Tag Archives: Writing

Writing as Self Help

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Many people view writing as self help, that’s not a secret. This is why so many people I know have journals. But what about when this so-called self help is public?

I’ve mentioned before how much I adore Joan Didion, and I am very much looking forward to reading her latest and greatest, Blue Nights. The New Yorker featured an article about Didion, her family, and Blue Nights, which I enjoyed reading as it explored family relationships, writing relationships, and all of their connections.

Enjoy: http://nymag.com/print/?/arts/books/features/joan-didion-2011-10/index5.html

National Author’s Day

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Today is National Author’s Day. I think this calls for a celebration here at A Story Every Day, since this IS a site that celebrates us all as authors and writers. Let’s share our favorite authors and give them some attention and recognition!

Who is your favorite author/writer and why?

Personally, I love Joan Didion because she writes in a straightforward manner yet there’s so much packed in that you may not even realize at first read. The “straightforwardness” is there, and true, but can also be deceptive.

I also adore John Irving – I just started reading his works, and so far I’ve read “A Widow for One Year” and now I’m reading “The World According to Garp.” His characters (and writing) appeal to me because they are humorous in a completely non-comical way. There is something so honest, so bare about them (I think this is really because of the way in which he writes) that makes me fall in love with them.

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”
― Joan Didion

Interview with Melissa Crandall

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Melissa Crandall is an author with tie-in novels and a self published fantasy under her belt. She’s also written a collection of short fiction. Here, she shares her experience.
A Story Every Day: Can you give us a brief timeline of your whole history? Your first memory to the present?
Melissa Crandall: I was just a wee thing when the dinosaurs showed up….  Just kidding.  I’m not quite that old.  Let’s see…My first memories are a bit jumbled, but most involve my dog Yogi, a wonderful border collie.  I’ve always been an animal-lover, and they fill up a lot of my life.  Did the college thing.  I’ve lived in New York State, Pennsylvania, Washington (State, not DC), Oregon, and am now in Connecticut.
ASED: How did you get involved with writing tie-in novels?
MC: I cut my teeth on fanzines, back when fanzines were hard-copy things (a dying breed nowadays).  I did fan stories for Star Wars, Star Trek, the Dragonriders of Pern, Elfquest, Phoenix, Dr. Who….you name it.  I got into the writing of actual media tie-in novels when another author invited me to join her and a friend in a Star Trek collaboration (“Ice Trap” under the name L.A. Graf — which stands for Let’s All Get Rich And Famous.) 
ASED: What tie-in novels have you written and how does your process for them differ from your process when you write your “own” things, like your self-published fantasy?
MC: I wrote  the Dr. McCoy sections of “Ice Trap” as I said above, then I moved on to solo novels:  Star Trek “Shell Game,” Quantum Leap “Search and Rescue,” and the novelization of the pilot episode of “Earth 2.”  The big difference with a media tie-in book is that you’re playing in someone else’s sandbox.  There are rules by which you must abide.
ASED: You’ve been writing since you were 5. What was one of the first things you wrote?
MC: The first thing I wrote was a “book” (several sheets of paper folded in the middle and stapled together) called “The Dog and the Fox.” 
ASED: What’s one of your favorite pieces that you wrote at a young age?
MC: When I was in grade school, a friend and I did a series of “comic books” about a super hero horse.  In high school, there was an entire group of us that wrote together.  Those were fun times.  We did a lot of westerns, TV ripoffs, that sort of thing, and even one or two original stories.
ASED: Do you see your younger writing reflected in your writing now?
MC: The work I did as a young writer helped grow me as an adult writer.  And I still have the love of words, the fascination with fantasy, the willingness to find “magic” (and I use that term loosely) behind the mundane.
ASED: What was the process like for your first published piece? Can you walk us through it?
MC: I assume you mean first professional piece.  That was “Ice Trap” and it was actually fairly easy because the author who invited me along already had a relationship with Pocket Books.  When it came time to do my own Trek novel (“Shell Game”), the weight was on me to write the synopsis, market it to the editors, hope for the best, write the book, all of that.  I got the book in under deadline.  Then I received a HUGE number of revisions.  What a learning experience!  I got those in under deadline, too, I’m pleased to say.
ASED: Did you always want to be a published writer?
MC: I always wanted to WRITE.  I can’t say when I first began to think I might be able to be published.  For a long time, I shied away from it.  I was afraid that if I turned out to be good, I’d have to do it again, and I was worried I wouldn’t be good the second time.  I don’t think about that anymore.  I work hard at what I do and try to turn out the best work possible.  Some people will like it, some won’t.  You can’t please everyone. 
ASED: Did you share your writing from an early age or keep it private?
MC: I shared it with friends (once I discovered they wrote, too), but not with family.
ASED: What is the process of self-publishing? What did it look like for you?
MC: At first, I was resistent.  It took me a long time to get around to the idea of self-publishing.  The media tie-in books went the standard publishing route.  My book of short speculative fiction “Darling Wendy and Other Stories” was picked up by a small press in NYC.  I tried for a long time to sell an agent/publisher on my fantasy novel “Weathercock” without luck.  But I believe so strongly in the book and what it has to say about our world, our view of male/female roles in our society, and our notions of self-determination that I refused to let someone else tell me it should languish.  So I bit the bullet.
I was MOST fortunate to encounter Ryan Twomey at Bookateer Publishing.  Ryan talked me through the entire process, was a terrific cheerleader, an exacting task master, and an all-around terrific guy.

