How Writing About My Hardships and Sharing My Weaknesses is Leading to My Success

How Writing About My Hardships and Sharing My Weaknesses is Leading to My Success Ive written, published, and received monetary compensation about my bipolar illness since 1995. Though risky to divulge my shortcomings, its also rewarding. My bipolar material first appeared in literary magazines. Kaleidoscope, udsakron.org/kaleidoscope.aspx, specializing in both mental and physical disability, printed The Prodigal Daughter, the first bipolar story I ever wrote. The Missouri Review, missourireview.com/, and The North American Review, http://northamericanreview.org/, picked up my fictional stories with mentally ill main characters, formulated on my personal experiences with the illness. Having Anne, published in The Missouri Review, was shortlisted for an O. Henry Prize in 2000. A big, mental health publication bp Magazine is completely devoted to discussing bipolar illness. I wrote a few humor pieces for these folks. I turned to venues on the internet. Â  In EmpowHER, empowher.com/, I wrote about my early years with bipolar illness, and how I came down with the disease, how I was first treated, how I struggled to adjust, and how my friends and family reacted. I received more positive feedback for that gig. People liked how I made my mental illness experiences funny through lite bipolar personal essays. At Author, authormagazine.org, I wrote specifically about how my bipolar illness affected my writing career. Then I blogged about bipolar illness at PsychCentral, http://psychcentral.com. Â  Since January, Ive written ten blog posts for PsychCentral. Â  Some of the posts included A Tribute to Patty Duke, Living Through a Medication Change, The Good Family Myth, Is Your Diagnosis a Deal-breaker? Â  How to Survive an Adoption Home Study, and Which is Worse, Mental or Physical Illness? Here are three other paying publications that I have personal experience with that specialize in health issues: Womans World (see masthead of actual magazine for contact information) - This weekly magazine readers can pick up in their grocery checkout line prints beautiful stories about women whove dealt with difficult health issues. Â  And they do it in a very upbeat way. Â  (I like this magazine so much that I have a yearly subscription to it.) Â  Im currently working closely with an editor there who is considering publishing a story about my experience with cancer. You Me Magazine, youandmemagazine.com - The Worlds Medical Magazine, You Me publishes nonfiction articles, preferably in first person, about dealing with all medical issues. Â  You Me published a story of mine about lithium usage and pregnancy. Pentimento, pentimentomag.org/ - This Journal of All Things Disability lists itself as a disability-themed literary magazine. Â  They accept poetry, fiction, nonfiction and art and photography. Â  This is a great little journal. Â  Ive been trying to break into it for years. Â  Thats another story. Through writing about my hardships and sharing my weaknesses, Im thoroughly enjoying myself, and I know from the feedback Ive received that Im aiding others. In being sincere about your trials and tribulations, you can find acceptances for your material because editors discern that youve been there, and you know what youre talking about. Â  In a way, youre an expert on misery. Â  Then theres always write what you know. In reality, my life is problematic and often tough, but its also filled with joy because suffering ultimately brings empathy for people, and thats what its all about. So if life has dealt you a difficult hand, consider creating articles, short stories, blog posts, essays, about your experiences. This is not a new concept. We all know that all good writing addresses human problems. Now, go make some lemonade.