I can never resist a good quote - or sharing them with you. Hope you like this batch. Please let me know how these quotes relate to your writing. … [Read more...]
A room of my own – revisited
This morning I talked to a man I recently met at my gym while we both worked out on the elliptical. That’s a new one for me. I usually plug in my ear buds, listen to music, read my New Yorker, and hardly say a word to anyone while I exercise. And he was very inquisitive – he asked about my back ground, my religion, my home town, my current home town, how long married, where I’ve traveled, and of course the dreaded question – number of children. That question always stops me in my tracks – even now, over 18 years since my son Paul left us. And I told him truthfully that Paul took his own life because he had bipolar disorder. As a result I resurrected a piece I wrote for the now defunct Red Room site in 2013 – about the room I’m in right now – my private writing space. Even my husband knows not to bother me in here when my door is closed. In rereading this piece today, I can honestly say, not a lot has changed. He’s still in my room with me. My Private Island - A Room of My … [Read more...]
Meet my guest, Tara Meissner, author of Stress Fracture
My son, a talented jazz composer and musician, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age twenty-one. As I got more and more informed about the disorder I heard that studies linked creativity with bipolar disorder, and my son's behavior seemed to indicate the studies were true. He refused to take his medications because they evened him out too much and hindered his ability to create his music. He, and I imagine others with bipolar disorder, very much liked their manic highs. However, I, like my guest today, Tara Meissner, author of Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis, never believed that all people with bipolar disorder are creative. It is also not true that all people with mental illness are violent, as so many people believe. Thank you Tara Meissner for being at Choices while on your WOW! Women on Writing book tour. I'm so glad you are here to share your views and bipolar experience with us. Being open about this disorder will go a long way to help erase stigma. Bipolar and … [Read more...]
More writing quotes
I've said before that I collect quotes, and I've posted writing quotes on Choices many times. Well, I just came across a list of seventy-two more that I have saved in my Documents Folder for the last couple of years. I'll share some with you now and more later in the year. I don't want to bore you if you're not into this as much as I am. By the way, some of these authors are unknown to me. I think it might be a good idea to get to know about them, so I've marked those with an asterisk (*). I'd love to know what you know about them. The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress. Philip Roth The road to hell is paved with adverbs. Stephen King Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything. ¦ It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a … [Read more...]