thought processes can be a blessing or a curse.

When my thought processes are mildly altered, my creativity is greatly enhanced.

But that is a fine line to walk.

I have been stable for the most part. I am grateful. I have had some breakthrough episodes where the meds became ineffective and had to be changed.

To understand what goes on with the bipolar brain, you have to understand the role of norepinephrine and how the meds work.

Norepinephrine�� is a catecholamine with multiple roles including as a hormone and a neurotransmitter.

As a stress hormone, norepinephrine affects parts of the brain where attention and responding actions are controlled.

Along with epinephrine, norepinephrine also underlies the fight-or-flight response, directly increasing heart rate, triggering the release of glucose from energy stores, and increasing blood flow to skeletal muscle. Norepinephrine can also suppress neuroinflammation when released diffusely in the brain from the locus ceruleus.

In the bipolar person, the norepinephrine floods and causes the person to be in a constant state of fight-or-flight. That���s a hard way to live. Moods swing from rage to withdrawal.

Mood stabilizers, like Latuda and Zyprexa, don���t stop norepinephrine from being produced, but block the reuptake of it in the brain.

Instead of a constant flood of this neurotransmitter, there is a more balanced stream.

So what���s the problem with the meds?

Remember when I said attention and responding actions were affected?

While in the sick person, slowing the attention down can prevent scattered thought process, delusions, and paranoia���it also slows down the ability to think, to call things up from memory.�� It helps to keep thought processes connected, but can hinder creativity and cause sedation. Everything slows, including response time, so thinking can become more difficult. Reading and writing are affected. Finding the right words for expression of ideas can be inhibited. Imagination is severely stifled on psychotropic medications.

Anything that slows the brain also slows metabolism. People gain weight on these drugs.

There is also a very narrow window that allows most lucid thinking without any of these side effects.

That���s what my psychiatrist and I are trying to do. He���s willing to work with me to find that window.

It is a tedious process for the physician to titrate these drugs and can only be done with those patients who have very good insight and intuition, because it is done based on subjective responses.

Our emotions and behaviors have to be monitored by those close to us.

It���s a high wire act that involves removing the balancing pole and learning to walk the wire with less assistance. The consequences can be devastating, even life-threatening.

I’m going on a pharmaceutical drug holiday!

So, if I start acting really weird(er), let me know.

This physician has followed me since 2002. It has taken more than a dozen years to build up the sort of mutual trust to be able to proceed with this experiment.

I’m both excited and scared.

 

Filed under: Healthy Lifestyle, Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: altered thought processes, balancing act, bipolar disorder, creativity, edge of insanity, medication adjustment, mental health, mental illness, pharmaceutical drug holiday, psychosis

Searching for Angels

sknicholls:

Luanne Castle Has a new poetry book available!!!

Originally posted on Writer Site:

Woohoo! My book is available. (Where���s that champagne bottle again? Empty?)

Since��Doll God is now up on Amazon here, I thought I would tell you a little more about the collection. Here is the full description:

Luanne Castle���s debut poetry collection,��Doll God,��studies traces of the spirit world in human-made and natural objects���a Japanese doll, a Palo Verde tree, a hummingbird. Her exploration leads the reader between the twin poles of nature and creations of the imagination in dolls, myth, and art.

From the first poem, which reveals the child���s wish to be godlike, to the final poem, an elegy for female childhood, this collection echoes with the voices of the many in the one: a walking doll, a murderer, Snow White. Marriage, divorce, motherhood, and family losses set many of the poems in motion. The reader is transported from the lakes of Michigan to the Pacific���

View original 570 more words

Filed under: Uncategorized

On Selma: A Perspective

sknicholls:

Frank has a good review of the movie, “Selma”. See the movie and Read my book, “Red Clay and Roses”!

