Taking a Leap of Faith - Are You Making a Good Decision?

Every once in a while, you make a leap, not sure of where you are going to land. How do you know if you are making the right decision?

You don't. Nobody knows what is going to happen, and if 2016 didn't teach us that, I don't know what can. I don't know about you, but I read all the analyses, the polls, listened to the experts, yet the results of November 2016 left me gobsmacked. You don't know what will happen. You do the best with the information you have now.

Follow your heart, or your gut, whatever speaks to you. Nobody can tell you if you are doing the right thing, unless they will live the consequences. Even then, they might have their own agenda in mind, or not fully think through how it affects you. This is where you have to rely on what feels right in your heart, or your gut, or your conscience. One of these should give you an indication if the choice is right for you.

Consider your long range plans. When assessing a decision, I often look at how it affects me now. How my daily routines will be disrupted. What changes now. My view can lack long range goals, like how I want my life to took 10 years from now, or 15, or 20. It is important to look at the long range effects when making a big decision. When deciding between two jobs, this was helpful. While one was inconvenient now, making it a poor immediate choice, I could see myself being there for the long haul, even retiring there. While the other job, while convenient now, did not offer long range opportunities.

Remove fear from the equation. When making a decision, fear is the what often holds us back. Take it out of the equation. If you weren't afraid, what would you do?

Know your core. Dig deep to find what makes you tick, what motivates you, what you love and what drains you. If this opportunity feeds that, it is right. They say if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. If the opportunity you are debating qualifies as something you love, something that feeds your soul, that matters.

This month, I am taking a leap and changing my life. It will be an adjustment for me and my family, but I hope it will lead to better things. I have some worries, as I am going into unknown territory for me, but I am trusting my gut, my long range plans, my unknowing of what will happen and trusting the universe is bringing me what I need. Bless you all on your paths.

Book Review: Go Ask Alice

When I checked this book out in the library, several library employees commented on reading it as a teen and it being very influential on them. I picked it off the shelf and started reading it without knowing its history, and I was drawn into the story.

"Go Ask Alice," by Anonymous was first published in 1971. The era is sometimes evident in the clothing choices made, but that is such a small part of the story. It is the horrific story of a teenage girl from a good family getting caught up in drug abuse that eventually leads to her demise. It is written in diary form, from beginning until her last entry.

According to Snopes, this book was the product of Beatrice Sparks, who produced several novels depicting teens in situations that ruined their lives, including AIDS, pregnancy, satan worship and eating disorders. It is clearly not an authentic diary of a teenage girl, but it is convincing enough to keep a reader interested, and clearly made an impact on some young readers (or so I heard at the library).

It is a short, quick read, and the main character is easy to relate to. Whether it is authentic or not, it does speak of the trials of finding friends, keeping friends, doing stupid stuff and all that comes with being a teen.

Today Is the Day

Gangbanger is released today!

Ze Vang could count on his friends to have his back....until things get deadly.

Now available in ebook or paperback form on Amazon or in ebook form at Solstice Publishing.
 

On Friendship

The world has a way of slapping you in the face, kind of like that song by Sheryl Crow, "Isn't It Ironic."

Less than a week after I posted about my upcoming book on friendship, my very best friend from middle school to about 10th grade had a cataclysmic event and has been in ICU fighting for her life ever since. I pray for her daily, hoping she hangs in there, thinking about the people in her life who love her, hoping she can come back from this.

We haven't been friends for a long time, but you don't forget the bonds of best friends. We did everything together, and most of it was stupid, like eating cake mix out of the box, or braiding each other's hair so we'd have kinks, getting sunburned and peeling each other's back. Those were some good times and I never laughed as much as I did when I was with Shelly.

I had to dig deep through the archives in the basement, searching through boxes of photos of my life since Shelly and I were friends. Wedding photos, vacations, multiple albums for our children. My own childhood nearly forgotten at the bottom of a box tucked deep into the storeroom, with photos from a time before digital.

I have one photo of me with the girl who inhabited my everyday for four years, and it is nothing but a Polaroid from 1985. This is Shelly and I sitting on Santa's lap. My eyes are closed and I look characteristically awkward in my jean jacket with buttons that say whatever I had to say at the time, while she looks as cool as a cucumber. She was always the cool one, while I was awkward and weird.

