The Dark Road: a #HoldOnToTheLight post

Over the past few years, I’ve read the accounts of many of my writing peers as they confessed their mental health struggles on social media. Each time, I felt glad that they were brave enough to be open about it…and wished I could be as bold and confident because I have also walked the dark road holding hands with that specter.

Twice, I've sought medical treatment and been diagnosed with depression. The first time was 2007. The second time was more recent, February 2015, and it was coupled with anxiety and insomnia.

Allow me to set the stage. -gulp- I’ve never been this open in a public forum. Here I go.

A (now-estranged) family member had moved in “temporarily,” refused to get a job, and began bullying me to the point that I did not feel safe in my own home. Early in 2013, this person returned to find the entirety of their belongings on the porch and the locks changed. I wish I could say that ordeal had ended there. 

In 2013, I began seeing a counselor because I was starting to question my sanity; she helped me see that I wasn’t crazy. I ended a relationship with a man who was abusive in a way that she never formally identified but -thanks to book research afterward- I can call it gaslighting. It hit me hard when I realized he’d had nearly all of the classic traits. Months later, I had to file bankruptcy and I lost my car. (I’d never missed a payment on it but the bank took it anyway because they could.) So I walked to work for a while and bummed rides when I could. 

The day before my birthday in January of 2014 a father-figure passed away and suddenly it felt like I hadn’t grieved my own father who had died in 2008. This was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” I had my first real anxiety attack when I was supposed to leave work and go to this friend’s funeral. I made it as far as the front entrance of my workplace, then I found myself back in my office, door shut and sobbing because I COULD NOT GET IN THE CAR AND GO.

I knew it was irrational. I knew something was wrong. And I lied to myself about it just as I had been lying to myself about a host of other things.

Looking back, having all this on top of regular stress and responsibilities, I can see how that specter was holding my hand, whispering to me long after a decent bedtime had passed, night after night after night.

**You do not have to have such troubles or upheavals to suffer with mental illness, but I believe that in my case, these things were definitive factors.**

At this time in my life a good, true friend would have been invaluable to me, but (perhaps due to the burns received from the ‘friendships’ of my youth) I never learned the skills to be ‘good at’ friendships, to hold on to them and nurture them. Instead, I became skilled at crawling inside myself and being satisfied with the solitary act of putting words on the page or making music rumble from my guitar’s amplifier. Though I’m ‘good at’ being alone and staying busy, solitude in excess isn’t healthy. At least not for me.

When I wanted to pick up the phone, the specter would say:

Who will you call? They might be busy. Besides, you didn’t call when you were happy. No one will want to hear you whining.

When I thought to stop by to see a friend, the specter would say:

People don’t do that anymore. It’s an imposition. It’s rude. Besides, you didn’t stop by when you were happy. No one wants to listen to you talk about how much you hurt inside.

When I considered going out to where my friends might be, the specter would say:

You can’t possibly go out alone. A woman walking into a bar alone sends a bad sign, worse if she’s not meeting friends quickly inside. You can’t have a drink. You aren’t safe out there. Stay home. Alone. You’re safe there.

It cut me off every time I tried to reason my way out.

My own family didn’t recognize how I hurt. They thought I was in my own space writing and being creative. But the creativity was meager at best. The part of me I adored most was slipping away and that hurt most of all. The self-doubt from that is the most pervasive and yet-lingering part.

I would drive myself up to the Mt. Jeez overlook when the house was too constricting {read as I needed some place new to cry}. I often checked-in from there on Facebook, silently hoping someone I knew would recognize the truth and come talk to me. Isn’t that a horrifyingly pitiful, selfish, and stupid bit of behavior? I see that clearly now. I feel ashamed to admit that I thought that way, and equally so to admit that I had no idea how to reach out to others without also feeling immeasurable shame for simply thinking about reaching out.

That shame is the specter's punishment, one I wanted so much to avoid. Via hindsight I can say that I now see the choice I could not see then. It was: Avoid the shame and stay in the dark alone and stagnating, or face and accept the shame and take the chance of reaching out and growing.

