Michelle Cox's Blog, page 39

Living a Double Life

Gustaw Szwarc was born on July 13, 1916 in the tiny village of Gulin, Poland.  His father, Jacek, worked in an office, and his mother, Wera, cared for their seven children – five boys and two girls.  Gustaw attended grammar school and then got a job operating a drawbridge for trains.

When he was 23, Gustaw decided to join the Polish army.  Unfortunately, just six months later, in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, and Gustaw found himself in the middle of the war.  He was taken prisoner by the Germans almost immediately and held for the duration.  When the Allies arrived, he was given a job driving a truck in Germany by the English army.

In 1949, Gustaw decided to leave for America and ended up in Chicago working in a factory that made slot machines.  Over the next twenty years he worked in various factories around the city but returned to Poland frequently, staying for long periods of time—anywhere from six months up to a year.  When he would eventually go back to Chicago, his unemployment checks had accumulated nicely in his bank account while he was away, leaving a nice sum to live on until he found another factory job in the city.  This became a lifelong pattern for Gustaw so that he was almost living a double life of sorts – one in Chicago and one in Poland, where he still had many friends and relatives.  Gustaw says he had many girlfriends in both places, but he never married.

There was one woman, though, Katarzyma, in Poland, with whom he fell very deeply in love with.  Katarzyma loved him, too, and wanted him to marry her, but in the end, Gustaw turned her away because he felt he was too old for her.  He was 45, and she was 22.  Katarzyma begged him to remain in Poland and wait for her to get older, but he refused, saying that there was nothing left for him in Poland.   His father, Jacek, had died long ago at age 55 of a brain tumor, and just a few siblings and his aged mother were left.   Though Katarzyma was heart-broken, Gustaw remained firm and returned to Chicago, staying there for several years this time.  When his mother, Wera, was 98, Gustaw went back to Poland and was able to be with her when she died.  Unable to help himself and against his better judgement, Gustaw sought Katarzyma out on this visit, but she had since married someone else.

Back in Chicago, Gustaw’s only relative was a nephew, Karol, who also developed a pattern of going back and forth to Poland, where he still had a wife and child.  Karol first came and stayed with Gustaw for about a year, working in the city, before he went back to Poland.  After that, Karol began staying in Chicago for longer and longer periods, Gustaw helping him to find work each time.

As it happened, however, when Gustaw was just 54 years old, he was in a terrible car accident while driving to work.  He was nearly killed and was permanently disabled afterwards, forcing him to retire early, which caused a role reversal of sorts with Karol.  Where Gustaw had once taken Karol under his wing and looked after him, Karol now found himself looking in on Gustaw on a regular basis.

In the past year, Gustaw has been declining and has relied more and more on Karol to help him, which is proving difficult for Karol to manage after working a twelve hour day.  The strain of driving to Gustaw’s apartment every day after work to check on him got to be too much.  This, plus the fact that Gustaw’s landlord wanted him out of the apartment because he could no longer take care of the place or himself, prompted Karol in the end to bring Gustaw to a nursing home.

So far, Gustaw seems to be adjusting well to his new surroundings as he seems to have been a bit lonely on his own in his apartment.  He says he is looking forward to the activities at the home, especially playing bingo for money and having someone to watch TV with.

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How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical GuideSTEP 14: EVERYONE’S FAVORITE – ENDORSEMENTS!

Last week’s installment promised a discussion about endorsements, otherwise known as blurbs, which always causes a certain amount of squirming and is a topic that authors like to perpetually push out of their mind as being a task on some distant – hopefully far – horizon.  But, as you will increasingly be told, now that you are knee-deep in the process of getting your book published, it is never too early to start scrounging around for these coveted gems.

For the new author, these words strike terror in the heart.  Somehow you have to take a grovel-ish situation and turn it into a dignified request, which inherently means that you have to actually assume the title of “author” in the real world.  It’s one thing to tell people at parties or to change your email signature to reflect your new status, but quite another to brazenly tell a real author that you’re an author, too.

The temptation is to think that they can obviously see you for the fraud you suspect you are.

But, no, darlings, this is negative thinking in the extreme, and must be stopped immediately.

Remember!  You wanted to publish a book, so get out there and do it.  Often it helps to actually write down why you wanted to publish a book and hang it by your monitor for easy reference, though this usually backfires anyway because more than likely your original intent has morphed into something else by now.  What may have started out as perhaps noble and pure, like “help people in the world” has probably been replaced by something more mercenary, like, “make enough to pay my publicity bill.”

But I digress.  According to the flimsy set of guidelines/advice handed down by the publisher and publicist, step one is to start with authors you know.  Oh, okay.  It had completely slipped my mind that I’m friends with Kate Morton and Gillian Flynn and could easily ask them for an endorsement while we were at the BFF salon.

