Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello authors.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: I'm Joanne Morrell, children's and young adult fiction writer and author of short nonfiction for Authors. Thanks for joining me for the Hybrid Author Podcast, sharing interviews from industry professionals to help you forge a career as.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: A hybrid author both independently and traditionally publishing your books.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: You can get the show notes for.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Each episode and sign up for your.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Free Author pass over at the Hybrid Author website to discover your writing process, get tips on how to publish productively, and get comfortable promoting your books at www.
Let's crack on with the episode.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: Hello authors.
I hope you're all keeping well in whatever part of the world you reside and listen to the podcast in. Today's interview is with Belvedal on Giving Stories Many Lives, writing bipolar type 2 into fiction and WeChat blending lived experience with Fiction Mental Health Month Promoting awareness and reducing stigma, particularly around bipolar type 2 in Bell's novel Exuberance. Ways to give a book several lives over time. Bell's advice for authors who want to translate their own mental health journeys into fiction in a way that resonates while still protecting their own well being and much more.
So in my Author Adventure this week.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: It'S very much the same as Tuesday's.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Episode, except I just wanted to touch upon the speaking event that I did at South Perth Library on Tuesday. I mentioned it because I had actually.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Just recorded then and I was doing.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: The talk that night and yeah, I just what a gorgeous library. If you're close to South Perth, definitely go along and check it out. It was really lovely, really well lit and light and some lovely people came along and it was just a really good session on discovering Roblox and writing. So I obviously share roadblocks that I have experienced and it's really a couple of common ones that I throw in there as well, but mainly from Author Adventure I just found with this one. I've done this talk twice now, but this group of people it just seemed to resonate with and they really connected with the Road box and it was a real raw, honest sort of session and then we had some real good discussion afterwards and I just loved it. I loved the connection. I got some really good feedback from the librarian that people had liked it and it's just that connection. That human connection I think is what I really crave through my writing, through this podcast, through lots of things. Just connecting with another human being is truly, truly remarkable. So it's maybe just a little bit to think about when you're writing your work and just think how would you like to connect someone with your work. How would you like to connect to them with that? Would it be to spark their imagination, inspire them, entertain, share something? Like Bel's upcoming interview. She writes about writing bipolar type 2 into fiction and this is her experiences that she's putting out there to raise awareness and connect with other people who maybe are doing the same thing. So think about your stories and what the connection holds with others and put yourself out there that way because that to me is truly what this whole.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Writing life is about. And yeah, it was a really, really.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: Good session and I'm doing another session actually. I think it's a by for Library on the 25th of October so if you're nearby, come along. I hope it's the sort of same feel for this Roblox in writing. I'm also doing two podcast Discover the Power podcast sessions, one coming up this Saturday 18th of October at Morley Library. So if you're around, please come. If you're interested in becoming a guest on a podcast or even just you've got an idea to start one or you're just interested in the subject, yeah, come along. It would be fantastic. And also at Gosnell's Library on Monday 20th October, 5:30 till 6:30. I hope to see you there.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Thorne Creative where beautiful websites for authors are brought to Life no matter what stage you're at with your writing, your stories deserve a dedicated space to shine. Whether you're just starting out or have a bookshelf full of bestsellers, your website is the hub of your author business. Finding everything you and your books offer together, Thorne Creative can nurture all aspects of redesigning your old site or start afresh. From the initial design, they can provide ongoing hosting and maintenance to marketing your books online, saving you time, money and stress trying to wrangle your site yourself. An author website built by Thorn Creative can easily direct readers to your favorite retailers, your publisher, or simply set you up to sell to them direct.
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[00:05:34] Speaker A: Belle Vidal is the pen name of an Australian Bolivian writer based in Sydney. Her fiction, nonfiction and poetry have been published in English and Spanish under her pen name, her real name, and other pseudonyms.
