SSRIs and creativity

I have this notion that the back cover of every novel should include a list of the medications the author took while writing it. Full disclosure -- I love it.

So here goes. I take "sub-clinical" doses of two drugs: Effexor X/R and Neurontin. Effexor is an SSRI. Neurontin is not. The latter is a unique drug, good for all sorts of things. Go, Neurontin! 

"Sub-clinical" means the dose is less than the minimum normally prescribed. As people are placed on Effexor X/R, an SSRI anti-depressant, the initial dose is 75 mg. But typically that's just for starters. Almost everyone graduates to 150 mg. or higher.

I take the baby dose because more makes me edgy. In fact, the reason I take 300 mg. of Neurontin is to tone down the edginess of the baby dose of Effexor. And 300 mg. is a baby dose of Neurontin, which is a very cool drug sometimes referred to as a "brain hormone". Woot! Taken in larger doses, it's an anti-epileptic drug, an anticonvulsant, but just take a tiny bit and it's like oil for your brain. Double-woot!

As a result of these medications I'm sane and happy. Before a shrink put me on them I was literally crazed all the time. There was always this wild feeling inside me, so big that I never knew what to do with it. I think in large part it's what caused me to drink and drug throughout my early years. It was an attempt to tamp down the wild thing.

But the day after I was put on these drugs, the very next day, the out-of-control feeling was gone and it has never come back. There was indeed a silver bullet for me, contrary to everything I was ever told by a medical professional. This has had a miraculous effect on my life, completely altering its quality and trajectory. I'm not subject to that constant, maddening, craziness anymore. It was -- and is -- such a relief. It's like I was always in a room with screaming people -- and suddenly they fell silent. Such peace! And Effexor doesn't turn you into a contented cow like Prozac does. Dog forbid! You keep your personality with Effexor and just lose the craziness. Sweet deal.

Now, I might not have brought all this up today but it's the intro for what I really want to say. Lately, many science news stories have reported that SSRIs make the brain more "plastic". In other words, the drugs enable the brain to grow new connections and hook up new skills centers. You've probably read about the brain's plasticity. It's how people with strokes recover -- other parts of their brains learn to do the things the damaged parts used to handle. So it's no small news that SSRIs apparently make the brain more plastic.

Which brings me to my point: I started writing fiction when I was 60 after I began taking these drugs. I don't think that's a coincidence. Something new is happening in my brain and it's responsible for me becoming a fiction writer. If I wasn't put on these medications, there probably would be no Xmas Carol, no Worlds Trilogy. And chances are, the blog you're reading wouldn't exist. Poof.

Just saying. And if the first link I provided didn't convince you, have a gander at this article at physorg. SSRIs expand your brain's horizons (and make you write books). Very cool.

The language of baseball

It's been awhile, laddies and ladies, but I'm finally ready to do another post on the language of baseball. Let's begin by talking about the pervasive folksiness of the sport.

As the baseball season began, a couple of times I heard announcers say of a player: "He really had a good camp." In other words, he did well in Spring training. It's all kids and camp to these guys. Same with calling the locker room the "clubhouse". Indeed. And where to we pay our dues to join? Sounds cozy.

One announcer said of a pitcher who had potential but really didn't understand his craft: "He puts his fanny right next to Buehrle's when they're not pitching -- and he's learned a lot."

Early in the season, it seemed the Mets couldn't win a game. When they finally did win one, Gary Cohen, one of the Mets announcers, said "Terry Collins finally got a chance to shake some hands and pat some rears on Sunday."

Said of a player who's always switching teams: "He's always wearing different laundry." I got a kick out of that line and it speaks to the camp-like reality of the baseball locker room, where fresh laundry is always the order of the day.

Said of a player who was just pitched tight inside: "That'll loosen up his jersey!"

As I say, it's very folksy in baseball-land. Okay, now a couple of baseball peeves:

"Nice hustle by (whoever)!" Really!? He's showing some special quality by running full out for first base while being paid millions of dollars to do so? Really?

And what's with these lawless umpires? "I think that's a little hometown scoring" said an announcer, referring to a player who was given a "hit" when he really reached on an error. And why? Because he was the hometown guy, a hero of the sport, that's why. Shifty umpiring sucks and yet it's totally accepted. This has to change. They're there to give an accurate call or they shouldn't be there at all.

