Annette Mori's Blog, page 48
May 24, 2015
Who Knew?
Every day I learn something new about Social Media. Today I submitted an application for a new Goodreads author page. I don’t even have my Facebook, Tweets, Pinterest, or Authorise mastered, but what the hell, I signed up anyway.
My wife joked with me today and said that keeping up with all of this is a full-time job. That’s probably true, but I already have a full-time job and a part-time job writing books. I only have one published novel at this point and my second book, Asset Management, is due to come out in August. I’ve been prolific at writing ever since Affinity gave me a contract to publish Love Forever, Live Forever with two more books that I hope will be published in the future. My current work in progress (WIP – learned that acronym earlier this year) is about 25% complete. All this started in August of 2014. Yep I’m an overachiever….
Since I have about four more years until retirement, I don’t know how I will possibly fit everything in, but I’m damned sure to give it the old college try.
I would love any advice from all you authors out there that work full-time, write, and try to market your books through social media. How do you possibly accomplish this without going bat shit crazy?
I think I forgot to mention that I hear you need to periodically write a blog. So I guess I’ll keep this one short because after all I’ve got another book to write…
If you are interested in my debut book, Love Forever, Live Forever, the links are below. Asset Management comes out in August and I’ve been told this one will be a hot seller. I sure hope so! Don’t forget to send me advice all you seasoned authors, because I sure don’t know how you juggle all those balls.
http://affinityebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&cPath=1&products_id=208
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/live-forever-love-forever-annette-mori/1121659902?ean=2940151851176
http://www.bellabooks.com/9781927328606e-prod.html
May 17, 2015
Mandatory Fun
I’m in an odd occupation for an introvert. I am the Human Resources Executive at a Healthcare organization. HR is the department that plans all those fun activities and I end up being smack dab in the middle of it all. We bar-b-que all day and schmooze with the employees. We come in and bar-b-que on the night shift. We serve cake at all hours of the day and night. We plan holidays parties, summer picnics, events for hospital week and various other rewards and recognition programs that occur throughout the year. Add to this I am also a Senior Leader so whenever my organization buys a table at the various community events, guess who gets to go? Yep that would be me and my wife. We call this mandatory fun.
Last night we went to an fundraising event to support the local community college foundation scholarship fund. It was called Cellarbration. Oh yeah wine tasting, good food, and the expectation that we network with other community leaders. To an introvert, this is just exhausting. Thank God my wife willingly accompanies me to these events. Well willingly might be a bit of an exaggeration….Yes just another evening of Mandatory Fun.
I have four and a half more years until retirement and then I would be happy to fade into the background and joyously write in near obscurity with the occasional GCLS conference or other such event, but until then, it’s mandatory fun for all….
I hope you don’t or haven’t considered it mandatory fun reading my debut novel Love Forever, Live Forever still very much available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Bella Books, and last by not least Affinity e-Book press. Have some Mandatory Fun in my honor…
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/live-forever-love-forever-annette-mori/1121659902?ean=2940151851176
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/532462
http://affinityebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&cPath=1&products_id=208
http://www.bellabooks.com/Author-Annette-Mori-cat.html
May 10, 2015
Ode to My Beautiful Mother
My mother wasn’t just a beautiful person, she was a selfless mother. Everything she did showed us how much she loved us, even when we didn’t always agree.
It took my mother many years to accept that I was a lesbian, not because she didn’t love me, but because she did. She thought that somehow she’d done something wrong and that my life would be very hard if I wasn’t able to get married and have 2.5 kids. That’s what she’d been taught.
When she met my first long-term girlfriend (who happened to be beautiful and charming), her viewpoint changed. After just a couple of years and a few books that she’d managed to check out of the library on having a gay child, she was forever converted.
I know she would have been very happy to perform the role of mother of the bride when I could officially marry my partner two years ago, but alas she had died two years earlier.
Being the confused young woman I was, I’d broken three engagements by the time I figured out I was a lesbian. Mom had to unravel each mess, including the one where I’d practically left the poor guy at the alter (not really, but close enough). My family thought I’d never get married. They affectionately called me the runaway bride. There are worse things than being compared to Julia Roberts. I hope she was able to smile upon us from above.
