Category Archives: emotion

Gaining a little more confidence

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I don’t know how Dean Koontz, or any author for that matter, felt after they completed their first novel.  Were they elated?  Were they sick to their stomach?  Were they prone in a semi-fetal position rocking back and forth thinking that they would eventually have to deliver this literary child to the public for mass consumption and scrutiny?  I have experienced all of these emotions, and more, in just the past few months.

I have been fortunate to have my first three Beta readers be very supportive and encouraging and give extremely positive feedback to The Waking Hours.  I have just sent a digital copy to reader number four and, in the next few days, will hand deliver a hard copy to reader number five.  In a perfect world, I paint a pretty picture of rainbows and unicorns as I receive their reviews of the book.  But somewhere, in the far recesses of my mind, I know the second shoe eventually has to drop and it may not fall as precisely as I would like.

I am well-aware that with success comes the possibility of epic failure, or at least overtly constructive criticism, and I think I have secured myself behind a wall that is strong enough to allow me to absorb those critiques with a comfortable cushion.  Although I have bled countless times trying to craft a worthy tale, there is still some blood to be shed in the battle of writer vs. reader and I know I will not emerge completely unscathed.   To bastardize a line from one of my favorite movies, The Replacements, “Pain heals.  Readers dig scars.  Glory….lasts forever”.

 

The “Dobler” Effect

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“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.” ~ Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything

Lloyd Dobler

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I stumbled across a blog a while ago that was singing the praises of the movie “Say Anything”.   This 1989 classic has always been one of my favorite movies.  Lloyd Dobler, played by John Cusack, was one of the most epic male movie roles of my generation.  He was a guy every guy could relate to and a guy that most girls wanted to date.

Lloyd isn’t the macho, overly muscled guy oozing with too much bravado and too little sense.  He doesn’t say things just because he thinks you want to hear them.  What he does say is anything that comes into his mind.  Girls watching him on the big screen fell in love with his charming, albeit occasionally clumsy, qualities (see above quote about what he wants to do for a career).  But in his clumsiness, he stole the hearts of many girls, including mine.

There are not many movie characters who have story lines written without them having some egregious character flaw to make them interesting.  Lloyd Dobler is one of those few who didn’t need the flaws.  What made him interesting was how wonderfully normal he was.   In 1989 we all wanted to find our own Lloyd Dobler and some of us are still on that quest.

Although it is 28 years later, I admittedly still have a crush on John Cusack.  It may sound trite, but it’s true.  I always hope in my heart that John Cusack, the person, is as charming and sweet as Lloyd Dobler was in the movie and that one day I will find someone who reminds me a lot of him.

Three for three

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The term “Beta Readers” is a daunting phrase for fledgling authors.  It means you trust your book to people who don’t know you and won’t be so prone to sugar-coating their review of your work.

My first reader, admittedly, was my nephew.  While he is still a teenager, he is a voracious reader so I knew his opinion of the story would be valuable.  Since I gave him the book in the middle of the summer, his reading was not as fast as his usual pace but he loved the story and he liked the twist at the end.

My second reader was a friend, but a friend who I knew I could count on to be brutally honest about her take on the story, the writing and the characters.  When she handed the pages back to me, they were filled with sticky notes that I was initially afraid to read.  When I finally got the courage to open the pages, her sticky notes were filled with encouraging messages and notes about her excitement to keep reading to see where the story went.  She didn’t want to put the book down.  Her last message had me in tears when she said she was at a loss for what to read next because she enjoyed the book so much.

My third reader is a friend of my second reader.  I have never met her so her opinion was, by far, the most anticipated because she had nothing to gain, or to lose, by telling me her honest opinion of my book.  She enjoyed the intrigue and said my book had all the elements of a good suspense/thriller and she is looking forward to my next book.  For a writer, it doesn’t get much better than that!

After those encouraging words, I followed my pattern from last year and have scheduled the suspension of my satellite service for a six-month period starting a few days after the Superbowl.  Without the mindless distraction of random television shows, I hope to repeat my success from last year and finish book number two while still pounding the internet pavement to see if I can find an interested agent or publisher for book number one.

If ever I needed patience, now is the time.  I will still be looking for a few more Beta Readers in the interim but my confidence in handing over my pages is certainly much higher that it was before.  Most of the fear is gone and has been replaced by hope.  A few positive words can go a long way and I plan on holding those words very close to my heart.

