Simply the Best

Joanna Young at Confident Writing has given us a real challenge: pick simply the best post for all of 2008.

First I narrowed down my favorite posts to one per month for Middle Zone Musings’ Blogapaloo0za. That was hard enough to do—one month I had to choose one from among three top favorites. Then I went through the favorite posts from each month to choose simply the best for 2008.

Remembering My Parents is simply the best because it still brings tears to my eyes—tears of sorrow that they are no longer with me and tears of  joy for the memories and the love we shared.

Cell Phone Users and Abusers

Brad Shorr is holding a contest at Word Sell. This is my entry in Cell Phone Users and Abusers.

I had been thinking about this post for several days. There are so many people who abuse cell phones that I was having a hard time narrowing down my focus. People take their eyes off the road, their hands off the steering wheel, and their minds off their driving to talk on the phone. Cell phones have become so invasive that our church has signs on the back of each pew: Silenceth thy cell phone.

On my way to Bible study last week, I encountered the worst case of cell phone abuse I’ve personally experienced. A guy on a bicycle was apparently taking a short cut through the church parking lot. As I turned into the driveway, he wobbled from side to side on his bicycle, holding a cell phone up to his ear with one hand and trying to guide the bike with the other hand on the handlebars. I don’t think he ever even saw me as I swerved to miss him. He continued his conversation without even looking up. He wore shorts and T-shirt and no helmet.

Being so careless in an automobile is extremely dangerous, but to be so reckless with exposed legs, arms, and head on a bicycle in the path of oncoming cars … that strikes me as a death wish!

What is your worst experience with Cell Phone Users and Abusers? You still have time to enter the contest for a chance at one of eight prizes ranging from $50 to $500. The prizes are being given by Brad’s client Dr. Mike O’Malley to promote his book called Cell Hell - 55 Cell Phone Users You’d Like to Silence. Mike offers the badge at the top of this post to anyone who joins the fight against cell phone abuse.

The Results of My Writing Experiment

Joanna Young’s theme this month at Confident Writing is Experimenting, and she is sponsoring a group writing project: The Results of My Writing Experiment.

My first reaction was that I had nothing to contribute to this project because I wasn’t doing any experimenting in my writing. Then I realized that I have recently started doing two new things here at A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye.

I posted my first book review, ironically a review of a book on how to write reviews, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing. I learned a lot from reading and reviewing the book and consider it a success. The post generated 49 comments and several people said they intended to buy the book as a result of the review. I have a review of Santa’s Angels (Avalon Romance) by Janet Kaderli scheduled next week and have a couple more books lined up to review.

I have also conducted my first author interviews, though the posts haven’t appeared yet. The interview of contemporary romance author Janet Kaderli is scheduled for next week, and an interview of one of the characters in A Village Shattered by Jean Henry Mead is scheduled for the following week. Interviewing a character in the book instead of the author was a fun experiment.

Although it’s a little early to report any results from my experimentation with reviews and interviews, I think I’m going to enjoy doing both!

Have you experimented with your writing?

photo credit: shimgray

Seven Things I’m Thankful For

Luke Gedeon is sponsoring a group writing project for Thanksgiving: Seven Things I’m Thankful For. Luke will link to all the posts, and his post will be excellent reading for Thanksgiving Day (or the day after Thanksgiving or any time).

In his sermon last Sunday, our priest said, “I’m so tired of people calling it Turkey Day. It’s Thanksgiving Day, a day to give thanks to Almighty God.”

This Thanksgiving—and every day—I will thank God for these seven things:

• Family: I’ve written about my parents and siblings and about my husband Jack. I have been incredibly blessed with my family of origin and in my marriage.
• Friends: Both online and offline friends bring joy to my life, and I grateful for them.
• Work: God has blessed me with a little talent and a lot of perseverance so I can earn a living doing what I love—writing and helping other writers.
• Provision: We have plenty of food (more than enough as you can tell if you look at us), a comfortable home, and everything we need to enjoy a happy life.
• Freedom: We are so fortunate to live in a land where we can practice our faith and freely express our opinions. I am grateful for our servicemen and women and our veterans for ensuring that we remain free.  
• Miracles: I have experienced many miracles in my life, including surviving an attack by a Doberman and recovering from a stroke, Most recently, I have been healed of a severe seizure disorder. I will write more about this miracle in a future post.
• Salvation: My faith sustains me,  and I am so thankful that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my salvation and that I will spend eternity with God. I pray that you also have this assurance of salvation.

