Submitting My Manuscript to My Publisher! Resources & Boo Boo’s

Greetings, my friends!

Yes, I’m thrilled to announce I’m finally delivering my baby to my publisher, but it’s not a human baby. For starters, I take lithium & a MAOI, so I’m done with all that. From now on if we want to add to this family, we’re going to the Santa Cruz SPCA!

I’m delivering the manuscript of my memoir Birth of a New Brain – Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder to Post Hill Press on Saturday. Dr. Carol Henshaw agreed to write the foreword, and I’m truly honored. She’s one of the top perinatal psychiatrists in the world, a highly acclaimed author, and intrepid world traveler.

I began writing Birth of a New Brain nine years ago after my daughter was born. I was diagnosed with postpartum bipolar disorder, and it took forever to complete the book because of my treatment-resistant bipolar depression. If you want to know more about that saga, well, you can read my book next October 2017!

The past week has been a whirlwind of editing, writing, assembling last-minute photos, and completing the freaky metadata form. I also realized I made a ghastly mistake, which you’ll read about, I promise. First the good stuff:

The following links contain incredible resources that helped me. They might help you with your writing projects too. 

Filler Words Detract from the Power of Your Writing!

Rae Ford’s Write for Your Life blog post Ecstasy Editing Notes: 20 Filler Words and How to Get Rid of Them is soooooo worth checking out! (Rae, that “so” was for you, LOL!) 

In 2015 I printed Rae’s page, and put it in my “procrastination” file. On Monday I finally got out Rae’s pointers and combed through my 320 pg. manuscript. I cut as many of the filler words as I could. It was an exhausting process, but editing those suckers felt good! 

Grammarly Fun

Yesterday I splurged and bought Grammarly Premium for one month ($30),  and I have one word to describe it:

SUPERHELPFUL!

(That is a real word according to Miss Lucy. And if you refer someone to Grammarly, you can each get a free week’s trial period, but I was too lazy to do that.)

NY EDITORS

I discovered more awesome editing tools and the cool NY Editors website. Some goodies are free and some cost cha-ching! Visit “Instantly Improve Your Writing With These 11 Editing Tools” at this groovy NY Book Editors link.

My Quotation Nightmare – Don’t Make My Amateur Mistake!

I did something SO foolish and SO lame, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but if you learn from my mistake it’s worth the shame!

A Bit ‘O Backstory:

I spent many hours searching for apt quotes I placed at the beginning of each of my 28 chapters, and one quote for the “front matter” area. I enjoyed searching for these quotes – it was a labor of love.

Some of the quotes were from songs, others were from books, poems, and newspaper articles. Yours truly didn’t get permission to use any of them.

Big mistake.

Moreover, I should have known better! Last month I contacted the American Psychiatric Association’s Permissions Department. I applied for their holy permission to cite two brief paragraphs. Guess what they wanted?

SIX HUNDRED BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP DOLLARS!

(I appealed, but I was told no. I got around that snafu by paraphrasing the information I wanted to quote.)

Yesterday when I reviewed the “need for permissions” clause in my publishing contract, this image came to mind:

 

It was time to do a little research I should have done, um, last year. It turns out I need permission to quote anything published after 1923. Of course, any publisher/person/alien/whatever can charge a fee (i.e. songs are notorious for costing major bucks) unless that source allows a writer to quote without formal permission. (See this link for info – plus, there are tons of other sites with all kinds of information about this topic.)

Even one line of a song is a no-no, which sucks because I had song quotes from Dolly Parton (yes!), Crowded House, Split Enz, Toni Childs, Bic Runga, and Howard Jones – yes, 80’s music forever, people!

A JOLLY UPDATE:

This morning I figured I had nothing to lose by emailing an author asking if she could provide a quote with a similar message to what I read in her book. (Her remark was the most relevant, meaningful quote out of th etwenty-nine.)

I had the good fortune to locate her email address online, but I didn’t have high hopes. Well, she wrote me back within the hour and graciously gave me the perfect quote. I’m thrilled! Remember this is an option if all else fails.

Below are some of the quotes I tearfully deleted. I’m not afraid to post them here because I can always delete anything in WordPress in 20 seconds. 

