Brain Freeze

I can write you in a stupor.
Make you confused and bruised
and lose your mind— just in these words.
Heard a bird perch, tweeting, meaning to fly
high in the sky. I wouldn’t lie.
This guy told me so.
Go look it up. It’s tough and course.
No, no, I’m just horsing around.
Loud of the sound. Nouns are used a lot.
Rotting and potted deeply in your mind.
Rewind the blind spots. There’s a lot.
I’m not gonna lie. They’re spying on you,
doing weird things, bringing havoc
to all who has waisted their precious thoughts.
Brought you to a place, laced
with poison stew. That YOU drink,
thinking it was the best choice
you can make.
Take it or leave it.
Grieve it in the summertime.
Chime the church bells at 2 o’ clock.
Rock and sway any old way.
Today I made it. It didn’t fade
or parade like it usually does.
Must be the weather.
Together it’s all erased
just in case you don’t want 
to think about it anymore.

Writing is:

Fun, challenging, easy, hard, rewarding, long, short, dark, light, strong, soft, subtle, extreme, relaxing, helpful, time-consuming, sweet, meaningful, thoughtful, informative, enlightening, strange, exciting, scary, silly, happy, sad, mystical, magical, romantic, interesting, tricky, smart, painful, lovely, beautiful, crafty, creative, confusing, cunning, clever, serious, breathtaking, spellbinding, amazing, delightful, fantastic, risky, educational, historical, peaceful, special, inspirational, hopeful, heart-warming, ground-breaking, truthful, fictional, crazy, hypnotic, therapeutic, healthy, beneficial, needed.

If you’d like to add more, feel free to do so. Happy Writing Everyone!

Pets and Mental Illness and Depression

Having a pet, especially if you have a mental illness and/or depression, helps greatly. It gives you someone to take care of. They are dependent on you and will love you in return.

I adore my cat and my dog, especially my cat. He always knows how to support me when I’m feeling sad. I’ll lay down on the bed and he’ll come up to cuddle with me, purring in my ear. A lot of times, I’ll forget what I’m thinking about and concentrate on massaging him and making him feel good. Or when it lays by me and the simple fact that he’s there to keep me company, is a wonderful thing.

But it doesn’t have to be a dog or a cat, it can be anything you like most like a hamster or lizard, etc. Having a pet takes your mind off of the issues you may be dealing with. There are so many great animals that you can rescue at the pound, just waiting for your love and attention. It’s an awesome feeling owning a pet. And for those of you that struggle with your mind, a pet can change that for you.

If it’s possible for you to own a pet too, I strongly suggest you do so. Your life will change for the better!

The Beauty of Writing

The beauty of writing is that you can write anything anywhere at any time. You can make time stop or speed up, go into the future 300 years or go back 1,000 more. You can write unicorns fighting aliens in space and have them all wearing capes. You can write someone’s death and bring them back to life, or reincarnation from a dog to a cat to a human.

Point is, you can do anything your heart desires. Unless you are working on a deadline and need to hand it in to your editor, there’s no time limit either. You might read some people finishing a novel in 3 months and it’s already taken you a year and you’re still not done. That’s okay! Just as long as you’re not writing that one novel your whole entire life and never get it finished.

Other aspects with writing, you can write non-fiction, or business-related articles. Or be a sports journalist. Or a poet! I love poets! Even though, sadly many of them don’t make anything for it.

The thing is when you become a writer, the whole world is yours, whatever you make of it. You’re your own boss too (until you try to sell it, but that’s a whole different matter.) But with that, even though you can write anything, it can be super difficult to come up with that idea. There are many things you can do to help you along the way. If you haven’t done so, I would suggest joining a writing group or something in your local community. It always helps to bounce ideas off one another. Also if you join a writing group or forum online, there usually is a forum of writing prompts to help get the juices flowing. Or another thing you can do is sign up for a writing course.

There are a lot of pitfalls in the writing business, especially with trying to publish something. If you’ve tried your hardest to get your one novel published and it’s just NOT happening, it may be time to move on and write something else. Don’t ever give up! Maybe one day that one novel you wrote a long long time ago gets published anyway. It could happen. I really don’t think you should give up on any novel completely. It just might not be the right time for it.

The trick is to keep writing. Unless of course you’re stuck. Then the best thing to do is read! And yes, it all pertains to writing.

Writing is something that you can completely create on your own. It can be tough to do, but if you continue to write, you will always improve no matter what you decide to write.

Spontaneous Writing: A writing exercise

If you’re looking for a change in your writing, or you’re stuck, learn to spontaneously write something. Anything. Whatever comes to mind. It doesn’t have to be good or bad or anything. It’s really easy. Let yourself unwind in front of the computer screen, or on paper. I always love to write on actual paper. Not online. Sometimes you need a break from that.

