OCD: Self-terrorization

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a debilitating mental disorder that impacts your life in ways that actually terrorizes you. The impetous of OCD is fear, which is possibly the impetous of terrorism. OCD becomes a form of self-terrorization.

Whatever it is you fear takes on a life of its own within you, like a virus affecting your mental functioning. You're constantly running from it.

The difference between a phobia and OCD is one of location.

A phobia is a fear of something outside of us, and we avoid it--a fear of heights, or crowds, or spiders, and so forth. As long as we can avoid it, we can function in a normal way. Of course, we're always only one step away from what we fear. The possibility of what we fear confronting us is always in the background--in the backs of our minds--so we're always on guard against it. But, as long as we're not in contact with it, we function pretty normally. When we come in contact with it, our fear erupts and takes control of us until we can escape the object of our fear.

OCD is fear not only of the thing itself but also of the thought of the thing. The thought of the thing and our fear of it become connected in such a way that the thought of it becomes it. Because we cannot control our thoughts, our thoughts take control of us and we react as if the object of our fear is actually present. We think about the object of our fear, it becomes present in our minds, and our fear erupts. We cannot stop it. Fear takes control of our minds and we begin the ritual of trying to rid ourselves of the object of our fear and fear itself.

Our fear is initially a form of self-protection. We need our fear or we will succumb to the object of our fear. But fear is also the basis of terrorism. While our fear serves to protect us, it also terrorizes us, and we are caught in a bind. The rituals we perform are self-protective, also, meant to remove the object of our fear from our minds. Our rituals are our way of dealing with this double bind.

All of this is disruptive to our lives, leading us to bizarre behaviors. We do not function normally. We enter a different reality until the thoughts of the object of our fear and our fear subsides.

On Losing My Muse

I lost my muse about six months ago after suffering a severe bout of depression. Until then I had the ability to see the entire novel, the entire story, in one vision. I could see where changing a word here affected a word fifty pages away. My muse dictated dialogue. Writing was the easiest thing in the world for me to do. It flowed. Yet, when my reading groups read my work, they always found things to fix or improve. And, I have also never been published. Since I've lost my muse, writing is much more difficult, but in some ways I think it's better. When I do manage to write a chapter, or add to a scene, or whatever, it seems much more polished than before. I'm not sure losing my muse has been a totally bad thing. I just have to work harder, but the results seem to be better.

What Is Creativity? (1)

Many people have explained what creativity is. But, of course, none of these explanations are scientific or infallible. Their explanations are based on their own experiences and what they think it is. And so it is with me.

Putting words on paper, or color on canvas, or musical notes on scores, interpreting the words of others as an actor/actress, and so on are all creative acts as long as they are yours, not merely copying someone else's.

Using your imagination is a creative act. Transforming what you imagine into words, art, music makes the creative act more solid, more permanent, though it will probably never be exactly as we imagined it. The final product will be different, because what we imagine takes on a life of its own. The creative act becomes organic. It speaks to us. It tells us what to do. And we listen. So, in a sense, we are doing nothing--it's doing itself through us. This still doesn't tell us "what" creativity is. There are some hints: imagination, transforming, permanence, organic.

Publish your book for free on Amazon.com (1)

I've recently learned that you can publish your book for free on Amazon.com. It can only be sold on their site to Kindle users, or through their Kindle softwear. You set the price and earn 75% royalty. (There are several other similar sites.) You set a low price, say $2.99 (to get the 75% royalty). You can even give it away.

Of course, there's a limited audience, but it's a place to begin testing your book's appeal. I'm considering it as an option for some of my books. I won't jump into it for the same reasons I'm not jumping into POD. I want my books to be as excellent as I can make them. But it seems worth a try. And you can't beat the cost. If I decide to do so, I'll report on it here. For right now, I'm staying the agent-to-publisher course.

Update:
I've decided to publish a book of short stories on Amazon.com. I'll probably put a price on it of $2.99. I don't expect to make a lot of money selling it; I'm doing it more for the experience and to put something out there that will probably never be published through the traditional method, at least, not any time soon. I can learn the ins and outs of epublishing.

