R.J. Samuel's Blog

RJ Samuel Acceptance Speech for Ann Bannon Popular Choice Award 2018 for An Outsider Inside

Acceptance Speech for the Ann Bannon Popular Choice Award 2018

(I was thrilled to win an award voted on by readers, the Ann Bannon Popular Choice Award, and as I was not present for the awards ceremony I want to thank all those who voted and gave me the chance to speak about An Outsider Inside and why I wrote it.)

I would have received this award from Rachel Gold which to me is the most fitting coincidence as she was my alpha editor as we decided she would be called, and the book is what it is because of her. As I’ve said to her, thank you is inadequate.

When I was a child, I lived in Nigeria. I dug a hole in the ground near our house which was on a school campus in Oyo, in the southern tropical part of the country, so the soil was rich and dark. But there were no trees on our plot, just the exuberant garden of banana and papaya, and pineapple and whatever else my dad managed to grow. I don’t know if I would have built a treehouse even if there’d been a tree available. I was a reserved, introverted, mostly quiet child in a pretty loud family. Loud when it actually was all together. But most of my life was spent away from family, as a baby with my grandparents in Kerala or as an unaccompanied minor in a British military boarding school in the hilly tea plantations in southern India, or living with half the family in the red-dust Saharan Northern part of Nigeria, or as a teen, the only child left at home, the only Indian day student at all-Nigerian girls boarding school, or the rare brown person in the almost all-white Ireland where I lived for nearly 30 years.

I am a brown lesbian woman who has had the good fortune to have lived amongst and known a wide variety of people in many countries. While I was blessed to have a good education, I had no formal learning in social studies or politics so I spent most of my time observing and experiencing, but unwilling to speak out too loudly in case I didn’t use the right words, the often required complicated words that I find now more often mask simple truths and serve to divide. I studied the best writers of the stories that enthralled me personally and I learnt how to write entertaining stories. And in those stories I found a way to pass on whatever education I had received, lessons received willingly sometimes, in friendship, love, team, sports, play, fun. Other times, lessons received in the often silent violence of abuse, both physical and emotional, both in excess and in withholding, because that is the power of the charismatic abuser.

An Outsider Inside explores some difficult and diverse issues; narcissistic abuse in relationships, racism in Ireland, homophobia in Indian society, transphobia basically everywhere… How we exclude others even as we tout our inclusivity because of our supposed shared understanding of the pain of exclusion.

Some of the issues explored are from personal experience. I have been surrounded by narcissism and other variations on the spectrum of personality disorders. So for anyone who has experienced this, you will understand when I say my personal learning and life really only truly began in the last few years when I became aware of the effects of those disorders on the recipients. I use the term recipients now as the other words are loaded, victim, survivor, thriver, and while I agree with their accuracy and relevance, I need for myself to use a neutral word such as receiver so that I can examine and understand with less external weight. Many stories are told about people with these personality disorders, often without being aware they have these disorders because many are blessed with extreme charisma, and I believe more stories should be told from the point of view of the receivers, because they are usually quieter, their voices subdued through ridicule, through gaslighting. I believe this is even more important now, that more people recognize the behaviors and realize when they are enabling the charismatic narcissists who are applauded, who rise to prominence and power. Perhaps more importantly, to recognize the effects on the receivers, one of which is feelings of confusion, doubt, and powerlessness. A vicious circle, that further enables.

Of course, the issue of racism affects me directly, and while my longest experience was in Ireland, it has surprisingly been more difficult in recent times and in this country than I ever thought it would be.

Some of the issues don’t affect me directly but writing the book made me explore them further. I’m not transitioning and I’m not planning to even though that has come up as I’ve recently been enjoying performing as a drag king and cross-dressing.

I don’t identify as bisexual, but that is really probably more to do with my lesbian dating/love life being complicated enough, well, mostly non-existent, at the moment as I try to figure out how to actually have a healthy one.

I felt the need to write about biphobia because I realized with surprise that I had internalized it myself. I found out after I wrote the book that there was an unspoken rule in lesfic that bisexuality shouldn’t be included. That shocked me and for a brief moment I worried that the rest of the issues would suffer as a result in that they would not get out there to an audience, but thankfully that was a fleeting thought. I would have proved the exact opposite of my values if I did not include a censored subject solely to retain an audience for the other slightly less censored topics.

This is beginning to sound like the start of a joke. What do you get when a bisexual, a person of color, a narcissistic abuse survivor, and a trans person all walk into the karaoke bar at a lesbian fiction conference? The answer should be nothing special. You pull up a few chairs at the table, and life, the singing, and the conversation go on as normal. I would never ask my bisexual friend to wait outside while I get my other friends a seat at the table.

Once we’re at the table, we all have a voice that deserves the same respect. But that is in an ideal world. In the real world, there are so many factors, the space created at the table, the willingness of those already at the table, the noise level in the bar, the crowd, the music volume and tempo, the acoustics in the room. So many factors in the physical environment not to mention the psychological states, the history of real and imagined interactions.

