Why I Write

Why I Write

I fought my way into this world backward – my mom reminded me of that til the day she died. I made quite an impression on her. It made such an impression that I’m surprised she had any more children. She did wait five years though to make sure the coast was clear and no more hellions were going to pop out.

I was a curious and energetic rascal. I wore my mother out to the point where she quietly abandoned me to my grandmother. It was not that she could manage me, but in her fifties, she could still outrun me. Her strategy, for which I am forever grateful, was to find me an occupation that would settle me.  She bought me a book.

I’m sure she bought more than one but I seized on that one like it was the Bible.  It took me into my seventies to find a copy of that book, “Three Mice and A Cat,” but I never give up on anything. By age three, I could “read” it out loud.  While it didn’t keep me from roller skating in the house or chunking apples at the neighbor boy, it fired a love affair that lasted a lifetime. 

The “word” was a tantalizing instrument of magic. It spun a carpet-ride of tales that I longed to play a part in.  It brush-stroked lush worlds and adventures I wished to visit. It carried me far from the chaos that spun like an F5 tornado in my house.

I was a tiny little critter, bird-like in frame and flighty. To my grandmother’s dismay, I had the energy of a hummingbird.  Nonetheless, my grandmother could entice me from running and jumping and generally creating upheaval in the neighborhood. I could sit with her without stress on my part or threats on hers. I sat absorbed in assimilating the mysterious which included the names and habits of flowers, how numbers could speak and family stories which I loved above all.

My grandmother had grown up the oldest of five.  She was the only girl at a time when the education of girls was not only an afterthought but could be outright forbidden. I often regret that I never asked who in her family was her champion.  Everyday she rode her bike on rutted dirt roads to a tiny schoolhouse where she transformed herself from farm laborer and prospective wife to an empowered woman.  She was the first in her family to graduate high school.

And what an empowerment that was. She married the handsome police chief of the nearby town.  My grandfather taught me to dance and play poker and tell jokes. He won a city council seat. Always the natty dresser, he turned women’s heads wherever he went. His weakness was get-rich-quick ideas. It would be my grandmother who ended up managing his fast money businesses and making them work.

And make them work she did. My grandmother was a quick study who helped her farmer brothers get sizeable refunds every tax season. She bought real estate. She bailed out my clothes horse mother who shared more traits with her father than what she viewed as the unglamorous psyche of her mom.

My grandmother was no feminist by modern standards, but she understood the high value of independence and knowledge and the economics that engendered those values. Never crass, never at the forefront. She was my rock.

It was she who assisted with homework that befuddled my mother.  As I grew older, I had to live with my parents and attend the school in their district. My grandmother provided school lunch money every day for me and my three siblings.  She cooked dinner for us every night. And she provided me money for books, books from school, from bookstores and from mail order back in the day. I soaked it all in.

I was reading Machiavelli and Red Badge of Courage long before my age level. I curled up in refuge with horse stories about the likes of Flicka and Black Stallion and my favorite of all time, Misty of Chincoteague, a legend local to where we lived. I thrilled to Call of the Wild and White Fang. I could talk to my grandmother about these books; my mother did not have time.

My grandmother took me out into the world to places that made my mother nervous. She took me to the circus and the movies. She made summers at the beach possible for our family. It was she who gave me good counsel about who was a good guy and who was suspect. 

And when it was time to decide if I could go to college which I so longingly, desperately wanted to do, we worked out arrangements where I would work part time and she would fill in gaps. As I write this even now I feel that swell of excitement and gratitude for one of the greatest milestones in my life. 

It was in a local teacher’s college that I learned not all people, all families are the same. I was awed by professors in convocation robes, they seemed at the time superior beings whose knowledge was borne out by the school colors in their academic hoods. I wanted to know what they knew.

Because of my grandmother’s assistance, I met another of those pivotal people that fortune presents along our way. I started classes with the most difficult English professor in the college, one every freshman and on up tried to avoid. I wanted what I knew she could give me – discipline in the craft of understanding good literature and the ability to express my ideas.

