Cynthia Harrison's Blog, page 16

January Blues

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I’m struggling today. With some things I can’t say, some burdens I can’t share, and, frankly, with the new block style here on Word Press. Last week it was fine. Not sure what’s up but it’s just another thing. Like the thing where my Word for Mac software is no longer compatible with my laptop’s operating system. I could upgrade, but I think I’ll try Pages. I gave Pages a go when I first got my Mac but was in the middle of a book project and had no time to figure it out. It seemed quirky after ten years or so with Microsoft Word. I tried to learn Pages for about five minutes then installed Word for Mac. That was back when I still had my very own Apple Genius to help me with everything.

This post is my second attempt to say something and get the Word Press block gods to listen and interpret correctly. I trashed a real sob story, but it’s probably for the best. I’m feeling gloomy and out of sorts, although on the positive side, I got my new scene, the first in a new POV, out to my critique partners. I’m called the WIP “St. Pete” and sometimes “Jane” because that’s the setting and character. I managed to work this magic with the floundering software by force quitting Word and rebooting the laptop. Every time I use Word for Mac I have to do that. So. Pages. Has anybody tried it? Does anybody swear by it? I am hoping for mass enthusiasm.

Just to say about my so-called burdens. We all have them. I’m a lucky duck, mine are minor when I look at the big picture. I have a great husband, terrific friends, a good life. My kids are rock stars and their families are humming along just fine with the grandkids sparking joy a million times a day. It’s just the January blues. I know I’ll feel better when Al and I hit the road in a few weeks for Florida. My dad is there and I can’t wait to see him and all my wonderful Florida pals. So, you know, don’t cry for me, Argentina. I’ll get over this day, the dirty snow, the bleakness, the cold. It isn’t that difficult if you sit by the fire with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate.

Hopes for 2019

On January 1 the calendar’s a blank slate. Another chance to get things right. I always feel excited in a new year, ready to dig in to healthier eating and other habits, but I wouldn’t call these things resolutions as much as common sense. I’d just spent December in an orgy of sugar. It seems an obvious time to clean up my act. I made a great pot of vegetable soup yesterday. Also cookies for my husband as he likes them with his coffee in the morning.

Since I’m on the borderline of diabetes, I won’t be eating any of the cookies, although I sampled a few broken ones yesterday. I also won’t be having coffee, because that among other things had to go in 2018 when I did a deep dive into just what was wrong with my digestion. I changed a lot of things about what I eat, but I’m not crying. There’s an abundance of foods still available to me, and I intend to bring my blood sugar levels back to normal in 2019.

For the first time in many years, Al had the holidays off. Tomorrow he’ll be back on the job, but at least we got in a good binge of “Jack Ryan.” Eight episodes all gobbled up like another holiday treat. I’d recommend that series (it’s on Amazon Prime). It was entertaining but also made me think. Mostly about the plight of refugees. The show involved Middle Eastern refugees, but the news here IRL is all about those from Central America seeking asylum in the USA. Two young children died in December on the border while in US custody. We need to fix this broken system, and I hope it happens in 2019.

I read some great books in 2018; my favorite rock memoir was “Thank you Mr. Kibblewhite” by Roger Daltrey. He lets the reader in, almost like a friend. He’s frank and honest. He admits it hurt his feelings when Pete Townsend made disdainful remarks about his singing. Roger, Pete’s just jealous, because you and your voice both were gorgeous and onstage got all the adulation from the beautiful girls while he had to be satisfied with guitar obsessed men. He was so mad he frequently bashed his guitar to pieces.

I also loved “The Recovering” by Leslie Jamison. I’ve long had a fascination with drinking memoirs. I like to read about young rockers before they hit the big time and also about young drinkers and how they cope once they realize their drinking has surpassed all reason. I’m always rooting for the young rocker to make it big and for the old drinker to get sober. In fiction, I really loved Michael Connelly’s “Dark Sacred Night” the first of his Bosch series to feature Renee Ballard. Nancy Thayer’s “An Island Christmas” was a frothy delight. Kate Atkinson can do no wrong in my mind, and her 2018 novel “Transcription” came through as always. I loved Tana French’s “The Witch Elm” very much, too. Right now I’m in the middle of “Brief Answers to the Big Questions” by Stephen Hawking. I quite enjoy theoretical physics and Hawking writes in a clear style anyone can comprehend. Well, most of the time. I also am a regular reader of Buddhist thought and Mark Epstein’s “Advice Not Given” is a superb 2018 example of its kind.