 

This one says it all

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As I have said before, I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.  I do, however, follow certain mantras and this one is at the top of my list for 2018.  I have let undue stress affect my health and well-being far too many, very unnecessary, times.  Thankfully, I have mastered a few techniques to bring myself back to a relaxed state of mind before I become a victim of a rapid pulse and high blood pressure.  Recently, I have also been using essential oils and find them very calming.


The key to dealing with stress is to figure out the trigger points and avoid those situations entirely.  Much easier said than done for most, myself included, but I have spent a great deal of time pinpointing the worst of my stressful situations and learning how to gracefully excuse myself from those circumstances.  It may not be possible all the time, but at least I am aware of the biggest triggers of my stress and can make better choices for the sake of my health.

I may be trying to achieve the impossible, but at least if I remain aware of how much stress affects my body, I can enjoy a very happy and healthy 2018.

 

Ready to welcome 2018

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2017 has provided me with many things, not in terms of wealth or possessions but things that mean so much more.  It has urged me to embrace the people who mean the most to me, to ignore the negative energy and to run with my full self towards the things that engage me and avoid the things make me feel trapped.

I don’t make resolutions on New Year’s Eve.  I don’t go out to a party.  I spend a very quiet night at home with my dog.  I make a tasty dinner for myself and enjoy some nice wine and reflect on all of the things I love and the few things that I barely survived.  Writing my book was, by far, the thing I am most proud of.  It was a daunting task that I saw to fruition.  The story was a very worthy adversary but I put forth a solid effort and, in the end, I won the battle.

Although I don’t make resolutions, I do make a vow to be the best version of myself and to give as much of myself as I can to those around me.  It is a simple task and one I find easy to do.   This coming year will also be the year I aggressively pursue a literary agent or publisher in the hopes of seeing my book in print. I am also set to tackle book number two (once football season is over!).

May 2018 bring us all love, health and happiness.  May those special moments and special people still be able to surprise us and remind us that each moment is precious.  And may we give as much of ourselves as we can to those less fortunate.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year and hope this will be the year that we all have the courage to hold on to the things that make us the happiest version of ourselves.

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A dream to build a kiss on

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You kissed me.

It was in my dream,

but the graze of your warm lips on mine

made time stand still

in that dream.

It was tentative at first,

but your hesitation told me

how much this first kiss meant.couple-holding-hands

Your eyes held my gaze,

suspended in time,

as our breathing quickened.

Your hand reached for mine

and our fingers intertwined.

Your gentle kiss spoke volumes,

yet needed no words.

My breath caught in my throat

and you just smiled,

watching my cheeks flush.

You leaned in again,

this time with no hesitation

as sure of this next kiss

as you are of your existence.

Our lips met again.

Your hands gently touched my face

as I pulled myself into you.

Time stood still,

and although the graze of your warm lips on mine

was only in a dream,

you kissed me.

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Boys will be boys and then they make you cry – round 2

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He did it to me again.  My now 17-year-old nephew has created a Christmas memory that brought me to tears.  Three years ago, several months after we lost my mother, and his Nana, I wrote this post about his wonderful Christmas gesture that reduced me to a puddle once I was safely in the confines of my home.  This year, he managed to pull at my heart-strings once again, forcing me to swallow my raw emotion until I got home.

Our Christmas Eve tradition has not changed.  We all gather at the end of my brother’s driveway to watch Santa Claus cruise through the streets atop the fire truck, we go to the Christmas service at the church and then we all go home to finish up the last-minute wrapping for the big day.  This year was different.  My nephew insisted that we all go back to my brother’s house after church because he wanted to give us his Christmas gifts when we were all together.  Carefully he placed his gifts in the laps of his family and grinned from ear to ear as we tore off the paper to see what lay underneath.

Each of us received a gift that he had given great thought to and created with his own hands.  Attached to a piece of very sentimental barn-board was a piece of metal that he had carved for each of us with our last name and either our year of birth or our year of marriage.  This is my beautiful sign.

