Steven Lee Gilbert's Blog, page 3

NC Author Tribute month

Over at Booksie’s Blog, Sandie is reviewing books by North Carolina authors, of which I am fortunate to include myself. She says of the intention behind her tribute is to:

…set aside June to celebrate all things North Carolina.  All books reviewed in June will either be by a NC author (born here or currently living here) or have a North Carolina location.

Today she writes about A Lovely, Indecent Departure. See what she has to see about what calls is “a masterful debut.”

On a side note, June is full of equally exciting news & events surrounding the book

If you haven’t signed up for my Goodreads Q & A, please consider joining. I love talking about the book, but more than that I love talking about the writing craft and the passion that fuels the stories we read.
Also, if you’re in the Wake Forest, NC area on Friday, June 8th, I’ll be giving a reading and book signing at The Storyteller’s Bookstore downtown. You can find more details here.
Lastly, you’ll find in all of tomorrow’s three print editions of The Wake Weekly, an interview I gave to the paper’s owner and editor, Clellie Allen.

Thanks for visiting my blog and please feel free to drop me a comment any time.

A Lovely book review for “A Lovely, Indecent Departure”

Megan, from the book review blog, Love, Literature, Art and Reason, calls A Lovely, Indecent Departure “a literary novel, a thriller, a mystery all wrapped up in one package.”

Check out Megan’s complete review:

To order your a paperback copy today click here, or select the eBook format of your choice from the menu to the right.

Check out the other reviews of the book by clicking over to the Reviews page above, or simply click here.

And My Hero Is…

The overdue final chapter of Diabetes Blog Week. This from the champ herself:

 

My heroes are my mom and my dad. They’re my heroes because they help me through type one diabetes. Also, because they make me feel special. They do that just by talking to me. Just a few people do that at school and anywhere else. I’m glad that they are my parents because then I wouldn’t be able to tell them how big a difference they are in my life. I don’t know where I would be at the moment if I didn’t know them. They’re my hero because they care about me and they love me. And I love them, too.

 

 

Sometimes I feel…

Trapped

 

 

You Should Know

Day 5 of Diabetes Blog Week. The topic: What is one thing you would tell someone who doesn’t have diabetes about living with diabetes?

 

This is a hard one for me. But it shouldn’t be. If you’ve followed my writing at all, you know with what vigor, emotion and honesty I’ve sought to unearth and define for myself—and for others—so many of the deep, troubling aspects of living with diabetes. I’m talking beyond the mechanics of blood sugar checks and carb counting, beyond IVs and Christmases spent in the hospital. Beyond shots and bruises and tender, hurt feelings.

These are things I never understood about myself or about life or creed or my family and the people I love. Tiny outlooks. Perceptions. Conclusions. Sentiments both large and small that arrived not at the end of some long and incredible journey as perhaps I once eluded, but which sank in slowly, over time, in the face of a mountain of resistance and struggles against them, turning them away, begging them leave us—leave her—alone. At some point there is nothing left to do but embrace them because they are all there is in this world and all there ever will be until such time as things change. And they will, one day.

Life is a revolving door. Attitudes come, attitudes go. We, too, change. We learn. We grow. We rise to the call. And I suppose if there is but one thing I would say to someone about what it is like to life with diabetes it would be that. It is a vocation, a duty, an occupation that knows no end, no weekend, no holidays, no worry-free golden years. From others it beseeches consideration, understanding, and for some: devotion, loyalty and a faithfulness that anything in life is possible with love.

Say No More

Today’s topic on Diabetes Blog Week is to write about our Fantasy Diabetes Device. The one item we’d love to see developed to make the care and treatment of diabetes better, easier, simpler, less painful. You name it. The sky’s the limit. Here is my fanciful wish:

 

Say no more

 

Say no more,

Say no more.

These are pretty neat things,

I would say if I’m asked,

And the things that they do

Well…they seem up to the task.

But if I had my way,

I would tell you this much,

I would toss out those names

In one alphabet bunch.

I’d start over from scratch, with every last one.

I’d make it my job… dare I say, my mission

That every last one of those needful devices,

Would get a new name…a kinder edition.

Take Test Strip for instance…just for example,

After a spin through the Name Fixer-Upper,

The word it spits out so cheerfully better.

Now call it a Bodiddly Beandip Whopper?

Or look at this meter and alcohol swab,

Down the word chute they go… now up on the lever

The names that pop up on this dandy Name Namer

Could be Bartle or Bob and a Cootie-free Cleaner.

And who ever heard of an infusion set,

Who didn’t think first and foremost about it,

That an object of such animosity

Would serve us much better if we just called it Mit.

Finally there’s a thing called an Animas Ping—

Wait a minute just now… that’s not really so bad.

But pairing it up with the surname One Touch?

How about we lighten it up with Do-dad.

I hope you see now, it all makes perfect sense,

A machine that names names without any offense.

There is one more item I feel is amiss

Instead of a painfully sharp pointy prick,

I wish lancets would render a butterfly kiss.