Goodreads says I’ve read well over 900 books on my Kindle since they started tracking such things, and a very satisfactory moment in 2019 will be when I hit the 1,000 book mark, even though it’s a number without much meaning as I read books outside Kindle, of course. I buy them at book fairs and conventions and conferences. I buy them at real brick and mortar bookstores! Also I order a fair share on Amazon. I read more than literary mysteries, Buddhists texts, and memoir. Those are just the ones who stand out as being great in 2018. I’m sure 2019 will bring many new books, gee maybe I’ll even finish one of my own by the end of this year. I expect I will, since I have a first draft done.

I expect 2019 to be an excellent year for so many reasons and I hope your blank slate fills up with lots of joy, too. Happy New Year!

Eat, Drink & Be Merry

[image error]I just can’t do it.

Read this book yesterday. Started out very hopeful that this could be the guide that would finally, finally give me a stable weight and better health. There’s a list in front of the all the health problems doing this 30 day diet will possibly cure. By the time I read everything involved with this plan, it seemed impossible, even if it could cure all that ails me.

[image error]A page from the book.

So, I’ve got (or am close to getting) ten things on this list. Just saw doctor, and the news was not the worst, but it wasn’t good. I need to clean up my act. I usually do eat pretty well. I don’t drink much alcohol anymore as it keeps me up at night. And I like sleep. But about three weeks ago I went on an inexplicable chocolate binge. I ate more chocolate in three weeks than I’d had all year. Once I did that, I started allowing sugar back in to my life in a big way. And some wine.

I realized only an idiot would make a doctor appointment complete with blood work on December 20. And then top that off with weeks of eating in restaurants, chowing down on whatever I wanted but usually denied myself, including desserts and drinks. I just lived it up like it was 1999, so that could be part of why my pre-diabetes and very close cholesterols are too close for comfort. Also I felt like hell. Clearly, I needed to clean up my act. It’s not about weight, although I’m at a very high weight indeed. It’s about health and feeling good. Exact wrong time of year to realize this, but that’s me.

I’m a typical overweight American. The kind of obvious person who starts a new diet every January. I still want to eat for health. I just can’t go as far as the extreme and time-consuming Whole Thirty. 

For a long time, I had success with Plant-Based Whole Foods. That, too, is difficult, but I managed it. Then I had bad reactions to beans and legumes, even lentils. I couldn’t eat cauliflower or broccoli! Those basics of a PBWF diet started wrecking hell on my digestion (to put it delicately). I had no choice but to eat a little bit of meat again for protein. My main goal is to get my cholesterols and blood sugar lowered. Weight is a consideration but for once it’s not the number one reason. I just want to feel healthy and have energy again.

It’s Christmas Day, so for those of you who celebrate, have a happy one. I’m still going to make a nice dinner for my husband, and I’ll eat some of it…but there won’t be Christmas cocktails by the fire.

Getting Over Myself

My reading habit has long been to read two books at a time. One book is always fiction and the other is always non-fiction, sometimes self-help like Nancy Drew’s Guide to Life, but most often books on Buddhism. I started meditating thirty years ago as a way to de-stress from a difficult job. I dreaded each day, and each day I knew I had to face those out of control teenagers who had been kicked out of school and were in the alternative program where I’d been hired to teach English.

Meditation slowly led me into Buddhism and its many fine Western teachers like Mark Epstein. Yesterday the mail brought my copy of his new release Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself. It’s Epstein’s seventh book that combines psychotherapy (he is a practicing psychiatrist) and Buddhist teachings. I’ve been reading Epstein since his first book Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart. 

Epstein’s titles are as intriguing as the ancient practices of Buddhism. The Buddha lived 2,600 years ago, but his teachings have remained relevant because they are so simple. But students of Buddhism soon find this simplicity contains multitudes. Dharma means living life fully, not simply sitting on a cushion in meditation, but joyfully bringing your messy life into the harsh world. The Buddha’s Eightfold Path, (similar to Christianity’s Ten Commandments) are the subject of Epstein’s seventh book.

