Journey to the UCLA Medical Center

Last week I had a doctor appointment at UCLA Medical Center. You should know that UCLA is 60-70 miles from Palmdale. I’ve been to UCLA dozens of times. Conor was born there. I could close my eyes and drive the way were it not for other cars.

Still, being me, I spaced out and drove down I-5 instead of I-405. The wrong way. What followed was an adventure in navigating Los Angeles traffic on a Friday afternoon while I tried (in vain) to make my appointment in time. Along the way I saw beautiful houses. Slums. And figured out the rest of my novel.

Official Flag of the City of Palmdale, California (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I chose to have my primary physician at UCLA instead of Palmdale, because I’ve found that the doctors who can’t make it in LA, come to Palmdale. Sure, there might be a few good doctors in Palmdale, but I have yet to find them. I have a great doctor at UCLA. She’s progressive. Takes the time to listen to what I have to say. Engages me. Gets to the root of any problem I might have. My appointments with her are a conversation and nothing like a traditional medical appointment.

I left Palmdale at 12:50 for a 2:15 appointment. Cutting it close already. The choice route is to take I-405 to the Wilshire Boulevard exit. I was by myself, as Alefiya and I thought Conor could use a nap. So, who better to talk to on the journey than myself? And what was the subject? My novel. I have written over 110,ooo words and there were mysteries yet to solve, questions that were bugging me. While I talked my way through the rest of the story I drove straight past the I-405 branch off point. Now what was I going to do? I pulled out my trusty Windows Phone, clicked on maps–all while driving 75 mph–and figured out an alternate path, using 101 West.

The time was now 1:45.

California Interstate 405 (Photo credit: Mark Luethi)

Anyone who lives in Los Angeles will cringe at the thought of taking 101 West on a Friday afternoon. I tried to take the exit for 101, but somehow ended up on 138 East to Pasadena. I saw the traffic going west on 101 and shook my head. There was no way I would make my 2:15 appointment. Still, I wanted to try. I was already in Los Angeles. The worst they could do at UCLA was turn me away. I took the third exit I came across, parked at a Vonns (Safeway to people in Washington and Texas) and re-mapped. I found a side route that would avoid 101 and take me through Beverly Hills. Not bad. Always great scenery to see.

For Los Angeles natives, the route was Riverside to Moorpark and then south along Beverly Glen. Little did I know that I would pass near Warner Bros. Studio, Universal Studios, go north of Studio City, and see many of the iconic landmarks with which one associates Los Angeles.

What I did not count on, or foresee, was seeing such a great contrast in neighborhoods. Within a mile of each other were some of the poorest and richest houses I have ever seen. I saw terraced estates reminiscent of the Italian countryside and slums that could have been part of a third world country, but were here, in one of the most wealth-ridden cities in the U.S., and near one of the best universities on the west coast, UCLA.

I drove as if I belonged on the roads in Beverly Hills, in my dirt covered, grey Subaru Legacy. One hand on the wheel, the other tapping the map for updates on distance to the next turn. People were kind to me. Let me merge when I realized I was in a turn only lane. By 2:15 I’d given up on being on time and just hoped they would let me see a doctor, even if not my own.

The drive down Beverly Glen is curvy. I felt like I was in one of those driving arcade games, zooming through a city, but at only 45 mph (35 was the speed limit). Still, with one hand on the wheel, it was probably for the best.

At 2:40 I hit the west side of the UCLA campus.

English: The new UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center, from the south-west looking across Westwood Bl. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I took a right onto Le Conte, and I knew where I was. I crossed Westwood Village, took a right onto Gayley and pulled into the parking lot of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. I hurried into the internal medicine building, ran up four flights of stairs, and checked in at 2:45. They told me I might not see my doctor, but I would see someone.

I was relieved. I’ll spare you what I did while I waited. They called me back to see the doctor at 3:45, and lucky for me, I got to see my doctor.

Now, why was I here? For a checkup. But I also wanted to fill my doctor in on my diet. The best way to describe what I’ve done is to call it a form of the Paleo diet. About 50% of my calories are from healthy fats–grass-fed butter, coconut oil and MCT oil, 25% come from vegetables, usually celery, carrots and cucumber, and the last 25% comes from grass-fed beef. Many of my friends will be shocked to learn that I have all but given up soda (I grant myself one a week). And I avoid wheat. If one wants to know why you should cut wheat out of your diet, read the book Wheat Belly.

