A True Love Story

Yesterday I had the privilege and the honor of witnessing a real life love story. There was no music…no big white dress…no flowers, no cake, no party. Instead I went with my grandmother to see my grandfather as he struggles for every breath in a nursing home. On September 5th 2008, they will be married seventy years. Right now he is doing his best to survive long enough to see that date.
We walked into his room, a small cinderblock room with a curtain partition for a second man and his family. There was music playing from behind the curtain.
Grandpa’s face lit up when he saw Grandma. “I knew you were coming.”
Grandma asked, “How did you know?”
“You told me. My sweetheart.” Grandma cupped his face, kissed his mouth, stroked his chest then sat down and took his hand. They talked about being together forever. Grandpa would close his eyes and smile as Grandma told the tale of their first date. How there was an early snow storm. The snow was up to the hubcaps. Grandma lived with her parents in what she called a shack way out in the country. Her parents had just moved to the area and stayed in the shack looking for a house to buy. Grandma said she watched for him by the window. Her mother shook her head and said he wouldn’t come.
“But I did come,” Grandpa said, interrupting. His speech was slow and deliberate as he struggled for each breath.
“You did come,” Grandma smiled and patted his hand. “I knew you would.”
She told us he arrived looking so handsome in a suit with a black felt hat and spats!
Grandpa opened his lovely deep blue eyes and smiled. “I knew what I wanted.”
“And you got it,” Grandma said, patting his hand. “You got it.”
Grandpa and Grandma grew up in the depression. With very little education, they worked hard together to create a comfortable living. It wasn’t easy. It’s never easy. There were disagreements, but Grandma tells us Grandpa never swore. He refused to fight. He said there is no fight if the second person doesn’t argue. He is a gentle man who lived through a terrible childhood-as did Grandma. Things were different then. But they found each other and loved each other in spite of it all-doing their best. Nope they aren’t perfect. But there is love and forgiveness and trying. Neither wanted anything else. Love was enough in their relationship, enough to keep them together.
Grandpa hasn’t been well for nearly twenty years. Grandma has cared for him-sometimes over done- to keep him with her. She said it was her privilege. But at age 91, after one too many strokes he now has a very high fever and pneumonia. Grandma can no longer care for him at home. So, they made the hard decision not to run any further tests, not to put him on a feeding tube, but to tuck him up safe in the little room with the yellow painted cinder block walls. Where big strong men can lift him when needed and young nurses can see to his comfort.
They don’t talk about their upcoming anniversary. Grandpa isn’t making promises to hang in any more…but he calls her sweetheart…and kisses and squeezes her hand and you can see in his deep blue eyes his joy, his privilege and his hope to be there on that day. To tell Grandma… We made it.

A picture is worth a thousand words

I've been checking out a lot of blogs lately and have discovered something interesting.

I am attracted to blogs with pictures, videos and general eye candy. A friend of mine has been adding photos to her blog as a way of drawing people in.

But here is the catch...I'm a writer not a photographer. If as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, then I'm in trouble. Adding photos to my blog can put me out of business.


I have been assured that people like words too much to give them up. That books and stories are still important to people. Thus the popularity of text messaging. The thing is that text messages are generally heralded by music or pictures designed to catch your attention. In today's busy world, the message- words- would be ignored if not for the ring tone.

Let's face it people have so many options that time gets crunched and things are reduced to their bare minimum. Thus the attraction of photos. How many times have you picked up a book because you like the cover? Or read a magazine for the pictures? Or stopped a blog because there was a handsome man/woman or cute pet staring at you under the title?

A blog is supposed to be a web-log: a place to write about subjects of interest. If you add pictures it becomes a scrapbook-doesn't it?

So I'm taking an unscientific poll- should I add more pictures to my blog or are words enough?

Thoughts on the "Right" journey

I am always interested in finding out other people's points of view on the writer's journey. I'm on several writer's loops, a member of several writer's groups and read writer's blogs. The interesting thing is that no two writer's journeys are the same. Some gush about how great there editor is. Others talk about how bad their editor is. The same with agents. There are reported agents who help "doctor" manuscripts to take them to the bestseller lists, agents who walk writer's through their career goals and agents who supposedly call back and e-mail you more than once a year. I'm always amazed at how different other people's experiences are from mine. And, after twelve years in the business, I have come to understand that no one has the "best" experience. There is no right or wrong. All you can do is the best with what is presented to you and clearly the differences are as varied as finger prints.

I try to educate myself as best I can on contracts, agents, publishing houses, etc. Still two other writers, starting off the same as I, (same house, same print run) can end up in vastly different places. They might have an agent that plucks them from the masses and tells them-write this- and voila they are getting amazing print runs (numbers of books produced by the publisher). Or they may get a call from an editor who asks for such and such type of book-bam, they hit the best seller lists. Or they sell one book and are discouraged by the lack of notice and quit writing all together. (Some of these people are the best writers in the bunch.)

It's a crazy business filled with "helpful" people telling you what you're not doing right and how, if you follow their advice, you'll be rich and famous within the next six months. Or worse, bragging about how rich and famous they are because they are superior writers..of course... cough, cough.

All you can do is gather as much information as possible and make decisions that are best for you. Allow your own journey to develop how it will and try not to get run over when some one hollers there's a fire sale on paranormals and every one rushes to publish that.

Remember, writers sell stories for a living. Don't let their stories discourage you from living your own.