And finally, just for fun, let's haul out some weird baseball names from the past. They really add to the sport, I think. I'll list more in a future post but here are just a few of these fabulous names: 

Stubby Clap
Skeeter Barnes
Firpo Marberry
Butch Husky
Johnny Dickshot
Dick Pole

It's hard to believe they're real people, but they are. Baseball seems to attract these names like honey draws flies. Kinda fun. Okay, that's it for today's baseball talk. More coming soon! I have a sea of notes to put up here -- and I guarantee you, some of them will loosen up your jersey.

Blogger's all buggy

Blogger just came back online for us, you know, bloggers. We couldn't post for over a day. Not only that, but Blogger lost some posts, notably my last post on word and phrase origins. And I'm not typing it up again. I don't even have the source material. Grrrrr. So if you missed your weekly word post, I'm afraid you'll have to wait for a new one next Thursday. Grrrrrrr again. Bad Blogger!

The joy of a blank page

I've read that some people fear the blank page. They see it as threatening, a challenge they won't be able to meet. But a blank page is the most glorious thing in creation.

Just think: you can write anything! That is such an incredible fact. The whole universe is right there in front of you, like an all-you-can-eat buffet, and you get to choose what you write about. And once you're done you'll realize that an incredible thing has happened. Your story exists in the world; it's real.

Painters and sculptors are necessarily limited by the availability of materials. They are only free to use what they can get their hands on: the colors, the paints they can afford, the canvas, the clay. And they're limited by size because what they create is finite. You can only build so much art from so much paint or clay.

But writing is unbounded. There are no rules to thwart you and there is nothing in your way -- except yourself, if you perversely squat in the middle of your mental roadway and gum up the works. I've said this on this blog before and I'm going to say it again: if you've never written a story, a work of fiction, you have no idea what you're missing.

It's within your power. We all can write, though with differing results based on talent and education. But language is only one level of writing -- the other is the story. And anyone can tell any story. I urge you to tell yours. Afterward, if the writing needs some help, you can seek out an editor. It's amazing what they can do. But don't worry about any of that now. Just tell your tale as interestingly as you can.

Give it a try. What have you got to lose? You worry that it might not be good? Oh, boo hoo. Who cares? At least you did it (and it's a ton of fun, which you'll realize as soon as you try it). Tell your story. It will be the thing you own most in this lifetime. And remember: no one can take writing away from you. Even prisoners have access to paper and pencil, and when they write, their jail cell disappears. They're free.

Give it a shot. After all, you don't have to show it to anyone unless you want to. It can be your secret. Start telling your tale today. As I said (and this will only be clear to you once you've completed your story): it will be the thing you own most in this lifetime.

Does blogging take away from journaling?

Since I started blogging, I write less in my journal. Perhaps blogging cuts into my urge to write. Could be, I suppose. But I'm not sold on the idea.

My journal is most useful when I'm writing fiction. In the middle of a furious writing session, I'll "take a break" by closing Scrivener and jumping into my journal. There I have a discussion with myself about what I'm writing, how I feel about it, the problems, etc. -- and as I write, I often reach a decision that makes me jump out of the journal and back into Scrivener, to proceed with the story. Journaling is a necessary part of my writing process.

But the sad fact is that I haven't written anything new in months. This fact upsets me. It's like "what's wrong with this picture?" But I have three "completed" books to get out the door. What else can I do but continue to finalize them? If I don't, they'll never see the light of day, nor a reader. In any case, I suspect the lack of fiction writing in my life is why I write less in my journal these days. I can't blame blogging, which seems to fit easily into my spare moments.

Anyone else do both? How does blogging affect your journaling? Are they related?

It's that fabulous day of the week!

It's time for words and phrases. Today the material comes from John Ciardi's "A Browser's Dictionary: A Compendium of Curious Expressions & Intriguing Facts". You should buy one. It's great for browsing. I've pulled a few interesting terms out of Ciardi's hat for you today. Have a look.

