Grief and Remembrance...

A couple years ago I was watching a little boy over night while his parents went on a trip. After waking up completely fine, he unexpectedly and suddenly died. He was 2 1/2 years old. And although it's been years since - Andrew would be in Kindergarten now - the grief, the remembrance. It all is still fresh. 

When I first heard of the school shooting last Friday, it hit me hard just like everyone. So little. So innocent. So excited about their day just beginning at school! Along with everyone, I’ve been grief stricken ever since. Everyone has been hurting since the news. Even family members all the way in Australia have called to see that everyone was okay here in America. They saw it on the news. They were saddened and worried too.

Life. Death. It comes to us all. But when it does, none of us knows. So we live our lives to the fullest and hold on tight to those we love, as we never know when it will be time to say good-bye. And no matter when we have to do so, it hurts. We cry. We ask why? And it’s okay to ask why. Even more okay to not like any answers you hear…

But what do we do after the sobbing subsides and our hearts start to wonder? Wonder what more can we do to help those that are in the worst pain imaginable - those who’ve lost a child. We are there with them in their grief as much as we can be. We think of them. Pray for them. Hold them close. But what more can we do?

Last night, I felt the need to do something for those little lives lost up in Connecticut. But what? I already know I can’t go back in time to fix the unexpected. The unexplainable. The unimaginable…

I told my children last night that we’d do something as a family to help remember. And it helped them feel some control. Some relief. They’ve practiced “lock down” drills at school this week and have heard varied reports from classmates on what happened at that school in Connecticut. They’re scared and worried too. Although, I COULD NOT bribe them with anything the Monday after to keep them home. They wanted to go to school. See their friends. See their teachers. So I let them go. And cried buckets after they were inside, as I’m sure so many others were.

Nothing like this will ever make sense. Nothing we can do will ever be able to undo it. Nothing can take away the pain from the loss their families and friends feel.

But there is something that we can do. I had an idea last night and was excited to be able to do something in remembrance of those little lives and the adults who died trying to save them. But the more I thought about it, I didn’t want to keep it to myself. What if others want to do something to help too?

So I wrote a poem that I’ll post soon. I hope that by doing this – 20 Little Luminaries – it’ll help ease some of our grief and aid in the remembrance of those who were lost.

Removing Toxic People From Your Life

There is a lot to be said about how toxins have a lasting negative effect on your physical health. But what about the lasting effect toxic people have on your mental heath which, in turn, effects your physical health? Where do you draw the line? Is it selfish to remove such people from your life, or is it life saving?

What exactly a toxic person is depends on who you talk to. However the underlying result is always the same: they leave you feeling powerless, vulnerable, and depleted. Feeling this way for long periods of time can be detrimental to your well being.

People who are aggressively physical have obvious toxicity. But what about the subtle types? The ones that ravage you from the inside out?

Someone who:

• takes and never gives in return
• constantly complains
• gossips
• puts you down
• makes you feel guilty
• can only criticize

Honestly, the list can go on and on. So, now that we can pin point these toxics, what do we do with them? I've recently learned what works for me, what helps me stay stress free and toxin free. It's been a health AND life saver:

