To Read Me Is to Know Me

“To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.” – André Gide

I want to thank all the readers who have gone on this journey with me. As a writer, I write books not just because there is a story in my head but because I believe the story needs to be heard. I published my first two novels on Kindle not because I had been turned down by every agent I could find (in fact, I didn’t even query that much), but because I realized that finding an agent and then a publisher and getting published could take years, and I couldn’t wait that long. My characters needed to be heard, and I wanted people to read my stories and meet these people who had been occupying my head for so long much more than I wanted to hold a physical book in my hand.

So for all of you who have read my books, starting with the puzzle book Badger Brain Twisters (Trails Media), to the children’s book Solar System Forecast (Sylvan Dell), to The Gathering Storm and Storm Damage I published on Kindle, and even the unpublished novel A Different Sky, which I am going the traditional route with and looking for an agent and publisher … I thank you for reading my blood, sweat, and tears. Writing can seem like a very solitary task, but I never lose sight of the fact that my readers are there, waiting for me to hurry up and finish so they can take the walk with me.

I truly treasure my readers and especially those who have given me feedback on a book or just taken the time to walk up to me and tell me that they enjoyed it. Reading the thoughts and emotions of my characters is like seeing a glimpse into my soul. When you connect with one of my characters, you are connecting with me, because that character came from within the deepest part of me. As a beginning writer, I have obviously not had thousands of people read my books thus far, and you would be surprised by some of those who know me and still haven’t read them. I’ll always have questions as to why some of the closest people to me haven’t read my work: Are they afraid of what they’ll read? Do they not want to acknowledge my achievements or validate my work? And over time, those who have not cared to “travel in my company,” as André Gide says, will find themselves without it more and more. Because if someone you loved gave you the chance to see inside their soul to their biggest fears and greatest joys, wouldn’t you take them up on it? I know I would.

Storm Damage

It took me more than a year to write and six months to edit, but it’s finally here: STORM DAMAGE. Storm Damage is the sequel to my first novel, The Gathering Storm, that I published on Kindle in 2011. I should have had this one out sooner but I’m going to use my children’s book, Solar System Forecast, published in 2012, as the excuse for why this one was a bit of a wait.
 

The title for Storm Damage comes from the after effects of what was wrought by the choices made in The Gathering Storm. Evelyn’s entrance into the family could be seen as a long-lost addition or as her having wedged her way in, depending on the perspective of the family member. Even though her intentions were innocent, her choice of a mate and even her mere existence are a heartache for her new mother-in-law and brother-in-law. But they are not the only ones who find themselves damaged in the new book; because even those for whom the sun seems to shine more brightly will find dark days ahead.

To illustrate the theme of storm damage, a quick excerpt from the book:

“Before her was a stunning and breathtaking sight. She inhaled sharply, drawing the cold air into her lungs. An enormous oak tree towered in the clearing, but its once majestic form had been partially dismembered, probably in the great wind storm of a few months before. Its midsection had been cleaved in two, and the two halves of the tree seemed to be barely held together by its thick base. The tree’s beauty and strength had been shattered, but it was still alive and had been left in the garden as a memory of the storm. The tree looked grotesque among all the surrounding beauty.

There, sitting on a bench beneath the tree, was…”

 You get the idea.

Even though this book was just published, the real work begins now. I have at least one more book to write to complete Evelyn’s saga. It’s time for me to go back to 1912 and pick up where I last left Evelyn. Wish us strength, we’re going to need it.

 

The second book in the story of Evelyn is Storm Damage.

The first book in the story of Evelyn is The Gathering Storm.

Words that Last Forever

We have no control over other people’s memories. We never know which of our actions and words, whether positive or negative, will have the biggest impact on people. Often it’s not the moments you expect. The closer you are to someone the more memories you have to choose from and therefore the more obscure the moment might be.

My grandmother is about to turn 95. When I think back on my memories of her, my mind always rests on the same moment first. It is a moment no one else would ever remember because it was so unimportant. I was probably around 20, riding in the backseat of the car while my mother was driving and my grandmother was the passenger in the front. We were on the highway, driving home, and it was late in the day. A flock of birds appeared over one of the farm fields and looped through the air. My grandmother called out with excitement, “Look at those birds! Just a ribbon of them!”

