Book status for early February 2025

It's been over a month and a half or so since I've posted an update about the manuscript I spent a decade of on and off work on, that I finished writing a few days before Thanksgiving.  As with a lot of other things in my life since I began this blog, some chronicling is in order.  Because this site is all about documenting the human condition and also for sake of anyone who might come across it and find themselves likewise wanting to write a book.

I guess the biggest thing (pun intended, maybe) is that it's occurred to me that I have not written a memoir, but a full-size autobiography.  Or perhaps it's two or three memoirs bound up cohesively with one another.  A memoir is supposed to be a personal reflection about just a few or even only one situation in a person's life.  That is not what my book is and I don't honestly know if what it became could have really been avoided.  My life today is the product of fifty years of many bad things as well as quite a few good things, and that is a tapestry from which removing even a few threads diminishes and even destroys the work entire.  I could have written an entire book about the swindling operation episode, or made it about pop culture as seen through the eyes of someone who was at the cutting edge of fan-driven Internet activity, or a how-to manual about running for public office.  My life has enveloped all of those things and so many more.

This may make pitching the book to a potential agent considerably more difficult.  Autobiographies by people who aren't established celebrities can be a tough thing to sell, no matter how colorful their lives may have been.

Then there is the lingering issue with the inherent nature of the book.  I may have written something that per the marketplace is nigh on unpublishable.  It's too Christian for strictly secular audiences and it's too secular for more spiritual readers.  One example: there is a point later in the book where I drive to a cemetery to conduct a ritual at the stroke of midnight.  What sensible Christians are going to approve of my doing such a thing as that?  And it may rub others the wrong way, also.

Other than those matters, I've been editing and revising and shifting elements around.  I've also been letting a few trusted friends read parts of it.  Recently I shared the prelude, which is an account of my first attempt at suicide.  Many told me that it was especially powerful and that it drew them in to wanting to read more.  I guess it's nice that something good came out of that experience after all.  I just don't ever want to be in that kind of place again.

I'm not giving up on my dream of seeing this on a store's shelf.  Dad believed in me and so have a lot of other people who have asked for a book about my life all these many years.  But I'm also having to accept the reality that this is going to perhaps be more difficult to bring to market than most other books are.  And I'm discovering that it is a hard thing indeed.

Perhaps next time I'll be able to post something more upbeat.

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What's up with my book's manuscript the past few weeks

Still doing editing and revisions.  But I'm comfortable enough with the first several chapters that I'm including them in some of the queries I've started sending out.  This is the next step in the life of a new book: looking for someone to represent it to a publisher.  I could self-publish, and there are a variety of ways to do that.  But ever since Dad especially told me that I should write a book about my life, my dream has been to see it sitting on a real "brick and mortar" bookstore's shelves.

So, I'm looking for an agent.  And that isn't going to be easy.  But it's part and parcel to the process of seeing any book get traditional publishing.  And really, would I want it to be any different?  This entire thing has been something to grow and develop from.  It took a lot to finally commit to finishing ten-some years of on and off work, and that's what I did between August and November.  I've grown from the journey already and now it's time to grow with the next part of it.

I'm discovering that querying for a fiction book and then for a nonfiction book are two entirely different matters entirely.  An agent looking for fiction usually requires the first few chapters to look over and grab their attention, along with a query letter describing what the book is about.  Someone looking for nonfiction like a memoir wants to see a proposal: a document describing the book, a short biography, qualifications for writing the work, how and where it would fit in the competitive book marketplace, and maybe the first ten or so pages if the manuscript is complete.  Which for nonfiction doesn't have to be 100% complete, but it helps.  My manuscript is like 95% finished.  All that's required is for me to make a short trip out of state to fulfill a "secret mission" and it will be all done.  With the vast bulk of it written I've decided to go ahead and start querying.

I'm also discovering that agents looking for nonfiction works have wildly different requirements for the proposal.  Some are fine with the proposal being five to ten pages.  Others call for fifty, and that includes summaries of each chapter.  Which would be a challenge for my book.  There is a point in it where the chapters come very fast and hard.  It's how I'm depicting having manic depression at its worst, from the period of 2004 through 2010 or so.  It's a lot to cover and I did my best to keep the manuscript well within the suggested word count for a memoir by a first-time author.  But it has to be this way.  The driving philosophy of this has been to show mental illness with as much brutal honesty as is possible.  In that regard I believe that it succeeds.