In writing the book, I did what I thought was my part, getting those friends to the bar, and then I realized that they don’t have a voice unless the audience actually hears them. As an indie and the world’s worst marketer, I know I don’t get the book the audience it deserves. I had hoped that the quality of my writing would put the book in contention for an award in its category as I never expected that an indie, relatively unknown, author could win the Popular Choice award.

Back to the karaoke. Winning the Ann Bannon Popular Choice Award is most important to me because, for a brief moment, the microphone gets shoved into my hand and I have the chance to share a song about my friends so that they can live with a little less pain if the audience recognizes them as fellow human beings. But I can’t tell all their stories in one speech so I get to say their names – Jaya, Ishmael, Isabella, Lana, Chloe, Zara. They are not real people, but they are real lives. Your neighbors, your friends, your family, your readers, your writers. I hand the stage and the microphone over to them and let them sing in my book. I would love you to meet my friends and I hope you love them as much as I do. That is why I hope you read the book and why I am most grateful to those who voted for the book and thereby gave me the opportunity to speak.

To go back to that child in Nigeria. I built a hole in the ground that was my version of a treehouse. It even had little mud shelves and seating. That’s where I played, alone, many nights, apart from the imaginary companions I gained from the pages of the books I read. But this particular story is not about my gratitude to the authors of those books though I have bucketloads of that.

In ‘The Gifted Child’ a non-fiction book about personality disorders, a woman who grew up with narcissistic parents says to her therapist that she’s ashamed because she keeps looking for love from partners who are like her parents. She exclaims in shame how she’s an intelligent woman but it’s like she’s been stupidly talking to a wall, expecting to be heard. And the therapist says something about not being too hard on herself and to think about how lonely a child must be to talk to a wall.

I realized my story is about a young child sitting in a makeshift home in the ground talking to a dirt wall. So while the book is the reason I’m speaking right now, the child is the reason I write. Not to be heard only by a real or imagined audience, but to be heard by that child, to say to that child that the only audience that matters in the end is you and you will never be lonely again if you remember that and you hear that true voice. That voice will never abandon you, it is always present in you.

So this audience I gained through this award is important not in the group but in the individual who might hear my voice and recognize their own. To those that question, that is the importance of an award.

Thank you.

RJ

Armed and almost ready

I find strange ways to silence my voice. I’m working on finding out why, but a mix of factors – personal, familial, cultural, societal – contribute so that when I feel the need to express my bewilderment or anger at a set of structures and rules, I write realms in my mind and those words join the millions of others gathered over a life of mostly quiet observation. The young words push into the decreasing memory space, they watch the older ones fall off the edges, they turn back to face the outside, next time, next time she writes, next time she opens her mouth, we’ll be there, armed with the courage to jump.

One of the strangest ways I find to silence myself is to write a novel. I’m almost guaranteed to imprison those words again, when they’re armed and organized, their desperation cloaked in the quiet politeness of a novel that now needs to fit in to yet another set of structures and rules, those of the ‘publishing’ world where we argue about punctuation, editing, design, creating a brand, finding an agent, the correct way to (not) respond to a personal attack in a review, how to market, how to sell, how (not) to make money, until the energy of those words is depleted, the mind silenced again by the sheer distance of the fall.

I moved to the US for the chance to be in a country where my skin color would not immediately label me. I have to laugh now at my naivety, ending up in a situation where I hesitate to leave my house, because I’m now a brown person walking, where I set my navigation app to alert me if I go even a few miles above the speed limit, because I’m now a brown person driving. The words are gathering, but they will probably slip out in disguise, for the moment, until I am an American citizen.

I hesitate to comment on things going on in Ireland as I don’t live in the middle of it now and I can only find out about it through the filter of the news here (very filtered) and my Facebook friends (possibly an echo chamber, but pierced by hate-filled comments on open threads). I know there’s a debate going on in Ireland about an Irish-born brown person. I know that are many other aspects to the situation, not just the color of his skin. I read the comments on a post about the situation. I felt the same sickening in my gut when I read the lines and between the lines. I only have 30 years of living in Ireland and being an Irish citizen, I don’t have the ‘born in Ireland’ tag, that you can glance at on the collar of a white Irish person’s shirt (on any white person’s shirt). Brown skin is the first handy label, it obscures the ‘Made in Ireland’ for both those who were made there and those who were formed there.  I can only imagine what it feels like to be ‘not Irish’ even though you were born and raised in Ireland. I know what it feels like to agree inside with the Irish friends who helpfully explained that I could never really be Irish. In the same way I knew from a young age that I would never be Nigerian despite being born there. I was Indian, however, until I gave up my Indian citizenship to become an Irish citizen, and in my inner thoughts over the years, I stopped being the Indian I had been and found myself absorbing Irishness, the charm, the humor, the beauty, the warmth, as well as the insularity, and the training that looked at a non-white person and just ‘knew’ they were not Irish.

I wrote a book about an Indian-Irish woman who was born in Ireland, partly because I didn’t want to justify the expectation I felt that I might ever be considered Irish, even by myself, and partly because I wanted her story to speak to the white Irish who can at least allow the unfairness of mentally refusing Irishness to a non-white person who was born in Ireland, even one with a white Irish parent.