Though I’ve been reading and practicing Buddhism and meditation for close to thirty years, I am still a beginner. I’ve read plenty on the Eightfold Path before, but I’m learning new things with this book. And that’s how life is meant to be: a school that teaches us how to be fully, joyfully and compassionately alive. Below are the steps in the Eightfold Path:

Right ViewRight MotivationRight SpeechRight ActionRight LivelihoodRight EffortRight MindfulnessRight Concentration

I am getting better at some of these that others. Right speech is refraining from gossip, lies or hurtful words. This has helped my marriage! Even yesterday, feeling overwhelmed by all the holiday hoopla, I asked my husband for help. He had plans to go to the gym for a workout, but instead he helped me. I said “thank you” and almost added “for helping me after I begged you!” But I didn’t say that second half of the sentence because I’ve learned through the years to think before I speak. I’m getting better at that and it’s made my marriage stronger.

The new thing I discovered in Epstein’s book about right speech is something I really need to work on now. I’ve been having troubling thoughts about my past. This is nothing new, but lately it has become more frequent. I do that rumination thing in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep, wishing I could go back and do things differently. I was a “good enough” mom. “Good enough” is another Buddhist concept with a different meaning than our Western minds would bring to it–it means I loved my children without smothering them with too much affection. Not too little, not too much, just “good enough.” Even though I know I was a good enough mom, I remember instances where I could have done better. I feel such shame, still, about all the ways I could have been better without being too much. I relive with shame and horror and despair a few specific times when I fell woefully short with one boy or the other or with both of them at the same time. These instances haunt me more lately since my kids now have kids of their own. This is where “right speech” goes deeper to address the way we speak to ourselves. I need to work on that. A lot. This book will help.

That’s the thing about Buddhism teachings. The right one always seems to come along when I need it. Meditation can be a great way to de-stress. I take twenty minutes a day to sit comfortably (I actually lounge on my sofa with soft cushions to support my upper torso and head) and empty my mind. Some meditators call this the “empty rice bowl” ~ imagine your mind as an empty bowl. In about three seconds (or sooner) you will begin to think. Most thoughts are not new, but part of the same repetitive mix tape we each have developed over time. So you notice, oh there’s that again and you gently let it go. Until the next thought comes. If I’m feeling too unsettled to sit for twenty minutes, I try for five. It’s all good. What regular meditation does is help us carry the calm into strife. It helps me think before I speak. And BTW, there’s no wrong way to meditate.

I’d recommend all of Mark Epstein’s books, but right now, part of the subtitle of Advice Not Given, the “Getting over Yourself” speaks the world to me.

Twitter Book Marketing

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This past week a friend pointed out to me that since it's December, I should be marketing my Blue Lake Christmas Mystery on Twitter.I'm of two minds about book marketing on Twitter. Mostly, I don't do it. I depend on blog posts to indirectly indicate that hey guess what I write books too! So she said "pin a new post every day with a fresh picture, hash tags, and a buy link." I accepted the challenge and posted a new pinned tweet every day last week. I'm not sure I sold any books. I am hoping none of the people who follow me got annoyed.

I find people who post a ton about their products annoying. If that is the only thing they post.

(Just as an aside I am trying to use the new "better" Word Press format. I started this post yesterday and couldn't finish it because I got so confused. New tech is daunting for me. But I am determined to publish this post today. I see in previews that I do not like the box format at all!! Don't know how to fix it. Hope it goes away when I hit publish! Sorry for all the !!!! but I am frustrated.)

So back to posting about your book (or your service, or your product that is not a book) on Twitter. It really doesn't work as a sales tool for me. It does work for some people. I figured out why it doesn't work for me this week. I usually post to Twitter once a week with a blog link. That's it. I do look at other posts on the day I tweet. I have my favorites, but I also randomly read those I follow, too. If something someone says interests me, I will retweet it or make a comment or like it or all three.

