Please sign up for email alerts at my new site!

Hello there…

Lately, there have been some wonderful folks signing up for e-alerts for web updates but unfortunately, old lingering WordPress links from past articles and blogs  are causing a little confusion and you are signing up for updates from this now defunct site.

Please visit www.chriskuhnauthor.com and scroll down to the bottom (or the side, depending on your device) and sign up for e-alerts there. You’ll receive notifications whenever new blogs are posted. I sure would love to have you interact with me over there. So please follow the link and join me at my author site/blog.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaasssssssseeeeeee!  😀    Thank you for your support…always!   *blows you a kiss

Advertisement

Right This Way…Follow Me to My New Blog Locale

So… if you are a WordPress follower, you’ve probably noticed I haven’t been around the neighborhood much lately. There’s a reason for that.

I’ve moved.

And you may not have seen my little notices at my Twitter feed. So I couldn’t waste any time and am reaching out directly to you. I’d love to continue our dialogue together but in order to follow my relocated blog you need the new address.

KuhnStories is no more. So I need you to come with me…come on now. Come and join me. Please.

You can find all of my past blogs as well as subscribe to new ones at my new author website… just visit www.chriskuhnauthor.com, scroll to the bottom of the page and fill in your email address to subscribe.

You will receive an email at your inbox and you’ll just need to confirm that yes, indeed, you’d really like to read my musings, and that’s it. Easy peasy.

You’ll be able to keep up with the latest on my forthcoming book The Muse Unlocked… being set up right now, so on the home stretch! Summer’s nearly here and so is my book. Woohoo! (Okay, that wasn’t all that professional, was it? *sheepish grin* Sorry.)

And don’t forget to check out some recent guest blogs by E.M. Wynter and Geoff Talbot and one where I went all poetic on you and whipped up some random rain-inspired prose. Sometimes I just get that bug in me, you know.

So I really do hope that you’ll pop by my new digs, take a look around and tell me what you think, because I’ve been having a blast chatting with you on my blog.  And I assure you that’s my final move. Plan on keeping my feet planted firmly there for a while. Should you want to reach out and offer your thoughts about the site, a recent blog or damn near anything for that matter, you can email me at chris@chriskuhnauthor.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Can’t wait to see you again, so please come visit me at the new website as soon as you can get your little feet over there.

I miss you!

Happy reading!
ck

CHRIS’S CORNER Welcomes Guest Blogger Geoff Talbot: How to Be Inspired Forever

I can’t remember when I first discovered this week’s guest blogger but it was definitely on Twitter, where I’ve made a lot of my most critical finds and struck up some of my most heartfelt friendships, believe it or not. It’s amazing what inspiration you can find out on Twitter – don’t let naysayers tell you otherwise. Geoff Talbot is a perfect example. Originally hailing from New Zealand and now planted in the beautiful state of Oregon here in the States, he’s a filmmaker and producer, and founder of SevenSentences.com, daily inspiration for creative people. Every day, Geoff pops into inboxes across the world and takes a topic – any topic – and breaks it down eloquently and meaningfully…into seven sentences. These mini-blogs can often say more in seven sentences than I or another writer can attempt to expound on in seven paragraphs or seven pages!

More than anything, there have been days when Geoff’s words provided some much-needed encouragement to keep writing, continue plugging along in my creative journey and fight the good fight. And for that, I’ll always be grateful. So I went out on a limb and I approached this busy gentleman about maybe doing a little seven-sentence guest blog for my lovely readers here. And you know what? The gracious man said yes. So, thank you, Geoff, for that!

And what better topic for him to encapsulate than inspiration. So without further ado, I give you Geoff and one of his signature seven-sentences, and I encourage you to visit his site and sign up for his daily email. I assure you it will be a welcomed guest into your workday and into your psyche.

And you can follow Geoff on Twitter here.

________________________________________

 

 

 

What is inspiration?

 

Is it like the wind, fickle in nature, unpredictable, staying only for a while, blowing you where-ever it chooses?Many people, believe in moments of inspiration, times where inspiration comes AND then long dry seasons where there is no wind and the soil in which you toil is barren and dry.

 

I do not believe in this kind of inspiration.

 

Inspiration is within you; it is a faithful friend and a lifelong companion, once he or she arrives, they make their home inside of you AND they stay with you from here until eternity.

 

Inspiration is in fact a way of being, it is an internal companion and not an external force.