If, however, you’re not lucky enough to personally know any famous authors, step two would be to appeal to authors in your genre that you admire or whose books are similar to yours.  Assuming that you can actually make an intelligent list (I couldn’t – see Step 13), your next task is to figure out how to reach these people.

As I began googling various authors, finding their websites and searching through their contact info for an elusive email address, uncomfortable memories from my past began to surface, despite my concerted efforts to push them away, of writing to join the Rick Springfield fan club using an address found at the back of Tiger Beat.  A strikingly similar flavor of cringe was unmistakably present now, but bravely I attempted to focus on the task at hand.

I was encouraged when I found a few direct email links, though it quickly became apparent how “famous” the author was by the level of separation that existed between them, the exulted ones, and me, the lowly.  This notwithstanding, I was more than happy to unearth a direct email connection, followed by the not quite as productive “leave a message” form on the website, then the agent’s contact info, and worst of all, a mere listing of their US and/or UK representation.  Those, I quickly realized, were hopeless and best passed on to the publicist in hopes of some sort of miracle connection.  I can tell you now, however, don’t hold your breath.   Your image of them throwing back lunch-time martinis with Donna Tart’s publicist are not only erroneous, but they are clearly dated.

Assuming that you are at least able to find a few email addresses, next comes the hard business of crafting a weasel-like letter in which you have to praise their book (extremely difficult for me, as I didn’t actually read any of their books.  Do not balk at this, as, being a writer, isn’t making things up supposed to be your particular talent?).  You must then state how similar (but not too similar, obviously) their book is to yours in tempo/period/style/genre/audience (pick one or two) and then ask if they might consider reading your unworthy manuscript (but leave out “unworthy”- you’re supposed to be confident, remember?).

Though this is extremely painful, darlings, take heart.  Consider that you at least don’t have to do this face to face.  Once you hit “send,” you never have to worry about this pesky email again, as, chances are, you’re not going to run into said author at the grocery store and then have to navigate an awkward silence.

If all else fails, step three is to appeal to an author via Facebook or Twitter.  But how?  Put up a post on their page requesting an endorsement?  To me, this seemed like an all-too-easy opportunity for humiliation, but PMing them with an endorsement request sounded equally ludicrous.  I am not ashamed to admit, however, dear readers, that I did stoop to this in the end.  It should also be duly noted that absolutely nothing resulted from this desperate endeavor.

I drew the line, however, at Twitter.  Somehow I just couldn’t force myself to tweet Lauren Willig and ask for an endorsement; it just seemed so awfully cheap.  I did, after all, still have a shred of dignity left.

On that note, one important thing to remember is that all of these authors were once in your tight shoes and know firsthand the discomfort you are feeling.  The worst they can say is no, and most are very friendly in their declines and likewise encouraging of your endeavors.  And, every once in a while, you’ll get a  hit, resulting in a delicious Christmas morning-like effect as you read their response in which they elaborate on where and how to send the manuscript for their perusal!

You can do it, darlings!   Don’t be discouraged.  You really only need a few blurbs.  And here’s a secret reveal just for your eyes only – nobody reads those excessively boring praise pages anyway.

The post How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical Guide

STEP 14: EVERYONE’S FAVORITE – ENDORSEMENTS! appeared first on Michelle Cox.

“I’LL COME BACK AND HAUNT YOU”

Fanny Jones was born on May 19, 1926 in Kentucky on a farm.  Her parents, Ike and Gertie Stores, had seven children, but not much is known about them except that they were of German and Irish descent and were strict Pentecostals.  Fanny apparently received a very sketchy education and, according to her granddaughter, Elizabeth, is “basically illiterate.”

Fanny married her childhood sweetheart, Frankie Jones, who tells stories of Fanny throwing rocks at him if he ever walked another girl home from school.  Frankie and Fanny moved to Chicago four years after their wedding and both got jobs at the Holloway Candy Company making Milk Duds.  Fanny had several miscarriages before she gave birth to a little boy, John, who died shortly thereafter.  She tried again and eventually had four children: Maggie, Melvin, Elvin, and Kelvin.  Fanny has always referred to Melvin as “poor ole Melvin,” though no one knows why.  He died years later while on leave from the Vietnam War.

According to Elizabeth, Maggie’s daughter, Fanny and Frankie lived a very sheltered life, adhering to their Pentecostal faith and sticking to a strict routine.  They went to work and came home – Frankie tending the garden and Fanny sewing (her great love in life) and cooking, which she hated, but did because she had to.  As soon as Maggie was old enough, however, Fanny made her do it.

Elizabeth relates that her mother, Maggie, and Fanny never really got along.  In fact, she says, Fanny frequently told Maggie that if she could make her into a boy, she would, which, of course, hurt Maggie terribly.  Elizabeth says that from the stories she has heard, the family was very dysfunctional, constantly fighting, the prime instigator being Fanny herself.  Fanny, Elizabeth says, liked to make trouble and has always been very stubborn and interrogative.  “Her way has always been the right way, and there is no other.”