Originally posted on A Frank Angle:

Selma: The movie

Setting: Selma, Alabama, early 1965 during the Civil Rights era

Me: At the time, a 12-year old living in rural Ohio, and oblivious to the actual meaning of the movement, but aware of events at a 12-year-old level

The movie trailer

From the opening scene, Selma is a historical, powerful, suspenseful drama that took me through many emotions ��� shock, sad, joy, shame, pride, surprise, awe, and probably others. Although I knew elements of the story and how it ends, the film was absorbing and suspenseful. Although it appeared to creep through time, the film moved at a reasonable pace and kept me engaged.

The film centers on important names that I already know: Martin Luther King, Andrew Young, Coretta Scott King, John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy, Malcolm X, Lyndon Johnson, and George Wallace ��� and some important ones that I didn���t know. I don���t know what���

View original 193 more words

Filed under: Uncategorized

The Wonders of Youth and New Technologies

Victo Delore, a female physician, wrote a humorous post today offering advice to female physicians in how to achieve a fresh look with an eighteen hour rotation. Any profession of women could relate because men can literally shit, shower and shave and be prepared to meet the world.

Not true for women. There are differences in how we are perceived in the professional world.

Take a look at ���Keeping Up Appearances��� and see what we mean.

She made me think about my own experiences as both a nurse and a patient.

Many times I would have male nursing assistants with me and my patients constantly referred to them as the doctor. Often, asking for their opinions after I had given them mine. It was awkward.

Then came my day.

I had to have major surgery a few years ago. My female physician referred me to a female surgeon.

I was good with that.

Then I met her.

I was sitting in her office when in bopped this petite girl with long blonde hair who looked like she wasn���t a day over eighteen years. I held out my arm certain that she was about to take my blood pressure. Right? Isn���t that what the assistant always does first?

It must have been the look on my face.

She says, ���Hi, I���m Jessica Vaught, M.D. I understand you are interested in the da Vinci robotics surgery. Before we get started, I���ve logged over thirty-six hundred hours on the da Vinci simulator, and performed dozens of surgeries.���

Although she was obviously trying to avail my fears, that last line conjured images of this sweet girl playing video games, maneuvering joy sticks around, and shouting, ���Got that little sucker,��� in an operating room theater. This was all extremely new then, and dozens just didn���t seem like enough.

When I think of ageism, I think of older people not getting jobs or being let go because of their age.

Here, I was just as guilty of ageism.

This is the real world. This is the magic of simulator training. She totally rocked.

I went home the same day and threw a party for thirty guests four days later. Never felt one minute of pain. No complications. Four tiny little scars that have faded nearly away.

The wonders of modern medicine, and youth.

Have you ever doubted a professional based on appearances?

Filed under: Healthy Lifestyle Tagged: ageism, da Vinci robotics, Keeping Up Appearances, professionalism, reverse ageism, technology, youth

Birth of a Book Nerd

There was a time in my life when I tried to be a “normal” kid. This wasn’t an easy thing to do considering my father had three wives in four years, and none of them would have won “Mother-of-the-Year”.

Just before my sisters and I went into foster care, I signed up with the city to be a cheerleader for the pony league football team. I was eleven years old and had just started into the sixth grade. I was the only one without saddle oxfords. Already, I was different.

Our team, The Moose Club team, did very well and we eventually got to the State Championship. Yay! Go Moose. The whole community of my small town, LaGrange, GA, got behind us. There were signs everywhere cheering us on.

 

Then came the big day. We were up against Savannah, a school team. An enormous crowd showed up at the city stadium to watch the game and offer their support. The Savannah buses pulled up and a marching band came off first playing triumphant music followed by a team of boys in black and gold that made our team in blue and white look like midgets.

We knew right away that we were NOT going to be victorious.

To make matters worse for me, a cheerleader on my own team slapped me in the chest with her pom-pom, shattering my beautiful white mum corsage. All of the petals scattered and fell to the ground.  There wasn’t anything but a red, white and blue ribbon to save.

When we went over to do our H.E.L.L.O. cheer, this same cheerleader slapped me in the face with her pom-poms in the middle of our cheer. I retaliated by smacking her back across the chest, likewise destroying her flower.

