Cynthia Harrison's Blog, page 14

I Quit Sugar!

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Larson’s Bakery, just down the block from where we stayed in Seattle, is full of fresh, sweet treats. Cookies, cakes, donuts, tarts, the delish local Norwegian pastries. We stopped by every day; it was hard to chose just one treat, so lots of times I’d get two. Or three. Yummiest vacation ever.

I’d already bought clothes in a larger size for the trip. Most of my jeans were in a pile headed for a donation box, and many of my cute tops were on the way to the same pile. I kept my rings on the entire vacation, as they were hard to pull off my puffy fingers. I thought I’d need to get them re-sized soon.

None of this bothered me. I’m 64. I’m not going to worry about dieting at my age. My grandkids love me just the way I am. They’re still too young to attach labels to people based on looks. My husband, too, loves me for me. He still sees the slim young woman he married, or at least he’s never mentioned my weight or made me feel ashamed of it.

On the long flight home to Detroit, we bought sandwiches for the plane and chocolate too. After I ate my Snickers bar, I craved some of those M&Ms Al wasn’t eating. Al loves sweets, but he’s not addicted. When I asked, he handed me the M&Ms. He wasn’t happy about it, as he knew I had a bad sugar habit, but he indulged me. Then we got home and I looked at my calendar, just to get my bearings. What did I have going on in June besides Al’s birthday?

There it was, at the end of the month. An appointment with the doctor to test my blood sugar. I flashed to what she’d said two months before: if my numbers didn’t go down, she’d be putting me on medicine to control my blood sugar, and probably something for cholesterol, too. I had been in denial for the past two months. Maybe I subconsciously believed that having to take meds would be the thing that finally made me quit sugar. But now that the reality of sugar addiction was looking me in the face, I wanted to fix it.

I’d gone off sugar before. I’d done no carb, even. Those were the happiest numbers my doctor ever saw. She said “I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep it up.” That was about ten years ago. I was afraid to tell her I was doing South Beach. It could not be healthy to consume that much meat and dairy. Plus I was so sick of eggs and bacon for breakfast! Over the next several years, I tried to eat more healthfully, became vegetarian and then vegan. My sugar numbers slowly but surely crept up again.

My solution to all problems is to read up on it. I needed a book that would help me quit sugar. I found Sarah Wilson’s “I Quit Sugar” and read a lot of things I already knew. Like that processed foods contain sugar. And I learned some new things. Like that a whole wheat hamburger bun has more sugar in it than a candy bar. Or maybe that was from “Wheat Belly” the next book I read.

Ten years ago, I didn’t have the health problems I am now confronting. Insomnia. Excema. Lactose intolerance. Caffeine sensitivity. The inability to eat a healthy vegan diet because beans and legumes made my stomach churn and worse. Pretty much, I had IBS. And it is not pleasant. The last thing on the list of food items that are thought to cause IBS is wheat. And I had saved that as the last thing to eliminate from my diet, because I just didn’t want to know.

Then one day after my morning cereal, I made the familiar rush to the bathroom. No doubt about it, on top of being addicted to sugar, I had a problem digesting wheat. However, the two books had shown me a path forward without sugar or wheat. So two weeks ago, I decided to try to quit sugar. I cleaned out my pantry, getting rid of most of the offending foods. Both books had simple recipes. Sarah’s even has a shopping list.

My new diet is part South Beach, part vegan/vegetarian. Veggies are of primary importance, so those years as a vegetarian and vegan were not a total waste. It’s not a weight loss diet. It’s a diet that breaks sugar addiction, including the sugar in our modern genetically modified wheat. It might be too late to impact my sugar numbers this round of blood tests, but I will continue to eat this way anyway. If I do have to go on medication, I will soon be able to get off of it if I don’t eat sugar or wheat.

I’ll let you know how this latest diet goes after I hear from my doctor. Meanwhile, I’ve not had any wheat or sugar for two weeks. The IBS that started five years ago and has progressively gotten worse is gone. My bloated wheat belly has settled down into a regular pudgy tummy. Most of my jeans zip again. The rings on my fingers slide easily on and off. Best of all, I have no sugar cravings. None.

Spring Cleaning for Writers

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My kitchen counters are cluttered with the contents of my pantry. This is good news for a couple reasons. One ~ If I’m cleaning, I must be over the flu that hit our house just before the holiday weekend. Two ~ If I’m ready to tackle my pantry, my WIP revision will be a piece of cake.