And, because I found a lot in that box, I have to give a shout out to Pennie, who I accompanied to prom night for a school that wasn't ours. This was probably 1986, and feathered hair, puffy sleeves and satin dresses were cool.

And finally, I have to give a toast to the best friend who got me through the rest of high school, my rock, my friend, my Taco Time partner, Linda. We haven't been in each other's world enough lately.

Best friends mean a lot. I'm sure there is a saying out there that you only need one good friend, and that friend is precious. Celebrate yours, the friends then and now. And please, pray for Shelly. She has some tough odds, and she is a special light in this world. Best friends need to live forever.

This Is Out of My Hands Now

Final copy is sent. Cover art is done. Vague blog and twitter posts explained.

I have a new novel coming out. The official release date is November 15, 2016.

This is a story about the power of friendship. Because sometimes in life, and especially in teen lives, friendship is everything, even more powerful than family. Please share your feelings about friendship on Twitter with #ForFriendship.

Ze Vang was raised to take over for his father, as the eldest and only son of a Hmong immigrant family. Then he does the impossible, he leaves, with a little help from his friends. When things go terribly wrong, Ze needs to make an impossible choice.

Gangbanger coming November 15!

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

I am a huge Harry Potter fan, and stood in line at midnight many times for the release of the next book in the 2000s, although I was never the sort to stay up all night reading it and could have easily bought it at Target the next morning while running errands. That isn't as much fun, though. Standing in line at 11:35 pm and chatting it up with folks in costume makes a book release an event.

I felt a whiff of that excitement when I saw the new book, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", which bears JK Rowling's name and is most definitely based on her body of work, but is actually a play written by Jack Thorne.

Some are put off by the structure, as it is a screenplay, with little detail. At first, I didn't mind it at all. As time went on, I realized I didn't read this book in 24-48 hours like I did the series. While the sparse details and focus on dialogue of the screenplay format made it easier to move the plot, it didn't allow me to sink in and be absorbed in the story in a way that I couldn't put the book down.

That is not to say the story isn't compelling. It is, it really is, but perhaps only to a Harry Potter fan. If you haven't read another Harry Potter book, this one might not make any sense at all. For fans, it is a fun escape to see what might have been, and see some old friends. Although I have heard and agree the exclusion of Luna Lovegood was a disappointment.

The story, itself, is compelling and interesting, and leaves me wondering what will happen next every step (act) of the way. I don't know if I would buy another one (who am I kidding, of course I would!) I also looked into what plane ticket to the UK would cost, just for the chance to see this play on stage.

Publishing and other forms of insanity

A fellow author offered a link to a blog entry on useful hashtags for writers on Twitter. It was a good article, and if you are interested in writing and Twitter, you can find it here.

What fascinated me was the title at the top of the blog... Publishing... and other forms of insanity.

Insanity. We've all heard about the creative folks who were insane. Creativity has gone hand in hand with insanity since the beginning of time, fair or not.

For years, publishing was what I was working toward. I wanted to publish a book, and I achieved that in 2012 with the release of my first novel.

The experience was exhilarating, but what surprised me is how exposed I felt, and vulnerable, like standing naked on a street corner.

Writing is an intimate practice. Authors craft their novels in relative solitude. I have drooled over writing sheds in backyards or writing retreats in cute B&Bs away from the trials of family life. We get to know our characters' deepest flaws, their desires, what they always thought of themselves that is wrong. And let's face it, some of those flaws come from personal experience. We often have to feel what the character feels to write it well.

So you dive deep into your soul and you feel all the things and put them on the page. Then you send it off for public consumption, where everyone, including your mother, your aunt, your enemy can read it. And you don't do it for riches. There are some authors who break out and make big money, but they are few and far between. Most authors I know aren't in this for the money.

This very much sounds like insanity.

Yet I can't imagine NOT writing. As I write this blog post, I have been in editing for an upcoming novel (news coming soon!) and not working on my WIP. This is making me cranky. Editing is still part of writing, but different. I have to change gears and focus on this novel that I finished ages ago, and debate changes, and as an experienced novelist, I realize every change or suggestion can become the permanent record, in the book everyone will read, maybe even quote.

Take a look at your Twitter feed, I bet there are literary quotes on there that go back for decades, maybe even more. Talk about pressure.

Publishing is insanity, or causes insanity, or only the insane would pursue this.

It will be worth it.

Soldier on, my writer friends, through the insanity, at every level of this process.