Lately I've noticed people are not retweeting as much. I get many more "likes" than retweets. I thought it was just a new trend or perhaps a new rule. Really, are people sick of retweets? I thought RT was queen of Twitter, but at least for me, not so much anymore. Still, I persist in RTing. It's what I do most on Twitter.

From what I've read, the rule for tweeting your book on Twitter is make it ten percent of your tweets. So that's one post in ten. I like to mix up comments and RTs. I don't do a lot of original tweeting because there are so many other people who speak tweet better. But I tweet a bit when I have a flash of brilliance...you see I set a high bar.

For blogging, I like posting on Monday to catch the #MondayBlogs hashtag. But those posts are not supposed to be about your book. They're not for promotion or sharing buy links. So I kind of got out of the habit of talking about my books at all on Twitter or in my blog posts. I'm less shy about it on my Facebook author page. Not sure why.

So what this week has shown me is that if I pin a new post every day, I will look at my Twitter feed and spend some time on there commenting and RTing and even tweeting an original though every so often. I liked doing the new pinned book tweet every day, too. It was fun, even if it didn't sell books. I think I will keep up this practice. And there's always #TuesdayBookBlogs.

Happy holidays everyone and thanks for reading.




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How to Find Holiday Happiness

[image error]When I was growing up, Christmas was a mixed blessing. Christmas Eve, all four of my grandparents visited. My teenage aunt and uncle came over as well. Everyone had gifts, and it would have been very fun except Grandpa was often roaring drunk, dressed as Santa and bearing gifts. He was jolly, though, and I wasn’t sure why my mother was so upset. Which made my father a bit upset. One year, Grandpa went to the wrong house and distributed our gifts to the neighbor’s children. That night began with hope and ended in tears.

By Christmas morning all that drama was forgotten. My memories of Christmas Day are of waking up to a Shirley Temple dream. Beautiful dolls and wonderful toys spread around the tree and all about the living room. There was no space where a toy was not. Nothing was gift-wrapped and my presents were in the middle of the room, with my brothers’ to each side. As the only girl, I knew what was mine. The little kitchen table and chairs, the sweet easy bake oven, with real cake mixes. The dolls, the velvet dresses, the necklaces and bracelets and the satin-lined box that opened to a twirling ballerina.

Christmas morning was always the best morning of the year. It’s why, despite knowing it’s not true, I still sometimes equate gifts with love, money with love, abundance with love. As a young single mom, I tried very hard to duplicate those Christmases for my own children. With very little money for gifts, I tried my best. I went into debt, even. I’m not poor anymore, but when I was, I could not afford to pay off my debt, so I stayed under its steady thumb, struggling just to pay the outrageous interest so my boys could have a semblance of what I thought of as a magical Christmas.

Christmas is why I became a romance writer. When life is too stressful, too harsh, too much to take, I make another world. One that can be difficult but always ends with the feeling of Christmas morning and its beautiful treasures. I remember that feeling and it’s what I went for in my HEAs, every month of the year. Now that I write crime fiction, there’s still that satisfying ending when the criminal is captured and the world is set right again.

When I’m not writing, I have other December ways to deal with unromantic reality. I watch Christmas movies, read Christmas novels, listen to Christmas music and deck the halls. I keep the tree lit and a fire burns all day long. There is absolutely nothing in my contract with life that says I have to remember the bad Christmases, like when my sweet granny died early one Christmas morning. I only found out when I got to her hospital room for a visit and found her bed stripped, the room devoid of flowers.

That year, and the next, my husband left me home alone so he could visit his family. And I was really alone because my boys were with their father almost every Christmas. He and I wanted to give the boys as much security and continuity as possible, so, most years I had Christmas Eve and he had Christmas Day. Sometimes, when I was home alone on Christmas, I went to visit Granny at the cemetery. I realize life is full of suffering much deeper than my own personal sorrows. Somehow, despite my own sadnesses, I mostly manage to find the holiday sweet spot, which is a feeling and not a place.

Psychology and science now know why bad memories are easier to remember than good ones. The bad times, the sad times, cut a painful impression with which sweeter moments cannot compete. Painful memories remain vivid because they are an evolutionary tool; they keep an awareness of possible danger, learned from experience, front and center to ensure survival. Just knowing this cheers me up and makes me more determined to celebrate life while I’m here.

