Author Guest Post: Heather Wardell

This is the third and final instalment of Heather Wardell week! Today Heather has kindly written a guest post for Books Etc. In this post she talks about the research she did for Blank Slate Kate (check out my review here and the interview I did with Heather here). Once I read what she had to say I realized why I enjoyed this amnesia story over all the others I read - Heather's story is much more realistic. I hope you enjoy this guest post as much as I did! Thanks for writing this post, Heather, as well as allowing me to take part in this week's blog blitz! (PS this is the 100th post for my blog! I can't believe it. Thank you to all my readers for sticking with me. :) Couldn't do this without you!)

A huge part of who we are is our memories. If amnesia takes your past from you, are you really the same person? This is part of what I wanted to explore in "Blank Slate Kate". To do that, of course, I needed to learn about amnesia. 


There are two basic kinds of amnesia. In 'anterograde amnesia', you can't remember things going forward after whatever event caused the amnesia because those things are no longer able to be transferred into your long-term memory. For example, you might not remember what you had for breakfast today, but you would remember events that happened in your past before the amnesia began. 


My book focuses on 'retrograde amnesia', what most people think of when they hear 'amnesia', in which you forget your past. The memories may actually still be stored (which is why amnesia sufferers are often shown pictures and people from their past in the hopes those things will trigger the memories) but they can no longer be accessed.  


Our brains are amazingly complex, and it's not always clear precisely what caused a particular person's amnesia. The most common causes I found in my research, though, were: 


Head injuries 
I found several cases of people being struck in the head during a car accident or even by a soccer ball and losing access to their memories for some period of time. Usually these people do recover within a few months as the brain heals, although often without the memories of the incident that caused the amnesia, but there are exceptions. Scott Bolzan (http://thebolzans.com/) slipped and fell in a bathroom and lost all of the memories of his life save for a few fragments of his childhood. Benjaman Kyle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjaman_Kyle) was found in the parking lot of a Burger King in 2004 with no significant memories, unable even to recognize his own face in the mirror. Amazingly, despite an immense amount of publicity his real identity is still unknown, and he calls himself Benjaman Kyle (to go with of the initials of Burger King where he was found). 


Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) 
This controversial treatment is used for cases of extreme depression or mania. Electrodes are applied to the scalp of a patient under general anaesthetic then enough electricity is sent through the skull to light a light bulb. The current lasts only a fraction of a second. The patient awakens from the anaesthetic confused and with no memory of events around the treatment but with no damage to long-term memories.  
At least, that's what's supposed to happen. Throughout my work on "Blank Slate Kate" I was haunted by the stories I read, especially the one about the 55-year-old woman who lost thirty years of her life, including all memories of her children and her marriage to her now-late husband, to ECT. Even eleven years after the treatment, she had regained none of those memories. As if that weren't bad enough, she'd also lost all memories of the career for which she'd trained (psychiatric nursing, ironically) and could no longer work. She did win a judgment against the hospital, but what kind of money would be enough to compensate you for thirty years of your life? ($631,000 is what she won. I'm quite sure she'd rather have her career and memories.) 


Alcohol or drug abuse 
Taken in sufficient quantities, both alcohol and various drugs can cause tremendous brain damage in all areas, and of course memory can be affected as well. Both memory storage and retrieval can be interfered with by these substances, the precise kind and degree of damage depending on what substance and how much of it. The "I blacked out last night" drinking binge is an example of this kind of amnesia. A dramatic and traumatic event Soldiers who've seen particularly horrific things, victims of child abuse, and survivors of terrorist acts often can't recall the events around the incident. Sometimes the amnesia is specific to that event and sometimes all memories are affected. Many people have experienced this on a smaller scale. Have you ever been involved in a car accident or a robbery and not been able to remember what happened afterward? I once tripped over a sidewalk and had a spectacular fall during a training run (which I immortalized in "Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many" - might as well use my disasters for my books!) and I can clearly see the dog of the man who stopped to help me up but in my memory the man's face is utterly blank other than his sunglasses. I'm quite sure he had features but even later that same day I couldn't recall anything about him. Essentially, my brain was focused on other things ("Are we okay?" "Anything hurt?") and didn't bother to record the details of my helper. 