When we got back to our side, the cheerleading coach benched both of us for the rest of the game…which we lost. Bad.

The following school day, my sisters and I were seated on the school steps awaiting our step-mother to pick us up. The team quarterback, Jeff McHugh, was teasing me in front of a large group of boys and spit a massive loogie into the back of my hair. Again, I retaliated by jumping up and kicking him hard in the crotch. That got us both sent to the Principal’s office.

My dad showed up to defend me. I was really proud of that. But I didn’t score any points with the guys.

After a summer of riding bikes around the neighborhood and falling “in love” with a boy down the street, I started to the all-girls junior high school. I was done with competitive sports. While my sisters and friends practiced band, drill team, tumbling, and so on…I was seated in the back of the library reading books.

I would lose myself in the stories and drift off to faraway places and meet interesting people. It was my escape from reality.

The library had a set of National Geographics that covered the entire back wall. A lady had donated it to the school and it had every copy from 1915 to 1972. I traveled all over the world through those magazines and was certain, with all of the Jacques Cousteau articles; I would someday be an oceanic photographer.

That never came to pass, but I had found refuge in those magazines and forevermore reading was my favorite pastime. I was no longer interested in competitive sports or being popular, just give me a book.

During foster care, traveling through four schools in three years in four different towns, I always had my stories to keep me company. My familiars. My love for reading and writing grew out of those days spent in the library.

Thus, a book nerd was born!

My reading and writing skills were well developed by high school and I received much encouragement, from dear teachers and fellow students, to pursue those talents.

Are you a book nerd?

How did you develop your interest in reading and writing?

Have competitive sports ever been your thing?

Were you a popular kid in school?

Filed under: Book Reviews and Books, The Grandmother Journal, Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: beginning, book love, book nerd, cheerleading, childhood experience, National Geographics, non-competetive, reading, writing

Help a fellow author

sknicholls:

Author support needed. Please like or comment on original post. Thanks.

Originally posted on Poetry by Pamela:

Savannah Grace, author of the Sihpromatum series, has written two books so far. They are travel memoirs from the perspective of a teenage girl.

First of all, if you haven’t read them, please do. They are great books. And she is a lovely person too.

Second, we need your help. You may have heard that Mark Zuckerberg announced a book club. It is concentrating on learning about other cultures. He has also asked for suggestions. I have suggested Savannah’s books. Please either like my comment here. Or add your own comment in the thread. Let’s call attention to an indie author who has written some great books.

Third, reblog this and spread the word.

THANK YOU!!!

View original

Filed under: Uncategorized

Writing to Make Readers Think Deeply

I have almost finished the edits on Naked Alliances and I still can’t say that I am totally satisfied with it. It’s entertaining, but there seems to be something I enjoy about writing that it is missing.

I like to make readers think deeply, to consider, contemplating an understanding of some serious subjects.

Red Clay and Roses does that.

Naked Alliances has a few moments of prose that might have someone pondering, but it is generally quite shallow. It lacks the depth of the solid reads that I most enjoy.

I have heard readers should never compare their writing to others, but I feel it is necessary to learn and to be inspired.

Anne Rice is one of my most favorite authors. Most people think of her in association to her legendary vampires, but she has written so much more.

She has erotica written under Anne Rampling, The Sleeping Beauty Quartet is a series of four novels written by American author Anne Rice under the pseudonym of A. N. Roquelaure, her Seraphim Series, the Christ the Lord books, The Wolf Gift Chronicles, The Vampire Chronicles, and The Mayfair Legacy trilogy. I’ve probably left something out, but needless to say, she is a prolific author with decades of terrific writing under her belt.

She also writes full-length novels on some of her ancillary characters, like Pandora, Merrick, Armand and writes on other subjects that interest her like Egyptian lore, Servant of the Bones and others.

With all of her writing, regardless of genre, Anne has an intuitive writing style that makes us think.

I believe many readers like to be challenged in that way with fiction.

One of my most favorite scenes in one of Anne’s books comes, not from vampire legend, but a man named Ashler in her Mayfair Legacy.