Frankie seems to have been “everything” to Fanny, and yet she was extremely jealous and suspicious of him, so much so that she created an imaginary girlfriend for him, Bubbles, that she routinely accused him of having an affair with.  Periodically Fanny would even spend the money to follow him to work in a cab to spy on him.  She kept a deadbolt on her bedroom door for years and has always felt that “everyone is after my things.”

Elizabeth says that while she loves her grandmother and would do anything for her, she is a very hurtful, vindictive, paranoid person.  Elizabeth doubts if Fanny is conscious of it because she has hurt so many people over the years and doesn’t seem to understand how she has alienated them.  She loves attention and has always insisted on being deferred to.  She was “babied and spoiled” by Frankie who “groveled” before her to prevent her from becoming angry and yelling.  She has always “pretended to be sick” and also pretends, Elizabeth says, to be sleeping so that she can listen in on conversations around her.

Fanny has always complained that she has had “the worst life.”  After working at the Holloway Candy Company for twenty years, Fanny slipped on a puddle and was injured and claimed to not be able to work anymore.  Apparently, Frankie and Fanny had no hobbies and never saw a movie in their life.  They enjoyed taking rides in a car, looking at houses they passed, but never went on a vacation except for a few trips back to Kentucky.  After Melvin died, however, Fanny developed an aversion to their home town in Kentucky and only returned one or two more times after that.  In fact, Elizabeth says, there is a little cemetery back in their home town that is made up mostly of Joneses.  There lies Melvin with a plot on either side of him for Fanny and Frankie, but Fanny refuses to be buried there.  Fanny has threatened that if they do, she will come back and haunt them.

Fanny and Frankie have always lived in a two-flat in Chicago, with Maggie eventually moving into the upstairs apartment so that she could be near and take care of them.  Elizabeth says that her mother does “everything for them” and that she is “emotionally dead” because of all the abuse she’s taken from Fanny over the years.  Both Fanny and Frankie’s health has deteriorated over the last few years, though it is hard to tell with Fanny because she “fakes it so much.”  Fanny’s abuse of Frankie has increased over time as well, which is hard for him to deal with on top of his own health problems.

Recently Fanny was hospitalized because of three minor amputations she had to have due to diabetic complications and was then discharged to a nursing home because Maggie could no longer cope.  Fanny’s transition to the facility has not been smooth, as she seems lethargic and disoriented at times and at others times is agitated, constantly calling out for a nurse.  Maggie doesn’t visit often as it seems to make Fanny combative, so Elizabeth is trying her best to be supportive on her own.

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How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical Guide STEP 13: AUDIENCE, BISACS, AND COMP TITLES, OH MY!

If I remember correctly, dear readers, I left you last week in the middle of the tiresome task of completing your Tip Sheet.  As promised, however, I’m back this week to help you on some of the more sticky points.

Let’s take TARGET AUDIENCE first.

It’s important to have a firm grasp on just who your target audience is.  Scribbling down “everyone!” is not going to work, nor is it really accurate.  This may sound counter-intuitive, darlings, but the more specific you are, the better.  Remember why you are doing this particular exercise in the first place.  It’s ultimately to help a sales team know where to put your book, and it makes marketing more effective as well.  Non-fiction or memoir are sometimes easier because they often have an obvious audience, like date-rape survivors or peace corps volunteers, but a novel can be a bit harder.  There are the fans of your particular genre, of course, but even that is a bit broad.

To better help you visualize, I’ll share with you what I came up with for A Girl Like You:

Fans of historical mystery series who enjoy a strong romantic subplot
Fans of Downton Abbey (10.2 million viewers) or other BBC/PBS period dramas
Women aged 25-70

See?  Nothing too complicated.  Numbers are good because sales people and marketers relate to them so well.  Words, not so much.  Break it down for them.  How do I find this information? you might be asking.  Google, of course, or copy from other people.  Seriously.  Publishing, if you haven’t noticed already, is a copy-cat sort of business.  Your key to success is to do what everyone else is doing but to put a unique spin on it somehow.

BISACS and keywords go hand-in-hand with target audience, so let’s look at those next.

A BISAC is really just a numerical code that categorizes your book and is a way for your book to get properly shelved, whether in a real brick-and-mortar store or a virtual one.  If you are with a hybrid publisher, they will send you a link to the BISAC site for your perusal.  Because these codes are going to populate the universe and are the signposts to your book, try to narrow it down as best you can.

Similarly, KEYWORDS are the words (or a short phrase) you think people are most likely to Google when searching for your book.  You are allowed only seven.  This is probably one of the more easy parts of the tip sheet, but important none-the-less.