Treating amnesia of course depends on why the memories were lost in the first place. If drugs or alcohol are the cause, then removing those might eventually let the brain recover enough that the memories are restored. Psychotherapy can help, especially in cases brought on by a traumatic event, and so can showing patients people and things from their past to aid in recall. Naturally, if the memories were not stored at all, then there can be no recovery. 
If the amnesia can be completely or partially overcome, it's usually the case that the older memories come back first and then the more recent ones. My research didn't entirely reveal the reason for this, although I suspect it's about how firmly recorded a memory is and how many times you've recalled and thought about it. Your newer memories haven't been encoded as deeply because they're still new and you haven't thought about them as much. 


Entire careers are built around studying amnesia and memory, and I've definitely simplified things both here and in "Blank Slate Kate". But I've done my best not to be inaccurate in my science and I hope I've succeeded.  I also hope that you've enjoyed this post and that if you don't already have my free-to-download "Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo" (http://www.heatherwardell.com/polarbear.shtml) you'll remember to pick it up. :) 


Thanks to Kaley for letting me share my research with you! And if you have any comments or questions about amnesia (which I'll do my best to answer although I'm not a doctor!) or anything else, feel free to post them!

Author Interview: Heather Wardell

It's Day #2 of 3 of the Week of Heather Wardell! It's the Blank Slate Kate blog blitz this week and I've already reviewed it (check out my review here). Now we're onto the interview portion of the week! Heather was kind enough to answer some questions I thought up...even though she told me I was evil for making her think :) She thought hard and came up with some amazing answers. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did. Stay tuned for a guest post from Heather later this week!

A big thank you to Heather for taking the time to answer these questions for Books Etc.!

Books Etc.: How do you come up with your story ideas? 

Heather Wardell: They come to me in many different ways. Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many (free this week on Kindle!) came from a moment where I saw a TV commercial for "Survivor" and thought how much worse the experience of being on Survivor would be if your fellow castaways were all your exes. Live Out Loud was originally sparked by wondering what a woman who believed she had created her masterpiece, the work she'd been put on earth to make, would do next. The book itself didn't end up being about that but that's where I started.
While most of the books start with a random thing I saw or heard, or a question I want to answer for myself (like "is there a right amount of selfishness?" which I'm exploring in a current work-in-progress), I also keep a list of ideas and interesting phrases that I use when I need a little inspiration. In the early stages of Blank Slate Kate I checked that list and found a line like "I woke up next to him and couldn't remember his name." I don't remember adding that to the list but I was probably thinking of a one-night-stand situation. When I saw it, though, it occurred to me that if the next line was "I couldn't remember my own name" there could be something interesting going on, and the book evolved out of that.


BE: There are many amnesia stories out there. How did you try to make Blank Slate Kate different?


Most of the novels I found involved what I call 'convenient amnesia' - the heroine forgets all the bad stuff when she doesn't need it then remembers everything at the exact moment she needs to know who her handsome hero really is. I did research on amnesia (some of which I'll reveal here in my guest post on Thursday) and learned that the retrieval of lost memories is almost never that clean and easy. Many sufferers of serious amnesia in fact don't ever regain everything they've lost. I wanted Kate's attempts to rediscover her identity to be realistic, and the ultimate cause of her amnesia is also realistic based on my research. (I never aim to write a textbook but I do think it's better to have at least a little fact in my fiction. :)

BE: You have to name a lot of characters in Blank Slate Kate - real names, new identities, potential baby names. How do you come up with your character's names?

I used to look at the books on the shelves in my writing room and steal authors' names, but I've used pretty much all of those! My current favorite method is the US Government census website. I figure out the approximate year in which a character is born and then go look at the top 1000 names for that year. So far, I've never failed to find one there that works for me.
The name just has to feel right to me. If it doesn't seem to suit the character I'm building, it will change. Amy in Live Out Loudwas Mindy for a while but it never really clicked with me so I kept looking until I found Amethyst and nicknamed her Amy.
I do not usually use the names of people I know, although Jen in Go Small or Go Home and Stir Until Thoroughly Confusedwas named after my cousin-in-law and shares her spirit and attitude. (I asked first. :) While these aren't people names, the seven women on the opposing team in Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many are all named after golden retrievers my parents own or have owned. (If you need a cuteness fix, check out their dogs at http://www.setherwood.com)

BE: What's your least favourite thing about being an author?