PLEASE, DON’T WAIT FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO FIX IT.

I made an appointment to see my doctor in late February 2015. He prescribed something to help me sleep and another something for depression. We had a bit of trial an error but by summer I was feeling much better, if lonely. The sleep was so good. The loneliness was there, but it didn’t hurt. Because it didn’t hurt, I was able to move slowly back into the light where the loneliness finally began to fade.

After about six months, I quit taking the medicines. I had discussed the exit strategy with my doctor at the beginning and it was important for me to know if I needed a kick to straighten out, or if I needed medicine as a daily part of my life. Maybe it will come to that someday but for now I haven’t been on the medicine for over a year. I feel good. I sleep 97% of the time good and naturally.

Every day of life is a learning opportunity. Good days and bad days alike.

I learned to know me better and recognize my warning signs. The shadows remain, and probably always will, but I have learned that there is truly no shame in seeking treatment. If I find I’m not kicking the occasional lows, or if the anxiety is unmanageable, or if the sleep stops again, I will not wait or argue with myself about going back to my doctor because I know that specter is out there, and I know what it does: It tricks you into the lonely dark and into stagnation where confidence dwindles and self-doubt grows to monstrous proportions.  

I don't want that. Not again.

Telling all of you this private stuff about me, I believe, is part of helping myself keep the specter at bay. 

I've told it because the #HoldOnToTheLight initiative brings awareness, the kind that not only helps people with mental health issues, but will help other people recognize mental health issues in their loved ones. If someone in my family hadn't been ignorant of the signs, perhaps they could have/would have done something and I might have gotten help so much sooner.  

I’ve told it because I remember seeing my peers and being encouraged by their admissions. 

I’ve told it because if you’re reading this and you’re struggling, I want you to know without a doubt that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. 

Do not listen to that specter’s lies; things are not hopeless and you do not deserve this. 

Do not let it convince you that it is shameful to  ask for help. 

Do not stagnate, you must keep growing and learning and doing and being. 

Don’t wait. Take the initiative, please. It IS worth it. Reach out, let people help you.

Neither you nor I have to walk the dark road holding hands with that specter.

-Linda

About the campaign:

#HoldOnToTheLight is a blog campaign encompassing blog posts by fantasy and science fiction authors around the world in an effort to raise awareness around treatment for depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence intervention, PTSD initiatives, bullying prevention and other mental health-related issues. We believe fandom should be supportive, welcoming and inclusive, in the long tradition of fandom taking care of its own. We encourage readers and fans to seek the help they or their loved ones need without shame or embarrassment.

Please consider donating to or volunteering for organizations dedicated to treatment and prevention such as: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Home for the Warriors (PTSD), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Canadian Mental Health Association, MIND (UK), SANE (UK), BeyondBlue (Australia), To Write Love On Her Arms and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

To find out more about #HoldOnToTheLight, find a list of participating authors, or reach a media contact, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/276745236033627/

Flash Fiction: When Night Equals Day

At the Summer Solstice, we retreat. The days too long. The sun too painful. Everything is too bright.
Colors. People. Sky.
Everything is too loud. Insects. Rivers. Trees.
The earth burns and the air scorches.
We are unwelcome.

But at the Autumn Equinox, we are called. Come back, she whispers. I am here, she soothes. I grow stronger, she promises.
We are slow in our fear, but we rise. Emerging. Creeping. Approaching.
The ground is cool and soft beneath our feet. The air is sweet and kind.
We are cherished.

Under the stars, we dance with the night.

Autumn Equinox? Is that like Halloween?

Sounds close enough for me.

Jack's Carving

Jack had been at it a long time, of course, ever since Old Scratch had sent him on his way from the underworld with a single, burning ember of hellfire to light his way and keep him warm. That ember would never burn out, never become a faded ash.

That meant holding it someplace where it could not burn his flesh, or worse, still, his very soul. For that is what Hellfire burns and Jack had so many sins. Never meant for Heaven and not trusted to enter Hell, it was his lot to wander the world for all eternity. Cold and alone.