Wheat Belly (Photo credit: Earthworm)

As a result of these changes, I can keep my carbs to less than 100g a day. I do this for five days a week and then let myself eat more carbs on the weekend. I’m not perfect. Some days I eat more than 100g in carbs, and sometimes I have wheat, but I do my best to avoid it.

The ultimate result of these changes in my diet? I’ve gone from 198 lbs to 181 lbs in the span of two months. I’ve lost over 5% body fat and gained muscle definition. I HAVE NOT exercised once. I go on evening walks, pulling the kids in the wagon, but that’s the extent of my physical activity. I DO NOT count calories even though I do watch my calorie ratios. At 6’1″ I was not overweight to begin with, but I always felt I could lose 10 lbs, and I always had trouble, even with swimming and limited running and counting calories. At the height my exercising and calorie counting I never got below 193 lbs.

Now, not only do I feel better, but my TEETH are happy. I had the best visit to the dentist I have ever had. Not one cavity or hint of a cavity or decay.

But, I was hesitant to share my diet change with my doctor. I mean, 50% of my calories come from FAT yet I am burning fat. I do not watch my total calorie intake and do not exercise and I am losing weight. I wrote down EVERYTHING I am doing–my daily routine, what I eat, what vitamins I take. I went point by point through the list with my doctor. And you know what? She did not bat an eye. She said, “so the weight loss is intentional?”

I said, “Yes. But I’ve lost lots of fat, too.”

You see, I was still trying to give her ammunition. I wanted her to poke holes in what I had done. Do you know what she said?

“Of course, with what you are doing, eating a high fat/low carb diet, you lose fat.”

She had no concerns about what I was doing. Said I was healthy.

By the way, I had over 200g of carbs that day. For tests I had to drink a fair amount of juice, and since I’d already blown past the carbs for the day, I gave myself a Dr. Pepper. Very sad to report that the Dr. Pepper tasted fake. Like a diet soda. The last three Dr. Peppers have tasted that way to me. I may be over them for good.

If you are interested in the diet, I’d read a few blogs. A great one is written by Chris Kresser, a nutritionist. A good community to explore is the Bulletproof Exec. I hate the name, but the diet is explained rather well on his website. I do not follow his diet all that closely. The Bulletproof guy is big on mycotoxins. I’m aware of them and avoid food with mycotoxins, if it’s convenient, but I haven’t gone so far as to rid all of my food of mycotoxins.

My next fitness goal is more muscle definition, a leaner build, but I do not want to spend lots of time on weights or at the gym. That’s why I’ve started the Body by Science program, where you work out the five main muscle groups once a week for no more than 12 minutes. You work the muscles to failure, do the reps as slow as you can. I’ve just started. When I have results, or have spent more time on the program, I will report on my gains.

Cover via Amazon

On the way home I had to contend with the 5pm Friday traffic heading out of Los Angeles. I sat there a while. Talked to myself some more. Figured out the rest of my novel. I already knew how the story would end, but I was concerned about the path to the end. Now I know the path. That evening I put down all of thoughts. Now I have to write.

My Writing Process

Outside of writing my PhD thesis I told myself many reasons why I just couldn’t start The Worlds Within. Of course, I was procrastinating. I was lazy. But really I didn’t know how to start. Years ago I read On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. In that book he talks about his writing process. He just throws characters into a problem situation and sees how they figure it out.

No outline.

Other writers put together an outline. Considering how mammoth I saw The Worlds Within in my mind I thought I needed an outline. I wrote an enormous amount of lore for The Nyre Lands. And then I tried to write an outline.

Know that much of this happened six years ago and I only started writing the novel last summer. What happened?

The outline killed the story for me.

Finally, last summer, I decided to just write. I had my character, Aedinn Finn. I knew him well. I put him in the room in Kol Uthera and waited to see what he would do. And that’s how The Worlds Within began.

All of the back story I wrote helped. For any novel based on a completely different world I feel that a certain amount of back story is mandatory. At least for me.