Influence. n. An affective power; v. To affect. [Root sense: "a flowing in, to flow in upon." From the Latin in- in; fluere, to flow. Whenever this word is encountered in writing prior to circa 1800, it is reasonable to ssume an astrological reference to the influence of the stars.]
NOTE: One of the most graceful effects of poetry (or of any precise writing) occurs when the author sets a word in a context that allows a counterpoint of the root sense and the extended sense. Assume the poet to be standing on an eastward-facing beach just at dawn with the surf running high. Then assume him to have written, "And dawn is all one rosy influence." The surf, tinged red by the level rays of the new sun, flows in (root sense) rosily; and it has (extended sense) an affective power upon the beholder. Language is rarely used at this depth, but the rareness of excellence should not be made into an excuse for the failure to recognize it. In the days when the school system still taught languages (and sometimes even English), the recognition of root senses was as common as it is now rare. This book is in part an effort to reawaken an awareness of the root depths of words.

[Note from Keith: Don't you love Ciardi even more after that?]

Midwife. A woman who attends another at childbirth. (Because hospital birth has become standard in the U.S., it may be well to say that until very recently almost all births occurred at home with only a midwife in attendance. Midwife delivery is still standard in most of the world.) [Root sense: "with-wife: a woman who is with another (at childbirth)." Old English mid, with, wif, woman. Note: Latin obstetrix, midwife; from stare, to stand, prefixed ob-, before, and with agential suffix -ix: literally "she who stands before (another woman at childbirth)."]

Keep one's powder dry. Be prepared to fight. [With reference to muzzle-loading guns into which loose gunpowder was poured from a powder horn and tamped in. If the powder was allowed to become wet, it would not be fired by the spark of the flint.]

Take a powder. 1. To clear out fast. 2. As a command. Get out of here! Scram! [In the days before modern methods of pill-making and encapsulation, powder was a standard usage for "medical dosage," and medical powders were commonly folded into small paper packets to be dissolved in water or mixed with it. So a headache powder. The powder at the root of this idiom is a laxative, and by intention, a strong one, the root sense being a crude joke: "Take a (laxative) powder and clear (yourself) out."

Spitting image. An exact likeness. He is the spitting image of his father. [A corruption of spit and image, spit 'n' image, which were formulas of the most ancient practices of black magic and the casting of spells by hex dolls, in which any harm done to the doll is transferred ot the hexed person. The two basic principles of such hexing were: 1. Anything that was once part of a person, or that was intimately associated with him, retains a power over him. Hex dolls, therefore, were made as symbolic resemblances (power 2), and bits of his or her hair, spit, feces, nail parings, clothing, etc., were incorporated into the material of which the doll was made (power 1). Spit, therefore, on the first principle; image, on the second. See Rosetti's "Sister Helen" for a late hex poem; Sister Helen, in melting the wax doll she made on these principles, causes her victim to waste away.]

Spoof. A mild hoax or good-natured satire. [Spoof, name of a half-nonsensical, bluffing card game invented and popularized by English comedian Arthur Roberts (1852-1933), the name being his coinage. Give Roberts credit for an excellent ear: his coinage somehow manages to sound like what it means, and in being so accepted, it has survived to become a standard word in British and American English.

Back your stuff up!

I bought another backup drive. My old one was fine but only stored 500 GB. Since my current computer has a 1-TB drive, it was time to move up. (The kids will find a use for the old one.)

The drive I got is pictured is the La Cie 1-TB Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drive. Two hundred bucks. I love this thing. Supposedly you can drop the thing and it'll be fine. It's got rubber housing all around to protect the drive, but I don't think I'll be dropping it much. The model is meant to be tossed in your pocket or bag and lugged around with you. (A mobile 1-TB drive. Scary concept, huh?)

It doesn't require its own power source. You just plug it into whatever slots you've got on the back of your computer (it has four cords to match up to almost anything) and it works by drawing on the computer's electricity.

This means if there's a fire, all I'll have to do is grab this little thing and run. I won't have to fight flames and smoke to get a damn plug out of the wall -- it'll be a simple snatch-and-run. Makes me happy. And the drive is super-fast when using the included FireWire 800 cord. The only drawback is that it doesn't have lights to tell you when it's working. I guess they omitted them to minimize power consumption. I can live with this flaw. And did I mention it's really fast?

Don't forget to back up your work! Seriously.