depression

Resistance is futile … or is it?

/ Melanie Marttila / 15 Comments

This has been a rough week, the second of two spent out of town for the day job.  I’m exhausted, feeling ill, and I seem to be getting a lot of bad news, or rather I’m taking the news (in itself, neither bad nor good, just news) I’m receiving rather poorly.  I know, that’s my problem, not yours, but I’m sharing anyway in the hope that someone out there might benefit from my momentary struggles.

On a side note, I was moved to join Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writers’ Support Group, but the sign up page does not appear to exist at the moment (!)  Yes, it’s been that kind of week.

This goes back to the issue of having, or in my case lacking, thick skin.  When I blogged about this originally, I wrote that having thick skin was kind of like being brave.  Being brave doesn’t mean you’re fearless, it means that you act despite your fear.  Having thick skin doesn’t mean shrugging off criticism or refusing to be affected by it.  Having thick skin means that you have to find a way to view criticism objectively, find a way to accept what you can, compromise where necessary, stick to your guns on what you believe is truly essential, justify your position, and write on.

That’s where I’m having trouble this week, and I think I just need some time to get some objective distance.

So what was the news?  The biggie was the illness of a friend.  The specifics I won’t get into because they’re not mine to share.  Needless to say, it was a bit of a blow.  Perhaps it was more of a trigger.

It’s coloured everything else I’ve done, and all the feedback I’ve received, this week: my coursework, my day job, and especially my writing.  What would otherwise be constructive criticism (taken in stride), or even compliments, have taken on a significantly more subversive tone.

Fraud, the sub-text whispers …

writer's block - crushed and crumpled paper on...

writer’s block – crushed and crumpled paper on notepad (Photo credit: photosteve101)

Why?  I’m blocked.  For the first time in years I can’t write a sentence without rewriting it five times.  Even then, I delete half of what I’ve written (the equivalent of the old-timey writer crumpling up sheet after sheet of paper as they emerge from the typewriter) and try to come up with something that has meaning.

For five years, I’ve written every day.  I’ve returned to the words and they haven’t failed me.  Until this week.  I’m hitting a crisis point, truly overwhelmed, and clueless as to how to proceed.  Surely this means that epiphany can’t be far away?

What I really think is that my old frenemy, depression, is starting to rear its ugly head again.  And yes, it’s my head, so I can call it ugly if I want.

Time to count my blessings:

  1. My health.
  2. My husband (wonderful man – unlimited hugs).
  3. My mom (amazing woman).
  4. My friends (all of them, a blessing in my life).  I have to note a couple of specifics here: Margaret, out of the blue, sent me a card because we’d shared emails of woe; Kim put a quote of mine on her forthcoming book cover (wonderful poet! I’m so honoured!).
  5. My work friends.  More specifics: Monica, dealing with some heavy personal issues of her own, saved our training bacon this week; the training team – most of us got together last night for a lovely evening out and lots of laughter and hugs were shared; my manager commended the training team for our superb work and dedication.
  6. My dog.  Has to be said: unconditional love and sweetness.  Panacea 🙂
  7. My critique group, honest and tough, but very supportive.  They help me become a better writer.
  8. The Wordsmith Studio community, sources of great ideas and resources, chats (though I don’t get to participate as often as I’d like), and networking.
  9. My classmates and our instructor: encouraging and informative.  Another virtual community in the making.

I’ll work my way through this rough patch.  The way is not yet clear, but with all of the above help, how can I not succeed?  Sometimes we just need a reminder.  Life is good, folks, for all that it seems otherwise.

Is anyone else out there fighting the good fight?  What do you do to remain positive?  Any tips and tricks to share?

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What happened afterward

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on My history as a so-called writer: NEOVerse opened new possibilities 🙂

About the same time that I started working for ACCUTE, my sister-in-law told me to apply for a job with her employer.  I did and before the year was out, I was once again working two jobs at the same time, up to sixty hours a week.

Exhausted, I left ACCUTE and stuck with the better career opportunity.  It was in a call centre, not something I’d generally choose for myself, but in Sudbury at the time, it was a very good job (considering pay, benefits, and pension) and I needed that.

It felt like selling out, though.  Plus, I wasn’t suited to it.  Every negative call stayed with me.  Every anguished personal tale made me feel guilty that I couldn’t do anything to help.  I tried working full-time, but couldn’t hack it long-term and returned to a part-time schedule after six months.

It was at this time that my depression, which I’d been trying to deny since I was seventeen, reared its ugly head in earnest and I had to deal. Medication and therapy provided a short-term solution, but eventually, I weaned myself off the meds and tried to manage my illness through diet, exercise, meditation, and persistent awareness of what my body, heart, and mind were telling me.

They were screaming at me to get out, but I didn’t have any other options.

Term employment led to permanent, a mortgage (negotiated to consolidate our debt including our sizable school loans), and a car loan.

I was an adult now, with an adult job, adult debts, and adult responsibilities.  I was a home-owner.  All creativity seemed to vanish.  Though I was still certain that I wanted to write, I was unable to muster the necessary dedication.  Writing was now something reserved for vacation.

This went on for years.  I tried to wedge my butt in my desk chair, but it never stayed for long.  I did pull out my old project from time to time, but couldn’t focus. I joined the Sudbury Writers’ Guild and attended a fall workshop with Rosemary Aubert.  To be honest, I’d never heard of her before, but the workshop was great and I was inspired.

