Wednesday 11 March 2020

Book Blog Tour Stop with Guest Post: Distorted Days by Louise Worthington




Thank you for inviting me onto you blog!
I became interested in psychology as a teacher when pupils brought additional challenges to the classroom such as attachment disorder and depression. I enrolled on an online course at Masters level in psychology a few years ago and have enjoyed learning a great deal. I use the knowledge I’ve gained in my fiction and poetry, in Distorted Days and forthcoming titles.
The psychology behind the title Distorted Days comes from the way one’s perception of life is altered by depression. The ability to reason and think rationally can be impaired and one’s view tends to be negative. In the novel use prose poetry to capture Doris’ sad mood. Doris believes her Mother doesn’t love her and the portrait of her depicts her as weak. By the end of the story she realises neither are actually correct.
Extract
The check-up always starts with the same open question. ‘How have you been feeling, Doris?’
It’s like the endless splattering of waves up the stroke side and bow side of an idle rowing boat. Slap. Slap. Slap. The murky water slaps at the bow as if it were a face. A tireless slapping, one after the other. Like an assault with no retaliation. The wind is passive and there are no oars, no cox, so I am marooned, stranded with myself, unable to escape myself and the slap, slap, slap.
And the wet slapping sound haunts my waking moments and my dreams. It spreads like damp, from the floorboards up through the walls of my skin, till it discolours my outlook: everything I see, everything I do, everything I hear. Everything even smells a bit damp, a bit off, musty. Rotting. Even memories discolour. Once the damp is in my brain, each thought is imperfect, a little injured, frayed in some way. 
A two-headed monster doesn’t pop out because it’s already inside me. If only something tangible would appear to ratify my illness! Even when the water’s calm, I sense turmoil is coming. And so it does. There are no answers, just questions; no ropes for rationality, only knots of confused, distressing thoughts. 
My brain now sounds like a three year old’s because it asks the same questions over and over and over again. The loop must take parents close to insanity. It ends with sleep, the dead kind, not leaving a refreshed breezy feeling, more like being roused from the dead. Then the loop starts again.
Every sound, scent, touch, is blunt. Boiled. Life’s a black-and-white film on mute. It seems like I have no taste buds, I leave no fingerprints, I have no edge. I’ve become an abstract painting of fading shades of black, grey, stone.


Dr Timpson gives Doris advice and support which helps her to rebuild her life. His advice is dispersed throughout the novel and I am pleased that some readers have commented in reviews that it has helped them when they were feeling low.
I’ve certainly had periods in my life where I thought about myself or a situation in a negative or being overly self-critical which is really unhelpful. It’s a cycle that can be difficult to break out of without support. The front cover tries to depict the distorted way Doris sees life early on in the story.
I really hope you and your followers will enjoy my debut novel and check in at my website – and if you’d like to listen to me read from the story and some of my poems please visit Soundcloud.
Louise XXX
Distorted Days by Louise Worthington

If she could speak to them, she would say they have exploded her heart, released firecrackers through her senses. She wishes she could call the police, the ambulance, the fire brigade, to arrest and anaesthetise and waterboard the bastards.
So what happens when your husband runs off with your best friend? When you discover the dead body of an old man halfway through your delivery round? When your house is burgled and you get beaten up? Doris, Andy and Colleen are about to find out. They’re also about to discover that you can find friendship and support in the oddest of places…
Heart-rending, humorous and above all authentic, Distorted Days is an exquisitely written account of the ways in which life can knock you off our feet – and how you can pick yourself up again. If you’ve experienced the fickleness of fortune, this is a book that you’ll never forget.
Louise is the author of ‘Distorted Days’ and ‘Rachel’s Garden of Rooms.’ ‘The Entrepreneur’ will be available later in 2020. ‘The Thief’, a short story published by Park Publications, is available to download Louise Worthington's website. 
Before writing full time, Louise worked mainly as an English teacher after getting a degree in Literature and later, studying business and psychology at Masters level.
Louise grew up in Cheshire and now resides in Shropshire.
Louise’s characters, without exception, are skilfully wrought which make the reader genuinely care for them.”