What are you thankful for?

What I Learned from Government

When I read the theme for this month’s group writing project at Middle Zone Musings, it was déjà vu all over again. I was sure Robert had run out of topics and was starting to repeat himself. The topic is What I Learned from Government, and I knew I had written on that subject before.

But when I checked my archives, I discovered that the topic had been What I Learned from the World of Work. My post, What I Learned from Working for the Government, listed seven things I learned. I hope you read the original post as I’m not going to repeat those seven lessons. Instead I’m going to expand on one lesson that is very timely.

Even programs that are supposed to be for the benefit of people in need don’t always serve the needs of those they are designed to serve.

Too many people in our society expect the government to protect them from everything—enemies, misfortune, and their own bad decisions. They want their rights, and they want them now. They want financial security, and they want it now. They want to forget that there are evil people in the world, and they want to negotiate with our enemies.

The United States was founded as a republic, with limited federal powers. National security is government’s responsibility. Ensuring home ownership for citizens who can’t afford the houses they’re buying is not the role of government. It is a formula for disaster—as we’ve seen recently. Certainly many institutions and individuals—including greedy financial institutions who tried to make a fast buck, greedy individuals who tried to buy homes beyond their means, and greedy investors who tried to get rich quick—share the blame for the credit crisis. However, the root cause is the unwise, if well-intentioned, legislation and regulations designed to increase the opportunity for home ownership to more and diverse individuals.

Greedy financial institutions wouldn’t have made these risky loans if they didn’t have Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac to fall back on. Greedy individuals who didn’t have sufficient income for the houses they wanted couldn’t have gotten into debt over their head if they didn’t have the government supporting their entitlement to home ownership. Greedy investors couldn’t have profited from the situation if the government didn’t make it easy.

My heart goes out to individuals caught in the situation. But did those visionary programs to make home mortgages more accessible really help anyone? I don’t think so. Financial institutions would have been better off if they had made loans to people who were likely to be able to meet their obligations. Individuals who bought homes beyond their means would have avoided losing their homes or getting into serious financial trouble if they had purchased homes within their means or continued to rent. Investors might not be facing huge losses if they had invested more wisely.

So the well-intentioned government intervention has ended up making the situation much worse. The crisis has spread beyond the original organizations and individuals to impact our entire economy. Then comes more government intervention to try to resolve the problem. And when that doesn’t work, more government intervention …

The Declaration of Independence says we are entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It doesn’t guarantee us happiness. It doesn’t guarantee us financial security. It doesn’t guarantee us health. It guarantees us freedom, and people who are free to succeed are also free to fail.

I quit my government job because I reached the conclusion that the government programs designed to help poor people were actually harming rather than helping. The War on Poverty was declared nearly 50 years ago, and we lost. People in those programs haven’t achieved success; in most cases, they’re still in government programs, still receiving handouts. Yet, people work their way out of poverty every day. They may get some temporary help, but they don’t expect government to make them successful. They work for their own success.

Yes, government taught me that good intentions don’t guarantee good results. In the coming months, we’ll see many new proposals and many new programs designed to help people. Will they help? Or will they hurt?

What I Learned from Stress

Some stress is good. Right now, I’m stressed as I plan my book launch party and schedule my blog book tour … and wonder if anyone will buy my book. That stress pushes me to be more productive so the launch of Dream or Destiny is a success.

Some stress is not good. In fact, it can be downright bad for both our emotional and physical health. Worry about the current economic crisis. Trying to meet unreasonable demands from clients. Computer crashes. Natural disasters. The death of a loved one. The breakup of a relationship. And on and on and on.

We can’t eliminate stress from our lives, and we can’t ensure that all stress will be good. We can, however, choose how to respond to stress. We can let it destroy our health and well-being or we can respond with resilience.

