Hi, there.
I’m Katherine Lampe. In the unlikely event that
you’ve heard of me, you probably know me as the author of the Caitlin Ross
Urban Fantasy series. Or as a loudmouth with no censor, who doesn’t balk at sharing
her bathroom habits on social media. But you might not know I have Bipolar
Disorder (Type II).
Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t balk at sharing the
details of my mental health, either.
Bipolar II isn’t the “fun” kind of Bipolar, where
you do things like blow your savings on fantastic money-making inventions or
tell random strangers you’re a movie star incognito. That is, it isn’t
characterized by extreme mania. When those of us with Bipolar II experience
mania, it’s generally of a milder sort. The kind that lets you clean your
entire house in a couple hours, which is useful, but not particularly exciting.
The main feature of Bipolar II is debilitating depression, sometimes lasting
years. The depression has its own rhythm. There are days or weeks when you
can’t get out of bed. Then there are periods when you’re kind of functional.
You can accomplish stuff that needs done, but all of it is drained of emotional
content. Nothing’s particularly worrisome, but nothing is particularly
enjoyable, either. Sometimes duty and expectation are the only things keeping
you going, because you don’t want much. Nothing appeals and nothing matters.
And when you accomplish something, you don’t feel any internal sense of reward.
About ten years ago, give or take, a bunch of
stressors fell on my head all at once. I’ve been in a Bipolar depression ever
since. And before you ask, yes, I’m in treatment. Without it, I wouldn’t be
alive to write this. Medication alleviates some of the distress. It doesn’t
make me normal, whatever that means. I have about as many good days as bad days
now. Of course, on the bad days the good days seem nonexistent. And even on the
good days, good feelings are distant. More an intellectual recognition of “Oh,
I don’t want to die today,” than true wellbeing.
At the same time as I’ve been experiencing this
extended depressive period, I’ve written seven novels, six of which I’ve
published (the seventh is due out in August). I’ve also written and published a
book of fairy tales and another of short stories, and I’m piddling around with
a trio of related novellas. All without any motivation or feeling of
gratification from the process.
Okay, there were those twelve weeks when I was
manic and I completed two novels. That was pretty cool.
Until now, I’ve never really thought much about
how I wrote seven novels in the state I’m in. The first one, I’d been plodding
along at for some time. When the depression got bad, I abandoned it for years
on end. Then a new medication started working, and one day I went back to it.
Rewrote most of it. That’s when the manic period hit, and I wrote the next two
books in the series. The mania left, and I didn’t write for another couple
years. After that, I found reasons. Sometimes reasons within the series itself:
an event that needed to happen, an issue that needed to be addressed. Sometimes
it seemed like writing was the only thing I could
do, the only thing I’m good at. When all else fails, I can still put words
together, whether or not they matter to me. Maybe sometimes I was just telling
myself stories as a kind of distraction from the dreariness of life. This last novel
has been an absolute nightmare, by the way. It took me two years, and in the
process I tried and abandoned half a dozen different plots and tossed tens of thousands
of words.
The thing is, it doesn’t matter how I did it. I
found a way that worked for me. If my way doesn’t look like anyone else’s, who
cares?
Well, sometimes I care. I care when I see people post writing tips or blog about How
to Do It. I have a bad habit of comparing my process to other people’s process,
and when mine isn’t the same, I wonder if I’ve Done It Wrong. When a writer I
follow on Instagram or Twitter mentions in May they’ve completed three
manuscripts since January, I wonder what’s wrong with me. What essential
quality am I lacking?
I know the answer. What’s “wrong” with me is, I
have a mental illness. What I’m lacking is the normative distribution of
chemicals in my brain.
Most of the lists of writing tips you see, most of
the posts about “how to be a writer,” are written from a neurotypical
perspective. An ableist perspective. (They’re often classist and sexist as
well, and probably racist, but I’m white so I can’t speak to that.) When you’re
struggling with a chronic illness, be it mental or physical, advice like “write
every day” isn’t just worthless, it’s actively damaging. Well-meaning saws like
“it’s not always going to be fun” or “don’t wait around for inspiration or the
right moment” are meaningless when you never experience “fun” or “inspiration”
and every moment is wrong. Saying “push through and get it done,” without
considering whether your audience has the physical and mental stamina to push anything is insensitive at best. It
really drags down those of us who write but are unable to follow the directive.
It contributes to an already frustrating experience, and sometimes provokes us
to overextend the few resources at our disposal. I don’t know how many times
I’ve heard a friend struggling with the balance of illness and writing say “I
just have to knuckle down and do it,” knowing
they can’t do any such thing, knowing
they’re going to judge themselves later when they don’t “measure up.”
A lot of that advice comes from a capitalist
standard where output at any cost is considered more inherently valuable than a
person’s wellbeing, and where failure to make quota is taken as a sign of
laziness or not trying hard enough. It relegates words to the category of
product rather than art or expression, and it’s bullshit. If you perpetuate
that standard (or suspect you do), I ask you, please, to check yourself and
knock it the hell off. If you suffer from that standard, I’m here to tell you
it’s okay to ignore it. The most anyone giving advice can do is tell you what
works for them. Being a bestselling
novelist does not make anyone an authority on you and your process. No one else
can define “what works” for you. No one else can tell you how to do you, and
you don’t have to feel guilty or beat yourself up for not listening.
Maybe you write every day for three months and
then not at all for two years. Maybe you think for a week before every word.
Maybe you don’t think about writing at all for weeks on end. It’s all fine.
It’s fine if you finish things, and it’s fine if you don’t. It’s fine if you’re
published and if you’re not, and it’s fine if you don’t care one way or the
other. It’s fine if you want to write but health limitations mean you can’t
right now, and it’s fine if you need to spend quality time with your cat. It’s
fine if the stories go away. And you know what? If they never come back, that’s
fine too. It’s a loss and a grief, maybe. Maybe it’s a relief. Whatever your
feeling about it, it doesn’t make you, the essential you, worthless or invalid.
You have the moment in front of you. Nothing else.
Do it your own way and screw the haters.
