See You At The Gaithersburg Book Festival On Saturday

May 16, 2017 By

The big news here this week is that the rain came and finally we are no longer in a mild drought situation. But the even bigger news is that next Saturday, I will be in taking part in a Memoir Panel Discussion at the Gaithersburg Book Festival in Maryland. I’m excited.

Joining me on the panel will be fellow She Writes Press sister, Betty Hafner. Betty’s memoir, Not Exactly Love, published last year, is about her first marriage and the unpredictable domestic violence she lived with for far too long. For the multitude of women and men who live with physical abuse at the hands of their spouses, this book is a poignant guide revealing how Betty took back her own life, leaving the abuse she suffered behind. It’s a moving narrative filled with the stuff of real life. I found it hard to put down.

Seema Reza, author of another page-turner, When the World Breaks Open, published by Red Hen Press in 2016, will join us in our discussion about writing memoir and abuse. With raw honesty, Seema examines her own role in her dysfunctional and abusive marriage, as she struggles with fear, regret, love, loss, and motherhood. Written as a series of short essays, poems, and notes to herself she brings to life the lessons she has learned and the infinite wisdom one finds amidst suffering.

My own book, Scattering Ashes, A Memoir of Letting Go, about living with my mother during her last seven years of her life, sheds light on how domestic abuse by parents effects their children throughout their lifetimes and how the chain of abuse within a family can be stopped.

If you are in the area it would be wonderful to see you there. The panel will start at 11:15 AM and run until 12:00 PM, followed by a book signing.

Go to the Gaithersburg Book Festival’s website here for directions and a schedule of other interesting book events.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Memoir, Reading, Writing

Writing While Sick With The Flu

April 4, 2017 By

Woodland Phlox blooming in my garden now.

Last week I said I’d be away and wouldn’t be posting a blog today. I’m supposed to be in a quiet location about an hour from here at a five day insight dialogue meditation retreat. Unfortunately I came down with the flu the day before I was supposed to leave and have been in bed ever since. I don’t do flu shots, but this dance with this nasty bug has me wondering if I should get one next fall when they are once again offered.

Except for a nasty cold after the first of the year, a UTI several weeks ago on a Saturday that took me to the ER, I’ve had a healthy winter. The hospital has a new system where you if you need to go to the ER you log in on line before you leave your home. They will tell you when to be there. I called at 3 PM and was told to be there at 5:30.  I expected immediate treatment, but sat in the waiting room until 9:30, filled with folks, young and old with the flu and the very nasty Norovirus.   I know that is where both Bill and I picked up this bug that has had both of us in bed for days.

While Bill is feeling much better and has slipped out for groceries, he still finds a need to take care of himself and not overdo. I was told of someone who had this bug for 3 weeks, because he went back out into the world too early and got sick again. I was told I’d be welcome at the retreat even a few days late, but though I am feeling somewhat better, I’ll take no chances and just stay put for the next few days. The retreat is over on Wednesday. No way am I going to make it.

For me it’s been five days of misery, yet despite my fight with a fever, a constant barking cough, a burning sore throat, and extreme dizziness, my head has been filled to the brim with writing ideas.  On Saturday, I decided to put two nonfiction books aside that I’ve been reading. The first was, Dreamland: The true Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic, by Sam Quinones, which is hard enough to read when you’re feeling well. I’m not at all sure that I will ever finish it. It’s just too damned depressing. The second one that I truly love and will absolutely finish is, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World, by Nancy Collier. Who needs nonfiction when you can’t stand up straight, walk across a room without weaving back and forth like a drunk, and can’t breathe?

Both of those books are about addiction and though I don’t and never will take opiates, being addicted to the internet and the iPhone is something I admit to and resonate with.  You’ll hear more about this in future posts. I find America’s addiction to all things technical an alarming addiction and a difficult one to break.

After putting those two books aside, I picked up Christina Baker Kline’s, new novel, A Piece Of The World. I loved her book, Orphan Train, and heard her talk at the Virginia Festival of the Book just a few short weeks ago. Her use of language, descriptive passages, and narrative based on hours of research into Andrew Wyeth’s relationship with Christina Olson, the woman in his most admired painting, Christina’s World is phenomenal. I’ve only just begun this book and my eyes get tired easily, so I read for short stretches. But her beautiful words tumble through my mind as I cat nap between putting the book down and picking it up again.