Not that I’m eating cake. The flu helped me get through a week without sugar. I must continue to resist sweets if I want my blood sugar results to come back clean at end of June. I want to stay off diabetes medication. I fear it may be too little too late, nevertheless I will abide by these new rules my body demands. I need to be healthy as possible to write this book.

I had flu, but I wrote anyway. It feels as if I am rewriting the book from scratch, that’s how much this second draft is changing. But in truth, I’m only rearranging the words on the pages like food on my pantry shelves. I’m getting rid of expired items and building a new and better structure to support the parts I keep.

My house, my health and my book are coming together. It’s springtime and my worlds, both fictive and real, are beginning to bloom.

Vacation Thoughts

We are in Seattle, our last day of a vacation that is both more and less a typical vacation. We have been to here half a dozen times so we’re not tourists anymore. What we have come to see and insert ourselves into for a week is the lives being lived by our beloved grandchildren and their awesome parents best told in pictures[image error][image error]. [image error][image error]

Another Adventure

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I have always been a traveller, a wanderer, if only by reading. But I’ve had many real life travels, too, and today I’m heading off to another adventure. Luckily, there’s the Kindle now so I don’t have to pack actual books, which I love but I love having clothing options more. Our destination today is Seattle for a week.

We’ve rented an Airbnb condo five minutes from where my son and grandkids and super DiL live. Since our boys (and grandchildren) live quite a distance, we don’t often get to do typical grandparent activities like watching a soccer or T-ball game. This week we get to do both. I think this is my fifth or sixth time in Seattle.

When I was young and fearless, I hitchhiked to New York City, to Key West and Colorado. Those were magical trips. My eyes were opened wide to a very big world outside of my little town of Taylor, Michigan. It’s impossible to capture those moments again because I’m older now. I’ve tried anyway. New York City has changed since 1972 and Key West is far different than the tourist-free paradise it was in 1974. The Rocky Mountains are probably the same, which is weirdly comforting.

I doubt I’d hop on the back of the motorcycle of a and take a winding road high up the mountain side, in fact I’m certain I would not. That guy on the motorcycle cured me of hitchhiking forever later that night. Either him or the drunk who crashed his truck on the freeway in the rain with me and my friend in it. It’s fun to be young and carefree, but bad shit happens and travel is safer and more comfortable with a plane ticket and my trusty Kindle.

I’ll take some photos and store some memories of family and always wonderful Seattle. I’ll take writing break and refill the creative well. Most important, I’ll get my granny time in and see you next week.

Book Marketing on Pinterest

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When’s the last time you had fun marketing your books? My answer until maybe a month ago would have been never. Then, I decided to create a Pinterest board for every one of my books. Sure, my website lists all my books with links and descriptions, but Pinterest goes the extra imagination mile, helping me find photos that express who my characters are and what their setting is, even down to the rings on their fingers and the pillows on their fictional sofas. Since the advent of Kindle, I’ve missed the element of browsing book covers. Pinterest gives that back to me, and more.

Since I’ve succumbed to the deliciousness of pinning, all my books have come more alive to me. Making a perfect board for every book is still a work in progress, but as you see above, my first two rows of boards are all for my books. Lily White in Detroit is my latest novel, so it’s the first board. Obviously you want those novels front and center for marketing. And don’t forget the buy link! I’m working a bit here and there on Pinterest as I try to finish a novel before my husband retires in December. And I have a board for that, too. It’s the best one. Jane in St Pete has categories!

When I got off Facebook, it freed up so much time. Time to write Jane in St Pete (coming in 2020) and time to play. Pinterest is very fun to play with, and while I’m not sure it will be a great marketing tool for me, it’s more than just having fun. Working with visuals spark ideas for my books…and my life.

Writing Motivation

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Trouble comes to every writer. Even writers with lots of published books. Before I sat down to write this, I looked up my old posts on the topic. None of them fit my current situation, but it was fun to read them because they reminded me of how far I’ve come and that I’ve successfully solved this problem before. Here’s the thing, what used to work doesn’t anymore. I thought for a long time about not writing novels anymore. I can get my writing fix here on the blog and in my morning pages. But I’m in the middle of a book and I hate to leave things unfinished, so I put time and thought into the decision.

