She Writes

A Gift to Remember When Your Writing (or Your Life) Isn’t Going Well

Bella Mahaya Carter — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 02:25:00 +0000

Most writers I know (myself included) take their work very seriously. A good writing day lifts our spirits. Missing a writing day can create guilt. Rejection may plummet us to the depths of despair. We judge ourselves based on what we accomplish—or don’t accomplish. When the writing is going well, we think highly of ourselves. When it’s not, we question whether we should write at all—and, when it’s really bad, we doubt our worth as human beings.

We are writers, yes, but we are human beings first. Many of us are also mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, friends and professionals in a wide variety of fields.

The other day, feeling challenged at my desk, I decided to go for a walk while listening to a recorded webinar with Elsie Spittle, a teacher of the Three Principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought. Elsie spoke about the importance of listening not only to words, but also to the energy behind them. She got me thinking about my own use of language and energy. And true to what she shared, it wasn’t only what she said, but how she said it that resonated deeply. She was extremely grounded, calm, and quiet—yet strong and clear in her communication, which reflected a deep knowing.

The quality of my walk changed. I went from feeling lethargic and dull to sensing the brightness of life around me. Trees, bushes, flowers—even the sky—felt alive. I stopped to look at the mountains and the air itself seemed to pulsate with life. I’ve written about similar experiences in my memoir, Raw: My Journey from Anxiety to Joy. What I experienced was presence, being open and available to life in the moment without being consumed by thought. Though it’s often a distraction. I can walk for an hour and not see anything around me. Or I can see it, but not feel it. Not feel life! I can do life—cross things off a list, accomplish goals, have a good or bad writing day, prepare food or go out to eat, do chores, read books, watch TV—completely unaware of the miracle of life. Sadly, it’s sometimes easier (a default setting for many of us) to focus on petty grievances, which is an unfortunate distraction from the limitless potential that resides within.

Maybe it’s unrealistic to think that I can live with this awareness and the feeling it creates all the time, but I’m certain I can experience it more often than I do. My intention is to keep opening the channel to my spiritual self and inner well-being, to lead from this place. Follow this understanding—in service to my own happiness and the happiness of those around me: family, friends, students, clients, and anyone I come in contact with, which includes grocery checkout clerks, bank tellers, neighbors walking their dogs, fellow dancers and yogis, and countless others I interact with every day.

Elsie spittle says happiness is inherent. The only thing that keeps us from it is our own thinking. She says that the peace and joy we’re seeking resides within. Look there.

When I came home from my walk, I meditated. Without thinking, I placed my right hand over my heart while wrapping my left arm around my belly. Eyes closed, I held myself and breathed into my own arms. It was easy to feel my breath this way. I felt it inside and outside—with my arms. My mind wandered, as minds do, and when I realized I’d been distracted by thought, I returned my attention to my breath. Holding myself this way sparked compassion. A deep love welled up inside me, and as I held myself it was as if I were holding a loved one. Judgment dropped away. I saw myself as a loving mother sees her child.

And from this honest and connected place, I returned to my office, where my writing winked at me and whispered, Sometimes you have to step away. Sometimes you need to remember who you really are. Sometimes you need to engage life without filters, open yourself to the miracle.

Mix Things Up to Break Writer's Block

Maria Murnane — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 15:40:04 +0000

I hate writer’s block. It’s the worst! As far as I know, there’s no magic formula for curing this unfortunate affliction when it strikes, only various approaches to try until you find something that works for you.

I recently had a conversation with a creative director at an advertising agency about the brainstorming process, which we agreed is similar in many ways to the writing process. When encountering a mental block, he finds it helpful to break his pattern. He said it’s human nature to fall into a routine, so shaking things up even a little bit can help unfreeze that creative energy.

For example, try one of the following:

*Buy your morning coffee somewhere new

*Drive (or walk/subway) to your house/apartment/office via a new route

*Listen to a different radio station

*Go for a walk with your head on a swivel -- and observe!

*Drag yourself out of bed a half-hour early

I liked my friend’s suggestions and plan to try some of them the next time I find myself staring at my computer screen, willing the words to magically appear without assistance from my fingers. Sometimes it’s easy to come up with ideas on the spot (snap fingers), but sometimes it’s not. When things just aren’t clicking for you, try mixing up your routine and see what happens.