 

If you want to be continually inspired, then please do not ignore the friend inside of you; like a child you must nurture inspiration, you must provide a safe space for her, you must listen to her, if you love her she will grow.

 

Weebles

Sometimes I wish I were a Weeble. That toy that can never completely fall over.

Yesterday, I had some setbacks, nothing I’ll bore you with here, but let’s just say I had some expectations and they were completely obliterated.

I don’t always bounce back easily from deflating events. But I’m doing okay today despite the occasional flicker of poor-poor-pitiful-me.

Tomorrow’s guest blogger will be a breath of fresh air and a reminder to me and hopefully to all of you, why we get out of bed every day. So I’m looking forward to introducing you to him. Many of you may know him already but I couldn’t be more excited that he’s actually taking a few minutes to stop by my little blog.

So that’s something to be happy about.

When the Weeble thought came to mind today, I remembered that about a year ago, I wrote an essay sharing my joy and love for the Weeble, and you’re likely to see that essay as part of a bigger collection in a book someday. That’s the plan anyway. But why the hell don’t I just run that essay right here, right now? Seems appropriate enough. Occasion almost calls for it.

And here’s an even more bizarre offering. You can also hear me read this essay by clicking here and listening to it read aloud on AudioBoo. (If you have any difficulty listening in Internet Explorer, you should find it works well in Mozilla Firefox.)

So pick your format. Either way, I hope you enjoy it, get a chuckle, think a bit and go on merrily with your day. And if you, too, are bouncing back, well, good luck, channeling your inner Weeble, too.

Happy reading!
ck

Remember Weebles? They were these little two-inch high encased pear-shaped figures with no appendages whatsoever covered in a shiny plastic encasement and when you thumped them, they would bob to the side but never completely fall over. As I’ve gotten older, my shape has gotten progressively more and more WEEBLE-like. But best of all, WEEBLES were so tough and indestructible that they had their own little jingle. (Doesn’t everything that really matters?)

 

“WEEBLES wobble, but they don’t fall down…”

 

I remember singing along to it as a kid and thinking to myself, how cool would that be. No matter how powerful a gust of wind, how torrential a downpour, how mighty a wallop to the jaw, wouldn’t it be fantastic to have that ability to simply POP back up again with resilience, confidence and buoyancy?

 

We’re all a bit Weeble, aren’t we? Some of us may carry an extra long strand of the chromosome. Bouncing back: it’s an art form. Remember Nancy Kerrigan? Clearly the American Olympic Silver Medalist ice skater was equipped with her own WEEBLE DNA. She recovered and even prevailed following the wrath of Tonya Harding’s slugfest in Harding’s own bizarre and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to bridge the World Wresting Federation and professional figure skating by taking a hard whack at Kerrigan’s leg (you youngsters can look it up on Wikipedia).

 

While I have no bone-crunching personal attacks in my own history, I can point to plenty of occasions where it would have been really easy to channel my inner Fisher Price Little Person, succumb to the emptiness running through my core and topple over with one swift swat. But nope, I embraced my WEEBLE and the pain and lessons that tango with bad decisions about men, money, jobs and apartments, and prepared for that sideways dip, knowing that someday, the horizon would be a stationary, solid straight line again, once this annoying, gag-inducing sway back and forth finally came to an end.

 

I miss WEEBLES. Playing with them, I mean, which occasionally involved positioning them in death-defying, dangerous scenarios to see just how far I could go with testing that wobbling tenacity. Sure, WEEBLES are still around but how often have you seen a 42-year-old woman pull out her water bottle, laptop, Bluetooth and WEEBLES village at the table at Panera? Besides, they don’t really look and feel like the ones I remembered as a kid when Playskool first launched them in the early ‘70s. If you sneak off on your lunch break to the nearest Toys R Us, you’re bound to find them. That’s more than I can say for most of the things I loved and adored as a kid. Like so many things from my childhood, I have watched old playtime friends become extinct as children of later generations find other ways – often much more expensive ways – to entertain themselves. My play didn’t require a web domain, wireless network, password or credit card to initiate; just a little free time (another somewhat extinct commodity for 21st century tikes), some imagination and freedom to roam and play independently.