Life After Love, part 1

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by Cheri Bermudez

I’ll be an author. I’ll simply publish a book, she thought to herself, rationally. Then she laughed. For someone who was (obviously) having delusions of grandeur, she certainly wasn’t having illusions of grandeur, her surroundings the same, as they always were. An apartment, a bedroom. Nothing permanent. She paid rent month to month. Every time she took the rent check to the main office she imagined $650 being flushed down the toilet. It might as well be. Where she was wasn’t home. Nothing was home right now.
She hadn’t always been so lost. At one point in her life she had felt very much at home; she had even imagined one in her head (a home, that is). Now she couldn’t picture home in her head. She had no idea where it was. Well. She had an inkling. But it was pointless to focus on that inkling, that feeling. Because the home she had once imagined in her head was now an impossibility, due to stupidity and circumstance. Better not to focus on that now.
That was how she handled things. Well, things that provoked any emotion. Not right now. It should be her motto. She always told herself she’d deal with it later. Whenever that was. It wasn’t her fault that she was so fucked up (she told that to herself too). It was a psychological reaction to anything that made her feel. Feelings are too powerful. They can take over who you are, make you do things that shouldn’t be done. It’s much better to be rational. Neutral. A lesson learned the hard way, but, she thought, at least she had learned it early in her life. Perk up, sourpuss! It wasn’t so bad. It really wasn’t. She thought it akin to what being haunted by a ghost may feel like. A moment, a feeling. It reminded her too much of a distant past that she barely remembered and of a more recent past that she remembered all too well. A paradox. A conundrum. Call it what you will. It was her life.
She became lost early in life, due to circumstance. At one point she had found home. But due to stupidity, she became lost again. Sheer stupidity. She could attribute it to being young, but nineteen isn’t so young. She really should have been more honest. Honesty, such a simple thing, may have saved her home. But because she had lied, the home was lost. Simple and plain. Why had she lied?She asked herself that every day, and that alone would bring her close to tears. So, not right now. Best not to think of that right now. Blink the tears away and keep on chugging. Or drifting. She wasn’t sure which she was doing. Probably drifting. Maybe paddling just a little, she thought to herself, trying to be positive. But really, she was drifting.
Failure, failure, failure. The words repeated in her head in a taunting rhythm. Her other motto. Or maybe it should be a nickname. Failure. She wasn’t really a failure though- as previously mentioned, she was simply drifting. She hadn’t found her spot in the world yet, and at 26 felt like she had somehow missed out on her entire life. The days would just pass. One after another. One the same as the other. She needed to find her place, her niche. Until then, the days that passed were nothing but failures to her.
Now back to this problem of feeling. In order to find her niche, she knew, she would have to feel. Something she did not at all want to do. Despite her distain for feelings, she wasn’t a sociopath. Not even close. She did feel things, but feelings are not logical, so she tried not to give them much merit. She had feelings every day, and some she didn’t mind so much. Like the feeling conjured when seeing a puppy or a kitten. That feeling was okay. But there were specific feelings she tried to dodge or elude. Every day was a fight, a match. Her vs. Shitty Feelings. That’s how she thought of them- they almost had their own persona. Shitty Feelings. Sometimes she won, and she managed to dodge Shitty Feelings for a day, but usually she lost. Sometimes she would dodge Shitty for half of the day, but he would take over the other half. Shitty Feelings was a man, in her mind, since most of her shitty feelings had something to do with men. Two men, specifically. Maybe it should be a woman though, because she also had a lot of shitty feelings about herself.
She thought about him specifically though. A lot. Every day. At least one million times a day. Or at least that’s what it felt like. Her heart, her home was with him. And he was gone. Gone forever. How does one cope with that?
There is no coping. Only survival. And survive she would. Scratching and clawing to get through each day did get a bit old at times, but it was what she was use to. It was what was comfortable, albeit not very healthy. That’s ok, she told herself. It’s how life is suppose to be. Life isn’t the fairy tale she had once believed it to be. Being young and naïve had its perks, but she had been disillusioned long ago. Besides, everyone has to grow up at some point.