I also registered at Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison’s publisher Penguin Random House * and I applied for permission to use her quote. It wasn’t that big a deal, and I’m glad I did it. I’ll know by eight weeks if it’s a yay or nay. I’m hoping they won’t ask for $600.00

* https://permissions.penguinrandomhouse.com/faq/

On hypergraphia:

My writing felt like a disease: I could not stop, and it sucked me away from family and friends. Sensations outside of language dried up: music became irritating discord, the visual world grew faint…While my hypergraphia felt like a disease, it also felt like one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It still does.

Dr. Alice W. Flaherty, The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block and the Creative Brain

On bibliotherapy:

A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe

Madeleine L’Engle

Electroconvulsive therapy/ECT:

I had been in a place where no drug could touch me. ECT was like a huge crane that pulled me out and let me back down on land. But I still had to walk the rest of the way.

Martha Manning, Undercurrents: A Therapist’s Reckoning With Her Own Depression

Benzodiazepine addiction:

To escape, you must make a conscious decision to break the fear-benzo-fear-benzo cycle.

Matt Samet, Death Grip: A Climber’s Escape from Benzo Madness (fab book!)

And it’s de rigueur to have something from the great Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison:

Suicidal depression involves a kind of pain and hopelessness that is impossible to describe — and I have tried. I teach in psychiatry and have written about my bipolar illness, but words struggle to do justice to it. How can you say what it feels like to go from being someone who loves life to wishing only to die? Suicidal depression is a state of cold, agitated horror and relentless despair.

Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind, in the New York Times Op-Ed piece “To Know Suicide”

I’m glad I figured out this mess three days before submitting the manuscript. Maybe I can still apply to the powers that be to use some of my favorite quotes. If I get permission, maybe the quotes can be added during the editing process. I’ll check with my editor and give you an update in a future post.

Lose It! Update

Awesome blogger Bradley (Insights of A Bipolar Bear) and I continue struggling mightily with our healthy eating/exercise program (I have a knee injury and I’ve been overeating every night, a topic for another post…) but we aren’t giving up! No way! If you’d like to join us, sign up for free at www.loseit.com  and search for the Wondrous Writers group.

Halloween Is Coming – What Shall I Be, What Shall You Be?

Halloween is my favorite day of the year! My daughter Avonlea came up with my costume idea last night. She sure cheered me up after that quote fiasco.

I’m STOKED!
I’m going to dress up as….

MELINDA GORDON, THE MEDIUM in THE GHOST WHISPERER!

(This show is my current glorious, guilty pleasure – while my family watches Avatar and makes fun of me, I watch Melinda send everyone to the light! I mean, how can you go wrong with actors Jay Mohr, Camryn Manheim and David Conrad?)

I already have the perfect vampire-ish dress; now I just need to get a ton of makeup (she wears pounds of it in every episode, plus fake eyelashes) and, um, maybe get ahold of some falsies, since (TMI Warning) because when I lost forty pounds, um, a lot of it came from up top. Oh well.

And on that lovely note…

Thanks for reading!

much love,

Dyane

 

Dyane’s memoir Birth of a New Brain – Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder with a foreword by Dr. Carol Henshaw (co-author of The Modern Management of Perinatal Psychiatry) will be published by Post Hill Press in October 2017.

Bad Manners

Can you believe I used to publish a daily post?

Neither can I. (Never again!) But I felt like sharing this “extra” post today since I meant to publish it last Friday. I really hope your Monday is going well, and I want to thank you, as always, for reading!

Xo,

Dyane

I wrote Bad Manners the same day I waxed poetic about the happier topics of redwood baths and bulletproof coffee. If I had combined both sections it would’ve been a novella, so I held back. Plus, this post has an entirely  different tone and needs to stand alone.

It’s not a feel-good piece. The post is so whiny, if your laptop had a “smello-net” feature, this post would smell like Robert Mondavi’s winery!

Without further adieu, here’s the debut of a (very) occasional section called….

I Don’t Feel The Magic!

Two events happened over the past few weeks that got my goat. *

I know I shouldn’t have gotten defrosted about them. Much bigger calamities are afoot and many of us are struggling. I’m still upset about Ulla for all kinds of reasons. I guess the horrible loss made me more vulnerable to the b.s. that’s simply part of life.