Olympic thoughts

I'm following the Olympics. Is it bad to root for other countries? I catch myself rooting for individuals. For example: Swimmers, yes, I root for Michael Phelps as I enjoy watching Tiger Woods. But I found in the race without MP, I rooted for the Korean boy who fell into the water four years ago and was disqualified. Only to return this time and take the first ever gold medal in swimming for Korea. The second place winner of that race won the first ever medal in swimming for his country. So I was very happy to see the American take third place...we win medals all the time. I suppose this is unpatriotic. I also suppose it is hard on the American who spent a lifetime preparing for his shot at gold an only got a bronze medal. Still, how can you not enjoy the other countries and their stories? How can you not root for them as well?

Something else... Ms. Torres...age 41 with a well trained body...don't look through my television set and tell me that anyone is capable of being middle aged and doing what you are doing. That puts too much pressure of those of us not living a lifetime of training. There is no way I could spend ten hours a day training and race the way you do. To begin with I'd have to learn how to do a swimmer's flip. I'd have to figure out how to perfect the strokes- things you've had thirty five years to perfect. My body isn't your body. My brain is not your brain. Ugh. Nothing worse than seeing another impossible ideal grinning on the television telling me that if I only worked hard enough I could achieve the same thing. It's a falsehood meant to sell gym memberships and diet products. Everyone of us is limited by our own personal choices, background, environment and physical limitations. The honest truth is not every dream can be reached. Don't get me wrong- I believe that if you have a dream or a talent you should pursue it. But everyone is different. There are thousands of other well toned, well trained swimmers out there who never made the Olympics... telling us we can all do it just shoves their faces in reality. Stop it. Better to say you are lucky-you work hard-but luck has a lot to do with it as well.

Those who say, "Dream big or go home" are missing the point. A dream no matter how small is there to play with...not to show off about. So, my motto is dream. Its that simple and yet that achievable for everyone...even non-Americans.

Romance Writer's Awards

This weekend was the annual Romance Writer's of America conference. This culminates with Saturday night's RITA awards. The awards are the Oscars of the romance world as thousands of books are narrowed down to a handful of finalists. All entries are judged by their peers-fellow romance writers. If you are looking for the best of the best-according to their fellow authors then go to the link below (copy and paste in your browser) and see who won.

http://www.rwanational.org/cs/contests_and_awards/2008_rita_and_gh_winners



Remember- these are not readers picks, but romance writers picks for the best in their category. Enjoy!

Looking for Meaning

I read an article about creative people recently. A psychologist stated that creative people look for meaning in every moment of their lives. My reply to this statement is: doesn't everyone?

We look for answers in our tea leaves, in the moon glow, in prayer. We look for meaning in cards, and the pattern of moles on our arms. We look for meaning in God, in family, in friends. Love comes we ask, why? Love goes we cry, why? Someone is born. Is that a sign? Someone dies. Another sign? Does the fact that my potato chip looks like a dead president mean I'm going to come into money? When you find a penny do you pick it up and know that all day you'll have good luck?

The point of the article was to relax on the hunt for meaning. Sometimes a duck is just a duck. But sometimes it means you should duck because a foam pie is headed toward your face. The fun part comes when you have to decide whether there is meaning or not.

A Changing World

Two very interesting articles crossed my inbox this week.

One was an alert from the Authors Guild letting us know that Simon and Schuster, Inc. was trying to change it's contract language regarding electronic rights. It wants to own the author's electronic rights-and pay them only 15 percent royalty. This is important for a couple of reasons: 1) electronic books do not carry the over head and production costs of printed books. Thus authors have demanded their fair share of the monies. Average royalties on electronic books should run 30 percent. 2) Electronic books do not ever go out of print. An author contracts with a publisher to publish their books until the book goes "out of print" - in other words the publisher has moved on and the book is no longer available. After this agreed upon period of time that a book is "out of print" an author can re-sell the book to a new publisher who will see the book gets into new readers hands. If a publisher keeps your electronic rights, you can never re-sell a book and income for the author is lost. For example- a collection of books written for Harlequin gets 6 weeks of shelf time each. If after say 5 years, an author regains the rights to these works because they are "out of print" and unavailable to the public. She/he can resell them as a group to a single title publisher and gain longer shelf time. This gives readers a chance to read older works they might have missed. And gives good stories new life. But -you say- with electronic books they will always be available to the public. My question to you is-will you as the reader go out of your way to discover lost titles? Isn't it more likely you are waiting in line at the store- and see a book from your favorite author-pick it up- and joyously discover three stories you've not read yet? Hmmm- in fact a recent study on book buyers habits revealed just that. Buyers are more likely to impulse buy. I know, I do.

Now to make things even more interesting-an article on Forbes.com also appeared in my inbox. This article talked about how Amazon - the biggest on-line bookstore in the world- is positioning itself to become the biggest publisher. They have recently acquired a print on-demand publisher. And could be poised to bypass publishers, agents and editors and simply deal straight with authors. The article suggests that Amazon could give the author 30 to 40 percent royalties and still make 70 percent of the profits. Hmmmm

With the idea of bypassing agents, editors and publishers and going straight to the public-an author's potential income can double. It makes a writer think twice before signing with New York. Especially with New York doing their best to take away your rights.

Will we see this brave new world soon? I'm not certain. Self-publishing-even with Amazon-is a huge risk. Right now, publishing with New York holds a certain cache. It means you have arrived. Sort of like owning a high end designer handbag. It only works as long as authors buy into the idea. As New York ask authors to do more of their own editing, marketing and publicity-then cut their income- cache might just lose its appeal. Authors may just turn their backs on an ancient system and start earning a living wage.

It's a brave new world. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.