Interview with Maria McDonald, Part 2

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This is a continuation of the interview with Maria McDonald, which was posted here on Monday!

ASED: What’s your ideal writing environment? Outdoors, indoors, coffee, tea?
MMD: Mostly indoors. I have a designated couch my husband has labelled my ‘writing couch’. It’s a
recliner, with the armrest just the perfect height for me to put pen down to paper and scribble
to my heart’s content. This, with a cup of steaming hot tea, either late at night (anytime between
11PM-3AM) or early in the morning (8-10AM – when my husband is still asleep) – Heaven!

ASED: How do you get yourself to sit down and write?
MMD: I just do. When you work full-time and have all these thoughts running freely inside your head,
you have to find the time to jot it all down, otherwise I’d get crazy and/or forget them; neither
of them is an appealing prospect I try to squeeze in about 10 minutes in the morning, between
having finished getting dressed for work and bolting out the front door. At my 1-hour lunch break,
I sit in an empty meeting room, plug my ears with music from my iPod and write until the 59th
minute. I sometimes write in-between stirring whatever it is I’m cooking for dinner. After dinner,
I try to squeeze in anywhere between 30 minutes up to 1 hour before bed. At a very early stage,
I even tried to do this on date nights with my husband, when we were waiting for food orders to
arrive. He had jokingly said that the waitress might think I was a food critic. But I’ve stopped doing
this now, and focus more on enjoying each other’s company.
(I hope this is the answer you’re after – let me know if it isn’t).

ASED: Do you have any explanation for why you’ve always had an inclination toward writing?
MMD: I grew up with a strict, traditional set of Asian parents. There were a lot of customs to abide to, a
lot of rules not to break. Talking back to your parents was an unheard concept in our custom. Not
even that, but just saying to them ‘I understand where you’re coming from, but this is how I see it’
would have serious ramifications. I had very little voice, so I started writing EVERYTHING I felt and
thought of that I could never voice to my parents in my journal.

ASED: The dream that inspired your first novel – what was it? How did the rest of the novel form
around it?
MMD: It was only a fragment; one of those dreams that jumped from one setting/scene to another and
when you woke up you went “well, that was one crazy dream.” But what I remembered vividly
from this dream was about a woman being thrown into the dungeon, being hosed down by cold
water as a form of torture and lashed out to the point of almost passing out when her male friend
rescued her.
A lot of dreams had stayed with me; I’ve always had a pretty imaginative mind, and this wasn’t
the first time I actually started stringing together before and after scenes from this particular
segment of a dream I had. It was only that this was the first one I actually decided to write about.
So, the rest of the novel… I started thinking about who this girl could be; what things she could
have possibly done that made her end up in a dungeon, tortured by up to five men; who the male
character would be. I’ve always been fascinated about stories about the olden days – like Prince
and Princesses, Kings and Queens from countries such as England, France, Spain. Movies like ‘The
Man In The Iron Mask’ and ‘Ever After’ heavily influenced this novel, too.
Later on that day, ‘Eleanor I’ was born – a peasant girl and a quiet achiever who is content to live
her life away from the spotlight until a chance meeting with a dashing young Prince. They fall in
love, but their love is against the law, because peasants, at that time, aren’t supposed to consort
with someone above her status (see the striking resemblance to the ‘Ever After’ storyline?). So the
King sends his one and only son to study abroad, thinking that the distance will eventually severe
their romance. When it only strengthens their bond, the King, with his cunning advisor, plots a
cunning plan against Eleanor; one that will get her arrested and tortured and ultimately test the
foundation of her relationship with the Prince.

ASED: What are your other novels about, and why do they remain unpublished? By choice? If so,
can you explain it to us?
MMD: Whilst each novel is different, and the character has many forms, the major factors tying all the
novels in common are:
1. A lead heroine.
2. Said female character facing a major adversity in her life.
3. Details of trials and tribulations as she works through and overcome said adversity.