When my grandfather passed away, part of my small inheritance went toward a lap top computer.  That helped a little too.  I wasn’t chained indoors in the middle of summer anymore.  I wrote more that year.

I was successful in an internal competition at work.  Better pay and a better job.  It was a good thing.  Just before I started, the Sudbury Writers’ Guild scored another coup: Nino Ricci.  That was when my writing life changed.

In the wake of that workshop, I started writing every day.

That was the real beginning of my life as a writer.

Took me long enough, didn’t it?

Gratuitous links regarding the butt in chair phenomenon:

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This is my last post in My history as a so-called writer for the foreseeable.  Other tales of Writerly Goodness can be found under my categories: Work in progress and Authorial name dropping.  Next week, my blogging schedule will change, so stay tuned.

I will continue to post in Select poetry, Alchemy Ink, Work in progress, and Breaking open the mind, my learning category.

Eight metaphors for persistence, and why you’ll want to read this anyway

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

God help you if you are a phoenix / and you dare to rise up from the ash …

~~Ani Difranco, 32 Flavors

Rise Of The Phoenix

Rise Of The Phoenix (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Sunday, February 26, 2012, my dear blog labbydog.ca was hacked, necessitating, in the opinion of the hosting service on which she lived, a complete deletion of all materials.  Even if I’d have been savvy enough to back up, those files would also have been suspect and deleted.  It was a dark day.

The light at the end of the tunnel

It was a dark week, truthfully.  Labbydog.ca was also the mail server for me, my husband Phil, and my mom.  It took a couple of days just to get everything re-established after the wipe.  Phil is a computer genius though, or as a friend of ours once said, an ass in jeans (a fine one, admittedly), and email was restored in short order.

I had some of my materials saved as Word .docx files, but by no means all of them.  How to rebuild?  More importantly, where to rebuild?  I wasn’t about to trust my next effort to the same hosting service, who essentially blamed me and my importation of add-ons and plug-ins (A.K.A. “scripts”), intended to protect my blog, for its very destruction.  I investigated each one and only downloaded them after the recommendation of an online guru. So what was I going to do?

I considered my options.  Both blogger and WordPress allow the importation of domains, and thanks to Robert Lee Brewer’s excellent advice, I had purchased melaniemarttila.ca in January.  It was my intent to move my blog to the new domain in February or March in any event, which is why I (oh-so-foolishly) hadn’t backed labbydog.ca up.

Robert, you saved my virtual ass, and my online sanity.  Thank you.  There are no words.

Getting back on the horse

I mucked around with blogger for a day or two, but I really didn’t want to start entirely from scratch.  I liked WordPress, was comfortable with the admin portal and the intuitive interface.  So I started a new blog on WordPress, transferred my domain, mapped it, and prepared to wade back into the blogging fray.

No use crying over spilled milk

I was seriously depressed, but the disease is an old frenemy, and I know how to deal with him.  The bottom line is that I can’t worry about things I have no control over.  I have to focus on the things I can affect in a positive way.

Depression and writing:

People have asked me since the dreadful day, “Why?”  Why indeed would anyone want to hack my innocuous wee blog?  I wasn’t particularly controversial.  I didn’t have a lot of followers.  It’s not like they were taking down some corporate mogul, or politician, or even a celebrity.  So yeah, I’d like an answer to that one too.  Why?

Wishing won’t make it so

You’ll have to track down the hacker and ask his or her maliciousness yourselves.  Quite likely, the culprit is not even a person, but some hack-bot, a lackey bit of code sent out to do its vile master’s bidding.  So why?

The short answer is: because she or he could.

Hacking, trolling, griefing, phishing, propagating malware, and other acts of online evil are all about bullying and the abuse of power.  You deal with it the same way you deal with any other kind of abuse, you speak up, share your story, and hope to hell you save someone else by your sad example.

I will share Wil Wheaton’s online motto here: Don’t be a dick!

[Wom]an with a plan

Labbydog.ca 2.0 = Writerly Goodness on melaniemarttila.ca.

From here on out, I’m saving everything I post in Word.  Once I have Writerly Goodness up and running, I will institute a back up routine.

When was the last time you backed up your blog, novel, training course design, or insert anything you’ve spent a lot of hours doing here?  Don’t procrastinate any further: save your work.  Now.  Go ahead, I’ll wait …

[W]e can rebuild [her]. We have the technology …  Better than [s]he was before.  Better, stronger, faster.

~~The Six Million Dollar Man, 1974

So yeah, I’m going to go back to the drawing board.  I’m going to repost as much as I can remember of what I used to have on labbydog.ca, but I’m going to do it better (I hope).  For example, ‘My history as a so-called writer’ isn’t just going to be self-serving or shamefully confessional.  I’m going to try to put in some meat for the writerly.  I’m going to try to answer the questions: why should I care, and what’s in it for me?  I’m hoping for some serious takeaway action.

A weekly schedule should give the project some structure: different categories on different days.

I’m trying to learn/do/create/be better.  And I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know how I’m doing.

Never say ‘die’

The takeaway here: in writing, as in everything, if you love what you’re doing, you can’t give up. You won’t be able to.  Sometimes, though, you might need a little help.

Some curation, and maybe inspiration:

What have you had to overcome to do what you’re passionate about?  Ever felt like a phoenix rising from the ash?

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