Month: July 2018

Read. Read. Read. Write. Read.

/ Jame A. Agapoff, MD, MS (she/they) / Leave a comment

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” -Stephen King

7:30-8:00 PM in Casa De Agapoff is fiction reading time. Reduced to scanty attire, I heat up a cup of almond honey tea and put up my feet. Slowly, or sometimes suddenly, the ordinary world begins to fade around me, and I find myself someplace between fantasy and dream.

Like many busy professionals, I find turning off my ‘work brain’ is like forcing an old transmission with a bad clutch into a lower gear. At first there is distraction (“should I check my email”), then resistance (“gosh, I’m sleepy”), and finally submission (“okay, I’ll just read a chapter”). As with most routines, the dance becomes easier with time, and rarely do I regret the final act.

4:00-5:00 AM in Casa De Agapoff is fiction writing time. Alert enough to open my computer, but disinhibited enough to channel my characters’ voices, I write best before sun’s early light.

Sometimes, like all writers, I struggle to find my character’s voice. The question I usually ask myself is ‘did you read last night?’ Often times, the answer to this question is ‘no,’ and I am reminded of the importance of reading.

In addition to preventing writer’s block, reading has many psychological benefits. It can reduce stress, increase empathy and cultivate mentalizing capacity by “reading” the thoughts and emotions of fictionalized characters. Reading also broadens our imagination and can serve as a source of inspiration for daily life. Silly, or not, haven’t you ever been faced with a problem and asked yourself, ‘if so and so character was in this situation, what would they do?’

Reading can also have physiological benefits. Television or computer use at night is more likely to promote wakefulness because light inhibits the release of melatonin. Reading and other quiet creative activities can facilitate relaxation and sleep. For writers, studies have shown that activities performed prior to sleep are more likely to be consolidated into memory. When one reads before bed, they are more likely to naturally appropriate stylistic elements and ‘tricks’ employed by other writers. What you read before bed can influence your dreams, which can be a source of writing inspiration.

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Photo: Comic binge to decrease medical school stress. 🙂

 

 

Experience, Adversity & Writing.

/ Jame A. Agapoff, MD, MS (she/they) / Leave a comment

 

Our fictional characters go through a lot. We tear them away from their families, destroy their homes, and send them away to far off lands to face perilous foes. As a psychiatrist, I work with many individuals who have experienced adversity, loss, and trauma. An ability to mentalize with my patients, to take their mind into my own and imagine the world from their perspective, is essential to building a therapeutic relationship and cultivating a future of hope and change.

Sometimes, my ability to empathize with my patients helps me mentalize with my fictional characters. Through my patients’ experiences, I gain a better understanding of the human condition, its joys and challenges, and the different ways individuals cope with adversity. However, you don’t need to be a psychiatrist to be a good judge of human behavior.

Writers are like bottles of good cabernet. We get better with age. Our experiences, relationships (good or bad), and interactions with others inform our writing and fictional characters. A challenge for many young writers is how to write beyond their experience. The answer is simple: engage and ask questions of those whose experiences you wish to understand. Our family and friends can be excellent repositories of life experience.

Above all, be a good listener. According to an article published in the New York Times, physicians interrupt their patients after only 18 seconds (see reference below). Listening is the cornerstone of mentalization. It’s also therapeutic. Writers are listeners. You may never face the adversity of your fictional characters, but that doesn’t mean you can’t empathize with their experience.

Photo: Old Growth Petit Syrah (planted in 1974) from the ranch in Calistoga, CA.

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Reference:

 

 

 

 

Resiliency, Character Strengths and Writing

/ Jame A. Agapoff, MD, MS (she/they) / Leave a comment

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Martin Seligman defines Positive Psychology as “The scientific study of optimal human functioning that aims to discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive.”  Recently, I discovered the University of Pennsylvania’s Authentic Happiness website https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu which offers some validated questionnaires to help you assess your happiness, grit, work-life balance, character strengths and other measures of well-being.  Registering for the site is easy, and after you complete a survey, the results can be saved or printed.

