Anna DeStefano's Blog, page 10

What’s a heart made of?

Holidays are for hearts. Whatever we celebrate this time of year, images of families and loved ones and friends and memories surround us. The season lifts us up, makes us homesick, sometimes brings unwanted sadness. Our hearts are in play. Done deal. We’re feeling something more, something deeper, something real.

I often wonder why–you know, besides the obvious manipulation by the media and advertisers, wanting us to spend, Spend, SPEND so we can feel even better (or worse) as we long for more of whatever we want (or have lost) most. What’s behind those heart strings tugging at our thoughts and memories and imaginations?

We’re more open around the holidays, even the jaded among us. We engage with the world and people around us, because it’s all closer, it’s all bigger. How can we not be affected?

Our minds are on the every day of work and kids and obligations and worries. We plod onward with all we think we are. But we’re also conditioned to feel certain ways in November and December and early January. Whether we want to or not, we’re trained from infancy to fit into the holiday mold our families before us have spent generations crafting. But what do we truly want our hearts to feel and believe and desire this time of year?

In matters of the heart, what’s habit and what’s intention? What makes us happy, and what are we doing because we’re told it should make us happy? If only we could tune in and find the magic of our own individual experience (as the world and the holidays experience and evolve and march onward around us), the hustle and bustle that distracts from more than this season would fade a bit…and we’d discover the holiday of oyr dreams.

That’s my plan this year, anyway. To be, in this moment, what my heart’s always wanted this time of year to be. To understand my hearts desire and see it come to life around me. To inspire, through my stories and my blogs and the other fun things coming soon that my publicist would smack me for talking about before its time (waving at Nancy Berland and her fabulous team while keeping mum’s the word for just a little longer), everyone I reach to long for the same.

Let’s say them out loud…those inspirations and wants and needs and hurts and desires. Let’s look around at others who need and hope for just as much or more. Let’s be, this holiday season, instead of just responding to what the rest of the world wants us to be. Let’s find our authentic hearts and understand what they’re made of, and let’s find a way to bring them to life, put them to work and in action, around us. That’s the way to thrive through the holidays, I’m sure of it. I dream about it, I write about it, I seem to talk about it to everyone I talk to these days.

Join me, won’t you? Let’s make the “happy” in our holiday intentional this year.

I’ll start!

What’s in my heart, my true heart, this season?

Here’s my list, in no particular order of importance. Share your list in the comments, then come back tomorrow and let’s take the next step together, bringing all of this to life!

I love family.
I love large, happy family get togethers, whether I’ve had a lot of them in my life.
I love writing about them, discovering them, creating them for myself and readers. When I do that, my heart is happy.
I love emotional journeys, good and bad.
I love the bad, when it becomes good.
I don’t trust the good, really, unless the truth of what lies beneath is revealed and dealt with and resolved so the good can feel real. When I do that, in my life and in the lives of my family and characters, my heart is happy.
I love finding family in my “other” life beyond the ones who raised me.
I love my husband and son as if my world wouldn’t exist without them, because it wouldn’t.
I love my close friends.
I love people I’ve just met. I love seeing and understanding and joining in and helping. Sometimes, it’s easier to love, when it’s outside of my world. It’s hope and a new beginning and a chance to make a difference. When I can make that difference in a friend’s, another writer’s, or a stranger’s life, my heart is happy.
I love creating new characters the feel like family, or like friends I’m just met but would love to get to know and help and be helped by.
I love creating new journeys and watching people grow and change and struggle and over come and blossom into a real happily ever after place I’d want for anyone I know. Crafting a change like that, or being a part of seeing it come to life in the real word, makes my heart happy.
I don’t particularly love the holidays each year. It’s hard for me at first, since my dad died just before Thanksgiving when I was much younger.
I don’t like feeling sad when everyone is gearing up for festivities. I don’t like wanting to be alone, wanting to protect myself, wanting silence instead of parties.
I don’t know sometimes how to want what others do, much like many of the characters I write, BTW. But I refuse to let that stop me.
And this year, I don’t want to worry about doing things right. I just want to to do and be proud of what happens next. That would make my heart happiest of all.

So, as I look over this list, what would make my heart happy this holiday?