Arm out, I held back the hordes of my other words, maybe the next time, the next time I write, the next time I open my mouth, my own story will be there, armed with the courage to jump.

Here are two extracts from ‘An Outsider Inside’ that I’ve picked out, but really the whole book is about labels and fitting in, in whatever society surrounds us.

Prologue

~ 1 ~

Dublin, Ireland. 2012

The shove on my spine was rougher than expected in the jostling, but cheerful, crowd.

I spun round.

He was a typical fecking lesbian-hater. Even had a handwritten ‘No Women Screwing Unless I’m Watching’ sticker on his metal-covered leather jacket. At a Pride march.

I moved towards him, anger outweighing fear. My head came up to his pierced nipples, inches from the swastika tattoo hidden in the jumble of skulls, crossbones, and chest hair. The smell of armpits and the stale sweat of beer on his beard invaded my nostrils.

I took comfort in the gardai I’d noticed about 20 feet away, standing in a group, bantering with the crowd. A female guard who’d eyed me up earlier, now turned, her interest piqued by the altercation.

I glared up at him. “Did you push me?” Raised my voice. “Did you fecking push me?”

He grinned, and I flinched at the stench of his breath. I glanced to the side again, almost wet my pants. Where were the cops? I couldn’t see them on the crowded sidewalk. Too late to back down now. Fecker couldn’t shove me, and get away with it, not here, not now, not with thousands of us marching to be seen and heard.

He said, aiming the comment at the guy beside him, “A fucking loudmouth lesbian.” An English accent. Didn’t think my blood could boil.

“Yes, a lesbian.” Looking him straight in his red-stained eyes, I said. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Yeah, bitch.” He towered over me. My gut crawled into my chest. Fear and anger had clumped into an adrenaline-soaked ball in my stomach. Where were the women? The fading chants of my group dissolving into the crowd of marchers answered that.

Where was the guard? I risked a glance to where the cop in her now welcome navy uniform had been. There! Two uniforms, pushing through the bodies.

My eyes flicked to his.

His mouth twisted into a snarl. “Not just lesbian, a bastard mulatto.”

The matching, but bigger, companion snorted from his right. “Which one of your parents was the black bugger?”

The first thug leaned in, inflamed eyeballs receding under heavy lids. “Bet a pound twas a dirty black fucker fucked your cheap white mother.”

The fear got swallowed up in the old dark cloud that rose from my heart, fogged my brain. I screamed above the noise. “He was an Indian motherfucker and she is a gorgeous Irish woman who’d eat you English Nazi bastards for breakfast.”

The cops barked warnings, getting louder as they neared, but I yelled into the angry face above me. “Hope you get what’s coming to you in our Irish jail tonight.”

He swung. I ducked and his fist and arm ploughed through the male cop. I leaped to my left as the female cop’s baton crashed down on the thug’s skull, felt a pinch on my jacket as I fell past the other Nazi.

A few colleagues surrounded her, their batons ready, but the thug was out cold and his buddies backed away.

“Are you okay?” Her voice held more concern than required, seeing as I’d escaped and her partner had taken the blow.

 

Time crawled by on its knees.

 

I nodded.

Grinned up at the cute cop.

She knelt. “Don’t worry, there’s an ambulance coming.”

“Why?” The word trudged off my tongue. My mind wandered, not sure where.

 

Gentle hands on my clothes, my lapel badges clicking through the buzz in my ears.

 

I looked along my body.

 

Darkness crept out in a circle on the pocket of my pink jacket. Chloe had given it to me a long time ago, but she’d only gone last month.

My hand fretted at the stain, fighting a strange, uncaring, gravity. I squinted at my fingertips. Crimson blurred from six of them.

The breeze touched my brow, chilly on wet skin. I shivered.

The cute cop’s hair shone above me, a dark halo against the sun.

My throat protested, muscles tired, but the words needed out. “My name is Jaya Dillon. I am a lesbian. I am Irish-Indian. I have the right to walk the streets of my country.”

Her eyes were kind. “Yes, you do.” She smiled, held my blood-splattered hand, the only part of me that felt warm. “How bout doin that without pissin off the nut jobs who’d beat up anyone who’s different?”

I wasn’t sure if my lips arrived at a smirk though my cheek muscles started the journey. “Wouldn’t be as much craic now, would it?”

The bursts of a siren picking its sluggish path through the throngs pierced her surprised laugh as the light faded from my day.

 

Edited Extract (to avoid spoilers as this passage appears twice in the book in different ways) –

“I dropped out of the womb of an Irish-American banished to Ireland by her white family, onto an Irish hospital bed so that gave me the Irish part, the shocking sight of my darker than expected skin and hair lessened slightly (and a little later) by eyes, all of me darkened by the genes of an Indian student visiting New York then gone, lightened by my mother’s pale blonde blue gave the nurses and my mother’s extended family pause before condemnation, gave me a chance in the depths of seventies rural Ireland, a tanned baby rather than the black babies they were instructed to be charitable to, but who’d never drop into their midst, who’d never be one of them.