 

I remember as a child wondering: when will I finally “feel” like an adult, when would I just know the answer to…everything, whatever question that came up? So many topics seemed too complex to understand, so many processes looked too complicated to carry out. Surely, someday it will all make sense, I thought to myself as I pretend-drove from the backseat while my dad manned the real steering wheel. Everything was so much simpler in my pretend world where I drove everywhere (and quite well, I might add), bought and possessed anything I could possibly want (I just had to plant the picture in my brain and voila – instant ownership!) And best of all, I lived in a world where I could be a songwriter-rock star Monday, a famous actress or TV reporter on Wednesday, and by Friday afternoon, a teacher presenting my elaborately planned lessons on general psychology, English composition, basic math, or whatever other subjects I could expound on from the vast intellectual universe that was my bedroom bookcase – maybe letters F-G-H in Funk & Wagnall’s? And who was fortunate enough to fill my classroom? Why, a lumpy pile of corralled stuffed animals who astutely watched from the bed with fascination, reverence and silence, that’s who.

 

When could I just stop all of this pretending and embark on the real adventures, I frequently wondered. And you know what happened? I found out, but without any warning whatsoever.

 

Somewhere along the way, life stumbled into the picture and I went from playing housekeeper to actually becoming housekeeper (on those rare occasions when I actually keep house).

 

Somewhere along the way, my imaginary boyfriend who always sat beside me while I pretend-drove went from becoming my pretend fiancé and pretend husband to a real husband, and a really bad one at that. (The first one, that is. The second one thankfully turned out to be a keeper.)

 

Somewhere along the way, I went from a child to a student to an employee to a spouse and ohmigod, to a grown up. Too bad I didn’t reach the grown-up stage before first becoming an employee and spouse. I could have saved myself a tremendous amount of heartache and disappointment during those early years.

 

But much like information (and some fast food), life doesn’t always arrive in the most convenient order. Some unexpectedly become parents before graduates; others, soldiers before skilled career professionals; and still others, believers before inquirers or learned students. Sometimes the landscape looks an awful lot like one of those big Jumbo Pad Search-A-Word puzzles. There may be a word straight across here, and up and down over there, but to find the other word, you’ve got to look diagonally and this one is so tucked away in the corner, you probably won’t even find it. And that other one? Forget it. It’s going backward instead of forward. Much of the time, you might not even know what you’re looking for until after it’s been here and gone.

 

So when does that moment arrive when truth shines so brightly it makes your eyes water, and decisions no longer seem like obstacle courses to navigate while your ankles are tied up for a three-legged race?

 

I’m still waiting, but I won’t sit quietly.

 

CHRIS’S CORNER Welcomes Guest Blogger Tamie Burdick of Bookish Temptations: Genre Trends

This week’s guest blogger holds a special distinction and place in my heart, and is not actually aware of this herself. Tamie Burdick at Bookish Temptations is the first book blogger I began following after I discovered the contemporary romance genre, and in particular, the incredible writings of one Mr. Sylvain Reynard, quite possibly…no, definitely…my favorite writer in the genre. It was her book blog that helped me get swept up in sharing the excitement with other fans of his work as well as the similarly awesome writing of such masterful authors as Colleen Hoover, Tammara Webber and others.

Tamie started the site in October 2011 after working with another book blog, and soon realized she could add greater reach and value for readers by building her own team committed to passionate book discussion. Now this trusty posse of very diligent and busy cohorts invites readers on a daily basis to engage in a dialogue about their favorite books and authors, with each other, with the bloggers and often with the authors themselves.

I’ve since begun following a number of other excellent book bloggers, as well, who go out of their way to keep readers updated on the latest author news and offer access to cool contests and exclusive book information. If you’re a reader, you know the service that book bloggers provide, and if you’re an author, you recognize the influence and weight their opinion can potentially carry. With Bookish Temptations garnering nearly 10,000 blog followers, I thought Tamie was the perfect person to share a little insight on what she’s seeing as trends in the genre she (and I) and so many readers have fallen madly in love with…contemporary romance. Swoon. So take it away, Tamie…

And you can follow Tamie and Bookish Temptations on Twitter here.

________________________________________

When Chris asked me to share my thoughts on trends in the contemporary romance genre, and the direction it may be headed in, I was honored. It’s the genre I read and review/spotlight the most on Bookish Temptations. It’s a topic near and dear to my heart.

As far as trends go here’s some of what I’m seeing…

The line between romance and erotica is getting blurrier by the day. They really were very distinct genres not that long ago. I’m a fan of the incorporation for the most part. I enjoy both genres as long as they’re well written.