It’s so simple and inconsequential, yet it’s what I remember first. Her love of nature was encapsulated in that moment, but what really struck me was that I found it to be quite a poetic exclamation to be made on the spot. I was majoring in English at the time and therefore felt a special connection to people who could reveal the world to others in a more descriptive way. But there are two other traits she showed with that simple exclamation that I admire very much in people. One is to be able to be fascinated by the small things in life and find wonder in everyday objects. The other is to show enthusiasm—for anything at all, really. Seeing someone who is enthusiastic about something is to see someone who is in love with life.

I’m sure my mother has no recollection of this moment even though she was there. Neither would my grandmother if she were still able to think as clearly as she once could. But even at the time she would never have thought that those two sentences would be the memory that I forever connect to her when I think of her.

Sometimes the most easily recalled memory of someone is a good one. Sometimes it’s not. The best we can do is keep in mind that the times when we don’t realize people are even listening to us might be the moments they remember forever.

 

My grandma and me on my first birthday

Brace Yourself: Not for the Weak of Stomach

I was sitting on my bargain-outlet green couch in our apartment in Nashville, eating Cheetos and watching The Weather Channel. My husband was in the second bedroom, which we used as an office, poring over textbooks on ethics and constitutional law. As I swallowed my latest bite of Cheetos, I felt a bump in the roof of my mouth. I thought it was a piece of food that had somehow become suctioned to the roof of my mouth, so I tried to clear it away with my tongue. When that didn’t work I stuck my orange cheese-dusted finger into my mouth and picked at it with my fingernail, expecting it to spring free and give me relief. It didn’t budge. Something was wrong.

Growing worried now, I jumped up from the couch and ran into the bathroom. I tried to angle my head so that I could see the roof of my mouth, but in the end it required a combination of hand mirror stuck partway in my mouth reflecting onto the bathroom mirror in order for me to spy what the foreign object was stuck to the roof of my mouth.

It was a tooth.

The idea of a mutant tooth coming in through some random spot in the roof of my mouth threw me into a full-fledged panic. What was wrong with me? What was that tooth doing? I wanted it out now.

I ran to my husband and showed him my mouth that had turned into a freak show in the past few minutes, and he sat there bewildered. I’m sure he suggested something along the lines of going to the emergency room. He believes every physical event out of the norm, such as when he gets diarrhea, is a symptom of imminent death. He has so frequently said to me the words “I think I have a serious health condition” with all the somber gravity of someone delivering devastating news that it has become a joke. Whenever he starts to complain about anything, a headache or gas pains, I turn to him and say with alarm, “I think you have a serious health condition.”

So it’s fair to say that, as I was already worried about what on earth was going on in my mouth, I found no comfort in him. I called the dentist office to see how soon I could get in. The first thing she asked was if I was in pain, but I was not. She still managed to get me an appointment for the next day.

I’ve always thought I had pretty good teeth. Not perfect, but good enough that they didn’t need much work and I had been fortunate enough to avoid the horror of braces during those awkward teen years. It’s true that I knew that I still had two baby teeth in my mouth – my “fangs” – but I had them for so long at this point (age 23!) that I figured I was going to keep them for life. Previous dental x-rays in Wisconsin showed that my adult canine teeth were up there but not in the right locations. Nothing was ever done about this. Of course I blame my parents, who were in charge of my dental care as a child, for not addressing the issue until the financial burden was on me. Well played, mom and dad.

I also felt that somehow moving “down south,” especially into the foothills of Tennessee where jokes about bad teeth were part of the local lore, had jinxed me.

My dentist kindly reassured me the next day that it was not a big deal, and she gave me the name and number of an oral surgeon who could give me advice on what to do next.

The oral surgeon’s waiting room was beautiful, with a stately, marble-column-and-velvet-fabric aura. He x-rayed my mouth and declared that I should go see an orthodontist to get a recommendation and then the orthodontist would send me back to him to get the work started. So off I went again to the next expert, the orthodontist who told me that it should only take about a year and a half of braces to pull the two teeth into place. Perfect, I thought with complete naiveté. I had about a year and a half left in Nashville and then we would be moving back to Wisconsin. I could start the next phase of my life with my teeth in the shape they were meant to be. I decided to go ahead with the procedures.

The process would begin back at the oral surgeon’s office, where I was going to have my wisdom teeth pulled as long as I was there. My late-blooming adult teeth hiding under the roof of my mouth would be hooked up to chains so they would be ready to attach to braces and be dragged into place. It was about this time that I realized both evolution and the science of oral medicine had absolutely failed us. Is there anything more archaic than having metal wires hooked up to your mouth so that your teeth can be painfully pulled in one direction or the other as we suffer with the metal poking our mouths and putting ourselves on restrictive diets? I won’t even get into the indignity of being an adult with braces. It just seems that there must be a better way, and yet no one has come up with anything.

