One Night Sweat Over the Line

I thought it would be appropriate at this point to share the story of how my debut novel, Mental Pause, came to be. It was published two years ago on International Women's Day. Parts of this post originally appeared on It’s Not All Gravy during the virtual book tour when it launched.

The Symptoms Come Creeping In

I’ve been a writer all my life but mostly corporate communications and PR but I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic and dreamed of one day writing fiction. About five years ago I tested the waters and submitted a couple of short stories to The Fiction Writers Platform (now The Writers Platform) and both received an editor’s choice award!

Prior to that, I had started freelancing and was doing corporate copy writing while thoughts and dreams of being a novelist did a water ballet in the back of my mind. Simultaneously, I began experiencing some rather uncomfortable peri-menopausal symptoms. I honestly didn’t know what was happening at first, only that I was horribly irritable. So much so that I couldn’t even stand being around myself. I was also having crazy thoughts, tinged with paranoia, along with such startling memory loss that it felt like I had had a lobotomy.  It wasn’t until the night sweats started that it finally dawned on me that I was experiencing ‘The Change.’  It was a shocking revelation as I was still in my early-40s. It made me feel a little better knowing there was an explanation for it all but didn’t make it go away.

Hitting the Keyboard

Then one very sweaty, steamy night as I was lying there in a disgusting pool of sweat, even though the A/C was blasting, and trying not to slime my poor husband sleeping soundly beside me, I did what any writer would do… hit the keyboard and poured out what I believed to be the mad ramblings of a peri-menopausal woman. If anyone had seen me they would have thought I’d lost it! I stifled the giggles so as not to wake my husband and wiped the tears and just kept writing. I thought I might turn it into a blog but wasn’t really comfortable exposing myself that openly. Then the idea hit. I could have even more fun with it if I turned it into fiction.

NaNoWriMo to the Rescue

As luck would have it, I had recently heard about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which was about to start, my husband had recently retired and we had just moved to Thailand. I hadn’t really met anybody and had a lot of time on my hands. I signed up and plunged in headfirst.

I started segmenting the ‘ramblings’, categorizing and developing a loose plot line. The first chapter sort of spilled out and characters started to take shape. The more I wrote the more I dreamt about my main character, Abbie, her thoughts and feelings, family and friends. I’d wake up with a start and run to my computer to type out a description of one of my characters that I had seen so vividly in a dream. The best plot twist in the book (in my opinion) came in a dream!

The Catharsis of Writing

It was really cathartic to write it because no matter how bad I was feeling, how crazy my mood swings or wild my thoughts were, Abbie’s were always worse. I could also live vicariously through her. Without ruining the story for anyone who plans to read it, I can share that I’ve always teased my mom that we’d both get tattoos when I turned 50 and she turned 90 (which happened just last year)! I’d really never do it because I have absolutely no pain threshold and the thought of even one needle makes me go weak in the knees, so I had Abbie get one.

Focusing on writing and publishing Mental Pause really helped ground me and allowed me to face my change with a more positive attitude. The worst has passed and I can talk more openly about it now and hope that, along with enjoying the storyline, my book can help other women as well. My mood swings have tapered off; the night sweats are few and far between and the hot flashes are barely noticeable since I live in a very warm and humid climate anyways.

I had so much fun writing Mental Pause that after it was published I immediately began working on my next novel with the hope that my diminishing symptoms wouldn’t limit my creativity! Fortunately my imagination seems to still be just as active and Deep Deceit recently launched to 5-star reviews!

If you're an author and have written about Menopause or if you are experiencing 'The Change' and have come across a book that you found helpful, please feel free to send me a note (anne@gobalwritingsolutions.com). I'm looking for guest posts from authors and reviews from readers so I look forward to hearing from you.

Happy Flashing!

'Mental Author' Feature #1 - Samantha Bryant

So excited to welcome my first fellow 'mental' author, Samantha Bryant, as she prepares for the launch of her debut novel, Going Through the Change: A Menopausal Superhero Novel, where she turns those pesky symptoms into super powers! Can't wait to read this one. Here's Samantha to share her journey...

Turn and Face the Change: Writing Menopausal Superheroes

Menopause and superheroes might not seem like a natural progression at first blush. After all, most women in superhero stories are barely dressed and eternally twenty-three. At mid-life, most of us have given up spandex and clothing with peek-a-boo cut-outs. I know I have.

