Sharon E. Anderson's Blog, page 2

Writing as an Olympic Sport

Bebe Daniels giving it all in the name of creative endeavor…

Back when I didn’t know any better, I thought that if an author had talent, she would never, ever had to revise her work. Her words would flow onto the page, pristine and poignant, ready to be read by her adoring fans. I imagined she wore a cream-colored silk robe – although it could have been pink, yellow or light blue because my successful author was gleaned from a 1920’s black and white movie – cigarette attached to one of those long holder-thingies, she would slink across her high-rise Manhattan apartment and wait for her man-friend to pour her a glass of champagne and fix her up a plate of caviar on little toast rounds whilst reading her reviews in the New York Times. Anything less would be, well, amateur.

Like everything else in life, I’ve learned a few things: I don’t live on the East coast, caviar from the grocery shelf doesn’t taste the same as the kind in the can served at expensive restaurants, nothing comes easy –

The competitors in the finals of the 110 metre hurdles, 1906 Athens games. Future judge Hugo Friend at left. Source The Olympic Games at Athens, 1906 by Sullivan

even if you’re talented, and smoking is bad for you. As an author, I may be able to write quickly, but revisions are where the story comes to life – like an athlete practicing a sport. She may not run a stellar hurdle race the first time out of the gate. She may, in fact, fall over the first hurdle and every subsequent hurdle thereafter as she endeavors to complete the race. It isn’t easy. Hurdles are hard and to someone like me, dangerous. But every day she’s back at the track working on her timing, her form, the craft of her sport.

It’s the same thing authors do. We work hard at our craft and sometimes it feels as if we have fallen. The important thing is to get up and continue learning, producing, developing our craft. Our prize isn’t an Olympic Gold medal, though. Our prize is a great book with awesome reviews.

Keri Knutsen is the very best! Find her here http://www.alchemybookcovers.com

 

 

Curse of the Seven 70s is now re-released and looking mighty spiffy! Why don’t you check it out and write a review?

Like sandcastles…

Life is funny. You think you’ve got it all worked out, and then something changes and you have to start all over. It’s like building sandcastles on the beach. You’re good so long as the tide doesn’t come in – or someone’s unruly dog doesn’t jump on your masterpiece. But, you’ve still built on the sand, and well, what did you expect?

I’ve just spent a week at the ocean – my very favorite place in the world to be. This year we went earlier than we are used to going. Labor Day weekend was our time. For years. Everyone would pack up and go fishing the last weekend of August – Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – everyone. We had some good times, too.

When my grandfather was alive, things sometimes would get a little dicey. One time we were all kicked out of the motel we were staying at because of him. Another time my dad returned from being out on the water – white-faced and silent. My family fished out of Illwaco – right there on the mouth of the Columbia River, which separates Washington from Oregon. It’s where Louis and Clarke camped out (a little further south, but still in the neighborhood).

It’s called Cape Disappointment because of all of the shipwrecks that have happened there over time. When the tides change, the water gets rough, like welcome-to-hell rough. Well, it was one of those times, and Grandpa, hazy with prescription pills, turned the little fishing boat parallel to the 30 foot wave coming straight at them.

They were all going to die.

My dad grabbed the wheel and redirected the boat up the wave – perpendicular – and managed to salvage the situation. No one confronted Grandpa about the mishap, about how he nearly killed them all, but no one would go on the boat with him again.

Up the beach from Illwaco there is a gorgeous stretch of sand that beckons visitors to surf and swim. But there is an undertow there that is responsible for the deaths of many visitors who think Long Beach on the Washington coast is safe. Every year we would watch the Coast Guard head out looking for those who were lost. A week prior to our visit, an eleven year-old girl was taken by the water. It’s a dangerous place.

