Taking a Historical Look at Mental Health

Although #MHYALit doesn’t officially kick off until January 2016, I recently read (and really loved) A MADNESS SO DISCREET by Mindy McGinnis which is a historical mystery/thriller that reminds us of how mental illness used to be viewed. It’s true, today there is still a lot of negative stereotypes and stigmas that are associated with mental health and mental illness. But it is also true that we have in many ways made tremendous progress in how we talk about mental health, how we treat many who struggle with mental health issues, and how much more readily those with mental health issues were abused. We still have a lot of progress to make, the stigma is real, the stereotypes are harmful, and abuse is still rampant. But one of the many things I valued in reading A MADNESS SO DISCREET was that glimpse into the history of mental health and mental health treatment. I have seen author Mindy McGinnis talk about this book, which was released recently, and know that she did some extensive research for this book. Today she is sharing a few words with us about mental health and her book, A MADNESS SO DISCREET.

Mindy’s Thoughts:

Mental illness used to be something to be spoken of in hushed tones, or not at all. While we are edging away from that, I sometimes see that movement being done in leaps and bounds, where everyone is an armchair psychiatrist who reels off a DSM diagnosis simply because they have the vocabulary.

Bi-polar and OCD are the obvious go-to’s, with people characterizing simple mood changes and a penchant for cleanliness as an opportunity to trot out their ten-cent words, not realizing the damage done by flippant assignment of truly horrifying illnesses.

Knowing the terminology does not signify knowledge any more than being able to identify an ocean on the globe makes someone a deep-sea diver. Mental illnesses are vast, varied and complicated. A supposed familiarity with such a large topic can do real harm, leading to self-diagnosis, self-medication, or just plain old bad advice.

If you suffer from a mental illness, seek help from a professional. If you know someone who suffers, encourage them to do the same. Much like the diagnosis, the treatments for mental illnesses are legion, and different approaches will work better for different people.

Let a professional decide what’s best – not your friend who watched every episode of HOUSE.

Source: http://www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2015/1...

Down The Research Rabbit Hole

My muse is fickle and unreliable, which is really frustrating for me because I’m the type of person that is constantly busy. I knit while watching TV because being still is not in my body’s repertoire. So when Miss Muse shuts down for a little bit, I tend to get frustrated with her, and she usually responds by dumping three to four great concepts into my lap at once, declares her job done, and disappears again.

She pulled this trick on me in 2013 when the barren waste land that had formerly housed my inspiration suddenly said, “Hey, you should write a Victorian Gothic novel set in an insane asylum about a girl who assists a criminal psychologist in catching killers. Also, she has to pretend to be lobotomized in order to escape her abusive father. That should be easy to deliver, ta-ta.”

To which I said, “Hey, thanks muse. Nice. How do I go about doing that?” But she didn’t answer because she’d already jetted off to wherever she goes when not spouting difficult-to-execute concepts at me. But I already knew the answer: research. I needed to know a lot of things in order to even come close to doing this the right way.

How did insane asylums operate in the 1890’s? How was criminal psychology executed then? How often was it right? Was the science accurate enough that a well-trained person could conceivably have caught a killer based on what they knew about the criminal mind at the time? How were lobotomies performed?

OOPS—snag. Lobotomies weren’t a medical practice in 1890. That’s a pretty huge roadblock for me since the plot hinged on my main character being (supposedly) lobotomized. Shifting the timeframe to 1936, when the first lobotomy was performed in the US, would screw up my plot even more. So instead I needed a feasible situation where a doctor could be aware of the benefits of a lobotomy-like procedure, without…you know…actually calling it a lobotomy. This train of thought ended with me reading this book, and this one. Yes, I was really popular on public transit.

I also read this book, and this book, this one (it has pictures—ouch), and to get the other side of that story, this one. And finally a slightly more relaxing one so that I was familiar with my setting. Then just to be thorough, I took a trip to the asylum where the book is set because I’m a big fan of knowing what the hell I’m talking about.

A year after Miss Disappearing Muse dropped the concept on me, I figured I knew enough to actually start writing the book. Except, no. This was the first time I’d ever attempted to write a historical, and because I despise anachronisms I had to get things as correct as I possibly could. From what kind of lighting was in the room my character waked into (Fire? Gas? Electrical?) to what she was wearing, to the question of whether she was working side by side with “policemen,” “cops,” or “constables,” I found myself in the position of not being able to finish most sentences without a quick fact check.