When I don't feel motivated. I love my characters and their stories and yet there are days I just can't seem to get myself into my chair to work. Over the years (I've been writing full-time since 2005) I have gotten better at handling this, usually by leaving the apartment and going to Starbucks instead. I always work well there. It does my waistline no favors but at least I get my writing done. :)

BE: What about your favourite thing?

Just about everything else. :) I love when I reread something and think, "Really? That came from my fingertips on the keyboard?" I love getting a flash of brilliance for a book in the shower or while driving -  it's such a neat feeling, not at all like I'm thinking things up but like they're appearing for me like gifts from above. I love getting email from readers (http://www.heatherwardell.com/contact.shtml if you'd like to send me one! :). And I love all the cool people I've met because I'm an author, such as lovely bloggers like you! :) (Aw. But it's true!)

BE: You're known for revisiting characters in your books and I love that. Did you start doing that consciously or did it just happen?

I love the way you worded this because it lets me answer like this: Kegan from Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo did it. :) When I was working on Go Small or Go Home, I sent my main characters Tess and Forrest to a restaurant. Since Forrest is a hockey player I figured they'd go to a sports bar, but that didn't feel right. I then realized he might not want to be surrounded by sports fans who would criticize his playing. So they had to go somewhere else. Before I knew it, they were at Kegan's restaurant and it turned out Forrest knew Kegan since he'd played hockey with Kegan's brother. It amused me and my early readers to have Kegan reappear, and I just kept doing it because it still amuses me and also because it helps to build a sense of the books' "world" continuing through time.

BE: On the same line, and purely to satisfy my own curiosity, in Blank Slate Kate do Ryan and Kate go to Magma? Or is it just a regular old restaurant that they go to (and then leave before eating but take the bread...love that scene!)?

Good job! It is most definitely Magma, the restaurant that opened in Stir Until Thoroughly Confused. :) I don't want to always have my characters going to the same two restaurants, since there are lots of options in Toronto, but in this case it felt like the right thing to do. (And I'm glad you love that scene - it was one of those 'flash of brilliance' things I mentioned above and it's probably my second-favorite moment in the book. First favorite being a tie between the beginning and the ending. :)

BE: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Read as much and as widely as you can, because you'll get a stronger sense of what you do and don't like in a book.
Write your first drafts as fast as you can, because you can't edit a blank page so you need to get the story out where you can see what you've got. (They always seem MUCH prettier in my head than on the page in first draft. :) On the same note, do not compare your first drafts to anyone's finished work, including your own. In my early planning notes for nearly all of my books is a lament on how crappy this idea seems compared to the beauty of the previous book (the notes for which, of course, have the same lament about ITS previous book). Don't do this to yourself. :) My husband tells me that I am my own most important reader, and it's such a great concept. You absolutely have to write what you love. If your most important reader doesn't like the book, it's not right. Make sure you love it, and there will be other people who do too. (Related: don't try to write to "the market". You can't hit a bullseye on a moving target. Write what you love and it will find its readers.) Listen to yourself. Over the years I've come to recognize what I call "the oogh": a cold sick feeling just under my ribs when I go off-track in a book. When I feel it, I backtrack and figure out where it's gone wrong. I have never yet been led astray by the oogh and some of the best moments in my books have come from following it in a completely different direction than I'd intended to go. However your version of "the oogh" manifests, learn it and listen for it. I do outline my books, and that helps me tremendously, but I'm always willing to change the outline if the oogh demands it. (I feel compelled to add, "Don't worry if you sound insane" to my advice for authors. :) Creativity is a strange and weird thing, and if being a little strange and weird makes it flow better I am fine with seeming a little odd. :)

BE: What kinds of things do you like to do when you're not writing?