I tell a story about my wonderful mother at our New Employee Orientation each month to demonstrate what I call using the Platinum Rule versus the Golden Rule. I don’t like the Golden Rule and I’ll tell you why with my story about my mom.
One day my mom was visiting my grandmother who had deteriorated so much that she had to be in a nursing home. Mom came across an old woman literally lying on the floor. She went over to the woman and helped her to the couch and then got to talking with her. On subsequent visits, my mom would visit this old woman who had absolutely no one come to visit her – no friends, no family. This woman was completely alone at the nursing home.
My mother was Italian and food is everything in the Italian culture, so her favorite holiday was Thanksgiving. Mom would always send holiday cards, including Thanksgiving cards. One day while chatting with this old woman, who I need to remind you had no one in her life, mom asked, “Would it be okay if I send you cards and letters sometimes? You see I love the holidays and it gives me pleasure to do that.”
I am not as enlightened as my wonderful mother because I would have assumed that surely this old woman who had no one in her life would love to receive cards and letters. Not my mother – she did not assume anything. She practiced the Platinum Rule – Do onto others as they would have you do onto them. The Golden Rule assumes everyone is the same. Everyone is unique and different. I might appreciate something that another person shies away from. My mother taught me the Platinum rule and I try very hard to treat each person as an individual. I fall short often, but my mom was a true inspiration to me.
I selected my pen name because of my mother. Her maiden name was Annette Torre (not an exact match, but pretty darn close).
I miss my mother every day, but today is particularly hard for me. If I could send flowers to heaven to let her know I am thinking of her, I would. Maybe I’ll just dedicate my next book, Asset Management, to her. She would have liked it because she always loved mysteries and action packed books. My mother was an English major, teacher and avid reader. She never got to read anything I wrote because I started so late in life. Too bad I could have used her red pen!
If you can read this, mom….I love you! Happy Mothers Day.
May 3, 2015
April 20, 2015
Social Confusion & Awkwardness
I entered the Social Media arena about six years ago because I thought if my 70 year old mother can do it, so can I. So I set up an account sent requests to friends and family and then I never looked at it. It was quite simply a big mystery to me. Besides, my mom died a few years ago and I felt like I didn’t have to keep up appearances.
Five years later, I managed to get a publisher to publish my very first novel and their advice…get active on Facebook. “We’ll get you started with our list of friends,” they offered.
So I set up an author’s Facebook site and dipped my toe into the scary ass waters. I found a bunch of lesbian writers/readers groups and I was addicted. Now I spend an enormous amount of time liking posts, commenting on posts, and creating posts.
What I know about social media I could fit on a tiny post-it note. Apparently it’s not enough to have a Facebook page, you also have to have a Twitter account, a Word Press Account, and now the new evil, Pinterest.
I clicked a button somewhere to pin something and now I have people following me on Pinterest, but I’m not really sure what they are following because I have absolutely no clue about this new alien form of social media. It’s worse than twitter. I don’t even know what a pin is? Something goes out on cyberspace on some kind of board, but what the hell does that really mean?
I like technology. Really I do. I have an iPhone, an iPad, a Kindle and I just ordered the iWatch, but I NEED HELP. If anyone out there can point me in the direction of a Pinterest for Dummies book, I’d be forever in your debt.
I am now taking social awkwardness to a brand new level. Pin some advice my way, will ya…
April 18, 2015
Ducking Brilliant
Recently I shared a draft of a new manuscript, Out of This World, with a reader who liked my first book, Love Forever, Live Forever. She used two words to describe my new book, ducking brilliant. I absolutely loved that phrase and asked her if I could use it in a future book. In the same way I like the phrase, shut the front door, as opposed to shut the fuck up, this tickled my funny bone.
