When I’m writing this, I’m up way too early Monday morning. But when it appears on my blog Wednesday morning, I will be at the ZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAP lab, possibly already riding the lightning.
To commemorate this first session (which I’ll try to blog about afterward), here’s some AC/DC.
Thanks to all my friends who are with me in spirit as I undergo this treatment…
Recently I’ve blogged about my attempts to optimize my approach to writing day to day, to hopefully become more productive and prolific. A huge part of that, by necessity, is that I have to deal with my depression; if I can’t, I might as well throw in the towel.
This week, I start a course of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), which will hopefully give me the edge in that fight. I’m assuming it will, so I’m working on setting the stage for the writing I plan once it’s over.
Kate gave me a book about writing for my birthday, Chapter By Chapter by Heather Sellers. Generally I find books about writing to be a waste of time for a writer; most of them say essentially the same things, and once you’ve read one, you’ve pretty much read the rest. If you’re trying to be a writer, your time is better spent writing than reading about writing. Till now, I’ve recommended only two books to writers looking for advice, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and On Writing by Stephen King.
Chapter By Chapter is now on that list, and not just because it came to me via hot redhead. Kate chose well; Sellers has some fresh perspectives on the work, and her book has been useful to me as I try to figure these things out.
One chapter proved pertinent to this post, the one about “positioning.” Sellers defines positioning as preparing to do the work, mentally and physically, in advance, so that when it’s time to get to work you can just sit down and write. Part of this is making a routine of connecting with your project every evening, thinking about the next day’s writing, staying involved. The other part of it is making sure you’re physically set up in advance so you don’t have to waste time gathering materials and setting up when you sit down to write again. Continue reading
Tomorrow, I have an appointment with the storm.
I’ve written here about my longtime depression, and my attempts at dealing with it. Last year, I spent a fuckton of money I couldn’t afford trying a treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation, with a local doctor named Brian Teliho. (You can read all about it here and here). I saw it as my last stop before taking the step of ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, the less barbaric modern version of ye olde electroshock. If the TMS didn’t work, I planned in January to sign on for ECT.
Well, the TMS was a complete waste of time and money. But come January, I went back to my regular pattern, which is, frankly, to try to do better. To try to get to the gym regularly. To try to write a bit every day. You can find my little plans and hopes in the posts I wrote here, and as always, the depression won out.
Then, I fell in love, and that did make a difference. Kate improved my life. She inspired me to write. I started to think, y’know, I sure am glad I didn’t do ECT, because all I really needed was Kate.
But the truth of the matter was that, as much as her support and presence helped, it didn’t help nearly enough. When I was with her, I functioned well enough, but most of that functioning was just hanging out with her, enjoying her and sharing things with her. When she was back home, hundreds of miles away, I tried to stay upbeat and buckle down, and I did get some writing done, but the usual fluctuations of energy and motivation were still there. Maintaining that same pace, I’d still get nowhere.
Then, of course, I lost her. I expected that to pretty much destroy me, at least for a while, but as I wrote in my last post, I recovered (mostly) from the trauma of it almost immediately. I was relieved and clear-headed and thoughtful…and I picked up the phone and called the ECT clinic.
The only thing this has to do with Kate is that I wasn’t doing it while I was with her because I was entertaining the false hope that I didn’t need it. This is what I need to do. I should have done it in January. I damn sure should have done it instead of TMS.
It’s a big step. It’s a harrowing process, it costs a lot (though not as much out of pocket as TMS, which insurance won’t cover), and there are dangers. The biggest danger is memory loss and possible losses in cognition; as a father, I’m terrified of losing memories of my son, and as a writer I’m worried I’ll lose the particular synergy between left brain and right which allows me to use language and imagery in the fanciful ways I do.
But you know what? If I can’t actually make myself write often enough to produce anything, it doesn’t matter how great that synergy is. And if I wind up losing all hope and killing myself, I lose my son altogether and worse, he loses me.
So, I have an appointment with the storm, and I’m going to ride the lightning.
Wish me luck.
