Chris Van Hakes's Blog, page 12

Lost and Found FAQ

I read your book and I want to know why Oliver is such a jerk, and why Delaney is so down on herself. Why did you make them like that?

Because.

Delaney has terrible self-esteem because she’s too focused on the wrong things at first. Because she’s a version of me, and I have had terrible self-esteem, too. (She’s not really me, though. If any one character is me in the novel, it’s…uh….thinking….I’ll get back to you.)

Oliver is a jerk because he’s partly Mr. Darcy. Because I love Mr. Darcy.

He’s a jerk because that way he gets to evolve. He’s a jerk because it works with Delaney’s story, too. Delaney’s got poor self-esteem because it works with Oliver’s story. If she were stronger, and he were nicer, it wouldn’t be the same.

Because I like flawed characters. I liked to read about flawed, imperfect people finding love and figuring out life. I don’t want to read about well-adjusted people. I find those books uninteresting. I am sure they can be amazing and brilliant, but they just don’t call to me, personally, so I would never write about people who have everything going for them.

Also, I don’t think Oliver’s really a jerk. I think he’s got some things to work out, but if you see him, you’ll see he’s actually very sweet and kind underneath. Kind of like Mr. Darcy.

That’s why. But I’m sure there are more reasons.

(PS, I don’t see this as a negative question! It’s fine with me if you want to know motivations behind writing certain characters. I love questions. Keep ‘em coming!)

What’s your favorite part of the novel?

Ursula and Delaney’s friendship. There’s a scene toward the end, that I’m not going to talk about because of spoilers, where Ursula and Delaney and Emily are all standing around and sobbing, and that’s by far my favorite part.

I know this is a traditional love story, but I was trying to say something about love stories, too. Love isn’t just for romantic partners. It’s for friends. It is, I think, where we learn how to really love. I think our first loves are our best friends, and then, lucky us, we get to keep meeting more true loves.

So, I love Oliver and Delaney, but I love Ursula and Delaney more. 

I do have other favorite parts, and I hope I got across what I think of love as a “cure all.” I consider this a feminist romance. It’s not perfect, but I tried to talk about what “the love of a good man or woman” does.

How long did it take you to write Lost and Found?

“Write” is a funny way of describing what I did, because there were a bunch of steps in the process that didn’t include writing, including cover design, editing, proofreading, more proofreading, goodness the proofreading’s still not finished?, more editing, formatting for all of the various formats, biting my nails, feeling like my heart was dropped into my lower intestines in fear, etc. etc. That’s the TL;DR answer that’s not an answer.

The short answer is: two months.

Wow, that’s fast for all that!

Yeah. Yeah. I’m…it was a personal goal, and I do not recommend a first-time author/publisher do that. Noooo. I did not do lots of things in those two months. Exercise. Eat lunch. Comb my hair. Wear makeup. Floss. Have weekends.

I wish I were joking about the things I stopped doing, but no. No. I’m giving myself four to five months for the next one.

The next one?

Definitely. I already started a new thing! It’s another women’s fiction novel with a romance at the center of it. It’s a little more serious than Lost and Found. 

Because I didn’t do this just to publish once. I am trying to do this for a living. I’m learning a TON about publishing, design, book marketing, etc. It’s a great learning experience. Invaluable. Aaaand I get to spend each part of writing, which was the goal. Not as much as I’d like, but, you know, here’s my tiny violin. Whatever. This is awesome and amazing and wonderful.

Are you making a lot of money?

No. (There was a longer explanation but blah blah blah. No.)(I hope you don’t read this as a negative either. It’s not! It’s a fact but I don’t need a lot of money. I live a pretty uncomplicated life and I would change very little about it.)

How does it feel to have your book out there?

Terrifying. I don’t know what you will think, or if you will like it. Also, exciting, wonderful, fantastic, tiring. It’s a roller coaster. I really like it. I can’t wait to do it again.

Did I say thank you? Thank you. Thank you for reading it and telling me about it and leaving ratings and reviews and liking it and…everything. Even if you didn’t like it, thank you anyway for giving it your time. Thank you.

I Love My Family

Me to Sachin: Your birthday is next week! You’re going to be six!

Sachin: I know that.

Me: And maybe you’ll grow and grow and grow so much overnight that you’ll wake up and be so big you won’t fit into your Halloween costume!

Sachin: Um, no.

Me: It could happen.

