Mood:
spaceySince I already have the cover image for the science magazine "Schizophrenia Bullitain", these past few days I have been working hard to create an essay for publication, hopefully in the same issue. It is a "first person account" of my illness. The writing is for scientists and laypeople who don't know much about what living with the illness is like.
The rules for the essay is that it must be between 1,000 and 2,500 words long. So far I've written 1991 words and am trying to tie things up in a concluding paragraph. I'm pushing myself to finish quick because who knows, they may have a lot of submissions and they plan the magazine far in advance and I don't want anyone else to get the May 2007 issue that has my cover picture. Do they pay for writing? I have no idea. But the honor would be enormus and it would put my in that catagory of "published author". Regardless of wether or not the magazine accepts my entry I believe that the essay is very good, very informative, original, and I can publish it on my website or submit it to other psychiatric journals.
Fifteen years ago I was a kid trying hard to recover use of my mind. I had dropped out of college (because it was too hard, I kept on getting sick in class) and would go instead to the library every day. For half an hour or fourty-five minutes I would write and re-write the same sentences in one paragraph. Then, my mind spent, I would try to read an article in a high class literary journal like "The Yale Review" or "Granta". I was reading the people who I longed to one day be like. They forged the best language in the world, they were smooth writers, and powerful writers. I didn't feel I could do what these published people could do without a lot more practice. But in me I felt possibility. I believed that I could twist words into sentences with explosive energy. One of the magazines I discovered in that library was "Schizophrenia Bullitain" with it's cover art and every issue, that single first person account. I was amazed at the bravery and talent of the sick people. I was amazed at what they could write and also how far they could recover. And many of them were people with families - a great accomplishment from my single, lonely point of view. Who would ever want to marry a sick girl?
If I can write a good enough essay to be published in "Schizophrenia Bullitain" I will have come full circle in my life. I will stand and look back at the girl who dreamed, knowing, that many of my dreams came true.
Today at the museum I asked a staff person named Teta if she would edit my final draft. She said yes, and more, that she was uniquely qualified for this task. For many years she worked as an assistant for a woman who had recovered from a mental illness and wrote self help books! Teta personally edited three of her books! Giving the manuscript to Teta will be exposing myself unnaturally to the people at the museum. They don't need to know what goes on at home behind closed doors. But hey. Public about myself in one spot, public in another spot, what is the difference? I am after all trying to give the world a gift of honesty, a gift of education about the schizophrenic illness. For better or worse this illness is a big part of my identity. It would be nice if things were different. But then, I wouldn't be writing such an essay if theings were different. I would be content to simply paint pictures.
Oh, tomorrow I put the final touches on a painting! I have to put little ruffled lace bits with transparent white on the two sleeves of a dress, and scrub a thin bit of purple paint over light blue to darken the color area. In several days when it is dry I can photograph it and post it on my blog.
not sure
incredulous
down
lazy
d'oh
blue
crushed out