The business people tell me they work hard all summer to make all of their money for the year to help them eek out a living during the winter. It reminds me of Lewis and Clarke and the rest of the Corps of Discovery, arriving in November, the worst possible time of the year to show up on the coast in the Pacific Northwest. If it wasn’t for the indigenous people in that area, the entire Corps would have starved. I think how it must have been for them, so tenuous, so dire. I imagine what it must have been like to never be dry – of living in smoky, damp cabins, smelling rotting elk meat hanging in the next room, of dysentery caused by the conditions and too much fatty salmon.

I think of the first week of August, when the weather is supposed to be sunny and warm, but somehow, at this beach, it was stuck in overcast and mid 60’s, the Gray Ghost spinning down the street like cotton candy, coating everything in mist, and how it made us so cold we couldn’t get warm. But it wasn’t all like that. This year there were fires on the beach, hot dogs. This year there was Pokemon Go and time for conversation. This year was about family and rebuilding of sand castles, even though only five of 20 made the trip.

 

But this year no one was kicked out of the hotel room.

 

What I know about racism…

 

I am white and middle-class. I have privileges I don’t even know about. What I know about racism could fit on a postage stamp. Compared to my friends who are African-American, Asian American, Hispanic American—who are not White American—what I know about being seen as unequal in the eyes of others, I’m sure, is no bigger than a postage stamp. But in the wake of what has been happening in our country – has always been happening in our country, but has gotten more attention lately – I decided I should say something. Anything.

In the past, I have had some glimpses of what it might be like to be in that day-to-day struggle. Here are a couple of examples…

One day in the fourth grade, I was finishing up in the washroom when a student from another class ran in. She was in tears. A group of students came in after her and started pushing her around. I told them to stop it, what they were doing was wrong, when the leader of the pack turned to me and said, “Is she brown or is she black?” I looked at the terrified girl then back to the leader and said, “She’s whatever she says she is.” And then I ran out of the washroom and got my teacher. The girl and I started a friendship that lasted through high school.
A few years after graduating university, I meet a group of friends from school at a 5 star restaurant in downtown Seattle. We had reservations and one of us brought a plus one. No problem, we were assured. We were led through the elaborate dining room with high ceilings and chandeliers, and marveled at the quiet elegance of the place. We were seated at a long table covered with white linen and candles. My friend of African descent sat across from me and we couldn’t wait to catch up on each other’s lives. My friend asked for a table service – as everyone else had a knife, fork and spoon, but her. The waiter nodded and said ‘Right away.’ But it wasn’t right away. Even when our appetizers came and everyone else dug in, she still had no utensils with which to eat her food, and the waiter continued to ignore her. When I made a move to pluck a service from the neighboring table, my friend stopped me. She said, “I asked him to bring me a service.” I responded, “But it’s right there. Let me get it for you!” She shook her head, her eyes told me how deeply she had been hurt, before she whispered, “That wasn’t the point.”

 

I will never understand the privilege I have because I’m white. I will never understand what it’s like to be in a society that undermines and rejects me because of the color of my skin. But I dream of a day when my brothers and sister of all colors and creeds can work and live alongside one another in peace and harmony, treating one another as they would like to be treated.

This is a precarious time in our nation. We white folks will do well to understand the fact that we do not comprehend what our brothers and sisters of color face every single day.

Keep your hearts open and your compassion real. There will never be peace until we become color blind – meaning, when there is a time when we are judged not by the color of our skin but the content of our character.

 

Here are a few links that have helped me understand:

Oprah Show – a look back

Jane Elliott on the Rock Newman Show

In case of emergency: Letter to my nephew by Joshua Bennett

Mindfulness…

A few years ago, I spent some time with my good friend, Lisa Souza, in a client-practitioner sort of way. Lisa is very interested in everything regarding the brain. That’s why she spent the extra time and energy to become a licensed hypnotherapist. The time we spent together in that capacity still reverberates through me.

She taught me that our brains do not know the difference between sarcasm and truth. If, for example, I had continued to say, “I’ll never be a successful author.” or “I have no talent.” or even, “I can’t understand anything to do with computer programming…” My brain would have believed it, and most likely I would never have published anything.