Sachin: Mom, my birthday has been on that same day a few times, and that’s never happened. I don’t think so.

***

We had a family portrait taken last night for a directory. Lord. The photographer said, “We have some blinkers in this family!”

Oh? We didn’t ever notice that.

(Psst, giveaway for Amazon gift card and teeny marshmallows still open!)

(Book still on sale at amazon and bn!) (SORRY. I should do a “how to feel guilty marketing every step of the way” e-course.) (I swear you’ll like it if you like Mr. Darcy type romances though!)

And Now For a Giveaway [closed]

Thank you for sticking around for all this self-promotion. I am not very good at it. It feels weird. And thank you for spreading the word about my book, buying it, reviewing it, enjoying it, sending me sweet emails and tweets and texts about it.

I admit to being very, very nervous about what you all will think of me and my writing skills. I even had a nightmare that I didn’t actually write a book, but like the episode of New Girl where Nick writes his zombie apocalypse book, Z IS FOR ZOMBIES, and it is actually just a word search. (“But there are no actual words!”) That is what I was afraid my book actually was, and my beta readers and editors and I were wrong. It’s just a string of nonsense!  The reviews were going to say, “THIS IS NOT EVEN A BOOK WHAT THE HECK????”

(It turns out this is anxiety! Who knew?)

And I’ve said this on twitter and Facebook, but: if you do not normally read chick lit or romance (I’d say it goes more to the former than the latter, as there are no sexytimes in it) (not really, anyway), please don’t feel obligated to buy or read my novel. If you know someone who might like it, I’d LOVE a recommendation, but I know that not every book is for every person. And not everyone is into chick lit and romance. Obviously. Okay? Okay.

*claps hands* With that out of the way, I’m going to do my first of two giveaways. The first one is just for YOU. You, my cheerleader, the person who has said, “I’m so proud of you!” (which is touching and sweet , and thank you. I am proud of me TOO. It sure has been a journey.) I do not care if you have read or not read my book, promoted it or not, sent me a virtual high-five or not. I’m just here to say thanks for being here. I would send you all a present, but I can’t. So, I’m going to give away one Amazon gift card for $50 plus a box of goodies, such as:

 

Twitter told me about these and they make hot cocoa what it was meant to be: a tiny-marshmallow transporter. I will also have some other things in there (probably thank you cards, because I am obsessed with cute thank you cards) (and Swedish fish) (and chocolate) (and some owl-themed things).

I’m going to have another, similar giveaway next week just for readers/reviewers/sharers of LOST AND FOUND, but this one is just a “yay Internet” giveaway (and yes, you can enter both, of course).

Rules: I do not give a fig where you live. I will ship it! (Ha.) Please enter no matter your country. Please only enter once, in the comments, with a valid email address. I will close comments on Friday at 2pm PST (PDT?) (you know what I mean), and then email the winner.  I am probably forgetting some rules. Oh well.

[UPDATE: My book is also on nook now!]

Love,

Shalini

 

And Now For a Giveaway

Thank you for sticking around for all this self-promotion. I am not very good at it. It feels weird. And thank you for spreading the word about my book, buying it, reviewing it, enjoying it, sending me sweet emails and tweets and texts about it.

I admit to being very, very nervous about what you all will think of me and my writing skills. I even had a nightmare that I didn’t actually write a book, but like the episode of New Girl where Nick writes his zombie apocalypse book, Z IS FOR ZOMBIES, and it is actually just a word search. (“But there are no actual words!”) That is what I was afraid my book actually was, and my beta readers and editors and I were wrong. It’s just a string of nonsense!  The reviews were going to say, “THIS IS NOT EVEN A BOOK WHAT THE HECK????”

(It turns out this is anxiety! Who knew?)

And I’ve said this on twitter and Facebook, but: if you do not normally read chick lit or romance (I’d say it goes more to the former than the latter, as there are no sexytimes in it) (not really, anyway), please don’t feel obligated to buy or read my novel. If you know someone who might like it, I’d LOVE a recommendation, but I know that not every book is for every person. And not everyone is into chick lit and romance. Obviously. Okay? Okay.

