I've Got Brain Damage, So What's Your Excuse?

This week, I hosted Janet Johnson Schliff, the author of What Ever Happened to My White Picket Fence. She addressed our writer’s group, and I was impressed by her ease of communication and all the materials she brought with her, especially the placards with witty sayings. My favorite was OCD: Obsessive Chocolate Disorder of which I am plagued with. The crux of her story is that Ms. Schliff suffered a massive brain tumor, the size of an orange, for almost twenty years. Standing before us, she didn’t appear to have a brain injury because of her fluent and sometimes verbose conversation, but she explained that this is part of the problem. Looks can be deceiving. Even after a number of years since the operation to remove the brain tumor, she still suffers from memory loss, fits of anger over small issues, misinterpreting or having little tolerance for people’s criticisms and so forth. She also gets easily overwhelmed because of processing everything around her, but our small group made her comfortable, as well as my dog because she owns one for emotional support.

Though Ms. Schliff is witty and engaging, her book, What Ever Happened to My White Picket Fence, recounts her struggle with and the encroaching effects of a brain tumor that slowly grew undetected by doctors and eventually disabled her over a twenty-year period. Once an award-winning special education teacher, she had to give up her beloved career.  Janet developed a dastardly disease, Mysophobia, which made her very fearful of germs so that she couldn’t be out in public without many precautions. This eventually led to her acquiring an Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) along with other physical and emotional disorders. 

Yet the focus of Janet's talk that day was for writers and how to promote your writing and your book. Ms. Schliff has taken a very different approach then what is espoused in many seminars. Though she works to do something every day in promoting her book, she does not use social media at all. Her publisher place it on Amazon and she does not promote it through them. She prefers the personal touch because her team of doctors highly recommend that she does not use computers as she can’t deal with so much information. She contacts people in person—librarians, doctors, editors, pastors, friends, businesses, newspapers, radio announcers etc. It’s amazing how well connected she has become. It all started with an article about her in a local newspaper, The Daily Freeman. An editor saw her story and offered to help her write it, which she wrote out longhand, without the use of a computer!

Since its publication in 2017, the book has sold out on Amazon seven times and also in numerous bookstores in the Hudson Valley. At a speaking engagement at Barnes and Nobles, they had to keep bringing more chairs for people to listen to her presentation and towards the end there was standing room only! The manager of B&N stated that no other author has ever had more people in attendance. Many librarians have told her she had the best presentation they’ve ever heard. One of them even cried, touched by her story and her book. It is very moving.

As Ms. Schliff  was addressing a group of writers, she included many tips—keep index cards handy for story  ideas, always carry a journal, keep pen and paper on your nightstand in case you get an inspirational thought, use post it notes for short ideas, call yourself an leave a message when you’re out and about to record noteworthy incidents, speak at community centers, bookstores, libraries, research agencies and groups that your book/story addresses, keep your book fresh in people’s mind and do something every day to promote your writing. For a newbie, she had some great ideas!

While Janet has slowly recovered, she still has many after effects of the tumor, but she attests to God aiding her healing. Though she wrestled with many issues, such as relationships, having to terminate her career, anger issues etc, she is learning to accept, move on and spread some kindness to others. Janet hopes that her book illustrates that a little bit of kindness goes a long, long way. She left us with two thoughts. One witticism that she had printed on one of her t-shirts, I’ve Got Brain Damage, So What’s Your Excuse? The other profound, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” She gave us a lot to think about. So, what’s your excuse for not implementing your ideas?