Author Samantha Bryant

But there's no denying that the feelings (physical and emotional) that women experience during "the change" are powerful indeed. Hormones are overwhelmingly strong at different times in our lives: puberty, pregnancy, and menopause being the highlights in that particular movie reel. (My personal hormone movie has been mostly a comedy, though it sometimes feels like an overwrought drama when I'm living it).

Hitting 40 - Enter Night Sweats!

After I turned forty, I began to get my first direct hints of what this journey was going to be like for me. I woke up hot and sweaty. My skin did weird things. My moods shifted around me like sand on a beach. The doctor says I am still premenopausal, but the writing is on the wall. The process has begun.

Honestly, it scares me. I remember feeling at the mercy of my hormones and the effects on my body when I was a teenager and again when I was expecting and nursing my children. I'm not looking forward to going through more of that. I don't like feeling out of control.

So, I wrote about it. That's what I do, as an author. I take the things that scare the heck out of me and spin them into stories. Art is cheaper than therapy.

Hot Flashes or Power Surges?

This book took a lighter turn. Sometimes we need to make light of the things that get under our skin to take away their power. So, when I woke up sweating, I wrote a woman who could project the heat from her hot flashes out of her body, giving her the ability to wield fire.  When my back itched all the time from the dryness of my skin, I wrote a woman who was transforming into a lizard creature. When I felt depressed, I wrote a woman who became so light she flew. And when I bemoaned the strange growth of hair in new locations, I wrote a woman who turned into a man!

Of course, there's more to my characters than just what happened to them and what they decided to do about them.

We're all Superheros

I'm a long time reader of comics and fan of superhero movies and television shows. As I developed the idea for what became Going Through theChange: A Menopausal Superhero Novel, I wanted to write a superhero story that women like me could identify with. That meant developing characters who were grown women with the problems and worries that grown women have: partners, children, family, careers, feelings of self worth, ageism, weight gain, health, and so on.

Each of my women is on a personal journey, one that just became complicated by some more unusual symptoms of menopause. Writing this series has been cathartic and, honestly, a great deal of fun. I hope my readers will find it so, too!

Samantha Bryant is a middle school Spanish teacher by day and a mom and novelist by night. That makes her a superhero all the time. She believes in love, magic, and unexplainable connections.

Samantha writes blogs, poems, essays, and novels. Mostly she writes about things that scare or worry her. It’s cheaper than therapy! Someday, she hopes to make her living solely as a writer. 

Learn more about Samantha at http://samanthabryant.com follow her on Twitter @mirymom1 and join her on Facebook.

Good luck with the rest of your blog tour Samantha!! Let us know where you're headed to next so we can join you there ;)

Turning 50!

I just celebrated my 50th birthday! Hard to believe... but my mom (fondly referred to as Mother Theresa or M.T.) always says, "You're not too old for the years you've been born." Here's what I did on my special day. There's nothing like a paddle on the lake with cool breezes flowing to ward off any hot flashes and keep the mental attitude on an upswing!

What did you do?

Top 10 Places to Turn when the Night Sweats are too Much

I have never been one for turning to self-help books when the world around me or inside me for that matter, seemed to be a little off-balance... that's what girlfriends and the kitchen table are for, right? However, when the peri-menopausal demon reared his (her?) ugly head, I still turned to the old stand-by remedies but also sought out resources to help me come to grips with what was happening (and also to help confirm my suspicions when doing research for my book, Mental Pause). I thought I would share my Top 10 favorites (not in any particular order):

1. Menopause Matters - a great website, which also has a facebook page and regular newsletter
2. Menopause ChitChat - also a combo of resources and references to keep you reading for hours!
3. Menopause Sucks! - a hugely popular Facebook page
4. The Wisdom of Menopause - Dr. Christiane Northrup - book, website, FB page, Twitter, etc!
5. Menopause in Manhattan by Anne Kleinburg - the first novel I found on the topic that convinced me that there really was a market!
6. Menopause Talk - a little more on the serious side
7. It's Not Menopause, I'm Just Like This - Maxine's Guide to Aging Disgracefully
8. The Menopause Exchange
9. Menopause, the Musical - if you haven't seen it and it comes to your town, you've got to go!
10. The Road to Menopause - Minnie Pauz cartoons by artist Dee Adams 

Feel free to add your favorites... come on... don't be shy!