*claps hands* With that out of the way, I’m going to do my first of two giveaways. The first one is just for YOU. You, my cheerleader, the person who has said, “I’m so proud of you!” (which is touching and sweet , and thank you. I am proud of me TOO. It sure has been a journey.) I do not care if you have read or not read my book, promoted it or not, sent me a virtual high-five or not. I’m just here to say thanks for being here. I would send you all a present, but I can’t. So, I’m going to give away one Amazon gift card for $50 plus a box of goodies, such as:

 

Twitter told me about these and they make hot cocoa what it was meant to be: a tiny-marshmallow transporter. I will also have some other things in there (probably thank you cards, because I am obsessed with cute thank you cards) (and Swedish fish) (and chocolate) (and some owl-themed things).

I’m going to have another, similar giveaway next week just for readers/reviewers/sharers of LOST AND FOUND, but this one is just a “yay Internet” giveaway (and yes, you can enter both, of course).

Rules: I do not give a fig where you live. I will ship it! (Ha.) Please enter no matter your country. Please only enter once, in the comments, with a valid email address. I will close comments on Friday at 2pm PST (PDT?) (you know what I mean), and then email the winner.  I am probably forgetting some rules. Oh well.

[UPDATE: My book is also on nook now!]

Love,

Shalini

 

Making My Unknown Known (MY BOOK IS ALIVE!)

So, I worked like a dog for two straight months. Not my dog, because my dog is dog royalty and sleeps on one of three designer beds and gets fed kibble and doesn’t have to worry about healthcare because he’s covered, yo. I worked like a, uh…horse. I worked like a horse to get this book written, edited, proofed and then this weekend Gregg and I went just about crazy making the file perfect for printing and ebook formats.

The printing’s going to take a while, because I need to see a physical copy and make sure it’s not a mess. The Barnes and Noble and Apple Bookstores are “pending review.” Kindle said it would be 72 hours. I said, “Yo, cool, I got until the 29th!”

Except to make a long story longer, I woke up this morning and this:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G1X96WI

It’s also at Smashwords for other formats: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/369345 (I’ll post links to B&N, Apple, and the physical book once they’re available!)

Uh, yeah, I have an ebook. On the kindle! It’s…I’m…I threw up. No joke. I threw up in excitement. I barfed rainbows of happiness. And, whatever happens, I DID IT.

That said, you? I never would have done it without you. Seriously. I wouldn’t have the courage or the belief in myself without your amazing friendships, this community, this support.

I tried my best for this book for YOU. I am a slap-dash kind of worker, but with this book I tried so so hard to make this book great. I really HOPE I made it great for you. I want to write fun, romantic, great books FOR YOU, okay?

I hope you like this book, but if there’s something you don’t like? Please feel free to let me know. I’m doing this to get better as a writer, and to get better and braver as a human being. Please, please feel free to drop me a line or a tweet or a fb message letting me know if there’s a typo, a grammar error, a problem with the plot, WHATEVER.

I’m going to do a little giveaway later for an Amazon gift card, and when I have physical copies of the book, I’m going to give away copies of those TOO. But for today, for now, I just want to give you a big, virtual hug. You will never understand just how  much you mean to me.

More on Interracial Marriage; Music Review

First, in lighter writing: my Internet friend James (Internet friends are the best kind of 2-D friends, don’t you think? Waaaay above paper dolls, IMO.) (Imaginary friends are 3-D; don’t mix your genres.) sent me a CD many months ago without a track listing and asked me to do a review of the 20 songs there without knowing what they were.

As you know, I’m a renowned music critic, so you’ll want to go read what laser-like insights I had into these songs.

Second, in darker writing, I got this email the other day:

Hi Shalini,

I typed three words into google this morning: “interracial marriages” and “difficulties”, and I came across a blog post you wrote.

Though your blog post addresses difficulties within interracial marriages, it wasn’t what I was looking for but thought I might email you anyway to see if there was any advice you may be able to pass my way.

I’m in an interracial relationship – I am from an Indian family and the better half is non-Indian. My dad has not want to get involved and actually it’s got to the point where he is threatening all sorts of horrible things under the sun, if I go ahead with my marriage.

Did you have any problems like this? Do you know anyone who did? I just feel at a lost at the moment and I’m going slightly crazy, so please excuse me, if you’re wondering why I’m reaching out to you.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Kind Regards,

K

Well. WELL. I am no Dear Sugar. Not even close. Like, miles and miles away. SO. I am posting my response, but it is a fumbling, know-nothing type of answer.  If you have any (kind, polite) advice for K, please leave it in the comments.

