Cynthia Harrison's Blog, page 47

Girl On Verge

Life sort of sucks when you feel like you don’t belong anywhere. Like your parents don’t care. Like all the people you used to think were your friends suddenly aren’t. Like your boyfriend, if you can call him that, only wants you around at bedtime or in the backseat of the car. Like your life is falling apart and there is nothing you can do to stop it while everywhere around you people seem happy and content. You want some of that, but don’t know how to get it.

You can’t see into the future and your past is pretty damn bleak.

So why not do what you want? Your best friend, let’s face this, your ONLY friend, wants you to hitchhike across several states with her. Skip school for a week or two. Go visit some guy she’s crazy about. Her plan makes your body buzz, without weed or wine. It sounds so fun. You’ve never been out of your little town. And you can play the parents off each other so each will think you’re with the other one. And they’ll both be happy. For once, you will be, too.

An adventure. It’s Kerouac On The Road that your crazy English teacher made everyone read, and you secretly loved. Like you would marry Sal Paradise if he asked. If he existed. Hey maybe he does. Maybe he’s out there, waiting for you, his female half.

You don’t have the right tools for this trip, but you don’t know it yet. Soon, awareness will hit. And the shit you land in will test you and hurt you and help you learn to love for real. Safe trip, sweet Melissa.

Tagged: jack kerouac, on the road, traveling girls

Short Path to Happy

Today my son Tim washed an elephant in Thailand. Tomorrow he’s attending a wedding. Yesterday there was a coup. That happened in Bangkok, just a few hours from where he and his wife are vacationing. Maybe you didn’t hear the political news. It was swift and non-violent, a military take-over of the government that has been brewing for months. Still. My baby!

Was so worried, I read a story about how to be happy in Psychology Today by Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener. Turns out that “actions that lead us to feel uncertainty, discomfort, and even a dash of guilt are associated with the most memorable and enjoyable experiences of people’s lives.”

This amazing fact cheered me, and not just because of Tim. Truth is, I’m a happy person and so is he. And now I know that it’s okay to also be curious, try new things, never stop believing in your dreams, going for it even when it feels risky and scary, especially if it feels risky and scary. Because that’s what we do, Tim and I. It’s the way I have lived my gypsy life, and I guess some of that is in his DNA, too.

As a novelist, I never thought about being a public person. I’m a private person. I rejoiced in the internet and the fact that I could promote my work in my pajamas. But then I wrote the book of my heart. The book I was most afraid to write. And I loved it. So does my publisher. It’s a contemporary novel with modern problems: love, betrayal, divorce, addiction, child custody, family, home. So now that Luke’s #1 Rule is close to publication, I started to think “I should do a book tour.” Not a virtual tour, a real, live tour. Just where the book is set, along the lakeshore of our beautiful Michigan peninsula. I have never taken such a big risk. No wait, yes I have. This is just another step in a life full of “what’s next?” 

Right this minute, what makes me happy is knowing Tim and Alicia are getting out of Thailand safe. I refuse to consider any other option. And I am happy that the elephants had their bath.

Tagged: family, happiness, risk, Thailand

Still Free!

Cynthia Harrison’s Writing & Publishing Manual

Your Words, Your Story

Has Made Thousands of Career Dreams Come True.

Or at least one or two. One that she knows for sure.

Still FREE here.

Tagged: creativity, publishing, storytelling, writing skills

#Free Writing Manual

As promised, I am giving away as many Kindle copies as you can order of my updated version of Your Words, Your Story with a new “Publishing 2014″ chapter on Kindle from May 21 (today!) until May 25.

Yay!

I am very fond of giving books away and this one is for the writers out there. It’s a book on the art and craft of writing poetry, fiction, and memoir via my personal writing journey and what I learned along the way.

Also, there is homework, but you don’t have to do it.

Migration & Mike

Mike

♥For 12 years, my son has been my web designer. I hadn’t even thought about having a website or being a blogger, but he said “you should” and “I’ll help.” So I jumped in and it was more fun than I’d ever imagined. After a week, I purchased my dot com URL. That was Mike’s suggestion; he has been the brains behind this operation. Until now.