This may be the last of the weekly-or-so book statuses that I post for awhile.  There isn't really much more to report, other than that I'm sending out query letters.  I'm only making this report to keep my readers informed about what I'm learning about the book publishing process, from the start on through its hoped-for conclusion as a real volume for sale at your friendly local book store or an online retailer.  Maybe as what happened when I ran for office, my sharing about this will encourage others to begin to write their own books.  If I have helped motivate others to hopefully finish and publish their work, I would really be honored to know that.

And when I know more, if it is wise, I'll have more to share in the fullness of time.

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This week's book status

I need to start referring to it more as my "manuscript."  It's not a full-blown book until it's got a few hundred pages nicely bound together with a beautiful cover, and maybe a dust jacket if it's a hardcover.  Perhaps there will be a photo on the inside back cover.  Maybe a pic of Tammy and me.

That is still awhile ahead of us.

Since completing the manuscript nine days ago I've been doing some revisioning.  Right now I'm looking at part three, which is about my years at Elon.  It's now striking me that the depiction of that is a foreshadowing of the greater drama to come.  The bad things but also the great good.

(I'm coming to realize what the book's moment of climax is.  It's three words.  And I'm looking forward to the person it pertains to discovering it.)

I'm going over it all, seeing what things can be improved upon, where the prose can use some tightening.  I'm not sure at what point this escalates away from being "first draft" but it's definitely got forward momentum behind it.

Meanwhile, I'm writing other stuff too.  The last several weeks of finishing the manuscript thrust me "into the zone" and I want to make the most of that however long it lasts.  Which I hope will be for awhile.

Maybe I'll commit to posting more to this blog.  I feel like a neglectful parent to it sometimes, and that's not right.

More next week!

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Book Status: MANUSCRIPT FINISHED!

 It's time to celebrate!!

A little less than an hour ago I finished the draft of the manuscript of my memoir.  So very thrilled!  I had wanted to have this done by Thanksgiving and I beat it be a week and a half.

It is packed.  Pretty much every moderate to major event of my life, from birth to where I am today: An artificial intelligence trainer, op-ed writer, and crisis line counselor.

The next to last chapter, I'm particularly fond of that one.  It's a "where are they now?" of most of the characters who appear.  And there are PLENTY.  I'm turning a lot of people who have been in my life into literary characters.

What happens now?  I take a break for a week or so.  And then I'll return to the manuscript with refreshed eyes, no doubt making edits and revisions (I made one earlier today, of the beginning of the chapter about my wedding, that is much nicer than it had been).

I'm also going to let a few friends, sworn to secrecy, read parts of it.  I've already shared some chapters with them.  They have each responded that these chapters are everything from "powerful" to "raw and visceral".

And then, well... we'll see.

But in the meantime, it's really happened!  At long last I have written a book.  I've got a really positive feeling about this.

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Book status for week of November 11th

Five chapters written this past week.  And three of those were written on Thursday.  Also, a chapter that I wrote over ten years ago now has a home in the manuscript.

The draft has now reached the 100,000 words mark.  As things stand now it's looking like it will all fit within 150,000 words, which is the goal.

At the rate this is going the entire first draft will be done by Thanksgiving.

It's been a lot of effort, but it really is quite something to see this all come together.  I'm soon going to have "written a full length book" notched on my belt. Maybe if this gets published that will give me street cred enough to sell my children's book too :-) 

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Weekly book status: Wow!

Want to know a secret?  I haven't showered in thirteen days!  I've been that determined to work on this project.  If I haven't been sleeping or job or eating or taking care of and playing with Tammy, I've been writing.

I look terrible.  I've dry-shaved every few days.  That and brushing my teeth have for the most part been my only hygiene.

But what has come out of that has been amazing.

Twelve chapters written this past week!  But it must be emphasized that these were smaller chapters than most of what have been composed so far.  Still, I'm very happy with the progress made.

I'm still writing this book out of sequence.  But as of yesterday my life from birth up to winter of 2002 has been chronicled as thoroughly as is feasible for a project like this.  And I've also got 2016 on through the present day written about.

Also, the book is split into eight parts.  Other than a few chapters still needed for the one about my college years, and the very last chapters, there's only one part left to be written.  All the others are complete.