 

Hi K,

First: I hope that whatever decision you make, you stay safe, because that’s the most important one. You can’t be your own woman if someone is physically or emotionally harming you.

Okay, so…there are two ways to give advice here. The first is to tell you what seems the most obvious, which is what my husband told me when I explained that I had no idea what advice to give you. He said, “If the only reason I didn’t marry someone because of what my dad said or if she was the wrong color, I’d never forgive myself.” So, there’s that very sound advice, but I suspect you already know that.

And implicit in his comment was that phrase, “the only reason.” Are there other reasons you shouldn’t be marrying your better half? Not knowing you or your future spouse or your father, it’s hard for me to comment on that. Which brings me to…

I think this is more about control. There’s so much control over women and children in Indian culture, and I think it’s hard to understand unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. Lucky for you, I have! My parents are and were very controlling. When I visit my mom, she still tries to dress me. I’m a thirty-four-year-old woman and my mom likes to tell me I’m wearing the wrong clothes. And my dad…one Thanksgiving I decided I wanted to get my eyebrow pierced. I was twenty one and it was the nineties and someone on the Real World had it and COOL. So, I told my dad what I was going to do and he had an attack of the rages. He threatened to cut me off, to never let me in the house, if I pierced my eyebrow.

Now I will tell you: I did not pierce my eyebrow. I was scared of him. And it was wrong of him to manipulate me. I should have done it anyway, because in some ways it took me too long to rebel. That said, he thought he was doing the right thing. In India, piercings mean something different, and that’s what he was responding to. He was protecting me, trying to do the right thing by me.

So, I have no idea if your future spouse is a meth addict or a future Nobel laureate, but I suspect that what is under your dad’s threats is love and protection. I’m not saying it’s the right or appropriate way to show it, but I do suspect that what he’s doing is what he believes is the right thing for you, because he loves you.

I also have experience with another side of control. I was abused when I was young, and later, my abuser had pretty unlimited access to me and tried to groom me into who he wanted me to be. It got so bad that I applied to colleges that he had wanted to go to, and I thought very much that’s where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to Berkeley so, so badly, but if you asked me why, I wouldn’t have had an answer for you. But I wished for it, and I applied and I….got in. My parents were so proud! That was a difficult school to get into!

And then I decided not to go. I was scared. It was far away. It was a visceral reaction, and I have always regretted not going, of being too scared to go far away and going to the state school instead. I regretted it until this morning, when I realized that going to the state school was my decision. Going to Berkeley was my abuser’s, and I’ve felt guilty for years for letting him down. Until today, when I saw just what I was feeling guilty for.

I went to the state school and found my husband, some of my best friends, people who got me through my best and worst moments in my life. It wasn’t as prestigious as Berkeley. I’d probably have been better off going to California. But it was my mistake to make, and I’m happy I made it.

So, I think you already know what to do. I feel like you’re asking for permission to break ties with your father, to rebel against him, to call him the crazy man in this situation. You don’t need my permission. You don’t need your future spouse’s permission. And you definitely don’t need your father’s permission. You get to make the decision. This is your life, and this is your decision to make. If it is a mistake, then it is your mistake to make. All life really is a series of wonderful mistakes. No matter what anyone tells you, no one knows what they’re doing either. There’s no guidebook, there’s no degree, there’s just you, feeling your way out into the world, and if you don’t know what to do now, you will one day.

Would you let me know what happens?

Love,

Shalini

Life Cycle of a Critic

0-4 years: If it has puppets, it’s awesome.

4-10 years: If it has animation, it’s awesome.

10-15 years (onset of hormones): If it has a sexually attractive lead character, it’s awesome.

15-20 years (onset of pretentious asshatness): If it quotes Proust or Joyce or, ideally, both, it’s awesome.

20-25 years (onset of drug and alcohol use): If it has puppets, it’s awesome.

25-35 years (re-emergence of pretentious asshatness coupled with newfound despair over life’s fragility): Anything cheerful can go die in a fire.

35-45 years (onset of parenthood): If it has puppets and lets me sleep, it’s awesome.

45 years-onward (onset of wiseness): You know what? Puppets are objectively awesome.

Ten Years

 

Some mothers tried to tell me this when I was pregnant with Kesh, and frankly, I was both too overwhelmed and too scared to believe them. But I am telling you now, in case you need to hear it: motherhood does not get easier.

There, that was my public service announcement for the month of October.