It took awhile for me to decide not to trash the WIP. That process of thinking through if I wanted to keep doing this at least until I finish the current project is what led to my current motivation for continuing. I figured out that my old goals weren’t working any more. For so long my goal was “get published” then “publish a book” then “publish a novel” then “switch genres” then…nothing. I’d done it all. Every single one of my writing dreams had been achieved. I’d met all my writing goals. I could die happy. (Really. This becomes an actual thing at my age.)

Eventually, with a lot of help from morning pages and a pointed question from a friend, I figured out that in order to motivate myself I needed a new goal. None of my old goals would suffice. I had reached the top of my personal book mountain. But come to find out at the top of my writing mountain, I saw the bottom of another mountain. I could continue the climb if I was willing to do the work to reach a new goal. Right away I decided that of course I was going to try. Having a goal in life (about anything, not just writing) helps me keep moving, remain upbeat, and continue striving. I don’t think about goals that much, but I need them.

I’m 64. I started writing when I was 14. That’s 50 years of always writing, always finding another mountain to climb. My supply of enthusiasm and energy for the book biz has diminished. It was bound to happen on such a long road with so many obstacles to overcome, so many wrong turns and happy detours. Diminished doesn’t mean extinguished, though. I’m not finished quite yet.

What I know now that I didn’t know before was that as long as you’re alive, you can reach higher than your biggest dreams. My new goal in finishing this novel and making it great is modest. My husband is retiring soon and we want to travel and spend more time with our grandchildren. That is the golden goal. My motivation to finish this novel and make it my best effort is to send the book to an agent a friend says is perfect for me. After that, it’s out of my hands.

When I was younger, I had many goals and dreams. What I learned then is that goals are different than dreams. Goals only work 100% when you have control over the outcome. (Dreams are another post.) I don’t have control over what the agent will say about my book. And that’s fine. I already had an agent who couldn’t sell my book and I ended up with a perfectly fine publisher anyway. That was many books ago. I’m thinking submitting to another agent is worth a shot. And it does something else: it gives me a good reason to finish this novel and make it fabulous.

Personal Space

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It was a fluke. The Detroit Red Wings were one game away from winning the first Stanley Cup since 1955, the year I was born. Al held season tickets and he was ready to sell them. He’d make A LOT of money. He said there was only a 50/50 chance the Wings would win yet again and so early in the playoffs. But I talked him into going. “You’ll be so mad at yourself if they win.” I even offered to tag along, though I’m not a sports fan.

I have two sons and then there’s Al. They are all sports fans, so it’s not like I’d never been to a game before. I’d been to plenty, Red Wings, Pistons, Lions and Tigers…including one where my son almost caught a fly ball. It grazed Tim’s fingers then fell between my legs. Before I could retrieve it for Tim, a guy dove between my legs and grabbed the ball. He stepped into the aisle and held up the ball. People cheered him! He was kind enough to buy me a hot chocolate to make up for the one he spilled all over me in his fervor to grab that ball.

Years later, back to the Red Wings game, the game where they did indeed win the Stanley Cup. Al and I took our seats. The noise level was higher than I’d ever experienced at the dozens of games I’d suffered through over the years. Even I was a little bit excited. But then everyone stood up and slapped five as the Wings hit the puck and took the lead. Nobody sat down after that. Including Big Guy on the other side of me who was taking up half of my space.

I’d been sitting, so I guess he figured what the hell. Then, not liking his butt in my face, I got up, jostling Big Guy, who shot me a nasty look. “Sorry,” I said “You’re in my space.” I tried to stand tall (I’m 5’2″) on my little square of cement. His body turned toward me in disbelief. His look said I was speaking a foreign language, possibly from another planet. Meanwhile Al didn’t notice anything. Another goal had been scored and he was busy slapping somebody high five.

Big Guy on the other side defiantly kept one foot in my space. I decided not to mention it to Al. It was a big night for Detroit. I don’t understand the pull of sports, but I do know that many many people love everything about every sport, my husband included. Yes the Wings won the Stanley Cup and it was fun driving slow down Woodward all the way home with the crowds out dancing and chanting in the streets. I forgot all about rude Big Guy from the game.

But recently, when the videos and photos of Joe Biden’s nose and lips getting very much in women’s spaces emerged, I was reminded of Big Guy. I think Biden is creepy and that he was using white male privilege to do what he wanted. Just like Big Guy. Hardly any of my friends agree with me about Biden. Democrats across our nation mostly don’t either. Their reasons are flimsy, IMO. Sure he’s from a different era. But men have mastered their smart phones. Surely, allowing women their personal space is not beyond them.