Other works
Eleanor II is naturally a continuation of Eleanor I. Rid of all the threats hanging over her head
and finally allowed to marry King Patrick, Eleanor believes that the worst is over; that her most
challenging task ahead of her is how to create and uphold a more just law for the Kingdom she now
co-rules with her husband; how to appreciate the luxuries she has found surrounding her without
ever forgetting her roots; how she could care better for the poor, the roots and backbones of the
Kingdom.
Peeling Layers, as I said, is a story about Elizabeth Hartley, a product from a Caucasian Father and
an Asian Mother. She attracts the attention of Michael Bradford, the son of the billionaire James
Bradford, as well as a notorious high school bully Gordon Crane.
This originally started as 1 HUGE novel, detailing the intertwining lives of Elizabeth Hartley (Lizzy
to those closest and dearest to her) and Michael Bradford for 10 years, from the first day they
entered and met in high school to living in the real world. That is, until the novel reached 1284
pages and Microsoft Word kept crashing on me, and I was forced to separate this novel into 4
sections.
Lizzy & Michael II recount their adventures during College in NYU, getting more adventurous in
their drink choices, forming their opinions of one-night stand, casual sex/friends with benefits
and deciding whether or not they want to uphold the label of ‘conscientious students’ they have
received in high school.
Lizzy & Michael III details their adventures in growing up in the real world; of getting up every
day to ‘do the grind’ whilst not necessarily enjoying what they do for a living; of mastering the
balancing act of maintaining their closeness with each other and weaving relationships with their
respective partners; those who might not ‘get’, or agree with their plutonic relationship.
Lizzy & Michael IV is the ending to the ten-year saga. Michael Bradford has finally gotten his one
and fervent wish, now dating Elizabeth Hartley, finding happiness, which sometimes is in the last
place you look.
There’s a work in progress currently titled ‘Evelyn’, and by far is the darkest novel I’ve written.
Raped by a fellow student when she was sixteen, and almost succumbed to the same fate during
a home invasion by a thug who was put in jail by her policeman’s boyfriend, Evelyn made a drastic
career change from primary school teacher to CIA agent.

As to why they remain unpublished – well, for a long time, I knew that what I’ve written was a
really rough first draft, so I wasn’t ready to approach publishers/agents with the work I wasn’t
happy with for anyone else to read. Plus, by the time I finished writing Lizzy and Michael, my
writing style has changed immensely. So I revisited and revamped Eleanor I, making the sentences
flow in better fluidity.
Also, for a long time, I didn’t know what to do next. Only in the last couple of years I started
researching on how to get my books published. I joined Queensland Writers’ Centre this year,
went to a Writers’ Workshop in another state, and actually submitted ‘Peeling Layers’ for a
Manuscript Development Program (couldn’t submit Eleanor I because they require a specific
genre). Since joining QWC, I’ve started entering some competitions designed to closely dissect and strengthen my current manuscripts, and I plan to do so until I get in…

Interview with Maria McDonald, Part 1

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I decided a little while ago to start featuring reader and writer interviews on here, to highlight people’s stories in another way! Our first reader/writer is Maria McDonald, who has her own blog over here.

Why am I featuring Maria? She has an interesting story (as I believe that everyone does) and she’s willing to share openly, honestly, and candidly!

The first part of this interview will be published now, and the second part will be published later in the week. Please free to leave questions and comments on either post!

Let’s get started. Maria was born in Jakarta, Indonesia in May 1980 of Chinese heritage. Fifteen years later, amongst political turbulence in Indonesia, Maria’s parents decided to move the family to Australia. The political unrest was fueled by differences in agreement between native Indonesians and Chinese Indonesians. She started writing at a young age during primary school, and then started writing a novel in 2006 based on a recurring dream she had. Now she has 5 unpublished novels. Why unpublished? What are they about? Let’s find out.

First, some basics:

A Story Every Day: What type of writing do you do?
Maria McDonald: At the very core of all my writing is a love story and the main characters’ relationships with other
people. I also write about subjects that are close and dear to my heart, like social justice (or
injustice).
ASED: What is your favorite piece of work (by someone else)?
MMD: I’m obsessed with ‘Outlander’ series by Diana Gabaldon. I’ve followed the series for years, and am
eagerly awaiting ‘Written In My Heart’s Own Blood’ to come out. It is the one series I keep coming
back to, both for a great piece of writing, keep-you-at-the-edge-of-your-seat storylines, and for
inspiration.
ASED: Who is your favorite author & why?
MMD: This is a toughie because there are quite a few. I guess, in addition to Diana Gabaldon, Jodi Picoult
will be right up there – she has such a unique way of writing. Who doesn’t get hooked with
phrases such as ‘her cackles stream out like ribbons’?