Soon after arriving in Sydney, she received an Australia Council, Now Creative Australia grant to publish a bilingual collection of poems and stories. Rainbow of Dreams, an earlier draft of her novel Exuberance, was shortlisted for the Varuna HarperCollins Award for Manuscript Development and awarded the Varuna Residential Masterclass. It was independently published in 2023, followed by her story collection Tales of suburban castaways in 2024. Belle holds a BA in Communications majoring in writing and a master's in Writing for the Media. She works in the not for profit sector as a communications and media professional and is also a mental health advocate, book lover, bushwalking enthusiast, traveler, blogger, and firm believer. It is never too late to start something new, which is a very strong message we have on the Hybrid Author Podcast. Thanks for joining us, Bill.
[00:06:37] Speaker D: Thank you, Joanne. What a pleasure to be here.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: We're really excited to talk to you. Thanks so much for joining us. You've achieved a lot in the writing industry, but can you tell us what sparked you to become a writer in the first place?
[00:06:49] Speaker D: Where to start?
Because I published exuberance only two years ago when I was already in my 50s. Not many people know that I actually started writing quite seriously since I was a teenager.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:07:01] Speaker D: And probably the reason is because back then I was living in Bolivia in South America, and I was a Spanish speaker, so I was writing in Spanish. Writing came naturally to me and I started off as a poet. And in fact, I wrote my first poem in fourth grade and it was to my teacher, and my teacher loved it so much that she asked me to read it at the school assembly in front of the whole school. What? And I have to say that it was probably that, that's the point where I can say that sparked that, you know, that, that flame, because it was the encouragement of somebody who believed in me, you know, and poetry, of all things, it's not very profitable, whatever. But somebody actually believed that I could write poetry good enough to read to an audience of hundreds of students.
So with that encouragement, I kept writing while I was in Bolivia and when I came to live in Sydney, I was actually quite irregular in all the writing circles in the Spanish community. And I became quite well known because I used to enter every competition that there was and I won quite a few prizes. And I used to have a column in two magazines which I wrote under pseudonyms, and eventually I wrote occasionally for the Spanish paper. And again, I met this gentleman who, because I was about 20, it was in my early 20s, and I met this gentleman who was probably in his 40s, and he believed in the quality of my writing enough to encourage me to apply to this grant In Australia Council, which was for multicultural writers. And through that grant I was able to publish my collection of poetry called Rainbow of Dreams and it was mainly in Spanish with only a few translations, but I was able to publish a book in Spanish here in Australia, but. And again thanks to somebody who believed in me. At one point I thought, well, I'm doing quite well in the Spanish community, but it's a very small community. I'm living in an English speaking country. I want to be a mainstream Australian author and I would like to write in English. And at that point I made the decision to write only in English. Regret a little bit having lost the fluency in Spanish. I still speak and understand fluently, but I don't write with the same. With the same craft that I used to have. But I now, after, you know, the transition wasn't easy. It took a very long time to feel that I had the mastery of the language to be able to write in English and poetry. I cannot write in English, not as. Not to the level that I used it. Writing metaphors in your second language, the subtle kind of language, it just doesn't seem to work for me. A bit of a judge of myself, but the inner critic. But I started writing short stories, essays, and again, somebody believed in me enough to publish it in a literary magazine. So that's when I started writing a lot more in English. And I've been writing now for 20 years and it's become my main language and exuberance was written fully in English and I'm now in the process of translating it to Spanish, which is a bit mind bending for me. It's been nearly two decades that I've been writing in English and I published Tales of Suburban Castaways, which is a collection of my best short stories, last year. So I'm not one of those writers who puts out a book every year.
But slowly I'm a lot more of a slow worker. But I'm building a body of work. Perhaps, you know, quality over quantity.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Absolutely. And your story's so inspiring. I love that it started from such a young age and from reading your poem in front of everybody. Was it just pure excitement or were you scared or.
[00:10:29] Speaker D: I was absolutely. I was so nervous I insisted on memorizing it and I forgot some of the lines and it was. Yeah, it was. I think it was quite embarrassing. I was quite small and I ran out of stage in tears after I finished.
