Shawn Inmon's Blog, page 6

I remember

     Today is Veterans Day. For our neighbors to the north, it is Remembrance Day. Either way, it is a day to remember and appreciate the sacrifices made by so many for so long in the service of our nation.
     I want to say from the outset that I never served. Born in 1960, I became eligible for the service in a time when we were not actively engaged in any conflict. I still could have joined, of course, but the impetus for serving was less in the late 70s and early 80s. 
     I nearly joined anyway. In late winter of 1980, I walked into an Air Force recruiting office in downtown Seattle and subjected myself to several days worth of testing. The recruiter was bemused by my results. I tested very well in a number of areas, but scored in the bottom ten percentile in spatial reasoning. He looked at me and said "Son, how do you manage to walk through doors without hitting your head on one side or the other?" With scores like that, being a pilot was out. Before I got a chance to sign my enlistment papers, I was offered a job on the air in the garden spot of Hardin, Montana. I chose radio over the Air Force and never looked back.
     And so, on all these Veteran's Days ever since, I can only feel gratitude to the many who have served so that we can all be free. I know how fortunate I am that I never had to lay my life on the line for the way of life I believe in. The fact that I never did only makes me more grateful to those who did.


     Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes. Napoleon Bonaparte.


Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world, but the Marines don't have that problem.  Ronald Reagan



A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.  Joseph Campbell



     To all who have served, and by doing so have made my life and the life of my family possible, thank you!

Giving away two signed copies of the book!

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Giveaway ends December 06, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The day I ran for VP

     I have mentioned before that writing Feels Like the First Time was a time consuming process for me. I started it the first week of December 2006 and finally typed "The End" in May of 2012. Part of the reason for the delay was that I had to finish living the story. The other part of the puzzle, though, was that I had to learn to be  a better writer. For me a huge lesson was what I needed to include in the book and what could safely be left out. 
     At one point, the book swelled to over 106,000 words, which was too long for such a simple love story. That's when my Editor Chris Guthrie and I got out our sharp knives and started cutting.  Much of what went away really needed to go - it just wasn't necessary, or even good.  I still miss a few parts of the story that hit the cutting room floor, though. 
     This blog post is one of those sections. With today's national election in the U.S., I got to thinking about the one and only time I ran for elected office. You can think of this as a Deleted Scene from Feels Like the First Time:


           In May of 1976, at the end of my sophomore year, I decided to run for Student Council.  Looking back at it, I think an excellent question would be “Why in the world would you want to run for Student Council?”  There were no perks, there were a lot of meetings, and being able to say “Hey, I’m the ASB Vice-President” was never known to help you get girls.

            The only reason that I can see is that my best friend Jerry was running for ASB President, and he told me he thought I should run for VP so that “We could run this school!”  Yeah, sure. The truth was, Jerry was smart, (he’d eventually be the class Valedictorian) driven, and much more popular than I was.  It was easy to envision him being elected President, but I was realistic enough to know that if I won, it would probably be because I was riding Jerry’s coattails.

            Chief among Jerry’s many attributes, though, was his ability to draw. He could draw anything, and had the knack for making whatever he tackled  interesting to the eye. I think he knew that I would need more help getting elected than he would, so he went to work drawing some eye-catching posters to hang up in the halls.

            The best poster he made for me was a knock-off of the famous Jaws movie poster (which was pretty current at the time) that showed the snout and huge mouth of the shark with rows and rows of monstrous teeth.  Beneath the shark’s mouth, he wrote “Don’t you want these ‘Jaws’ on your side?  Vote for Shawn for VP!” I think he was playing off the fact that I had a reputation as a talker, but I’m not sure.

            My opponent in the VP race was Clyde Dechant. Clyde was an easy-going, take-it-as-it-comes kid who was a year behind me and always reminded me a little bit of Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine. I should have seen the writing on the wall.

            On Election Day, all the candidates were scheduled to stand up in front of an Assembly and deliver a speech.  I was already in my second year of Speech and Debate in Mr. Grimes’ class, so I wasn't really worried about making the speech.  The night before I was supposed to deliver it, I sat on the porch on the side of the house to write the speech. OK, maybe I could have learned not to put off writing a speech until the night before you’re supposed to deliver it, but I was still a teenager!

            It was a perfect spring afternoon when I sat on my parent's side porch to finally write my speech.  The sun was low in the sky, and everything was lit by golden fire. I was sitting on an old recliner that had been my Dad’s until too many layers of duct tape had built up on the seat and it had been relegated to the porch. I just about had the first page of the speech written when Dawn came out to feed her dogs and came over to talk.