ASED: You said you kept a journal since primary schools. Many children’s journals recount surface
thoughts and events of the day, as you’d expect from a young mind. What did yours look like?
MMD: Like what you’ve just described, though I did have a philosophical mind from such a young age,
so whilst I did write about events of the day, I also delved deeper. For example, when I attended
a wedding with my parents, in addition to detailing about the happy event, the bride’s dress,
and the food, I would also write about my then perception of love, of my hopes and dreams of
finding the right man, and what he might look like/ what kind of personalities he might have and
rationalise why those traits were important to me.

ASED: Do you still have them? Do you ever look back at them, and are they fodder for any of your
recent/current writing?
MMD: I guess if I look really hard, I’d find some of them – I did go through a few. I haven’t looked back on
it for years, because some of the entries were too painful – they opened up old wounds. But yes,
some of the events I’ve written in my private journal had become the basis of my writing.

ASED:  What do you remember of the political unrest as you grew up? Can you give us background
and any specific events you remember?
MMD: Background – ok I will try not to make this as a long-winded history lesson. The Chinese came to
Indonesian soil as wealthy merchants. For as long as I could remember, the case had been that
the Chinese had control over the country’s economy whilst the native Indonesian controlled the
overall government. It was fair to say that most Chinese Indonesians were Catholic and wealthy
– they live in brick houses and even mansion-like houses. Most native Indonesians, most of them
Muslim, live below poverty line – the term cardboard houses wasn’t an exaggeration to describe
the conditions in which some of these people live in.
Most Chinese Indonesians would go to a Catholic school, and most native Indonesians would go to
state school. It’s also fair to say that if you, as a Chinese Indonesian, went to certain state schools
with questionable reputation, you might not come out of there in one piece.
What I remember – quite a lot, actually. From a very early age, I noticed quite a bit of animosity
towards me as a Chinese Indonesian from the natives. I couldn’t escape the discrimination –
walking down the street, I would get kids younger than I was to mid-fifty otopet/tricycle driver
shouting out “you bloody Chinese!” and even “go back to your own country!”
As a minority, you learnt to keep your mouth shut – it was, in most cases, the most effective
survival method. I remember going to the cinema and this girl cut in the line front of us. My eldest
sister, as you would, tapped this girl on the shoulder and said “we were here first.” What should
have become an argument over right and wrong quickly turned to an argument about races,
about how we as Chinese Indonesian had ‘trampled’ all over the native Indonesians’ rights for
long enough we should give her this one privilege of cutting the line.
I remember every year, on 30 September, a movie about ‘The Thirtieth September Movement’
would always be televised; it depicted a re-enactment of a self-proclaimed organisation
of Indonesian National Armed Forces members who, in the early hours of 1 October 1965,
assassinated six Indonesian Army generals in an abortive coup d’état, trying to overthrow
the Sukarno reign. An Indonesian Communist Party was blamed for this attack, and because
Communism originated from China, the ‘hatred’ towards Chinese Indonesian by native
Indonesians grew/intensified.
Every year, during September-October, this tension erupted; most native Indonesian high school
students would target the Catholic schools (where most Chinese Indonesians went to school),
with after-school biff-ups being the most common.
When I was in Year 7, my Dad purposely finished work early and picked me up from school. He
had brought spare clothes with him and told me to change out of my school uniform. Both my
parents also didn’t send me to school the next day. It wasn’t until the night I was kept at home
that I found out that my parents had received word through the grapevine that there would be a
major attack on all Catholic schools native Indonesians could target. There were reports that they
had thrown rocks at both the school building and any passers-by, hoping that some of these were
Chinese. This particular year, a group of native Indonesians actually stabbed a Catholic student
with a knife in the back, a student of a neighbouring schools a few of my friends actually went to.
He died three days later.
In May 1998, a riot erupted in several capital cities in Indonesia, where the long-oppressed
native Indonesians ransacked most of the upper-class, Chinese-built and lived in apartments and
mansion-like houses. They killed the Chinese men and mass-raped the women, in the hope that
some would get impregnated with the native Indonesian blood in their wombs, therefore giving
the next generation of native Indonesians more of a chance to get their hands on the Chinese
wealth. I was very fortunate that in 1998, I was already living in Australia, away from this horror.
But all the same, I heard the many horror stories that came out from this incident from friends
who were still living there. I’ve been told that some of the Chinese Indonesians who used to live in
Glodok, Indonesian’s Chinatown, fled from their homes to neighbouring countries and too fearful
to return even though the current government has made significant reconciliation gestures. I’ve
been back to my hometown three times and witnessed this; what I remembered of Glodok – a
bustling place with an equally glittering nightlife, was a ghost town refusing to be revived to its old
glory.