Do you have any suggestions for how to deal with writer’s block? If so, please leave them in the comments. I’m all ears!

-Maria

Maria Murnane writes bestselling novels about life, love and friendship. Have questions? You can find her at www.mariamurnane.com

5 Ways to Transition After Book Publication

Nancy Chadwick — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 14:59:00 +0000

Your book was published.

You cold called indie bookstores and libraries, sent email inquiries to venues for author events, you met up with writing groups, friends, co-workers, fellow writing colleagues, you solicited book reviews and book awards. Publicity and book tours. There was always something to do. Perhaps some authors have no discernable transition because it’s a “business as usual” practice. But for me, that business is no longer usual; it has changed. The “always something” has evolved to not much of anything. My publicity campaign has ended and I now see an idle box filled with postcards and bookmarks, books, posters, and cash box, remnants of post pub when self-promotion was part of the “always something.” So, what’s next?

It’s a strange feeling to know that my memoir, Under the Birch Tree has crossed the finish line. For years, it was all about my memoir, answering inquiring minds’ questions, falling asleep while recapping moments of due diligence and trying with all my might to remember that sentence or two that would bring the scene together, questioning if my edits remained true to my writing. But now, not so much.

By definition, “transition” means a passage, transformation or conversion. I feel as if I passed through a conversion, no longer accumulating a gluttonous amount of files and folders on my computer where I'm unable to see the pink hydrangea photo on the screen. I was disorganized and now I’ve got time to organize my computer files to make a photo of my garden flower appear once again.

This transition is a passage from a constant push for writing know-how and publication, to a place that has allowed me to see how far I’ve come, how much I’ve learned and envision where I want to be next. I pause in body and mind which gives me time to read earlier month’s pages of notes, lists, names to contact and even more lists. I reflect on when recording remembrances appeared more important than doing something with it. Like seeing an old photograph, you didn’t realize its importance at the time it was taken, but you see what it means to you now. Transformations are a way to see what you had before, what you left behind, and where you are presently.

The 18 months of my journey to publication was not for a thin-skinned person; thick skin was needed to deflect the unexpected–self-doubt, fear, inferiority. Perhaps transitions create resilience.

And now I take steps in new directions; to find a new rhythm to “always something.” I was only able to look forward, after looking at what I had left behind, and cleared out a filled computer and mind. I think this was my way of putting something to rest before I felt I could move on.

Transitioning from book publication to post pub

I've listed suggested ways to facilitate a transition from book publication to post pub.

Computer filing. Clear out and delete old emails and files you saved because you thought you might need them but never, ever, did refer to them. Organize remaining emails and files into general topics for easy referral.

And then there’s the paper! I had accumulated a lot of this. Re-read your hardcopies of everything. Throw out hardcopy notes, guides, others’ blog posts, reference printouts, and your notes that might have been timely then but no longer apply now. Sort and make file folders for remaining paper. This was the most rewarding task. I was able to reread and relearn and in so doing, came up with content for book two, essays and posts.

Reorganize your book library. I had books all over the place used over the years when writing my memoir. Now I can put them back into easily accessable groups of fiction, craft, writing, reference and other non-fiction.

Write content. Back to the paper organization. Pull out your notes, and you know you have them! of first-liners or of first-paragraphers that you know will make for a good blog post or content essay for continuing book promotion.

Be creative and get personal. With never losing sight of maintaining book promotion, use social media to engage and promote your book and to build reader base organically through visual posts and applying life experiences, showing a side of you, the author, who no one has seen.

Are you an author who has experienced a transition? What are your thoughts and have you done anything to ease your new “always something?”

Louise Candlish: An Excerpt

She Writes — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 14:58:00 +0000

The below excerpt is from our September guest editor's novel Our House. L ouise Candlish's newest release is now available in hardcover.

Friday, 13 January 2017 London, 12.30 p.m.

She must be mistaken, but it looks exactly as if someone is moving into her house.

The van is parked halfway down Trinity Avenue, its square mouth agape, a large piece of furniture sliding down the ribbed metal tongue. Fi watches, squinting into the buttery sun- light – rare for the time of year, a gift – as the object is borne shoulder-high by two men through the gate and down the path.