Yesterday, feeling better than I have in a few days, but still a bit fuzzy headed, I picked up, Natasha Trethewey’s book of poems, Native Guard. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2007. I heard her talk about her work and poetry at a journaling conference I attended last May. The child of a racially mixed marriage, her poems “confront the racial legacy of her native Deep South.” Like Kline’s words, Trethewey’s verse is beautifully written, phenomenally descriptive of both place and emotion, leaving no doubt as to where you are and exactly what is happening.

With those two books tucked under the covers with me, I became inspired. It was the first time in a long while that I felt that I absolutely had to write something right then and there,  as often happens when I read the words of exquisite writers, like these to women.

And realizing that April is National Poetry Month, I got it in my head to write a poem a day for the rest of the month. I missed April Fool’s day, because I was so sick, but maybe I can write two poems another day to make up for missing the first day of this new month. I immediately wrote the following poem.

Abed With The Flu

Four days in my sick bed
I sleep and read the time away
Sun wakes  falls asleep again
The half-moon lends light to the dark
Fever comes and goes
First I’m cold then sweaty
The world stumbles along
Outside my door

My cough sounding dog-like
Brings flem to the surface
Encouraging my own song
Like these words
Stories I will tell again another day

 

Have you ever had the urge to write when you were sick or otherwise engaged?

Filed Under: Books, Poetry, Reading, Writing

How I Keep Guilt From Haunting Me

June 8, 2015 By
Max knows how to keep Guilt away!

Max knows how to keep Guilt away!

I’ve just written a post for my blog next week. I’m caught up with the revisions I’m doing on my memoir. There are only two more chapters to talk to my editor about and then the work will begin to have my book become a reality in the fall of 2016. I’m excited.

But I’m feeling restless. The studio needs a good dusting and vacuuming. My computer desktop needs attention and I should start rereading the booklet of things I need to know about She Writes Press, the hybrid publisher I plan to go with. I promised myself weeks ago that I’d come up with an elevator pitch for my book and haven’t thought about it since then. There are over a hundred emails that need my attention and possible filing. They’re mostly about writing, publishing, and building an author platform, a true necessity if one is to sell the book she is getting ready to publish.

There is too much to do. It’s already late afternoon and I need to walk the dogs in about an hour and then there is dinner to prepare. But all I want to do is put my feet up and not be pushed to get more work done.

I opt to relax, write in my journal, and do some reading. But as I sit down in my favorite chair with a tall glass of iced tea to begin my friend, Guilt, arrives and begins haranguing me.

“What do you think you’re doing? How can you be writing in your journal and reading when you’re getting ready to publish a book? You need to go back over to the studio and get to work on your platform. You are not doing enough to pull in readers. You’re lazy and a wimp. Look what your friend J. is doing to promote her book. GET TO WORK!“

Despite Guilt’s unending criticism I pick up my purple pen and start a new page in my journal. I begin by making excuses.

“I haven’t put pen to paper here in almost a week and I need to remember all of the brilliant ideas I’ve already forgotten because I haven’t put in time writing here. There is just too much to do and  sometimes I just need to kick back and enjoy life without being pushed.”

Gathering steam I address Guilt: “You want me to be a writer? Then let me read. Everybody knows that reading other writer’s words is the way to learn. Now go away and leave me alone.”

I end up writing well over four pages about how important reading and writing in this journal is for me. I notice Sam and Max sitting at my feet and staring at me. They have an inner clock and they know it’s close to “walky” time and then dinner. I have twenty minutes left to do some reading before it’s officially their time and I’m going to take it.  I tell them to go lie down.  But do  listen to me? No.

I delve back into the book that has taken me over a month to get to the middle of. I haven’t read a novel in ages, my preference usually being non-fiction.  But The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt is a page turner and I need to use every extra minute I can manage to to read it.

When my twenty minutes are done, I get the dogs leashed up and drag Guilt along on our walk, stopping at every fire hydrant and blade of grass that dogs have peed on. She’s not happy when I start complaining her about her persistant nagging. She keeps trying to get a word in edgewise using her favorite words, “Yes, but.” However, I’m way ahead of her and leave her in the dust just after Max pees on her shoe.

I have to laugh. She never gives up and she’ll probably be waiting for me around the next corner ready to start her never ending pitch on how to keep working non-stop so that my book will be on the New York Times best seller list. I may have to use physical force to keep her in the ditch.  But that’s okay, I think I have the upper hand and she’ll leave me alone as long as my guard dog, Max is with me.

Does Guilt or some other critic hassle with you during your busy days? Do you have a sure-fire remedy for keeping them away?  If you do, I’d love to hear about it.

Filed Under: Dogs, Guilt, Journaling, Reading, Trauma, Writing