That’s the tricky part tho. I’m afraid many authors feel the need to write more graphically than they are comfortable with. What can start as a great story becomes awkward and uncomfortable to me as a reader when this happens.

Throwing in sex for the sake of sex, or using sexual words does not a good story make. It takes a certain skill to balance the romance of a story and to include really great erotica.

My advice to authors is simple. If you aren’t comfortable writing it…then don’t. You can make and develop an extremely satisfying sensual scene without the explicitness. I have many favorite authors that do just that. As a reader and reviewer, I’m far happier with that than feeling like I want to flounce on a book because the author is chasing a certain audience.

Two trends that may or may not be related? The prevalence of series and the shortening of books. Series books aren’t new of course, but it sure seems like there are less and less stand alone novels and more stories that are being made into sequels, trilogies, and beyond. At the same time novels seem to be getting shorter, and I have wondered if authors are being encouraged to write with that in mind.

It’s no secret that I love lengthy stories and series as well, so I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. I’m all for authors telling the most complete story they can, and it’s hard for me to leave some characters behind. I’ve read some novels that actually needed a 3rd book, but I’ve also read some recently that could’ve been told in 2 longer books.

Epilogues…no, they aren’t a new invention, but I see them more and more and more and…I FLOVE this trend. I’m actually starting to get disappointed when I don’t see one at the conclusion of a stand alone or at the end of a series. It’s the perfect way to end with a peek into what happened to our favorite and beloved characters in the future.

Finally, let me cheat just a little…this really can’t be considered a trend, but I have to give a standing ovation to all the fabulous books being written in the New Adult genre. Some of the very best books I’ve read so far this year have come out of this newer classification and I’m thrilled about it. I think this is going to be a huge market for publishers and self- published alike.

Thanks for inviting me to write this guest post , Chris!

Evening Wordplay

It’s been a while since I blogged. Busy, busy week. Book website is moving along wonderfully and book should get uploaded by the weekend. So much good stuff to be revealed very soon. Can’t wait to share with you!

We are on the homestretch to becoming published, my supportive friends. And I couldn’t be more excited and happy that you’re along with me on the journey.

Tomorrow is another fantastic guest blogger and I’m so very excited about this one, because I happen to be highlighting a book blogger who interacts with many readers and authors, some of my favorites. I look forward to sharing her thoughts tomorrow on the genre I’m about to embark on, so you won’t want to miss that.

From time to time, I mess around with words. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that it’s not unusual for me to tweet little droplets of prose, quirky phrases and bits of storyline – many not linked to any particular plot or future book – just to give my imagination a chance to…dance around a bit. Good for the creativity to take a swirl on the dance floor sometime. For no apparent reason other than to feel your hair swish about and the wind soar around your head.

Recently, I’ve played around with this from straight-up copy to poetry to limericks and even haiku for Pete’s sake! Thought you might get a kick out of these. Some are inspired by my book to come, The Muse Unlocked, still slated for late June 2013 release. Others may be inspired by specific events, memories or thoughts crowding my ever-churning mind. I hope you enjoy.

Happy reading!
ck

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

POETRY

SERENDIPITY

A happy accident?
She pondered.
Could this be more than happenstance?
She believed in naught yet her heart danced.
Dragging desire from its dungeon, forcing a second look,
She found her faith, re-wrote her own ‘good book.’

A heart restored?
She wondered.
Would there be another series of incidents?
Or was this shred of hope mere coincidence?
Opening the past, thwarting residual tears,
She invited serendipity inside and released all fears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PROSE

Each time they touched, a rip current rushed to greet them. Lying beneath the surface, an intricate net of broken vows, ignored dreams and buried secrets threatened to suffocate and pull them under. Bobbing among the waves, they struggled to stay afloat until their burdens were too heavy and their weight settled to the sea floor, dragging along the shore and impeding their path, like seaweed caught in the toes of a forward step.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LIMERICKS

There was an old chick with a pen
Gave her scribbles a plain-spoken spin
When she wrote the truth down
Greater things were abound
And she’d never be silent again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HAIKUS

The screenwriter tills.
The actor seeds and harvests
A storyline grows.

Hearts no longer open,
Another beams light and heat.
A woman must trust.

Lies and pasts stripped bare,
Intimacy redefined
Without fear or doubt.

