Have you ever wondered what exactly goes on in your brain when you’re anxious, depressed, or hyperactive? This book might offer you some answers. Dr. Henslin offers here an explanation of a new process he’s using in diagnosing and treating psychological disorders and other problems that has allowed people who have given up to find the healing they so desire. My thoughts are all over the place when it comes to this book, so I’ve used a less-than-traditional format to review it. That said, here’s my take on the book:

• Best: Dr. Henslin offers help to those who have given up on getting help for their disorder. While anyone can use his treatment methods, I saw the most joy in the stories he tells about people who have suffered, sought out medicine or therapy, and found that it didn’t help them. Because Henslin includes a brain scan in his diagnostic treatment, he’s been able to find some unusual causes for these people’s problems and thus has been able to help those previously deemed unhelpable.
• Worst: Henslin seems pretty down on traditional talk therapy. While he doesn’t discount it entirely, he does say that it hasn’t been helpful in many cases and that medical intervention (whether through psychotropic drugs, supplements, or diet) is more helpful. I don’t know the stats on something like this, but talk therapy is something that has helped me immensely and done the same for others I know. I’d like to see it better integrated with Henslin’s medical techniques.
• Thoughtful: After reading this book, I thought a lot about the integration between more traditional medical interventions and talk therapy. I’m definitely someone who believes that many mental illnesses are wholly or partly caused by incorrect brain chemistry and that psychotropic drugs, supplements, and dietary changes can help these problems. On the other hand, I believe that talk therapy helps us better understand ourselves and, therefore, helps us grow. I’m not quite sure how these should be integrated, but I do think that people tend to swing to one side or the other and that there’s probably somet good middle ground.
• Annoying: Henslin talks about many different supplements that will help the brain, and it just so happens that the best ones available (according to him) are from his website. His claims may be true, but it’s hard to trust him when it feels like he’s only trying to make money.

If you’d like more info on the book, check out Thomas Nelson’s page here, or order it on Amazon.

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…and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise!

I’m in the process of rewriting the novel. The original premise was good, the characters were good, both plotlines were great, but I didn’t like the way they went together. I’ve done some of the foundational work for this second version, but the writing is coming slower than I’d like.

There’s so much that goes into slowing me down this time. There’s the desire for this version to actually be something viable, something I can pitch to agents, and the fear that comes along with that desire. There’s doubt that I can write something that works, or at least the question constantly nagging at the back of my brain. These are both important and deep, but the thing that’s making it drag right now is this: plotlines.

Every couple hundred words or so, I come up with a different idea for a new plotline. Some of them are tangential and some involve tweaks to the major story structure, and most of them are interesting, enticing, and alluring in their own special ways. Every time this happens, it takes me anywhere from a day to several days to figure out if I want to include the new idea and, if so, how to do it.

I suppose it’s good that all this is happening now, when I’m only a couple thousand words into my rewrite, but it’s also frustrating. I want to write this story, to get it out on the paper as best I can, and I can’t write when I don’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s crazymaking, I tell you.

If there are any writers out there, how do you plot your novels? And how do you handle the ideas that pop up later?

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I’ve been known to say that Dave might be the poker player in the family, but I’m the gambler. If my odds look good or my opponets look vulnerable, I’m all-in in less time than it takes Dave to say, “Sarah, are you sure…?” And it pays off, more or less. I lose bigger than he does, but I also tend to win bigger (though in the fake money games we play it, it doesn’t much matter…). In the end, we both walk out about the same.

I started my novel over last night. It felt like a huge step, like when you suck it up, close your eyes, and push all your chips to the middle of the table. Starting again meant committing myself to a revised plot, a new setting, and some freshly outlined notes that I didn’t have before. It meant putting my hopes for these characters and their stories into a new form.

I didn’t expect starting again to be so hard. After all, I started before and it wasn’t anything except exciting. But this time, I know it might not work. I know that I’ve put over a year into this project, into developing story and conflict and character, and I know that the finished product still might not be what I want it to be. All of that makes jumping in that much harder, because every word I put on the page commits me to another word, and another and another and another, until I’m all in, fully committed to giving this a go and seeing what happens.

So I’m in. The chips are on the table, the cards are in my hand. I think I’m ready. I think I made a good call, read my table well, and chose my moment. But all the thinking in the world won’t save me from what I can’t see. Here’s hoping I’m not facing a showdown against pocket rockets.

