Write Your Way Out Of Depression: Practical Self-Therapy For Creative Writers

Writer's Craft #21

by Rayne Hall, Alexander Draghici

Use your writing talent and your skill with words heal yourself. Author Rayne Hall and psychologist Alexander Draghici show fourteen practical strategies for self-therapy. Do you feel like you're trapped in a dark hole of morass, sinking deeper and deeper, the mud rising to your hips, your chest, your throat? Is despair smothering you like a heavy blanket? Is your own life moving past you like a train, and you are forced to watch and cannot board? Has crippling lethargy wrapped its tentacles around you so tightly that you cannot move, sucking from you all energy and the will to live? If you want to get better, to feel alive again, if you want to step out of this darkness and take control of your recovery, this book can help.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Psychology, Crafts, Ebooks, Mental Health

94 pages, Paperback

Published November 9, 2016

About the author

Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction, some of it quirky, most of it dark. She is the author of over sixty books in different genres and under different pen names, published by twelve publishers in six countries, translated into several languages. Her short stories have been published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies.

After living in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, she has settled in a small Victorian seaside town in southern England. Rayne holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Over three decades, she has worked in the publishing industry as a trainee, investigative journalist, feature writer, magazine editor, production editor, page designer, concept editor for non-fiction book series, anthology editor, editorial consultant and more. Outside publishing, she worked as a museum guide, apple
picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, trade fair hostess, translator and belly dancer.

Currently, Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction and tries to regain the rights to her out-of-print books so she can republish them as e-books.

Her books on the writing craft (Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, The Word-Loss Diet, Writing Dark Stories, Writing About Villains, Writing Short Stories to Promote Your Novel, Writing About Magic, Twitter for Writers) are bestsellers.


Rayne Hall is the editor of the Ten Tales anthologies:
"Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires"
"Scared: Ten Tales of Horror"
"Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts"
"Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates"
"Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft"
"Spells: Ten Tales of Magic"
"Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies"
"Seers: Ten Tales of Clairvoyance"
"Dragon: Ten Tales of Fiery Beasts"
"Cogwheels: Ten Tales of Steampunk"
with more titles coming soon.


The stories in her Six Scary Tales series and the Thirty Scary Tales collection are subtle horror: suspenseful, creepy atmospheric, unsettling. Although they contain little violence and gore, they may not be suitable for young readers. Many of these stories have been previously published in other books or magazines.

British English: All Rayne Hall's books use British words, spellings, grammar and punctuation. If you're allergic to British English, avoid them. ;-)

Mailing list:
http://eepurl.com/boqJzD

Website: http://sites.google.com/site/raynehal...

YouTube "Ten Random Facts about Rayne Hall" (2 minute video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXR4T...

Contact Rayne Hall on Twitter
@RayneHall follows back writers and readers. http://twitter.com/RayneHall

Reviews

[Ali]

Several writing exercises for when you are bored or depressed.

[Phillip Stephens]

Beginning strategies to writing as therapy
At first glance, Rayne Hall's Write Your Way Out of Depression might look like one a hundred self-help books stuffing the shelves, mislabeled and misshelved in the writing section. You may, like me, feel that solutions offered by self-help books last as long as band-aids. If so, you'd be tempted to leave it on the shelf and walk away.

Don't.

Write Your Way Out of Depression builds around a series of exercises approved by licensed clinical psychologist Alexander Draghici.However, they work equally well for a writer trying to break through writer's block. Hall promises that readers who finish the exercises will have a notebook (or hard drive) filled with clips ready to be adapted into future work. The exercises deliver on her promises.

Hall doesn't spend much time on therapeutic concepts other than to stress a basic principle: you choose to interpret the facts of the world and how they affect you. For example, If you believe your depression controls your life and you can do nothing to improve your situation, that will be true. If you believe you can make small, incremental changes to improve your life, you could gradually become less depressed.

She offers each exercise as a small step toward lifting the weight of depression. Like physical exercise, she recommends repetition. If you write the exercises differently each day, with different material, you can grow your file of future characters, scene descriptions and even story lines. Exercises include painting word pictures, venting your anger (and turning the object of your anger into fictional villains), writing flash fiction, even carrying on dialogues with famous authors.