Now don’t get me wrong, obviously I’m not opposed to profanity and it is liberally scattered throughout my first book because honestly the main character has a potty mouth. The two short stories I wrote with this character that will follow at Halloween and Christmas have her trying to clean up her language for a very specific reason which I won’t share because that would be a spoiler. However, in those stories I have her replacing words like fuck with fudgesickle. I think I like ducking brilliant better. Or how about duck you, mother ducker, duckwad, duckfest…. you get the picture the list is endless.
So Gail, if you’re reading this post, thanks for the idea!
If you’re interested in reading about Nicky and her potty mouth, Love Forever, Live Forever is available at all the usual places.
http://affinityebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&cPath=1&products_id=208
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/live-forever-love-forever-annette-mori/1121659902?ean=2940151851176
March 29, 2015
A Writer’s Deam…An Eccentric Grandmom
I grew up with a grandmother that some would have called bat shit crazy, but to us she was just eccentric.
My dad likes to tell stories about my grandmother and I must admit to never tiring of hearing this one, but just to set things up a little I’m going to share a few odd quirks about her so you know just what I talking about when I say she was eccentric.
Grandmom never cleaned the basement floor at her townhome. It was some kind of linoleum and she had an ingenious method of caring for the floor. Instead of mopping it she would lay down newspaper and napkins, that way all she had to do was replace the paper products. She send my Uncle to the store every day for napkins, toilet paper and soap. We never ran out of any of those items and when she died we found bars of soap hidden everywhere throughout the townhouse.
She owned a washer dryer but never used it to dry clothes, preferring the method of hand washing everything in bleach, spinning dry the clothes in the washer, and hanging them on clothesline in the basement. It was our jungle to play in as kids. Later I’ll tell the story of why grandmom didn’t use the outside clotheslines like everyone else in Baltimore during the 60’s and 70’s.
Grandmom wasn’t lazy, she was just unique in her cleaning rituals.
So now that I’ve set up some of her eccentricities, here’s my dad’s favorite story to tell.
Sometime in the 60’s my grandmom had procrastinated to the very end while writing out her Christmas cards. Late in the evening on December 23rd, she was finally ready to send them out. She grabbed my dad and told him to travel to downtown Baltimore which was a fair ways away and give them directly to “the boy” at the post office so that the cards would be delivered on time. She gave my father a quarter to give to “the boy” and knowing how obstinate she was, my father pocketed the quarter without arguing with her. He knew of course that no-one would be at the post office at eight o’clock at night.
In the 60’s, the mail service came twice a day and so grandmom patiently waited for the Christmas card she’d sent to the house because of course she had to know if the cards arrived on time. She mailed one to her house as an insurance.
When they didn’t come in the afternoon mail, she promptly called the downtown post office to give them a piece of her mind.
My dad is in the background laughing his ass off. She turns to him and says, “Didn’t you give the boy the quarter I gave you, sonny?”
“Mary,” he patiently explained, “there wasn’t any boy to give the quarter to.”
My dad tells us all that he imagined those post office workers were pulling everyone in to listen to the call from the crazy woman who expected those cards to be delivered on Christmas eve.
For those of you who read my previous post about curly hair, grandmom was the impetus behind the famous Tony home permanents. Here we are side by side and I can tell you that a hairstyle for a 50 year old does not look good on a 3 year old.
Two more days until my debut novel. If it tanks, I may have to punish myself with a Tony Home Permanent.
March 28, 2015
Sex Advice From Dad
I’d just turned seventeen when my dad asked if he could talk with me.
“Pizza Pie, do you have a moment to talk?”
My nickname, Pizza Pie is a whole other story.
Oh shit, I thought. I was getting ready to go off to college in a week. I’d been bored in high school so decided to graduate one year early. I was young to be going off to college. I was also a good kid and had only been punished twice in my life.
Once when I was three and plucked one of those pieces of candy just left in the open for kids to grab. When my dad saw the little bulge in my pants pocket, he promptly pulled down my drawers, spanked me, and marched me back into the store to give it back. No stealing. I was three, I didn’t quite understand. I thought the candy was for everyone to take a sample of. I guess I learned my lesson, I never stole anything ever again.
The other time was when I was thirteen and failed to let my parents know I was leaving the ice cream social to listen to the new Cat Stevens album my friend got. I wasn’t where I was supposed to be and that resulted in a one week grounding.
