In one of the books I am reading right now, the author shares an image that a friend shared with him.

Picture a four-burner stove, he says.  Each burner represents one of the following: friends, family, health, and work.

In order to be successful, you have to turn one off.  To be wildly successful, you have to turn off two.

Discuss.

If you’re at all interested in the music that has captured me recently, I made a playlist on Spotify.  Just search “Lights All Around Blog.”  Or don’t.  But there’s some lovely music on there.

P.S. If you’re not using Spotify yet, why not?  It’s free, and you get access to so much music, and you can create and share your own playlists, and you support the rights-holders with every song you listen to.

1.) Take the pledge by copying and pasting the following into a post featuring “Blog for Mental Health 2013.”

I pledge my commitment to the Blog For Mental Health 2013 Project. I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others. By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health. I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.

2.) Link back to the person who pledged you.

I would like to thank the author of It’s not me, it’s my OCD for pledging me and for letting me know about this initiative!

3.) Write a short biography of your mental health, and what this means to you.

It was an ordinary strep throat infection, but my body’s immune system turned traitor on me and my antibodies attacked my basal ganglia instead.  I was seven years old when OCD first reared its ugly head.  It wasn’t until I was in my 20s when it was finally diagnosed.  For years, my family and I had no name to put to my experience except that “Jackie thinks too much” or “Jackie  overthinks everything.”  I worried about spiritual issues mostly: did I love God, was God real, was I going to heaven, was this-or-that sinful?

It was a long and painful journey, but Exposure and Response Prevention broke me out of OCD’s prison.  Today, I am so grateful for my freedom that I am eager to share my stories with anyone who will listen.

4.) Pledge five others, and be sure to let them know!

I am pledging five of my favourite mental health bloggers:

Bringing Along OCD
ocdtalk
71 and Sunny
Lolly’s Hope
Poet’s Pilgrimage

5.) Join the Official Blog For Mental Health 2013 Blogroll.

“Writing a novel is a terrible experience … It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.”
Flannery O’Connor

I began my slow transformation into becoming a novelist about five years ago; I don’t know exactly at what point I crossed over the invisible line, but I think it’s safe now to say that I am a novelist.  An amateur one, but a novelist nonetheless.

I could probably describe the experience differently every single day, if I took the time to nail down the emotions.  Some days, writing a novel feels like sitting in God’s will.  Sometimes it feels like a journey.  Sometimes, a rollercoaster.

Tonight, writing a novel feels selfish– but probably not in the way that you’re thinking.  I’m not the one who feels selfish.  I’m the one who feels a little ripped off, actually.  It’s the novel writing itself that seems selfish.  Let me tell you what I mean.

While I am writing a story, I live and breathe that story.  I think about the characters throughout the day.  I cry when I don’t know how to fix their problems.  They break my heart and hurt my feelings.  I see the sky and think, There should be a pink morning in my book.  I hear a co-worker tell a joke and wonder, Is my story funny?  I read a book and realize, A motif!  That is what I need– a motif!!

But when I try to set the story aside– not for long, just a week or two– so that I can try my hand at something else (a poem, some flash fiction, brainstorming for the next novel), it cries out to me.  Don’t forget about us.  Don’t let other things cloud your vision.  We refuse to let you push Pause on us.  

See what I mean?  Selfish things.

(The truth is, though, that I miss them.)

But still.  Just a poem.  Or a short scene to post on my blog.  How about a tiny little story just to flex some different muscles?

We thought you loved us! my novel whines.

So I grouse and write about fourteen versions of one crappy first sentence, then say, Forget it, and write a blog post about how I’m a crazy writer whose novel writing takes on a life of its own, an absolutely insane writer who is subject to characters she made up, an out-of-her-mind writer who just wants to work on her novel.