But I did come back to it and I said, no, I through like writing poetry and came back to it and I Never looked back after that. Yeah.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: No, that's amazing. I love the career you've had. I'm at a point in mine where I'm trying to get back to the love of the craft. And I don't think, you know, you mentioned sort of being a fast author and whatnot, and that's something I felt I've had to be in the past, and it's something I accept that I am not now, and I certainly don't want to be if it's going to be detrimental to the quality of the work. So, no, I think you're doing you, and I think that's it's working for you. So that's amazing.
[00:11:14] Speaker D: Well, it puts a lot of pressure on yourself. You know, I've got to get things out, and that's something that traditionally published authors have that pressure because they're giving a schedule and they have to produce a book a year and things like that. And I'm just very glad I don't have that pressure. I also work almost full time. I'm reduced my days a little bit, but I'm still in the workforce.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. Well, let's talk about Exuberance. You know, it follows Angie. She's the character living with bipolar disorder type 2. And for those who don't know, that's the lesser known form. So how did you approach, you know, blending your lived experience with fiction to create Angie's story? And why did you choose fiction over memoir?
[00:11:55] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I have been living well with bipolar type 2 for 25 years now. Not many people know about bipolar type 2. That's what I found out. The more people who read my book, they say, I didn't know there were different types. Now, bipolar type 2 is a milder type, but the highs and lows are a lot less pronounced.
But you should not be underestimated. It can cause a lot of grief and disruption in the lives of people who have it and the people around them. So it's something that needs to be taken very seriously as well. When I wrote Exuberance, I created a whole world that it's fictional, with fictional characters, fictional situations. And Angie is a fictional character, but her experience, her worldview, when she's going through one of her episodes, it's very much mine. And sometimes she writes a journal. And some of those entries actually were taken directly from my journal. But in that sense, it's very personal, but only that part of it, only that experience that she goes through.
But the reason I chose to write it as fiction was Because I'm a big reader and when I read, I read mostly fiction. I wanted to write something that I would like to read. And I also. When I started writing Exuberance, I can't tell you how long ago it was. It was a very long time ago. It's been a long journey to get here. There was a gap in the fiction market about bipolar type 2, or any type of bipolar, to be honest. In fiction, there were some memoirs, but nothing much in fiction. And that gap is, you know, slowly being filled by. Not by that much, I have to say. So I didn't want to educate people in what bipolar is because I heard Isabel Allende, the best selling author, the chilling authority, she said, when you write fiction, you're not trying to teach your reader something. You're trying to create a story that speaks to the mind and the heart. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted people to get lost in the story, to be entertained. It all started with a short story that I wrote way before I started writing or thinking of writing, Exuberance, and it was called Avoiding Elena. Some people say Elena. I say Elena, which is the Spanish pronunciation, a Spanish woman who was so exuberant she sort of jumped off the page. And I said, I have to do something more, something longer with Elena. And I came up with the idea of using Elena as an alter ego for Angie. So when Angie is going through a manic episode, she becomes Elena. She becomes this exuberant, exotic woman, which she's not in real life. She's not really. She doesn't really know what's going on with her. People around her don't know what's going on until she's eventually diagnosed. But that didn't happen in my life. I didn't have an alter ego as such. I did. I did go through that change.
I became pretty unrecognizable to some people, but I did not have this idea of an alter ego, which I put in the novel. So that's purely a literary device. And you can use that kind of device and almost a little bit of magic realism, because she crosses from the dream world to the real world. And you can do that in fiction and you can also reach a wider audience because if I wrote it as a memoir, not many people would know who Bel Vidal is and would want to know about her life. I'm not a celebrity. I'm not a very well known at the time and still now very well known author.
Finally, Exuberance offers a nuanced view of the condition because it's not just from Angie's point of view. It's from the point of view. It goes from her husband, her mother, her best friend, her husband, former friend. So it's a whole lot of point of views that build a much, much complete picture. And that's when you can see it from everybody's perspective, not just the one.