Okay, back to spontaneous writing. I’ll give you some examples of it. So I’m going to let my mind wander, to the window or the wall. A white wall of nothingness until it becomes something. Red. Green. Leaves in the fall. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I’m writing it and it feels pretty good just to be writing.

These are some of the exercises I do to get something going on. Even if your mind switches and all you write are mmmmmmmmms. Then you stare at the screen, and think of humming. Then you hum a song. It gets stuck in your head. No, no. I’m just thinking out loud, or in other words, spontaneously because this post is going to be all over the place. Because this is how my mind works. Everyone is different so, you might find yourself writing a scene with a young girl sitting at the park, wearing her golden hair down. Curls blowing in the wind. Someone rides by with their bike. Billy from down the street. This girl doesn’t want to see Billy anymore. WHAT? That just came out of nowhere. I could go on and on about Billy and this girl because I was on a roll there until I stopped myself. You get the point.

You can stop and start and stop and start. Reread things. It’s best if you can maybe fill a page of spontaneous writing. You might be super surprised to find out it isn’t all that bad. Even if that means clearing your mind from the WIP you’re working on now. If you write for a while, things will come out. It doesn’t have to make sense. 

You can try to make sense of it later when you reread and reflect on what you said. Because it was something your mind was saying to you at the time.

Silver flakes down the great lakes. Spontaneous there. Colors letters, Y R Z. What do they mean? It could be someone’s initials or the latest phone. Who knows? You’re a writer and you are creative and you’ll think of something.

If you find yourself stopping. Press the keyboard anything. SSSSSSSSeriously. Haha. It doesn’t always work, but it works for me most of the time. That is why I’m bringing it up to you too. This could help you get those words flowing again. Reading of course is another wonderful way of recharging the mind. Always remember that. But there are also other ways, writing exercises that will also help.

I hope you got the idea on how to write spontaneously. Yarn. A cat. A hat. Pearls on someone’s neck. She’s lonely. Who? Jack’s girl. That lady that works at the grocery store is her mother. WHAT? Seriously, once you start writing, it will come naturally. It doesn’t have to be grammarally correct. Get the hint there? No. Certainly not.

Anyway, I’m rambling because I myself needed to do this exercise because I haven’t written anything in a good while. I haven’t updated my blog in 2 months! I’m slackin’. So this is my way of saying, thank you for tuning in to my program. Haha. I truly hope this helps you!

Happy Birthday to FIX ME!!!

Amazon 

Mental Illness and Writing: Helmet Head

I’m writing with my cat in my lap. He just refuses to leave. He’s warm and toasty and I’m able to type so it isn’t so bad. I wanted to talk a little bit more about mental illness and writing. Everyone struggles to some degree. People with mental illness and depression struggle even more.

Concentration. This can be a big problem for me. It’s sometimes super hard to concentrate on what I’m doing. Like I’m even thinking of something else right now. The cat that’s in my lap. Wondering where this is really going. I guess the best way I can explain it is writing it out.

Mental illness and depression can be described like many things. But today I’m going to explain it like this:

Mental illness is like always wearing a helmet, and never being able to take it off. Sometimes the helmet gets so heavy, it’s hard to even hold my head up. Or the helmet gets tight, squeezes my thoughts into the center, causes stabbing headaches.

Sometimes the helmet exhausts fumes in my mind and body. It comes out of nowhere and I’m instantly sick with worry, anxiety and feeling like I’m going to throw up. Like the fumes from the helmet are making me sick inside.

Sometimes the helmet gets lighter and feels like it’s barely even there. In those moments, it isn’t so bad. But I believe the helmet is there to protect me too. Like sometimes the negative thoughts help to prepare me for what could come. “Could” being the key word here. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself with negative thoughts either. This sometimes happens too.

I realize more and more that this helmet is cemented to my skull. I will always have it.

But with writing, my “helmet” opens up these little air vents, letting my mind breathe for a while as I write something down. Just let it go and go, till things feel better. And the helmet closes up and I move through my day, accepting the fact I will always be wearing it.

With a mental illness, there’s ways to cope. But through the years I’ve learned, writing, by far, has been the best way to relieve my mind. Taking medication and maintaining a stable environment is first and foremost. But during those times, there will still be ups and downs. I hate when someone says, “control your emotions.” You really can’t. You can only try to turn the volume down on it. But it’s still there. You can’t delete your emotions either.

But you can maintain them. Being really emotional through writing helps too. Helps build stronger characters, and so building strength in you, your voice. Everything you put into writing, it’s all a part of you. But only just a piece of you. And there’s millions and millions of pieces to you, maybe billions or trillions, etc.

The point is, if you wear a similar type of helmet, like I do, writing can help with that. Walking, watching TV, visiting friends, petting your cat (like me) or dog, or hamster or whatever. Keeping an active and healthy lifestyle. Creating good habits too! All this, writing can do for you. I hope this helps you! Thank you for listening.