The Christmas spirit is alive and well and now resides in the heart of my nephew.  He truly felt the joy of giving.  His face was animated as he watched each of us run our fingers along the names he had carved into our signs.  He was more excited for us to receive our gifts than he was to think about what lay under the tree for him on Christmas morning.  He gets it.  He now knows that the true gift at Christmas is the one  you give and not the one you receive.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell him how much his gift meant until I had been home and had time to process my emotion.  After I shed a few tears, I texted him and told him how much his gift touched my heart.  He is coming over later today to help me put up the sign that I will look at with great pride and emotion for a very long time.

It’s all in the signs

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I admit to having a warped sense of humor.  But in my defense, I have many friends who share my love for the strange and twisted things that make us laugh.

There is a road sign about five minutes from my house that I am assuming leads to a lovely cottage on Lake Muskoka.  It was really just an innocent sign until I told a friend about it and our back and forth texting about that sign had us both in tears we were laughing so hard.

The simple amusement about the sign itself turned into a full-on laugh fest when we thought about invited guests coming up to this cottage but, before they drove down the road, they decided there was no reason to go any further.  The point was moot.  We pictured groups of people milling about at the end of the driveway wondering why they even made the drive up in the first place.  The more we thought about it, the more we laughed.

My friend drove up here to have lunch and we made a point of stopping in the driveway to take some pictures of the sign.  The laughter that we had shared before was brought back quickly as we sat in our seats, tears staining our cheeks as the laughter started all over again.

Now, every time I drive by Moot Point, it makes me giggle.  One innocuous sign is now the thing that can bring a smile to my face because it brings back memories of sharing great laughs with someone who is just as warped as I am.

My letter to Santa this year

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Dear Santa,

I hope this letter finds you well and feeling the joy of the season.

I have spent many hours considering what I would like for Christmas this year.  I do believe you will find my name on the nice list so I thought I would save you some time when it came to my gift.

santa's list

I want life experiences for my gift this year.  I want to sit in a room with my family and laugh until we cry because the joke is something only we would understand.  I want my brother and I to share a toast to my parents and take a moment to remember my dad waking us up at 6:00 am by cranking the Beach Boys vinyl album and my mom inevitably leaving a price tag on at least one of our gifts and then finding the last gift sometime in April because she had hidden it so well.

I want to really watch my nephews this year as they tear open their mountain of presents.  It seems like only yesterday they had no real concept of what was happening and now I’m going to blink and they will both be off to University and, soon after that, having Christmases of their own.

I want to embrace the friends I have and let them know how lucky I feel to be able to call them friends.  I want them to know how much they mean to me and how close I hold that friendship to my heart.

I want to take a quiet moment or two during the holidays and reflect on all of the wonderful things that happened to me throughout the course of the year.  And I want the words “I love you” to be a comfortable phrase that gets shared a lot, and not just during the holidays.

I know you are a busy man this time of year so I shall leave it at that.  I will be waving at you on Christmas Eve as we stand at the end of my brother’s driveway and watch you go by on the Fire Truck as I have every year since I was seven years old.

Merry Christmas Santa.

A little glimpse into the past

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I think about my parents a lot.  I think of the life I had when I was lucky enough to have them in my life, but rarely do I think much about the lives they led before they were married and had children.

Lately, I have been helping our local library with a very interesting project that they are creating to help commemorate Canada’s 150th birthday.  They are putting together a book with photographs and personal stories of how our senior residents came to live in our little town.  I have had the good fortune of interviewing a great number of these residents so I can write their stories.  Some of the people I have interviewed have spent their whole lives here and, as I have come to know, several of them remember my mother in her much younger days.

My mom’s side of the family have cottaged in our little village for generations.  She spent the best days of her childhood on the same shores of Lake Rosseau that I had the good fortune of growing up on at our family cottage.  During several of my interviews, I have been overjoyed with the words, “I remember your mom……” and the stories go on from there.

A project that began as a chance to tell the stories of our local residents has turned into a project that has allowed me to look into the life of my mother when she was a young girl and a teenager.  I was even told a story of my mother knitting one of our local residents a pair of blue socks with a yellow diamond and she even took the time to stitch an “M” in the diamond.  That story really hit home for me.  My mom was still knitting socks until she died.

What started as just a writing project has turned into a wonderful glimpse into my mother’s past and I am thankful, especially during the holidays, to know that little pieces of her live on in the memories of those around me.