One heart unfastens.
Tenderness reawakens.
Story rewritten.

CHRIS’S CORNER Welcomes Guest Blogger Cameron Lincoln: In the Zone

I couldn’t be more excited about this week’s guest blogger. I first bumped into author Cameron Lincoln back in March in the Twitterverse. By April, I had gotten an opportunity to enter a fascinating dialogue with him and a few other talented writers in a genre I had never thought about exploring before: erotica. Since then, I’ve read multiple titles from him and some other writers within the genre, and quickly recognized that my own interpretation of what “erotica” meant did not take into account a talented writer’s ability to put his own spin on it.

In Cameron’s case, it was for me a surprising romantic element that weaves throughout the Holiday Heat novella trilogy Waves of Passion, Tides of Lust and Oceans of Desire, as well as his ability to create believable female characters, something that perhaps I unfairly did not expect from a male erotica romance writer. (Now who’s fault was that really…um, the person stererotyping perhaps…MOI?)

Recently, Cameron announced that he’s embarking in another literary direction, as well: a paranormal romance and his first full-length novel. I asked Cameron if he  would mind stopping by my blog this week and as expected, the always charming and ever gracious writer agreed to do so. Cameron sheds some light on what it can be like for a writer building a repertoire in one genre while wanting to scratch that itch to try others. Thanks so much, Cam, for sharing your thoughtful words with us. I’m so happy you could be a part of the Friday series!

You can follow Cameron Lincoln on Twitter here.

___________________________________

 

 

 

My name is Cameron, and I’m a writer.

So, what kind of stories do you write?

 

The kind with words, generally. They’re usually made up, but not always. The people in them are just like you and me, even if they’re from Mars, or fighting inter-dimensional robots or going at it like unbridled animals on an office desk. Especially then, in fact.

I mean, what kind of stories.

I write erotica and romance. Romantic erotica, really…

I knew it! You’re an erotica writer!

 

No, I’m a writer. I just happen to be writing erotica and romance a lot at the moment. I’ve written other things. Thrillers, sci-fi, horror…

But you’re an erotica writer really, right? That’s your comfort zone.

 

Umm…

When it comes to writing, is there really such a thing as a comfort zone? If you ponder the moments in life that you’re truly comfortable, you may be romantic about it, picturing being safely ensconced in the arms of the one you love; or, if you’re more of a realist, then you’re sitting in your undies eating cookies straight from the pack. Or perhaps I’m revealing too much there. Let me tuck it back.

As a species, we like to see people doing things they’re good at, and if you establish yourself as being good at something, folks generally like to see you do that thing forever more. Admit it…when your favourite singer made a go of being an actor, you cringed, right? Though probably not as much as when your favourite actor picked up the microphone. For every Fresh Prince, there’s a Bruno.

People don’t forget, and readers have mental bookmarks to save previous chapters of their favourite writers’ lives. Stephen King, regardless of whatever book he has just released, is known for horror. JK Rowling will always be ‘the Harry Potter lady.’ Nothing E.L James creates from now on will ever be spoken of without restraints and floggers coming up. But is writing about adolescent witchcraft really Rowling’s comfort zone? Is that – as epic and rich as it is – the only story she ever wanted to tell? Heck no. But it’s the one people expect her to tell, over and over again.

I love stories, as any reader does, and I love them in all their forms. The lyrical beauty of poetry and the rich tapestry of a novel; the heartwrenching majesty of a song that speaks directly to the soul; the pulse-pounding transcendent thrill of a great movie or the bombastic pizzazz of a comic book. I love the flop sweats and shivers brought on by horror, the mind bending delights of science-fiction and the dreamy fantasies brought on by romance. I live for storytelling, and I want to turn my pen to every last genre and medium that gets me excited.

My comfort zone is writing. Creating. Fabricating lies that ironically, must tell the absolute truth. Whether you’re telling stories for yourself or for others to read, there’s a never-ending itch that no end of scratching will cure. To tell more stories. To try new things, to explore new genres, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly… Wait. That’s someone else’s story. Damn, I want to tell one that starts just like that…

I’m recognised now for erotica, but I’d hate to think that was what was expected of me until my fingers drop off. My next big project is a novel in the paranormal genre with a heavy focus on romance. After that, who knows? Either way, accompanied by the relentless clack of the keys – and a big supply of Hobnobs and boxers – I’ll be perfectly comfortable in my zone.