That’s how powerful all of our brains really are.

There’s good news: You can change the way you think!

In the past, I found how easy it was to simply succumb to stress in my life, to put myself last on the list of getting my needs met. Now I’m learning how to be mindful, to be kinder to myself. Try to look for those things that help de-stress my life. Here are some ways I’m doing it:

This sounds strange, but it’s working for me so far: lower my alcohol intake throughout the week. I am going from drinking wine every night, to drinking a glass of wine or a beer on the weekend. The reality for me is alcohol isn’t doing me any favors. I’m learning about Cortisol – and how my body responds to stress. It’s all linked. Everything is linked.

Kiffer Brown of Chanticleer Book Review and I had coffee here after our walk this morning… It was lovely.
Carve out time for myself: I pack up and go to the coffee shop to write, the different environment helps me not think about vacuuming…which I always seem to do when I should be writing at home.
Pay attention to what I put in my body: for me this means taking Omega 3s, a good probiotic, remembering daily meds… and drinking one-half in my weight in ounces in water each day. (You heard me right…)
Take time to move: It doesn’t matter. Go for a walk, a swim, something other than sitting in front of my computer hour after hour every day. Movement is good. Movement is life. If I want to be able to move in the future, I need to make certain I’m moving now.
Acupuncture: I never thought I would go to an acupuncturist. But I am! And it makes all the difference. To tell you the truth, I feel every needle – I am that sensitive. But Dr. Roselyn Bailey, is highly skilled and board certified. Don’t let just anyone stick you with a needle!

I love cloud gazing! The sky gave me a solar heart in this picture #AuthorLove #Life #BigUniverse

Take time to be gracious and hospitable to myself. It doesn’t take much – maybe it’s adding something to the house that makes me feel better about my surroundings – Maybe it’s buying triple-milled soaps – Maybe it’s taking time for tea, or setting the table with fine linens, china, and the silver. It matters. It calms my soul – especially when stress is high.
Escape when I can: There is restorative power in water. When I am by the river or on the Sound, or at the beach, I feel grounded. It makes me happy and I can feel tension lift and dissipate.

I’m interested in what you think. How do you de-stress?… Please leave a comment!

By the way, Lisa Souza is a kick-ass author as well as a brain geek. Check out her book, Beauty and the Bridesmaid!

 

 

 

Father’s Day

Today is Father’s Day, and as it would happen, we don’t have any father’s left. We’ve run out of them, lost them to ALS, to cancer, COPD, to madness. One, who should have been a father to us, did not have the disposition. But we were lucky with the other three. I was especially lucky with mine.

David LeRoy McDonald, my dad, used to say the strangest things. I have to stop at times when I hear his words come out of my mouth… Did I just say that?

He taught me that any job worth doing was worth doing right, that it doesn’t take money to be happy, not to expect anything out of anyone you aren’t willing to do yourself. He was kind, gentle and wise. I always felt safe in his presence.

He told me once that I could do anything I put my mind to. His words mean everything to me – his words gave me the courage to pursue that that dream I kept hidden for years – to put my work out into the world.

 

Thank you, Dad.

 

If you could use one word to describe your father, what would it be?

 

The compassionate life…

 

I am struck by the violence one individual can perpetrate on another – whether it’s behind a dumpster or in a nightclub or on an airplane. There are other examples, of course. Our history is long and bloody.

As long as we believe there is such a thing as “Us” and “Them” we will continue to go to war, continue to kill hapless, happy people, and continue to become the monsters we dread.

All of us.

It gets to the root of who we are, down to the very core. We are survivors. We have survived against all odds, climbed out of the muck, through endless iterations of life, toward becoming who we are today. We all took this journey, collectively, without thought, because we only yearned for a better place. A better way to be.

It must have been violent.

The echoes of becoming rally us to action in times of danger: Fight or Flight. And it worked. But it isn’t working any longer-especially in this culture of the extreme expendability of human life simply because they are different from us.