            When I told her what I was doing, her eyes lit up, she said “No politician ever writes their own speeches,” and took my notebook away and said “I’m going to be your secretary for the day.”

              Dawn sat on a cedar bench beside me, wearing jeans and a simple white peasant blouse with short sleeves. Her strawberry-blonde hair kept falling across her face, distracting me terribly from the task at hand. She was sitting close to me, and I could feel her nearness. As much as I wanted to, I never so much as brushed her hair away from her beautiful eyes.

            Somehow, we made progress on my speech, even though I wrote it with about five percent of my concentration, and soon it was getting late, and we knew that she would be called in for supper. When Colleen called her home, I watched her slowly walk across the yard toward her house.  It was my secret that I was starting to love her. Later, when we were much closer and we would have been able to discuss these things, I never asked her about these early attractions, so I don’t know if she felt them as well, or if I was alone in that.

            For myself, though, I know that those soft, unspoken thoughts and feelings of love, admiration and simple happiness at being with her, with no pressure for anything else, and with nothing else needed, are among the sweetest memories of my life.

            I delivered the speech we wrote the next day, and got slaughtered at the polls. At the time, it bothered me, because I hate to lose.  In retrospect, it doesn't seem important at all.

We've lost a friend

     I only met Bonnie Powell two times, although both were memorable. Is it possible to mourn someone you've only met twice? Until today, I wouldn't have thought so, but now I know it is.
     The first time I met Bonnie was on October 16th, 2010 - my wedding day. Because we were trying to do a wedding for 150 people on a budget as close to zero as possible, I served as both the groom and the line cook. About six hours before the ceremony was scheduled to start, I headed into the kitchen to start preparing the garlic bread and Caesar salad we would be serving.
     As soon as I stepped into the kitchen, a woman I had never seen before gave me a kind of scary glare (made a little scarier because she was holding an eight inch butcher knife) and said "Who are you?"
     "Oh. Hi. I'm Shawn. I'm the groom." Inside my head, I was thinking "Hey, I belong here. Who are you?" I took one look at her stern visage and decided this would be one of the rare occasions in my life when I kept my mouth shut.
     Over the next hour or so we had a number of different people come and go in the kitchen, preparing this or that. The whole time, I had the feeling Bonnie was watching me, deciding about me. And of course, she was working. The times I was around her, Bonnie was always working. 
     By the time we had everything ready, I knew I had passed her test, and that she thought I was OK. The fact that I was marrying Dawn, who she loved dearly and always called Matilda for reasons that were never clear, wasn't enough for her to make up her mind about me. Spending several hours in a kitchen together, up to our elbows in dishwater, apparently was. Although her expression never changed, by the time we had dinner ready for everyone, I knew I had moved from outside her circle of trust to inside.
     And, being inside Bonnie's circle was a wonderful thing. I don't think it mattered if she knew you a few minutes or a few years, once she decided she loved you, she would do anything for you. 
     She was so caring and giving that I think she put on a stern face so everyone wouldn't know what a softy she was immediately. She was a marshmallow with only the illusion of steel around her.
     The second time I saw Bonnie was just a few months ago, when our daughter Dani got married.  Once again, Bonnie and I found ourselves in the kitchen, preparing a dinner for many people on a very small budget. Once again, Bonnie worked and worked, cooked and cleaned tirelessly.
     This time, my hours in the kitchen with her were wonderful. She poked me, teased me, conspired with me and made me laugh. Hanging out with her made a tough job a joy.  When everything was done and she was ready to leave, she hugged me tight. Have you ever noticed how, when some people hug you, you really feel hugged? That day, I knew how lucky Dawn and I were to have a friend like Bonnie.
     Today, her race is run. 
     Dawn's heart is broken, and I know there's nothing I can do to ease her pain. We found out last night, and as Dawn cried in my arms, she said "It feels like I lost my Mom all over again."
     I think a good measure of a person's life is the hole you leave in others when you are gone. By that measure, and many others, Bonnie was a great woman. So many people have a hole in their hearts that will never again be filled. She is loved and missed by many. Rest in peace, Bonnie. You earned it.