My gate. My path.

No, that’s illogical: of course it can’t be her house. It must be the Reeces’, two down from hers; they put their place on the market in the autumn and no one is quite sure if a sale has gone through. The houses on this side of Trinity Avenue are all built the same – red-brick double-fronted Edwardians in pairs, their owners united in a preference for front doors painted black – and everyone agrees it’s easy to miscount.

Once, when Bram came stumbling home from one of his ‘quick’ drinks at the Two Brewers, he went to the wrong door and she heard through the open bedroom window the scram- bling and huffing as her inebriated husband failed to fit his key into the lock of number 87, Merle and Adrian’s place. His persistence was staggering, his dogged belief that if he only kept on trying the key would work.

‘But they all look the same,’ he’d protested in the morning.

‘The houses, yes, but even a drunk couldn’t miss the mag- nolia,’ Fi had told him, laughing. (This was back when she was still amused by his inebriety and not filled with sadness – or disdain, depending on her mood.)

Her step falters: the magnolia. It’s a landmark, their tree, a celebrated sight when in blossom and beautiful even when bare, as it is now, the outer twigs etched into the sky with an artist’s flair. And it is definitely in the front garden of the house with the van outside.

Think. It must be a delivery, something for Bram that he hasn’t mentioned to her. Not every detail gets communicated; they both accept that their new system isn’t flawless. Hurrying again, using her fingers as a sun visor, she’s near enough to be able to read the lettering on the side of the vehicle: Prestige Home Removals. It is a house move, then. Friends of Bram must be dropping something off en route to somewhere. If she were able to choose, it would be an old piano for the boys (please, Lord, not a drum kit).

But wait, the deliverymen have reappeared and now more items are being transported from van to house: a dining chair; a large round metallic tray; a box labelled Fragile; a small, slim wardrobe the size of a coffin. Whose things are these? A rush of anger fires her blood as she reaches the only possible conclusion: Bram has invited someone to stay. Some dispossessed drinking pal, no doubt, with nowhere else to go. (‘Stay as long as you like, mate, we’ve got bags of room.’) When the hell was he going to tell her? Well, there’s no way a stranger is sharing their home, however temporarily, how- ever charitable Bram’s intentions. The kids come first: isn’t that the point?

Lately, she worries they’ve forgotten the point.

She’s almost there. As she passes number 87, she’s aware of Merle at the first-floor window, face cast in a frown, arm raised for Fi’s attention. Fi makes only the briefest of acknow- ledgements as she strides through her own gate and onto the tiled path.

‘Excuse me? What’s going on here?’ But in the clamour no one seems to hear. Louder now, sharper: ‘What are you doing with all this stuff? Where’s Bram?’

A woman she doesn’t know comes out of the house and stands on the doorstep, smiling. ‘Hello, can I help?’

She gasps as if at an apparition. This is Bram’s friend in need? Familiar by type rather than feature, she is one of Fi’s own – though younger, in her thirties – blonde and brisk and cheerful, the sort to roll up her sleeves and take charge. The sort, as history testifies, to constrain a free spirit like Bram. ‘I hope so, yes. I’m Fi, Bram’s wife. What’s going on here? Are you ... are you a friend of his?’

The woman steps closer, purposeful, polite. ‘Sorry, whose wife?’

‘Bram’s. I mean ex-wife, really.’ The correction earns a curious look, followed by the suggestion that the two of them move off the path and out of the way of ‘the guys’. As a huge bubble-wrapped canvas glides by, Fi allows herself to be steered under the ribs of the magnolia. ‘What on earth has he agreed to here?’ she demands. ‘Whatever it is, I know nothing about it.’

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’ There is a faint puckering of the woman’s forehead as she studies Fi. Her eyes are golden- brown and honest. ‘Are you a neighbour?’

‘No, of course not.’ Fi is becoming impatient. ‘I live here.’

The puckering deepens. ‘I don’t think so. We’re just moving in. My husband will be here soon with the second van. We’re the Vaughans?’ She says it as though Fi might have heard of them, even offers her hand for a formal shake. ‘I’m Lucy.’