Next up is COMPARATIVE TITLES, which, for me, was the hardest assignment of the whole publishing journey.  Basically, you have to list five titles that are similar in genre to your own – another clue for the sales team to understand where your book fits into the bigger picture.

Preferably these titles will have been published in the last five years (no classics, then) and are not mega best-sellers, as that is an immediate indicator that you either don’t know what you are talking about or are too delusional, never mind conceited, to be taken seriously.  So even though you think you really have something with your YA book on child wizards, saying that it’s the next Harry Potter, is, well, a bit much.  Better to be a little bit more modest in this department.  I know people try to tell you all the time that you have to sell yourself and to toot your own horn and all that, but this is one time when reality is needed.

In my case, listing comparative titles proved extremely difficult for a number of reasons, the most alarming being that before this whole “publish-a-book” thing, I didn’t really read much contemporary fiction (Don’t tell anyone!).   And if I did happen to read something published after 1895, it generally wasn’t a mystery.  Closer to the mark would be historical fiction, but that makes sense, doesn’t it? given my predilection for the classics.  (Why am I writing a mystery series then, you might ask?  Darlings, let’s just say it’s a very long story which I’ll no doubt bore you with some other day.)

Anyway, up until the arrival of the tip sheet in my inbox, I had been able to dodge the comparative title question, though it comes up on a surprisingly regular basis – almost from minute One – in your publishing journey, usually posed as the seemingly innocent query, “What is it like?” meaning, of course, your book.  Now that it was being explained, however, that comparative titles are similar to what pops up on Amazon as “Customers who liked this, also liked these titles,” I felt the weight of the question and knew that the day of reckoning had finally arrived.  And, as usual, in my panic, I drew a complete blank.

Suffice it to say that a rather frantic period ensued of skimming descriptions and first pages of books listed on Amazon, author websites, Goodreads, FB forums, and various review sites.  In some cases, I had to resort to reading whole books (!) in my desperate attempt to find who I was similar to.   Eventually I was able to cobble together a decent-enough list, but in the year and half that it’s taken for my book to come into the world, this list has changed more times than I’d like to admit, much to the annoyance, I’m sure, of various editors along the way as I continue to avail myself of what’s out there.

I have much more faith in you, though, darlings, to better know your genre and to therefore be better equipped to answer this question when it arises than I was.  After all, I’m sure you had the better sense to write, if not what you know exactly, than at least to have written what is mildly familiar.

Next week: Blurbs!

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STEP 13: AUDIENCE, BISACS, AND COMP TITLES, OH MY! appeared first on Michelle Cox.

Child Bride

Mi-Jeong Kuk was born on January 7, 1909 in Korea.  Her father, Won-Shik Kuk, was a poor farmer and her mother, Seo-Jin Kee, raised three children: Mi-Jeong and her two brothers.  Mi-Jeong says that in Korea at that time a wife did not take her husband’s name, but kept her own.

All three children, of whom Mi-Jeong was the youngest, worked on the farm and received rudimentary schooling.  Mi-Jeong received the equivalent of a grade school education, after which she was arranged to marry a wealthy man, Nam-Jun Paek, who owned a lot of property and had a big house.  Mi-Jeong was not entirely pleased with the arrangement, but she did not dare say anything because she knew her family needed the dowry money that Mr. Paek had offered them.  Accordingly, the two were married; Mi-Jeong was just 15, Nam-Jun was 29.

Within the first year, she had a baby, but she was forced to give her daughter to her older brother and his wife, who couldn’t have any children of their own.  Mi-Jeong says that this was a common practice in Korea.  She eventually had two more children, a girl: Kyung-Eun and a boy: Mu-Hyeon.

Not long after her son was born, Mi-Jeong’s husband took another wife, which was his privilege because he was a wealthy land-owner.  Mi-Jeong explained that only rich men could have more than one wife because they were the only ones that could afford to pay more than one dowry.  Apparently, Nam-Jun took many wives after Mi-Jeong, which caused her much sorrow and distress.  She was nervous and anxious most of the time and spent her days cooking and weaving silk and cotton, trying her best to stay in the background.  She says that Nam-Jung was not abusive, per se, but that her heart was broken and she could not cope well with the other wives.

The years passed, and eventually both of Mi-Jeong’s children immigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago.  Once they were established here, they wrote to Mi-Jeong and urged her to come to America to help them raise their own children.  Mi-Jeong was happy to have a reason to get away from Nam-Jun and accepted their invitation.  When asked about Nam-Jun, Mi-Jeong says that she thinks he is still alive, but she isn’t sure.

Of her first daughter whom she gave to her brother, Mi-Jeong knows little.  She is thankful that she got to see her grow up, though at a distance, but she has lost contact with her now.  Mi-Jeong says that she is no longer sad about it, but that it was very hard at first.