ASED: Has that background influenced your writing?
MMD: Of course. As I mentioned previously, social justice is a subject close and dear to my heart, having
been ‘denied’ it, for lack of a better term. What has driven me throughout the years of living in
Indonesia was to be seen as equals and to see other people as equals as well. It’s a long-term
struggle, because you’re proving not only to yourself, but also to others, that you are prepared
to look past the colour of your skin and the origin and get to know the personality underneath. A
lot of people didn’t, and perhaps still don’t think that this is the right approach. In doing so, I’ve
somehow created more angst and unease to my family and friends.
‘Peeling Layers’ and its subsequent 3 sequels detail a girl who is a product of mixed marriage –
her Father is Caucasian and her Father is Asian. She is bullied in high school, she struggles with
her self-identity, she wishes at one stage or another that her Father has married a woman of ‘his
kind’. She refuses to become intimate with a pure-bred Caucasian son-of-billionaire, despite him
being her best friend throughout high school, because she doesn’t want to pull him down from
the high pedestal his wealthy status has put him in and be discriminated along with her.

The Versatile Blogger Award

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Thanks to Bardic Blogger (bardicblogger.wordpress.com) and Tammy Holloway (http://tammyholloway.wordpress.com/) I was nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award! Considering my blog hasn’t been around that long, I’m honored and flattered to be recognized!

The Award has three parts:

#1: Thank the person who nominated you.

#2: Pass this award to 15 newly discovered bloggers and let them know you included them in your post.

#3: List 7 things about yourself.

Okay, here goes:

#1: Thank you to Tammy Holloway & the Bardic Blogger. I’m honored!

#2: I’ve been doing a lot of blog reading lately, trying to connect with people on WordPress, talk about writing and stories, and get into blogging. It’s been fun. Luckily, it’s also made it easier for me to think of 15 newly discovered blogs that I’m really interested in and I think are great! These are in no particular order.

1- Tammy Holloway. She’s supported A Story Every Day, and I love reading her posts that play off of the words “write” and “right.” She is encouraging, inspiring, and just… honest! http://www.tammyholloway.wordpress.com

2- The Daily Writer. Features posts on writing, interviews with writers, writing conventions and the like – everything having to do with writing. A great resource! http://rosymoorhead.co.uk

3- Siobhan Curious. I love the posts here about education, and honestly, I usually agree with them. I’m fascinated by the topic of writing and learning intertwined, as well as the subject of teaching writing, so naturally I find myself interested in this blog. They always get me thinking! http://siobhancurious.com

4- Cresting the Words. This blogger likes language. So do I. This blogger likes playing with words. So do I. This blogger writes. So do I. … Enough said! crestingthewords.wordpress.com

5- BohemiaSpeaks. I’m not usually a huge fan of poetry, but I really like this blogger’s stuff. The fact that this poetry has actually captured me speaks volumes. http://bohemiaspeaks.com

6- C.B. Wentworth. Candid and personal. I genuinely enjoy reading what she shares and seeing how we relate. cbwentworth.wordpress.com

7- The Witty Gritty. So recently discovered that I’ve only read the post about seating on airplanes. It was too true. And also funny, in an odd way. thewittygritty.com

8- Words from the Woods. She relates writing life to her real, every day life. catwoods.wordpress.com

9- L.S. Engler. Blogs about her writing journey, and blogs about writer and author quotes (my favorite part!). http://lsengler.com/

10- Caffeine for the Creative Soul. Puts writing into drawings, and vice versa. Love it!  http://timcoffeyart.wordpress.com/

11- Savvy Writing Careers with Rebecca. Provides tips and insights into writing careers and freelancing.  http://savvywritingcareers.wordpress.com

12- Writers in the Storm. Professional and published sharing their journeys, and their thoughts. They work together to support each other through the wild ride of producing some stellar work, getting feedback, revising, getting published, etc!  writersinthestorm.wordpress.com

13- Brainstorms & Bylines. Helpful for new writers and savvy writers a like. Gives newer writers some encouragement and a lot to think about.  barbaratyler.wordpress.com

14- Wordsmith Six. Six writers who delve into different genres and topics, sharing their stories and their experiences as well as their views and thoughts. Always some kind of provoking thought to read. wordsmithsix.wordpress.com

15- The Urban Hippie. I simply love her photography style, and I find it inspiring for my own.