I'm striving to keep the manuscript within 150,000 words.  As of last night it's at 90,000 written.  Sixty thousand remaining to use on one part sounds like a lot, but this part, titled "Years of Heaven, Years of Hell" is absolutely the biggest of them.  Sooooo much happened in this period.  It's going to be tough to pack it all in.  I think the episode involving the newspaper may be two chapters.

I'm not making myself out to be a saint in writing this.  I'm already coming across as a very horrible person.  But that's just the truth of it all.  I'm only writing about what happened, and trying to be as honest and forthcoming as I can be.

No writing today.  I'm taking a break.  And there is my "real life job" that must be tended to also.  But I think I've earned a day's rest, after writing most during most of my free time for the past two weeks.

Okay, me go shower now.  And play with the dog.  She's earned a new toy for putting up with me as she has.

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Book Progress Report: Five new chapters and a home for the very first

A little over two years ago I wrote the first chapter of what was going to be the book I had always intended to write.  It's not one that the reader is supposed to find early on in the tome.  It's actually a chapter that comes in quite late into the book.

For various reasons I needed to write that one first.  It more or less establishes the tone of the work still to come.

As of a few days ago that first chapter written now has its place in the manuscript as a whole.  I didn't have to change a thing to it.  It just slid right into place without any mess at all.

It joins five chapters that I've been able to finish the first drafts of since a week ago today.

So far, it's gone well. I've consistently been composing chapters, around five a week. There have been three significant events in my life that I've been able to reach down deep and write about. I dare not say I'm feeling proud of myself but there is a sense of some accomplishment.

But this, all of this, is still just tip-toeing across the minefield.

 

There is something massive that I haven't come close to beginning to address, in this book. It's about the very worst place that I found myself in because of manic depression. All the grief and pain and worst, that *I* was causing even more horrible things to the people I cared most about.

 

I feel like a coward. How I've been able to work on a little of everything else so far. Except for that.

 

For the past few months I've been doing the best work on this project that I've been able to have since Dad first told me he wanted me to write a book. I'm grateful to have found myself in such a groove. After a very long period of being stuck, there has been a LOT of movement forward.

 

But really, so far I've been doing nothing but pulling rabbits out of my hat.

 

Now it's well past time that I be able to pull out an alligator.

 

 

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A very good week for the book project!

Five chapters written in the past seven days.  And a strong start of another that I was able to compose on Saturday afternoon, the day before yesterday.

It can be noted that one of the chapters was written start to finish while I was suffering from conjunctivitis (also known as pink eye).

The drafts of the first five chapters I wrote are from the start of part three, which covers the years I spent studying at Elon.  A lot happened in that time and to be honest I hadn't been exactly sure what tact to bring to bear upon it goes.

But so far it's almost wound up writing itself.  I'm just pouring my memory out upon the page (or the keyboards at either my desk or my iPad Pro).  Those are five chapters that build up to something and when it finally came to that... well.  I needed to step away from writing for awhile.  It took a lot out of me.  I haven't gone back to finishing that part of the tale but I did move forward to another section of the book and began writing that.

(Lots of authors do this with their own books. Tolkien wrote parts of The Lord of the Rings at various times in the period before, during and following World War II.  You write what comes to you, whatever interests you most right then.  And then you piece it all together.  I figure that I'm in good company :-)

So much has been done yet a lot of work still remains.  But I'm feeling really confident about this.  I've shared a few of the drafts with a select number of trusted friends.  I insisted that I need their most brutally honest thoughts.  All of them have come back with nothing but good about what they've read.  I'm taking that as a good sign.  If I can keep that kind of vibe going, I'll be quite pleased and thankful.

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Weekly book report for September 30th 2024

 Well, this turned into something interesting.  My home is in the upstate of South Carolina.  Three days ago the entire western Carolinas region got slammed hard by Hurricane Helene.  I lost power on Friday morning about 7:30 and 77 hours later it still hasn't been restored.  Based on what I saw on the way to the library in downtown Spartanburg this morning, it may be days if not weeks before power is turned back on 100%.

This was a catastrophe on the same level as Hurricane Katrina.  Our kids will be telling their grandchildren about this one.

So I wasn't able to work most of the weekend, because power is out.  Until yesterday when I started writing in a notebook with a pen, jotting some thoughts down that will go into further chapters.  It will honestly be able to be said that I worked on this book through a hurricane.

