Michelle Garren Flye's Blog, page 80

What’s in a word? $#*% by any other name would smell as $#%%^, wouldn’t it?

This is how it happened.

I’m driving down the road the other night and a possum walks out in front of me. More than just about any other wildlife, possums freak me out. There’s something downright evil in the way they turn their long rat-like snouts to look at an oncoming car. Hit me. I dare you. Of course, most of them lose that particular battle, but they still startle me with their glares.

“Oh, (expletive deleted).” I slam on the brakes and swerve to avoid the creature.

My daughter, who has been playing quietly on her iPod in the backseat, says calmly in her little innocent voice, “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

“I almost hit a possum.” I wonder why I didn’t just go ahead and hit the thing. Why go out of my way to avoid something that I don’t like? Maybe it’s a deep-rooted fear that this one won’t die. It’ll grab hold of the undercarriage of my car and wait until I park and, unsuspecting, climb out, exposing my ankle to its sharp teeth and claws…

“What?” My daughter can’t place what kind of critter I’m talking about.

“You know, those things we see squished on the side of the road all the time.” (I’m probably not going to get mother-of-the-year for that definition, but it had been a long day, and last I heard I’m not in the running away.)

“Eww.” She exclaims as only a dramatic five-year-old can. But she knows what I’m talking about now.

I laugh and continue driving. It’s only later that I realize I used a curse word in front of her and she didn’t react to it. She’s heard it before…from me. Have I desensitized her already to the power of profanity? The thought is sobering.

As a writer, I’m interested in language and how certain words have more power than others. I’ve read countless articles about words and how their sounds affect people in different ways. (Here’s a really interesting article about the subject: Which Words Do You Love and Which Do You Hate?) Profanity is fascinating because so many people have such adverse reactions to the ugly words. Including me. I flinch when I hear certain words. They’re unpleasant. They have power over me.

When I was in high school, I knew a boy who always said “sugar” instead of “(expletive deleted)”. I thought it was cute. I thought he was cute. I knew what he meant, but by replacing the expletive with a much sweeter (pun intended) word, he accomplished something many of us have yet to figure out how to do. He used the power of language in a positive way.

Which leads me to my vow. I’m going to be a less profane person. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not horrible, but a “bad word” pops out every now and then. I’m not doing this because I think it’s wrong to curse, but because I want my kids to understand that words do have power over people. You can use them in a positive way (think speeches by great men like Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK) and influence people for good. But if you go throwing profanity and other negative words around, eventually the people around you become desensitized to your voice. What you say fades away and becomes less important, and when you do have something positive to say, you’ll be lucky if anybody hears you.

Giving away stuff today…

I get a great feeling out of giving stuff away. It’s a fun, sort of magnanimous, expansive feeling…kind of like I’m Robin Hood throwing gold to the poor.

Well, I’m not Robin Hood, and what I have to give isn’t stolen. I worked hard for them, but I do feel kind of like I have vast riches to give away because now I’ve got not one, but two books that I can decide to put on Amazon’s free kindle books list. So go get your copies of Weeds and Flowers and Ducks in a Row now. They’re free until Thursday. Enjoy!

Whoops, I did it again! Another foray into the world of self-publishing…

First of all, happy new year! In spite of all evidence and predictions to the contrary, we rang in 2013 last night. Which means we still have a chance to make this world a better place with what we do. I hope I’m accomplishing that by adding more books to it because I spent much of yesterday doing exactly that and my new book Ducks in a Row went live right about midnight last night. By the time anyone reads this, I’ll have the cover posted in the feature area to your left, but I’m very proud of this cover (designed by me), so I’ll post it here, too:

Okay, so that’s what I did yesterday, why did I do it? My former venture into the world of self-publishing may have won me critical acclaim, but it sure didn’t make me rich. And self-publishing a book, even the way I do it through Kindle Direct Program, is not an easy thing, and it is nerve-wracking. After all, my book was never professionally edited. My readers will have to do with my editing skills. Admittedly, I’m not totally untalented in that area, but even I will admit a professional editor adds a lot to my stories.

