Sylvia May's Blog, page 3

4 1/2 Star Review!

Recently BREATHING SPACE was reviewed by Long And Short Reviews (LASR) and they gave it four-and-a-half stars! (That’s out of 5) Any time an author gets a positive review for their novel is a time for celebrating. But getting a review as good as this just keeps the smile on my face. The reviewer’s comments inspire me to keep at it, comments��such as:

“Lydia���s story pulled me gently into a soft relaxing time, with a little jolt every now and again to make me aware I had to think of the future too.”

and

“I definitely enjoyed this book and would be happy to read it again, or read another of Ms May���s stories.”

If you’ve read��BREATHING SPACE, check out��LASR’s review and see if you agree with the reviewer. And if you haven’t read it yet, pick up a copy and escape with Lydia.

 

Keeping My Feet Up

Two and a half weeks ago I fell down some steps. I seem to have become more clutzy as I’ve gotten older; don’t ask me why. The result��of this fall, other than my wounded pride, was that I sprained both my left foot��and��my right knee, and tore��the meniscus in that knee. Ouch!

I was thankful that no bones were broken, but these injuries still require what the medical profession calls R.I.C.E.��(Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation)��and six to eight weeks of healing time. So for the past two weeks I’ve been doing a lot of sitting with my feet up.��Initially I thought to myself, “Great! Forced sitting time. I’ll get lots of chapters written, blogs for the whole month, author newsletter sent out. Maybe a��new book proposal…”

Ahem.

You may have noticed that despite my two weeks of forced sitting, there have been no new blogs posted. Nor have you received a newsletter. And you can trust me when I say that I didn’t complete any chapters��or book proposals.

“Why?” you may ask. “You’ve had nothing but time.” I certainly ask that of myself, because suddenly my Monday and Wednesday Aquafit mornings were free, Thursday yoga and badminton were out, Richard did the grocery shopping, I ran no errands. Other than physiotherapy twice a week, I pretty much stayed home all day, every day, and sat on my duff and…

…read, surfed the internet, Skyped and FaceTimed with friends and family, watched TV, knit, did sudokus, played solitaire…

It strikes me that none of these activities involved creativity. During these past weeks my imagination seems to have��been on a sabbatical.��Not just��from��writing, mind you; my painting has been uninspired��and playing the piano and recorder��ceased to ignite me. All I��can attribute this to is the idea that��the blood which��should have been flowing to the right side of my brain has instead been flowing to my knee and foot, healing the distressed tissue. I’ve decided the old adage��that claims, “Out of pain comes creativity” does not refer to actual physical pain. ��At least not for me. For me, the saying should read, “Out of pain comes couch-potato��time.”

However, today I am blogging. This morning I woke up with ideas for my current work-in-progress. And I can’t wait to go to ensemble practice tonight. What does this all mean? That my injuries are healing?��That the right side of my brain is once again getting its regular supply of blood?

One can only hope. Certainly, the swelling has gone down, and while my knee still troubles me quite a bit, the foot is almost back its old self. Soon my schedule will be back to normal,��Aquafit will again be a part of my weekly routine, and hopefully��yoga and badminton will too. And I’ll��stop being a couch potato.

Fingers crossed.

Reinventing Ourselves

This week I sent flowers to one of my sisters. The reason I did so was to congratulate her on the acquisition of her own store. She’d worked as manager in this store for many years, and when the owners decided to sell, my sister bought it. It’s a huge step to take in one’s mid-fifties, but she was ready to take on the challenge and reinvent herself as a business owner.

Thinking about her new venture prompted��me to ponder the subject��of reinvention, a topic I ruminate on��quite frequently. What is it that pushes a fifty-something woman��to take a new direction in in life or to jump into something different and challenging?

Sometimes circumstances direct that decision. In my sister’s case, the fact that the owners were selling the business induced her to consider the idea of taking it over, and she had the��gumption act on the idea. Ten years ago��I went through��a relocation to a different country and it stimulated a reinvention of��myself as an author. Sometimes, though, it’s not external circumstances but an inner voice that challenges a person to make changes. I have another sister who, in her fifties, became a certified pastry chef, and recently she opened her own pastry shop. Another sister (yes, I have lots of sisters–lucky me!) went to teacher’s college in her fifties and completely changed careers.