Pinterest Progress

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I ‘m in love! Last week, that first crazy happy week, saw me dropping work on my novel over and over in favor of my new passion. This past weekend, I finally felt my Pinterest love pay off. I was able to take what I’d learned on the platform into real life. It was not the kind of real life reward I’d intended, but it felt good anyway. And something I already knew about myself (I am not great at selling books on my social media platforms) was reinforced.

While I worked on creating many new boards and pinning all kinds of things to them, I also either made old boards private, deleted them, or fixed them up. I’m still new to many of the available functions on Pinterest. I have a lot to learn, but I was able to do much with help from my Word Press coach, Barb. Among other things, Barb helped make my Pinterest page a verified business account. She’s a great teacher and fixer. (Find Barb at Bakerview Consulting.)

Many of my new boards relate to writing, I even put up a board that hosts links to this blog. I’ve wanted to do that since I stopped using Facebook, so it was particularly sweet. Then I did my passion project, the one that paid off in my personal, not professional, life. It’s called PURSES because my closet space needed reorganization and in particular I needed to store my purses in a visually nicer way. I like to be surrounded by practical harmony. My closet was not that. In particular my twenty purses needed to get off the floor and the haphazard pile on a shelf where I usually keep the purse currently in use.

It’s spring and I think I’m like many people who feel, at the start of this season, the urge to organize, clean and straighten. Usually closets are most in need, because it’s so easy to shove things in and shut the door so you do not have to see them. A few hours pinning organization ideas onto my PURSE board and I was fully motivated. I finished the actual project two hours later. I had not been able to part with even one purse, but I purged some sweaters and put other items back where they belonged. And I found a perfect and pretty way to store my purses.

The one thing I had not accomplished in my week of pinning and creating boards was giving each of my books it’s own board. With a buy link. I think I managed to do it with my most current release, but it’s not perfect and the other books still don’t have a proper board with a link. I am not good at selling or even giving away my books on social platforms. I already knew that and Pinterest only reinforced my disinclination to sell socially. On the plus side, I have some fun new boards, including the vision board I’m using to inspire me as I write my current novel-in-progress. Maybe the revision will go as smoothly and swiftly as the closet cleaning.

Interest in Pinterest

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When I’m not working on my WIP, I have been playing on Pinterest. A few years ago, a PR person from the big city told me Pinterest is becoming a great sales channel for writers. I had a Pinterest account because now when you ask a friend for a recipe they say “It’s on my Pinterest!” Mostly that’s what I did there. Then just for the heck of it, I started doing a board for the book I was writing. Then I thought, oh, might as well put up a board with my book covers on it. That was simply vanity. No thought of selling books. Nary a link. My Pinterest account languished.

Then I quit Facebook. Facebook had been good for driving traffic to my blog. I began to think more about my other social media. Where else, besides Twitter, could I link to my blog? An author friend had recently started a Pinterest account specifically to use as a sales tool. I looked at her Pinterest and it was much prettier and more organized than mine. Maybe there was something to be said for Pinterest beyond recipes and home decor. And my old friend vanity kicked in. I didn’t like having such a messy Pinterst account. I immediately tried to clean things up.

Then I realized Pinterest was a bit trickier than I’d remembered. At least to make my page pretty, I might need some help. My favorite author of social media books does not have a book on Pinterest. I asked her why and she said because it changes too much. By the time you write the book and publish it, Pinterest is different. She suggested watching You Tube tutorials and reading blog posts from people who do Pinterest for Authors well. That sounds like a book title right? Pinterest for Authors. It should be a book! I did find one but it was two years old and I wondered if Pinterest had changed since then.

I’m still working on it. I’m going to probably spend hours today trying to make a board for blog posts and pin this one. That’s fine. It’s fun. Pinterest seems manageable. It seems not quite as hectic as other social media. It is just placidly there, waiting. And everyone does their pinning quietly in the background. If you know of any Pinterest for Authors experts or are one yourself, please send me links. What I’d really like is a book written this year called Pinterest for Authors. I will buy that book! I’m going to check Amazon. Maybe somebody published one last night.