My mother’s fierce protectiveness, fierce as a lioness who knows her cub is unique, damaged, different, special, beautiful, would inspire unwelcome feelings in the village, even the good feelings uncomfortable, who wants change, but the lioness banned from the wild for being too wild was not going to be tamed by the laws of rural life. She flowed through, her cub in tow, demanding the glory for having produced such an exotic seed. And the family and village, dazzled by her leonine charm, opened their hearts to the bedraggled cub who didn’t officially know she was not full lion, more half-lion, half-tiger.

I was occasionally reminded of my difference, not by accuracy, but by the chants that followed the Travellers when they stopped by the village. I look more like one of them, the easy-tan skin, the dark-blonde hair, and amber eyes glowing with the same wildness no matter how much I kept it hidden under the required tameness of me.

I’m ashamed I didn’t stand up for the Travellers, not that they needed my help and I didn’t add to the chants, but inside I found myself counting the ways I was Indian-Irish or Irish-Indian and the ways I was special rather than different, oh, your hair is so thick and lush, your eyes, holy jesus, they are something else that colour, you lucky thing, you get such a nice tan, no fecking freckles on you.

See, that’s my Indian side. Though the impression most of the village had of Indians was the roaming Sikh salesmen so I guess I was an itinerant to them, anyway. I hadn’t yet seen, and neither had they, the explosion of medical and scientific staff from India and Pakistan, the gentrification of the Indian image in Ireland took place in towns and cities out of view of my child eyes and happened only in my twenties when I was away from the rural, when I was in the urban of Galway, when I creaked and groaned with the growing pains of modern Ireland, growing, but yet unable to graft new shades of skin, unable to see beyond into the Irishness of birth, of soul, of thought, of presence. There were scales everywhere. I felt sorry for the blackest of the Irish born here, but never Irish to the Irish; the half-skinned, born here, but considered a curiosity, a half image of Irish; and the light-skinned right-blooded, not born here, but Irish by heritage, a full image of Irish, but still not full Irish to the Irish.

There are years and years of Irishness I don’t get to claim as there are years and years of Indianness I don’t get to claim either, except in my genes, but all they produce are the features that give me access, the legal right to be present. They don’t give me the key to the Irish and certainly not to the Indian. They give me a door to the displaced, the window on the itinerant passing by, who at least belongs in his own world of motion.”

Recording the journey – August 2017

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of blog posts recording the journey of bringing one of my visions to life.

It’s a long story as to how I got here, to this point.

It involves (in part):

Ten moves in three years,

eleven losses in eleven years, the latest two in the space of four months,

different jobs, sick buildings, veterinary hospitals, diverse landscapes, extreme climates,

new friends, new stories, new loves.

And a constant dream, re-imagined.

I’m taking stock now. Dreaming, planning, sending out visions.

Recovering, taking a breath, mourning.

I’ve gotten through the last few years unconsciously relying on writing, moving, making new connections. In the last year, I’ve used a more conscious approach with counseling, therapy, painting, writing, resting, friends, karaoke, improv…

Every day is pierced with unwelcome memories and microscopic chaos. With gratitude, pain, fear, depression, silence, anxiety, joy, love, friendship, laughter, gratitude, always gratitude.

The depth of layered emotions is daunting. So most of the time I skim the surface, deal with the ripples, bob gently, return to calm. Occasionally, I delve deeper, one dive, touching the indigo. Always resurfacing, changed, sometimes gasping for breath, other times quiet, aware, floating. Remembering when I was being taught the mechanics of swimming, that how I finally felt secure was by learning how to float, knowing that I could switch onto my back and float and I would be fine.

Right now, I’m floating on the surface, looking at the sky and clouds drifting, dreaming my vision of what I will create next. This place I have felt at the edges of my soul for as many years as it has been aware.

Home.

Community.

I’ve dreamt it, talked it, skirted it, faced it. Now I build it.

And record the journey.

In the last year, I managed to stumble onto land, a house to be restored, a lake here and to come, wildlife including the biggest bugs I’ve ever encountered…

Yesterday, I got a name, booked the domain, designed a logo.

No concrete plans yet, just a wisp and a vision about what a part of the destination will include: sanctuary, gentle social interaction, nature, wildlife, reading, writing, painting, fishing, walking, hiking, pets, gardening, cooking, yoga, massage, meditation, improv, life coaching, book clubs, pool, singing, games, movies, and more…

Next step: Planning a lake and garden

Guest Blogging at Women and Words

Thanks to the cool women at Women and Words!

Guest Blogging at Women and Words

Have a read, and leave a comment to win an eCopy of A Place Somewhere.

The Writing Process Blog Tour

This is my contribution to the “blog tour” game going around the Internet (#Mywritingprocess). Authors blog about their writing process and then tag someone else to do the same. I was tagged by Sandra Moran, an author I’m very happy to have met recently and whose book ‘Letters Never Sent’ was the first full-length novel I’ve read in ages. It was definitely worth breaking my fiction reading block for this excellent book. See her blog post here.

1. What am I working on?

I released my fourth novel ‘A Place Somewhere’ in March (along with a song for the book), and promised myself a break to deal with moving from Ireland to America. However, as seems to happen every time I finish a novel, another one bubbles to the surface.

