Finding Your Bipolar Muse: How to Master Depressive Droughts and Manic Floods and Access Your Creative Power

Having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Castle has penned an upbeat, insider's guidebook for those faced with a similar set of circumstances. Considering the disorder's potential for creative and artistic output, Castle offers sound advice for managing the illness while establishing a creative career. Castle stresses the importance of physical health and its link with mental health, insisting that ""you simply can't reach your creative potential if you ignore what sustains your body through the day and night."" Drawing from personal experience and interviews with other bipolar artists, Castle provides practical strategies for coping and thriving, like her rules for bipolar ""success,"" a prescriptive outline for sleep, nutritious meals, emotional support and ""crisis planning."" In the section dedicated to ""finding and organizing your creative space,"" Castle explains the need to minimize distraction with a calm, clean work space. For those using their creative talents in a professional setting, Castle includes an incisive ""pro"" and ""con"" list to use when deciding to reveal one's bipolar diagnosis to potential employers. Castle's informal tone can grate when it gets overly imperative, but her encouraging tips and strategies address well the contemporary problems facing bipolar artists.