Motherhood does not get easier. Motherhood gets different. But easier? No. Nope. Nuh uh. Parents of newborns, I am sorry for your loss.

I say this from the experience of having two kids in school “full-time” now. (Let’s laugh at “full-time” school for a second, shall we? They have had exactly one full week of school, and almost every week has soccer practices, hours of homework, and only six hours a day of actual out-of-the-house-ness. I told Gregg, “You would not be able to have your job AND these kids if it wasn’t for me,” and he said, “Truth.”) I say this, also, as someone who is pursuing a work-from-home almost-full-time job. I am editing a book. I am writing freelance articles. I am pitching out the wazoo. But only for six hours a day (but don’t worry–I get to make up the rest of the hours at night and on the weekends, yippee!).

I had this thought when I had kids that once they started school, that would be it. You know, the schools would kind of…take over after that? I was twenty six, give me a break.

And while I don’t have to do constant loads of laundry any longer, or buy seventeen different kinds of foods to tempt picky eaters, or change poopy diapers, or breastfeed, I do have to deal with play dates, soccer games, my kids’ more complex issues in school and with their mental health and their social lives–things that, ostensibly, I didn’t even know they’d have when they were babies. Kids have fights with their friends? Nuh uh.

And goodness, the lack of time. THE LACK OF TIME. If I am not working (which I try to do every second they are out of the house, and many seconds they are in the house), I am ferrying them from one activity to another activity. For instance, on Wednesdays, the boys both have soccer practice and homework, so I rush them home as quickly as possible, change their clothes, slip on their shin guards, stuff them full of snacks, help them with their homework, take them to practice, do homework AT practice with the one that isn’t currently playing, check email and answer it when I have the chance, come back, put on dinner, take the other one to practice, and do more homework with the boys, and that doesn’t end until eight thirty at night. I mean, we’re not back and settled and eating until eight thirty. At night. And that doesn’t include eating, the dinner dishes, packing the next day’s lunches, sitting and reading their books with them (which they read–very, very slowly), the load of laundry for the day, or any other household chores, not to mention the work.

AND I ONLY HAVE TWO KIDS.

And then I get up and do it all over again. At five thirty. In the morning.

The thing that does get easier? Loving their little quirks. Knowing they were meant for me and I was meant for them. Taking joy in cleaning up after them and checking their homework and adoring the backwards “S”s and the misspelled words and having them snuggle into my side in bed as I read them a Boxcar Children mystery (I so can solve crimes better than Violet).

Because now I know that it doesn’t get easier, but it just speeds by so very quickly. I said to Keshi the other day, while trying not to cry, “You’re going to be in college in ten years!” He wrinkled his nose and said, “That’s so long,” but Gregg sidled up to me and gulped and said, “God, ten years? That’s it?”

And I looked at the hair springing from Keshi’s cowlick and his wrinkly, big boy clothes and could see him as he’ll be, fully formed, partly because of my mistakes and failures, and partly because I let him eat as many raspberries as he wanted as a baby. And I could see, in ten years, looking at him and seeing the little eight year old with messy hair who was worried about his math homework, and I knew then I would ache and be happy for the past and the future, just like I was aching and happy for the past and the future right at that very second.

But I had that very second. So I kissed him against his will and thought, Ten years. I’ll make it work. 

That’s it. That’s all we get. And that’s what’s never going to get easier.

 

Things That Helped My Depression

I’ve both wanted to write this for a long time, and been wary to write this, because, you know, your mileage may vary. Please insert “for me” into all these things, because what I’m telling you isn’t a general blanket statement, you should consult your doctor, ETC. Be wary of assvice on the Internets! This might be some of it! Or it might help. I have no way of knowing.

But, I did want to let all of you kindred spirits know that I am doing better, and if you’re not, you will be, one day, because, you know, it gets better. This is what helped.

I will stop writing, “because, you know,” and awkwardly tucking my hands in my pockets and get on with this.

1) Depression is hard to talk about. It never gets easier, honestly. It feels like talking about something very intimate, like, uh, a yeast infection. But it’s worse than ladyparts infections, because it’s an infection of the brain, which is the very essence of me-ness. My me-ness is infected, and it’s weird to talk about.

What helped was talking about it anyway. To doctors and to friends and to my husband, and, in general, to my kids, in the very vaguest way, like saying, “We are having pizza for dinner again because Mommy is not feeling well enough to cook,” and leaving it at that.