• Walk Away
  Say, for instance, you are in a room full of people, and someone starts ranting about this or that, complaining about politics or people's lifestyles, and you know - you KNOW - that no matter what you say, however eloquent, you will never change this person's mind...just walk away. You DO NOT have to be there to hear all of the negativity. Your presence is NOT necessary. Leave! Save yourself! Stand up, totally calm. Grab your children nonchalantly and leave the room. Come back in when you know enough time has passed that everyone else in the room has argued till they were blue in the face with the toxic person, to no avail, and the topic has been changed. Phew! You saved yourself from a toxic encounter!
• Take Yourself Out of the Equation
  How about this...There was a huge misunderstanding and, if it had happened with someone who was able to have a normal conversation, it would be done and over with in a calm conversation. Yet your dealing with a toxic person who DOES NOT have such skills. They are gossiping to everyone how you did this and you did that. It doesn't matter if it's false or true, take yourself out of the equation. Don't play the game. Don't counter act all the assaults. Leave. IF need be, say your bit TO the toxic person, just the facts, totally calmly, and then let it go. Chances are everyone else is just as fed up with this person as you are. They will see that it's just another one of this person's tirades and will start to follow you. They too will remove themselves from this person's path, seeing how calm and relaxed you are not being involved with this toxic person. If they don't, it's not your problem. Take care of yourself.
• Take Responsibility
  For your health! It's YOUR health. If you don't take care of yourself, who will? No one. Are you going to continue to let this person shape your life for the worse? Allow yourself to feel the effects of their negativity so much that it is effecting your health? They take and never give. Who is to blame? Them? No! They are always going to do what they do. What they do to YOU is up to YOU. No one else. If you don't want to be treated poorly, don't allow it. Do what you have to do to take control of your life. If that means no longer engaging someone in a conversation because you KNOW it's going to turn sour, don't! If you know that just by being around a certain toxic person brings you down and causes you to feel horrible for days, weeks later, then limit or restrict your contact with that person. You are in charge of your life, of you. Don't let others bring you down. You have to take care of your health so that you can take care of all the other things and people in your life you are responsible for.

So, there you have it. My quick tip list for dealing with the toxins in your environment.

There are many other ways in which you can save your sanity and your health. If you have any additional ideas and tips, please share! We can all use additional tools in our arsenal against our toxic common enemy.

Reading While Writing... "Breakfast with Buddha" by Roland Merullo

When I read, I read for enjoyment and the craft of writing. In my "Reading While Writing" blog posts, I list and discuss the lessons I feel each book contained for me. Feel free to follow along and add your own lessons learned :)

The other day, I ended up in my Aunt and Uncle's neighborhood with my children. The reason? To take pictures of my daughter on her birthday. It was a Tuesday, and around here, all parks with their pretty water views and wooded scenes are closed. Seems we ever only want to go to a park on a Tuesday.

As I was taking photos of my daughter with her yellow flowing dress and pretty tiara, I got a call on my cell phone. "Is that you?" my aunt wanted to know. "Yep, we'll be right over."

And, to our delight, my aunt was cleaning out her art room and library. Boxes and boxes of art supplies and varying titled books ready to leave the premises.

Translation? Jack pot!

My daughter, who has dearly and undeniably been nicknamed "Crafty", was in art-heaven. Along with getting to skip a day of school to enjoy her birthday doing whatever she chose (after I got the pics I wanted), got to also bring home boxes and boxes of crafty booty.

As for me, well, I got a treat myself. Five different books, all from genres I rarely, if ever, read. Why? I guess I get bored if there's no 'lesson' for life or 'love' to live through. I'm not a mystery, fantasy, law-suit, contemporary fiction lover. I'm a lover. Just love. That's all there is to me ;)

But, as the saying goes, one must venture off into unknown territory to learn all aspect of their craft.

Translation, please? Read everything.

So, I passed up the familiar fiction and found some gems, one of them being Breakfast with Buddha.

I started off reading and being bored from the start. But I didn't put it down. This was a test. A lesson I set up for myself. So read on, I did. Chapter one. Bored. Chapter two. Bored. Chapter three. Bored.

Boring, eh?

Then I hit, thankfully, chapter four. Not entirely entertaining, it started to show glimpses of chapters to come. And so on and so forth the rythym continued, picking up speed, enthusiasm, until, finally I came to chapter after chapter of wonderful reading. I couldn't put it down. Had to finish it. Gobble it up.

And gobble I did.

What a wonderful book. Full of passion and love and life lessons. Yay! A book that will be cherished and placed on my bookshelf for time to come.

And one important lesson.

Craft lesson #1: Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Make them interesting, useful, and not suck.

Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. The 3 most important chapters of any book. Had I not been on a mission, I would have not pushed through any of these in Breakfast with Buddha. They were boring. They reeked of nothingness. No point to them other than for the main character (aka, the author) to hear himself think. Ugh...