Gaping, Fi struggles to trust her ears, the false messages they are transmitting to her brain. ‘Look, I’m the owner of this house and I think I would know if I’d arranged to rent it out.’

The rose-pink of confusion creeps over Lucy Vaughan’s face. She lowers her hand. ‘We’re not renting it. We’ve bought it.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘I’m not!’ The other woman glances at her watch. ‘Officially, we became the new owners at twelve o’clock, but the agent let us pick up the keys just before that.’

‘What are you talking about? What agent? No agent has keys to my house!’ Fi’s face spasms with conflicting emotions: fear, frustration, anger, even a dark, grudging amusement, because this must be a joke, albeit on an epic scale. What else can it be? ‘Is this some sort of prank?’ She searches over the woman’s shoulder for cameras, for a phone recording her bewilderment in the name of entertainment, but finds none – only a series of large boxes sailing past. ‘Because I’m not finding it very funny. You need to get these people to stop.’

‘I have no intention of getting them to stop,’ Lucy Vaughan says, crisp and decisive, just like Fi usually is, when she hasn’t been blindsided by something like this. Her mouth turns in vexation before opening in sudden wonder. ‘Wait a minute, Fi, did you say? Is that Fiona?’

‘Yes. Fiona Lawson.’

‘Then you must be—’ Lucy pauses, notices the querying glances from the movers, lowers her voice. ‘I think you’d better come inside.’

And Fi finds herself being ushered through her own door, into her own house, like a guest. She steps into the broad, high-ceilinged hallway and stops short, dumbstruck. This isn’t her hall. The dimensions are correct, yes, the silver-blue paint scheme remains the same and the staircase has not moved, but the space has been stripped, plundered of every last item that belongs in it: the console table and antique monks bench, the heap of shoes and bags, the pictures on the walls. And her beloved rosewood mirror, inherited from her grandmother, gone! She reaches to touch the wall where it should be, as if expecting to find it sunk into the plaster.

‘What have you done with all our things?’ she demands of Lucy. Panic makes her strident and a passing mover casts her a correcting sort of look, as if she is the threatening one.

‘I haven’t done anything,’ Lucy says. ‘You moved your stuff out. Yesterday, I’m assuming.’

‘I did nothing of the sort. I need to look upstairs,’ Fi says, shouldering past her.

‘Well . . .’ Lucy begins, but it isn’t a request. Fi isn’t seeking permission to inspect her own home.

Having climbed the stairs two at a time, she pauses on the upstairs landing, hand still gripping the mahogany curve of the banister rail as if she expects the building to pitch and roll beneath her. She needs to prove to herself she is in the right house, that she hasn’t lost her mind. Good, all doors appear to lead to where they should: two bathrooms at the middle front and rear, two bedrooms on the left and two on the right. Even as she lets go of the banister and enters each room in turn, she still expects to see her family’s possessions where they should be, where they’ve always been.

But there is nothing. Everything they own has vanished, not a stick of furniture left, only indentations in the carpet where twenty-four hours ago the legs of beds and bookcases and wardrobes stood. A bright green stain on the carpet in one of the boys’ rooms from a ball of slime that broke open during a fight one birthday. In the corner of the kids’ shower stands a tube of gel, the kind with tea tree oil – she remembers buying it at Sainsbury’s. Behind the bath taps her fingers find the recently cracked tile (cause of breakage never established) and she presses until it hurts, checking she is still flesh and bone, nerve endings intact.

Everywhere, there is the sharp lemon smell of cleaning fluids.

Returning downstairs, she doesn’t know if the ache has its source inside her or in the walls of her stripped house.

At her approach, Lucy disbands a conference with two of the movers and Fi senses she has rejected their offer of help – to deal with her, the intruder. ‘Mrs Lawson? Fiona?’

‘This is unbelievable,’ Fi says, repeating the word, the only one that will do. Disbelief is all that’s stopping her from hyperventilating, tipping into hysteria. ‘I don’t understand this. Please can you explain what the hell is going on here?’

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to do. Maybe if you see the evidence,’ Lucy suggests. ‘Come into the kitchen – we’re blocking the way here.’