When I find myself getting frazzled over things that are beyond my control, I know that it’s time to recharge my spiritual batteries. I need to turn to God—to read His Word and talk to Him in prayer. Even in the most stressful situations, He will give me His peace that passes understanding.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6, NIV)

O MOST loving Father, who willest us to give thanks for all things, to dread nothing but the loss of thee, and to cast all our care on thee, who carest for us; Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, give us thy peace that passes understanding, and grant that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which thou hast manifested unto us in thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This post is an entry in the What I Learned from Stress group writing project at Middle Zone Musings.

My Love Affair with Writing

Joanna Young at Confident Writing has challenged us to write about My Love Affair with Writing. She said:

It might be a love affair that’s lasted many years, a brief flame of passion or the heartbreak of unrequited love.

My love affair with writing began nearly a half century ago, but it’s been an on-again, off-again affair.

It started in high school, perhaps my junior or senior year. The high school I attended in a small, rural community had one English teacher for all four grades. She gave our class an assignment to write a short story. My story was a humorous account of a girl trying to introduce her date to her family. I had five siblings, and getting all of them plus my parents (especially my father who was usually working somewhere on the farm) together in one place was a challenge. In my short story, the girl would get a family member or two into the living room, and one of them would disappear before she could find the next one. Eventually the date disappeared …

It doesn’t sound very funny now, but the teacher raved about it when she returned my paper with a great big A+ on the top. Then she asked my permission to read the story to every English class. I don’t recall any compliments or comments from other students, but I do remember the students in my class laughing in all the right places when the teacher read the story. At that moment, I felt like a real writer.

I never considered writing as a career. In college, I majored in sociology and minored in psychology. I didn’t write any fiction, but I wrote a lot of research papers. I also wrote a lot of letters to my future husband as well as to my family.

The first poem I ever wrote - and one of only a handful - was to my future husband on the occasion of our engagement. That poem is handwritten on a card stock picture frame beside my photo used in the engagement announcement in the newspaper, and the photo with the poem, now in fading ink, sits on the headboard of our bed to this day.

For the first few years after college and marriage, I don’t remember doing any writing. After I opened my interior landscape company, I wrote a lot of business proposals that generated sales for my business. I also wrote a few articles for national trade journals; those were inspired by both my love of writing and a desire to build my reputation in the industry.

Journaling has been part of my life through the years - sometimes every day, other times there have been long periods when I didn’t journal.

Throughout my life, I always dreamed of writing “someday.” Then at age 45, I suffered a stroke as a result of a chiropractic manipulation. I knew then that “someday” had arrived. It took a couple of years for me to recover sufficiently to be able to sit at a computer to type, but as soon as I could I started my first novel. Like many first novels, a lot of it was autobiographical about my stroke experience, but I wrote it as a romance. I had been married to my own romantic hero for nearly 25 years at the time and wondered how someone without the kind of support I had could overcome the challenge of a stroke.

I joined writers organizations, attended workshops and seminars, participated in a critique group, wrote three novels, and started another novel in the next few years.

When my first novel was accepted by a publisher after many rejections, I was so excited I didn’t even look at any other books from that publisher (different from my current publisher). When I did start reading, the errors in the books appalled me. I contacted my editor and pointed out the number of mistakes. Fortunately, instead of being offended, she appreciated my interest. She said they were a new company, and they realized their first few books were poorly edited … and she offered me a job editing them!

That experience made me realize I love editing even more than writing. I haven’t written anything new - except journal entries, articles for my church newsletter, and blog posts - for several years. My second novel is scheduled for publication as soon as the publishers are healthy again (the small press is run by a husband and wife and both have had health problems recently). I’m thrilled that it will finally be published, but my greatest joy is helping other writers bring their own books to fruition.

A large part of my freelance business involves work for business clients: proposals, industry articles, resumes, brochures, and manuals. My favorite job, though, is working with authors to prepare their manuscripts for publication. A couple of my clients are submitting their work to major publishers, but most self-publish.

I like to work with my author clients from the beginning of their project, but usually I get involved when they have a completed manuscript. Most of my clients are better storytellers or subject matter experts than writers, and I love to help make their stories and information better. I make their work sound like them … only better. I edit the work, often doing major revisions (like removing the first four chapters of a novel and incorporating the back story that was pertinent into the book where it was needed).