But I did it anyway. Why? My only answer…again…is that I love this story. I wanted it to be a book. And when I couldn’t find a publisher for it (it’s really more women’s fiction than romance and it leans toward the sweet instead of the spicy), I decided, what the hell? This story wants to be told. I want this story to be a book, but a book needs readers. I found some readers for Weeds and Flowers. A lot of them, actually. Maybe I can do the same for Ducks in a Row. At any rate, it’s worth a try.

Plus, since I designed the cover, I got to make my name pretty big. Nice, huh? I didn’t go Stephen King big for design reasons (I wanted everything linear on the cover because of the title), but it’s still pretty big… Still dreaming of the day when my name is bigger than the title itself.

Writing about Writing: My Year in Review

Today I looked at my bookshelves. You see, I have a new book to put on them. My brother-in-law gave me one of the best books ever written about writing. Stephen King’s On Writing. I’ve read excerpts but never the whole thing, and I’ve never owned my own copy, so I was thrilled to get it. Let me share one of my favorite excerpts from the book with you:

“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair—the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. … Come to it any way but lightly.” — Stephen King, On Writing

I LOVE that quote. It hits the heart of my writing experience every time I read it. When I sit down at my computer, I assess my own ambitions for my writing. Maybe I have an idea I can’t wait to tap into my computer. Maybe I’m ready to get lost in that other world. Maybe I’m ready to try, anyway. Or maybe I just want to update my blog or maybe I’m…not. King goes on to say:

“…it’s writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close the book and do something else.”

On the days when I know I can’t take my writing seriously, I do find other things to do. If I know all I’m going to be doing is surfing the net or (worse) posting inane comments on Facebook all day, I go do something else useful. I’ve taken up cataloging my kids’ school library during these “off hours”, and I’ve found that I am far better off when I return to the writing I’m never very far away from.

So much for King. What really caught my attention when I looked at my bookshelves was another book about writing by Eudora Welty, also titled On Writing. I admit, I’ve never read this book. I bought it way back as a sentimental investment. I met Ms. Welty once, way back at some young authors’ conference or other. She was very old, and I’d never read anything she’d ever written, but she was what I knew I wanted to be: a published, respected writer. I was curious. Did she see writing as seriously as King does? I flipped through the pages and eventually came across this quote, which, to me, seems to indicate she does:

“We have the writer’s own vision of everything in the world when we place his novel in the center. Then so much is clear: how he sees life and death, how much he thinks people matter to each other and to themselves, how much he would like you to know what he finds beautiful or strange or awful or absurd, what he can do without, how well he has learned to see, hear, touch, smell—all as his sentences go by and in their time and sequence mount up. It grows clear how he imposes order and structure on his fictional world; and it is terribly clear, in the end, whether, when he calls for understanding, he gets any.” –Eudora Welty, On Writing

The last line of that rather lengthy quote gave me chills. Don’t we all want understanding at the end of the book? As I scanned the pages of Welty’s book on writing, I noticed she explores the relationship between reader and writer in a much clearer manner than I’ve ever seen before. In her many years of writing, Ms. Welty obviously established a very good understanding with her readers.

Over the course of the past year, I’ve grown a lot as a writer. I’ve discovered that just because I write books I want to write doesn’t mean that everybody will want to read them. I’ve discovered that even when they get published and read, my books won’t always establish that connection with the reader that I strive for. And yet, if I’m going to ask my readers to take me seriously as a writer, I have to, as King advises, never come to it lightly. I have to approach writing as a business. It’s a business you have to stick with, you have to work at, and the you must, at all costs, constantly strive to get better at it if you hope to connect with your readers.

This year, I’ve written a few blog posts I was sort of proud of about writing. Nothing compared to King or Welty, but I haven’t had their careers yet. Most of these are either about my impressions of what writing is like on this side of success or were responses to articles I’d read about writing or publishing. In case you missed my brilliance the first time around, I thought I’d include links to my top 10 favorite blog posts of 2012:

1. “Embrace your velvet-cloaked vampire: Go ahead and publish that book”

2. “How to make your setting into a character…and why you should”

3. “Self-published and proud of it: Stop squelching the new voices”

4. “Confessions of a Contemporary Romance Author”

5. “Music that isn’t mine or why there’s a gay woman in Where the Heart Lies: About Lulu”

6. “How a chronic beginner finishes writing a novel”

7. “Slacking Off: Writing is Hard Work!”