Anyhoo, since last week I have been able to fully write one chapter, along with editing the previous one and the aforementioned bits and pieces that have been jotted down.

And that's pretty much it, for now.

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First weekly book update

Almost a month ago I posted about the status of my book, something that had been on the back burner of my life for ten years now.  Work on it has taken various forms, there had been progress made only for that to be tossed aside... well, it's been a mess, not to put TOO fine a point on it.

Things are very, very different now and have been for much of this past year.  A few months ago I had a breakthrough moment and was able to crank out the first few chapters of the story of my life.  That has led to more, and more.

Maybe it will help to keep me on track to post a status of this memoir's progress, say each week on Sunday.  Perhaps that will encourage me to stay committed.

Here it is as of September 22nd, 22024: so far, not counting the preface, there are fifteen chapters that have been written.  I spent most of this past week working on one, that had really been making me struggle.  It's still considered a VERY rough draft but early word that a dear friend I shared it with is that it's good.

There are going to be at least six parts.  Part one is complete.  There are five chapters done so far for part five, which is currently titled "Three Months and Three Ladies".  I'm not writing this book in sequential order.  Just working on it as the Muse leads me.

There is still a lot of work to be done.  Ideally I would be producing two to three chapters a week, but I'll be happy if it's even just one.  This book is finally getting the attention I needed to lavish upon it.  It's not going to be rushed.  But when it's finished, I will have written my life story, as well as such things are possible.

And that's how things stand now.

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Yes, I'm still writing a book...

More than a decade ago Dad persuaded me that my life story would make for something that many people would probably enjoy reading.  I started writing that in 2014.  And then a lot of things happened.  Dad's passing.  The year spent journeying across America.  Four years as a mental health professional.  Those things and more atop the wackiness that life had already sent barreling my way since I was a cub.  And let's not forget manic depression and all that led to!

Well, here's a bit of an update on that.  Following a few fits with a fresh start on writing, during these past several months I have made significant progress on my memoir.  I had been stuck at one point since mid-March however.  And then a few days ago I finally cracked it and was able to knock two chapters out of the ballpark in less than 24 hours.  Right now I am working on a new chapter, which is set-up for something of a "triptych" in the tale.

The first six consecutive chapters are done.  Several other chapters of varying sizes, to be spread around the book, have also been written.

If someone were to ask for a rough estimate on the size this is going to be, I would guess that right now it's going to be a little longer than J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, which is 272 pages in hardcover.  Actually, that's not a bad book for comparison, for a few reasons.

I'm discovering that it's not just writing my life story out as a straightforward narrative.  I am having to examine and consider things - and people - that are coming into a whole new light.  The process of writing this is changing me, and I believe for the better.  A few days ago I wrote about the little Amish girl who I met when I was ten years old.  And that made me realize for the first time what an impact that had on my life (forty years later and I still think of her).

There is a title and has been for a year or so now.  It took awhile to find one but I really love it.  Only five other people know it and they're all sworn to secrecy.  But every person I've told it to has responded with the same question: "What does THAT mean?"  Hopefully they and many others will delight to find out.

So, there is the status on that particular project.  It's found its groove again and the past several days have been a rollickin' wild ride across the life of young Robert Christopher Knight.  This next part is going to be a hard one to tackle though.  A lot of tragedy in a very short period of time.  Maybe if this book gets published it will help make some things right that happened long ago.

And maybe enough people will be able to not only understand me, but be able to forgive me.

Edit: 09/08/2024 6:10 PM EST: I have been able to knock out three chapters within the past 48 hours.  Including the one that illuminates the reader about the meaning of the book's title. That was tough to write but also a lot of fun.

This really is coming together.  It might even be finished by Christmas, but that's not a goal per se.  Just a possibility.

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EEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!

 All this time for the past several years I've been trying to write a book.  About my life especially regarding the impact manic depression has had on it.

I've been working on a number of bits and pieces of it, going back and forth on those.  But there has never been a "plan" per se.  I've been assembling fragments but this project lacked structure.  I was stumbling around without a clearly defined plot.

For a very long time, going back even to before I left my hometown and set out across America, I've been trying to crack the basic outline for my book.  It has been something that has driven me crazy... well, you know what I mean (I hope).

I haven't had the shape of it.