In addition to editing, I offer a wide range of other services: formatting the manuscript for printing, hiring a cover designer and coordinating between the author and the designer, negotiating with a printer, soliciting quotes, writing the back cover blurb, designing and maintaining the author’s Web site and editing the blog, and creating and distributing press releases and other promotional materials.

I’ve called myself a book midwife - helping the author to birth his/her book. Maybe I’m more of an author’s assistant - or the author’s right hand.

My love affair with writing has had many twists and turns, but the passion is still as strong as the day it began, way back in high school when my words first got a positive reaction from my teacher.

What I Learned from Rejection

Like most people, I’ve experienced plenty of rejection.

 

 

 

 

Here are a few examples:

• When I was in college, I was engaged - for a short time - to a guy who told me when one of his buddies saw me for the first time, the buddy said, “That’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen.” At the end of the semester, my fiancé decided we should be free to date other people during the summer because he wanted to have fun back in his hometown.
• At the end of my first week on the job as an employment counselor, my boss asked me for a report I was supposed to have turned in. When I answered that I’d never heard anything about such a report and didn’t know how to prepare it, he answered, “I had things running pretty smooth around here, and you’re so stupid, you’re destroying my smooth operation.”
• After I finished my first novel, Stroke of Luck, and started submitting it to agents and publishers, I was told over and over again - even to my face as I sat in a wheelchair, “No one wants to read about a cripple.”
• In my interior landscape business and in my network marketing business, more prospects rejected me than did business with me.

However, the rejections weren’t the end of the story:

• While my erstwhile fiancé was enjoying his summer of freedom to date the girls in his hometown, I met Jack on my summer job. When we returned to school, my old flame was ready to put the engagement ring back on my finger, but by that time I was wearing Jack’s ring. We were married the following summer and have lived happily ever after - for more than forty years.
• As I learned the job with the employment commission, my boss decided that, rather than being the stupidest person around as he thought, I was the smartest. Of course, it didn’t necessarily make me popular with my coworkers when he said, “Why can’t you do your job like Mrs. Ammann?” But I felt vindicated when I received outstanding performance evaluations - from that supervisor and the ones that succeeded him.
• After I’d given up on Stroke of Luck ever being published, I found a publisher who was actually looking for books with handicapped characters. Though sales of the book have been modest, I’ve had some wonderful reviews, and, more importantly, have heard from readers that they or someone they loved found encouragement in the story.
• My interior landscape business grew to become one of the three largest in the area, and I eventually sold it to a national corporation. I earned some nice extra income in the network marketing business and have experienced health improvement from the products.

So, what have I learned from rejection?

• Rejection by one individual represents only that person’s opinion. My husband didn’t see the same “ugly woman” my college fiancé rejected. He saw me with different eyes.
• Rejection isn’t permanent. My boss with the employment commission came to judge me on my performance, not on his first impression.
• One YES can make up for a lot of NOs. No matter how many publishers rejected my story, it took only one acceptance to get the book published.
• Success is a numbers game. All of us will face rejection many times in our lives. If we pick ourselves up after each rejection and try again, we will succeed. Failure is quitting, giving up, believing the rejections. Success is moving forward (no matter how slowly), getting back up when we fall, and never letting the naysayers have the final word.

Related Posts:
Every “No” Is Just One Step Closer to a “Yes”
Rejection: Your Baby Is Ugly!

This post is a part of Middle Zone Musing’s What I Learned From … group writing project.

A Different … and Special … Family Vacation

The Family Vacation Group Writing Project at Babylune made me think of one of the best family vacations I’ve ever had.

The theme of the project is to:

…write a post about a family vacation that you have taken as a parent or as a child. What are your memories of the main event, your favorite parts, the successes, the advice for others, the fun factor and/or the mishaps?

I’m not sure this post qualifies because the vacation I’m writing about started out as a business trip, and, although it was taken with my parents, I was an adult at the time. But I want to share this precious memory, whether it’s appropriate for the group writing project or not.