It was painful, torturous writing – and not only because of what I put the characters through. To make thing worse, I’d spent so much time researching that I’d painted myself into a pretty serious corner in terms of deadlines. I won’t tell you how quickly I wrote MADNESS because you’ll question my sanity, but I will tell you I gained almost fifteen pounds doing it because I basically shut myself in my room and wrote while slamming cheeseburgers. At one point I would’ve accepted a catheter just to get the job done more effectively.

A Madness So Discreet released yesterday, and I’m pretty proud of it. It marks a genre departure from my earlier works—Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust are post-apoc survival—but not a departure from what I do best. Which apparently is write rather stomach-churning scenarios while eating.

Told you I’m a multi-tasker.

Source: http://www.publishingcrawl.com/2015/10/07/...

Hypable: Mindy McGinnis the Mental Gymnastics of A Madness So Discreet

Tell us five random facts about yourself.

1) I have very fat thumb pads. They’re grotesque.
2) Glitter really freaks me out. What is it made of? I don’t understand.
3) I don’t ever paint my fingernails because when I do I can feel them suffocating.
4) Much like a cat, if you raise my body temperature, I will promptly fall asleep.
5) I learned how to walk in high heels from watching Tootsie.

Which is more challenging to write — the first line, or the last line?

Oddly enough, I usually know exactly what both of those will be. It’s filling up the space in between that jams me up.

What was your initial inspiration for A Madness So Discreet?

I was reading a lot about lobotomies and I needed a place to put all that information. It’s not a socially acceptable conversational topic (I tried) so I had to go in a corner and talk to myself about it with my laptop.

What was it like to move from the post-apocalyptic-ish Not a Drop to Drink to the gothic historical fiction of A Madness So Discreet?

Surprisingly easy, yet intimidating. I read widely, and I’d like to write widely as well. The writing in Not a Drop to Drink is very spare, and I needed that to change to preserve the tone of the time period. I read a lot of Anthony Trollope to get a feel for speaking cadences and narrative in order to execute A Madness So Discreet properly.

Your protagonist, Grace, is a sane person among mad people. However, her trauma significantly complicates her psychology — how did you approach these two delicate elements of the story?

Great question! It ties into one of the major themes of the book, that we are all mad in small ways. Many of the inmates of insane asylums during this time period weren’t necessarily insane — they were simply socially unacceptable people. Every single one us has characteristics that aren’t the norm, we’ve just learned to quash them. Weaving true mental disorders into the story alongside Grace’s trauma, and comparing it to the madness in both the killer they are chasing, and the man who damaged Grace is part of the journey.

How do you go about crafting your villains and antagonists?

I let them craft themselves. They are real people in my head, so I give them the freedom to transfer to paper and they do most of the work. I’m hardly necessary.

Is there a YA book you wish you’d had growing up?

Any of the YA available to teens now would have been great. I had a darker bent as a reader even when I was young, and YA was mostly clean when I was growing up. I went from Sweet Valley to Stephen King. And I’m okay with that, but a little jumping off point would’ve been nice.

Would you rather be a book or a computer?

I’d rather be a book, because any computer will be outdated in two years :)


Source: https://www.hypable.com/mindy-mcginnis-mad...

The Book Nut: Mindy McGinnis Interview

1. Your books are always pretty dark, why is that? '

The most honest answer is that I have a lot of darkness inside of me. This is the healthiest way I can think of to get it out. Writing is very therapeutic for me in that way. It allows me a vent so that I can be a happier version of me day to day.

2. What are your favorite kind of characters to write and why? (Villains, heroes, anti heroes, regular joes?) 

The ones that want to be written. Some characters don’t want to let you in, and some are so happy to share themselves you have to hush them sometimes. In DRINK, Lynn was very reticent, hard to break into. Stebbs (my favorite) on the other hand just Would. Not. Shut. Up.

3. What is your process like? Do you outline? Listen to music? Snack? Have a special ritual or spot? 

I write in bed, lying down. Sometimes I’ll have white noise so that I can filter out my environment more easily. I write linearly, from beginning to end, with zero plotting or planning. Things happen in my books that I’m not expecting, and that’s marvelous. 

4. What kind of books did you read when you were younger? 

Anything, really. I enjoy reading across genres, but I definitely leaned towards fantasy and adventure. I liked reading about things that stretched the imagination.

5. How do you think those books hold up against the books being published today? 

Very well. Some of them, like Madeleine L’Engle, you can read as an adult and garner an entirely new and different meaning than you did as a child.