IMHO, the book should have been started at Chapter four. The author tells so much about his self absorbed life - spoiler: he's a New Yorker - in the first three chapters, that I was swimming in a sea of blah blah blah uselessness. SHOW your main character's self-absorption (which IS shown throughout the book very well). Don't TELL the reader (as is done in ch1, ch2, ch3)....because the reader will get bored and stop reading (unless assigned not to).

This lesson reminds me so much of my own book. And is why I've worked and reworked and deleted and rewrote and deleted and rewrote and reworked it to, what I hope, is okay. Okay enough to no suck, be useful, relevant to the rest of the book, storyline, plot and subplots, so that no reader will be left in the blahs of boredom...and stop reading.

The rest of the book was fantastic and a great read - I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone!

:)

How to Find Your Voice in Writing...

I love writing. I love the way words can work together to make ordinary everyday things sparkle, spark, ignite. How you can say something without being exact. Or being so exact it's too much to read. And that's when feeling, emotion starts to pour from our words.

Here are some examples of my favorite writing from my novel Waiting for Paint to Dry. Everyone's writing is different. We all have our own voice. And I love that. I love my writing voice.

If you haven't found your voice yet, start writing. No rules. No critics. No barriers. Just write from the heat of the moment, let it all pour out. I found my voice shortly after reading Stephen King's "On Writing" in which he states, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it's perfect:

"This isn't Church. This is writing....Tell the truth."

Oh, and share. I love to share my writing, hence I do some freelance, this blog other blogs, song writing, poems and my novel. My baby. And I'm making it a priority this year to go big with my creativity, my voice, so hopefully soon I'll be done with this one and onto the next! ;)

In no particular order (no spoiler alert needed), here are some swatches from Waiting for Paint to Dry...
....

As the evening sun sinks behind the ocean, warm indoor lights illuminate the room and slow songs echo in from outside. Yet, party on everyone does. I try to excuse myself a handful of times to get some breathing room, grab a plate of food or two to go with my wine. Only El won’t let me out of her sight. She strong arms me, however elegantly, to meet more and more people. Soon, the introductions start to mount on the side of excessive and I start to feel like an expensive piece of jewelry she just has to show off to everyone she knows.

....

I was careful to not get any paint on the floor thanks to the left behind paint cloth, but as for myself, I’m decorated head to toe in all hues of turquoise and beige.
....

The sound of the door slamming behind me doesn’t quite hit the right note, the right amount of force, loudness, deafening roar I need to hear. I want to crash. To out run this insanity. I almost trip on the leg of a pair of jeans dangling from my arms. I take two seconds to repack, re-stuff, and then I’m off. Down the steps. Toward the beach.

Anywhere but here.

Reading While Writing...Cheap Cabernet, a Memoir

When I read, I read for enjoyment and the craft of writing. In my "Reading While Writing" blog posts, I list and discuss the lessons I feel each book contained for me. Feel free to follow along and add your own lessons learned :)

If your looking for a book that will stay alive in your memory for weeks, months, years to come, "Cheap Cabernet" is the perfect memoir for you.

The cover art is what caught my eye at first. Burgundy wineglass stains over the photo of two friends, as though you left your glass on the book after reading it last night...

Then I saw Iris Rainer Dart, author of "Beaches" was quoted on the cover also. That got me excited that "Cheap Cab" would be a good read, yet it also made me wary. Would "Cheap Cabernet" be a wonderfully, painful story too? But Cathie Beck didn't write a fictional novel. She wrote a memoir. Was I willing to read a wonderfully, painful TRUE LIFE story?

Although I'm a la la land purist by nature - I only go for sweet, happy endings - I decided to give "Cheap Cab" a try. An engrossing, page turning read, I'm glad I did.

Cheap Cabernet opens up with the placement of an newspaper advertisement for WOW - Women On the Way. Cathie Beck's unique idea to find friendship fast. I can't believe she had the thought/guts to do something so out of the ordinary, but thankfully, for Denise - her soon to be best friend - Cathie did.