Book Review - 6 Seconds of Life

6 Seconds of Life by Tonya Fitzharris is not a comfortable book to read, but for me it was worth the discomfit it caused. 6 Seconds is built around a single conceit: our main character jumps off a bridge at the very beginning of the book and is going to splash down six seconds later. The entire book takes place in the world of her memory as she plunges toward likely death. I was talking with Dawn about this book the other night, and she said "Oh, it sounds like An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge." I hadn't made that connection, but she's at least partially right - in the moments before death, the world slows down and gives plenty of time for reflection.
     The main character is a young girl, but I wouldn't consider this a Young Adult novel, at least not in the high-concept meaning that has taken over Hollywood. This is a serious look at mental illness, and the author does an excellent job of helping you to see inside the mind of someone who is losing their mind. Many of the usual suspects are here - dissolving family life that was never good to begin with, poor self-image, alcohol abuse and more - but none of it is handled in a cliche way. In fact it is presented in a straight-forward way that doesn't invite sympathy but finds it anyway.
     This was a slightly painful read for me, but I don't mind when books make me a little uncomfortable. I like to be challenged. The framework was slightly limiting - after all, she had already jumped -  but even that inevitability worked well for me. One of the things I really liked about this book is that I came away from it with a perspective I didn't have when I began it. Another good thing was that the author never came out and described Maura, the main character. Instead, she let us see her two ways: as homely and unattractive (as seen through her own eyes) and as attractive and desirable (as seen through the eyes of others.) This did a great job of showing how our perceptions of ourselves can be so warped. Guest Blog - Tonya Fitzharris                           Pet Peeves of the Publishing Industry

               I myself am not a member of the formal “publishing industry,” mostly because of some of their tactics and practices that just rub me the wrong way. 

               I shall explain.

               First and foremost, the whole idea of buying and pushing books with high commercial appeal bothers me. I personally think of it this way: The Big 6 Publishers are like the Hollywood of the book world.  They want those huge summer blockbusters that are guaranteed to sell. On the other hand, you have the indie film world, which doesn’t really care about churning out moneymakers, but more about small stories with a lot of heart. They’re quiet films about normal everyday people, encountering normal everyday problems that we all can relate to—the stories I myself love. Indie publishing is the same thing in my mind.

               Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the big Hollywood-esque books put out by The Big 6—I’ve read many of them and enjoyed them.  And they’ve been known to put out those great “quiet” books once in a while as well. But I feel as the competition to win that publishing prize gets more and more difficult (as it inevitably is), only those authors with the big money maker/summer blockbuster stories will make it in. And that’s such a shame to me, because more often than not it’s the quiet, character-driven stories that really touch lives. The stories that make a difference.

               Another pet peeve of mine is the often narrow-mindedness of the people in the publishing world—more specifically, in the YA publishing world. One of the biggest issues with me is their denial of the fact that there is a very strong market for older YA characters in the 18-24 range, which has been dubbed “New Adult” literature. A publishing house coined the term back in 2009 when they hosted a contest for entrants with manuscripts in this age range, and the response was amazing. So many people came out of the woodwork and shared their mutual love for stories about kids in college (and beyond), and it seemed to start somewhat of a revolution.

               Unfortunately, that publishing house never stuck with the idea. The New Adult line was never created. But the seed had been planted, and all of the fans have made it their own. There are tons of authors self-publishing their New Adult novels and reaching remarkable success. Yet most of the publishing industry still doesn’t acknowledge this. They still insist there is simply no market for books about 18-24 year olds. Why? Because they don’t know where it will fit in on bookstore shelves? Who the hell cares?

               Enough venting. I know that there are plenty of things about the publishing world that work—some truly great authors have found more success than they ever imagined. But as things are the way they are now, some fantastic authors with smaller stories about characters who don’t necessarily fit into some of the rigid categories are being brushed off. There are so many stories the world may never get to read.

               And everyone’s story should have a place in the world.