How about the actual writing process? Well, at first I sat in front of the computer and just typed, but soon I found that I typed too fast for my self correction process to keep up. At work, during lunch breaks, I started to write in a notebook. To my surprise I found that I preferred writing by hand. Handwriting slows me down. Allows the self correction process to assert itself.

I then transcribe the handwriting to the computer, another step that allows for correction.

And that’s the process. Here’s a picture of my handwriting in a journal. Alefiya asks me how I can read my handwriting. Well, I wrote it, didn’t I? Still, sometimes I have to squint and rotate the page to figure out what I wrote.

Rough sketch of the land under The Four Mountains, aka Panthea of Old

I drew this sketch over twelve years ago, around the same time as The Nyre Lands map.

Biggleswade can be seen in the west, the swamp Clao Bog, Runin (the Long River), which spans the entire length of Panthea, Runhoin, the second city built under the mountains, Glonbog, a swamp city, and of course, Horun, far to the east, near the source of the Runin.

The Fauns say that Horun fell first to the taint, while the spores that carried the taint must have come from the caves near Coslad, south of Biggleswade, and Amonlad, south of Runhoin.

One day I will re-draw this map, or have someone with more artistic skill undertake the task for me.

When characters are as real as life

In The Worlds Within there is an ancient Jaunter named Janus Riberin. I hope to have a picture drawn of him some day. He carries a gnarled wooden staff laden with runes earned over millennia. Overrobes, deep blue and velvet, cover him from shoulder to toe, and for reasons known only to him, he wears a monocle over his right eye.

I’ve known Janus for over twelve years. He sat in the chair near my bed one evening and said, “You have a very interesting overpart.”

I had no idea what he was saying, but so began the story that today is The Worlds Within. I didn’t know when my protagonist, Aedinn Finn, would meet Janus, but during a recent morning of writing Janus decided that it was time to meet Finn. When that happened I put down my pen. Finn had been seeking out Janus throughout the story. You see, Janus could answer many of the questions Finn had. For the entire length of the novel Finn had wanted to meet Janus.

But when he finally did, Finn, like me, lost his voice. I put down my pen and did not write the scene for two days. There was Janus. Finally. Finally we could talk. But I didn’t know what to say.

When I felt ready to ask questions. When Finn felt ready to ask questions, the conversation lasted several pages. Not all of the conversation will end up in the book, because afterwards I realized that I had Finn asking questions for me.

Talking to Janus was an odd experience. He’s a fictional character, but I’d built him up in my mind for over ten years to the point where he was as real as any person.

Would you go to another dimension, another reality, to help if asked?

The Worlds Within started with a simple musing on my part, probably influenced by Harry Potter and Neverwhere. What if someone from another dimension, a parallel universe, came to me and needed help? What if I could never return? Would I go? Would you go?

English: Map of Narnian world as described in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For me it would depend on my situation. When I first conceived of The Nyre Lands my personal situation was far different, but now if Janus Riberin appeared in my room asking for aid I would politely turn him down, because I have a family. I am happy here in this reality. As you read The Worlds Within, I hope you come to understand and feel what Aedinn Finn goes through as he comes to realize, as his memory returns, the consequences of the choice he made.

You will notice in Harry Potter and Neverwhere that the protagonists are in similarly poor personal situations. Harry’s family is horrible to him. His cousin bullies him. Consequently, Harry has a low opinion of himself. Richard Mayhew in Neverwhere has a bossy girlfriend, whom he seems destined to marry, a miserable job and low self esteem–just like Harry. Would they have willingly gone to the other realities had their situations been different? In Harry’s case, yes, of course, but in Richard Mayhew’s case I daresay he might never have seen Door lying there on the sidewalk. His own personal unhappiness is what opened his eyes to Door while other people stepped past her.

Aedinn Finn might never have seen Janus Riberin sitting in that chair, or perhaps Janus Riberin would never have come to Aedinn had Aedinn’s situation been better, because Finn would not have been open to coming with Janus to The Nyre Lands.

Which brings me to my final point. The Worlds Within would not have entered the mind of the person I am today, because my subconscious would have politely turned down the offer. No thank you, I am happy.

Descents Into Madness and Character Turning Points

Recently the main character in The Worlds Within, Aedinn Finn, went through an ordeal that tested his handle on reality. As the author, I knew for a long time that the moment would come. Finn had lost his memory, had lost his true identity, and had woken up in a world unfamiliar to him, but since he didn’t remember a different world, his mind tried to make the one in which he had woken up his own.