From Blogger to Typepad to Movable Type to Word Press, we migrated. We got hacked and spammed and every drama was another post. Whenever I saw something shiny and new (Retro social media buttons! Twitter birds! Mailboxes!) he would check out the site I’d found the icon or format or whatever and then write the code for me.

Code is poetry and Mike is a poet.

He has handed the admin keys over to me in this final migration while preparing for a blessed event in his own life. (And mine! Finally gonna be a granny:)

We’ve been discussing the great migration for awhile, I took the steps Mike told me to, just as I always have, and now it has happened. Word Press makes it easy, well, not for me, but I muddled through a practice run a couple of months ago and it wasn’t too difficult.

Here’s how to build a website today: sign up, try things, read stuff, watch tutorials. I just learned how to insert the code to wrap text around images today. It didn’t work at first. I had to click around a bit.

But this post is not about me. Today, it is all about a beautiful boy who believed in his mom. And kept believing. I don’t think I’d have a career without Mike, who saw the way the publishing wind was blowing way before I did, took my arm, and escorted me online in style.

Thank you. ♥

   

Am I Tired?

Thought I could write about the conference today. Thought I could do more with the blog update today. Thought I could watch those television programs I’ve been missing. Thought I might even be able to read the newspaper this morning. None of that happened. But I did choose a THEME which is huge. Do you like? And I wanted pink and orange forever so I’m indulging myself for the moment. Because I’m tired. Wrote six pages today. Tweeted and FBed about the conference while the coffee was still working.

Yes, I am tired. But tomorrow I’ll have a great post, I promise. And maybe some more bling on the site:)

Conference! (Finally)

Here’s the final copy of my postcard for the conference tomorrow. The guy did an amazing job compared to my original concept. He suggested the social media buttons! Felt like I should tip him, but lavishly praised instead:)

This postcard looks better than my website at the moment, but I must edit today. Now. Then polish my fingernails:)

Cleaning House Again!

Please excuse my bare abode while I work on a big writer’s conference this weekend. And slave at edits for my publisher. One thing I must share: second e-edition of Your Words, Your Story now available on Amazon for Kindle.

Little Book That Could

When I wrote my first book, Your Words, Your Story,  in 2007, Kindle had just come out. It cost $400. Few people had even heard of it. Like the e-readers before, it didn’t make huge waves at first. My book was about the craft and the business of writing: a full writer’s journey, with exercises, anecdotes and samples from my writing career up to that point. My book was print, as most books were in 2007. It sold at my college bookstore and on Amazon.

Then I got my first Kindle and loved it. In 2009, I thought, ‘what the heck’ and threw an e-book of my own up on KDP. I had no idea what I was doing. It was, like so much of my creative life, an impulsive experiment. To my surprise, that “experiment” kept selling as an e-book. I’ve published several novels now, some on KDP and some through my publisher, The Wild Rose Press.

I thought YWYS would be forgotten, a relic. Writing the original version had been a summer whim in the first place. I wasn’t ever sure, on any step of the journey, that the project would fully unfold. That “little book” (original title, yes, I am a humble soul) surprised me and continues to do so every time the royalties (still!) roll in.

So I began to feel guilty. Here I was, far into my career as a novelist, publishing indie books and e-pubbing and PODing and not a word of any of that was in my writing manual. Then I gave a talk for my writer’s group about “Publishing Today” and I thought, really it doesn’t matter how busy I am, I need to update YWYS.

So a week ago I sat down and pounded out everything I’ve learned about what I like to call “indie” publishing since 2007. Well, the highlights anyway. Then I hired a formatter, created a cover, and before I knew it, I had a second e-edition of my very first book, now updated for all those aspiring indie authors out there. Be ye poets or screenwriters or would-be novelists, I have a chapter for you. And another one on how to get your little book to market:)

Being Mom

Here I am in 2009 with my two boys, who no matter what they think about it, will always be, in my heart, my “boys.”

Yes, they are men now, best men at each other’s weddings, in fact. This was Mike’s wedding to Jessica in California. He’s in the blue tie. Tim’s my baby. (I can say this because he told me he never reads my blog!)

They are good boys, to their mom and their wives, and so I expect a call from both of them today. Oh, and I of course shall phone my mom, too. Happy Moms Day, mothers.