Once in America, Mi-Jeong spent the next years living in her own place near her children and became heavily involved in watching her grandchildren.  Over time, her anxiety seems to have lessened, and she has always turned to weaving as a hobby and a form of relaxation.  In the last two years, she has gone to live with her son, Mu-Hyeon, as she was falling a lot and finding it harder to live alone.  Now that her memory appears to be going as well, Mu was worried about leaving her alone while they were out.

In desperation, Mu and Kyung brought Mi-Jeong to a nursing home where she seems to be adjusting well.  She appears a bit fearful, but has found a few residents who speak Korean and also enjoys talking to the Korean nurses on staff.  Though her eyes often look anxious as she makes her way, carefully, around the facility, she always has a smile and eagerly grips the hand of whomever stops the greet her.

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How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical GuideSTEP 12: THE TIP SHEET

At this point in your publishing journey, dear readers, you may be wondering when things are going to actually start happening with the book itself.   Granted, the cover is underway and you are no doubt still fumbling around with your website and blog, but you may naturally begin to speculate as to what exactly is going on over there.  Like, for example, has anyone read it yet?

All in good time, darlings.  Not to worry.  They haven’t forgotten you.  In fact, at any moment now, they will be forwarding a document for you to begin filling out (not unlike the long cover document, actually, only worse, because this is really serious stuff now) called the tip sheet.

“What is a tip sheet?” you may be nervously asking.  Good question.

The tip sheet, dear readers, is a very important document filled with data about your book which will be sent to the distributor (such as Ingram) so that they can more accurately, well . . . distribute your book.  It’s extremely important to get your data right so that your book ends up on the correct shelf, either in a real brick-and-mortar store or a virtual one, but no pressure.

Now might be a good time to tell you, in case you’re again given over to wondering, that Ingram is the proverbial “man behind the curtain” to whom we all must at least pay attention to, if not outright bow down to.  And all this time you thought it was to the publisher to whom you were beholden, didn’t you?  Well, okay, that’s partially true, of course, but the publisher is – if not beholden, than certainly reliant – on the distributor, which means, to a certain extent, that you are, too.

The publisher, or any POD service, for that matter, can print a whole warehouse of books for you, but without a distributor to get your book into the marketplace, you’re rather – how shall I delicately put it? – SOL.  Ingram isn’t really hiding behind any curtain, however; they’re right out in front directing the shots.  Nor is the reference really a proverb, so my rather feeble metaphor is quickly breaking down.  Scrap that and just realize that you, the author, rely on the publisher to get your baby out into the word, and the publisher, in turn, relies on Ingram.

And if the publisher you are working with is a hybrid of sorts (which, remember, I expressly stated in the beginning of this little Guide that this is the model we would be examining), you get the privilege of helping to create your data sheet.  Don’t whine, darlings; it doesn’t become you.  Learn to see the glass as half full.

And anyway, the publisher sort of helps you by filling out some of the data points for you (the easier ones, I might add), such as: trim size, format, ISBN, title, subtitle, author, cover image, page count, etc., disappointingly leaving you, however, with the hard ones, such as: long description, short description, target audience, publicity plan, Bisac codes, keywords, and endorsements (aka blurbs).

Lest you are tempted to sluff on this assignment, let me further emphasize its importance.  All of this information, which is now called your metadata (which is a fancy word, really, for data about data) really does have a purpose.  For one thing, it will be on hand for Ingram’s many sales teams when they walk into their quarterly meetings with Barnes and Noble or Target or Costco in which they try to persuade them to stock your book.  Also it will be uploaded into some mega feed that populates Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Baker and Taylor, Goodreads, Page Foundry, Chegg, VitalSource, Gardners, Kobo, Itunes, IBookstore, etc., all of which I don’t completely understand, so don’t ask me.  The point, as you can see, is that it’s not a wasted effort.

Hopefully, I’ve now captured your attention without simultaneously causing an annoying full-on panic or perhaps momentary paralysis.  Take a deep breath, darlings.  It’s not as bad as it looks.  For example, you can copy and paste your description from your cover worksheet, and we’ve already discussed the publicity plan ad nauseam (see Steps 5-7).  That only leaves target audience, Bisacs, keywords and endorsements.  So not too much, then.  Kidding.

Sadly, however, each of these requires a bit more explanation than the space afforded, so we’ll delve into these further next week.  Until then, chin up.  I have plenty more, er . . . tips in store.

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STEP 12: THE TIP SHEET appeared first on Michelle Cox.