So now I’m working on the third in the Vision Painter series. I I have an outline worked out and the characters have been talking away to me on my many walks with Clio through my new (temporary) neighborhood.

I’m still at that early stage where decisions can shape the whole outcome. As they say, every journey of a thousands steps begins with one step. If that step sets the novel off in the direction of the East instead of West, it will end up completely different. I find that thought exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.

Falling Colours and Casting Shadows (the first two books in the Vision Painter series) were quite different from each other, and I enjoyed both in different ways. Falling Colours introduced the unique concept of vision painting and its power while Casting Shadows delved into the origins and secrets of the profession.This, as yet untitled, sequel will focus more on the beauty of the unique concept of vision painting, and its future. And there will still be love, pain, deception, and a few twists along the way. Kiran has to face a whole new set of challenges, including a new vision painter in town.

2. How does my work differ from others in the same genre?

I‘d be a lot more able to answer this question if I knew in what genre I wrote and so counted as the ‘same genre’.

I don’t really write by genre. I write the story I need to tell, and everyone’s story is different. I draw from my diverse background as an Indian, born in Nigeria, living for many years in Ireland, and with all my family in America. From my educational and career background as a doctor, an IT person, a restaurant/bar owner, a writer. Even from my brief experiences in summer jobs as chambermaid, inventory clerk, pizza cutter, physiotherapy assistant, flower-stall ‘manager’. From my interests, my daily life, my loves, my failures, my successes.

My work will always, therefore, be different from the work of other writers in any genre. In the same way that their stories will be different from mine.

3. Why do I write what I do?

I write to find out what I believe, what I feel, what life is about, what love is about. To answer the many questions that I have. I write characters who are not me, but they allow me to live in them, to see what could happen in another world, to achieve a temporary sense of control, to say and do what I should have, to make sense of what others do.

I’ve always been an introvert and sometimes, in the past, I’ve lived through my avid reading. Since I started writing stories, I have lived in the minds of many different characters. I’ve had their voices playing in my head. In those years, there have only been a few weeks, between projects, where I’ve woken up to just my voice, to the ‘reality’ of a life where none of us has any control. The sensible advice would probably be to ‘get out more’, but I feel less alone by having the capacity to live in those parallel lives, to have the company of my ‘imaginary friends’ as well. And sometimes I discover things in my characters or my fictional worlds that help me in my ‘real’ life.

4. How does my writing process work?

I’d love to be able to answer that now in the same way that I did for a blog post months ago or years ago. But it has changed again. My writing process seems to be changing along with me, as I grow and learn.

I still work along the basic lines of – get an idea (or get hit on the head with an idea), develop the idea into a concept by asking ‘what if’ questions, work out an outline, design the architecture of the story, write the scenes. I edit as I write, so the next step for me is to get the manuscript to trusted beta readers and see if there is anything that isn’t working for them.

What has mostly changed for this novel are the mechanics of writing. I’m not at my usual writing spot, with my usual PC/laptop. (I’m supposed to be learning MAC programming so I’m now Windows-less and that’s a big change after so many years). When I wrote longhand, it was on the back of old typed printouts of my previous novels. Now I’m carrying around a purple ruled notepad that I stole from my nephew’s collection for school. I try to keep the notepad near me, but usually get whole conversations playing out in my head while I’m on my many walks with Clio (I know, I know, I’m repeating myself, but she really has become very demanding). The walks can be very good for percolating, and I’ve managed to come back from them and get a few conversations down on paper. Which is another change that I noticed from the last few months of writing ‘A Place Somewhere’. I’m writing down more conversations between characters and then building scenes around them.

The best analogy I can think of for my writing process is that of a train. I decide that I’m going to take a journey, I pick my departure and destination and construct a railway line with stations along the way. I create the scenes as compartments of the train. While all of that might seem very structured and mechanical, I need it to keep on track. I invite the characters on the journey and give them the freedom to be themselves within the compartments. They can have a riotous party or they can talk quietly amongst themselves. There are times when I’ve caught them running along the roof of the carriages whooping and hollering, but ultimately we all remain on the train and it is up to me to keep them on board and drive that thing to the destination.

At the moment, with the WIP, I have gathered everyone together for the journey and I’m laying out the tracks. I wrote the Prologue (got too excited about writing again and jumped ahead of myself), but I’m not allowing anyone on board until I’ve figured out the journey. Some characters have already started to have conversations on the platform, so I’m taking notes. With everything that is going on in my life, they’re going to have to be patient..

I’m tagging Caren Werlinger, author of Looking Through Windows, Miserere, In This Small Spot, and Year of the Monsoon. Her newest release, She Sings of Old, Unhappy, Far-off Things, will be available in May. You can find out more about her work at www.cjwerlinger.wordpress.com.

I’m also tagging Kate McLachlan, author of RIP Van Dyke, Rescue at Inspiration Point, Hearts,Dead and Alive, and Murder and the Hurdy Gurdy Girl. Her latest book, Return of an Impetuous Pilot, was released in March 2014. Please check her out at http://www.katemclachlan.com.