 

A Bit of Book News and My Incredible Best Friend, Why?

It’s been a little while since I’ve blogged. I’m sure you’ve had those kinds of weeks, too. Where everything took a little longer than planned. And when you needed things to be finished, they kept creeping back into the picture as unresolved. I owe a handful of some tremendous people my heartfelt thanks and the greatest virtual backrubs imaginable for their help in keeping me afloat. Muddled through it, all because of you.

Some have asked me what the latest is with my book, so I thought I’d share here. At least what I’m able to at this time.

My book The Muse Unlocked is still on target for a June release. I should have a date to share in a few weeks but it’s appearing to be closer to mid-June or late-June.  And of course, a little cover reveal might be headed your way in a few weeks, as well. So stay tuned for that. I have been quite the badger to my poor publicist about it. She knows if I had my way I would blanket the skies with one now. But I am quickly learning through this process that patience is indeed a virtue.

About time I got a little of that. Heh.

I’m excited that I’ll be able to share with you so many new places that we will be able to hang out together beyond here and Twitter that are all currently in development. But I promise, I will have links for you very soon. In just a matter of weeks.

Holy cow, it really is just a matter of weeks.

<Crickets.>

I might need to go lie down for a bit. Felt a little woosy suddenly.

However, before I do,  just a reminder that tomorrow is Guest Blogger Friday and I’m so excited about this week’s guest who will bring a fresh perspective on a subject that I think will especially be of interest to other writers but hard-core readers, as well. So I look forward to sharing that charming person with you then.

I’d like to leave you with a little thought. This past month, I’ve had many wonderful opportunities to interact with other readers and writers, and in particular, I’ve been able to grow closer to some fellow scribes who I could “talk shop” with and in some rare instances, perhaps be helpful in some small way…from extending a hand to help someone pull themselves out of a creative well, encouraging others to step into a new path or simply cheering them on to grab the laptop by the USB cords and take control of their dream to write before it scurries off or runs around haphazardly and pokes someone’s eye out.

Whether you’re an aspiring writer, a published one stumbling a bit or perhaps a reader who appreciates words and has some other dream that you just — can’t — seem — to — catch! Whew — tiring stuff, that aspiration…ironic word since it does leave most of us breathless, huh? Anyway, regardless of your pursuit, the one piece of advice I have for you is

NEVER

FORGET

WHY.

Why you want to write….

I was asking this of one good writer friend last night. And it’s quite possible he was ready to block me for my persistance and inability to hold my tongue. But this “why” is the simplest for us to forget, because we let it. We allow ourselves to make excuses and let things and people become distractions that impede our forward motion. You can get busy. You can get fearful. You can even temporarily find yourself in a creative abyss, finding nothing imaginative even remotely near your grasp. But your reasons for writing, your reasons for pursuing your dream, they never go away. They might get buried, blocked, smothered but they never go away. So we must cherish them, keep them safe — keep them pure. Let them be about your love of language, your drive to speak out, your desire to inspire, amuse, entertain, educate, scintillate… CAPTIVATE. And whatever you do, never feed them after midnight. Oh wait, that’s Gremlins. But you get the point.

NEVER

FORGET

WHY.

Why you feel this need to do it…

When you stay from words for awhile because you’re too busy fulfilling your “day job” or tending to other personal needs, do you feel that loss? Are you experiencing a little guilt? Let that be less about flogging yourself for what you haven’t written and more about pushing yourself forward to write more. Excite don’t incite.  Pull don’t drag. Tickle don’t taunt. Remind yourself of all of those many reasons you chose this conduit for letting it flow in the first place.

NEVER

FORGET

WHY.

Why you interact with other writers…

Though I’m confident it’s our magical, sparkling personalities, I’m sure, there is more to it than that. We are your soundboard. We are your cheerleaders. We are your lifeline. Never forget to reach out. I’m the biggest culprit of this one myself, old Ms. Self-Sufficient over here. But sometimes, you need that other voice, you need that long, poking finger on the shoulder reminding you that you are not alone. Not really. Even when it may feel that way sometimes. When you hit a snag, don’t look in the mirror and find all of those reasons you failed, look to your informal townfolk who make up the Village of Championing You and call a town hall meeting. We’ll get to the bottom of this thing. We will. Together.

There is no better quote to leave you with than this beauty. And if you’re not a writer, don’t think you can’t apply it to the significance of your own direct pull on the Earth’s axis and all that you must do, that you were meant to do.