My husband came to sit in on my oral surgery. I gave him strict instructions to ask the doctor if it looked like my teeth would be able to be moved into place before they went ahead and yanked my baby fangs. I didn’t want to be toothless if moving the adult teeth was a long shot. He said nothing.

He did, however, really enjoy watching the procedure and then repeating the gruesome details to all our family and friends. “First they slice the roof of her mouth along the inside front of her teeth, and then they pull it back so that it was a flap hanging in her mouth. Then they could get to the adult teeth underneath and glue on the metal bracket and chain that would snake out from underneath the roof of her mouth after they put the flap back and sewed it up. And her baby teeth popped out like nothing! The wisdom teeth were a bit trickier. The doctor had to put his foot up on the armrest on the chair for one wisdom tooth in order to get the leverage to yank it out!”

I was asleep for all of this, of course. I never would have had to know the details of just how my mouth had been violated.

While I don’t remember anything during the surgery, the moments before and after it were less than ideal. I don’t respond well to anesthesia. The problem is not falling asleep. It puts me under just fine. In fact, I had been talking with coworkers about it before the appointment. One of my friends was saying she was terrified of the anesthesia because she thought she would die while she was under. Another friend said that she started laughing when she was put under for her wisdom teeth surgery because she knew she was about to fall asleep and somehow found that funny. I admit relating more to friend number one’s reaction than friend number two.

When they started the anesthesia my doctor asked if I was nervous, and I bravely said no. Then he said, “A lot of people don’t like it because they’re afraid they’re not going to wake up.” Nothing like just putting your fear right out there. I’m sure my eyes grew wide as he spoke the words that of course I was thinking. But then when he asked me to start counting backward, I remembered my giggly friend and smiled as I drifted off to dreamland.

Waking up was the hard part. I woke up and felt sick. I didn’t want to stand up. But I got the feeling that I had been taking up the chair longer than they expected. I felt bad and wanted to get in the car and go home. I also must have looked a mess. They decided to take me out the long way instead of through the waiting room. I would exit through a back door that would bring me to the outer hallway and then I’d walk past the doctor’s office door to the front door and never have to scare those waiting in the lobby for their appointment. It didn’t work.

I groggily got to my feet and my husband supported me as we walked out through a different door and entered the outer hallway. Before I even passed the oral surgeon’s door I could feel that I was going to pass out or throw up; one of those things was going to happen if the other didn’t. My husband veered me right back into the main door and into the waiting room of the office, where the receptionist jumped up to help steer me back into my room as fast as possible. I could feel the cold sweat drenching my body as I lay back onto the chair I had been in two minutes ago. My doctor and nurse apologized but I closed my eyes and ignored all of them for another 10 minutes until I was finally strong enough to make it to the car. It was a torturous ride home. Even after we got back to the apartment and I was lying on the green couch (because I couldn’t make it all the way down the hall to the bedroom), my husband brought me a notepad and pen so I could talk with him and the first thing I wrote was “You shake floor.” Even his footsteps were making me queasy. And there is nothing you want less than to throw up when you have your mouth filled with bloody gauze.

The promise of braces for only a year and a half didn’t work out either. I came back to Wisconsin with my braces still intact and two teeth that were still firmly under the roof of my mouth. Then I found a new orthodontist and oral surgeon and dentist who had slightly different plans for me. We kept trying to pull the teeth in but eventually realized only one of them was going to make the journey. The other had to be pulled out and an implant was drilled into my jaw instead. So I went through different ugly duckling phases, from braces and missing teeth to braces and one missing tooth to a retainer with a fake tooth to finally getting all the metal pulled out of my head except for the part screwed into my skull that now held a perfect replica of what my tooth should have been. In the meantime, five years had passed and I had given birth to my first child.

Of course, if I knew then what I know now, I would have had them yank all four teeth and put in implants for both of those teeth. I would have been done in a few months as opposed to five years. Five years of pain, unattractiveness, and hefty medical bills. The last surgery, to attach the fake tooth to the metal implant after it had been given enough months to heal inside my skull so that it wouldn’t be dislodged when I bit down, was on my 28^th birthday. I told the receptionist this as I was scheduling and she offered to change it to a later date, but I couldn’t wait another day. It may have been an unpleasant birthday, but it was still a gift to myself, because I was finally done.