I’m working on changing my work habits as a writer, and part of that is changing tools. Over the years I’ve progressed from fountain pen and legal pad to manual typewriter to desktop PC to portable pre-laptop to laptop to notebook to netbook…
Now, I’m typing this on my brand spankin’ new iPad 2, composing in Simplenote for cut & paste into WordPress. I’m loving the device as a new toy, but got it primarily to be my new main writing tool.
I knew in advance that I wasn’t going to be satisfied typing on the touchscreen’s virtual keyboard (which I’m doing right now, and it’s about like I expected it to be). So I have an order in for a Bluetooth keyboard to use with it, allowing me to use the combo pretty much as a netbook.
Thing is, I’m trying to decide what app or combination of apps is best to use for writing books. So if any writers out there have been down this road already, please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences.
As I said, I’m using Simplenote right now. I also installed Plaintext to try, and have seen quite a few folks recommend IA Writer. Ideally I’d be able to automatically, or at least easily, sync files to Dropbox or something similar so that I could freely switch to other machines as need be. In that vein, I’m curious about DocsToGo as well.
I had also been thinking of starting to use Scrivener for Windows, and still might if there’s a good way to get it to interact with whatever app I wind up using on the iPad.
Again, if you have any experience with this stuff, please share.
JUST 99¢!!!
My essay “WILD SOUL – Nature, Civilization, and the Ecological Spirit” is now available from Amazon as a Kindle download for 99 cents.
In the near future, it will be going up at other online venues, in other ebook formats. (If you don’t have a Kindle, you can still read Kindle books with free programs downloadable from Amazon, like Kindle for PC. I read Kindle books on my iPhone and desktop computer.)
Traditional tales across the world describe mankind’s joyful rise in a wild paradise like the Garden of Eden. But they also tell of our fall from such lives of bliss and natural grace.
Our technology, our cities, our toys, our wealth, all have done nothing to ground us as individuals or as societies. If they had, we would live in a near Utopia, rather than the reelingly chaotic and violent world-on-the-brink around us, for surely our affluence and level of comfort is greater than it has been for any people in the history of the earth.
Is Eden forever lost, or is there a way back?
Can we access that marvelous, mythic place in our souls, find a path to its joyful, natural wonders? Or have we slumbered so long in civilized ways that our vital selves are banished for the rest of time?
Can we reclaim the power of the primitive without denying ourselves the comforts and wonders of the modern world?
Exploring sources ranging from the Old Testament and Eastern mysticism, from poetry to popular fiction, from ancient fable to contemporary deep psychology, novelist Tim Byrd finds the prescription for our ills.
We need to live and love more fully, and do things that matter.
We need a renewal of a sense of sacredness towards the natural world, and intimacy with that world.
We need wild soul.
A motivational poster I just put together…
There is some spectacular and gorgeous footage of forests in this video. Which is apropos, as it’s about forests.
Thanks to the lovely Kate for sharing this…
Yann Arthus-Bertrand was appointed by the United Nations to produce the official film for the International Year of Forests.
Following the success of Home which was seen by 400 million people, the photographer began producing a short 7-minute film on forests made up of aerial images from Home and the Vu du Ciel television programmes.
This film will be shown during a plenary session of the Ninth Session of United Nations Forum on Forests (24 January – 4 February 2011) in New York. It will be available to all from February 2 – for free – so that it can be shown worldwide.
Nature’s brilliant.
Thanks to Lucius Shepard for this.
I mentioned in a post yesterday that last year, trying desperate measures to deal with my lifelong chronic depression, I’d looked into ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), and while researching it, found out about a newer, less harsh treatment called Neurostar transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
TMS seemed very promising. A sort of less powerful electro-shock which uses a targeted electromagnetic charge (about as strong as an MRI) to stimulate an area in the prefrontal lobe of the brain that controls mood, it lacked the potentially dire side effects of ECT, such as memory loss. It was a simple in-patient procedure that didn’t require anesthesia every time, as ECT does, so you don’t pay for an anesthesiologist and have to have someone drive you home every day because you’re so out of it. And the claims for its results, and the longevity of its effectiveness, sounded very appealing.