Halloween 1965

     This picture was taken in September of 1965. That is a five year old version of me standing next to my father. It is one of my most precious photographs, even though it has always struck me as a little eerie, for reasons I'll go  into in a moment.
     Halloween 1965 fell on a Sunday, which meant that I was on my second day off recovering from a rigorous week of learning my colors and ABC's in Mrs. Faris' Kindergarten class at Mossyrock Elementary.
     Things felt a little "off" right from the get-go that day. I shared a room with my big brother Mick. Since he was a mid-teenager, it wouldn't have been unusual for him to still be in bed when I woke up, but when I checked his bunk above me, I saw it was empty. Also, even though I could hear voices in the house, it felt cold, like no one had taken the time to build a fire yet.
     I padded invisibly out to the kitchen to see what was wrong, but all the activity was in my Mom and Dad's bedroom. Their door was ajar, so I turned sideways and slipped through the crack. I saw my father as I had never seen him before - laying down. He was always in motion, but there he was, flat on his back. It looked like someone had made the bed around him. The sheet and blankets were tucked crisply under his arms. He was staring straight ahead, but he heard me come in and turned his head to look at me. I expected him to smile at me reassuringly, but he did not. He met my eyes for several counts, then turned and resumed staring at the ceiling again.
     Mom noticed me then and hurried me over to escort me out of the room. As we left the room, I saw two strangers pushing a gurney through our kitchen. They looked so strange and out of place in our little house. I peeked out the window and saw an ambulance had pulled up past our driveway and sat on the lawn outside our back door.
     My aunt materialized out of nowhere and told me we were going to take a drive into Mossyrock to get some Halloween candy. We drove out of our driveway with me craning my neck over the back seat of her car, trying to see if the men from the ambulance would come out. When we got to Adams Grocery in Mossyrock, my Aunt Pat bought me some goulish wax lips and a pack of candy cigarettes. It hardly seemed worth it to drive all the way from Riffe to Mossyrock just to get that little bit of candy, but I didn't get a lot of candy, so I didn't ask any questions.
     By the time we got back to the ranch, the ambulance was gone, and so was my father. I never saw him again. He died of a heart attack that day. He was 47. I didn't go to his funeral, because I guess in 1965, they thought it would be too much for me to handle.  Since I wasn't at his funeral, I managed to convince myself for many years that he was still alive and would come back to me someday. 
     I said that the picture up above was a little eerie, and I think that's true for several reasons. It was taken just a month or so before he died, and it was taken less than a hundred yards from where he is buried. Also, look at the lighting and composition of the picture. I am facing the camera full on, while Dad is turned away. I manage to be brightly lit, while he stands in partial darkness, even though we are standing right next to each other. I've always felt that he could feel his impending mortality in this picture and was looking to see what was next.
     The truth is, I never recovered from losing my father at such a young age, and 47 years later, I've just accepted that is a hole in my heart that will never be filled. I wish things had been different, and that he could have known me as a man, instead of just a child. I also wish I'd had the chance to know him as a man as well, instead of the elusive legend he grew to be in my mind.
     I love you, Dad, and I miss you, today and every day.

I could be wrong

     Those are four of my favorite words: I could be wrong. Every time I hear someone utter those magic words, a happy bell rings inside my mind. That bell has been mostly silent recently. More and more, it feels like people are afraid their bank accounts will be emptied if they admit they might be wrong about something. 
     I understand that people have core values that they hold near and dear to their heart. I do too. But still... I think there is no cow so sacred, no belief so sacrosanct that it can't be reconsidered.
     Let's face it. People are wrong all the time, sometimes spectacularly so. A lot of people passed on the chance to sign The Beatles. Or JK Rowling. Tom Selleck passed on the role of Indiana Jones. Christopher Columbus thought he was landing in China. And, maybe worst of all, there was a time that I thought THIS was a good look:      'Nuff said. 
     It's easy to look back on the excesses of youth (like 80's hairstyles) and see how ridiculous they were. But, how long has it been since you've examined some of your own sacred cows?  
     I personally don't discuss politics much with other people because I don't think anyone really wants to discuss the issues. Most people want to wait until you pause for a breath so they can tell you the next part of their already prepared speech that is designed to wittily rebut whatever it is you just said. Or, to quote Stephen Covey: "Most people don't listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply."
     I do my very best to make sure that quote won't be applied to me, and here's why: In the last few years, I've changed my mind about a few things. And the truth is, I'm kind of proud of that. 
     Of course, I could be wrong...

     

