As a longtime journalist and the author or co-author of eight non-fiction books, writing a novel about a serious subject like schizophrenia seems an odd choice. After all, I had spent my entire writing career authoring non-fiction articles and books. Taking on a totally new genre was a challenge, but I took it on. I chose to write a true-to-life novel so I could address more topics thoroughly than I could in a non-fiction tome.

Schizophrenia manifests itself in very different ways in different individuals. To broaden readers' understanding of the devastating mental disorder, I chose to create one character living with paranoid schizophrenia and another displaying what's referred to in medical circles as negative affects of the disease.

I also wanted to address how important the love and support of family members is. By creating two parents with the disorder, I was free to explore how members of two extended families assisted their loved ones to give readers a fuller picture of the different approaches different people adopt. Doing so also allowed me to explore how different family members are impacted, and how they cope with the strain of their father, son, mother, daughter, brother, sister, niece or nephew's illness.

A novel format allowed me to address many more situations and scenarios, as well as present the impacts through the eyes of a child growing up with two parents who are living with schizophrenia. Growing up and discovering how to make sense of the world is challenging enough for anyone. Trying to make sense of your world when the people you look up to most often don't make sense themselves is far more difficult. Creating a character who is faced with the later allowed me to share the thoughts and feelings of a young person as they experience a dysfunctional childhood, begin to understand what's causing it, and finally learning how to cope with and come to terms with their emotional scars.

Sure, writing my first novel was a challenge, and choosing to take a fictional approach to the topic even more challenging. But the result is a novel look at schizophrenia that I hope will help people to learn more about the illness, and in the case of family members, validate their experiences.