Draghici checks in at the end of every exercise to offer a more clinical perspective. He focuses readers on applying the writing exercises to their depression and helping them forge more positive lifestyle choices. Unlike many self-help authors, he manages to avoid the cliches and easy solutions that litter the landfills with their soon forgotten bestsellers. Nor does he hide behind clinical language. He remains readable and helpful.

As a reader who suffers from clinical depression (diagnosed twenty years ago), I'll admit to being skeptical when I first approached the book. Nonetheless, Hall treats the subject with the respect it deserves and every exercise in her book is based on sound therapeutic strategies. I've used some of these exercises in other contexts successfully and others worked for friends or colleagues in different contexts. Most important, Hall recommends, as would I, that readers who find they continue to struggle with depression seek medical help.

Phillip T. Stephens is the author of Cigerets, Guns & Beer, Raising Hell and the new release Seeing Jesus. You can follow him @stephens_pt.

[Paul Fleming]

Rayne Hall does it again.

Clear and concise, with sections from her own personal journey in each chapter, I was enthralled enough to read this title through in two bursts (would have been one if a 6 year old hadn't interrupted).

Loved some of the exercises (together with the professional commentary explaining the scientific reasoning behind them) as they have allowed me the chance to begin my own journey upward, notch by notch.

So many thanks Rayne. I will most definitely be revisiting sections of this title and putting your tried and tested suggestions to good use.

[Sieglinde]

This short book is co-authored by Hall and a clinical psychologist who uses cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in his work. It provides some excellent suggestions and tips, an as a former academic psychologist I can see how they could be of tremendous benefit. Indeed, many of the suggestions could work well also as ways to develop your skill and repertoire as a fiction writer.

[Melissa Montana]

This a wonderful book of creative writing exercises to cope with depression. It is easy to read and the exercises are fun. It helped me out of a dark place. I highly recommend it.

[Melissa]

Rayne Hall is an author that has long suffered through Depression and battled this invisible mental illness, these are stragities she has come up with on her own and with various therapists that she has worked with over the years to help her. As a dark horror novelist she has found some of these techniques work better for her than others, and wanted to share those that have worked even a little bit for other creative writers because she has discovered that among the writing community almost 9 out of 10 writers suffer some form of depression and she wants to help. Now she and Alexander both say that therapy and medication may be needed as well as these strategies, so this not an end all be all, but a possible help guide.


Alexander Draghici is a Clinical Psychologist and a licensed Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy practitioner. His work is mainly in what in your past might still be with you bringing down into that depressive state and working through it. I really liked his take on some of the strategies


I am going to tell you how I am combining some of these since as a person I have suffered from Clinical Depression almost since I was sixteen years old.

One of her First Strategies is to daily list 20 things you are grateful for. If you can’t come up with 20 list as many as you can, and ignore the negative points your mind brings up. I tend to acknowledge these by line editing them and turn them into a positive. I have MS, have since I was 15, so I am always thankful I can still walk, though now I am in a relasp so my brain come up with lots of stuff. This is what my list may look like:

Thank you I can still walk to and from the bus today.


(but you are in pain, you are triping, you really have no balance, your are so numb.)


Thank you for my walker that holds me up and supports my weight.


Thank you I still feel in my back.


Thank you that with my walker I don’t fall on face anymore.

Each negative point give me another Gratitude point, and we go down the list like that. I cannot yet be thankful I wake up every morning, or that I am still alive, but maybe someday I will get there.

Rayne uses flash story techniques and horror stories to put you in control of your emotions, Quick scenes to help you remember how it feels to feel good about yourself and your surroundings. I have worked a little with all of these, trying to find what works best for me.


She talks about journaling, and again, sticking to just the good feelings, and ignoring the negative. My journaling usually constists of what managed to get done that day and what I need to do the next. Anyting that is floating around in my head I free write it out and it tends to help me from waking during my sleep periods and fussing over whatever is still sticking there. Nothing really negative, just clearing out the loose ends, thoughts not really finished, projects I didn’t quite get done by making plans for the next day. Though she dose mention that sometime a quick free writing a venting if something is really bothering, is okay, but don’t dwell on it, get it out, and move on.