Forced to Work on a German Farm

Stefan Zabek was born on May 10, 1914 in Poland to Roman and Olga Zabek.  Roman owned and worked a small farm, while Olga cared for their six children.  Stefan attended the equivalent of grade school and then helped on the farm.  When the war broke out, however, the Germans invaded, and all six children were taken from Roman and Olga and sent to work in Germany in camps or on farms.  Roman and Olga were allowed to stay on the farm as long as they continued to produce food, which was difficult without any of the children to help.

Stefan ended up on a farm working beside other captured persons, one of whom was a young woman, Paulina Bosko, who Stefan fell in love with.  When the Americans arrived to liberate them, they gave Stanley a job in a hospital in Germany.  Paulina went with him, and they married and made a life for themselves, having two children: Josephine and Stanley.  After twelve years of working in Germany, however, the Zabek’s decided to appeal to the Americans to immigrate to the United States.  They could also have chosen to return to Poland with American help, but they decided to follow several of Stefan’s siblings who had already made it over to both the United States and Canada.

Stefan and Paulina decided to go to Detroit where Stefan’s brother was working in a factory.  At the time, Josephine was just six and Stanley was four.  Stefan quickly got a job in a factory as a punch press operator, though they only remained in Detroit for one year before deciding to try Chicago.  Stefan got various factory jobs there until he landed a job in a big downtown hotel as a janitor and maintenance man.  Stefan loved this job and remained there for over 21 years where he enjoyed the reputation of having “a golden hand,” meaning he could fix anything presented to him.  He is very proud of the fact that even after he retired, the staff and managers at the hotel still called him at home to ask how to fix certain things.

Stefan and Paulina lived in various apartments around Chicago until after Stefan retired, at which time Paulina was diagnosed with cancer.  At that point, they moved in with Josephine, though Stefan says that she drove a hard bargain.  She demanded $300 rent from them per month, and they were required to work around the house as well.  Though she was battling cancer, Paulina had to clean the house and do the laundry, and Stefan had to care for the lawn and garden and do maintenance on the house.  After Paulina eventually died, Stefan remained another year at Josephine’s until he himself began to slow down.  No longer able to do as much around the house, Josephine told him it was time for him to move out.  Accordingly, he moved to an apartment in a retirement community – North Park Village, where he was still able to do his own shopping and banking.  In the three years that he was there, Stefan says that Josephine never once came to see him.  Likewise, he does not seem to have a very close relationship with his son, Stanely. His children’s lack of involvement in his life and apparent lack of concern seems baffling to him, and he can offer no explanation.

Luckily, however, he was befriended while at the retirement village by a woman named Maria Winograd, whom he miraculously knew from his childhood in Poland.  Her daughter was also oddly named Josephine, and she became like a surrogate daughter to him, helping him with whatever he needed, especially as he grew more infirm and eventually had to be hospitalized.  She also helped with his admittance to a nursing home, which, he shockingly reports that he loves.

Stefan is a very sweet, kind, polite gentleman who says he is thrilled to be in a place that cares for him, where he has no worries.  He is delighted to have met fellow Poles and enjoys talking with them throughout the day.  He reports that he hopes he lives a long time yet so he can fully enjoy all that the home has to offer.  Not many residents can say the same!

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How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical Guide STEP 11: YES, YOU REALLY DO NEED A WEBSITE

You should now, dear readers, be turning your attention to the creation of the dreaded website, or the serious revamping of one should it already feebly exist somewhere.

You may be asking yourselves at this point what you possibly need a website for, as you have absolutely nothing to put on it except perhaps a photo (hopefully a professional headshot) and maybe a sketchy bio, at best.  Having myself been in your painful shoes in the not-so-distant past, I am all the more able to clearly hear what I’m sure are your additional protests: that you have no blog, no book (yet!), nor any news/events even dimly on the horizon.

Take heart, darlings.  You have to start somewhere.  It’s the proverbial chicken-and-the-egg thing.  Granted you have nothing exciting to put up just yet, but you will in time, or at least that’s the plan.  You must think of your website as your home base where everything that you create is going to live.  Or a large department store where people can come in and browse around.  A place to reroute (i.e. link) people to.

“But why?” you might ask, in a stubbornly persistent manner.  “Why would I want to reroute (okay, link), people back to an embarrassingly empty site?!”

Darlings, calm down.  If you really see yourself as a writer, you must embrace the modern publicness of this role.  Forget pointing to the enviable, private writerly lives of the likes of Jane Austen or Emily Dickenson.  Sadly, no such thing exists any longer.  You will not be allowed to sit at your desk and quietly type away, finally stuffing your hard work into a manila envelope with a deep sigh of pleasure, licking the stamp and sending it to some far-away editor, meanwhile tending your garden and petting the cat while you await the publisher’s kind words of praise and hopefully royalty checks.

No, darlings!  Destroy that image in your mind as quickly as possible because it only leads to disgruntlement and annoyance.  Best look forward.   Unfortunately, in our current society, part of putting your work out into the world means putting yourself out, too, however painful you fear that might be.