The kitchen too is bare, but for a table and chairs Fi has never seen before, and an open box of tea things on the work- top. Lucy is thoughtful enough to push the door to so as not to offend her visitor’s eyes with the sight of the continuing invasion beyond.

Visitor.

‘Look at these emails,’ Lucy says, offering Fi her phone. ‘They’re from our solicitor, Emma Gilchrist at Bennett, Stafford and Co.’

Fi takes the phone and orders her eyes to focus. The first email is from seven days ago and appears to confirm the exchange of contracts on 91 Trinity Avenue, Alder Rise, between David and Lucy Vaughan and Abraham and Fiona Lawson. The second is from this morning and announces the completion of the sale.

‘You called him Bram, didn’t you?’ Lucy says. ‘That’s why it took me a minute to realize. Bram’s short for Abraham, of course.’ She has a real letter to hand too, an opening statement of account from British Gas, addressed to the Vaughans at Trinity Avenue. ‘We set up all the utility bills to be paperless, but for some reason they sent this by post.’

Fi returns the phone to her. ‘All of this means nothing. They could be fakes. Phishing or something.’

‘Phishing?’

‘Yes, we had a whole talk about neighbourhood crime a few months ago at Merle’s house and the officer told us all about it. Fake emails and invoices look very convincing now. Even the experts can be taken in.’

Lucy gives an exasperated half smile. ‘They’re real, I prom- ise you. It’s all real. The funds will have been transferred to your account by now.’

‘What funds?’

‘The money we paid for this house! I’m sorry, but I can’t go on repeating this, Mrs Lawson.’

‘I’m not asking you to,’ Fi snaps. ‘I’m telling you you must have made a mistake. I’m telling you it’s not possible for you to have bought a house that was never for sale.’

‘But it was for sale, of course it was. Otherwise, we could never have bought it.’

Fi stares at Lucy, utterly disorientated. What she is saying, what she is doing, is complete lunacy and yet she doesn’t look like a madwoman. No, Lucy looks like a woman convinced that the person she is talking to is the deranged one.

‘Maybe you ought to phone your husband,’ Lucy says, finally.

Geneva, 1.30 p.m.

He lies on the bed in his hotel room, arms and legs twitching. The mattress is a good one, designed to absorb sleeplessness, passion, deepest nightmare, but it fails to ease agitation like his. Not even the two antidepressants he’s taken have subdued him. Perhaps it’s the planes making him crazy, the pitiless way they grind in and out, one after another, groaning under their own weight. More likely it’s the terror of what he’s done, the dawning understanding of all that he’s sacrificed.

Because it’s real now. The Swiss clock has struck. One thirty here, twelve thirty in London. He is now in body what he has been in his mind for weeks: a fugitive, a man cast adrift by his own hand. He realizes that he’s been hoping there’ll be, in some bleak way, relief, but now the time has come there is something bleaker: none. Only the same sickening brew of emotions he’s felt since leaving the house early this morning, somehow both grimly fatalistic and wired for survival.

Oh, God. Oh, Fi. Does she know yet? Someone will have seen, surely? Someone will have phoned her with the news. She might even be on her way to the house already.

He shuffles upright, his back against the headboard, and tries to find a focus in the room. The armchair is red leather- ette, the desk black veneer. A return to a 1980s aesthetic, more unsettling than it has any right to be. He swings his legs over the side of the bed. The flooring is warm on bare feet; vinyl or something else man-made. Fi would know what the material is, she has a passion for interiors.

The thought causes a spasm of pain, a new breathlessness. He rises, seeking air – the room, on the fifth floor, is ablaze with central heating – but behind the complicated curtain arrangement the windows are sealed. Cars, white and black and silver, streak along the carriageways between hotel and airport building and, beyond, the mountains divide and shelter, their white peaks tinged peppermint blue. Trapped, he turns once more to face the room, thinking, unexpect- edly, of his father. His fingers reach for the armchair, grip the seat-back. He does not remember the name of this hotel, which he chose for its nearness to the airport, but knows that it is as soulless a place as he deserves.

Because he’s sold his soul, that’s what he’s done. He’s sold his soul.

But not so long ago that he’s forgotten how it feels to have one.