I hesitated publishing this post in fear of turning some of you off, permanently, due to my whining and negativity, but I’m sharing it anyway because my gut says to do it. (Obviously I’ve watched far too many Scandal episodes!)

Most importantly, I value learning about what some of you do to rise above your own wicked, petty ways in response to bad manners. I hope you might share a juicy anecdote or two in the comments. (I’m still working on the rising-above part, so please bear with me! I’ll keep you posted…)

In the meantime, check out this meme’s heartfelt quote. I recommend you read it whilst listening to Snatam Kaur:

That sounds good, but this is a double Pisces you’re dealing with! I’m a walking exposed nerve ending!!!

So here’s the latest…

Petty Thang #1 

“You Asked Me To Help You, I Did, and Now You’re Blowing Off My Emails – Whhhaaaat?”  

This isn’t a complex situation. Before I get into the nitty gritty, I’d like to acknowledge I’m cognizant there could be extenuating circumstances why “Mechante” hasn’t replied to my emails. Illness. Crisis. Laziness. Who knows?

HOWEVER, according to Mechante’s Facebook activity over the past week, she seems to be doing fine ‘n dandy. (I spied on her Facebook page using Craig’s account; I’m still footloose and Facebook-free!) Yes, here is where I tell you my deep, dark secrets! 😉

Anyway, I doubt my emails went into Mechante’s spam folder because that never happened during our previous email communications. Her email is the same.

I wasn’t asking her to give me money or do anything major. I was simply offering her a unique opportunity, and all she had to do was write back “yes” or “no”. But I only heard the sound of silence.

After that, I was tempted to remove my 5-star Amazon review about her book, but I didn’t. This is progress, no?

Petty Thang #2  

“Now That You’re Famous-By-Association Means You Can’t Take Thirty Seconds To Thank Me?”

This petty thang regards one of my best writing teachers.

The backstory: After I took her classes, she became involved with a super-famous writer who had many tête-à-têtes with Oprah. That’s all I’m writin’ here. 

A couple weeks ago I read in the paper about a cool event scheduled to happen three minutes from my front door. My teacher would be there! Even though I suffer with social anxiety, I knew I had to go. 

I was inspired to write her a letter, and wrote over three hours. (Yes, I used precious, kid-free time I should’ve spent editing my book.) 

I explained how she influenced me as a writer. I wrote how grateful I was for her feedback. I mentioned what happened to me after college graduation – how I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, endured the hospitalizations, the ECT, and so on. Lastly, I described my joy at landing a book deal.

I wasn’t asking her for anything. I didn’t need her famous partner’s help – I’m sure she gets hit up for his contacts all the time. 

I assembled a couple belated “thanks for being a great teacher” gifts (a soap  and a signed copy of Craig’s beautiful book), a Papyrus thank-you card, and my business card.

After I sealed up the goodies in a mailer package and wrote her name on it, etc. I drove to the venue. I made sure she got the package. I didn’t see her face-to-face, but I know without a doubt she got it. 

It has been over a month and I never received a reply. Not even a one-line email.

Um, whhhaaaaaaat?

Maybe since the return address didn’t have a celeb’s name on it, I wasn’t worth a simple thanks.

(Yes, it’s crass, but the image made me laugh…)

I know, I know, it’s dumb. As my friend the magnificent writer Greg Archer would say, “Get over it!”

Blogging about such malarkey helps me, I kid you not. (I goat you not?)

p.s. I give you permission to bill me for bloggotherapy. Can we set up a monthly payment plan?

---

* I love the phrase “get my goat” – I need to use it more often!

• 

---

Lose It! Update – I’m A Proud Loser (40# since April, 2015!)

Writer extraordinaire Bradley (Insights of A Bipolar Bear) and I are persevering with our healthy eating & exercise routine. I won’t kid you – it’s tough! We use Lose It!’s website – at least it’s free! Remember, you can always join our Lose It! group: Wondrous Writers.

 

Dyane’s memoir Birth of a New Brain – Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder with a foreword by Dr. Carol Henshaw (co-author of The Modern Management of Perinatal Psychiatry) will be published by Post Hill Press in October, 2017.