Gum on My Shoe

Fran and I are proud to be partners with the fantastic team behind michigan , and invited screenwriter Mickey Solis to talk about the film. For more information check out the michigan website , blog , twitter and instagram . My name is Mickey Solis. I’m an actor and screenwriter. I’ve been invited to write a guest blog in support of my forthcoming film titled michigan . The film is about (among other things) suicide, depression, addiction, and the difficult path toward self-realization. This film was inspired by the small town in Michigan where I grew up, by tragic events that took place there, and by some of the thoughts and feelings I became obsessed with later in life about that time and place. Around age 30 I began addressing parts of my emotional life in more creative and healthy ways. That is when I started to conceive this film. It is meant to be a curative journey through the traumatized psyche of a fictional character. As a graduate student at the dr...

My Father died when I was 11, and my relationship with my Mother was strained. I worked successfully as a broadcaster, and then moved into Public Relations. As I moved up the corporate ladder each role brought more stress and pressure. My work ethos had always been to not only succeed in everything I did, but to do it perfectly. I would always beat myself up even if I succeeded with a project even beyond everyone’s expectations if just one aspect of it didn’t work out perfectly. I realised I was a driven perfectionist, but to me, at that time, that was just normal. In the run-up to my illness I had an extremely high-powered, high-pressured job with an unsympathetic boss in a corporate culture that heaped a massive workload on everyone and expected long hours to achieve it. For around a year I had no idea what was happening to me, why I felt depressed, why panic attacks were a regular occurrence, why I wasn’t sleeping. I regarded my wife’s parents very much as my main famil...

Fran and I are excited and proud to join the fantastic group of partners for the film michigan . Directed by János Szász with screenplay by Mickey Solis and set for production in 2016 by Yale Productions , michigan is a new independent drama addressing teenage suicide, depression, and addiction in an isolated and desperate town of the American Midwest. As the team state on the film’s website: By bringing michigan to life we hope to not only promote awareness of teenage suicide, but also encourage suicide prevention, and explore its various causes. For more information on the film and the great folks behind it, check out their website , blog , twitter and instagram .  

Fran and I are delighted to host the final stop in Anne Goodwin’s five week blog tour for her debut novel Sugar and Snails (Inspired Quill, 2015). When I first met Anne at her book launch in Newcastle’s Jesmond library she was icing cupcakes. We’d connected only a few weeks previously, on Twitter, but I was greeted with a huge smile, a hug and a “Thank you for coming!” It was Anne’s second launch event for her novel, and the first I’d ever attended. The little library soon filled with locals, friends and family, some of whom had travelled considerable distances to be there and celebrate Anne’s achievement. As I listened to Anne read from her novel and talk about the years she lived and worked in the area (much of Sugar and Snails is set in and around Jesmond), I found myself thinking ahead to the day when Fran and I (one of us likely present via webcam!) will host a launch event for our book. If it’s half as warm, welcoming...

Most times when I am out in the world I wear my mask. The one that insures the best possibility of relating. What goes on behind the scenes is a different story. It’s not because I’m lying, it’s because I work very hard at presenting well and being acceptable. Presenting in ways that are unacceptable to others costs me far more. I am an actress in my own life. Few know the inside scoop. I am fortunate to have friends who not only know me but also love me whether my mask is on or off. Fran

Readers of Marty and Fran’s excellent blog will already know about how they negate the geographical distance between them. But how can that be done when one of the people involved experiences anxiety about using the phone? With a little imagination, decent wifi and a mobile phone or tablet anything is possible. I tweeted the other day that I had all the ingredients to make Grandma’s Biscuits but that my thirteen year old daughter didn’t want to bake. (I have no idea what the biscuits are actually called, but I used to make them with my grandma when I was a little girl and that is what they have always been known as.) My friend, who blogs as mentalhound, tweeted back that she would love to bake with me — except she lives nearly two hundred miles away. Well, if she wanted to bake with me, I wasn’t about to let distance get in the way! I tweeted her a picture of all the ingredients, and told her to wash her hands and put a pinny (apron) on. There th...