And last, but certainly not least, I’m tagging my best hugger Tonie Chacon McLachlan, wife of Kate McLachlan, and author of Struck! A Titanic Love Story which is being published in April 2015. http://www.toniechacon.homestead.com.

Going to add another tag

I’m tagging Suzie Carr, author of Staying True, Inner Secrets, The Fiche Room, Tangerine Twist, A New Leash on Life, The Muse – A Novel of Romance and Discovery, and Two Feet off the Ground. Her latest release, The Journey Somewhere is now available. Find out more at http://curveswelcome.com.

The Princess Clio Diaries: Musings on my life with my human – Day who knows

It’s a dog eat dog world

Me: So what would you like to eat today?

Clio: I’ve a choice? Is that diet you have me on optional?

Me: Not really. But I heard something the other day and I wanted to make sure.

Clio: So this blog post is about you? I knew it. How long has it been? I mean, this has got to be Day 500 or something.

Me: I’ve been a little busy…I did do some writing, you know.

Clio: Oh, I know. I mean seven blog posts on your trip to PTown.

Me: I did a lot there.

Clio: Was I there..?

Me: No…

Clio: Right. So this blog post is about you again?

Me: No, no, we’ll get back to you. How would you like them served?

Clio: What served?

Me: The doggies you’ll be eating.

Clio: What?!

Me: Well, I heard it is a dog eat dog world.

Clio: So you thought I’d like roast leg of Labrador?

Me: They say babies are very tender..

Clio: Roast Leg of Labrador Puppy??

Me: You’re on a raw food diet. No roasting. Tell me, if I brought the puppy in here, would you mind awfully if I left it to you to do the necessary?

Clio: Wait, wait.. I see what you’re up to. Are we adopting a puppy? Because if we are, I’ve got to make sure you and the little tot understand the ground rules.

Me: We’re not. Ahem.. I think I’m the one who should be making the rules.

Clio: As I was saying.. One, there are no vacancies for King or Queen. Those are arbitrary words. Just because my title is Princess does not, I repeat, not, mean that any royalty extends to anyone else in the house.

Me: I thought I was –

Clio: No input really necessary. Just write.

Me: Right..

Clio: Two, any time involved in the upkeep of a puppy must not be subtracted from the time spent on me.

Me: But you are a full-time job…

Clio: Three, the puppy must be trained properly from the start. A few steps behind me is fine when we’re out in public. In the house, there’s a spot in the hallway that I’m not all that fond of, it can have that.

Me: But –

Clio: Four, boys only. We both know from experience what havoc females can cause.

Me: Anything else?

Clio: Something might occur to me after you type all that out.

Me: Right. So, I guess you wouldn’t want to eat the puppy..? You know, dog eat dog world…you’re a dog, it’s a dog..

Clio: I’m a dog?

Announcing the publication of A Place Somewhere

I am thrilled to announce that my fourth novel, ‘A Place Somewhere’, is now available on Amazon and Smashwords.

How far would you go? Would you lie to protect the innocent?

ALEX HART risked everything to be with her online girlfriend of two years and moved from Ireland to America. But the unthinkable happened and she is emotionally and financially ruined. Devastated, she turns her anger and betrayal into a mission to root out those who deceive the innocent online.

When a mother pleads for Alex to protect her daughter from an online predator in Ireland, Alex must become what she hates.

How far will she go before losing herself in her own web of deception?

A Place Somewhere on Amazon.com

A Place Somewhere on Amazon.co.uk

A Place Somewhere on Smashwords

It arrived earlier than expected and the song of the same name that was to be released with it is only going to be recorded on Thursday and should be available on iTunes etc by Friday.

Provincetown Women’s Week 2013 – Part 7

Sunday morning was spent wandering around town saying goodbye. Knowing that I would never experience PTown again as a first-timer falling in love with the energy that is Women’s Week, but hoping that I would make it back and enjoy it as much, even if in a different way.

I had planned to leave PTown by bus on Sunday morning to make the 4-hour journey back to Logan Airport for my 9 p.m. flight back to Dublin, but during the week I’d received the offer of a lift from a lovely woman who was dropping her friend off there for a Sunday night flight. On Saturday night, I didn’t really want to leave early Sunday morning and the thought of the long ride to Boston in traffic was not appealing. Lauren and Tina and her parents encouraged me to book a flight on the tiny puddle jumper on which they were flying the next afternoon at 3 p.m. What could be easier, they said. A fifteen minute scenic hop across the ocean, straight to Logan Airport. Repeated mentions of my terror of flying sounded hollow, after all the little challenges I had set myself for the week and mostly all accomplished. So I booked the flight early in the morning and resigned myself to another new experience.

Can a plane BE any smaller..?

My nerves were starting up again through the packing, the taxi ride with the others, seeing the tiny 10-seater plane for the first time, the security checks, and being separated from all my baggage as the plane was too small for us to take on carry-on luggage. As we walked the tarmac to the smallest plane I had ever been near, I was told I had to sit in the co-pilot seat. They seemed to be balancing the plane out in terms of weight. This, to a person who can’t even comfortably put her feet on the floor in a full-size commercial jet in case she ‘un-balances’ the plane, was just one step too far. My new-found courage melted and I’m not too ashamed to say I begged. Tina’s mum stepped up, all excited to co-pilot the plane. I crawled sheepishly into the seat behind her. Lauren sat at the back of the plane and Tina sat behind the pilot. I didn’t remember until the middle of the flight that Tina was afraid of flying too, and Lauren, the calm one who enjoyed flying, was way back at the end (or as way back as you can get in a 10-seater).