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I just found out that some of my articles from Wisebread.com are going to be part of their new book. You can check the book out on Amazon here, and I’ll post more details as I have them.

I’m surprised and stoked about these latest developments. Wahoo!!

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*This is another of the books I’ve agreed to review for Thomas Nelson.*

While Holding Fast is ostensibly the story of a woman who loses her husband in a freak accident on Mount Hood, it also offers readers a clear view of what it is like to love someone and lose them, and what the grief process can look at. Without Karen James’ soul-journey, offered here in her own words, the book would have little appeal. With that journey, it becomes something precious, delicate, and very, very alive.

The story of Karen’s husband, Kelly, and what happened to him and his climbing partners on Mount Hood in December 2006 is thrillingly told, but much of that thrill would be lost without the tale of Karen’s emotional journey. While Karen’s words aren’t always expertly woven, her honesty gives readers a raw, brutal picture of what it feels like to have tragedy strike someone close, someone loved. She also offers insight into the days, weeks, and months after a tragedy, giving readers her own experience in hopes it will help them interpret, allow, or understand their own.

Karen James is a bold, beautiful soul who shares the greatest tragedy of her life so that others may grow. I don’t know of many actions more selfless than that. If you’d like more information about her or this book, check out Thomas Nelson’s product page.

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There’s a war in my soul when it comes to writing. One the one hand, I love to do it. When I’m molding my ideas, crafting them into something solid I can put on the page, I feel like I have wisdom beyond my years and experience. When I’m putting words on the page, I get into the flow and it’s a feeling like no other. When I’m going back over it, inspecting craft and word-use and technique, I feel like my intuitive mind speaks volumes and if I listen just hard enough, I’ll know what I want to do with the piece.

The battle comes before all of that, when I’m convincing myself to sit down and write. It’s all about fear (fear of not succeeding, fear of sucess, but mostly the fear of never being good enough) and pressure (pressure to write something that people will want to read, pressure to use “good” words and not “bad” ones, pressure to prove that I have what it takes, whatever that is). They mix up and create a cocktail that holds me in stasis, between pursuing things that I know are good for me whether they find publication or not, and not pursuing them because then I can never fail.

All my life, I’ve thought that, if I could just get that one publication credit, it would all be gone. The fear would dissipate and the pressure *poof* into nonexistence. It’d be nice, except it isn’t true.

What is true is that, with God at my side, I am enough whether I get published or not. I’m enough when I have a bad day and stare at the screen and can’t write any words. I’m enough when I feel like I’m selling out, writing things that aren’t of my heart because I give into that pressure. Whatever happens to my writing career, I am enough. More than all of that, I’m enough whether I write or not.

Believing that to the marrow of my bones is what this year is all about.

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So the journey continues. I’ve been frustrated in my recent wanderings.  Every time I think I’m headed where I want to go, something inside pulls me up short. It’s like I’m narrowing my focus, slowly but surely, until I hit on what I really want from all of this. I end up feeling silly, like I must sound like the most scattered person on the internet, haring off in a different direction each week. But it’s all a process of coming to center, of finding my middle in the midst of all the noise.

After I wrote those goals in my last post, I set out trying to meet them. I know, it’s not the new year yet, but I figured that I’ve never liked New Year’s Resolutions anyway, so why not go ahead with them now. So I jumped in with both feet, intending to make a big splash (even if I was the only one who got wet).

Thing is, it didn’t feel right. I felt like Sisyphus, pushing my rock up the hill every day. None of it made me happy, and even the prospect of writing for money didn’t raise my spirits.

I thought and I prayed and I thought some more, and I came to this conclusion. I have a feeling that this will surprise none of you, that I’m the only one who didn’t see it before. Nonetheless, here it is.

I will not be happy just putting words on paper.

On top of that, I will not be happy just working for myself. Those aren’t the goals in my heart. The only words that it will make me happy to write are the ones that mean something to me and that I think will mean something to other people. The only business I’ll be happy running is a business that’s in the market of caring for people. If I do anything else, write other things, become a successful writer, it won’t matter if people and meaning aren’t at the center of everything I do.

And so that’s what I’ve decided to re-create all of this around…goals, bio, FAQs, everything. I think it’s going to take me a while to figure out exactly what it is that I want, but I guess that’s part of the joy of a website…it can change as I do.