Writing about, discovering and creating what makes family feel real to me.
Digging deeper beneath the cheer, revealing what gets in the way, dealing with it and making the good stuff ring more true for myself and others.
Reaching out to others in my life, my community, that I might not know yet but can help or encourage or inspire, making a difference simply by reaching out through story and more.
Seeing change come about and the holiday come to life and difficult memories recede for others, too, and silence dissipate while I share what I have and others do to and we all focus on hour lucky and blessed we are and how much we have to give, rather than all that we still need but haven’t yet found.
How could I worry with a holiday experience like that to look forward to?

So, those are my “real heart” lists this year?

What are yours?

And what do you think you can do to make some of your “heart happy” moments come true this season?

More tomorrow!

‘Tis The Season… To feel alone?

“For unloved daughters and sons, the stress of the holidays sweeps in much more than the nuisance of crowded stores, piped-in joys, worries about money or pleasing everyone with the right gift…”
Currently writing about (and studying) grown foster kids who’ve aged out of the system. You know, in the midst of my charming, warm family novels. It might not come as a shock to you that holidays can be difficult for many in our country. But would it surprise you to know that they’re difficult for me? Maybe even for you sometimes, just a little more than you’ve let yourself think about?
If so

“For unloved daughters and sons, the stress of the holidays sweeps in much more than the nuisance of crowded stores, piped-in joys, worries about money or pleasing everyone with the right gift…”

I’m writing into a new story about (and studying) grown foster kids who’ve aged out of the system. You know, in the midst of my charming, warm family novels. I stumbled across this article from Psychology Today, among many others, in my research.

It might not come as a shock to you that holidays can be difficult for many in our country. But would it surprise you to know that they’re difficult for me? And maybe even for you sometimes, just a little more than you’ve let yourself deal with?

Yeah, it’s a cute baby. And we fight so hard to keep the holidays full of cheer, despite disappointments or unhappiness from our pasts. And that’s a good thing. We move forward, we heal, we become who’re we’re meant to be. There’s no one I know who thinks it’s a good idea to stagnate in the hurt of the past and let it define all that will ever come. But as cute as all the holiday hype is, and as much as we might want to dive into the celebration along with everyone else, sometimes there’s just too much bubbling up from deep inside to laugh or hug or work or jingle away.

“For many, it [holidays] will conjure up–almost as if fresh and hew–the pain, exclusion, and loss they felt in their families of origin,” the article says.

Yeah. That’s real stuff. Holiday stuff we don’t want to see but too often can’t dismiss. I’m determined to write an inspirational, hopeful, loving and celebratory Christmas novella for next November/December’s readers. But in it (because I’m me and I’m made up of all my experiences of family origin, and because I’m writing about characters with disconnection and abandonment and insecurity and fear as their own earliest memories), I’m also going to be tackling the reality that many of us face each year– that, “the holidays sometimes evoke a renewed sense of self-doubt about the decision made, along with a feeling of isolation. The weight of cultural disapproval may feel heavier at this time of year…”

So, not so cute after all.

How do we deal with feelings and emotions that seem the antithesis of what the rest of the world is experiencing?

How do we make jolly and joining and believing in new chances and fresh starts and renewed faith happen for ourselves, when watching those very wants and needs play out before us in how everyone else is behaving seems almost unreal?

I’m figuring it out for my characters (who really are going to melt and fill up your heart with their journeys). I’m figuring it out for my own holidays this year.

Keep fighting for your own true joy this season. Whatever that means for you, however you struggle, and regardless of the memories that join you…be true to yourself and your needs and find peace in your heart first, before you worry about how all of this is looking to others in your life.

So, here’s the article again. Read it. It’s working for the characters in my story. It’s working for me as well.

To get you started, here’s the article’s 7-step cheat sheet of tips for understanding some of the lows that can come along with those “you should be feeling this way instead” highs this time of years:

Take emotional inventory
Manage your thoughts and feelings
Set personal goals
Set boundaries ahead of time
Disengage when you need to
Be kind to yourself
Feed your sense of joy

Inspire yourself! WIN Vintage Trifari…

“Passion is energy.

Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”

~ Oprah Winfrey

The holiday season every year, I’m reminded how lucky I am, how blessed I am, and how many inspirational things wait for me around every corner. That might sound corny. But the leaves are changing, my wind chimes are singing, families and friends are making reconnecting… There’s passion in the air. Passion for loving and living and being more aware of how inspired we can be by the amazing world around us.

“Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.”