Until today.

I finally cracked it.

Like a bolt out of the blue it hit me late this morning.  Maybe God was waiting to show it to me.  Perhaps I needed to be in a better place before I could be shown this.

Hot dang.  This is going to get made.  It's going to work.

I think that this is going to become something very special.

The first draft of the outline is now a Microsoft Word document.  Chapters and sections are already falling into place.

Working title of part one: "The Page", but that may change.  This is still very early.

My confidence just got a major boost.  Lord willing, I'm really going to be able to do this.

Okay, me go celebrate now.  Tonight's dinner: pepperoni pizza with a good helping of sriracha sauce (the original from Huy Fong).

So stoked now.  I'm looking forward to sharing it with others.  This is gonna be KEWL...

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About the post from three days ago...

Feel like I need to follow up on the the post I made a few days ago about what happened to me when I was an adolescent.

 

It increasingly seems that it was the right thing to do.  I feel an AWFULLY large burden has been lifted off of me.  I carried that particular thing around for almost forty years.  I felt better after talking with the detectives about it three years ago.  I feel better again, now.

 

It has indeed been a boon.  I'm writing for the book again.  From the very beginning, when I first tried writing it in 2014 before Dad passed, I knew this was going to have to be addressed somehow.  That is possible now, when it hadn't been possible before.  I wish I could tell you that this book is going to be entirely focused on my life as a manic depressive: something that in and of itself is replete with drama and occasional comedy.  But it's not and it can't.  A person's life is like a tapestry.  Try to take one thread out and the whole thing unravels.  This particular thread has insinuated its way into my life since I was twelve.  But in the past couple of days I've found that I'm not afraid to confront that anymore.  So, that's good.

 

A number of people have privately messaged me about it.  Some have reiterated that the chances of seeing something done in the way of justice are slim.  I know that.  I knew it going in to talk to the detectives three years ago.  I keep thinking though that if it happened to me, well... could it have happened to others also?  As one of the detectives told me then, a person who does a thing like this can't stop.  He (and it's almost always a he) will try to do more.  Who knows?  Maybe others will step forward.

 

One person left a comment on my blog yesterday, noting that decades after the war that Nazis were still being found and prosecuted.  My situation isn't quite like that though.  There were MANY witnesses still alive in the 70s, 80s and 90s who could recollect individual SS officers and concentration camp guards.  There was very little problem with identifying such people.  With what happened in 1986 it's going to forever be my word against his  But again, who knows?  Since going to them three years ago the authorities may be keen on something I don't have.

 

Anyway, I felt led to come forward and write about this.  It was more than that even though.  God put me in a place where I had no choice, if I was going to continue writing the book.  And I want and need to write this.  It's as part of my recovery story as much as it is a chronicle of that.  I have been obedient to that and now it's done and well... we'll see what transpires next.

 

So that's what's happened since Saturday.

 

Hope you guys are having a great week :-)

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Status of the book, December 2022

Three months ago I posted here that I had begun work anew on the book that has been percolating in my gray matter since 2014.  That was when Dad told me I should write about my struggles with bipolar disorder.  He thought it could be inspirational to others.

And then of course, Dad passed and that knocked me off my feet.  And since then a lot has happened: the journey across America, new career and then changing career (and now, again), new town and new faces... all of this the backdrop against an ever-evolving saga of my mental health.  The book then, in whatever form it was going to take, is radically different from the project now before me.

I am happy to report that after a few false starts with how to open the book, that it is now well on track.  Late last night I finished the first draft of the new prologue.  It no longer opens with me in handcuffs, being taken away to a psychiatric facility.  The prologue now is one page of Microsoft Word that comes barreling at ya at 90 miles an hour, literally.  The preface was completed a week and a half ago.  Yesterday I finished chapter one and it's now in the hands of a few faithful friends who I'm awaiting feedback from.  The chapter about the school board run is also done.  There exist a few incomplete chapters, which I will be getting to as the Muse leads (wow, haven't mentioned "the Muse" in quite many years, I think).

I want this book to be a thorough chronicle of my life not only in spite of bipolar disorder but also much other traumatic experience, that have only been addressed in recent years (another reason why I'm glad I'm working on this now instead of trying to publish it then).  I also need for it to be a homage to everyone who has entered my life and helped me along the way.  I hope this will reach out to some of them.