So, how do we combat this? How do we set aside the “Us” and “Them” mentality?

Look for peace. Strive for it. Help those in need of help, and have compassion on those who for one reason or another cannot help themselves. Go out of your way to meet the stranger and understand their story, feel their triumphs and the losses with them. Do your best to call them Brother. Sister. Mother. Father. It is our responsibility to call all humankind Family.

 

It may be true that there will never be peace on earth, but shouldn’t we at least work toward it? Don’t we have at least have an obligation to try?

 

 

 

verses taken from the Aramaic Bible, Romans 12:15,17,21

Learning to dance…

One, two, three…one, two, three…

On April 29th I was chatting with a group of new author friends at the Chanticleer Authors Conference in the Bellwether Ballroom. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The sun was out. We were all excited because the weekend was going to be fun and informative.

Sci-fi/fantasy panel discussion with yours truly..

 

 

Then I got an email from my publisher. Booktrope sent an email on a late Friday afternoon announcing it was closing business in one month, May 31st, and that authors would receive their rights to their work back on June first. We were to contact our team members and settle up, so to speak, with them. Booktrope was a team approach company where royalties were split between author, marketing manager, project manager, editor, proofreader, and cover designer. It had possibilities, it really did.

Has the road been smooth? To some it has. Other authors had a plan right away – some opened their own publishing houses and incorporated, others were picked up by small presses or university presses. And then there were people like me… who simply couldn’t think of what the next step might be. I have written four novels, only one of which has been published to date because I had no clue how or what to do. This has been a slow, awkward process, and I feel as if my feet have been stepped on a time or two – through my own clumsiness.

Beautiful ballerina in ballet class

It has been a little like learning to dance…

So, here’s what’s going on right now: Curse of the Seven 70s, is undergoing another round of editing – which is good and disturbing at the same time – and I’m working with a new cover designer to switch up the rom-com/Chick-lit vibe. I think we’re making progress. I think I’m learning the steps. My second novel, Sweet Life of Dead Duane, is heading off to the editor. I’m excited about that! And I’m attempting to write non-fiction articles in my spare time, because non-fiction pays! Who knew?

And here’s the kicker, a very prominent bookstore in the region has asked for 15 copies of my novel because I sold the most books at that conference I was at in April…. and I have nothing to give them.

My book is out of print.

Two steps forward, one step back…

It’s important to breathe when learning to dance…or re-creating your publishing life… I just tie up my laces, straighten my back and head out onto the dance floor, because baby, that’s where all the action is anyway!

Please comment on this post – I’d love to connect with you.

One, two, three…one, two, three…On April 29th I was chat...

One, two, three…one, two, three…

On April 29th I was chatting with a group of new author friends at the Chanticleer Authors Conference in the Bellwether Ballroom. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The sun was out. We were all excited because the weekend was going to be fun and informative.

Sci-fi/fantasy panel discussion with yours truly..

 

 

Then I got an email from my publisher. Booktrope sent an email on a late Friday afternoon announcing it was closing business in one month, May 31st, and that authors would receive their rights to their work back on June first. We were to contact our team members and settle up, so to speak, with them. Booktrope was a team approach company where royalties were split between author, marketing manager, project manager, editor, proofreader, and cover designer. It had possibilities, it really did.

Has the road been smooth? To some it has. Other authors had a plan right away – some opened their own publishing houses and incorporated, others were picked up by small presses or university presses. And then there were people like me… who simply couldn’t think of what the next step might be. I have written four novels, only one of which has been published to date because I had no clue how or what to do. This has been a slow, awkward process, and I feel as if my feet have been stepped on a time or two – through my own clumsiness.