For me as an author, reinvention is a��compelling topic to explore in fiction; indeed, it’s the subject��that inspires the stories I write. In my novel,��The Unraveling of Abby Settel��,��Abby was forced to make changes and redefine herself��because of a relocation. In��Breathing Space, Lydia makes a decision��that drastically changes everything about her life and causes her to view herself in a completely different light. My current project is a story��about women compelled to reinvent themselves in Bermuda.

Certainly, life is about change, and we all constantly adjust and adapt to whatever gets thrown at us. But actively choosing to take��on new challenges��requires courage��and��motivation. My sisters��have both, and they inspire me with their pluck.

Juggling

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted on this blog. Many distractions, visits, holidays, responsibilities…all these contributed to my blog silence. I��juggle many balls in my daily life, and sometime before Christmas (well, shortly after my last blog post in November) I reached a point where I felt��saturated with computer use. I decided to minimize my time at the keyboard for a while and give myself some Breathing Space. (Gee, doesn’t that sound like a catchy book title?)

But now I’m back, and on track to blog weekly at the very least.

The life of a published author involves so much more than simply writing books. (Although I use the term ‘simply,’ the task of ��writing a novel is anything but simple!) Once the book is completed and published, we��need to promote it and get the word out. In this time of technology, the tools of social media are what we use. I’m on a learning curve–I think I pretty much have Facebook down pat, but what about Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn? (Anything else I should know about?) Trying to utilize those are on my to-do list for the next few weeks.

Something I’ve recently added into my schedule is a part-time job. I’ve come out of retirement as a piano teacher and am now on staff at the Bermuda School of Music. I didn’t realize how much I missed bringing the joy of piano playing to young people until I started doing it again. So now I have another ball to juggle. But I do it out of love for music.

To me, being busy makes for a challenging and stimulating life. So I juggle the author ball, the teacher ball, the mom and oma ball, the wife ball, the woman ball, the friend ball…Life is all about juggling and balance, isn’t it?

Stay tuned–I promise to blog again soon!

5 reasons I’m finding it hard to write today

Some days I’m so pumped to work on my current writing project that I get on my computer before it’s even light out. My characters speak to me, the story plays out in my head like a movie, and I can’t wait to get it down on paper (well, on the computer screen).

However, today is not one of those days. Here’s why…

1. I woke up to rain and grey skies. No rainbow this morning. I feel as if I need to sleep for at least another 3 hours, and I have a headache. It’s hard to be creative when my head hurts and I’m yawning. Is it really not Monday?

2. I’m still psyched about yesterday’s book release, BREATHING SPACE. How does an author spend their time after a new release? Coming up with fresh ways to promote the book…and checking ranking numbers on the online book sellers’ websites. Every fifteen minutes!

3. The characters in my work in progress are not speaking to me; in fact, I have no idea where to take them today.

4. My mind is focused on my website, which I’m revamping with a new (to me) website builder. Huge learning curve. When I work on a project like this, I become slightly obsessed with it. Tweak here, refine there, change this colour, move that graphic…(stay tuned)

5. Today’s schedule is filled with non-author commitments which are distracting me–aquatfit, lunch out, recorder duet rehearsal, choir practise. Hope I manage to tap enough energy to get through all that.

So I think I’ll just give in. No writing today. Instead I’ll work on my website. And make myself a second cup of coffee to try and beat the rainy day blahs.

 

 

In Flanders Fields…and Book Release Day

Sometimes you have to walk away from your life to find yourself…

Today is a very exciting day! My second novel Breathing Space is now available as an e-book. You can get it for your KINDLE, your NOOK BOOK, your KOBO, your iPad iBOOKS, direct from the PUBLISHER, and HERE for any other e-book reader you have. Stay tuned for a date for the print book release.

And lest we forget, it is also Remembrance Day. It seems a small thing to do, to take a moment of silence on this day to reflect on the sacrifices people have made so that we can live the life of freedom that we do. Sacrifices that some are still making in parts of the world. We show our respect by pinning a poppy to our shirts. Why? The poppy became a symbol because of a poem written by Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, which I’ll quote here. It seems an appropriate way to end this post.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Now I’m a Movie Maker

Authors these days wear a lot of hats. Not only do we write books; we have to be our own marketers, becoming website designers, bloggers, tweeters, Facebook aficionados, and who knows what else on the social media circuit. We design bookmarks, organize blog tours and interviews, and do whatever we can think of to get awareness of our book out there.