 

My million-dollar smile. Sorry about that college tuition, kids.

We Must Still Boldly Go

On January 28, 1986, I was in seventh grade science class when some classmates came in and told us the space shuttle carrying the teacher had exploded during launch. They had been listening to the launch on the radio in band class. My science teacher was a bit rattled and didn’t want to believe what the students were saying until an announcement came over the intercom confirming that it was true. We filed into the lunch room that day and televisions had been rolled into the cafeteria so we could watch the news. We saw the explosion replayed over and over and tracked the pieces of debris as they streamed downward and splashed into the Atlantic. On the news that night, every minute of the newscast was filled with Challenger coverage. Even the weather report had a little space shuttle figure showing what the winds were like in different levels of the atmosphere and discussing temperatures in Florida that day, wondering if any environmental issues could have played a role.

After we learned more about what happened that tragic day, my science teacher talked to us about how the compartment the astronauts were in was in free fall for two minutes and 45 seconds before impacting the ocean at a phenomenal speed. At least a few of the astronauts survived the initial explosion, because three of four emergency air packs found had been manually activated. My teacher wanted us all to imagine what that would have been like, the short yet extended period of knowing what had just happened and what was surely to come. My class of 28 students sat quietly in their seats facing the clock and my science teacher sat up front facing out at us. We started a moment of silence as the large institutional clock’s second hand swung up to 12 and started ticking off the seconds. We sat mute, unmoving, with our eyes on nothing but that second hand and our thoughts on nothing but the astronauts locked in their fate. My teacher turned around after about one minute and thirty seconds to watch the clock with us. At one minute and 45 seconds he exclaimed sadly, “That is a very long time.” A couple students pointed out to him that it had only been one minute and 45 seconds and not two minutes and 45 seconds. At first he didn’t believe us, but when he saw all our nodding heads, he realized that the torture lasted even longer than we could stand, sitting there contemplating the fate of people we had never met. One of the girls in the class got up to grab a tissue out of the box on the teacher’s desk to dry her tears, and then we moved on to our lesson about different types of energy.

Seventeen years and four days later, on February 1, 2003, I was sitting at my computer on a Saturday morning while my husband was at work and my young son played in the living room. I was instant messaging a friend who is also a stay-at-home mom whose husband was at work that morning. I had CNN on in the background and saw the usual program interrupted as the words “Shuttle explodes over Texas” appeared on the bottom of the screen. I had been waiting to watch the shuttle landing that would be aired on TV. By this time everyone knew the dangers of launches, but landings seemed like relatively safe, low-power descents where the craft glided through the atmosphere to its airplane-like landing. But on this day the TV screen was filled with an image that looked like a large bright meteor breaking up in the atmosphere as it streaked downward toward Earth.

This late January-early February window of bad luck for the space program began before I was born. On January 27, 1967, three astronauts died during a routine ground test in the Apollo capsule after an electrical spark ignited a fire.

This earliest tragedy occurred when humankind was getting ready to walk on the moon, 384,000 kilometers away. The shuttle tragedies occurred on liftoff and reentry from the space shuttle’s normal orbit of 320 kilometers off the Earth’s surface. But now there isn’t much of a space program left. While the space station still orbits above us with a crew of five, we must rely on other countries to get astronauts there and bring them home. All the space shuttles have been retired. There are no replacement vehicles in the works. The US’s space program is creeping backward. A Space.com poll on January 29 asked, “Is human spaceflight worth the risk?” A surely biased group of those who visit Space.com answered with a resounding YES, earning 94% of the vote. But the fact is that we have to continue to boldly go where no man has gone before and venture toward other planets and eventually other stellar systems. Because in the end, it’s mankind’s only option against extinction.

"Hey, have you read my book yet?"

I’m going to take a break from storytelling this week to concentrate on promotions. As I already have a children’s book published (Solar System Forecast), one novel published on Kindle (The Gathering Storm) with its sequel in the editing stage (Storm Damage), and another unrelated novel finished and ready for submission (Under a Different Sky), I need to take some time to brainstorm how to spread the word on my already-existing stories.

A website and blog are obvious choices for promotion, but then there’s the matter of how to drive traffic to your site, as well as not constantly bombarding people with your work and turning them off. I’ve announced my books on Facebook and Twitter, but after the initial sales, you can’t sell the same book to the same people.