2) Treating depression as an illness instead of an infection of me-ness. Because it feels, fundamentally, like a character flaw. But it’s not. It helps to say, “I am very tired today and need to sleep a lot because I am sick,” instead of, “because I am a lazy, useless, waste of space human being,” which is what I would say in my head, not out loud. Sick, not lazy or stupid. Sick.

3) SAM-e. I’ve said this before, but the over the counter “mood stabilizer” that Sarah recommended has been quite a literal lifesaver. I talked with my doctor about it, though, because I was trying out lots and lots of drugs there for a while to see what would work. Eventually (FOR ME), nothing else has worked except SAM-e. I take more than the recommended dosage, but I had to start out on a lower dosage than recommended because it made me feel WIDE AWAKE SO AWAKE OH HI after months of feeling sleepy. That’s how I knew it was working, and for the first time since, oh, adolescence, maybe, I am not that tired in the evening. I didn’t know that other people didn’t want to collapse in a heap at seven pm and sleep for sixteen hours. I thought that was normal. HA HA HA. Anyway, SAM-e. (But seriously, I am not just saying I talked to my doctor. I did, and she looked it up to make sure there weren’t drug interactions.)

4) Coffee. I know some of you don’t drink coffee for Reasons, but for me: coffee. It used to be that no amount would make me feel awake, but once I started taking the SAM-e, an afternoon cup helped me through the sluggish time of evening, which is when all my insecurities like to creep out and take hold. It’s weird but true.

5) Giving up some things. This includes some expectations of myself, of my work, of other people, and took a lot of time and effort, but honestly, I was holding up an impossible measure and saying, “I will never be successful until…” and then listing things I did not even WANT. I gave up the things I didn’t want, and just focused on what I did. But after 1-4 took effect, because this stuff is tiring and makes me cry a lot.

6) Understanding who I am, essentially. I grew up with a set of parents who thought I was amazing, which: FANTASTIC! But they kind of wanted to…mold me into how they saw me. “You’re fantastic, so you should be a doctor! You’re fantastic, so you should study for the SATs day and night! You’re fantastic, so you should go to this college!” Etc. It was not their fault. I am not saying that at all, but coupled with my depression and my history of abuse, I didn’t really know how to listen to myself until just now. Like, three months ago. I didn’t know what I wanted, because I always assumed other people knew better than me. It has been a revelation to see that other people are just human TOO. WHO KNEW? And the person who knows me best and what I want most is ME.

Huh.

Yeah, duh, you say, but seriously, everything that I ever really and truly liked, I shoved down and sublimated, because I thought (or was told) it was “wrong,” and put other peoples’ ideals ahead of mine. Because they don’t have to live with them, I do.

Double huh.

7) I cry a lot. I used to bottle it up, but I am just…a crier. I am. I cry at the news and I cried yesterday at a picture book I was reading to my son, and I cry at movies that are not even a little bit sad and I cry when I am writing and THAT IS OKAY. Because that is who I am, and there is nothing wrong with that. I like a good cry. Several times a day. Er, hour. It doesn’t mean I’m SAD, it means I just FEEL a lot. I let myself feel now. I used to stuff them back and mutter an insult to myself about how sensitive I was, and how dumb that was. The problem is that no matter how hard I tried to run from my feelings, they were there when I got back. Waiting. Feelings demand to be felt.

So I am feeling them. I am crying right now, for your information. (I guess this is just an addendum to six, but seriously, I cry so much, it felt like it needed its own entry.)

I’m sure there’s more, and I am telling you that this month, putting a book out by myself, is equal parts thrilling and terrifying, and I wake up every morning at five am in a blind panic about all there is to do and misspelled words and typos and issues with the plot and then I say to myself, “but if it’s a mistake, that’s okay, too.” Because I’m at that place where I realize I have everything I need to be happy, so I am.

I am. 

 

Quick Housekeeping Thing

So! I am very new to this whole marketing thing, but if you want to read snippets from LOST AND FOUND, I have an author (!) page on Facebook where I’m posting them. (If you’d rather they be here, or both places, let me know, okay? Noob here.)

And since a bunch of you asked, yes, Chris Van Hakes is me. It’s a pseudonym, an anagram of my kids’ names. Still all Shalini on the inside, where it’s dark and squishy and full of organs, where it counts.

MWAH. Thank you for your support. I will never forget it.