Tina taking photos, I’m the frozen one on her right

As we readied for takeoff, the pilot appeared to be reading the manual on how to fly the thing. Or that’s what it looked like to me, he seemed unsure and a little fidgety, and it seemed to take a lot of revving to get the plane to taxi down the runway and lift off the ground. I took comfort from the calmness of the other passengers. I’ve always been relatively fine during landings as I could see the ground and the flights were over, so this time, as we could see the ground(sea) the whole flight, and we could see the skyline of Boston for most of the 15-minute flight, I was actually fine. Apart from the one time an orange light flashed on the dashboard and an alarm sounded briefly seeming to startle the pilot. There is something to that saying, ‘feel your fear and do it anyway’, though there is a time and a place and I would not have been able for this flight a week earlier.

Biting my nails at the start

Managing a smile in the middle

So glad to be on solid ground at the end

Lauren and Tina and her parents hung out at the airport and we ate pizza and chatted. I was sorry to part ways with them, but we had to too soon as their flight was leaving a lot earlier than mine. I wandered to the right terminal and settled in to wait for my flight to Dublin, sad to leave, but anxious to get home. The time passed quicker as I ended up chatting at the gate to I. Beecham who was on the same flight to Dublin on her way back to the UK. I think I might actually have slept on the flight home, exhaustion and my experiences in PTown making me a slightly different person compared to the terrified one who flew out just the week before.

After it all, Home is where I get to cuddle Clio.

Home, and Clio would not let me out of her sight

As far as the reason I went to PTown in the first place – as an author and to network – I found it difficult to relax and just enjoy all the readings while I was also a part of the events and while I was fulfilling my promise to take part in every possible minute of PTown Women’s Week. I couldn’t slip comfortably back into the role of a reader as there was so much going on in me and around me. Therefore, I probably did not absorb or learn as much about the lesbian fiction scene as I should have. Despite being an author and reading on the panels, I was still in awe of the established authors and didn’t take the chance to talk properly with them and ask them the questions I wanted to. I spent more time with the performers, observing them and asking myself questions about their capacity to bare their souls on stage, their support for each other, their obligation to be known, yet remain private.

For many reasons, the experience changed me and was well worth the trip. I discovered that fear has kept me from being the person I can be, from reaching out and from experiencing a lot more that life has to offer. It was wonderful to rediscover the me that people enjoyed meeting.

I know that PTown is a bubble and that the ‘real’ world outside can be a bit of a shock back to reality. Being able to walk down a street where being gay or lesbian was the norm, feeling equal, normal, a part instead of apart, is an experience that I wish I could have every day, until it becomes my ‘normal’, inside me as well as outside. I don’t know how long that will take, but until it happens where I live, I hope to get away and feel it again in Provincetown in 2014, and 2015, and so on. I may not be able to experience that ‘normality’ again, but I can take the feeling with me and I have the memories.

Most importantly, I will have the new friends I made there. A gang of us are already planning our next trip somewhere, and I can’t wait.

Provincetown Women’s Week 2013 – Part 6

On Saturday morning I traipsed Commercial Street, on one of the few occasions when I felt alone there, as though I was obvious in my solitude and that was something to feel ashamed about. I spent a while sitting on a bench looking out at the ocean and tried to write. I managed a few passages, but I knew I didn’t want to spend my little remaining time in a way that I could when I was back at home, though I was soothed by the beautiful view of the ocean.

I cheered up as I enjoyed the last show by Kristen Becker (supported by Jami Smith), another pair of comediennes that I had seen around many times over the week. When I walked back onto the main street, I was lucky enough to bump into Kate McLachlan, Tonie, and their two friends and have lunch with them. We ate outdoors and chatted and it was another unexpected gift from the week. To get to spend time with them, to talk about where they lived, Kate’s work, my work, and the world of lesbian fiction reading in general.

Authors Kate McLachlan, Tonie Chacon McLachlan, and friends, Brenda and Klaire

I left them to try to find Joan Timberlake who had promised on Facebook to serenade me with her jazz band if I got up the nerve to book my flight. Now it should have been easy to spot a 10-piece lesbian jazz band you’d think, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Thankfully, as I was walking around later, Joan and another band member walked by and proceeded to play to me right there on the street. And I got to hear them all ten of them playing on Sunday morning.

Getting serenaded on the streets of PTown by Joan Timberlake (with the white hat) and jazz band member.

Joan Timberlake and the full band on the Sunday morning

Saturday evening was a bit of a daze, rushing around, getting to see a few of the different musical acts at the UU Meeting Hall, and then the Drag-In with Jennie McNulty and Mimi Gonzales at the P.O. Cabaret for the wild adventures of Dirty Steve and Juan A. Nother (with guest appearances by Vicky Shaw and Jessica Kirson).