One of the hats I wore this week was that of a movie maker. In that role, I created a book trailer for my new novel Breathing Space. It was quite fun putting this together, although time consuming. Step one was to write the script. Having read somewhere that the trailer should not simply copy the blurb description on the book cover but be more poetic and abstract, I composed something akin to a poem. Once I had the words, I needed the images. This took the most time as I searched through my own photo files and stock photo websites. I had certain ideas in mind and finding just the right photo and/or video was not easy. Eventually I was satisfied with what I had collected and proceeded to put them together to make a succinct little film. The last step was to find the music, which I did by visiting the website of one of my favourite composers of royalty-free music, Kevin MacLeod.

After putting it all together, there was lots of tweaking, making sure the timing was right in the coordination of the music with the images. Finally it was finished. Want to see the result? Here’s the link.

By the way, this isn’t the first book trailer I’ve made. My first novel, The Unraveling for Abby Settel, also has a trailer posted on Youtube. If you’d like to watch it, click here.

A Scary Night With Gonzalo

Mid-afternoon on Friday, October 17th, we waited for the storm to pick up. The wind was howling, but not with the force we expected later. We kept track of Gonzalo across the island by viewing the webcam set up at Dockyard and the radar map on the Bermuda weather website. Also through conversations with friends across the island via text messaging and Facebook. As long as we had power, we were in touch.

The storm began to intensify on the other side of the island, but it wasn’t so bad where we were, on the lee side of the storm. Friends who live where the storm was hitting the hardest lost power around 4ish and so I lost them on Facebook, but still managed the occasional text message. And then our lights went out an hour or so later. Thankfully, Richard had just finished cooking dinner. We ate by candlelight.

  The storm was still not too bad looking out over the North Shore, so we moved a couple of chairs in front of the patio doors to watch the trees swaying and the rain pelting as it got dark. When there was no more light outside we decided it would not be a good place to be sitting when the winds escalated, and escalate they did.

As the wind bashed around outside, we sat by the light of candles and lantern, reading, playing games, talking. Richard made tea on the camp stove. We sipped our hot drink, and then just before 9:00pm, everything got eerily still. “This must be the eye of the storm,” I said. And so it was. No wind. No noise. It was a bit creepy, but also a relief after hours of howling winds. The quiet lasted for over an hour. It felt as if the storm was over. But of course it was not. As the wind began to pick up again we went to bed.

I startled awake around midnight. Doors rattled. The fireplace rumbled. Trees cracked. Wind bellowed. Sounds I had never heard before stole my sleep from me and they unnerved me. I noticed light in the living room. Richard had been up for an hour already and was reading by lantern light. We wandered around the house. Water was blowing in through the closed doors so we jammed towels in front of them. The wind was sucking water out of the toilets. At edge of the kitchen windows water gurgled. Outside was pitch black so we could see nothing, but we could hear the deluge. The sounds outside were deafening and frightening. We looked at each other in the dim light of the lantern. “This is scary,” we both said.

Eventually I went back to bed and fell asleep to the sound of Gonzalo at his worst. In the morning I woke up around 6:00 and he had gone. Trees still swayed in the wind, but gently. I stepped on the patio to look around. Blue sky peeked through clouds painted pink by the sunrise. White caps swelled across the water. On land, trees were downed, our neighbours’ stone railing was completely destroyed, twigs and leaves were strewn about. And that was just in our small corner of the island. Later in the day we rode around the island and saw distressing destruction, magnificent trees pulled up by their roots, roofs with gaping holes where tiles used to be, traffic lights knocked over, wires down, and strewn about everywhere was foliage, twigs, and dead and dying greenery.

The cleanup has begun, electricity is being restored, and neighbours are helping one another recover. We do not yet have full power, nor water, but today we are borrowing a neighbour’s generator so we can get our fridge cold again, and so we can have access to the Internet. Last night we had dinner with a group of friends at the home of one of them who luckily had power restored. In our conversations, it didn’t matter how often we changed the subject, the topic inevitably veered to our night with Gonzalo. We all need time to process what we went through. Living through an experience like this draws people together and for the support of our friends I am extremely grateful.

A Scary Night With Gonzola

Mid-afternoon on Friday, October 17th, we waited for the storm to pick up. The wind was howling, but not with the force we expected later. We kept track of Gonzalo across the island by viewing the webcam set up at Dockyard and the radar map on the Bermuda weather website. Also through conversations with friends across the island via text messaging and Facebook. As long as we had power, we were in touch.