Beautiful ballerina in ballet class

It has been a little like learning to dance…

So, here’s what’s going on right now: Curse of the Seven 70s, is undergoing another round of editing – which is good and disturbing at the same time – and I’m working with a new cover designer to switch up the rom-com/Chick-lit vibe. I think we’re making progress. I think I’m learning the steps. My second novel, Sweet Life of Dead Duane, is heading off to the editor. I’m excited about that! And I’m attempting to write non-fiction articles in my spare time, because non-fiction pays! Who knew?

And here’s the kicker, a very prominent bookstore in the region has asked for 15 copies of my novel because I sold the most books at that conference I was at in April…. and I have nothing to give them.

My book is out of print.

Two steps forward, one step back…

It’s important to breathe when learning to dance…or re-creating your publishing life… I just tie up my laces, straighten my back and head out onto the dance floor, because baby, that’s where all the action is anyway!

Please comment on this post – I’d love to connect with you.

Stories instead of violence

Books. Books. And even more books. Stacks of them. Piles of them. Books that teach you how to fix a sink, books that teach you how to fold

The world is full of stories waiting to be read…

sheets.Those are great books. Necessary books, the How To’s of our time.

Books also tell stories. Books can weave a story filled with so much humanity, so much compassion, it is liable to make you cry.


 


We are lost without them. Stories demonstrate how to live, and what happens when we ignore the warnings contained within. We are intrigued. We are changed. We are drawn into story. It is who we are.


 


This last week or so, three of my friends have been assaulted, robbed, or have had their lives threatened. In some cases, I am sure the assailants were mentally fragile – which brings up another set of concerns I am not addressing in this post. 

books change lives…get yours today!

But for the others… the ones who bully and beat up and take from others for their own gain, who demean and assault because they have been demeaned and assaulted in some way, shape or form in their lives… I wonder if any of the people who did these horrible things had ever read a book.

I cannot imagine anyone, who, after spending hours with Catcher in the Rye or The Hobbit or Cat in the Hat, would ever consider doing to another human being what has been done to my friends – and other people around the world.

I’m naive. I know I am. There’s more to the issues of violence in our society. But we have to start somewhere.


Along with the penalty the law provides, how about we give assailants a copy of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird? Sit down with them and help them read it if they need the assistance. Show them there is a bigger, more expansive world out there than they had ever imagined.



 


Wrap your mind around something worthwhile today, gentle people, but before you go, please remember to leave a comment…. I’m off to the cafe to create more stories. 

You can’t be violent when you’re lost in a good book…



 


#LoveBooks #Read #Peace #BLRTG

Drunken Hamster President . . .

So what do writers do when they are avoiding their Work in Progress? Read on and find out!

I invest time in the most reliable and well-respected intensive test engines known to humankind – the Facebook profile quiz – and this is what I found out…

The future …

My perfect job is president! I may even get my face carved into the side of a rock. Oh, and I’m going to be a drunken old lady who smokes cigars when I’m 80 years old… and I look like a hamster.

So, there’s that.

Here’s the cool thing, I’m already serving as president for the Skagit Valley Writers League (SVWL). It’s a great way to meet other authors and strike up a conversation about what they do when they’re avoiding work.

Little bastard ready for a fight…

Oh, I just might pick up cigar smoking in the future, but for now, I’m staying away from the stogies. And I don’t really like hamsters. They’re too sneaky, the little bastards, and will more than likely bite the crap out of my finger as give me a kind, gentle stare with their cold beady eyes. (Told you I didn’t like ’em.)

I suppose the real question here is why I’m having trouble working on my current story. It may be that I’ve been editing too much. Editing and creating a story actually come from different parts of my brain. This is a lesson I’m learning about how to tend that particular creativity. Most likely the answer lies in the laying down of expectation and opening myself up to wonder. Writing, being an author, isn’t easy. It can be – when a person is in the groove – but mostly it’s hard work and requires excellent butt glue (to keep me stuck in the chair and write!)

I’m wondering what you do when you’re avoiding putting words on the page? Let me know in the comments.

And now back to writing . . .

This isn’t really me… remember, I look like a hamster…