We don’t have to fall in with those deeper impressions of pain. We don’t have to drown in them. I know several ways to beat the rough hand with which life often slaps us. I write down the good memories, I create new ones, or discover those written by others and read them over and over. Eventually, they replace the painful stuff, which these days I am adept at kicking away before it stomps me down.

People make fun of romance, or the sentimentality of Christmas. Many bemoan the commercial aspects of the holiday season, but that’s okay. I know many suffering Scrooges. I don’t wish to join their chorus. I would rather be happy baking cookies. Music, movies, reading and writing also help make the season bright. During the holidays, I like to sip hot chocolate by the fire and think about all the blessings in my life. Now that I’m older, I don’t need lots of gifts under the tree to feel good. My thoughts dwell on happy times, like Christmas visits with my own grandchildren.

My wish for readers of this blog is that you, too, can be filled with the magic of this season. xo

 

 

The Clinton Affair

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I watched this six-part series because I have always been fascinated by Monica Lewinsky.  Horrified by what she went through, what our “justice” system put her through, what our President put her through, what the media did to her. It seemed like a nightmare life. Maybe I like nightmares or flame engulfed car crashes. I also like(d) Bill Clinton.

So many people hate the Clintons, especially Hillary, and I wondered if this documentary would shed some light on why. I did learn a few things, but not why so much of America hates Hillary. I learned for example that Bill Clinton has been accused of rape and sexual harassment. Of course I know about Paula Jones, but she was the only woman who I knew of that claimed he’d forced unwanted sexual attention onto her.

Then I saw the interview with Juanita Broaddrick. And I believed her. She said when Bill Clinton was running for governor, he raped her. She gave details that rang true. About how every time she screamed he’d bite her upper lip and press down hard on her left shoulder. Very precise. And her emotion was unmistakable. She said she had to quit going to church after the rape because in her church there was always a prayer for the President and she couldn’t pray for him.

Juanita didn’t tell her story for a long time. Why? Because she didn’t think anybody would believe her. That also rings so true. Women know all about this. Just ask Christine Ford. And Monica. Monica was a revelation. She didn’t do a strip tease, feeding out juicy morsels to the public, one at a time. She didn’t save her blue dress for the big reveal. She was betrayed by a friend, entrapped by the FBI, used and dumped by Bill Clinton. She only testified after she got an immunity deal, which was smart, but she wasn’t trying to be smart, she was scared of going to jail. The FBI had also threatened her with putting her mother in jail, too.

Ken Starr is a horrible person. But he also did something surely unintended for women. He made Monica so infamous that everyone knows her name. Everyone knows a lot of things about her. And everyone, including me, judged her too harshly. She was 22 years old when Clinton beguiled her. This was, at the very least, an abuse of power. I didn’t use to think so. I thought their affair was consensual. She admitted she loved him, after all. She started the flirting. She inexplicably saved the blue dress.

I had no idea to the extent our government went to silence women who had been sexually abused by Clinton. Kathleen Willett. I remembered her. How did I brush that off? Where the hell does HE get off treating women like that? There’s a story I used to tell myself: all men, given power or money, will behave this way with women, so be careful. Don’t ever be alone with a guy like that, because sexual abuse of women by men is a DNA fact of life. My own life history supports that idea, but I don’t believe it anymore. I don’t think Obama ever raped or sexually abused a women in his life. Nor did Jimmy Carter.

I have always supported Bill and Hillary Clinton but that’s changed. I now support Monica Lewinsky and Juanita Broaddrick. And I no longer think, given half a chance, all men are sexual predators. My own experiences led me to that crazy theory. Maybe yours did, too. But we are in a new era. Eyes have been opened, including mine.

 

How to Write a Fast First Draft

Limit social activity online and IRL. Don’t stop everything, just cut down. Remember this is a fast draft, 50K words in a month in NaNoWriMo terms. NaNoWriMo is the best tool I’ve ever used to get a fast draft. Sure, you can do it on your own any old time, but that doesn’t always work for me. If November rolls around and I need a kick in my pantser butt, I join the team. Here’s what my stats look like today and I could not be happier! Just seeing the graph and the stats does something internally to make me want to get those pages down every day. I can’t on Thanksgiving because I am cooking, but I’m ahead just enough to take those few days I need off from writing and still meet my goal. Try it!