But his mind forever fought his reality. His mind knew that The Nyre Lands were wrong, but gaps were missing in his memory. He knew of no other place. Either he tried to exist in The Nyre Lands, or nothing. There was nowhere else to go, as far as he could tell.

But the wrong reality gnawed at him. Ate at his sanity. He saw places. Had waking visions. Heard sounds that were not there. And then an ordeal in the town of Catchwood frays his mind to the point where he starts to see another reality. What he sees makes him doubt his own sanity.

I titled this post Descents Into Madness on purpose. Writing that part of the novel reminded me of two wonderful books, Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman, and 1408 a story in Everything’s Eventual, a short story collection by Stephen King. If you have not read these stories, they are at or near the top of my list, especially Neverwhere. In each story the main character is tested. In each story the main character has their reality challenged. They come through either better or worse for wear. Often I re-read just those parts of the stories. To me the tests of character are that powerful.

My own character, Aedinn Finn, isn’t aware of how the challenge to his reality has changed him. I do hope that it is evident to the reader though.

On Writing and Mood

Like many wanna-be writers, I have read my share of books on writing. The best writing book I have read is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. Not because the book contains the secret to becoming the next best seller. No. Stephen King talks about his struggles not only in becoming a writer, but also in being a best selling novelist. Interwoven in the story of how he became a writer is how he became a writer. Even he admits that there was a certain amount of luck involved. At the end of the novel though he gives the reader a path forward, if they too want to become a writer. The path is not a guarantee. Of course not. But he ends the novel leaving you with hope.

That said, I don’t remember a specific piece of advice out of his book though I can safely say that every book on writing can be boiled down to one piece of advice: write! That’s it. Save yourself money and shelf space. Just write. Now please send along $14.95.

Another piece of advice, not nearly as important as the $14.95 version is this: watch what you write when you are in certain moods. You know what I’m talking about. Have you ever tried to write when you are angry? What comes out? Does your main character step on a few too many bugs? Punch someone? Kill someone? And then you re-read what you wrote and you say, wait a second, my school marm just killed her cat and punched the mailman in the face.

In the same vein where I marvel at how the mind solves the puzzle that is writing a novel, I also find interesting how my mood affects my writing, and to that end I try to be in an even-keeled state of being whenever I write. Sometimes that’s not possible, but I do what I can.

How The Worlds Within came to be

For my first blog I will talk about how The Worlds Within came to be.

Shortly after a bicycle-vehicular accident, where I was on the receiving end, I started to imagine another world. My imagination took my mind off the recovery process. Everything that entered my mind with respect to the world I imagined I jotted down. Through my imagination I had an entryway into this new world that I came to call The Nyre Lands. But, who lived in this land? I already had an inkling of the evil that existed within its borders (and under), but who lived out their day to day lives in The Nyre Lands?

Tumnus the Faun is my favorite character from The Chronicles of Narnia. Go back and read the description of his home within the tree. I wanted to live in that tree. I wanted the fauns to be in The Nyre Lands, so I created a mythology by which they and other mythical creatures, such as the Faeries, exist in The Nyre Lands. The Faun mythology, which will appear as a section under The Worlds Within, opened a connection between our world and The Nyre Lands. As did the Faerie legends.

Brian Froud and Alan Lee wrote and illustrated an incredible book called Faeries. It’s a desktop reference for me. For my little girl I fashion Faerie stories, and sometimes we create a Faerie land in our back yard.

The humans came about as I wrote the Faerie mythology. Forever will I be fascinated by the mind’s ability to problem solve even when the user (me) is not actively thinking of the problem. So, out of the Faeries came the humans, and the human story loosely tied together many of the other parts of the story.

Of course as I have written the story itself what I had planned out through the legends and mythology has not always held up. I have had to change or add to the history of each group as I have progressed.

Now, I will leave the creation process at that. For those of you who plan to read the story, do know that the story will not end with The Worlds Within. You’ll see mention of tapestries early on in the book. There are several tapestries, and they are all tied together somehow. The evil that pervades The Nyre Lands is linked to the other tapestries, but we will not see those other tapestries until later novels.