And the title?  I've had about a dozen ideas for that.  Last week it was called "American Manic".  But this book is going to be about so much more than manic depression.  It needs a title that reflects a deeper life story.

For the past three days I've been fighting a nasty bug that at one point had my temperature reaching 104 Fahrenheit (or 40 centigrade for our metric friends).  During the delirium and convulsions I came to a spiritual place of peace that I had been praying to reach for most of my life.  And accompanying that, arrived an idea for a title.

(I think I underwent what my Native American brethren refer to as a sweat lodge, whether I wanted it or not.  I was perspiring like a pig as the fever broke.)

And now, I think it does have a title.  A good one.  Beautiful, even.  That doesn't refer to mental illness at all.  But instead could be interpreted as being about my entire journey, from the moment I was born on through young life and into adulthood.

I hope my high school freshman English teacher gets to read this.  She owns that preface!

I've read a number of autobiographies by people with bipolar disorder over the years.  Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind and Terri Cheney's Manic were two of them.  I am currently reading Electroboy by Andy Behrman (as high energy a jolt of a book as I've ever come across).  It doesn't hurt to study those who have gone before.  But I like to think that my own humble contribution to literature about life with mental illness will have a style all its own.  If it can carve out some small niche which readers will discover and be led to think about and even be entertained by, that would make me very happy indeed.

So, work is well underway.  Maybe it will come out before The Winds of Winter (come on Martin, what's KEEPING you??!).  I am looking forward to the next few weeks and months as it develops further.

Next up: chapter two.  Which begins in Washington, D.C.  Or maybe not.

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Back to work on my book

Dad wanted me to write a book, about my life with bipolar disorder.  He thought it would serve as an inspiration for others.  He was really proud of how I had gone forward with having a mental illness, how I was trying to use my experience with it to help others.  I like to think he would be proud still of my work the past three and a half years at a state department of mental health, where I've been employed as a peer support specialist.  I've gotten to utilize my knowledge and experience just about every day of that, toward assisting others to have more full and complete lives despite their diagnoses.

I had been working on a book, and had quite a lot of it completed, before Dad passed away in November of 2014.  And that... took the wind out of my sails, to put it mildly.  A year and a half later I left my old hometown for a year's journey across America.  And ever since a LOT has transpired that effectively make the original plan for a book, well, obsolete.

But I think that it's finally time to get back to work.  Last week I finished the prologue.  I know how it begins and I have bits and pieces in mind for the rest.  I haven no idea how to end it.  Friends have told me that since it's an autobiography that I shouldn't have a definite ending.  Maybe it will wrap up with me going into peer support: some symmetry there, from how the book begins.  The opening paragraph is me getting put into handcuffs for my first time en route to a psychiatric hospital.  Not a particularly cheery image to evoke but it happened, and I'm going to be brutally honest with this work.

It's not going to be entirely all about my life with bipolar disorder.  There are going to be other things too, like the trek across the country.  Something like that changes a person, I prefer to think for the better.  And I thought it could include the school board run, since that was so much fun and educational.

And hey, this will actually be my second book.   The first was a children's book I wrote a few years ago.  Maybe getting this one published will help me get that one to see print too! 

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First draft of my first book is finished

Some of this blog's longtime readers may recall how I was writing a book about having bipolar disorder.  That was a project I'd been working on for some time, and then Dad passed.  It sort of took the wind out of my sails, but I vowed to finish it someday.

Guess what?  It's still nowhere near finished.  The last time I committed a word to that endeavor was in winter of 2015.  And so much has transpired since then.  It will make more sense to write a new book drawing from the experiences of the past four years especially.

Someday I'll start to work on that.  In the meantime, I do get to rightfully proclaim that I have finished the manuscript of my first book.

The idea for it surfaced about ten years or so ago, and it's been percolating in my gray matter all this time.  Perhaps I needed to achieve some deeper understanding of the message I wanted to convey.  And then came the past two weeks and events on this side of the Intertubes.  And then I knew: it was time.

It's a children's book.  I visited the local Barnes & Noble's and studied products in the kiddie section to make sure I would have the page count right.  The average seems to be thirty pages for a picture book the primary audience of which is ages 5 to 9 or so.  And this manuscript packs in plenty with that amount of space to work with.