What has stayed with me the most about this memoir wasn't so much Beck's history, past struggles, life. Although an insight into the woman Cathie became and just as interesting as any of our own journey's, what made "Cheap Cabernet" so powerful was the way in which the two women came into each others lives and how their friendship took hold at just the right moment. I agree with Beck when she writes, had it been at any other time in either of their lives, what they needed from each other - the magic - wouldn't have been there.

And what was needed was instinctual. Cathie needed a friend, someone she could hang out and cut loose with. Denise needed a friend, someone who didn't want to do anything but. Denise knew her expiration date was soon approaching. And instead of sitting around wasting away, she wanted to live it up as best she could while she still could. Cathie came along at just the right time.

Everyone deserves someone they can count on, especially in the thick dirt of life. Not everyone finds that someone.

For those lesser reviews that gave "Cheap Cabernet" one or two stars because, and I quote..."the characters weren't believable"... This is a Memoir, not a fictional story of two people in a fairy tale land. This is real life. Was. Is. However you want to look at it. This book is about two real women and their brief lives together. What makes Denise and Cathie seem "unbelievable" was that they lived it up to the limit at times when lesser people would have been much more practical and passed up the opportunity.

If you wonder what Cuba, hot tubs, and blenders have to do with living it up Denise and Cathie style, grab a copy and a glass of wine. A $6 Cabernet preferably.

Reading While Writing...The Hunger Games!

When I read, I read for enjoyment and the craft of writing. In my "Reading While Writing" blog posts, I list and discuss the lessons I feel each book contained for me. Feel free to follow along and add your own lessons learned :)

Craft lesson #1: come up with a KILLER idea!

And yes, PUN INTENDED :)

Okay, spoilers aside...this novel idea was excellent! I don't usually delve into YA (I couldn't get past page 2 of the first Twilight book, let alone attempt another...) I LOVE a book that brings to life a whole new way of looking at things. At life. And, with an odd slant that I find sad, the way things are in the world of The Hunger Games is basically how life is as we know it. Only we don't know it. Those who we unintentionally and unknowingly step on to have the kind of lifestyle we have, have the lifestyle akin to those in The Hunger Games. IMO...

However, as a craft lesson, the point is simple: come up with something catching, brilliant, exciting, and different from the whole gamut of what's out there already. And a whole new world to boot! I kept wanting their world to be more like our world, where cruelty of that kind wouldn't be tolerated and would, eventually, be overturned. But...Maybe that's the point of the series...I hope!

Craft Lesson #2: Don't misplace backstory...

This is the ONLY lesson I took from this book that came from something I felt the author/editors should have caught and fixed. The entire book aside from two spots of misplaced backstory was without flaw, so bravo! Not many books become so polished and, therefore, so wonderful to read. I mean, how else can one submerge themselves into a whole new world if they have to keep sidestepping crappy writing style and choppy flow (again, Twilight, gag me with a spoon)...

The backstory in The Hunger Games was vital, and plentiful. Hence, some spilled over the top. There were two spots where the backstory that would have been relevant and, therefore, better suited for somewhere in the beginning of the book, were placed so far inside the action at the back that it actually takes the reader (aka, me) OUT of the action.

I think there's a lesson to be learned from this for sure: know when to cut off your backstory and CUT IT OFF. Don't feel the reader needs to know something that isn't really all that crucial all the way near the end of the book that takes 2 pages to read through, thus circumventing the action that's taking place.

Kill it!

Or move it.

Either way, don't put backstory at the end of the book in the thick of things!

As a side note, if you can email me with the two misplaced backstory spots, you win a free copy of The Hunger Games!

The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins is truly brilliant. Awesome. I loved her book! (yes, I am drinking a glass of wine while blogging...why do you ask? ;) I had to dedicate - read, HAD to - dedicated a whole weekend to ignoring housework and the kids to finish this novel. And, aside from a few pouty face moments, it was well worth it. Every minute of it.

A wonderful read!

I can't wait for the next!!

But...oye...first, I must fix my own chapter 18...where or where did that research I was sure I did go??!? Oh, the dread of redoing research in the thick of editing (hence, ceasing the action!)

Lesson learned...

;)