This crosses over into the whole social media conversation once again.  It’s important to tweet or post things out there about yourself, even if you have to make them up!  After perusing my FB posts in the beginning, my publicist advised that I’m not putting enough personal things out there.  Photos of kids and pets are a no-no on your Author page, so what else could I possibly post that’s personal?  Shots of my chrysanthemums?

“Something trendy!” was the reply.  “Something like a post about you getting Starbuck’s new pumpkin latte.”

“But I don’t like lattes, much less pumpkin ones!” I was tempted to counter before it dawned on me that that hardly mattered, nor, apparently did the fact that it was such a blushingly trite bit of info.  The sad truth is that no one cares!  If you have nothing to sell just yet, sell air.  Yes, I know, it does have the faint aroma of the Emperor’s New Clothes, but try your best to ignore it.

Back to the website.  My advice is to get it professionally done.  Don’t have your cousin do it, unless, of course, he happens to be a legitimate web designer by day.  After all, this is your home base, your department store, as it were, and you need it to look professional in order for you to be taken seriously.  You want to exude a Selfridges image, or at least a Macy’s , not a TJ Maxx.

In my case, having heard at a writer’s conference very early on in this journey that a website was essential for all writers, I went home and clumsily cobbled one together with WordPress.  Having absolutely no technical know-how, this in and of itself was a small miracle.  I was rather proud of it, however, with its photo of me set against a black and white (you know, like artsy) photo of a picturesque gate by a creek on my parents’ farm.  “That says it all!” I thought proudly, hoping people would get the obvious symbolism.

You can probably guess that the publicist, when I eventually hired her, did not.  Out the window it quickly went, and months of design started.   Yes, months, because once the basic concept and framework were built and we had decided to go with vintage shots of Chicago as the sort of theme, I became extraordinarily picky about which photos to include, being the expert now, you see.  Hundreds of photos went back and forth, until they just sent their whole file over and told me to get back to them.  Happily I began digging through, and the result, if you’re reading this, is all around you.

Don’t worry, darlings; you have to start somewhere.  And once your little house is built, you’ll feel rather proud of it and all the more motivated to begin filling it up!  At least that’s the plan.  You can do it!

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STEP 11: YES, YOU REALLY DO NEED A WEBSITE appeared first on Michelle Cox.

What to Bring to America: Blankets, Silverware, & Sheep Shears

Bessie Skalicky was born on March 11, 1901 in Polhora, Slovakia, a village at the foot of a mountain near the Polish border.  Her parents were Jozef and Aneta Jelen.  Jozef worked as a lumberman, and Aneta managed their farm and raised their six children, two of whom died, however, one being Bessie’s twin brother, Paul, who died at age two “because he was the runt.”

Bessie attended the local school until the equivalent of the eighth grade but skipped school often.  At the time, she says, Slovakia was ruled by Austria-Hungary, and the children had to speak Hungarian in school.  Bessie was one of the unfortunate children for whom this was difficult, and was often slapped or hit for lapsing into Slovakian.  To make matters worse, the Jelen children were slapped at home if they spoke Hungarian, so Bessie tried to avoid school altogether so that she wouldn’t be confused.

She loved to sing, however, and had a beautiful voice, often accompanying her father whenever he got out his accordion or fiddle.  “Sing for us!” he would often say.  At some point, Jozef happened to meet a young WWI veteran, Ignac Skalicky, and was impressed with his own musical talent as well as his good looks.  Also, it didn’t hurt that he owned his own farm.  Accordingly, when Bessie was twenty-one, Jozef arranged for her to marry Ignac, who was himself more than willing, as he was impressed with Bessie’s ability to work hard.  Bessie agreed, and the two of them were married and moved to Ignac’s farm.  They had four children in Slovakia, though one died as an infant.

In 1931, Ignac and Bessie decided to leave Slovakia for America, hoping to improve their meager situation.  Before they left, however, Bessie’s father, Jozef, died suddenly at age 50 in his sleep.  It was a Sunday morning, and the whole family was dressed and ready to leave for Church when Jozef, suddenly not feeling well, said he would stay home and lie down for a bit.  When the family returned, they found him lying peacefully on top of his bed, still in his Sunday best, dead.

Bessie hated leaving her widowed mother, but the plans had already been made.  Besides, she took her father’s death as an omen that they should go.  They were only allowed to take one trunk between them all, so, besides clothes, Bessie packed what she thought they would need in their new life: blankets, silverware and sheep shears.

The little family made their way to Phillips, Wisconsin and bought a small farm there, where Bessie and Ignac had three more children.  They made a success of their farm, though Ignac died of stomach cancer when he was only 57, as did one of their sons at age 43.  Bessie remained on the farm with their youngest child, Joan, until 1967 when she decided to move to town.  There she continued to sew and garden and loved to study history, writing many articles of the local paper.  And always she loved to sing.