And when you're writing. When I was writing, the other characters, they're quite a life of their own, and their story just developed organically. That's the magic of fiction. They took me in places that I wasn't intending to go, and it was a completely different story that I never kind of planned. I met what they call it, Panzana de Plosa. I had a basic plot, but I ended up going somewhere completely different.
And I was surprised at some of the turns that they took me in. Towards the end, I empathize with the husband, the character of the husband, because I had a marriage breakdown shortly after I had my diagnosis. And there were a lot of reasons for that. But I understood by getting into Jimmy's head, Jimmy's, Angie's husband, what he was going through and why he reacted the way he reacted, because he had his own story that he was.
He had his own traumas, his own stories. And I really sympathized with him. And, you know, that was. That was quite a revelation for me. Yeah.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: So I think definitely telling it from a lot of different perspectives is important, I suppose, when you're writing about something like that, for sure, because it affects you, but it obviously affects everybody around you as well.
[00:16:47] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I did write this from experience, but I always emphasize, because I give talks and I chat to people one on one and book clubs. This is my experience. This is my truth. It is not experience of everyone with bipolar type 2 or everyone with bipolar. But I do hope to contribute a better understanding of this and to help reduce the stigma, because there is still a stigma.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And it's what creative work's all about, isn't it? Connection. And even if someone reads your book and they can connect a little bit with it, whether they know someone or they're going through it themselves, even, that is so powerful in itself, which is really, really special. And it sounds like a very hybrid piece of work with bit of, you know, your own experience, but fiction mashed up. We love that over here.
[00:17:33] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: So that's great. Well, October is Mental Health Month. You know, stories like exuberance play a powerful role in promoting awareness and, like you mentioned, reducing Stigma around things. So what conversations do you hope your book is going to spark amongst readers and you know particularly about bipolar type 2?
[00:17:51] Speaker D: Yeah, well, obviously lots of conversations need to take place all times. But here in October, actually gearing up to a big campaign, an awareness campaign. So since I wrote the book, I've become a self, a mental health advocate side. And that means speaking up and getting people talking about it and giving talks. I'm giving a couple of talks this month and what I'm hoping is that the more we talk about it, the more we normalize it because the more we avoid that subject, people feel reluctant to talk, especially about their own experience. And I'm not saying everybody should share their own experience. They can choose not to. But some people are actually holding themselves from seeking help because they're scared of the stigma, they're scared of people's reaction, they're scared of being judged. I'm not an expert myself. I can say that what I write and what I speak is with authority, lived experience and with passion. Once I heard someone say, your passion will not let you fail. You know, if you have enough passion. And I have passion about raising awareness of condition that's still widely misunderstood. And to spread the message that it's possible to live a normal life with a mental health condition. But there are number of things that have to be in place. It's not just medication. You need the medication, but you also need a good team of mental health professionals. You need support from family and friends and you need lifelong management. So it's not something that you're going to be cured overnight. Yeah, Some conditions are because you might have an episode, just one off.
Right. Most of these conditions, they stay with you and they need to be managed.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: What's like an episode? Can you describe that for people who are listening, who might not know.
[00:19:31] Speaker D: Well with bipolaries, the episodes of mania or feeling high and euphoric and sometimes that can develop into psychosis and you end up in hospital restrained. But that's not always the case. Like I never had an episode of psychosis, but I reached a level of hypomania which is a little bit undermania. I was still aware of a lot of things, but I was behaving very differently from the person I, I normally was.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:19:58] Speaker D: And the then you, you would drop into a. Generally you, you wouldn't go back to just being your, your balanced cell, you drop into a depression and those can be really severe. And with, with the medication I take, I have, I have, I still have mild to medium depressions. Pretty much every year. But I've learned to manage them and I have strategies and, you know, it's something that's part of my life. The highs I don't have so much because the medication works very well for that. But the medication doesn't always work for everyone, and I'm very aware of that. So that's why I will say this is my experience.
But it's also important to keep in mind that you're not going to recover.
It requires lifelong management. And if you have a relapse, it's okay, you start again.