My family didn’t take vacations when I was growing up. My father was a real homebody, but even if he had enjoyed travel, it’s not likely we would have been able to go on vacation. Daddy was a chicken farmer, and you can’t leave tens of thousands of chickens while you take a trip. The chickens had to be fed and the eggs gathered, cleaned, graded, and packaged every day, and delivered two or three times a week. And the income from chicken farming didn’t stretch to taking a family of six children on vacation.

My husband is a lot like my father in many ways, not the least in being a homebody. So through our forty years of marriage, we have taken only a few vacations together. Most of the traveling I have done has been to conferences and business meetings.

About twenty years ago, an organization for women business owners offered a seminar onboard a cruise ship. The schedule allowed plenty of time for pleasure and enough training to qualify as a business expense. I’d always wanted to take a cruise, and the seminar seemed like the perfect opportunity to enjoy a new experience, gain some new knowledge, and save money. Seminar attendees and their guests received a significant discount off the price of the cruise. Since my husband had absolutely no interest in the trip, I invited my grown-up “baby” sister (she’s the youngest and I’m the oldest) to go with me.

Shortly after we made our reservations, my father called me and asked, “Why didn’t you invite Mama and me to go with you and Nancy?’

I had no idea he would even consider it and told him so. He said they wanted to go, so I made reservations for them as well.

Daddy absolutely amazed me … and wore me out. I went to bed at night before he finished playing the slot machines in the casino. He and Mama enjoyed the unlimited - and often exotic - food. He even had fun shopping in the island markets when the ship docked. I enjoyed lying on the deck reading between seminar sessions, but my parents were constantly involved in some activity. Mama, Nancy, and I all marveled at how much fun Daddy was having.

One morning while I was attending a workshop and Nancy had gone off on her own, Mama and Daddy were walking around exploring the ship. Mama got tired, and the first place they found to sit was in a theater. They didn’t know what was happening in the theater - they were just looking for a place to rest.

What was happening was the Men’s Knobby Knee Contest. A woman came out into the audience and pulled my father up on stage to participate in the contest. Several women judges felt the “knobby knees” of Daddy and other “contestants,” and Daddy was declared the winner.

My sister and I thought Mama was joking when she told us the story over lunch. My daddy was shy and reserved. No way would he let himself be pulled up on stage, much less let a bunch of women feel his knees! Yep, he had done just that. And when Mama was telling us the story, Daddy got the cute little grin that always meant he was really having a good time.

That vacation was one of the best times I’ve ever had with my parents and my sister. We spent more time having fun together than we ever had, and I saw my father enjoy himself more than I could have ever imagined.

Not long after we returned from that wonderful trip, we started noticing that Daddy was forgetting things and becoming easily confused. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and began to lose more and more of his abilities. After he had a heart attack, he could no longer communicate with any consistency. Though he had moments of lucidity for some time, he was totally incapacitated, physically and mentally, for several years before his death.

Unbeknownst to us, he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s when we took the cruise. One of his first symptoms was the loss of his inhibitions. Our family vacation happened at just the right moment for him to be spontaneous and outgoing without any loss of mental ability.

After Daddy died, my mother gave me the little plastic “First Prize” trophy that he won in the knobby knees contest. Every time I look at that tacky little trinket I say a prayer of thanksgiving for the precious time we had together before we lost him to that horrible disease.

Updated 9/1/07: I am thrilled that Kate selected this post as the winner! Thank you, Kate, for sponsoring the group writing project and especially for choosing my post as the winning entry.

It’s Funny NOW, But Then … It Was Frightening: MRI Horror Story

I tend to write about my stroke often for two reasons:

1. That one incident dramatically changed my life forever.
2. After fifteen years, I have the perspective of time and experience to see the lessons – and in this case the humor – that I couldn’t see at the time and that I may not see in my present circumstances.

This post is part of the group writing project: It’s Funny NOW, But Then …

Recently, I was chatting on the phone with a friend who had a stroke about a year ago. I have encouraged her by sharing my own experiences with her. She started laughing on the phone and said she just thought about the story I told about my MRI.

Back then, the hospital I was in did not have an MRI machine but used a machine that traveled from hospital to hospital in a trailer, sort of like a bookmobile except an MRI machine replaced the books. The MRI was due at the hospital a couple of days after I was admitted, so my doctor scheduled an appointment.