6. Have there been any attempts to turn your books into movies or TV series? How would you feel if one actually happened? 

Yes! NOT A DROP TO DRINK has been optioned for film by Fickle Fish Film, owned by TWILIGHT author Stephanie Meyer. I’m confident they’re going to do a good job executing a film adaptation that is true to the book.

7. Tell me about A Madness So Discreet. It’s a Gothic historical thriller set in an insane asylum, specifically the Athens Lunatic Asylum (closed now), which is located on the Ohio University campus.

My main character, Grace, has an inconvenient pregnancy, which in 1890 could land you in an asylum long enough for you to delivery your baby in secrecy and then be chucked back out into society without anyone knowing. Because of abuse at home, Grace has no interest in following that pattern so she colludes with a doctor who supposedly gives her a lobotomy so that she won’t be wanted back in her society home. She’s then whisked into his life as a criminal psychologist (we call it criminal profiling today) where she is his supposedly lobotomized assistant at crime scenes. The two of them end up on the trail of a serial killer. At the same time Grace is in contact with her little sister at home, and worries that the abuse she suffered is about to be transferred to her. It’s a dark, dark book… but I think my fans expect that by now.

8. What was it like writing a book in such a  short amount of time? 

I wrote the majority of MADNESS in about three weeks, which I don’t really advise anyone doing for their own sanity. At the same time it was a blessing in disguise because it is such a dark world and just coughing it up so quickly meant I didn’t have to stay there long.

9. Do you think you’d ever want to do it again or do you like to have a longer writing period? 

Hard to say. In a lot of ways I think MADNESS is the best thing I’ve written, and that might be endemic of immersing myself completely in it with zero distractions.

10. What is your next project? 

I’m working on a contemporary rape-revenge, vigilante justice story that will be released in 2016.

Source: https://booklovingnut.com/2015/04/01/oaaa-...

YAKO Books: Interview with Mindy McGinnis

What inspired you to be an author? Are there authors that you view as a role model?

I've always known I wanted to be a writer. When I was a kid, if I didn't like the ending of a book I'd just make up a different one. I moved on from there to making my own, complete with a beginning and a middle :) I don't really role model anyone, no. I'm not big on emulating people so much as doing my own thing.

Where did you get the idea for NOT A DROP TO DRINK?

I watched a documentary called Blue Gold, which is about a projected shortage of potable water on our planet due to overpopulation. It was a horrible thought --- we all need water to survive, and it's something we can't make. I went to bed very grateful for the small pond in my backyard, and that night I dreamt I was teaching a young girl how to operate a rifle so that she could help me protect the pond. I woke up and thought, "Hey... I wrote a book in my head just now."

What got you into writing YA?

I've worked as a YA librarian for 13 years. I'm surrounded by my audience 40 hours a week and completely immersed in the market. Not writing YA would be foolish.

So we know NOT A DROP TO DRINK is your debut novel, but is it the first book you’ve ever written? 

Not by a long shot. I wrote two novels for adults when I was in college, both rather horrible. Then I wrote two unpublished YA's prior to DRINK. I have a few half-finished projects as well from college. 

Near the beginning of the book, Lynn is a character with many flaws. Readers tend to gravitate towards flawed characters because they’re so relatable. How were you able to get into her head and really live out her story?

It wasn't easy. She didn't want me in there. But I live in the middle of nowhere, a lot of the elements in Lynn's life are already present in mine (gardening, canning food, being wary of coyotes - yes really) so putting myself in her shoes wasn't terribly difficult.

How did working as a YA librarian help you write NOT A DROP TO DRINK? 

It helps because I know what the teens like, and what they hate, and what they're sick of. But in the end I have to write the story the way it wants to be told... and sometimes I know my readers might hate me a little for it. And that's okay.

SPOILER ALERT! Did you always intend the book to end the way it did, or did it evolve over time? 

I don't plan or plot my books at all. I just let the story happen. There was never any intention going in any of the character deaths... they're just things that happened organically as the story unfolded. So to me that means it's how the story was supposed to go.

I am a HUGE fan of your blog, Writer Writer Pants on Fire! How do you manage to balance your time between blogging, writing, and working as a YA librarian?

Blogging is from the heart, and entirely free. I don't make a dime off my blog, and there are definitely days when I wonder if it's worth the amount of time I put into it. But then I get comments like yours and that's payment enough. Time management is always a problem. I routinely fail at one thing every day. If I failed at blogging today, that means I did good on the WIP. If I failed on the WIP it means I probably did laundry. As long as I am accomplishing something and rotating what I fail at, I manage.