~Martha Graham

Our lives are challenging, to say the least. Many of us (myself included) can struggle through the holidays with difficult memories or difficult twists and turns in our lives and families. But this time of the year, EVERY year, I’m determined not to let myself forget that how I react to my life defines my life. And I’m determined to be passionate. I’m determined to love and live and be excited about today and tomorrow–and to hopefully inspire people around me to want the same.

That’s why butterflies are my totem, and a major part of my brand…and my challenge to you ;o) If you feel down or stressed or overwhelmed this year, think of butterflies hovering freely on every breeze, around every flower, in every garden of your imagination. And even when it’s cold outside, they’re waiting, growing inside their cocoons, biding their time until they’ve transformed into something even more beautiful.

Like this!

My November contest prize!

It’s a vintage Alfred Philippi Trifari pin, like the special treasures little Polly cherishes in Christmas on Mimosa Lane.

Enter to WIN here.

Be inspired.

Pay it forward.

Share  your passion this season.

Share your excitement with those you love!

The Soul of the Matter: Listening…

New beginnings aren’t just about action. In my case, there’s no real action yet. But I’m definitely beginning again. A new story in the works, a new release to plan for, a new PR team, a new season for my family as my son prepares to graduate from high school (whimper, sniffle, YAY!).

Before any challenge, and a new beginning is always a challenge, it’s the start that’s so scary, not the actual work to be done. It’s the watching and wondering and trying to subdue those pesky emotions and fears that sucks our momentum and energy away. I’m living that right now. I’m in-the-flesh proof that living never gets “easier,” no matter how much success you’ve had or how far you’ve come (in my case, raising a family and building a thriving publishing career and learning to write emotional novels that connect with readers and finding a publisher and agent and publicity team who believe in my vision maybe more than I can believe in myself yet).

But living isn’t about easy, I’ve learned.

You have, too, right?

To live, not just endure or survive or bide your time, is the goal. It’s the start of all that’s right in the world. Any world, whoever you are and wherever you call home. It’s never going away, the drive to live today. Just today. To make this moment count.

My mind numbs at the possibilities. The responsibilities. The choices and the weight of making them right. The possibilities and how few care what I want them to be, or how I need them to pan out.

Letting go. As you wait and wonder and listen and try to move ahead but feel the weight of all you don’t know dragging you down, it’s tomorrow that you’re hearing, if you let go and let it in. It’s today that stands in your way. It’s worry that you throw in your own path to “soften” the impact.

Step out of those shadows with me. Step over the worry or fear of what could be. Hear only the excitement, the promise that today will fulfill whether you want it to or not. Trust yourself. Trust the unknown.

Live the potential of what could be, not the caution of what might not.

I’ll be hearing, listening for all the great things coming your way, too ;o)

Where do you buy your books? A statistical rant.

Where do you buy your books?

I’ve heard in author discussion recently that the publishing press and the traditional publishers they front for want us to still buy that 70% of all books sold are still sold in bricks and mortar stores.

If they’re talking about only print books, and maybe hard cover books or best-selling authors (and I mean the ones who sell millions of copies of each release), then, yeah, I’ll buy that. And if you’re one of those authors who can score a decent hard cover print run or for whom it doesn’t matter where you sign your next contract you’ll sell because you’re already branded, then New York must seem quite flattering and attractive for you.

If you’re mid-list author or a newbie, or even some of the best-selling authors I know (who’ve for years been hitting lists left and right and USED to score tasty hard cover print runs but not so much anymore), you aren’t buying the above statistic any more than I am. Because you live in the real world where digital is the new mid-list, mass market platform and traditional publishers have no clue how to make digital publishing work except for the branded, and for the branded the money’s still in physical stores.

In the real world, at least in commercial fiction,we want to see our books in stores, but we know that 70% of our sales won’t happen there. At least we hope not, because print distribution more than sucks, it’s becoming non-existent.

I write for Amazon. Montlake. They’ve made me more money in a year (my first novel with them launched the end of Oct., ‘12) than my primary traditional publisher has in my entire career (and that would be over 8 years of being “successful” on their lists). Montlake finds readers who love my work (reviews prove that), buy almost exclusively digital (95% of my sales) and come back for more (proof that my new team understands their marketing business and doesn’t care that we’ve been blacklisted from most physical stores). They’ve sold more of each title so far (including the one that’s currently been out for just a couple of months) than my traditional publisher could through their “successful” print distribution when I walked away.

