Hopefully many of you remember the OCD book project stuff from last year - the book is coming out 11 May 2010!
It is titled 'Check Mates' and will be available for purchase on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk - it is a collection of short fiction, poetry and art about / inspired by OCD, written by obsessive-compulsives from all over the world, including myself - most of them all members of OCD Tribe.
YOU CAN READ FREE SAMPLES HERE:
The aim of the project is to counter the false stereotypes OCD often gets in the media, as well as reach out to fellow sufferers of the condition and let them know they're not abnormal for it. The writing ranges from drama to comedy, sci-fi/fantasy to horror.
A portion of the profits is going to the charity OCD-UK, who published an extract from one of the short stories ('The Royal Bank of Scotland') in their members' magazine in the Fall of 2008.
Also, OCD Tribe themselves have very kindly offered to write an endorsement to quote on the back cover.
For more information, please check out the official website:
www.conditionalpublications.com
or join our social network at:
http://conditionalpublications.ning.com
Also be sure to join our Conditional Publications fan page on Facebook and view the 'Check Mates' book launch event to let us know if you're interested! Just click one of the badge links below. You can also befriend me on Facebook and I'll be happy to send you an invite to both of these. Just search for Vrinda Pendred - I promise I'm the only one in the world!
As for myself, I am half-American, half-English, I grew up in Arizona and moved to London when I was 16 - now I live in Hertfordshire with my husband and our son. I currently work as a secretary and a part-time English tutor, but my big passion is writing. You can view samples of my work at:
http://thymeoperator.googlepages.com/home
I was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome when I was 7 and OCD around 14, although symptoms of both started when I was at least as young as 6. I've got at least 35 different tics (I lost count a few years ago, and new ones spring up at any time) and, from reading around, I'm under the impression my case is pretty severe. I went to therapy years ago for the OCD and have learned to control things like checking and adjusting, but the obsessional thinking, etc. can be really crushing.
I also have ADHD, High-Functioning Autism.and a mood disorder. And btw, my current profile picture is actually of my own brain, from a CT scan. How fascinating is that??
Feeling excited and enthusiastic about things, and being surrounded by others who do too; laughing; reading; singing; dancing; drawing; my fiance; my son; my friends; thunderstorms; managing to relax long enough to enjoy things; the 'highs'.
DISLIKES
People who never have anything nice to say about anything/anyone; feeling restricted; routine; worrying I'm boring and everyone's going to abandon me; the 'lows'.
Basically, no matter what genre or country of origin, I like anything that has a really strong beat and/or really moves me, I like things to be intense - even if it's mellow, it has to be intense.
Some bands/singers I love: Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, Joy Division/New Order, Bauhaus/Love & Rockets/Tones on Tail, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Cure, Erasure, Les Rita Mistouko, Marc Lavoine, Diskoteka Avariya, Nogu Svelo, Linda (those last three are Russian), Carlinhos Brown, Air, Beck, Beborn Beton, Prince, The Orb, Oingo Boingo, Ace of Base, E-Type, Army of Lovers, Bodies Without Organs, Unklejam, The Feeling, Nelly Furtado, Einsturzende Neubauten, Enigma, Falco, Kula Shaker, Hooverphonic, Lady Gaga, Mesh, Red Flag, Beborn Beton, Gang of 4, XTC, Paula Abdul, Tears for Fears, Wire, The Feeling, Pop Will Eat Itself, Kraftwerk, Hedningarna (Finnish), a lot of industrial music (especially EBM), New Wave, Russian stuff, other Brasilian stuff my fiance has got me into, dance music, etc. etc. We have about 1500 CDs at home, so it's hard to fill these things out.
BOOKS
IT/Stephen King, the 'Dark Tower' series/Stephen King, The Talisman/Stephen King & Peter Straub, Crime & Punishment/Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Handmaid's Tale/Margaret Atwood, The Beach/Alex Garland, The Testament of Gideon Mack/James Robertson, We Need to Talk about Kevin/Lionel Shriver, House of Leaves/Mark Z. Danielewski, The Time Traveler's Wife/Audrey Niffenegger, But Inside I'm Screaming/Elizabeth Flock, Thinking in Pictures/Temple Grandin, An Anthropologist on Mars/Oliver Sacks, the Three Musketeers trilogy/Alexandre Dumas, the 'Shopaholic' series/Sophie Kinsella, the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy/Philip Pullman, etc. I read quite a lot. My current favourite writers are Stephen King, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Flock and Lionel Shriver.
MOVIES
The City of Lost Children, Amelie, Delicatessen, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Donnie Darko, Disney's Aladdin and Robin Hood, Dead Alive, Evil Dead 2, The Prestige, The Big Lebowski, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Solaris (Russian version), The Music Man, The Phantom of the Opera, Back to the Future, Dark City...I watch a lot of movies, so I'm just trying to think of a nice spectrum here. I love films that make me laugh or move me or make me think or are really exciting or that are scary but in an interesting way or are so terrible they're hilarious, and that aren't sadistic and unnecessary because if something gets too disturbing, I will be dwelling and visualising it for days, and I just don't need that.
HOBBIES
I'm a writer - and I've decided to start my own independent publishing imprint for writers with neurological conditions. It seems I have written a lot of things that, at the time, I just thought of as stories, but now I've come to realise actually they're about my OCD and BPD - so I'm thinking I really want to write fiction, even science-fiction, that portrays the condition to the 'outside world', because I know so much heartache, anger and frustration in my formative years could have been prevented simply by my school teachers and peers (and, for that matter, ME) being more aware.
I have been studying Russian for a few years now; I love singing (in private, so far); baking cakes; socialising with good friends; watching documentary channels with my fiance and waiting for the point when they all end up talking about the Masons; etc.