“Okay.” I sat down on the stool in the kitchen.
“I have some advice for you before you go off to college. If you’re going to have sex, just don’t be drunk your first time.”
What?? Are you kidding me. He didn’t care if I was having sex, only that I shouldn’t drink while I was doing it. I think mom had a different philosophy on this. She was Catholic through and through and had been taught you don’t even put white tablecloths out because it might encourage boys to think about bed sheets. I’m serious. That’s what they taught her in the private Catholic school she went to. Needless to say, we never got the sex talk from mom.
I was still a virgin – technically. I had been messing around with my boyfriend and he was able to give me my first orgasm through our heavy petting sessions down in the basement. I didn’t really understand at the time that what he did one day caused that really awesome feeling. He pretty much lucked into it, or I squirmed around so much that it happened.
“Are you serious?” I was shocked by this advice.
“Yes I am. Getting drunk impairs your thought processes and will lead to nothing but misery. Don’t let some boy get you drunk and take advantage of you.”
Now dad was the biggest slut around. I was sure he’d had sex while drinking and he definitely did not keep it in his pants even after marrying mom, but I took his advice seriously.
I ended up losing my virginity to my high school sweetheart and I’m here to tell you that my dad’s advice sucked. I should have been drunk – because it hurt. The other alternative should have been figuring out I was a lesbian and losing my virginity to a girl. That would have been a helluva lot better. Ah life’s lessons. Never get sex advice from your dad.
Just around the corner is my debut book Love Forever, Live Forever available on April 1st. So excited, far more than when I lost my virginity…
March 25, 2015
You Have to Suffer to be Beautiful
My sisters and I spent all our childhood summer vacations with my grandparents in Baltimore, Maryland and my Grandmother had three consistent messages for us:
1. You have to suffer to be beautiful
2. Sit up straight or you’ll get a hump in your back
3. You need to curl the ends of your hair because your Grandfather likes it like that (guilt is a very Catholic thing – we loved our Grandfather)
The suffer part related to having to pluck our eyebrows and other facial hair that sprouts up easily on Italian women. Later it evolved to sitting still while receiving electrolysis to permanently remove the pesky facial hair.
My grandmother had the hardest time with me because I didn’t really care much about looking beautiful because I was a tomboy and only cared about tomboy things. They tried everything to get me to walk, act, and sit like a lady. I made that stupid little ball over my head during ballet lessons until I threw a tantrum and refused to go anymore. I seriously suffered through modeling school including, walking with a book on your head, and measuring my waist (at thirteen) to make sure it was twenty four inches or less – it wasn’t. My dad took pity on me and answered my pleas to please not make me continue. I slump in my chair to this day and don’t have a hump in my back yet.
The last one was truly the worst because the Tony home permanents started at the age of three. Shirley Temple was all the rage, but Shirley Temple was blond, blue eyed and I was not – enough said.
On picture day in first grade as the teacher went from student to student handing out the combs and gently combing her student’s hair, she looked at me in horror and simply placed the comb on the desk. I’m sure she was afraid it would get stuck. I was afraid it would get lost in my nest of hair.
Later on in life I subjected myself voluntarily to perms. Don’t snicker because they were totally hip in the 80’s. Isn’t my kitten adorable.
When I was forty, my workplace was having a guess the baby or grade school picture contest (see picture above at age three). At the time I had moved to a less diverse community that was 99% white in eastern Washington. Needless to say, no-one could guess that I was the little girl with the very curly hair. Everyone wanted to know who that little African American girl was. I was wearing my hair short and completely devoid of curls.
I am grateful for the advice on plucking facial hair because maybe I’m not beautiful, but I don’t think I have the face for a mustache. So grandma if you’re reading this – one of your pearls of wisdom got through because I religiously pluck my eyebrows, upper lip, and chiny chin chin (the result of menopause).
And now a shameless plug for my debut novel Love Forever, Live Forever coming out on April 1st – no joke! It will be available everywhere: Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Bella Books and last but certainly not least Affinity E-book Press