The storm began to intensify on the other side of the island, but it wasn’t so bad where we were, on the lee side of the storm. Friends who live where the storm was hitting the hardest lost power around 4ish and so I lost them on Facebook, but still managed the occasional text message. And then our lights went out an hour or so later. Thankfully, Richard had just finished cooking dinner. We ate by candlelight.

  The storm was still not too bad looking out over the North Shore, so we moved a couple of chairs in front of the patio doors to watch the trees swaying and the rain pelting as it got dark. When there was no more light outside we decided it would not be a good place to be sitting when the winds escalated, and escalate they did.

As the wind bashed around outside, we sat by the light of candles and lantern, reading, playing games, talking. Richard made tea on the camp stove. We sipped our hot drink, and then just before 9:00pm, everything got eerily still. “This must be the eye of the storm,” I said. And so it was. No wind. No noise. It was a bit creepy, but also a relief after hours of howling winds. The quiet lasted for over an hour. It felt as if the storm was over. But of course it was not. As the wind began to pick up again we went to bed.

I startled awake around midnight. Doors rattled. The fireplace rumbled. Trees cracked. Wind bellowed. Sounds I had never heard before stole my sleep from me and they unnerved me. I noticed light in the living room. Richard had been up for an hour already and was reading by lantern light. We wandered around the house. Water was blowing in through the closed doors so we jammed towels in front of them. The wind was sucking water out of the toilets. At edge of the kitchen windows water gurgled. Outside was pitch black so we could see nothing, but we could hear the deluge. The sounds outside were deafening and frightening. We looked at each other in the dim light of the lantern. “This is scary,” we both said.

Eventually I went back to bed and fell asleep to the sound of Gonzalo at his worst. In the morning I woke up around 6:00 and he had gone. Trees still swayed in the wind, but gently. I stepped on the patio to look around. Blue sky peeked through clouds painted pink by the sunrise. White caps swelled across the water. On land, trees were downed, our neighbours’ stone railing was completely destroyed, twigs and leaves were strewn about. And that was just in our small corner of the island. Later in the day we rode around the island and saw distressing destruction, magnificent trees pulled up by their roots, roofs with gaping holes where tiles used to be, traffic lights knocked over, wires down, and strewn about everywhere was foliage, twigs, and dead and dying greenery.

The cleanup has begun, electricity is being restored, and neighbours are helping one another recover. We do not yet have full power, nor water, but today we are borrowing a neighbour’s generator so we can get our fridge cold again, and so we can have access to the Internet. Last night we had dinner with a group of friends at the home of one of them who luckily had power restored. In our conversations, it didn’t matter how often we changed the subject, the topic inevitably veered to our night with Gonzalo. We all need time to process what we went through. Living through an experience like this draws people together and for the support of our friends I am extremely grateful.

Waiting for Gonzalo

We’re expecting a category 4 hurricane, named Gonzalo, to hit our island today. In the five years I’ve been in Bermuda, there has not been a storm of this magnitude, although we have had a few tropical storms and one minor hurricane (see my video A Weekend With Igor on YouTube). Interestingly, last weekend we were hit by major tropical storm Fay, which was classified as just shy of a hurricane, but it caused damage akin to that of a hurricane. Massive trees were felled, roof tiles blown off, wires were downed and we lost power. Some people still don’t have power restored from that storm, and we will surely lose power again with Gonzalo. The island has been working at a feverish pitch to clear up the debris from Fay before we are hit with Gonzalo.

It might seem strange, but I find the anticipation of a storm like this invigorating. Of course I’m not looking forward to being shut up in a house darkened by closed storm shutters while the wind howls and bashes around outside. And I’m not looking forward to losing power for several days, taking away phone and Internet, not to mention water (it is pumped to our houses electrically). Nevertheless, there is an energy in the air and a strong sense of community all around the island as residents prepare for the storm.

How do we prepare? We stock up on non-perishable foods. We make sure we have lots of drinking water. We fill our bathtubs and containers with water. We get our camp stoves out, and our candles and flashlights. We nail plywood over vulnerable windows and doors, or tape them, or latch down the storm shutters. We move everything from outside–patio furniture, plants, kayaks–to a safe place where the wind can’t pick them up and blow them about. We stock up on books to read, games to play, and wine. We charge up all our devices. We make sure our friends and neighbours are prepared and help them with anything that needs doing. The lucky ones with generators make sure they have enough fuel to power them.

And then we sit and wait and listen to the wind howl…

But right now it’s a breezy morning and I am going for a walk before I can’t any more. Stay tuned for a post-Gonzalo report.