Memoir Writers and My Own Propinquities

http://thesisterproject.com/roach/memoir-tip-think-with-propinquity/ The Sister Project fell into my lap as I feverishly searched for material to pad my chapters in Creating Sisters. The Roach sisters offer a pleasant side-dish story about one memorable Thanksgiving. It reminded me of my first Christmas in Japan:

After a year of sporadic employment -- thanks to terrorists in airplanes -- I was tapped out. When the government offered me a two-year contract teaching in Japan, I jumped at it. Steady income for two years AND world travel.  With my credit cards maxed out, I left my husband behind, stateside, and moved to another continent to work and to salve my financial wounds. Month after month, I was able to pay off and catch up on my bills, one at a time. It felt good, until the holidays approached. My friends and co-workers, also Americans, selected their vacation destinations, paid for tickets, and left the country for exotic global adventures. I remained in my apartment, with no money for travel -- not even enough to fly home for the holidays.

Not only did I find myself alone on Christmas, but I didn't have a single present to unwrap. (Must have seemed like too much trouble to find something, wrap it, and mail it to Japan). So I lay on in front of the television the livelong day, watching Japanese television, and reminding myself how I got there. "God binds us so He can free us; Satan frees us so he can bind us." I had misused my financial freedom over the past few years, so that now I had no financial choices left. Never again, I promised myself, would I allow this to happen.

December 26th wasn't quite as bad as the 25th, and a few days later my daughter arrived to share my Japan experience for a few weeks before her next college semester would commence. With payday on December 31st, we entertained ourselves with daytrips into Tokyo. The wisdom I gained that Christmas prepared me for the healing and peace of mind that I had longed for. When I returned to life as before -- after spending THREE years in Japan -- I had changed profoundly. But I'll save that for another day... 

Hot Tip: My Parent Magic

http://www.myparentmagic.com/Check out Chuck's newly-updated My Parent Magic. He has packed it with some great tips for parents, and we can all use a little help in that area now and again. That's probably even more valuable as the holidays approach.

With Halloween behind us once again, and the end of daylight savings time, we Utahns hunker down for the winter months. My friends in Canada can feel my pain (Karmen and Rain!). They are already knitting socks and mittens to fend off the Cannuck winter.

The Summer months, as always, swept by too quickly. And now Autumn proves elusive as skies seesaw from cloudy to clear and back again, taunting us with hope for continued warmth. Before long Winter will arrive, unbidden and unwelcome. Like an acquaintance who comes to visit and overstays their welcome, the Winter season seems to drag on month after month. I've lived through more than thirty-five Utah Winters, and I know what's coming: cold, dry air that leaves lips chapped and skin scaley; tv and radio commercials prematurely saturated with Christmas music and begging shoppers to overspend; and relentless frozen precipitation (I can't bring myself to use the s--- word!) in all the wrong places.

It could be worse: Norislk is a mining city in Siberia, where the average life span is a mere 52 years. Ugh. I'll take Utah. . . Did I just say I'll take Utah?!?

Sane or Insane?

If the statistics are accurate, that "one in four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness, think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's YOU." (Rita Mae Brown)

Well, Brandie is too level headed to allow herself to go crazy.
Carrie is zany, but not nuts.
Susan and I got therapy when we started to lose our sanity.
So, I guess Sheila's the crazy one. Congratulations, Sheila! (She's sane enough to be able to laugh at this blog.)

Friends

Happiness keeps you Sweet
Trials keep you Strong
Sorrows keep you Human
Failures keep you Humble
Success keeps you Glowing
But Only Friends Keep You Going!

So many words, so little time

I keep praying that someone will drop a basket of money on my porch so that I can take six months off work to write the three books that are swimming around in my head. What, you ask, could you possibly want to write about that would take six months? And here they are:

• Stunt Wives is a 2-act comedy about women surviving their abusive relationships with gay men. It pokes fun at a lot of painful stuff, but in the end honors the survivors. (sigh)
• Creating Sisters is a non-fiction book about how sisterless women create sisters out of friends and other relatives; nevertheless, they view the world very differently from women with sisters. Based on case studies, multi-generational sisterless families, and personal interviews.
• It Was a Very Good Year is the title of my memoir, based on 40+ years of journals. Each chapter is titled for a Frank Sinatra song title, hence the book's title. I just finished 1969 -- now, THAT was a very good year.

If I could stop working and concentrate on any one of the books, I would be in heaven. There's just not enough emotional and physical stamina left in me at the end of a work day to allow me the luxury of writing in the evenings. I even tried pulling some all-nighters, then going to work. That, needless to say, proved poor judgment on my part. So, I will have to continue writing piecemeal until one of them is ready for the literary agent. Finding a literary agent requires hours and hours and hours of reading and writing in and of itself. The process is arduous, doubtful, and costly (if not in money, then in effort that could be used to write!). If you know a L.A. who is looking to represent another new author, please send them a link to this blog. I'll bake you a loaf of bread and send it Overnight.

Can you say "Tennessee Ernie Ford?"

I just discovered the '50s videos on Carolyn's Precious Memories. I grew up listening to Ernie Ford records, thanks to my dad's hillbilly tastes, and watching Art Linkletter on tv in the 1950s, thanks to my mother's tastes. We laughed at the innocence of young and old alike. The world was a quieter, more demure place back then. Perhaps it wasn't really a "better" place, but it brings a lump to my throat and a huge smile to my face as I watch these videos from my childhood. http://carolynspreciousmemories.com/Videos/ Thanks, Carolyn!