The biggest downside to trying it: insurance doesn’t cover it. It’s only been FDA-okayed for treatment of major depression since 2008 and insurance companies, always leery of paying for anything, haven’t accepted its use yet.
Still, it sounded promising, and nothing else had worked to any significant degree, and I was quite leery of ECT (which insurance does cover). So I decided to go for it.
There were a couple of places in Atlanta I could go, and I opted to be treated by Dr. Brian Teliho because he was the less expensive option. The course of treatment was a session every day Monday through Friday for 4-6 weeks, depending on how the patient responded.
Each session cost $300, so I was paying $1500 a week. This is a lot of fucking money for me, as it would be for most people.
But, I was desperate. Continue reading
My relationship with my phone is traditionally contentious at best.
I hate talking on the phone. I hate when the phone rings. I often ignore it, I rarely check messages, and I’m a pain in the ass to get in touch with.
But I love my new iPhone 4.
I still hate talking on it, and its ring still makes my soul bristle. But oh the things I can do with this little gadget…
I’ve watched movies and TV shows on its gorgeous, high rez screen, streaming from Netflix. I’ve watched many a clip on YouTube. I’ve absorbed some great TED conference presentations via their dedicated app.
I’ve read several novels, and been amazed at what a pleasant experience it is. The screen is sharp, the text clear (and resizeable). It automatically saves my place. I can lay on my side in bed and hold it in my palm, tapping the screen with my thumb to flip pages. And I always have a library in my pocket, ever ready for reading emergencies.
I listen to a lot more music. I have an 80 GB iPod with over 9,000 songs on it, but rarely carried it anywhere. My iPhone has only 16 GB, so I can’t get all my music on it, but I can get a hell of a lot, and since it’s my phone, I always have it with me. I also listen to Pandora, discovering new music, and there are other great music apps like Bing’s (which lets you listen to the top 100 songs of any year back to 1947) or Wolfgang’s Vault, a treasure trove of live concert recordings.
If I want to identify a song I’m hearing, I can let the SoundHound app listen a few moments, then it’ll not only ID it but give me lyrics, links to YouTube vids of the song, and buying info.
I can plan workouts and keep track of my progress at the gym.
I can keep up with my peeps on Facebook and Twitter, check email, do on the spot research, identify constellations, get directions and maps (including topo maps of wilderness areas), explore with Google Earth, track the weather, make notes, shop, and of course take pictures and videos. Which I can instantly upload to share if I want.
All with this little wafer of tech.
Corvids are highly social and intelligent (even tool-using) birds. But this is freaking astonishing…
If you suffer from depression, you should watch the video below.
If you know someone who suffers from depression, you should watch it too.
The video is a lecture by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a brilliant biologist (of the neuroendocrinologist sort) at Stanford. It’s less than an hour in length, and Sapolsky is a very engaging speaker who makes complicated topics very easy to understand.
I’ve suffered from depression for most of my life, been in therapy, read a book on it here and there….and in less than sixty minutes, Sapolsky gave me a much clearer vision of exactly what the hell is going on in my mind and soul. It’s enlightening, and somewhat terrifying.
I was particularly taken with his explanation about how nature (genetics) and nurture (trauma) can interact and literally change the way the brain functions. I already knew that emotional events could have lasting neurological effects, but now I understand how that probably happens. He explains very clearly how, say, a miserable childhood and possession of a certain gene can do crushing damage not just to a person’s psyche but to their brain chemistry. (Which reminds me of the Andrew Vachs column on emotional abuse I blogged about here).
You should watch.
As a manly man who drinks a lot of coffee, I was pleased at this new report:
“Coffee has effects on insulin and glucose metabolism as well as sex hormone levels, all of which play a role in prostate cancer. It was plausible that there may be an association between coffee and prostate cancer,” said Kathryn M. Wilson, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.
In a prospective investigation, Wilson and colleagues found that men who drank the most coffee had a 60 percent lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer than men who did not drink any coffee. This is the first study of its kind to look at both overall risk of prostate cancer and risk of localized, advanced and lethal disease.
“Few studies have looked prospectively at this association, and none have looked at coffee and specific prostate cancer outcomes,” said Wilson. “We specifically looked at different types of prostate cancer, such as advanced vs. localized cancers or high-grade vs. low-grade cancers.”
