A self-taught writer who has been doing it -- writing, of course, for almost twenty years. Best credential: he had had an emotional breakdown before he was twenty. Now, I am fifty-five and have written more than twelve books which I am in the process of re-editing all of them. I am on fluanxol, epilim, and olanzepine; stelazine was prescribed to me in 1986, and have been on medication ever since. My breakdown took place in a newspaper office that was just been set up. Being psychically dismembered, as it seems, has a way to bring about maturation and art, on some level. My books are written con amore, not paid stories because I am increasing value and widening readership. 

My target audience has been based on 19th Century estimates since the setting of most of my books is in that era. Therefore, correcting this, I put down my target audience as 13 - 18 years old.

But, more importantly, am I a schizophrenic? Or is the diagnosis only a figment of the medical establishment's imagination?

No doubt, I have a weird neural way of experiencing visual reality, but that is, I think, a learned trait picked up from observing my late father when I was in my infancy. Meaning, egoic thought had gotten in the way.

I have the grace despite the long odds to keep myself together and stand up and hit the ground running, and, especially, to write books.