8. “Vanishing Literature or Just Disappearing Ink?”

9. “Playing with emotions: What do you want to feel when you read?”

10. “Immersing Myself in the Culture of My Creations”

Mayan Apocalypse? Maybe not, but it is the Winter Solstice: A few facts and an excerpt.

This will most likely be my last post…until after Christmas, that is, and I thought I’d make it a blatant sales pitch. Winter Solstice was my second book published, but the first full-length romance I ever wrote. I’m very proud of it, and I’d love to share a little excerpt with you guys. First, though: A few facts about Winter Solstice 2012:

1. It’s the shortest day of the year in my half of the world. Tomorrow, December 21, 2012, daylight will last only about nine and a half hours in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

2. It’s the official start of winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

3. The actual time of the winter solstice is 6:12 a.m. on December 21 for me. This is, ironically, 11:12 a.m. GMT, meaning the winter solstice actually occurs at 11:12 a.m. 12/21/12 this year, if you happen to be in Great Britain. Ahem, like Stonehenge. Cool, huh?

4. Winter Solstice contains the only phone sex scene I’ve ever written… Oh wait, that’s not about the winter solstice, but it is interesting, isn’t it?

Continuing her tour of the artwork, she paused before a large painting, showing two deer in a wintry landscape before a rising full moon. It occupied the wall opposite the Redlin painting. In sharp contrast to the warm oranges and reds and nostalgia of Redlin, however, everything in this painting, from the stark snowy landscape and sharp blue-black shadows to the bare trees and the ribs showing through the deer’s hides, spoke of starvation. Winter Solstice was printed on a brass plate on the frame. Becky stared at it for several long minutes, letting its barrenness creep into her soul, its iciness encompass her entire being.

“You like it?” he asked from behind her.

“Like isn’t the right word.” She shook off the creeping feeling of cold and loneliness with difficulty. “It’s powerful, though. My favorite day too.” She let him guide her through the swinging door into the large, stone-floored kitchen. Despite the shiny, stainless steel appliances and granite countertops, the kitchen had a homey air due to the little breakfast alcove with a rough-hewn wooden table that was now set for dinner under a wrought-iron chandelier. Susie pushed her way through the swinging door and padded over the wide planks of the hardwood floor to the firewarmed stone hearth of a large fireplace near the table. She shifted around on the stones, finally coming to rest with her huge head on her paws.

John opened two beers and set them on the table, taking Becky’s wineglass from her in a smooth movement as he motioned for her to sit. He set a plate of rockfish, steaming baked potato and salad in front of her. “Why is the winter solstice your favorite day? I would have had you

pegged for a spring person.”

He sat across from Becky, focusing all his attention on her. It made her a little self-conscious, but as he turned away to heap butter and sour cream on his potato, she found a reply. “It’s the shortest day of the year.”

His eyebrows shot up and he glanced at her. “Doesn’t explain why an optimist like you would like it. Seems like the perfect day for somebody like me.”

Starting to feel even more ill at ease, as if this were something too personal to tell him, she opened her mouth and closed it again. When he raised his eyebrows, she realized he wouldn’t let her not answer. “Well, if it’s the shortest day of the year, it means the rest of the days afterward

are getting longer, right?”

A slow smile spread across his face and he nodded, as if her answer fit in perfectly with his perception of her. “I get it.”

She wondered why he felt he knew her so well when they’d met such a short time ago. “What exactly do you get?” She took a bite of baked potato and tried to remain calm.

“Obviously, to you, it doesn’t matter where you’ve been or where you are so much as where you’re going.” He chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “Whereas I find it difficult to look past where I am at the present.”

Want to BUY IT NOW? The link is to the Lyrical Press store, where you’ll also find links to many other great e-book retailers.

Change for the Children: Making Kindness a Habit

Over the past few days, I’ve struggled a lot not to be political in the wake of the Newtown tragedy. It’s been tough, because, as my husband tells me, I’m very passionate about certain things, and, in my eyes at least, there’s no room for compromise. So keeping my mouth shut can be a challenge for me.