Caffeine is actually not the key factor in this association, according to Wilson. The researchers are unsure which components of the beverage are most important, as coffee contains many biologically active compounds like antioxidants and minerals.
Time for me to make a pot.
I’m awake, and I’ve been lax of late with the blog, so I figured I’d type at you a bit.
As the last couple of entries indicate, this has been the weekend of both my big convention and my book festival debuts, at DragonCon (largest SF con in the world, I’m told) and the Decatur Book Festival (largest book fest in the US, right here walking distance from my front door).
It has been fun and exciting and stressful and exhausting, and I’ll revisit it in another post once it’s truly over (I still have a DragonCon panel at 4 pm tomorrow…uh, today. Monday.), hopefully with pictures from at least one of my appearances.
I’m not sure if it’s just the over-stimulation of it all, the public speaking, the meeting of cool new people, the armies of amazingly hot women in cool costumes, or lingering full moon energy, but I got maybe two hours of sleep so far tonight. And I have an earworm of Felicia Day’s lovely voice singing “Do you want to date my avatar?” over and over in my head.
Scanning the news as I sat here in my drawers, wishing I was a-slumber, I came across this headline from The Guardian: “Lost World of Fanged Frogs and Giant Rats Discovered in Papua New Guinea.”
Fanged frogs!
I already wrote about the discovery in the Andes of the world’s tiniest frogs a while back, indication that perhaps the evil Frogs of Doom were up to new tricks after their defeat by Spartacus Wilde and his kids (as chronicled in my novel Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom). And now this.
Fanged frogs. In a lost world.
They also discovered a species of rat as big as a cat, kangaroos that live in trees, and a fish that grunts. Among many other new critters.
See? There really is pulp in our world.
UPDATE: For another report on the lost world and its denizens, with several pictures, check out The Daily Mail here.
In an appearance on a panel at the World Science Festival, Bobby McFerrin uses his superpowers to turn a crowd into a huge musical instrument. Fascinating and entertaining.
Travis 1995-2007
There’s a good short piece in the Seattle Times about the ethical/emotional lives of dogs. It’s not going to provide any groundbreaking insight to anyone who has ever lived with a dog, but it’s a nice break from the usual Cartesian philosophy that animals are guided entirely by instinct and have no emotions.
One thing I was very interested to find out:
“Dogs apparently laugh,” Page said. The same brain structures show the same activity in laughing humans and in dogs that are enjoying themselves. A dog’s laugh is a rhythmic pant.
I know that pant. You naturally know it means happy, but I had no idea it’s actual laughter, physiologically speaking.
Go here to read.
This video is about the artist Reuben Margolin, and his amazing kinetic sculptures based on waveforms in nature. His work is incredible in its complexity, and gloriously beautiful to gaze upon.
Many of you know I have a book about to come out (Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom) chronicling Doctor Spartacus Wilde’s dire battle with mutated eldritch amphibians in the jungles of South America.
Not to spoil anything, but the Wildes saved the day, as is their wont. But you know that already, because the earth still exists, and you’re reading this.
The threat may not be over, however. Scientists recently discovered a tiny beast, the smallest frog known in the world, in the Peruvian Andes (perhaps not far from the area of the Wildes’ final battle with the Frogs of Doom).
What evil lurks in the heart of this frog?
From National Geographic:
…But scientists searching the Andes mountains’ upper Cosnipata Valley in southern Peru, near Cusco, spotted the coin-size creature–a member of the Noblella genus–in the leaf litter of a cloud forest between 9,925 and 10,466 feet…
“The most distinctive character of the new species,” scientists write in the February issue of the journal Copeia, “is its diminutive size.” Females grow to 0.49 inch (12.4 millimeters) at most. Males make it to only 0.44 inch (11.1 millimeters).
What’s most surprising is that the frog lives at such high elevations…In general, larger animals are found at greater heights.
Yes, in general. But if these tiny monsters are indeed another variety of the Frogs of Doom, perhaps they are arcanely adapted to the higher elevation.
And if so…what sinister purpose do they have in our world?