It's part of life. We all have relapses of COVID you know, you haven't lost the battle. And that's the message that I more or less want to spread and encourage people who might be living with hyenas to seek help and to speak to others. Important to communicate how you feel. And basically any kind of conversations are good conversations. You know, I just feel we. I hope that we reach the stage in this society that we can talk about mental health. Like you talk about diabetes or you talk about arthritis. I have diabetes type 1, which is the injection one, and I tell everyone about it. I have no qualms and I'm not afraid I'm going to be judged. And I hope it'll be the same for when you talk about mental health.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we're getting there. It's slowly, you know, lots more conversations are happening and lots more organizations are out there trying to create awareness and things like you said, bipolar type 2. Lots of conversation happening there.
Yeah, I definitely feel like even just having October's Mental Health Month, we need to have conversations all the time. But it's definitely getting to a point that we are talking about it more. Definitely normalizing it. Definitely feel with mental health, understanding it and accepting it is for everybody, whether they know somebody or they're going through it themselves. That's super important. And then like you mentioned, putting in place strategies and things that help you get through to cope is equally important too. So, yeah, it sounds like you are very passionate and you're making such a difference. Talks that you're going to be doing and you know, like, super.
[00:22:17] Speaker D: Yeah, one of the strategies that helped me might help other people. You know, when I'm going through the depression, things that help me are journaling. Journaling is very healing and walking, staying active and staying in touch with your friends. You know, if you not feeling like you want to go out, you're not feeling as. As lively as you are, just let Them know and they will understand that kind of stuff helps people deal with their own when they're going through something similar to share that experience.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, back to Exuberance, you mentioned, you know, it was published in 2023 and you've spoken about the book, you know, finding ways to give it several lives because obviously, you know, you've, you've put it out there, promoted it and things like that. It's been a couple of years. Can you share some strategies you've used to keep Exuberance, keep on going with it beyond when you released it?
[00:23:06] Speaker D: I noticed I follow quite a few traditionally published authors. Obviously they've got the ones that I read and a lot of others through social media and the media. And I see that there's a lot of publicity in the lead up to the launch of a new book. Then there's a launch, there's the book signings, there's the media appearances, the festivals. But then it kind of dies down because as I mentioned before, they probably have to get on with the next book. But when you're an indie author, you have to do all that, except that you have to do it yourself. You don't have a publicist to do it for you. But you also need to find that balance between writing your next book and keep promoting what's already out there so that it remains relevant, you know, which nobody's going to do it for us. So, you know, one way to do it is to find themes in your book and Exuberance. Well, there's a theme of. There are many themes in Exuberance and there's like multi layered stories. So it's not just a book about mental health. The theme of mental health is quite strong. Mental Health Month comes around every year. So it's October in Australia, in America is maybe in March. There is a world Bipolar Day and things like that. So to do talks to podcasts like this one, writing articles, blog. I have a blog around that time and always linking it to Exuberance, for example. Also another opportunity to keep promoting your book that applies to anyone. You know, find different formats, like, you know, a new cover or a special edition book with a certain difference to the one that you have so it can come out at another time so you can have multiple, multiple releases and a launch party. I didn't do a launch when Exuberance came out. It was a very busy time. But I decided to throw a launch party like eight months later and it was.
Gave it another life and put it in front of people's. Front of the mind again. One thing I'm finding really well is partnering with other authors that might be writing in the same genre around the same themes or even that live geographically close to you. So do talks together, activities, events together. This October, I'm doing a talk with Alejandra Martinez who interviewed recently. She wrote Sals in the Suburbs. There is a theme also of mental health going with one of her characters. I'm extremely happy that I'm able to do this with Alejandra. And we're giving a couple of talks. One is with a mental health organization, one is that we're organizing ourselves at a library and tussle, that kind of opportunity. So you just have to think about books when you're in the author. Books are like kids, you know, you had to pay attention to all of them, not just the one, the next one or the new newborn, all of the ones that are out there.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: No, that's amazing advice. And do you have any other advice you would give to authors who want to maybe share their own mental health journey or write about something like this to kind of protect themselves and their own well being when they're doing this in case sort of big feelings arise? Have you got any advice around that?