Writing and Parenting (1)

One of the most difficult problems for a writer (painter, muscian, etc.) with children to overcome is how to find time to do our writing. Our children take up a tremendous amount of our time. How do we satisfy our need to be an artist and our need to be a parent? Parenting is immediate. It is now. There is no I'll get to it later. Unfornately, our writing can be put off until later, and that's what usually happens.

 It's an age-old delimma, in some ways more perplexing for women than for men, and in some ways more perplexing for men than for women. And, really, the problem confronts anyone who runs their own business, maybe even anyone who works and has a family. The demand for shelter and nurture comes first. It is paramount. The ideal solution is when writing, shelter, and nurture all merge into one. Is it possible for that to happen?

Family life is a constant mix, an ever changing matrix, because as our children grow older, and/or  new ones come along, our needs and relationships change. And oftentimes, with more than one child, different networks form. We might have to take care of an infant, an adolescent, and a teenager all at the same time. Besides being exhausting, it's time consuming.

Writing a novel, poetry, whatever, takes a commitment, and usually a commitment over a long period of time. Ideally, a person who wants to be a writer knows so at a very young age (I was about thirteen or fourteen when I knew it) and commits herself to writing then and there and gets published at a fairly young age, makes a lot of money, finds a wonderful spouse/partner, and her writing pays the bills, and she lives happily ever after. Of course, it usually doesn't happen that way. If it has, I don't know about it. (As I think about it, John Updike might have done it, or some version of it.)

So these two aspects of our lives--writing and parenting--are, at least on the surface, antagonistic to one another.

'Making It' When You're Younger vs. 'Making It' When You're Older

Does anyone doubt that succeeding at almost anything is better if you do so when you're younger (say, between eighteen and thirty)? Doing so in pop music, sports, even acting, seems relatively easy for those professions compared to doing so as a writer. How many writers make it when they are teenagers? I can think of only one: Arthur Rimbaud, who quit writing poetry around age eighteen.

Why is making it in music, sports, even acting, relatively easy for the younger person?

Musical ability is innate. If you have talent, it usually manifests early in life. I do not think musical talent develops much with age. If you are not born with it, you will never get it.

Sports is based heavily on physical ability, and most of us peak in our late teens to very early thirties. Then we're done. Most professional athletes 'retire' in their thirties.

Acting is a talent that can be mastered, I think. It can grow with practice. One can make it at any almost any age. But making it in acting has a lot of intagibles. It helps greatly to be beautiful or handsome. Youth and beauty are a powerful combination. For most people, like athletes, actors tend to peak at an early age. Many actors in their thirties are beginning to decline. But there are many people trying to make it in acting, so what allows a few to make it and most others to not? Is it connections? No doubt they help. Talent certainly has to be a part of it, too. It's a mix of benefits that helps a person make it in acting. Sometimes it's just plain dumb luck.

Why is making it as a writer at a young age so difficult? What are the obstacles? The first thought that comes to mind is life experience. What do older people know that younger ones do not? It's very difficult to be precise, but I think part of it is balance. Older people have seen the good and the bad within everything. Younger people are still trying to figure out the good from the bad; they see the good and the bad in very definite ways. Something is good or bad, period. Older people see that all things are both good and bad; there is a downside and an upside to everything. It takes time to realize it.

Downtime

The downtime between finishing a project and starting a new one seems interminable, even if it's only a few days or weeks. The anxiety of not knowing what I'm going to work on next is high and distressing. The fear that I can't write anymore is the most distressing part. So I feel compelled to get to work on something--anything--to erase that fear.

Why is writing so important to me? Is it bound up with my identity, my self-worth--sense of failure if I don't write? Is the very act of writing thrilling, satisfying, fulfilling? Is the thought of the finished product what drives me? Is it the thought of fame and/or fortune? Is it some psychological search for meaning, a kind of internal/external journey toward self-discovery? Is it the execution and fulfillment of a plan that gives meaning to writing? Is it the expression of myself and my beliefs through my characters that make writing so valuable? Is it the illusion of living a different life for a while that gives writing its appeal? Is it the sense of discovery that mesmerizes me?

I could probably answer 'yes' to all those questions. Writing is living a dream, and dreaming is one of the most satisfying things a person can do. And, if that is so, then getting published is really secondary to the pleasure of writing.