Another great show, shared this time with Lauren, Tina and Tina’s parents. And after to the Crown and Anchor for the Grand Finale Party and a late-night session of duck-throwing at P’Town Essentials, an altogether weird and wonderful end to the PTown nights out.

Next, the end of a great week and flying through fear

Provincetown Women’s Week 2013 – Part 5

I was now almost dreading the Friday reading. I knew there were going to be more people there as there were established authors on the 6-author panel. And Mimi Gonzalez had mentioned it in her show. I woke up at 6 a.m. and changed the reading. Then changed it again. Practised it, checked the timing. Finally I found a section of Falling Colours that fit into the five minutes I knew we would be kept to in this reading. I decided to use the minute of intro time I had to thank Mimi Gonzalez for what she had done for me, for my confidence, for her support of others. The morning passed in a flurry of preparation. I attended the reading that was held just before ours. Excellent readings, though erotica read aloud in public at 10 a.m. in the morning was a bit unsettling. The room emptied and then gradually filled up again as the time grew near. I saw Mimi arrive, slightly the worse for wear after the Idol show and after party, trying to hide at the back of the room.

Mimi Gonzalez, me, and Liz Bradbury just before the readings started

I sat on the high stools at the top of the room with Liz Bradbury, Joan Timberlake (who had promised earlier to serenade me with her saxophone playing), Melissa Brayden, Susan X. Meagher, and Barbara Sawyer.

Susan X. Meagher, Melissa Brayden, Joan Timberlake, Liz Bradbury, Barbara Sawyer, and me. Mercedes Lewis at the podium

I was reading first and I spent the first minute talking about the show the evening before and thanking Mimi (and hopefully embarrassing her just a little) and the last few minutes reading quickly through the section in Falling Colours. I’m not sure how it came across to the audience, but it did feel rushed and a little distracted to me. All the authors read in the five minutes allocated to them, but there was no time for the discussion afterwards that we had enjoyed in the reading panel the day before.

Fran and Lucy getting a signed copy after the reading

The audience was supportive and after the panel, I again experienced the wonder that comes with being asked to sign a book that readers had just bought, especially as they were now friends too.

Womenscraft

Liz Bradbury and I signed books at Womenscraft, and while Liz bemoans the fact that she didn’t think of the hug for booklet exchange idea, I now bemoaned the fact that I hadn’t thought of her idea to give away those tickets at the readings.

Book signing at Womenscraft with Liz Bradbury

There was a queue to exchange the tickets for her booklet and signing, and I twiddled my thumbs beside her at the table until some customers thankfully took pity on me and asked me who I was. I had run out of booklets so I signed business cards and chatted with them.

I was determined to pay it forward and after the signings, Liz and Trish and I decided to go to see Mimi’s show. We were joined by Lauren and Tina. This time, I was more relaxed and able to just enjoy the high-energy comic craziness. And after watching Karen Williams emceeing the Idol show, I had to go to her show, which was another excellent one. She was warm and funny and was about to use me as material, along with Gladys and Anne, but decided to be gentle on me and let me away with my dignity intact.

I got to hang out with Lauran and Tina and Michelle and Nancy at the party later that night. And with Tina’s parents, who didn’t officially know about them. I’m hoping this blog isn’t what informs them, but I think I’m safe to assume that a week at Women’s Week in Provincetown meeting a lot of lesbians, lesbian authors, and lesbian comediennes, might just have done the trick already.

I love stand-up comedy. I watch the UK comics, mostly male, on the comedy channels. I hadn’t heard of many female comics and only one or two of the lesbian comics By now, I had been to a lot of the comics’ shows in Provincetown, yet I still hadn’t seen Suzanne Westenhoeffer’s. I’d heard she was on crutches after an accident. In all the years in Ireland since listening to her tape, I’d never had a chance to actually see her live. For some reason, it became a big deal to me to get to see her show before the week was over. I finally managed it on Friday night. Rushed home to change after Karen Williams’ show and got to the venue a little late. I was let in through the back door and passed a blonde woman sitting on a stool who made a motion with her hand as I walked by. So I stopped and tried to hand her my ticket. Yes, it was Suzanne Westenhoeffer. She just looked at me in horror and said ‘Oh no!’. Now thoroughly embarrassed, I made my way through all the couples and sat by myself a few rows from the front. Suzanne was in a body cast of sorts and had to do the show while sitting on a chair on the stage. She was funny, yet I have to say I was left with a slight bitter taste in my mouth after her show, one I didn’t have with any of the other shows, even the one in which I was teased mercilessly by Mimi Gonzalez. Suzanne Westenhoeffer may have been one of my idols before PTown, but I’m glad I got introduced to some incredibly funny, generous, warm-hearted comediennes I had the luck to see, like Mimi Gonzalez, Jessica Kirson, Karen Williams, Kristen Becker, Jami Smith, who with others like Kate Clinton, Jenny McNulty, Vickie Shaw, Poppy Champlin, made the week so much more fun than I had ever expected.

Next, lovely lunches, being serenaded, and throwing ducks