Writers and Readers

     Let me start out with a small confession: I don't think of myself as a "writer" yet, let alone an "author."  Those seem like terms to apply to people that have a number of books out, or have made a living with words for years. Me, I've got one book out, and that one has only been available for six weeks. 
     Still... This past week has shown me how good it can be to be a writer.  Over these past few days, I've connected with so many people who have read Feels Like the First Time, and it has made my heart sing. If you've been following this blog recently, you might have seen the trepidation I initially felt about giving the book away. Now, five days later, I'm so glad I took that plunge. Not because of the increased sales I've gotten these last three days, although that has been great.
     The very best thing about giving all the books away is how many people have found me here, or on Twitter (@ShawnInmon) or on my Facebook page.
     Here's the truth: writing is a lonely bit of business. It involves long hours spent hunched over a keyboard or staring off into space, trying to find the right turn of a phrase to replace the cliche that first popped into your head. For me, I had to learn how to write. Since this book is a memoir, I had to learn that just because I could remember something didn't mean that I had to write it down! To quote Bob Seger, I had to figure out "What to leave in, what to leave out." I'm sure it will come as a surprise to exactly no one that I listened to that song a thousand times while writing this book.
     But, here's my new truth: once the loneliness of creation passes, you get the joy of connecting with so many people. I have been incredibly moved by the kindness of  people that have posted on the book's Amazon page or on Facebook. One person said that when Dawn finally told me she loved me again that she yelled out loud until her family looked at her like she was crazy.  Another told me that the book reminded her of unfinished business in her own life. 
     In short, I've been completely re-energized by connecting with so many wonderful new people. It makes me anxious to dive head first into the next project. I'll have an announcement about that one (which at least I think is pretty exciting) over the next month or so. 
     In the meantime, thanks so much to everyone who downloaded and read the book, and especially those who took the time to find me and tell me that the book touched you. I have some hopes of eventually making some money from the sale of the book, but that was never my primary motivation. My real motivation was to tell our story and hopefully touch some people in a meaningful way. I feel so blessed that's really happening.

Free is good

     When I started my great free book adventure on Thursday, I promised I would give a complete accounting once it was all done, so here I am.
     I'd like to start by saying how much fun Dawn and I had over the last few days. I had moments when I had this fear that I couldn't give the book away. These last few days, if nothing else, removed that fear.  Every part of the giveaway exceeded my greatest hopes.
     Here's the numbers breakdown:


     USA                 ------     21,071 downloads
     Great Britain      ------       2,214 downloads
     Other                ------            87 downloads
     Total                 -----      23,372  downloads


     When those numbers started pouring in, I was dumbfounded. I really thought that if we were lucky, we would have a few thousand downloads, so having ten times that many caught us completely off guard.
      In addition to all the downloads, we had many other great things happen over the last few days. The number of reviews we had on Amazon doubled in three days, from 16 to 32. We also picked up a number of nice reviews on GoodReads. We also connected with quite a few people on my Facebook writer page who told us they enjoyed and related to the book. Since that's the primary reason I wrote it, that was the best thing of all. 
     Also, we had enough activity that Amazon finally kicked in the "Also Bought" feature on our page. That's where a books page leads you to books people bought other than yours. That means that my book is now showing up on other books' pages all over Amazon.
     All these good things also resulted in today being the best sales day we've ever had on Amazon. Previous to today, the highest ranking Feels Like the First Time had ever had was around #40,000. As of this writing, we are at #5,300 and seem to be climbing. We've also sold as many books in Great Britain today as we did total in the previous week. 
     For us, making the book free for a few days only led to good, fun things. Dawn and I feel incredibly blessed and grateful for the way it has turned out. To all our friends, old and new, who helped make this happen, and to everyone who has wished us a happy anniversary, we want to say:


Thank you!


Shawn and Dawn
     

A LOT of books!

     This morning I blogged about the reasons behind my decision to make Feels Like the First Time free for your Kindle over the next three days. At the end of the post, I said I would post about how the experience went.
     So far, it has exceeded any expectations I ever had.  In my secret heart, I hoped to register as many as 2,000 downloads over the three day run. That would help our visibility on Amazon tremendously over the next 30 days. If I was really optimistic, I dreamed about cracking the Top 100 Free Bestseller list.
     Instead, we've already registered over 10,000 downloads in less than 24 hours.  I am flabbergasted by that number. It's hard for me to conceive that there are ten thousand people with my story loaded onto their Kindle tonight. 
     In addition to that, we made #1 in the Love and Romance category and #1 in Memoirs. To top it all off, Feels Like the First Time currently sits at #13 in the entire Amazon Free store. Just for fun, here's a screen capture I took a few hours ago, when we were still at #17:      Here's one more quirky little thing I hadn't anticipated... when the book went free in America, it also went free in Europe. That means that somewhere in Great Britain tonight, there are 685 people who downloaded the book. I don't know what someone from London might make of the story of growing up poor in a small town in western Washington State. I hope one of them posts a review so I can find out!
     Since I've never had a book go Free before, I have no idea what comes next. Tonight, I can't even care about what's to come. It thrills me to death to think that there could be thousands of people reading the little story I wrote about falling in love and staying in love. I feel blessed and I would like to say "Thank you" to everyone that helped me spread the word about the promotion.
     And... a huge thank you to Linda Boulanger from Treasure Line Publishing. As much as I'd like to think it was my writing that sucked people into the book, I know the reason that so many people downloaded the book today was because of Linda's accessible, evocative cover.