Writing your own truth can be hard, but boy is it worth it. THE PUNCTUATION BETWEEN was an exploration of my own identity in more ways than one, but for right now, I’m going to focus solely on writing what mental illnesses look like for me. I knew it would be an experience, but I didn’t quite realize how therapeutic it could be. For those unfamiliar with the THE PUNCTUATION BETWEEN, main character Lex is a non-binary seventeen year old who struggles with three demons who seek to torment Lex’s day to day life for their own amusement. Each of these three demons represents a facet of their mental illnesses that they struggle against: anxiety, depression, and dysphoria. While Lex and I experience depression and dysphoria at different levels, I poured as much of my experience with anxiety into the story as I could. It was important to me to tell my truth as far as what anxiety feels like to me. Before I go on, please know that anxiety manifests differently for everyone. My experience with anxiety, as well as Lex’s experience with anxiety, is by no means everyone’s reality. Part of my intention in this story was to show readers who don’t have anxiety, depression, or dysphoria what it can look like. I also hope that reading this can help give a language to those who are suffering, but don’t know the words to refer to them by. The demon that represents anxiety for Lex is Brenda, a cockroach-esque monstrosity that lives on their back. Brenda whispers in Lex’s ear, painting images of worst-case-scenarios. To induce the physical symptoms of anxiety, Brenda has sharp pincers and barbed legs that she uses to spark pain wherever she sees fit. Brenda, along with the other demons, are invisible to everyone else, just as anxiety can be invisible to anyone outside of the sufferer. Giving my anxiety a voice through Brenda was a unique experience. It became an exercise in recognizing what are reasonable worries, and what worries are unrealistic and inspired by my anxiety. During THE PUNCTUATION BETWEEN, Lex is in the throes of anxiety at its peak, driven by life-changing moments and confessions that would be stressful for anyone. While I’ve learned to manage my anxiety, I was where Lex is not too long ago. This story felt like a letter to a younger me who was still figuring everything out; it was a promise that things would sort themselves out, even when all seemed overwhelmingly hopeless. To anyone who suffers from disorders like anxiety, depression, and dysphoria, I encourage you to try and write about it. You don’t need to share it with anyone. It doesn’t need to be good, or publishable. Whether you’re in the early stages, right in the heart of it, or coming out of the other side with a treatment plan, write your reality. Explore it. Don’t be afraid of it. It’s an incredible kind of therapy. If you or someone you love is struggling with mental illness, asking for help is the first step. Please see below for a list of resources to reach out to. Mental illness isn't something to be romanticized. It's a serious issue surrounded with tremendous stigma. You don't have to wait until you're in crisis to reach out--no problem is too big or too small. It's time to push conversations and raise the voices of those who struggle from these 'invisible' illnesses so that everyone can get the help they need and deserve. The Trevor Project The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexua, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people ages 13-24. 24/7 Hotline: 1-866-488-7386 Website: thetrevorproject.org National Suicide Prevention Lifeline The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a national network of local crisis centers that provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 24/7 Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 Website: suicidepreventionlifeline.org Crisis Text Line Crisis Text Line is free, 24/7 support for thsoe in crisis. Text 741741 from anywhere in the US to text with a trained Crisis Counselor. Crisis Text Line trains volunteers to support people in crisis. Website: crisistextline.org If you know of any other great resources, or want to talk about your own experiences with mental illness, leave a comment below!
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There’s going to be a few posts about this highlighting my experiences writing this new manuscript, and it was hard to decide which one I should focus on for my first entry. As I clicked the ‘title’ box, my fingers answered the question for me. DUODECIM is currently out on submission. I’m fortunate enough to have multiple agents reading my full manuscript, and if any of you are reading this, I’m waiting patiently, (and eagerly), and have trained myself to only refresh my email a few times a day. DUODECIM wasn’t an easy project, but not because I didn’t love the story. It was my first real work. I didn’t have a community of writers encouraging me and teaching me. I was in the throes of navigating a whole new world and I was discovering the tools to do it myself. It wasn’t until the last year of drafting that I joined the twitter writing community and made friends who opened up a world of opportunity to me. The revising of DUODECIM was harder than drafting, but the process went quicker. I went through so many drafts and I didn’t have a strategy. I changed a plot point in the beginning, started to implement it throughout, and then I would come to the end and realize there was an even better way of doing it. It took a big wake-up call from my friend Kat—who all of you should follow because she’s going to be huge one day, just you wait—who broke down all of the problems in my draft with the kind of honesty that hurts the same way antiseptic burns in a fresh cut. I learned what many of my bad writing habits were. I learned how to fix them. She poured my inbox with articles about craft, and was always there to hear me out when I needed to talk through a tricky plot problem. It took seven years to get DUODECIM to where it is, but I learned so much. This blog post isn’t about DUODECIM. Words cannot express how grateful I am for every one of those seven years, and every struggle I pushed through. In reflection, they changed who I am as a writer. That book is my love and my child, and without it, I couldn’t have learned my craft well enough to have written THE PUNCTUATION BETWEEN. I went in with new tools, and a new understanding of drafting. I caught myself making the mistakes it took me ages to undo before I made them. I went in with an outline that kept me on track while still allowing me to let my characters tell their story. I changed up my tense and point of view to challenge myself, and found a new side to my writing style I didn’t know existed. THE PUNCTUATION BETWEEN was an exercise in confidence and affirmation. Every time I put words on the page and they came easier than I ever imagined, I felt driven to push more out. With each finished chapter, seeing the story grow, I was inspired to dive into the next one. It was a vicious cycle, sans actually being vicious. I think writers don’t always take the time to celebrate these little landmarks. After all, writing is an art, and art is never really finished. It’s in our nature to criticize ourselves, and point out places where we could have done more. This post is an active step against that bad habit. I wrote my first draft of THE PUNCTUATION BETWEEN in three months. Yes, I still have revising to do, and it won’t be ready for querying tomorrow, but it still feels like a landmark to me. I pushed myself to do something that I never thought I would be able to, and finishing this draft feels like a victory. Of course, this story was landmark for me in a few ways, and there will be other posts for that in the coming days, but for now I simply want to say that I’m overwhelmingly proud of myself. Reader, for wherever you are in your writing lives, or even your every day lives, take a moment to be proud of yourself. Whether it be for putting words on a page, going to work, making an important call. Be proud of yourself, because it makes a world of difference. Now onto the next adventure: revising. |
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