Thanks to he hellfire, not so cold.

Thanks to his own machinations, not so alone.

Every year there was one. Chosen on the Harvest Moon, offered to him in exchange for good fortune by the town of Summitville.

This year the offering was fair and sweet and would last better than the old turnips pr even the pumpkins he had used in the distant past.

The knife was sharp and thick, exactly what was needed. Jack drove the heavy blade into the top of his new lantern, feeling flesh part and bone crunch.

The souls of the dead he feasted on. They fed his hellfire ember.

The bodies hardly needed to go to waste, and so he made his lanterns of flesh these days.

The skull held up well and the flesh hardened when the heat of hell itself burned away the moisture.

Best of all, the hair made for a lovely handle.

The wet materials were easily removed. The knife carved away the eyes and the rest with ease.

Almost Halloween. Time for Trick-or-treaters and the veils between to worlds to thin out and allow easy travels.

End

One could almost get the impression I have Halloween on my mind. My next book release with a cover by the amazing Dan Brereton.

Cover Reveal and Teaser!

Guess what???

We have a cover for The Tides of Bára!!

It's so incredibly beautiful, I literally gasped out loud when I saw it. The incredibly talented Louisa Gallie knocked this one out of the park.

Want to see it?

Yeah, you know you do....

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..

...

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TA DAH!!!!

!!!!!

And, since I was supposed to write Autumn Equinox flash fiction today, and you all know how I feel about flash fiction....

Here's a snippet from the recently (like, last week) completed draft. Chuffta, Oria's small dragon Familiar, has turned out to be a bit of a firebug...


*****

Closer by, Chuffta worked intently to drag what looked like a tree limb to a blazing bonfire. He had his wings spread and managed it by half-flying, half-hopping on one leg, and wrestling the thing with mouth, tail and the free foot.

“What are you doing?” she asked aloud, for Lonen’s benefit, though the words scraped her raw throat.

“I’m feeding the fire,” he chirped happily. “Keeping you warm!”

Lonen groaned. “Hey, man. Enough with the fire. You’ll roast us.”

“No?” Chuffta paused, releasing the limb with foot and mouth, but keeping his tail wrapped around it. He sounded terribly disappointed. He cocked his head at the fire. “Maybe just one more?”

“No more, please, Chuffta.” She rubbed at her gritty, sensitive eyes, though it only made them water more. She certainly wasn’t weeping. She blinked them open to find Lonen grinning and grimacing at once. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” she said, ducking her face so he wouldn’t see.

“I like fire! It’s hot.”

“His first time with fire?” Lonen suggested. “Other than your purple magic kind.”

“Could be.” She must have sounded dubious, because he shrugged.

“Some people are like that, obsessed with fire. Why not a derkesthai?”

“I’ve never played with fire before,” Chuffta confirmed. “It’s not like breath-flame, that runs out. As long as I keep putting wood, in there, it goes and goes.”

“You can build another one when we sleep tonight, how’s that?” she suggested. Chuffta grumbled, but agreed. He stayed by his fire, though, tail lovingly wrapped around the limb he’d wanted to add. 

*****

This will be out October 29, and the books in the series can be found here on Amazon, or here on my website. The preorder links will be up soon!

Burning Bridges?

DepositPhotos

The world is small.
The world is smaller than you think.
People talk to other people.
People move around. Today's intern might be tomorrow's CEO.
There's no need to be anything but polite and professional.
This is a business. (Whatever business you might be in. I happen to be in publishing.)

On a Facebook loop with over a thousand members, even a sekrit or closed group, you have NO IDEA who else is reading your ranty post besides the twenty or so active people who post all the time. You are not talking to just your friends on social media. Ever.

In this world of social media and hacking and etc., anything you say anywhere anytime EVER can come back to bite you.

As my mother used to say, would you be comfortable to hear what you said repeated on the radio? (Since my mother was in that generation LOL.) Nowadays I'd ask if you'd be comfortable to see it repeated on all the many social media channels and late night talk shows until some other, hotter scandal overtook it?  If the answer is yes, good and go for it. If the answer is no, then take a deep breath and hit delete a few times.