He’s thousands of years old and extremely wealthy. She has him standing in his penthouse suite in Rockefeller Center surrounded by his doll collection. This eccentric modern man is a descendant of Picts and has lived in some extreme conditions in medieval times.

Here, in his contemporary form, he is thinking about capitalism, corporate America, wealth, prosperity and the Roman Catholic Church’s near poverty by comparison as he gazes out at the snow falling to cover the rooftop of St. Patrick’s Cathedral below.

There is something deeply metaphorical about that sort of writing. It takes us beyond the scene and inside ourselves.

She’s an inspiration.

It’s magical.

I want to write like that.

Do you have a particular author that you thoroughly enjoy reading? Why?

 What intrigues you about their style?

Do you have an author who is an inspiration to your writing?   

Filed under: Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: Anne Rice, cross-genre writing, deeper thought, fiction, influential, inspiration, reading, superficial writing, thinking, writing

To Kiss a Ghost by Becky M. Pourchot

After reading the first book, Food for a Hungry Ghost,  I was intrigued by Gala’s gift and trying to decide if it was truly a gift or a curse. The second book delves deeper into the origin of her abilities and her brother’s talents, as well.

After meeting an awkward, clumsy ghost in a local Inn, and falling for another ghost she spots in her acupuncturist’s clinic, Gala learns her “assignment” is much more important than simply entertaining the local ghost hunting tourists.

This book was slower in pace than the first book, but a lot deeper, and a little longer. The ending surprised me in a good way and I learned her ability truly was a gift.

This is a well-written book that approaches spirituality in a secular manner. I enjoyed it and would recommend it for any pre-teen, teen or adult who likes a good modern ghost story without the bloody terror of horror.

5 of 5 Stars

To Kiss a Ghost (The Hungry Ghost Series Book 2)

How Florida Boat Scammers Work

I kept telling myself it would not be right to posts about this, but I can’t help myself. We’ve been scammed.

The RS posted our 1984 36 ft. cabin cruiser Sea Ray for sale on Craig’s list. We had several inquiries and a few who wanted to pay cash. The RS took the first cash offer. The original price was $11,500.

After some haggling, he came down to $9500. The buyer insisted on a marine survey, which is customary. The surveyor told the buyer that we had a lien on the boat. The RS planned to pay off the lien with the proceeds, which is customary. The RS also dropped the price on the boat by another $300. for things the surveyor found that needed fixing.

The buyer, Steve Shelton, gave the RS $1086.86 down payment to hold the boat. He wanted a notary present when the paperwork was signed. The boat was located nearly four hours from our home in Orlando, south in Lee County in Ft. Myers at the RS’s friend’s house, Jeff. Jeff’s wife wanted the boat gone ASAP. The RS drove back down there, where the buyer and the notary and the RS signed a bill of sale.

The RS had told the man he needed a money order made out to the bank or a cashier’s check, but there was a lot of commotion and gyrations. The man had his wife, daughter, son-in-law and a kid with him. They were all complaining and accusing my husband of being dishonest for not telling them about the lien. That’s why my husband agreed to take the personal check.

The buyer wanted to pay the RS the balance with a personal check, which he gave the RS. That was on a Saturday and the guy wanted to take the boat Sunday morning.

When he got home, I turned him around and told him, no…he needed a money order or a cashier’s check or they would have to wait until they got one to take the boat. The daughter had wanted to take the boat Saturday night and wire the money on Monday morning to our bank.

The RS drove back down there in the middle of the night, four more hours, in order to be there when they got there Sunday morning.

Upon arriving, he saw the batteries were dead, drained by a malfunctioning bilge pump. The boat would not be safe to operate without one, so Jeff and the RS set about correcting the problems: recharging the batteries and replacing the bilge pump. The RS was working on forty-eight hours with no sleep and 1600 miles under his belt.