“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.” ~Vladimir Nabakov

Happy reading,
ck

CHRIS’S CORNER Welcomes Guest Blogger Cindy Kane: Remembering Mama

Mother’s Day is just around the corner. I wanted to honor mamas everywhere by featuring a clever lady I’ve just recently been introduced to by yet another clever lady, Dana Talusani aka The Kitchen Witch. And if the name rings a bell, it’s because you met Dana here last month as one of my first guest bloggers. Cindy Kane is both a published author and mommy blogger, and she would have happily shared these facts years ago. Now, however, she is excited to also tell you that she’s a stay-at-home mom. This has not always been the case, as you’ll soon read.

Cindy is a delightful read, funny, observant and not above sharing the good, the bad and the ugly of mommyhood.  Her blog Bad Mommy Moments will easily coax a chuckle out of anyone who has ever faced the joy, wrath and confusion of being a parent or been on the other side of it as a child, which covers just about everybody really, doesn’t it? Although there are a few celebrities and reality stars who I’m not certain hail from human beings, but that’s another conversation for another time. Cindy’s book of the same name is a witty mixed media archive of poetry, prose and photography and is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. (Click here for more information about that.)

I asked Cindy if she would mind spending a few moments with us here at my blog as part of CHRIS’S CORNER, my Friday guest blog series, and what do you know? Amid the crazy chaos that is life and in particular, parenting, she found a few minutes to sneak us in and I am most grateful!  So I will let Cindy introduce you to the sometimes magic, other times, madness that is being a mom. And to all birth moms, stepmoms (we sistahs must stick together after all!), foster moms and mamas-to-be, may I wish you a very special Mother’s Day weekend. Take it away, Cindy… 

Oh, and you can follow Cindy on Twitter here.

 

__________________________________________________

In the fall of 2007, four major things happened to me at once. I gave birth to my second daughter, had to resign from my job because her daycare fell through, moved with my husband, tempestuous 3YO, newborn and golden retriever into my father-in-law’s house, and then had to take my 3YO out of daycare. I was essentially a stay-at-home mom–the job I’d feared most–at someone else’s house, and my dreams of becoming a writer were pushed so far away that I couldn’t see them anymore.

By March 2008 I was broken. And by broken I mean cranky, impatient, lonely, and consuming so many bags of Cadbury mini-eggs that my baby’s face had the texture of a starfish. Growing up, I always dealt with stress by writing, but for the first time in my life, I had neither the time nor energy for it. I didn’t even know where I’d packed away my journals. So I started a blog, which at the time I thought was like a private, online diary. I’d never blogged before, never read a blog, hadn’t even heard of blogs. I just hoped that if I wrote a little each day I’d find the bits and pieces of myself that I was positive I’d left somewhere after becoming a mom.

I wrote my first post, felt a huge sigh of accomplishment at finishing something, and the next day had a comment. Someone who understood exactly how I felt and thanked me for being funny and honest about it. I couldn’t believe it. I had no clue how she found me, or who she was, but for the first time in months I felt like I wasn’t alone.

For the next two years, I woke up every weekday morning at 4:30 and wrote until my girls got up. Some mornings I blogged, other mornings I worked on a mixed-media book I’d started after the birth of my first daughter. I still struggled with my stay-at-home mom gig, but by writing about it, and seeking the humor in it, I felt hopeful that maybe I’d find my voice amidst the chaos. Maybe my dreams of becoming a writer were possible after all.

Through blogging I learned that I was introverted and my tendency to check out wasn’t because I didn’t like my kids, or my job as their mom, I was just missing a key element for any introvert – solitude to recharge. I learned that my daughter was suffering from night terrors, not just being an obstinate control freak (like her mother) in the middle of the night (not like her mother). And I learned that if I admitted vulnerability, or a downright failure, there was always someone else to chime in and join me. Affirm me. And laugh with me.

The downside was that while I was no longer feeling alone, my priorities got tangled up between the lives of people I didn’t know in real life, and the kids I was neglecting in order to keep up with posts. Instead of handling stress in an active, positive way, I’d disappear into the dashboard of my blog and obsess over stats, views and comments and felt like less of a person on the days when certain posts didn’t do as well as others. And in my more prideful moments, I’d tell people at my daughters’ school that I was blogging because I felt the need to prove that I was doing something with my life. This of course backfired when I had to censor what I wrote because of who might be reading and what might come back to haunt my kids later.