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Old Fashioned Letter Reading & Writing

[image error]I have been, and continue to be, a life-long letter writer. It is true that now my most faithful and frequent correspondence is online in the form of email, but the spirit of the letter writing me remains.

My husband, who is not a writer of more than an occasional text, does not understand this “weird thing” I do, writing letters, but I’ve had pen pals my entire life, starting with Shelly Wong, who lived in San Francisco, when I was 11 and Shelly was 12. My mother, who worked for Shelly’s father, hooked us up. I still remember Shelly’s fat looping penmanship, although I have no idea what we wrote to each other.

I wrote my grandmother, too, when she returned to the south after my grandfather retired. Again, I can recall her handwriting more than the words we wrote to each other. I had started writing diaries about this time, a habit, like writing to penpals, I still keep to this day. I throw the diaries (I call them “morning pages” now) away as soon as I fill a book, and I was the same way with letters. I never wrapped them into a packet with a ribbon.

For a few years, I wrote to Kelly, who lived in Toronto. We met because her boyfriend was a friend of my husband. Al and I traveled to Toronto often, but when she was there and I was here, we corresponded regularly. We mostly talked about our love lives. When the internet happened, and I started a blog, I sometimes struck up years’ long correspondences with people who’d read a post. There was Kris, a fellow teacher of English, who was a RL friend who had moved a few hours north. We wrote every single day for a while. There was Becky, who loved writing, psychology and self-help as much as I did. She lived in Washington D.C. and I finally met her IRL when she came to Wayne State University for a course requirement.

The only penpal I have never met is the one I’ve been writing to for the longest time. It’s been a few years now and it’s a cherished and almost daily habit. Ali lives in England; we met when she reviewed one of my novels on her website. Back then we didn’t call people like Ali book bloggers, we called them reviewers. Eventually Ali reviewed all my titles, and, when she closed down her website, we began to correspond about more than books. We share our lives like best friends who’ve never met will do. She’s younger (and also wiser) than I am, but we fight many of the same daily battles. We talk about everything.

My husband thinks me odd for this habit of writing letters, emails and morning pages. I told him it wasn’t odd at all, but, admittedly old-fashioned. Like penmanship. Like reading real books. Like using the post office. We both remember all those things before the world changed with iPhones and laptops and pod casts. I was a little stung by his comment. I’m just doing what I’ve always done. It might make me strange, but I keep good company.

I explained to him that famous writers are sometimes also letter writers. When two such start a correspondence, they often save their letters, and when they die, the letters are published in books. I have read many such books myself. I offered to go to the bookshelf where they’re kept and show him one. He said no. This is just one more thing about me he doesn’t understand.

This morning, as I read the New York Times Book Review, another old habit I continue but now read on Kindle, I found to my pleasure that the long awaited second volume of Sylvia’s Plath’s letters has been published. After I read it, it will go on my bookshelves, with my Plath collection, and therefore I ordered a print version, which will be delivered to my door on Tuesday via Amazon. I can’t wait to show it to my husband.

A Dangerous Holiday & An Excellent Film

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I love holiday novels. I’ve read several already and am waiting for the “Dangerous Holiday” box set with six Christmas novels, including my Blue Lake Christmas Mystery, which I still love. The box set also includes romantic suspense holiday novels written by some of my fellow Wild Rose Press authors. I am looking forward to reading those! The price is so good, too. $3.99 for six novels. It’s up for pre-sale at Amazon now and will be available on November 8. I have been waiting patiently.

I[image error]n other news I’m writing like a madwoman for NaNoWriMo. So far, I’m meeting my daily word count, even with a day off yesterday for a date with my husband. We went out to dinner and then saw Bohemian Rhapsody with Rami Malek. We were both intrigued by Malek from his television series, Mr. Robot. The guy’s acting is compelling, so when we heard he was playing Freddy Mercury we just had to see it. I did not know Freddy was from Zanzibar, but I did know Rami is of Egyptian descent. That signified to me that he would nail it. With a set of false teeth for Freddy’s overbite, he was perfect.  P. S. It was a really great date.