Hulk Smash

Yesterday I wrote about Franca and Lia and their strength and indomitable spirit to stare down the maw of diabetes no matter what, any day of the week, standing firm behind the motto: You want a fight? Bring it. For day 3 of Diabetes D-Blog Week the focus shifts to development, a topic for which I will turn the attention to me.

I am by no means a tinkerer. I have no patience for the preciseness it usually requires and would rather do just about anything than spend my time fine-tuning, adjusting, or otherwise engaged in the activity of repair. For me, playing the guitar (if that’s even what I should call it) is about as much experimentation as I care to do. Life, I believe, is to be lived, not calibrated. Besides, my Dad didn’t know how to fix shit and never taught me and so despite my collection of sockets, screwdrivers and power tools, I’d just as soon leave them in the packaging they came in. As it is for the most part, they’re just cluttering up the garage. If something is broken or out of tune, my preference, or should I say, my skills would lend to smash it and start over.

But if anything taking control of diabetes requires a good bit of routine and extra fine-tuning, let’s call it D-regulation (don’t say I never reach across the aisle). The things that can and should be governed are as confusing as they must sound to someone unfamiliar with diabetes. Total Daily Dose. Insulin to Carb Ratio. Correction Factor. Twenty-four hour basals. Insulin on Board. And so on and so forth. Each of these  elements weighs heavily on just how effective we are at managing Lia’s blood sugars. Changing the settings of just one of them could mean the difference between this (thereabouts):

______________________________

or this:

Engineering all those factors to obtain level blood sugars depends upon the precise application of tiny little tweaks, not smashing. You make one little change to just one of those elements (not six), wait a few days and see what happens. Didn’t get the results you wanted or expected? Make another little tweak, wait some more. It should feel like you’ve gone back in time and are trying to tune in a television station by ever so slightly adjusting the antennae rabbit years, not banging the crap out of the side of the box.

With diabetes I’ve got to change my attitude and techniques. Lia is ten now. Next year she wants to do cross country. Then her teen years are fast approaching. Smashing won’t work. Smashing will work against us. It’s time the Hulk in me developed a little more patience.

Did I mention the hot librarian?

John Updike once said that all his works were literary fiction because they were written in words, but he didn’t really like the term as he felt it limited him in his writing. I can appreciate that sentiment as in the month or so since releasing my first novel, I’ve struggled with the labeling because honestly, I’m not really sure what it means (I don’t think I’m alone on this either).

The trouble with associating my novel—or myself as an author—in a category that seems to have so much uncertainty about it looks risky in terms of marketing the novel—and so far I have yet to find a book site that did not ask the genre. After all, my story has suspense, it has action-adventure and romance. But it also has a very serious side as it tackles a complex, universal theme about law and child rearing. The people are complicated, the subject universal, the style lyrical and poetic. And so, when I was made to choose a genre, I chose literary as I felt it best described it. I’m just not sure in what way?

I am disappointed and always conflicted when people ask what genre is my novel. It’s just fiction, I tell them. More often than not they press for more (Okay, it’s like literary fiction, if you must), but I wonder in giving that to them if they don’t then imagine a story without action-adventure, without suspense, without romance.

So, in my zealous effort to cover all those bases, I quickly add: but there’s a flirty, hot librarian in it.

Did I mention the hot librarian?

John Updike once said that all his works were literary fiction because they were written in words, but he didn’t really like the term as he felt it limited him in his writing. I can appreciate that sentiment as in the month or so since releasing my first novel, I’ve struggled with the labeling because honestly, I’m not really sure what it means (I don’t think I’m alone on this either).

The trouble with associating my novel—or myself as an author—in a category that seems to have so much uncertainty about it looks risky in terms of marketing the novel—and so far I have yet to find a book site that did not ask the genre. After all, my story has suspense, it has action-adventure and romance. But it also has a very serious side as it tackles a complex, universal theme about law and child rearing. The people are complicated, the subject universal, the style lyrical and poetic. And so, when I was made to choose a genre, I chose literary as I felt it best described it. I’m just not sure in what way?

I am disappointed and always conflicted when people ask what genre is my novel. It’s just fiction, I tell them. More often than not they press for more (Okay, it’s like literary fiction, if you must), but I wonder in giving that to them if they don’t then imagine a story without action-adventure, without suspense, without romance.

So, in my zealous effort to cover all those bases, I quickly add: but there’s a flirty, hot librarian in it.

Goodreads Giveaway Winners!

Thanks to all of the 852 folks who entered my giveaway to win a copy of my debut novel, A Lovely, Indecent Departure. It was awesome to see all the interest in the book!

The two winners of the contest are:

Mary Pickrahn of Sterling Heights, MI
Jaime A. Giraldo of Amityville, NY

Congratulations! I dropped the books off at the post office today, so you both should receive them by the end of the week. I'd like to encourage you both, as well as everyone else who entered the contest or has recently added my book to their to-read list, to join my Question & Answer being held in mid-June. Just click the link to find out more about it and sign up. It'll be a great way for us to connect and for you to share your thoughts on the novel with me and ask questions about the book or the writing process.

Thanks again for everyone's interest in A Lovely, Indecent Departure! The book sells for $11.00 in paperback and $2.99 for the ebook. I hope you'll consider getting your copy today!

Steven Lee Gilbert