It's the book that I wish had been around when I was six years old.  Maybe I can contribute a little something to children who are likewise going through a hard time.  I like to think so.

So, the first draft is complete.  And there'll be some tinkering and having friends critique it and then perhaps sooner than later it'll get shopped around and hopefully an agent will like what he or she sees.  I will admit from the start however: I am NOT an artist.  So I'm praying that someone specializing in children's art is out there somewhere who can help bring this vision fully to life.  I think there is.  Whoever he or she is, I'll be looking forward to working with them.

Just as I look forward to posting about this again.

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    "Almost there."

"Almost there..."    

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Book update... and it's a good one

YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Well, this section of the book is now finished.  The first draft of Chapter 25 was completed a short while ago.  It follows the one that had stumped me since February, up until a week and a half or so ago.  The one that took me so long to crack and I couldn't have done it without a dear friend being here to give support and encouragement.

So the complete draft of Chapter 24 was done, but 25, well... I could see the shape of it, the general form, but the particulars were eluding me.  So I thought "maybe I should write the next chapter while waiting for 25 to really present itself".  And that's what I did.  So there was 24, followed by 26, with 25 in between still to be written.

This past hour, Chapter 25 was done.  I wound up waking up for some vague reason, and decided for the heck of it that I'd see if I could write anything.

And I did.  But man, that was tough.

Chapters 24 through 26 are somewhat a "triptych", in that they are a block of chapters complementing each other, and if this book gets published you'll see how that is.  This was THE hardest little part of the book to get through, but now it's done.  This was the end of Part 3 of the book, and apart from editing and polishing up it is more or less completed.

(Still a lot of work to do so far as editing goes, but I'm not really worried about that.)

Now comes the next section, which will be a collection of essays about bipolar disorder, and a lot of those have already been written.  Some as early as last summer.  There is at least one chapter which is darkly hilarious and had two friends cracking up laughing when they read it.  I don't mind that at all: you have to be able to laugh if you have a condition like this.

So that part is the next to be tackled.  And then the final section.  Which, I think will go much easier than the just-finished one was.

Who knows?  It's possible that this book might be finished by the end of June.  If so, it will have only taken 13 months to complete it.  Seems like a long time.  But be kind: this is my first time writing a book after all :-)

(The first.  Lord willing, not the last...)

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Book: Breakthrough

Let's recap, shall we?

Dad's passing in November threw everything out of kilter, particularly writing the book.  Not just out of being in grief and recovering from losing my last remaining parent, but also because of everything that comes with a death in regard to paperwork, his estate, and so forth.  So the project I've been working on since last May, my book about having bipolar disorder, had to be put on the back burner.

In January I felt okay enough to continue working on it.  And I did.  At least for a little while.  A few more chapters were completed.

Then in February, everything slammed to a halt.

I had reached a place in conveying the narrative where my mind could not, would not, proceed any further.  It had hit a solid wall and nothing I did could break it down.  It was my memories, very painful memories, that I could not approach much less attack.

It was all of the memories of the very worst kind of person that mental illness made of me.  For twenty-some chapters it had been building to this wretched culmination, and I lacked any heart to take one step further.

The core of it was a considerable amount of material, correspondence really, from the past several years.  You could call it a kind of file.  And I couldn't open that file, though I needed contents of it to go forward with my writing.  It was a crucial amount of raw source material about myself.  I needed it for my research.  But I also see now that I needed it for my own personal understanding.

Last month helped immensely.  First the trip I made to visit family in Florida.  And then the week which my dear friend Melody spent here.  It had been Melody's idea in March that I really could go into "the file"... but also that I shouldn't be alone when I did so.  Her presence here bolstered my resolve open "the file" and see what was inside of it.  Nothing that I hadn't seen before, but it was just as painful now as it was during the time that the correspondences were accumulating.

I couldn't have done that research without a good friend being nearby who could give me encouragement and support when I needed it.

That was the end of April.  The trip to Florida renewed my cheerful spirit.  Melody's visit gave me strength to barrel through that blockade in my mind.  But something was still missing and I couldn't figure out what.  So it was that I've gone all of this month without writing anything for the book.

My narrative was still ground to a halt and I didn't know how to make it move.

Until late last night.

I finally cracked it.  The critical next chapter.  It came in a moment, the breakthrough that I had been looking for.