But by keeping my mouth shut, I’ve heard some surprising stuff. I’ve learned a lot about the lack of care for the mentally ill. I heard our president say that we as a society needed to change. I heard a resounding silence from gun supporters. And most surprising of all, perhaps, I’ve heard many, many people saying we all need to be kinder to each other.

I could ask when we stopped being kind to each other, but I’ve found it’s much more effective to start at home base. When did I stop being kind? I was a very kind child, I think. I never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings. When did that stop? When did I become an aggressive driver who’s willing to honk at other motorists for the slightest infringement, the irritable mother, the uncaring neighbor, the shopper who’s in too much of a rush to let someone cut in line?

Okay, so I’m not horrible. I’m not always irritable and pushy, but I’m much more likely to be that way than I was early on in life. The only thing I can figure is that as I’ve gotten older, unkindness has become a habit with me. So how do I cure this habit?

I think journalist Ann Curry, of all people, has given me the answer. If you are on Twitter, check out her twitter feed. She started out calling for everyone to commit themselves to 20 acts of kindness (#20acts) to honor the twenty first graders killed at Sandy Hook. Some of her followers suggested they expand this to include the adults killed trying to save the children (#26acts). It’s a wonderful idea, and for more reasons than I think Ms. Curry considered.

I believe you can become addicted to kindness. Think of the good feeling you get when you do something kind. Consider the impact of getting addicted to that feeling. How long does it take to form a habit? If you commit to performing 26, or even 20, acts of kindness, might it be possible that you would want to keep going? I’m hoping so. Judging by the number of positive responses Ms. Curry has garnered, I think she may have started a movement with some real power behind it, and if all those people form a habit for kindness because of her, she will really have accomplished something lasting.

Will a kindness habit cure the world’s problems? Probably not. But perhaps if enough people are more considerate and kinder because of Sandy Hook, more problems could be solved. Maybe we could learn to compromise and care a little more, and maybe fewer people will want the guns that are made to kill without mercy.

So far I’ve accomplished a rather unimpressive three acts of kindness. They weren’t things I wasn’t planning on doing anyway, but I tried to go a little beyond. I have plans for two more, and I’m watching for opportunities to act kindly on impulse. I think those acts might go the furthest toward accomplishing a real change in our society.

The End of the World? Don’t Hide. Live Better.

Today I’m not going to write about the news stories that are terrifying and saddening the entire world. I’m not going to talk about the innocent victims or possible solutions or call for gun control or better care for the mentally ill, although I think those things are well worth discussing. I’m writing because it seems the world has gone mad, and I feel a need to ask you all not to let the end of the world become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is what has haunted me ever since I heard about the end of the Mayan calendar and how many millions of people actually harbor some belief that Friday will be the end of the world: What if it’s not? What if God has no intention of ending the world on Friday, but as the “end” that we have prophesied for ourselves approaches, people go mad and society destroys itself? What if we ruin our world and kill each other and those who survive have a world no longer worth living in?

The holiday season always brings out the madness in people. It enhances the divide between those who have so much and those who have nothing. I believe this holiday will be even worse than usual and that’s why I’m writing. This holiday, I’d like to encourage everyone to think a little bit about your neighbors. Do they have enough to make their Christmas merry? Do they have someone in their lives to love or are they alone? Reach out and shake someone’s hand or leave a small gift for someone you think might not get something this season. If you’re not comfortable with that personal approach, give something to your local Food Bank or other charity.

I plan to do some soul-searching today to think about what I can do this season. I want to go a little beyond what I usually do. I want to try to make a real difference this year. I don’t know if the Mayan calendar means anything or not. I don’t honestly think we can predict the end of the world. What I do know is that nobody’s tomorrow is ever guaranteed, and if we don’t try to make a difference today, we may never get a chance. After all, where would you rather be if God comes down to judge us? Helping someone in need or hiding in a Doomsday bunker?

Guilty Indulgences gives 4 chocolate-dipped strawberries to Where the Heart Lies!