Today, I took the VIA Survey of Character Strengths. The survey is widely utilized by mental health professionals, corporations, and even the U.S. Army for resiliency training.  My results were as follows:

Top Strength: Gratitude

Your Second Strength: Hope, optimism, and future-mindedness

Strength #3: Appreciation of beauty and excellence

Strength #4: Industry, diligence, and perseverance

Strength #5: Curiosity and interest in the world

Identifying your character strengths is helpful for cultivating resiliency. As a psychiatrist, I often try to identify and nurture my patient’s character strengths to help them accomplish their goals.

Let us use my survey results as an example. As noted above, my top character strengths are ‘gratitude’ and ‘hope, optimism, and future-mindedness.’ Knowing these are my top character strengths, how can I use this information to achieve a goal like writing a novel?

Let’s start with gratitude. Gracious individuals are aware of the good things that happen to them, and never take them for granted. They tend to see the glass as half full rather than half empty.  Gratitude can be cultivated in some ways including meditation and journaling. My personal preference is to do these practices in the morning, but I know some people who enjoy doing them at night before bed. In either case, sit quietly and just write down or reflect upon five things you are currently grateful for in your life for about 10 minutes. Starting and/or ending the day with gratitude reflection can put your mind at ease, help identify what is important to you, and provide a little boost of motivation to continue long, challenging projects like novel writing.

According to the survey, my second strongest strength is hope, optimism, and future-mindedness. Individuals with this strength expect the best in the future and work to achieve it. At the core of this strength is the belief that the future is something that can be molded or controlled.  This strength can be cultivated through what I call ‘positive focus’ meditation. For example, if you are writing a novel, visualize its entire path to completion. Recognize and accept that there will be bumps along the road, but imagine yourself overcoming them. Imagine how good it will feel to complete it and share it with the world.Tell yourself, “Whatever obstacles I may face, I will finish and publish this novel.” If you do this kind of practice on a regular basis, you will not only be able to anticipate challenges, you will overcome them with ease. Remember, slow and steady wins the race.

Your character strengths may be different than mine, but resilience can be cultivated from any combination of character strengths. The first and most important step is to identify your character strengths. The website above can help you do this. Second, figure out a way to bolster those strengths. Meditation works for me, but something else may work for you. That’s okay. If you follow these simple steps, no goal will be out of reach, even writing a novel.

Image: Feeling grateful while on a jog in Central Park, NYC

 

A Legacy of Fiction

/ Jame A. Agapoff, MD, MS (she/they) / Leave a comment

Two thousand years ago, a young Ovid got into a fight with his father. Being of a wealthy Roman family, Ovid’s father wished him to study law and become a politician. Ovid had little interest in law and told his father he wanted to write. His father became upset and demanded Ovid explain his choice stating that anyone, even a poor man, could be a writer. Ovid told his father that while few people could become lawyers, the legacy of a lawyer was short-lived, but through poetry, he could live forever.

Today, Ovid’s poetry has survived. Rome and its bureaucracy have not. Ovid was right. Even though his image is lost to us; even though his descendants are unknown to us; Ovid survives. His legacy is of prose and character.

Think of your favorite author. What are some of the first thoughts that enter your head? For me, it is their characters. They may only be composed of paper and black ink, but in my mind (and I’m guessing yours), they are real. That is because they are. As an author, I hold a special relationship with my fictional characters. Sharing them is like sharing a piece of myself. Unlike us, our characters have the potential to live long after us, and like loving mothers, we want that for them.

Legacy. It is a quintessential part of what it means to be human. We leave behind legacies through our children, our relationships, our work, and our art.  If you are a writer or an artist, share your work. This may be your lasting legacy.

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Image: Clouds over the Grenache at the ranch in Calistoga, CA.