When I meet new people, I try to work my books into conversation, which can be easy if someone simply asks me what my job is. I never force it; I let it come up organically. I suppose someone’s opening sentence could be, “Hey, have you read my book yet?” and there’s nothing wrong with being frank, but I’m not quite that aggressive. (This may also be the reason I’m mostly unknown.)

Another promotional idea came to me as I was browsing the internet. I saw the covers of classic books, such as The Great Gatsby, printed on t-shirts. I thought it would be a neat idea to get a shirt with one of my favorite books on it, but then I stopped and thought, why should I advertise a book everyone’s already heard of? So I went to a website that can print any photo onto totes, mugs, etc., and I had the cover of The Gathering Storm screen-printed onto a t-shirt. I haven’t worn it anywhere yet but I think at the very least it will make a good conversation piece.

I’ve spent way too much time on Pinterest lately, like the rest of the free world, and pinned my books onto a board of my favorite books. It was nice to see my books repined by others, but after pinning them once, there wasn’t much I could do unless I kept unpinning and repinning them and risk annoying everyone. Instead I thought it would be fun to make Pinterest pages for each of my books. While it may help generate interest, it’s also just a great way to visualize elements of my story, such as the characters and world they're living in. I’ve found amazing examples of tall, formal gardens with clipped hedges and blind pathways that Evelyn sneaks through as she hurries to her next illicit meeting with … well, you’ll have to read The Gathering Storm to see whom she meets.

Pinterest Page for The Gathering Storm

Pinterest Page for Under a Different Sky

 My friend gave me an additional idea that seems like it could be a lot of fun. I’m starting a Twitter account under my main character, Evelyn. Sometimes I’ll quote from the book and other times I’ll tweet from my character’s perspective.

Evelyn's Twitter Account

I’m also considering a Twitter account for my unpublished novel, but instead of quoting from that book or tweeting my character’s thoughts and giving too much away, it might be fun to tweet from before the book starts. Sort of a prequel Twitter feed of the book. Not only will it help future readers get to know my characters before they start the book, but it will also help me explore my characters further.

If you have any unorthodox promotional ideas to share, tweet me or add them in the comments section below.

 

5 Ways to Annoy an Astronomer

Astronomers. They’re a pretty friendly bunch. They like nothing more than to share the wonders of the universe and the beauty of the night sky with others. Whether it’s someone who studies astronomy for a living or someone who indulges as a hobby, they’re usually a pretty amiable lot.

But if you want to see them get perturbed and a bit red in the face, there are a few sure-fire ways to achieve this. Certainly if you asked each individual, they could probably come up with more than five, but these five seem to be universal. And now, in reverse order:

Number 5: Use lights at a star party. Arrive after it’s completely dark. Pull your car up to the group with their telescopes all set up and shine your bright headlights right into their faces until you can actually see their pupils lose dilation. After you get out of your car, walk onto the field with your deer-spotting hand lamp and shine it around until you find a good place to stand. Then when you’re all set up and don’t need your lights anymore to see the way, shoot off some fireworks to liven up the party a little bit.

Number 4: Buy a star. Contact one of the many “star registries” to purchase the pretend naming rights to a random star in the sky that is too faint to see. Then try to find your name on any official star map to show your astronomy friends. Or better yet, send me your fifty bucks and I’ll print out my own star chart with the real name of a star photo-shopped out and your name there instead, as official as any of the “professional” naming companies. Polaris? Not anymore. Now it’s the Jimbo Star.

Number 3: Claim the moon landing was faked. This one is really about the “debunker” and his or her discomfort with the advancement of science and technology. Which probably means they’re not all that comfortable around people who see back in time with their telescopes or who study the big bang genesis of the universe 13 billion years ago. Any easy way to slip in this pet peeve is anytime someone says, “If they can put a man on the moon...” interrupt them and say, “That never really happened.” This might also get you a job at Fox Television.

Number 2: Talk about aliens and UFOs. Discuss the strange lights you have seen in the sky: the blinking noisy craft that move overhead, the non-blinking tiny lights that soar smoothly from horizon to horizon, and the waving and shimmering bands of light you sometimes see invading the north. Ask to look through their telescope so you can find evidence of little green men on Mars. See if they’d like to hop the fence with you at Area 51 and “check things out.”

And Number 1: Confuse astrology and astronomy. Enough said.



 We landed here once. Really.