#3: List seven things about yourself.

Hmmm. Well, as you can imagine, every one in the world has much  more than seven things going on. I’m just going to list seven things that relate to me deeply, and you can get an idea of a brief mold of where I come from…

1. Italy/Italian. I speak Italian; I’ve lived in Italy three times. Speaking in a different language makes me feel like I’m deeply using my brain.

2. Horses. I’ve ridden since I was 9. I have a beautiful thoroughbred who I am very much in love with.

3. Writing. Well, obviously.

4. Photography. I like to take pictures. Of everything. I like to mess with them in Photoshop and Lightroom. It’s an art I’m actually good at – I certainly can’t draw or paint so well!

5. People. I believe in relationships. Take that as you will!

6. The outdoors. I like to hike, camp, run, bike, rollerblade, and breathe fresh air. It’s important. This is why I don’t like large, humongous cities and I’m not sure I could ever live in one.

7. Travel. It’s how we learn, and it’s how we become independent. (Try it if you don’t believe me! 🙂 )

What are your favorite blogs? Why do you like them? I’m excited to hear!

My Murder Mystery Career

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by Barbara Fox

I am a gentle, soft-spoken, non threatening person except …..I have this career revolving around murdering people,  It’s all legal, I do the murdering through Mystery On The Menu, an interactive theater company I founded in Washington DC back in 1986.  I was an actress., well, trying to be an actress while juggling raising four children, taking and teaching dance classes, writing newspaper articles and doing a hundred other things. when, one day, I read about a new form of theater, participatory murder mysteries where the play happened in the middle of the audience.
          “That sounds like so much fun”, I thought , “that’s the kind of acting I’d like to do, I want to be in a participatory murder mystery play”.  I called severeal local theaters,; none of them was doing such a thing (or was interested in doing it)  .but finally, I got a positive answer. The owner of  Coolfont  resort in West Virginia thought it would  be a good way to attract new business and customers.
          We decided to “go for it”. She would advertise and promote the event and I would produce the play.
           It sounded simple enough. I would find a script and hire a director and actors., no problem!  Except, back in 1986  there weren’t any scripts for interactive mysteries  and no internet for searching for advice and  the director I hired got another job one week after rehearsals started.  Guess who ended up writing the play and directing the show?  Talk about “earn while you learn”, I had never even written a short story, much less a play and I had certainly never directed a show.  The only good thing about the situation was that the actors  I cast had never seen or played a part in an interactive show so they didn’t know that I didn’t know what I was doing!
       The show opened (one performance only)  on Friday the thirteenth of June, 1986.   One hundred and fifty people were in the audience at the resort and, they loved it! They gave the cast (I was, of course in the show) a standing ovation!  We stood in the lobby signing autographs and accepting compliments.  We were totally amazed, “They liked it”, we kept saying to each other, “they really, really liked it”
       A few newspaper reporters were in the audience and they wrote really good  reviews about the show.   They used adjectives like “fun” and “different’ and “like a live game of Clue”. I began getting phone calls from businesses. “Can you do a mystery show for a corporate retreat” and from event planners, “can you do a show for a fund raiser?” and from private individuals, “can you do a birthday party,” “an anniversary”, “a New Years Eve party” and (the most exciting and challenging call), from the owner of a private, art deco train, ‘can you do a show on a train to and from New York”?  
          Well, everyone knows that an actor never says no.   I said yes to everything and suddenly, I was the producer/director of a theater company.  I had  business cards and a logo;   I called the company  Mystery On The Menu. 
           I wrote dozens of scripts with different themes ,“Reunions Are Murder”, “Who Murdered the CEO”?; “Murder They Vote”, “Lights, Camera, Murder”, “A Deadly Marriage”  and even  costume shows, “The Twenties Were Murder’ “Have A Nice Murder” (set in the seventies)  and  “High School Was Murder” (set in the fifties) I constantly revise  them and/or tailor  them to a particular event or business.   
         The train shows were amazing fun.  We went from Washington DC to New York or Atlantic City and back with a six hour break to sight-see, go to the theater, shop, eat, gamble. We lived a lifetime in six hours.  The mystery began on the trip up and concluded on the return trip.  In other words, we killed them on the way up and solved it on the way back”.  
          I used a lot of the same characters in the different shows, Countess Maria, (a fortune teller) Danny the Duke (a gambler), Elizabeth Crandall, (a society hostess),  Georgia Mason, (a movie star)  Senator Drewnell ( United States Senator) Robby Ray (a rock star)  Janie Jason (a detective who just graduated from detective school) and many others; I become very  attached to  the different characters; Some of them seemed and still seem  more real to me than actual, live  people,   I eventually put several of the characters  into  mystery novels, “Murder In the Inn” and  the sequel “Another Murder In the Inn” and a book  of short interactive stories, “Murder is Served’  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  The books came later.
         I created a whole world of places .and businesses for the shows.    Examples, Latvaria (a small country near France), Topaz  (an island in the Caribbean), the Greenway country club, Questions newspaper, The Crumpert Cookie Company, The New Wave Art Gallery,   The LMM (Lets Make movies) Movie Studio,  The Royal Hotel/Casino and dozens more.  I felt and still feel like I am living in my own little mystery world in my head.
            Eight years ago my late husband and I moved to Florida and I created  Murder Is Served,  One Woman Murder Mystery plays  which I do for parties, businesses and on cruise ships.  It’s a one person show featuring me and several members of the audience who volunteer (sometimes with a little or a lot of coaxing) to read the part of one of the characters.  Each of the “volunteers get a few pages of the script.  Their part is highlighted and is in bold print and when it’s their turn, they stand up and read the lines.   Half way through we stop and the audience has a chance to examine clues, share information, discuss the crime and write a solution.  The play continues and the murder is solved.  Someone in the audience is guilty but no one, not the victim or the detectives or even the murderer knows the answer until the very last minute.  Recently I began leasing my scripts to groups and theater companies in different locations.
          It’s been a completely wonderful  twenty-five  years; I still can’t believe that I am actually getting  paid for doing the two things , writing and acting, that I love best to do
           My newest  project are  Murder Mystery Games that people can buy and play at home.  I have two  ready to go, “Murder On The Set and Dying For Chocolate ; All I have to do is figure out how to market them.
            I started the business when I was fifty years old so…whoops, I guess I’ve finally admitted my age but. at this point…who cares? Murder, or at least the murder mystery business, is ageless.   

