I read my novella and edited it too. it’s 31k words long. it concerns mental illness, but there’s a story behind it. it’s a fiction novella but based on my life…there are fictitious characters but it’s roughly based on me as the main character. there are a lot of themes in the story and twists. i sent it to my parents and my sister (who’s an english major) and now i’m waiting for my next move but hope to get it published. i’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 19 (I’m 25 a week from today) but have given up many times. I couldn’t even write more than a sentence for the past 6 months, but on sunday i sat down and wrote, and i wrote, and i wrote, and i wrote. until I finished writing my 31k word novella…in 4 days! one of the lines in the book is to never give up and you should never give up. i hope to continue my education and pursue even greater endeavors in the world of writing. peace 
btw I used the term “normies” at least twice in the story…maybe i’ll give a shout out to schizophrenia.com at some point in the book if it somehow gets publised.
Fabulous! Writing is a great way to expand your mind. My advice is to do it every day like a journalist because you stay fluid this way. Have fun.
Congratulations on finishing.
My sis has been encouraging me to give some writing a try… I journal all the time…
But to write… I keep loosing focus and not finishing.
I’m really glad you were able to finish. Hoping the best for you as you get this process started.
Thanks a lot…It’s a story about how I was arrested in May of 2011 for driving my car through a psychotic episode and getting arrested for a weapons, drug and driving charges. They put me in the front page of the newspaper…as a result I faced a lot of stigma. I’m two towns over from where Sandy Hook took place, and that happened a year and a half later… which lead to more and more stigma.
All true so far
But in the story, there’s a fictional man who’s a retired hollywood actor who starts a charity to end stigma of mental illness and he takes me under his wing to get me through the tough times (didn’t really happen with anybody), but in the book my character and him…they bond a lot…the book is a lot of dialogue from everything to discussions about mental illness, philosophy, spirituality and substance abuse. And then there’s a couple twists at the end and some action portions.
there’s good character development i believe.
it’s an inspirational and somewhat sad story…but i don’t want to give it away, even though there’s enough foreshadowing that i might as well give it away… but anyways,
once i came up with the character to supplement myself there was no stopping me from finishing!
writing isn’t easy…idk how stephen king does it. but if you find something you’re really passionate about it you can do it! it may take 99 failures but that 100th time you try again and succeed you will feel proud of yourself. 
What’s important to remember about Stephen King and Vincent Van Gogh is that they didn’t start out as great artists they had potential early on and they just developed it. It’s a craft.
Very true. But stephen King just knocks out 400 page novel after 400 page novel. No way in a million years I could do that.
I’ve written a lot, but I write poetry and music every single day…which has helped my writing skills a lot. I feel there’s more than one craft that is connected to writing skills, poetry being one of them…it’s the same part of the brain maybe or something (idk)
anyways, take care 
also reading…reading has helped my writing. you can definitely see the authors who influenced this story i wrote if you knew who they were. stephen king not only writes every day but reads a TON. very smart/creative man.
Congratulations on finishing your novella!
That is something to be proud of…wow, I’m envious, wish I has the focus to sit down and write anything over two sentences long…then not lose it within the next half hour.
Very nice, hope it is successfull for you!
As an aspiring writer myself, it is good to hear of someone having actual success as a writer. It is particularly valuable when someone portrays mental illness is a sympathetic light. You’re illuminating some of the dark corners of human existence.