I spent the next few hours writing.  In the wee hours of the morning, the first draft had been completed.  And then I hurtled on to the beginning of the next chapter.

It was like a wave had been building up all of these months, finally come crashing ashore.  And when it receded, there it was: the vision of how to keep going.  How to move forward.  Three months, my efforts and frustrations were leading to this.  There were times when I genuinely wondered if I should give up this project.

Maybe it was God whispering something to me last night.  I want to think it's like that.

Writing the book is back on track.  I've broken through the wall, have overcome that torment and fear.  Doing that changed me, maybe made me a better person.  Made me stronger.

I know what to do now.

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For the first time since late February...

...I am writing for my book.

Let's summarize for a moment.  Last May and up until late October, my book was going at a very good pace.  Oh sure, there were some fits here and there, and I made a few mistakes from which I learned a great deal (and made the book much better, I think) but as this sort of thing goes, it's my understanding that this was going along better than a lot of first-time authors.

Then Dad had his stroke.  And a little over two weeks later he passed away.

Things have been in turmoil since then.  And the past few weeks especially.  I am now looking at some very drastic life changes which I had not had to consider anytime during the course of my life.  And on top of all of that, work on my book practically ground to a halt.

Then in late January, I was able to write again.  And a little more work on it was accomplished.  But then around mid-February my progress was halted.  By a very hard obstacle which I could not get through or get around.  I had come to a place where I was having to confront things in my history as a bipolar person that were extremely difficult to revisit.

It was like hitting a concrete wall.  I could bang my fists against it as hard and as often as I could, but it would not budge.  Would not be marred.

But then came this past month.  Two things happened.  The first was the trip I took to Florida to visit my family there: what I'd been plotting to do for years and years.  It was time away from the things that had burdened my heart since this past fall.  More than that, it refreshed my spirit.  I learned anew what it is to be alive... and to be thankful for that.  Sitting here trying to write all this time, barely leaving the house because of indifference to the world beyond, an aching emptiness in my soul the only persistent feeling I knew... none of that is healthy.  Driving to Florida was the longest overland journey I've ever taken alone.  Being welcomed by my family filled my heart with joy.  The sights that I saw there, the laughter and the fellowship... all of it renewed my strength and resolve.  When I came home over a week later, it was with a sense of life that I had not known for too long.  And I was determined to make the most of that and to never stop appreciating it.

The second thing came a few days after returning from Florida.  Some of you are familiar with Forcery: the film we made ten years ago (has it really been that long?!).  One of the brightest highlights of that project was Melody Hallman Daniel.  Her portrayal of Frannie Filks - the obsessed Star Wars fan holding George Lucas hostage - was hilarious, hypnotic... and at times downright scary.  It has become legendary in many quarters.  It was heavily featured in the award-winning documentary The People vs. George Lucas.  It was touched upon in a Time article and several other publications.  From the first time that we all came together, Melody has been a very dear and precious friend.  Following Dad's funeral service, she and Chad Austin and Ed Woody and myself came together for the first time in more than a decade.  I was really overwhelmed by the bond that we shared, that had come about from our little project together.

Well, Melody had been wanting to visit Reidsville again for quite some time, and we wound up making that happen this past week.  Not just Melody but also her service dog, Sasha.  I knew all along during the month or so before she came that her visit would help me overcome the block that had been in my mind.  She was my counselor, my sounding board, someone who reassured and held me accountable when I needed it.  It was her suggestion: that I should not be alone while I was going over some very difficult material that had accumulated during the last several years.  It was a good idea.  I'm thankful that it was Melody herself who was here when it came time to do that.

And hey, Melody was working on a book project also: translating into English a well-respected book by a Croatian author.  So we had two writing endeavors going on under the same roof, sometimes in the same room.  All while Sasha and my mini dachshund Tammy were playing with each other.

Florida renewed my spirit.  Melody's visit renewed my strength of purpose.  More than enough than I needed to get past that excruciatingly painful block that I was slamming myself against to no avail.

Today I began writing again for the first time since the end of February.  What has been an obstacle, is now something to at last be surmounted.  Is it still painful to read that material?  I'd be lying if I denied that it was.  But it doesn't have to haunt me as it has been.

The book is back on course.  And I think that this months-long struggle will prove to in the end to have been a good thing.

Just some thoughts from the writing process.  A little insight into the mind of a first-time book author.

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