It's Bonkers on the bookshelves...

... I'm very pleased to host author and friend, Morwenna Blackwood on the blog today.  Hi Morwenna, thanks for making time to be here and tell me a bit more about yourself and your book... 

When I was in my late teens, I fell in love for the first time.  It was with a guy who was a bit older than me, had his own flat and his own car (he didn’t just borrow his mum’s), had a job as a designer, was a bit ‘weird’, and loved music in a way no one else I knew did.  His flat was basically a sea of CDs and tapes, with a bed, a window seat and a cooking area braking the surface, like islands.

The CD he was most into at the time was one by Crowded House.  I’d never heard of them before, but now, whenever I hear Neil Flynn’s voice, I am transported back to that time.  Anyway, one of the tracks on the album was called Together Alone.  In my opinion, it was the second worst track musically, and had the worst title – it didn’t even make sense!

Ironically, during the course of the relationship, I learned that it did, in fact, make a great deal of sense.

At the time, I was in recovery from many years of severe mental illness via medication and the mental health services, and I was sure that soon I would be ‘cured’.  Once I was cured, I would move to America and become a writer.  Simples.

No one I knew of had experienced, or was experiencing, any of the things I had (apart from Richey from the Manic Street Preachers), and now that I was feeling better and had a diagnosis, I kind of enjoyed being called ‘weird’ and all those other things.  It had given me an identity.  I was unaware that other people close to me were feeling their own brand of existential dread, and were struggling inside their own heads, and that this didn’t necessarily show on their faces, or manifest in a way that necessitated intervention.  I also thought that mental illness (which wasn’t a term that was familiar to anyone I knew – and certainly wasn’t a social dialogue) was like chicken pox – once you’d had it, and had been treated, you were cured and could never get it again.  I expected to become a confident, happy, successful person, like everyone else, once I’d been Abracadabraed.

While I was waiting for the Abracadabra to take place, I drank lots of alcohol like everyone else did.  I had no idea it would react with my tablets.  I had no idea that the poor lad I loved had his own problems, and needed some alone time for his own sanity– in my eyes, being ‘together’ meant being together all the time.  I thought he drove around all night because he was cool.  We were, indeed, together, alone.  Perception, as lots of people have said lots of times, is everything.

The relationship ended.  I found solace in reading and writing – as I always have – you can lose your mind, but also find yourself in a book.  Eventually, I wrote The (D)Evolution of Us (TDofU).

One of the readers who very kindly left me a 5-star review, commented that they could tell that the novel had been cathartic in its writing.  They were quite right.

TDofU explores what it feels like to live with a mental illness; how it affects and combines with your personality, your perspective, your friendships, relationships, every aspect of your life – your Reality.  I wanted to do this to be part of - and add to - the #MentalHeathAwareness dialogue.  I wanted to help, indirectly, via a chilling story that gives you something to think about.

Everything is connected – consider the push for a greener environment; the spread of Covid-19; the way events of hundreds of years ago have left deep scars in our collective psyches, culture and society.

In TDofU, Richard’s and Kayleigh’s pasts affect Catherine in profound ways, and on it goes. 

So, what to do to lessen having a potentially negative unintended impact on others?  Try to make the best of each day, try to be the best people we can be, - and hope!  We are together, alone; unique but inextricable from each other; we are different things to different people at any given moment both in our actions and according to the perceptions of others.

But don’t dwell on it – escape into someone else’s world for moment – read a book.  You might lose your mind – but you might find yourself.  After all, isn’t that the beauty of reading – that it’s bonkers on the bookshelves?

about the book… the water was red and translucent, like when you rinse a paint brush in a jam jar.  The deeper into the water, the darker the red got.  No, the thicker it got.  It wasn’t water, it was human.  It was Cath.

Cath is dead, but why and how isn’t clear cut to her best friend, Kayleigh.  As Kayleigh searches for answers, she is drawn deeper into Cath’s hidden world.  The (D)Evolution of Us questions where a story really begins, and whether the world in our heads is more real than reality.

You can get the book on Amazon

You can follow Morwenna on Facebook  Twitter  and on Instagram

Morwenna's email : blackwoodmorwenna@gmail.com