If you agree to a deadline, meet it. Or else do some good, clear communicating along the way about what's going on and why the schedule might slip on your end.

If you sign a contract, read every word first and be sure you understand it. Then fulfill the terms or else go back and try to renegotiate but do not deliver something that isn't what the contract calls for and hope no one notices.

If a business relationship isn't working for your business (and yes, a self publishing author like me IS a business), then take steps to correct the situation or to end it. Remember, polite and professional...and no ranty posts later on that thousand person loop about how awful person X was etc etc. If you must vent, do so in private to your closest actual friends who you trust.

There are two sides to every story.

Be willing to receive professional feedback.

A burnt bridge is unpleasant but usually not the end of the world. There are always other possibilities!

DepositPhotos

OK and because this song has been stuck in my head all week while we discussed this topic here at SFF7, here's the classic Mike Curb song from the movie "Kelly's Heroes."

Who Stared the Fire?

It is possible I burned a bridge. Or maybe, it was burned by someone else while I stood upon it. I'm still not entirely clear how that went down or if it ought to have been handled differently. For the record, if I set fire to the bridge, it was with a couple of phone calls and a follow up letter. It wasn't certified. It was just mailed.

But, in short, the issue was this: I had a person who shall remain nameless who I believed I could trust. Over the course of our relationship, little snippets of key detail would be missing - things like 'awaiting instruction from author before this deadlined event can occur.' At first, I could put it down to my lack of knowledge - I mean I was a publishing newbie. For the person in question, it was old hat. Could it be a simple case of assuming I knew more than I did? Possibly. But it kept happening. And then, at a conference, another person who shall remain nameless stopped me in a corridor and said, "You know I'm waiting on a book from you?"

My eloquent, nonverbal response looked like this:

She nodded. "I suspected that message never reached you." I found my voice then with a shrill, "OMFG." I did not use the acronym.

Trust broken. Bridge afire. No clue who lit the match.

Do I regret the fire? Some days I do, because I strongly suspect the relationship with person 1 is no longer salvageable. Good, maybe? Who's to say. I hear it said that hindsight is 20/20, but frankly, I am still squinting through the smoke on this one. I'm no clearer now than I was when the bridge went up in flames. But I do know this. A relationship is only as good as the communication within it. At the very least, person 1 and I had a major communication dysfunction that ended up crossing my tolerance threshold. (Person 2 got the book she was waiting for.) I severed the relationship with person 1.

So peer through the bridge-burning smoke as tell me. From your perspective, who started the fire?

Burning Bridges and Small Press Stockholm Syndrome

So, the point of discussion this week is on burning professional bridges-- when is it time to do that?  Now, for me, this is a mostly theoretical question.  I'm rather pleased with my agent and editor, thank you very much.   And why wouldn't I be?  My editor won the Hugo for Best Editor for the very year my novels debuted.  My novels are connected with a Hugo win.  See?  I have proof.

OK, mostly I want to show off that photo.  But, for real.  I'm happy.

But there can be good reason to break off a professional relationship with your agent or editor.   Especially if you are suffering from Small Press Stockholm Syndrome.

See, small presses can be really problematic things.  You should really deeply think about what you're doing before you get involved in one.  Investigate closely and ask yourself, honestly, "Are the books these people publish ones that I would buy?"  And if the answer is anything but a resounding, "Of course!"  do not sign a contract.  Do not do it just to be published by someone.  Else you might end up saying something like this:

If [EDITOR] hadn’t noticed us lurking about and convinced us to submit a short story to [ANTHOLOGY], we don’t become professional authors at all.  [EDITOR] took us from nothing–nothing— and made us what we are.

The above quote comes from a defense of a small press publisher who wasn't paying royalties or meeting obligations.  But it's OK, because that publisher loves us and made us!

It's like staying in a bad marriage because they were the first person who showed interest in you.