Writing and blogging eventually took a toll on my marriage, as well. I focused so much hope on finishing my book and getting blog posts up that I always wanted to be somewhere else. Somewhere by myself so I could think and really dig into the editing. I even started sharing things without asking my husband what he thought – it was my blog, after all. And the loneliness I thought I’d combatted with blogging returned. Only now I was lonely in the middle of a house that was starting to function without me.  

So I dropped everything and got my life back in order. Detoxed off of stats, stopped reading other blogs, and went back to just writing when I got up in the morning. It took me six years to finish my book. But I completed it. And my blog is still going, but it’s not the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning.

When I started blogging five years ago I’d hoped to find myself. What I found instead was that by losing bits of who I thought I was, I freed myself from my dreams, and could live the life before me. Sure, that includes writing and blogging and storytelling. But that’s no longer what’s most important. I’m a wife, and a mother, and a homemaker, which has taken me eight years to say with pride. But I am proud. I’m one of the luckiest girls in the world.

Can Choice of POV Mean DOA?

So, I’ve hit a wall again with my reading. It happens.

Client work keeps me really busy and there’s the not-so-simple matter of finalizing the mountain of book details before publishing, preliminary marketing and mucho tasks still to do that make it nearly impossible to start a book let alone stay awake long enough to read it.

I was sooooooooo eager to read Jamie McGuire’s follow-up to Beautiful Disaster released recently. And though I started Walking Disaster around my birthday – now over a month ago – I didn’t finish it until just the other day. Because of a new practice — I say gimmick — that’s becoming more prevalent and much panned by the fans, though they may have only themselves to blame. The alternate POV.

Now, don’t get me wrong: of course, when I read any book in the female protagonist’s point of view, I’m slightly curious as to what that same book would sound like from the lead male character’s perspective. But be careful what you wish for. Sometimes what we think we want, we actually do not want at all. And while there may be different layers and colors to the story because it is being delivered from a totally separate and unique voice, it doesn’t change the fact that (A) the story plot points will remain the same and (B) the dialogue that features both characters is, yep, you guessed it, going to be identical, too. So, essentially, you’re hearing the same story retold. While hopes of hearing some new conversations and witnessing new revelations about said male character may be appear in the book, overall, these can be fairly scarce as in the latest McGuire follow-up. And this isn’t a slight at this author at all. Quite the contrary, I frequently cite McGuire as being very influential in my interest in the genre in the first place and she is by no means the only author to use this device.

What I question is why fans that beg and beg authors to do this then turn on them when they do? I have seen so much flak over McGuire’s sequel, people who are positively LIVID with the final results.  I am certain that the book is the result of those same fans’ loud and bubbly appeals for more Travis ‘Mad Dog’ Maddox! Folks, you wanted to hear from your book boyfriend, so there you go! You got him!

Some writers like M. Leighton (Up to Me) and J. A. Redmerski (The Edge of Never) do a fantastic job volleying back and forth from chapter to chapter representing multiple POVs while continuing to move the plot along without repetitiveness or an opportunity for boredom to set in. It is done skillfully, creatively and compellingly for the reader.

I went back and forth on choosing how I would tell my story for my upcoming book The Muse Unlocked. Initially, it was first person, present tense. Then, omniscient third person present tense and back to first-person past tense. Like a see-saw. I really struggled to make up my mind. Finally, I decided on ominiscient third person past tense.  And I’m glad that I did. The reader primarily gets an inside look into the main female character’s thoughts but there are some scenes in the book, where I do let the reader privy to what’s behind the words and actions of the lead male and I believe it was a simple case of being a reader of this beloved genre myself.

As I wrote, I kept asking myself – if it were me reading this, what would I want to know? Whose mind would I want to crawl up inside and examine more closely?

I’ve heard some authors talk about writing for genres outside their own favorite reading preferences simply because they had that one great big idea or they developed a following early and kept on feeding it. I don’t think I could do that. If I fell out of love with a style or genre, I think my heart would pull my words and stories somewhere else. I believe I would feel compelled to travel in a different direction.

Right now, this is where my heart lies and is supposed to be, and I feel fortunate that I know this. My own POV is clear as a bell. Now if only choosing it for our characters were that easy…

Happy reading!
ck