I read, of course: 114 books last year and I'm gunning for 120 this year. I play clarinet, and two years ago I started playing drums and am in the pit orchestra for the musical "Fame" in February. (I have to drum along to a rap. I am, to put it mildly, not a rapper. This is a challenge. :) I love crocheting and spend most of my evenings cuddling the cat and crocheting and watching as my husband plays video games. (Sometimes I read at the same time. :) (And I also like to overuse smilies, apparently!)

BE: And finally, a look to the future. I know you're always working on something - what can we expect from you in the next little while? 

I have three books in progress at the moment, so they all have codenames so I don't get confused. Flying Squirrel, currently in second draft, is about a doormat of a woman who develops inner and outer strength via the marathon. Gemstone, finished in first draft and awaiting its turn to be edited, features an Internet columnist undertaking a project to be "good to herself" for thirty days and realizing she has no idea what truly counts as good. In Hippo, currently in first draft, a woman arrives on what's to be her wedding cruise only to realize she's dated both her fiance's brothers and still has feelings for them both. My intent is to release all three of these books in 2012, and I'd love to also do a fourth if I can manage it! Thank you so much, Kaley! :) I'm honored that you gave me a space to ramble, and I'll be checking in between writing sessions to see if any of your readers have questions or comments for me.

Just Finished: Blank Slate Kate

I've already read (and adored) three other books by Heather Wardell so I didn't hesitate when she asked me to take part in this week's blog blitz for her newest novel, Blank Slate Kate. (You can check out my other reviews here, here, and here) As usual, I loved what I read and I think you will too.

Want to know what this one is about? Read on for the synopsis from Goodreads:

Waking up with a strange man is scary. Realizing you lost fifteen years of your life overnight? That's terrifying. With her memories from seventeen to thirty-two gone, Kate has no idea who she is and where she belongs. As she begins to fall for the man who found her, she wonders if she forgot those years for a reason. Should she keep trying to retrieve her original self, or start a new life?

I was immediately emotionally invested in Kate's story. I really couldn't imagine what she went through when she woke up and didn't know who she was, where she was, or who she was with. Not only that, but once she starts to get her bearings she looks up everything that's happened since she lost her memory. Do you want to relive the horror of learning about 9/11 all over again? I sure don't and I totally felt for Kate when she read about everything that's happened in the world since she was a teenager. I just wanted to give her a huge hug and tell her that, somehow, everything will be OK.

I love that I was able to get totally involved Kate's life. I felt what she was feeling, especially the absolutely heart wrenching moments (I won't give anything away but there's one moment with Kate and Ryan that had me tearing up). I commend Wardell on her ability to write in a way that made me feel like I was experiencing all of Kate's emotions right along with her.

I've read other amnesia stories before (most notably, Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella) and was interested to see how Wardell would put her own twist on this kind of story. I always say that I don't care if the ending of a novel is predictable if the journey to that conclusion gives me something different or exciting.  I really don't know a ton about amnesia so wondering how it happening right along with Kate was interesting. It was equally interesting to find out what had actually happened to Kate to make her lose her memory. It was something physical with a heartbreaking emotional tie to it.

I honestly had no idea what was going to happen with Kate in the end. She had so many options and so much to work through that I couldn't predict where she'd end up. I absolutely loved that. There are too many times when I can figure out what's going to happen in the books that I'm reading. I'm happy that Wardell kept me guessing and kept throwing me curve balls. This had me quickly turning the pages to find out the conclusion. The novel was wrapped up so well and I could not have imagined a more perfect ending.

Think you'd like to try out some of Wardell's books? Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo can be downloaded for free from a variety of sources (Smashwords, Kindle, Kobo) and Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many, which is exclusively on Amazon, will be free for this week only (January 23-27). So what are you waiting for? Get reading!

It's a busy week here at Books Etc. - stay tuned for an interview with Heather tomorrow (the 24th) and guest post from Heather herself coming up on Thursday (the 26th). Both are very interesting so you don't want to miss out!

Happy reading :)