A Q&A with Meri Henriques Vahl

She Writes — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 15:31:40 +0000

Meri Henriques Vahl is the author of Hoosier Hysteria: A Fateful Year in the Crosshairs of Race in America. She has shared some insights with She Writes about her writing routine, her publishing experience and advice for aspiring writers.

SW: Share your writing routine.

MHV: Every morning for the past several years, I work on writing my son’s screenplay until about noon, and then, in the afternoon, if I’m still inspired to keep on writing, I work on my own sci-fi stories, which are always written in the first person.

SW: Describe your writing style in three words.

MHV: personal, direct, engaging

SW: What is the first thing you can remember writing?

MHV: When I was four years old, my father gave me a book with blank, lined pages and a shiny red cover. Since I was by then an avid reader, I filled up the book with my own story, ‘Zuzu the Bear’, complete with illustrations. I wish I still had it!

SW: When did you start to feel like a writer?

MHV: I felt like a writer as soon as I was able to pick up a pencil, and realized that I could use it to tell a story.

SW: Was there something about the publishing experience that surprised you?

MHV: I was surprised by how much teamwork was involved, and how hard my team worked to help me get my story published.

SW: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

MHV: Persist! If you believe in the story you have to tell, don’t give up until you get it out there!

SW: What do you do to help develop your craft?

MHV: I read, and have always read, lots of books, always paying close attention to the way the words flow, and the subtle and not-so-subtle ways the author tells his or her story.

SW: What methods are you using to market your book?

MHV: Since I’m aware that, with all of my artwork – stories, art quilts, etc. – I am far better at ‘creating’ than I am at marketing, I hired Book Sparks to use their expertise to get ‘Hoosier Hysteria’ the best public exposure.

About Meri Henriques Vahl

After leaving Indiana University, Meri Henriques Vahl arrived at the University of California, Berkeley just in time to witness the Free Speech Movement. Since earning her bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Berkeley, she has worked as a graphic artist and musician and is currently an award-winning art quilter who teaches at various venues in the US and overseas. Vahl has two adult children and lives in central California with her family and two rowdy felines.

Marketing Monday: 2018's Social Media Trends You Should Follow

She Writes — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 15:22:29 +0000

As the years pass, social media trends evolve—what worked on Instagram last year may not help you expand your following this year. Trying to keep up with the ever-changing world of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and every other platform on the market? Here are the year’s best trends that we suggest following to help promote your work and help build your brand.

Utilize Instagram Stories

If you’re not already on Instagram, now is the time to get started. With a streamlined grid of stylized book photos, photos from your personal life and snapshots from author events, Instagram is the best way to promote your work as well as yourself. Once you’ve established your Instagram presence, it’s important to utilize the Stories feature on the app. Whether it’s posting quick photos of your day, sharing the elements of your writing routine or answering questions from followers, this is the best way to give your readers a better look at your life, giving them the opportunity to feel like they know you.

Live Videos

Whether it’s on Facebook or Instagram, live video streaming is a fairly new feature that authors and outlets have found successful when marketing themselves on social media. Doing an interview or being featured on a podcast? Spend a few minutes filling your followers in on where you are and what you’re doing by utilizing the live feature on your various social platforms. Social media is all about getting a behind-the-scenes look at the people we admire most— show your followers what you’re up to and get them involved in your book publicity journey.

Partner with Micro Influencers

Micro influencers have anywhere between 1,000 and 90,000 followers. In comparison to larger influencers, these social media gurus tend to have a more loyal following and if you do your research, you can find a smaller influencer who believes in the work your doing and will market your book in a way that coincides with your brand and vision. Partnering with macro influencers will obviously contribute to a higher follower count for you, but in 2018, we’re seeing that macro influencers are the way to go as they will help you grow a following who will be loyal to you.

Paid Advertisements & Boosted Posts

When social media launched, it was an easy way to reach a larger audience for free. Now, in 2018, we’re seeing huge changes in terms of algorithms that will affect who sees the content you’re promoting. Seeing lower numbers on your posts than usual? It’s not you, it’s the algorithm. The only way to effectively deflect this new change is to move away from organic posting and start throwing some money at either boosted posts or paid advertisements. Paying for these kinds of posts ensure that a wide audience will have access to your post even if they are not following you on any form of social media.