Look at what your publisher is actually doing for you, and ask yourself-- without getting lost in the sunk costs and the misplaced gratitude: are they really helping you and your career?  Or are they trapping you in their orbit?

I've mixed a lot of metaphors here.  It happens.

In the mean time: tonight (Sept. 15th) I'll be appearing at BookPeople in Austin on a panel about SF&F for the Writers' League of Texas!  Next week I'll be at FenCon!  Come say hello.

The Ties that Bind...for a While

Ending Professional Relationships: When, Why and How to do it without Burning Bridges

Sometimes, a burning bridge is a gift. Ending a personal relationship with someone who’s been Gaslighting you until you’re questioning your sanity…bring on the gasoline and light that fucker up.

But when the relationship is professional, and because of the ‘there’s-always-two-sides’ rule and the fact that people talk, you should definitely leave the gasoline at home. Granted, there may be a situation where a little smoke on the bridge can be helpful to put things in perspective. If you’re willing to take that risk, be sure you have an extinguisher as a back-up.

There could be a time when you show up and find the other person brought a flamethrower to the negotiation party. What you have to understand is: that’s their fire. You are under no obligation to fan the flame.

When dealing with parting ways with folks who are capable of impacting your reputation, tread carefully. I offer two stories:

First:

I was asked to co-author a story, as suggested by the spouse of someone who had been a friend/peer. The spouse be-friended me and several of my friends and hanging out exclusive of the writer/peer was fun…for a while. Eventually the spouse starting becoming a pest to my other friends. All involved parties asked me for advice and though I just didn’t see the behaviors others saw, I tried to balance and mediate and ended up in the middle – where I did NOT want to be. Too soon, the spouse’s behavior that had left my friends exasperated began to manifest directed toward me. I could no longer maintain a friendship with the spouse, and tried to quietly separate myself from the personal/friend part of that couple. As I feared, it cost me the writer/peer part as well, and the year’s worth of work that went into that really good novel idea is a casualty neither of us can heal or work with. Ever.

I tried so hard to save that bridge, but the gasoline kept fueling it and in the end...it wasn't my fire. If someone else wants the bridge destroyed, all you can do is walk away and let them roast their marshmallows. 

Had I kept that professional relationship completely professional with both the other writer and their spouse, y’all would have that great novel instead of my contribution to it gathering cobwebs in a mental junk drawer.

Second:

I used to have an agent. Said agent became sluggish about returning emails (as in months at a time) and things I was told would be done just weren’t done. Staff at agent’s agency made some blunders, which I politely brought to agent’s attention and asked for a change to be made. Months later, I had received neither an apology nor a confirmation that the correction had been made. (Honestly, either would have sufficed; both would have been monumental.) I felt that this was the time for a separation to occur. I wrote a polite letter and made extra sure to keep the tone friendly. Sure, I felt unimportant and ignored. Sure, it stung. Sure, it made me feel like maybe me getting published had been a wild dream I never deserved. (That may be BS left over from the gaslighting I endured.) But the truth was, I didn't have to sprinkle drama all over that shit. It's business. I do what's right for me, aware that they sure as Hell are going to do what's right for them. Nothing personal on either end of the equation.

The letter was emailed and sent via certified mail. And I keep moving forward as best I can.

THE POINT: The Business of Writing and Publishing is a business.

It isn’t personal. i.e. He/She doesn’t like me.

It’s a business. i.e. He/She can’t do/isn’t doing the job. I’ll focus on finding someone who can/is doing the job.  

You do need a thick skin to be in this business.

That said, there are innumerable authors, agents, editors and publishers. Doubtless, there are ones that you or I won’t like, and equally doubtless there are many more that you and I will like. You have to get out there and meet them to find out! And if you’re not hitting it off with this one or that one, don’t give up. Meet more. Odds are you’ll find kindred spirits if you keep trying. And, as someone who has found many friends among the kindred spirits, I can say that learning the lessons of the few who haven’t remained friends only makes me stronger, my skin thicker, and those friends I have found closer.