RE: In Moments of Dark Despair
Don't know about the sticking but for sure it makes a difference to find a few familar and sound writers/ musers around worth checking in for. If this small group of interested readers/moral supporters manage to pop in, at least, weekly my incentive is sound for now, amounting issues AFK providing....
Already placed a comment on drugs in a response to Kimberlylane to get the juices flowing on the subject. Needless to say I have studied this particular subject from an esoteric (anthroposophic) perspective to understand (really and not socio-politically) what these substances can do for us (positively/negatively, mainly the latter now, but definitely significantly positively back in the clairvoyant days, before the Dionysian cult fell into a decadent Bacchus cult .... ) but much of this material is quite heavy on the esoteric side. So I might sit this one out to avoid running into clichés. Equally needless to say, you write an excellent piece on how to start off by not being hysterically indoctrinated by stereotypical prejudices (damning the taker and blaming the drug is equally pointless).
It IS a very complex topic about deep things with the substance but a marker. Just don't get me started on Ayahuasca.... or I am going to have to get brutally polemic. Nothing happy-clappy about it (spend a week with a tribe, fine, don't get on their nerves, but it makes a fine anthropological experiment), otherwise I hope you get entangled by a love-vine and are strangled by it (yep, witnessed some bitter experiences with cult developments around this new trend of detoxing the soul).
(Somehow had you located in Mejico... signs of a deteriorating - or very exhausted - brain!).
Of course, I will read your novel! Long or short! Sticking an Orange (or mango) prize on it already. Not in audio book form yet?