How long did it take you to write both NOT A DROP TO DRINK and IN A HANDFUL OF DUST?

About six months for each of them, first drafts.

Did you ever have a favorite moment, between writing NOT A DROP TO DRINK and seeing it on the shelves for the first time?

Getting your cover is probably the most exciting part for an author. It's the face of your book, the biggest marketing tool you have. You want it to be good. So far I've been blessed.

The covers to both NOT A DROP TO DRINK and IN A HANDFUL OF DUST are beautiful! Did you have any input on the cover design?

I have cover consult, but I've never needed it. My cover artist at HarperCollins is Erin Fitzsimmons, and basically I just open up my cover emails and the respond-- "This is gorgeous and perfect."

Can we expect any new works coming soon?

Yes! I have a Gothic historical thriller set in an insane asylum coming October 6 - A MADNESS SO DISCREET. It's a departure from my debut genre so I'm looking forward to taking my readers someplace new... and rather horrifying.

Source: http://yakobooks.blogspot.com/2015/03/inte...

Teen Services Underground Authors You Should Know: Mindy McGinnis

How would you rate your survival skills?  As a rather avid reader of dystopian and post-apocalyptic YA, I’m already aware that I probably wouldn’t survive very long.  I do not have mad archery skills like Katniss, nor do I know how to do generally useful post-apocalypse tasks, such as:

  • hotwire a car

  • start a fire (I know.  I wasn’t in any sort of scouting troup.  I am useless.)

  • identify edible plants

  • run (I am a horrible runner.  I’m a Redshirt for sure.)

However, after reading Mindy McGinnis’ cli-fi (that’s climate-change based science-fiction, so it’s not really dystopian) novel Not a Drop to Drink, I realized that I would be so totally dead.  McGinnis gets down and dirty with deer skinning, crude medicinal practices, and water purification systems.  Last year, she released a companion novel entitled In a Handful of Dust.  Both books are excellent.  They feature strong female protagonists, excellent pacing, and vivid world-building.  And surprise!  McGinnis is also a teen librarian in Ohio!

Mindy was gracious enough to let me interview her via email.  Here’s our chat!

Pam: How has being a teen librarian affected your writing, since you write YA?  Do you get feedback from your patrons?

Mindy: It affected my writing in a big way — I was writing only adult novels after I graduated from college, and failing miserably at it. I had been hired at a public school and working for two years before I realized I was surrounded by my audience and market forty hours a week… why not write for them? Feedback… yeah, I get that. Often in the form of yelling. I’ve had students burst into my office and scream at me when they finish Not A Drop to Drink.

Pam: One of the (many) things I love about the Not A Drop to Drink duology is that the books really could be read as stand-alones.  Was this a conscious reaction to the proliferation of trilogies that we see in publishing, or did it just happen, or none of the above?

Mindy: Definitely a conscious decision. As a reader and viewer, I dislike feeling manipulated by cliff-hangers. I think you can deliver a solid, well-rounded story, and choose to build off of it later – or not. DRINK was conceived of as a stand alone, but Harper asked if a second book was a possibility. I said I’d think about it, and overnight the concept for DUST germinated – luckily!

Pam: In Not A Drop to Drink, readers are dropped into Lynn’s world and it’s all that they know, whereas In A Handful of Dust covers a lot of territory.  I assume that you used your experience as an Ohioan for the first book; did you travel for the second?

Mindy: I did not. I made egregious use of Google Maps and developed a respect for authors who researched before the internet. Google Maps was a powerful tool for me while writing DUST. I could take my little yellow man, drop him where I wanted my characters to be, and then do a 360 turn and see exactly what they would see. Can’t argue with that.

Pam: What was your favorite book growing up?

Mindy:  Hard to pick one… I was a huge fan of the Little House books, but also Madeleine L’Engle and C.S. Lewis. I read across genres then, and do now

Pam: Do you have a favorite book now, or one that you often recommend at the library?

Mindy: Blockbusters are easy to hand off to the kids, especially the ones that have been made into films. What I’m fascinated by is the titles that have less visibility but never disappoint my kids – books like CRUEL BEAUTY by Rosamund Hodge, or TWISTED by Laurie Halse Anderson. 

Pam: Have you done any teen programs that were really successful?  Did any of them involve butchering a deer?