[00:25:57] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, I have to say when I had, I was first diagnosed 25 years ago, so I had a period of nearly three years where I went through the ups and downs before it was properly diagnosed and treated and we found the right treatment because again, not every treatment works. But when I found stability, I started journaling and that was quite incredible and quite healing. Then started writing my story more as a kind of a memoir. That was very therapeutic. So just get it, get your story as it is, as it is. Write it all out without judgment. You know, it's just you and the page. Nobody else is going to judge it. It just helps you process your feelings.
Things were very raw at a time they're, you know, can be very honest. Nobody's going to read this. You're not going to hurt yourself or anybody. And in most of the cases it helps. But if you need to take a break, if it gets too much, my advice is to step away from it. If you're writing this story and it gets too much, step away from it. If it's a month, if it's six months, if it's a year, then you'll be distanced from it when you come back.
And once you have put the distance between the true story, then you might want to write it as fiction. You are a Lot more disassociated from it. And the important thing mistake that I did at the beginning was I basically started writing this fiction story which was very much like a memoir where the names changed.
So you need to protect yourself and protect your loved ones. So again, I threw all that out, started again. So I start again as many times as you need until, you know, change all the details, settings, countries and your characters. I'm going to take a life of their own. Let them take flight, you know, let them tell the stories they want to tell.
The truth will be there, but you will be removed from it. But the process of journaling, I think that's, that's my biggest advice. That process of journaling is very healing, very therapeutic. And because you do it without judgment, it helps to protect your mental and emotional well being.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: Amazing. That's really good advice, Bel. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I know our listeners are just dying to know where they can discover everything you do. Exuberance. Upcoming workshops we'll link to as well.
[00:28:10] Speaker C: On and offline.
[00:28:11] Speaker D: Yes. Online you can find. So my name is Bel Vidal. So B E L V I D A L. So if you just Google Vidal and Exuberance it will come up. With my website you can just go to belvidal, one word belvidal.com. i am in Amazon and I'm in all the online book retailers worldwide. You can also do a search that way. My website actually has a list of all the places where my books are for sale. So both books, this one and Tales of Suburban Castaways. And it has a blog that I've been writing for since 2013, so 12 years now.
I started writing it once a month, then it sort of pitted out, but I'm still trying to put things out there from book reviews to movie reviews, reviews to travel journal to also some strategies and advice of mental health is a bit of, a. Bit of a mixed bag. Yeah. But it also keeps you. Yeah, keeps you, keeps you writing. And sometimes I put fiction there. Short fiction. Yeah, it's. It's one way to. If you want to get your work out there, blogging is a. Is a good way. Yeah. You write your blog and if it's, you know, 10 people who find it or it's 20. Yeah, yeah. I advertise it in my social media. So I get quite a few clicks. But yeah, yeah, it's better red than dead. Yeah, that's a good way to. It's a good way to do it.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Belle. It's been absolutely inspiring to talk to you. Your story is really powerful and fantastic, so I'm sure everybody will go and check it out. Thanks for joining us.
[00:29:38] Speaker D: Thank you, John.
[00:29:45] Speaker C: So there you have it, folks, the inspiring Belvedale.
And she's just living proof that, you know, a book has several lives and can, you know, resurface year after year to discuss and connect with those important topics. Next time on the Hybrid Author Podcast. We have a mashup of all guests on the podcast since June this year and then we hit 200 episodes and I am hanging my podcast headphones and mic for the year for the first time ever.
[00:30:14] Speaker A: So it's going to be a real.
[00:30:15] Speaker C: Solo couple of episodes and final ones at that next week. I wish you well in your author adventure. That's it from me. Bye for now.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: That's the end for now. Authors.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: I hope you are further forward in your author adventure after listening, and I hope you'll listen next time.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Remember to head on over to the Hybrid Author website at www.hybridauthor.com to get your free author pass.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: It's bye for now.