In that spirit, here are my goals for 2009, redux’d:

• revise the novel I wrote
• attend 1-2 conferences in my area
• submit 2-5 query letters per month, on topics I want to write about
• seek out copywriting clients who I care about, either because I love what they’re doing or because I love the people doing it
• write the new novel that had burst into my mind (this is lower priority–revise the other one, first)

See, not all that different. Like the best of Christmas presents, I think it’s what’s inside that counts.

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More than a year ago, I decided to start taking my writing seriously. I made that decision in a moment. Figuring out what it means has taken much, much longer. In fact, I still don’t entirely know, some days.

What I do know after the last year is that I want at least part of my living to come from the words I put on the page. Now, it’d totally make my day if those words were in novels or even short stories, because I have this love for fiction that can’t be contained. But I’d also enjoy writing for magazines and corporations, because that would give me the chance to learn about all sorts of things and communicate about them creatively to others.

I don’t know entirely what I want all of this to look like or how I’m going to get there. What I have realized is that I need to take steps forward even if I’m not quite sure about those things. If I don’t start somewhere, I will never start at all, and the worst that can happen is that I’ll have to find out that something I thought I wanted is not what I wanted after all.

So I’m doing it. I’m starting to put my name out there, starting to believe what I’ve heard other writers say about each rejection being one step closer to the next job. This is a slow process for me. For one thing, I have a day job. It takes a lot of my time and, at certain points in the year, my energy. For another, overcoming my hesitance and gaining some momentum in all of this takes a crazy amount of energy, too. It’s easy to sit still and wonder what the view is like at the top of the hill. It’s much, much harder to get up every morning and start climbing. But that’s exactly what I’m doing. Some days, the crest looks like it’s almost within reach. Other days, I can’t even see it for all the rocks and trees. But I’ve decided to believe that it’s there and that I am capable of reaching it.

Towards that end, my goals for 2009 are as follows:

• submit resumes for at least 2 copywriting jobs per week
• submit at least 2 query letters per week
• attend 1-2 writing conferences in my area
• revise the novel I wrote this last year

I’m trying to hold these pretty loosely…more like guidelines (because we all know that goals, like parlay, are more like guidelines, anyway). This is not an exact process. When I submit resumes, it’s easier to submit 5 or 6 or 12 than 2. And the research I do before writing a query can take quite a while (definitely longer than a week!). Maybe the goals will change; maybe they’ll stay the same. What I want is some structure, and these definitely help point in the direction I want to go. Who knows…maybe what I have here is a map for getting where I want to go!

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I don’t know how many of you know about this deal, but it’s worth mentioning again. Thomas Nelson, a major publishing house, is giving away books to bloggers who will read the book and write a review, both on their blog and on the site of a major retailer (like Amazon.com). If you’re interested, check it out here. It seemed like a good deal to me, so I requested a copy of Through the Storm, by Lynne Spears and Lorilee Craker. Yup, it’s that Lynne Spears, mother of Britney and Jamie Lynne.

I have to admit that I’m something of a follower of the Britney Spears saga. Watching her crash and burn never gave me pleasure, but once I started caring about her I found I couldn’t tear myself away. I saw a haunted look in her eyes that even how hasn’t entirely gone away, and I wondered if her mom’s book would reveal something about that.

Reveal it did, though not quite as I’d expected. I didn’t know that Lynne was a devout Christian, nor that she had been as involved in her daughters’ lives as she claims. And she makes many claims. At times, it’s difficult to tell what is actually the truth, because Lynne’s version is very different at points from what we’ve heard from the media. At the same time, her story seems logical. If things happened the way she says they did, it makes sense why they ended up the way they have. I don’t think hers the only possible explanation, but it’s a good one.

Regardless of the objective truth, I don’t think Lynne lied in this book. What she and Lorilee wrote has a ring of authenticity that’s hard to walk away from or deny. This is the story of what she truly thinks and believes is what happened, whether an outside observer would have a different opinion or not.

Not only does the book ring true, but it’s well put-together and flows into and out of the different topics Lynne wants to discuss with relative ease. On top of that, Lynne has the unique point of view of someone who is both inside the music industry and outside of it, often at the same time. Her perspectives on everything from paparazzi to Britney’s breakdown reflect this, and it’s fascinating to read. All is not quite as it seems, and not quite as it should be, and we would do well to take notice.

Overall, I recommend this book. It probably won’t knock you off your feet, but the new-and-different perspective on an industry we all know something about plus Lynne’s deeply human voice make it worth the time and energy. If you want to check it out, here’s a preview of the first two chapters. If you’d like to take the plunge and purchase, try over here.

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