Do I wish that my Mimosa Lane books were in print bookstores?

I do. Print readers would love them, too, and I trust my publisher to make that connection for me when they can.

Do I regret that I’m making TEN TIMES the royalty rate on my digital sales at Amazon Montalke than I have at any of my traditional publishing houses?

I do not.

Do I believe the publishing press that doesn’t want digital publishing to be the end of the print publishing model as we know it (notice I don’t say the end of print publishing, just that the way it’s always been done is going to have to change) includes my and my peer’s digital sales in their calculation of “book sales” to come up with their 70% statistic?

Don’t make me laugh.

The Soul of the Matter: Eyes Forward. Go on.

You push and fight and work and struggle and win and fail and fight some more. You feel good and bad and take stock and wish you hadn’t and then feel better and stronger and ready to go on. Life goes ahead of you, not waiting, not wondering, not judging but always watching for you to be up for the next challenge. If you’re a parent or a spouse or a partner or a child or a student or a professional or a writer or whatever you might be, you understand. From the moment you wake each morning, you’re on and you choose and you hope for another day in which you stride more than you stumble.

How do you do that, when there’s so much going on and so much behind you and finding your place in it all is overwhelming?

Eyes forward, my friends.

Of course you’ll remember, good and bad, and of course you’ll worry, even when times are good. But you’ll dream, too, and you’ll want. You’ll hope and believe. You’ll pick yourself up and forgive yourself and look to others for help, but not for validation or approval. You’ll be as sensitive and weak as you are and not apologize. You’ll be strong and determined, too. You’ll be exactly what you’re meant to be, and you’ll demand your place–first from yourself and then from others.

Eyes forward, to me, means more than confidence. It’s awareness that where I am isn’t where I’ll always be. No taking the good for granted or assuming the bad is all there is. Celebrate, learn, plan, let go, continue, fight, but breathe through it all and get out of your own way. The rest is noise and my personal stuff and the emotional damage I do to myself when I’m unsure of what else to do, so why not make a mess while I’m stalled.

Why not?

Because my job is to keep my eyes forward and go on.

Yours is, too.

All around me is proof of how lucky I am, how fortunate and blessed, even as the next challenge bears down. All around you, you’ll find the same. All we have to do is see it. Look forward, not backwards or to the side or down at our feet worried that we’re going to trip up and mess up and get it wrong. Whatever “it” is, look forward, look it in the eye, and SEE it. Then step into the opening it creates and conquer that next step and then the next.

Have a great weekend, my friends. It’s going to be absolutely beautiful!

Kindle Romance DAILY DEAL!

Three Days on Mimosa Lane is only $1.99 today, thanks to the Kindle Romance Daily Deal!

Get it while it’s hot!

The Soul of the Matter: The trees are raining…

You wait, a storm’s chaos beyond your night window. The long summer, an overly-warm fall, cling fiercely. A thunderstorm in October.

It feels like forever, as if there will always be more. Steamy humidity. Suffocating.  Like moving through warm water that never cools. You long for the fierceness to break, for the dark storm, this weary season, to pass.

You do not expect such glory.

Morning rises. Trees rain drops of watery sunlight. Leaves chant with each sway of limb and breeze. It’s safe. Come out. Play. You inhale, and you know.

It’s because of the storm, this beauty.

Trust the long nights. The chaos.

Morning magic comes in its own time.

Embrace the rain beyond the window, the storm within. When change is ready for you, step into that glorious opening. Live. And begin the wait again.

How You Write: Somewhat adjacent to “I Give Up!”

Read another segment of my new non-fiction writing project, “How You Write,” HERE.

For those who want more for now, until I pull all the past posts into the new book, check out my blog writing craft series.

Look for more fun, inspirational and other crazy stuff on the blog soon!

Missing everyone bunches!

~~Anna

How You Write: My Non-Fiction Novel Project

Followed my How We Write blog series? How YOU write is the novel project I’ve been waiting to launch forever.

Join me over on Wattpad…

Or wait for the posts to crop up here on the blog.

I’m SUPER excited.

Hope you are, too.

And, yes, I’m back ;o) It’s been a crazy few months of finishing yet another book, burning out, revising regardless, promoting a new release, and getting my feet back under me. But I’m back.

I’ve missed you all!