My Revision Process

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I write a first draft with no revision. Just flat out write it. I finished my current WIP “Jane” in November 2018. Then it was Christmas. Then I went to Florida for six weeks. During this time I kept pulling chapters to feed to my critique group, even though they were first draft. I would not recommend that. By the time I settled back into my writing routine, months had gone by and I had a big mess of a manuscript with many many suggestions for improvement on the first five chapters from my writing group.

After writing an unfiltered and thus awful first draft, I like to let it sit for a bit and simmer. I left it a little too long this time and showed it too soon and the result was a mess. But I knew my next step. I like to read the entire book in a day (or two) making brief revision notes as I go. Before I could do the read-through, I had to organize those first five chapters and get things coherent. So I did a little more than the usual. I went over the five chapters, incorporating suggestions I liked. I outlined every scene, and made a summary for my critique partners, because we only meet once a month, plus the six week break was in there and people forget.

It took a few days just to get that first chunk in order, but I’m happy I did it instead of just reverting to the uncritiqued original. I also liked outlining the scenes. I felt organized enough to go ahead and read the rest of the book. It took two days, not one, but the thing is to have my whole book in my head. The entire plot needs to be clear to me so I can figure out what went wrong, how to fix it, and where in the manuscript those fixes need to be inserted.

I didn’t outline the rest of the manuscript when I did the read-through. I did make brief notes to myself about the changes I wanted to make. I knew I had a crap bad guy so I was able to come up with a semi-solution for that and I even figured out the final twist at the end. Mystery novels often have a sting in the tail that is the final surprising twist. I got that in the read through, surprising even myself, because I usually struggle with that. Jane the book and Jane the character both need more work, the crime story itself needs some work, but that’s fine because now I will go back and outline the entire book and find those places where I need to up the stakes, delete the nonsense (an entire character this time) and fill out Jane. At this point, I also revise the character list of names and places.

The other problem I’ve been thinking about is that the book is in first person point of view (Jane’s). But two random chapters are in other voices. I contemplated changing the whole thing to third person and adding other points of view, but then decided to keep it in first person and try to figure out how to do those other pov chapters later. Not sure I’ve ever told an entire book from one first person point of view. But it feels right this time. So much of revising is just hearing the click in your head that signals “yes, this.”

After I outline everything, I look at the structure and make sure my turning points, my big moments, are in the most effective places. Jenny Crusie taught me about turning points. (And so much more). She has an entire blog about writing and revising a novel. It’s extremely helpful. I always go looking for Jenny when I am in revision mode because she always has the exact answer I need, even when I didn’t know I needed it.

All that done, I read the book again. I add the scenes I didn’t write but that need to be in the story. I add dimension to characters who lack it (Jane needs a bit of help and my bad guy needs a lot). Then I read the book again to make sure everything tracks. At this point, I do a timeline. It starts when the book starts and ends when the book ends. I buy a calendar with big blank squares as they are dirt cheap right now. After I do all that, I read the book again to make sure the added scenes flow, that Jane is as heroically flawed as I can make her and that my bad guy is terrifying. I’ll have to add things and take stuff out. When I’m happy, I’ll do one more read through. (Ha.)

I polish sloppy sentences and look for inconsistencies. An example of an inconsistency is Jane has two grown children. She’s also a granny. (I was scared to write a granny as a main character in a crime novel but then I decided to do it because I wish more crime novels had aging female characters who have actual families. Also I like writing what scares me. “Too scary” is like a clue to the writer that you are on the right track.) So inconsistencies. My example: Jane’s kids and their families live on different coasts. Every time I mention a family member of one or the other I have to make sure they’re in the right city. This is one reason why annotated character lists are helpful.

After all that I am pretty sick of my book. I love it but I need to let it sit and rest for a week or so. Then I read it again and hope I don’t have to use my pen. Most of the time I do find more things to fix. When I start taking out commas that I put in on the previous edit, I know I’m done. Then I mail it to my editor and she and I go through a few more edits together. I hope I am lucky enough to have the same editor I’ve had for the last several books, because I have gotten good at anticipating what she’ll have problems with, and she’s always right.

If there’s a way to not be messy in revision, I have not found it. The most difficult thing is to dive in when it’s just chaos in a stack of paper. It feels good when I tame all that down to pretty folders for research, old drafts, current pages, critique group, to-be-revised and my favorite, finished chapters. I have a free download of my writing manual on the landing page here. I used it for my students when I taught creative writing. There’s a chapter on revision. I should probably read that myself.