Dreamer Easy

1. Barrowman's collapse into depression after "Ballgate" is horribly familiar - it's what I went through during Racewank '07. I'm a terrible person, everyone hates me, my life is over. Anger helped me rally, too.

2. No, fandom, John didn't tell you at Torchsong that he'd injured his ankle in a car accident, and then swear you to secrecy. Thanks to the magic of third-hand gossip, you conflated two separate incidents - his poolside fall (bt dt ow) and the Fifth Gear prang.

3. Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.

Besides the real meat of the book - the glimpse into how a (frankly) genius works, and how TV is made - there are lots of bits of perspective on fansquabbling, eg RTD's remark regarding last December's Daily Mail article:

"Far worse was the article's description of Martha as 'always going to be second best to Rose', followed immediately by a quote from me, making it sound as if I'd said second best! I'm still waiting to find out if Freema has seen that."

Told you so, beeyotches.

ETA: Ooh look, more! On writing the companions' dialogue:

"But I suppose there's a basic characteristic that I bear in mind. An essence. Rose is open, honest, heartfelt, to the point of being selfish, wonderfully selfish. Martha is clever, calm, but rarely says what she's really thinking. Donna is blunt, precise, unfiltered, but with a big heart beneath all the banter. But we come back to what I was saying ages ago about turning characters. If Rose can be selfish, then her finer moments will come when she's selfless. If Martha keeps quiet, then her moments of revelation - like her goodbye to the Doctor in Last of the Time Lords, or stuck with Milo and Cheen in Gridlock - make her fly. Donna is magnificently self-centred - not selfish, but she pivots everything around herself, as we all do - so when she opens up and hears the Ood song, or begs for Caecilius' family to be saved, then she's wonderful."

How different looks a world that is not composed of soundbites!

ETA ETA: PAGE 460. *ded*

Well! *claps hands* Let's have some good news from the arena of the unwell. :-)

It was pointed out to me that, when it comes to mental illness, I mostly blog about the drug end of things. That is, of course, only part of the treatment - drugs without some kind of therapy have trouble doing the job. When I first tackled my panic anxiety syndrome back in the 90s, it was with the help of a method called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. CBT helps you to identify and challenge the inaccurate, negative thoughts which are part of anxiety - "The plane's doors will pop open!", "The people at my talk must have thought I was an idiot!" - and replace them with more reasonable, factual thinking - "A plane's doors can't open in flight", "People complimented me on the talk".

CBT isn't an instant miracle cure, of course, but requires guidance and practice. I found it very helpful in combatting my panic attacks, and when I was looking for a new psychiatrist in recent years, I specifically sought one who could use CBT to help me address my anxieties. He and I have made a lot of progress, especially on my social phobia; there was a time when I was too fearful of embarrassment to do something as simple as phoning a stranger. But looking back at recent months, I can see both that I still had a lot of progress to make - and that I've actually made some of that progress.

With hindsight, it's obvious that my exaggerated emotional response to racewank '07 was an offshoot of social phobia. That response gnawed at me for months, until I had my epiphany in February this year. I think the CBT training is somewhat visible in that posting - I'm challenging incorrect or unbalanced statements with more accurate and fair ones. Lest I be accused again of "playing the martyr", the crucial thing was that I began to challenge those statements in my own mind.

Similarly, I was able to walk away from the latest anon meme, rather than hanging about anxiously trying to defend myself. After all, not worrying about what asshats say about me online was my New Year's Resolution. :-)

So: progress in fixing my social phobia in my main avenue of social interaction, the Internet. But what about IRL? In part two of this exciting account, the fun I had talking everyone's assorted limbs off at Conjunction 2008. :-)

http://kateorman.livejournal.com/781303.html?thread=5400055#t5400055

And this time, for the first time, I'm not experiencing panic or crushing shame... partly because of this. I can't take seriously abuse from people who literally can't tell Black from White.

I can has three chapters (an anaemic 10,000 words) and enough plot for a synopsis. (But no clean gym clothes, apparently. *(%*%^)

To my surprise, Racewank '07 is directly affecting the novel, forcing me to recognise what might have been an embarrassing cockup with one of the characters. Last week we did proofreading for Nobody's Children, and I recognised input from lots of the stuff I've been reading, eg Orwell's description of a warzone, a UXB expert's observation from Ordinary Decent Criminals, and so on. It's nice to see my writing's a little more sophisticated than it used to be, both the plotting and my always vague comprehension of the real world.