Two nurses’ aides showed up in my room with a gurney. I couldn’t do anything for myself at that point, and as heavy as I am, it took several people to transfer my dead-weight body from the bed to the gurney. The aides called for help and when help finally arrived, they transferred me to the stretcher. The other two people left, and the aides prepared to transport me to the MRI.

Oh, no,” cried one. “There’s no rails or safety belts on this stretcher. We can’t take her outside through the parking lot on this.”

“We don’t have time to change,” said the other. “You know how long it took to get help to put her on this one. We’ll be in big trouble if we’re late for the appointment. They schedule those appointments so close together, it’ll throw the schedule off for the whole day.”

“We’ll be in more trouble if she falls off on the way over.”

They debated back and forth for several minutes about whether they would be in more trouble if they spent the time to get more help or if they risked taking me outside on a gurney with no safety equipment. They never mentioned anything about the effects on me – only the trouble they would be in. I wanted to remind them that they were supposed to be concerned about the safety of their patient, but I still couldn’t communicate well enough to participate in the conversation. Finally, they decided the risk to them was less if they didn’t waste any more time.

So off we went, with the aides positioned in the way they thought would be best to catch me if I started falling. Through the door, bumping into the frame, down the hall, onto the elevator, down several floors, through the lobby, and out into a parking lot –a parking filled with potholes.

As we bounced along, the aides kept up a running conversation.

“Watch out!”

“Hold her – there’s a big one coming up.”

“I sure hope she doesn’t fall off.”

Although I couldn’t communicate, I certainly agreed with that sentiment!

Finally we made it through the first parking lot, across the street, and to the far end of the second parking lot where the MRI machine awaited us. I can’t really describe what it looked like, because I was flat on my back unable to see much except what was right in front of me. The MRI technician and the aides had to lift me a short distance into the machine … and then the pounding started.

If you’ve ever had an MRI of any kind, you know what I mean. Since then, I’ve had MRIs of various parts of my body, and I can assure you that a brain MRI is by far the most unpleasant. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but that experience just about made me that way. I couldn’t see anything, and the walls seemed to be closing in on me. Pounding, reverberation, clanging, rattling, banging … I thought it would never end.

Eventually, however, it did end, and it was time for the trip back to the hospital. As they lowered me from the MRI-mobile, I expected to land on a stretcher equipped for safety. After all, I’d been inside that metal cylinder being bombarded on all sides for nearly an hour, surely enough time for the aides to exchange the unsafe flat table on wheels with a gurney with side rails or safety belts … preferably both.

But no. As they started pushing me back across the parking lot, the two women continued the conversation as if there had been no interruption. About halfway across the lot, though, something changed. It started to rain!

“Oh, the pavement’s getting slippery.”

“Careful! She almost bounced off on that pothole.”

“Look, she’s getting all wet.”

“We can fix that.” The aide pulled the sheet that covered my body a little higher and covered my head.

“At least she won’t get too wet that way.”

“Yeah, but we’ll still in trouble if she bounces off when we hit these potholes.”

I lay there, covered from head to toe with a rain-soaked sheet, listening to the aides’ worries – not about me, but about getting in trouble – and praying for this to end soon.

The chatter of the two aides had distracted me from any other sounds in the parking lot, but after we crossed the street and were back in the main parking lot, I heard other voices.

“Oh, my gosh! Look – they’re carrying a dead body through the parking lot!”

“That poor lady.”

“Shh. Show a little respect. Stand still and be quiet till they get the body inside the hospital.”

Bouncing over potholes, hearing I might fall off the gurney, the horrendous noises, the claustrophobia in the MRI machine … all paled when I realized I wasn’t dead!

Although I said a prayer of thanksgiving that I was alive, the whole experience had been traumatic. Only after a couple of years did I begin to see the humor. Now all my husband has to do is pull the covers over my head and say “That poor lady” to get us both giggling like teenagers. The incident became one of the best scenes in my novel Stroke of Luck. I’ve laughed over the story with friends more times than I count.

It’s funny now, but then … it wasn’t!

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