“This is like an AA meeting for book depressives, anxiety cases, ADHD, I consider myself the triple threat,” Margaret Stohl (Beautiful Creatures, Icons) joked at the first panel I attended at the first ever YallWest book festival. “In honor of my ADHD AA meeting–My name is Margaret Stohl. I am a bestselling author in 50 countries. I’ve had a book made into a movie. I’ve sold a lot of books, I’ve visited a million countries and I’m so depressed sometimes I cannot get out of bed in the morning. I am a New York Times bestselling trainwreck.”
With those words my heart dropped. I wasn’t expecting this. Sure, the description for the panel said, “Honest talk about painful struggles
with depression, anxiety, ADHD, life. Margaret Stohl, Libba Bray,
Rachel Cohn, Kami Garcia, Richelle Mead,
Lauren Oliver, Stephanie Perkins,” but I thought it was a joke. You know one of those, I get really crazy during deadlines, type things. Not, actual mental illness.
I moved to LA to write, to separate myself from the things that bring me down and to get away from my bipolar disorder and the bottle of lithium that sits unopened in my suitcase. I most certainly didn’t come to LA to sit and listen to my favorite authors discuss their own mental problems. But, I did. And, honestly, I think it is one of the best things that could have happened to me in this point of my journey.
Like many of you who read COBG, I want to write more than anything and sometimes, it’s hard. Sometimes, my mind goes to dark places and I stare at the screen while I berate myself. I tell myself that I am horrible, that no one cares what this black girl from the Bronx has to say. Sometimes, I can’t get out of bed, never mind write. Sometimes, I’m so overcome with so many thoughts and ideas, it’s difficult to pinpoint just one thing to focus on. What I learned on Saturday is that Richelle Mead can relate, Lauren Oliver is a survivor and that Stephanie Perkins almost didn’t write one of my favorite books of 2014, because the same demons that plague me, plague her.
I thought long and hard on how I would report on YallWest 2015. Long as in this post is days behind schedule and hard, because it truly is difficult to pinpoint what to write about a weekend long experience that I equate with booklr heaven. Should I write about the lines of people of all ages and genders waiting for a few moments with their favorite authors? Should I discuss tripping over suitcases and carts filled with books, because some book geeks wanted every single book they own to be signed? Would my followers be interested in reading about the friends I made or the fact that I hung out in the greenroom and ate lunch with Susan Ee (Angelfall) or that I stood next to Veronica Roth (Divergent series) for like five minutes without realizing it was her? Sure, I could brag and chat about all the things I did that you didn’t or I could share an experience that helped me. Share it is.