Art, by Rachel Allen

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I scribble down words with my ballpoint pen
Thinking every word I write is a scar I’ll mend
You take your paintbrush covered in red
Making love to the canvas,
Covering up this beautiful mess
As both our hearts are bleeding from our chests.

You tell me to keep writing
As I work my fingers down the bone
With each stroke you uncover something unknown
I peek at the easel and see you drawing our home.

Our color palettes fail to match
As your sky is painted a magnificent blue
And I’m writing that there’s a storm
Illustrating mine as the blackest of black.

I keep turning pages as I fill in the spaces
You keep moving easels to find the right angle
And as you keep mixing colors to find the right shade
I jot down lines of our song that’s never been played.

You begin to outline a white picket fence
My sentences start to blend together, out of sequence
You move your brush and we’re walking on cobblestones
My pen hits the paper and our whole life is postponed.

I look at you and you look at me
It seems now there’s miles between us no one can see
My pen is running out of ink
And you start to wash your brushes in the sink.

-Rachel Allen

The Importance of Storytelling

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I’ve been promising this post for awhile, and I’ll admit it has taken me some time to wrap my brain around it well enough. Once I thought I had the standard understanding, such as storytelling is how we understand our lives, and stories are a way to teach, I realized something else.

I think that stories serve just these purposes, and they go a step further. Think about it: we are the only species that can tell stories. Stories are the basis of our communication with each other. Even in different languages and cultures, there are stories with the same themes, morals and lessons as each other.

Many species have the ability to communicate with each other through various noises, but humans are the only species that can build on each noise, each “word,” and create something larger, strung together, complex and complicated. We could do this before we could put together computers or cell phones – cavemen drew their stories on the wall maybe even before they had the words to put the stories out loud in the air or written on something.

That’s what a story means to me: the basis of our communication and our relation to each other and the world around us. We are constantly building stories every day, looking at our stories of the past, and creating our stories of the future. 

What do stories and storytelling mean to you?