What better way to start out the month of December than with a little guilty indulgence? The fabulous folks over at the Guilty Indulgence Review Site just thrilled me with a four-chocolate-dipped-strawberry review of Where the Heart Lies! Here’s an excerpt:

“Romance on the softer side for readers who enjoy a more predictable, mainstream read. … Readers will feel good and happy about this story… it made me smile.”–Guilty Indulgence

How great is that? Seriously. I feel like a reviewer really got what I was trying to do. I didn’t set out to be unpredictable (although I did try to keep the story interesting). All I wanted was to leave my readers with a smile. If I accomplished that, I’m happy because it means they cared about my characters while they read the story. If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is!

Reminder to my blog tour winners: Please send me your mailing address so I can send you your goodies! I’ve got five so far, but there were way more winners than that.

Blog tour wrap-up! Giveaway time!

Well, it’s been an active couple of months, that’s for sure! And that may well be the last time I EVER schedule a blog tour during National Novel Writing Month. Whew! Overall, however, I really enjoyed the blog tour Goddess Fish set up for me! What fun it was! And the fun continues today as I choose the winner of my blog tour prize. I’ve already selected winners for each individual stop. Those folks win a Where the Heart Lies promotional postcard with a 10 percent off coupon for Carina Press—and a couple of other promo goodies I have lying around. Here are the winners and the stops where they won:

World of Dreams: vitajex

Queen of All She Reads: amberdcline

All I Want and More: lauratroxel

Megan Johns Invites: kybunnies

My Reading Addiction: bn100candg

Once Upon A Time: nat567

Ramblings from This Chick: ivegotmail8889

Bunny’s Review: marypres

It’s Raining Books: gokarter418

The Brunette Librarian: silversolara

Jersey Girl Book Reviews: kit3247

Stitch Read Cook: bn100candg

Wow! What a lot of great new friends! Here’s a picture of my cowboy hat that I wear when I’m feeling saucy all filled up with entries for my giveaway:

And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for…the winner of my grand prize of a $10 Amazon gift card and a copy of Bartlett’s Poems for Occasions. This copy of Bartlett’s is actually the one I read at times while writing Where the Heart Lies, so it’s very special to me, and believe it or not, new copies of this book are very hard to come by! Here’s a picture of some of the prizes being awarded today:

And the winner of my copy of Bartlett’s and the Amazon gift card is…kybunnies!

Congratulations to all my winners and thank you all so much for checking out the tour. And if you’re interested in giveaways, stay tuned…I do tend to get generous around the holidays!

November 26: Stars aligned, NaNoWriMo complete.

It’s official. I finished NaNoWriMo a few days ago. Then I edited the novel, added chapters, formatted it…and sent it to my editor. I’ve NEVER done anything like this before. I’m one of those write-it-let-it-sit-and-then-eventually-edit-it people. I’ve got a couple of novels sitting on my hard drive that I wrote more than a year ago. I think Stephen King calls them “trunk novels”. One of these days I’ll pull them out and figure out what to do with them.

So what’s different about this one? For one thing I wrote it faster than I’ve EVER written a novel. I’ve finished National Novel Writing Month twice before, but I’ve never finished it this much ahead of the deadline. And when I finished it, I wasn’t tired of it, so re-reading and editing wasn’t a chore. Plus, I’m actually energized and excited about the ideas this novel has inspired in me. It’s the first of what I hope is a series. I’m already working on the next one. Of course, by “working on the next one”, I mean the idea is simmering in my head. I have a vague idea of who the characters are and haven’t really decided about the plot. But the ingredients are simmering and congealing and eventually will come together in a delicious stew. (Now I’m getting hungry!)

NaNoWriMo was a fast ride this year, but it was a smooth one. I guess the stars aligned just right. Now I can afford a brief breathing moment before the next novel-writing frenzy overtakes me!

Last stop of the book tour: Check out My Devotional Thoughts for an interesting, if complimentary review of Where the Heart Lies and my own description of my writing schedule. Since this is my last stop of the tour, it’s also your last chance to enter to win my great prizes! (10% off coupons to Carina Press and a copy of Bartlett’s Poems for Occasions) Also, I would like to thank Goddess Fish for organizing the book tour, all the gracious hosts who shared their blogs with me and everyone who stopped by! It’s been a blast!