In 1987, Bessie began to find it hard to live alone as her mental state began to deteriorate, so she moved to Chicago to live with her daughter, Eliska. Unfortunately, however, after several years, Eliska was no longer able to care for her, either, because of her own degenerative muscular disease and was forced to bring Bessie to a nursing home.

Bessie was quite upset at first, having always had a fear of nursing homes, but she seems to have eventually adjusted rather well to her new surroundings.  Although she proceeds fearfully, she seems happy to have found a few fellow residents with whom she can speak Slovakian and can be found sitting and talking with them for the better part of the day.

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How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical GuideSTEP 10: THE COVER CONTINUES

Dear readers, while you are swirling around in what is surely your depressed miasma regarding social media and your potential blog, trying desperately to figure it all out, the publisher will probably choose this moment to send you the first stock photos/mock-ups for the cover, as if you weren’t already confused enough.

At this juncture it all becomes scarily real that this thing is actually in production.

In my case, since my book is set in the 1930’s Chicago, hundreds of stock photos began coming in of staged couples dressed in vintage attire as well as many authentic photographs from forgotten starlets from the ‘20’s.  Anxiously I poured over these until the wee hours of the night, glad to be included in the process but nervous, too, that so much was riding on this decision.

After all, everyone knows that the cover is what sells the book.  What if I got it wrong?

The publisher informed me that the art director was of the opinion that, given the title, A Girl Like You, the cover really should be a headshot of a woman, her head slightly turned away.  While I liked this interpretation a lot, something pulled me instead toward the shots of the couples, as I really wanted to capture the hesitant attraction of the two main characters. None of the photos, however, seemed to be quite what I had in mind.

As expected, after about a week of deliberating, I got a call from the publisher asking if I had spotted anything that would work, as, well, time was ticking and they need this done sooner than later.  Clumsily I tried to explain my lack of progress.  Her tired response was that if I really couldn’t find anything I liked in stock photos, we could opt for a photo shoot in London with a very well-respected historical fiction photographer (what was that?) for probably about two thousand.

I admit that at this juncture, I allowed myself to wallow in this fantasy for more minutes than was reasonable.  Smugly I imagined myself casually dropping into the conversation with the receptionist at the kids’ orthodontist (as if she cares) that I’m going to have to move some appointments around because I was off to a photo-shoot.  In London.

Just as quickly, however, I soberly began to calculate the price tag for such an extravagance, the two thousand probably unrealistically low in the first place, plus the flight, hotels, and any other add-ons that were sure to be part of this adventure, such as, perhaps, the crew’s lunch?  Also, I quickly deduced that I would be paying out what was rapidly becoming an exorbitant sum and still not necessarily be guaranteed to love the result.  Worse, I would probably then feel uncomfortably obligated to go with one of these new shots after having now spent so much money.  That and the fact that I would surely come back to certain disaster if I left my husband and kids alone for more than a few hours, decided it.  “No,” I said, “that’s probably not going to work.”

“Good answer,” the publisher said, as if I had passed a sanity test.  “You know if there’s something you kind-of like in the stock photos, we can do amazing things in photoshop.  Really, you’d be amazed.”

So, with new hope or perhaps new monetary motivation, I went back to the drawing board and, meanwhile, the art department happened to dig up yet another file for me to look through, in which, of course, I miraculously found what I was looking for.  I have to admit that the first time I saw it, I actually had a visceral reaction to it.  As I stared at it over and over, even printing it out and hanging it by my monitor to gaze at it and forwarding it to friends for their opinions, I became even more convinced.

“Really?  This one?” the publisher asked.  “I don’t think the art director’s going to like this.  She’s kind of starting to obsess on yours.  She really thinks it should be one of the starlets.  And anyway, this couple is in a forest.  This is supposed to be set in a city.”

“Well, didn’t you say something about photoshop?” I suggested tentatively.  “And while you’re at it,” I asked, my technical ignorance obvious, “could you photoshop in a different hat and tie for the man and change the girl’s hair color?”

Irritated sigh.

A couple of weeks later when I got the mockups, I was shocked to see that only the girl’s hair color had changed and the forest photoshopped out.  “What about the man’s hat and tie?”  I asked, confused.

“Well, we can’t photoshop out a hat; that would look stupid.”

But, what about the amazing things? I wondered, guessing that I had expected too much yet again.

But in the end, it didn’t matter.  It was perfect, and I absolutely loved it.  And I’ve since, if truth be told, received hundreds of compliments on it.

So the lesson this week, darlings, is to go with your gut feeling, especially regarding the cover.  Trust your instincts!  You know more than you think you do.

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STEP 10: THE COVER CONTINUES appeared first on Michelle Cox.