Mindy: I’ve been at the same school for thirteen years now, the district librarian and I having been hired in at the same time. We started a book club 8 years ago, and have grown from a handful of members to our most recent meeting, which had 23. I have never butchered a deer right in front of my kids, but I would certainly consider it. The library is carpeted, but I own tarps.

Pam: If you, as an author, could ask one favor from teen librarians, what would it be?

Mindy: Promote what you love, not just what’s hot. Like I said, it’s easy to hand off the books that sell themselves. Knowing your collection, being aware of sequel release dates, cover reveals… all of the marketing techniques that publishers use work in libraries if you’ve got the content on the tip of your tongue.

Pam: Are the poetry quotes used in the Drink world personal favorites?  Was poetry something you read as a teen?

Mindy: A lot of them are, yes! I never appreciated poetry until I was in college. I can’t write it (I’ve tried, it’s horrible) but I can respect what others do. If DRINK and DUST bring young readers to read the full text of some of the poems referenced, that’d be an amazing side benefit.

Pam: Finally, pie or cake?

Mindy: Pie. Also cookies. And waffles. Or pancakes. Sugar in general.

Thank you so much, Mindy, for taking the time to chat with Teen Services Underground!  I have successfully booktalked both of Mindy’s books to boys, because as soon as you say “guns” and “butchering a deer” they are all over that.

Source: https://www.teenservicesunderground.com/au...
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Plain Jane: Interview with Mindy McGinnis

What is writing and publishing a novel like? Hardest part? Best part? Tips?

It's much harder than anyone imagines. If you want to have a career, then most likely you will need to be traditionally published. Which generally means you need an agent, which in turn means you need to know how to write a query letter, and what agents represent what genres. There's a whole industry you need to learn in order to gain your footing towards publication, and that's without mentioning the craft of actually writing. 

It took me ten years and five finished novels before I landed an agent. And that's something people outside of the industry don't understand. And to be fair, I don't expect them to. But at the same time it's a little frustrating when you've spent that amount of work (and a third of your life) working towards something and someone says to you, "Oh. I thought you just printed it out and mailed it to the publishers and they made it into a book for you." Um, no.

All that being said - it's totally possible to succeed. I am a farmer's daughter. I never took a writing class in my life. I had zero contacts in the industry. I still made it. You just have to work your ass off.

What advice do you have for teen writers?

Get good critique partners and learn how to process criticism. Having your mom read your stuff is fine, but she's going to give you positive feedback, and that's not going to help you grow as a writer. Learn how to accept it when someone criticizes your work, and then learn what parts of their criticism to implement. It's not easy! But it's a necessary step.

What inspired you to write Not a Drop to Drink?

I watched a documentary called Blue Gold, which is about a projected shortage of potable water on our planet due to overpopulation. It was a horrible thought—we all need water to survive, and it’s something we can’t make. I went to bed very grateful for the small pond in my backyard, and that night I dreamt I was teaching a young girl how to operate a rifle so that she could help me protect the pond. I woke up and thought, “Hey… I wrote a book in my head just now.”

There were some unlikely friendships in Not a Drop to Drink, how have you observed social class, age, gender, religion, and/or political affiliation affecting friendships? What made you write unique friendships?

I think friendships are much more enduring than romantic relationships. So much more of who we are is a product of them rather than our love interests. I'm a very open person, and I have friends who are both much younger and much older than me, across all spectrums. 

In DRINK, Lynn isn't going to be surrounded by her peers - it just wasn't organic to the story. She also starts life as a very feral individual, and she needed to learn about all aspects of relationships that coalesce to form a whole person. So she learns about friendship and romantic love, but also how to be a nurturer, and how to let someone care about you as well.

The ending. Why did you write it how you did? Most writers are afraid to break from convention the way you did.  What sort of feedback did you get because of your decision?

I don't plan or plot my stories at all. I let the tale tell itself. It decides who lives or dies, not me. That being said, when everything went down at the end I hovered my finger over the delete key and thought, people are going to be mad at you if you do this. Which was followed by, Good.

Yes, people have definitely been upset by it. But that's great! They're having a visceral emotional reaction to something that never happened to people that don't exist. That tells me that it worked.

If you could give Lynn any piece of advice at any point in the novel what would you tell her?

I don't know, honestly. I think she handles herself really well. I'm more likely to need tips from her.

Source: http://sheisaplainjane.blogspot.com/2015/0...