When the man arrived with his son-in-law, wife, daughter and now two kids, the daughter was screaming that the RS had been dishonest again, and not told them about the problem with the boat. The RS explained that he was there to fix the problems and that he needed a money order or cashier’s check before they took the boat. On the Bill of Sale, the RS stipulated that a balance was owed of $8113.18 to be made payable to our bank and our account.

The daughter was upset because her father and his wife had been living with her and she was supposed to get two more foster children the next day and her father needed to be out of her house and onto the boat which he planned to live aboard. She and the man’s wife went to purchase money orders which they said they bought a Walmart and mailed to our bank. They showed the RS the receipt stubs but did not give him copies.

By five o’clock, the boat was repaired and the two men rode away from the dock with the boat toward Sarasota. The two women and two children left in a car.

Three weeks later, our bank still hasn’t received the money/money orders.

The RS sent him an email requesting copies of the money orders that were supposedly purchased at Walmart and mailed to our bank because the man won’t answer his phone. He claims he can’t hear it. They want full control of the money and refuse to share the MO numbers or copies with us. Here is a copy of the text the man sent back:

“I called the bank to make sure they were not cashed yet. I told them I needed those funds put back in my account ASAP if the loan company did not cash them yet. I also called your loan company to check on them. I got the info from your loan company to do a direct wire transfer and that is what I will do. I just need my bank to check on them and make those funds available for me to transfer. I will take care of this this week. My bank said they should know something Monday. It will be taken care of, not sure what happen. I need this paid so I can get the lien off the boat.”

Steve.

He still wouldn’t provide the requested documentation. We notified the FBI, as this a documented vessel with Homeland Security, and we could not get any local authorities to take any action. The FBI wrote back demanding that the local authorities take action or we were to notify the District Attorney. Suddenly, the Coast Guard is willing to post a note on our title and the Ft. Myers, Lee County authorities are ready to take a report, which has now been filed. We hired an attorney who saw our boat in Sarasota Bay at an anchorage where derelicts live aboard vessels. The Sarasota police weren’t able to find it.

At the attorney’s suggestion, we sent another email to Steve, the buyer:

Steve,

“I greatly appreciate you responding yesterday, January 4th, 2015, to my December 29th, 2014 email requesting copies of the money orders purchased as payment for our 1984 Sea Ray. You continue to fail to produce the requested documents. As this transaction took place on December 7th, the date you took possession of the boat, and my bank has not yet received payment; I did hire the services of an attorney. He has spoken to legal authorities and advised me to pursue a felony theft by deception case IF the $8113.18 owed is not wired to my bank, USAA, as per their instructions. The bank has indicated to me that you did inquire, but they have not received payment. You have until the end of this week, Friday, January 9th, 2015, to make full payment or this matter will be pursued through legal channels. You either return the boat, or make full payment immediately. I expect to hear from you within 24 hours regarding your intent.”

So far, we haven’t heard back.

So this is where my head has been all week.

We should know something by the end of the week.

Waiting is hell.

Filed under: Boating, Fascinating Florida Tagged: boat scam, daughter, dishonesty, FBI, felony theft by deception, Homeland Security, Lee County Sheriff, money orders, no recepits, Sarasota Police, scammers, son-in-law, Steve Shelton, two kids, wife

The Write Stuff – featuring Tim Baker

sknicholls:

Here is a personal interview with one of my favorite authors, Tim Baker. Tune in!

Originally posted on christuckerbooks:

It’s been a while since I posted one of “The Write Stuff” features, but had this one stowed away. This one has special meaning to me because this is a man I have known since I was 13 years old and have grown up admiring. He was, and is, a great friend, mentor, and a not so shabby whiffle ball player in his own rights…

I added a few fun questions in here that he and I will probably only get the funny references to, but I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did interviewing Tim for this.

Tim Baker

What is your latest release and what genre is it?

Eyewitness Blues – crime/thriller

A quick description:

Eyewitness Blues is the story of Martin Aquino. Martin’s life is circling the drain and he decides that the witness protection program is the only way to salvage it. The only…

View original 791 more words

Filed under: Uncategorized