When was the last time you took your demon for a walk?

Although not much writing has happened this week due to lots of different events happening I found this article on the BBC New site that has prompt my blog this week. The article talks about the links between creativity and mental illness, especially in writers. For those who want to read the full article, you will find the link at the bottom of the page, but here's a passage from it:

Writers had a higher risk of anxiety and bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, unipolar depression, and substance abuse, the Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute found.

Without scaring anyone, I totally don't find this too shocking, as when you think of how a writer works; alone with voices in their heads of characters who can be so varied in their role within a novel. When people talk to writers, they always ask about where they have drawn inspiration for the hero of the novel, but how much do interviewers ask about where the baddies have come from? Angels and demons running around their heads, creating characters for books, living in their imaginations it is easy to see where the link.

I know I'm a head writer, long before I write anything on the page, my mind will play out the scene in my head to the tiniest of detail to check whether it makes scene, which can be intense, especially when I am writing the main antagonist of my book, because he represents all my darkest fears and concerns inside of me. Hopefully it will make good writing when I finished, but I do realise that in writing him that I have to remember that he is just a fictional character. Also, I know that some of my own writing cuts close to the bone, I don't write romantic fiction where it is all flowers and champagne, I try to write about hard hitting situations, which draws on emotions, and that takes mental energy. So really I totally agree with the Karolinska Institute finding.

So am I worried about my own mental health? No, but I do look after it as I know that it needs as much looking after as my physical health and I think that is where people are often short sighted in their views of mental health and mental illness. Mental health is everyone's concern as we all have mental health and it needs protecting, regardless of whether you've ever been depressed or not, because our brains are the most fundamental parts of our body, and they need fed to keep them alive and happy. 

I know for many the whole subject of mental health is difficult. If you've never been depressed, it can be really difficult to empathise with people who do have mental health problems, and mental health is an individual illness in how it effects one person. But it's important to recognise that people are different and they shouldn't be labelled because they deal or handle life differently from you.

As you can probably see this is a soap box issue for me, as a writer perhaps I am closer to my demons than other people. I think that the fact  I allow them to jump around on a page and dance into characters is an health outlay inside of being locked inside my head is a health outlay. I know their effect on me and how to protect myself against them, which gives me strength. 

When was the last time you took your demon for a walk? Stay safe out there.

The article on the BBC website can be found here 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19959565

Notepads and books

It has been a while since I sat and wrote my blog. The excuse? Maybe I needed robe motivated or just needed a break from everything to refocus. Anyway I'm back to hopefully to a more robust and regular schedule of blogging.

In the last part of September we were away on holiday and as part of them, I had a brilliant time reading. Stormy, wet weather lends itself very well to reading. It is something I love reading but I don't often do it when I'm working full time. I listen to music more than I read when I am working as my eyes get tired.

Anyway I always think of holidays as reading havens as it brings back memories of school holidays when I used to read five books at once. Maybe that why I'm good at multi-tasking or maybe it makes me a bit jumbled.  While although I didn't read five books this holiday, I read two very different books. The first was KiwiTracks by Andrew Stevenson. As the book title suggests  the book is about the author's four month journey through New Zealand. Reading about New Zealand always gives me a sense of homesickness, which is really odd for someone who has only been there for 3 weeks of her entire lives.But those three weeks changed me and the effect those three weeks had on my character and the direction in which I have taken my life is something I revisit from time to time. There is something of the independent traveller that should be experiened by everyone. Even if it is not to the other size of the world.  Also I have a New Zealand connection  in my novel that didn't make sense until the Holiday and reading the book.

The second book was Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, which has been in the bookcase since John Sergeant    Talked about it on a programme about the greatest novels of the 20th Century. The characterisation of  Yossarian and his commarates on the airbase is vey emotive. And as well as the humouristic view of life on base, the prose show the horrific reality of a bomber in WWII.  The passion of the book entrancedme to finish it and I feel richer that I have finished it. A good writer needs to learn from books - something I intend to do more off. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene is next.

All the reading has reawaken my creative soul.  There is pieces of chapters and new stories everywhere. I have pieces everywhere and realising how much prose there is in my flat.  It has also brought to my attention that I have a note pad fetish. Whenever  there is a new project or something I'm working on out comes a new notepad.  I think I had bought a new notepad for the wedding before we had picked the engagement ring. Each notepad is also like a diary of what been going on and I like to look at them and find new pieces or things that I have forgotten I've written.

And this is where things are exciting, because I'm on this amazing journey at the moment both personal and hopefully in my creative live. I feel that my dreams are opening up and blossoming in front me. The next few months is going to be very exciting!!