Keeping a journal of your feelings, good and bad, and really describing how them can be very helpful both to your writing and to getting that feeling up and out of you. But again, once it is written down, don’t dell on it, let it go.

I give this book five stars and really recommend it to almost any one who is dealing with depression, long term or short term. I feel these techniques can be very useful. Alexander ever now again give a different slant on how to deal with some of these, drawing, painting, using other media to recreate these feelings. I really enjoyed this simply written book in easy to understand language. Get a copy and hopefully in the various strategies you will find something that with your therapist helps you dig your way out this deep pit that depression make you think you caught in.

[Judith Barrow]

This has been a difficult year for both me and my family and, as someone who sometimes sufferes from ‘crippling lethargy’ because of depression, I was hopeful when I was approached to read and write an honest review of Write Your Way Out Of Depression….

This is an interesting and helpful book. I wouldn’t have expected anything else from Rayne Hall; as an author and a creative writing tutor I have bought quite a few of her very helpful ‘How To’ writing books.

In Write Your Way Out Of Depression Rayne’s methods are backed by psychologist Alexander Draghici whose input is to support her theory of dealing and coping with depression through various writing strategies, and to let the reader know how these may help. The techniquues are simply described, easy to understand, approaches to taking control of those dark thoughts and moods.

The co-authors also highlight the risks of excessive brooding and self-analysis. The emphasis is on practical ways to write our way through depression…and hopefully out the other side. No guarantees, unlike so many ‘cure-all’ approaches; just down-to-earth techniques that I could follow, with the added bonus that it could also help my own writing.

The layout of the book is simple to follow; there is a chapter for each technique, which is divided into three; the what I call the exercise (rather than the technique), Rayne’s understanding and knowledge of each (as a sufferer herself of depression, they have, at various times, helped her) and, finally, Alexander’s expert opinion and advice. I found both of these last sections as interesting and perceptive as the techniques themselves. Each co-author has had their own mental issues to deal with in one way or another; as I’ve mentioned Rayne’s experiences and Alexander’s battle with anxiety attacks in his youth.

I cannot give this book higher praise than to urge anyone who is suffering from depression and feels they would like to try writing as a way to ‘step out of this darkness and take control of your recovery…’ to buy Write Your Way Out Of Depression: Practical Self-Therapy For Creative Writers I did. It worked for me. It could work for you.

[Graham Downs]

This was a difficult book to read, and is proving to be a difficult book to review as well. Mostly, because it's so intense, and sometimes reading it can be depressing in itself.

Let me explain: I do believe most artists suffer from some or other form of depression or anxiety, and writers are no different. I definitely think *I* do, although I've never been officially diagnosed. I can identify with many of the issues described in this book - which is good, because it assures me that I'm not alone. On the other hand, I obviously don't have depression nearly as bad as some of my writer colleagues from around the world, because many of the issues described in this book were so over-the-top that I had trouble believing some people have it as bad.

I DO believe it, though, and that's where the depression came in.

In Write Your Way Out of Depression, Rayne Hall confesses her own struggle with the disorder, and how she found healing by writing. And that's what this book is actually about. It's full of practical, no-nonsense advice, and tricks that you can try at home to help ease your pain... and become a better writer in the process.

The writing advice in this book is presented in a way typical of the rest of the Writer's Craft series, which I'm no stranger to, and I've always found extremely helpful. For this particular instalment, Ms Hall decided to recruit clinical psychologist Alexander Draghici. He gives credence to her words, but also, after each tip, he gives a bit of an explanation about what aspect of the disorder the advice is actually trying to address, and how and why it works. I thought that was a nice touch!

I'd recommend this book to any creative types (not just writers) who suffer, or think they might suffer from depression. You can pick and choose which advice you want to follow, based on what you have the energy for on any given day, and what you think might help for you. If you've tried everything else, try this - it might help!