That professor, long departed from the lectern, descended on me and my pitiful attempts at writing.  In the beginning she thought me a pretender and she told me so in blunt terms. I threw off harsh words.  I asked for her time.  I asked for direction.  Each semester I came back wanting more.  She finally accepted my sincerity and she gave me her time.  She gave me guidance. She gave me the head and the eye and the skills I sought.  In my senior year she nominated me for scholarship.  It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

I took her training onto graduate school. Once again, I got help from my grandmother. I also secured a teaching assistantship – and a job. I went on to finish my masters. My grandmother was bursting with pride on the day I graduated. 

From that moment on, I wrote – on planes and in hotel rooms and after meetings were over.  Like that intellectual discipline painfully acquired through my former professor, I was determined to make my work as memorable as the works I admired and envied. When you stumble out last from the starting gate, it takes a while to overcome the deficit, but I was in the running and that’s all that mattered.

I doubt if my grandmother ever heard of the butterfly effect. We don’t have to know it or comprehend it order to be a fortunate recipient. You must, however, be open to recognize wisdom even from the most unlikely of sources. She prepared me to be that student for whom the teacher would appear.  

Now each time sit to compose, I honor her memory. I craft the story.  I choose the words.  I am willing to put in the time. I am unafraid of the self-reveal which every good writer unwittingly discloses. I will dig as deeply as I can to be my true self in every page.

I do not claim perfection. But every time, I write, I travel back to that corner of a sofa where a spindly little girl looked up in awe at a woman who opened a book and a door to a world where I could bloom, no matter where I was.

Make Your Own Table – Advice From A Woman Like Us

Make Your Own Table – Advice From A Woman Like Us

To friends and fellow authors who carry their dream like a talisman, I saw a moment in history this weekend. It could be a history for any of us.

I captured the video of a woman who did the work every day, who dared to aspire and who saw her work transport her beyond the wildest dreams. Jena Antonucci is the first woman trainer ever to win a Triple Crown race.

Look at the raw emotion in the video and think of yourselves. Imagine the feeling as your eyes capture ascent to your one moment in time.

Your chest swells and your knees weaken. You try to make time stop and you hold your breath because it seems unreal. You experience a rush so intense you think you might expire. But you live it like you’ve never lived before.

“You have to work your butt off to do this. Sure, it’s a little harder for a woman but dig deeper, work harder. Winning the Belmont Stakes wasn’t atop my list of things to do but if you do things right, good things will happen.”

-Jena Antonucci

Jena Antonucci made no bravado claims. As writers, we spend our time writing and developing our craft much like the trainer who lays out a plan for her charge and works that plan. The dream of our publishing. The dream of author success. Those are our dreams.

Jena Antonucci labored with love in a field of endeavor where only men have succeeded – until now. She knew the odds – like us. She knew the work – like us. She made her own way – and that is what we will do.

We will never back down from our work and what we have set our course to achieve. While no place is assured us, we will make our own table and take our place.

Simply The Best

Simply The Best

Tina Turner was an unstoppable artist and performer who made her way into people’s hearts across the globe. She’s survived every kind of adversity—from segregation to a hard and exhausting marriage to Ike Turner—and rose from the ashes spectacularly.

Tina became a superstar in her 40s (!) and continued to top the charts for many years following—she is an inspiration to any woman with a dream.

Tina died on Wednesday in her quiet home in Küsnacht, near Zurich, after battling illness for many years. May she rest in peace.

Tina taught us a lesson in personal power. She gave us hope in rising up and redemption. She lived an example to follow in staying always on the high road.

You’ve touched our hearts, Tina; you’re Simply the Best.

True Grit, The Price of Achievement – Susannah Scaroni

We’ve all heard the rejection accounts from the most successful authors. Stephen King was turned down 80 times by publishers, with his horror story CarrieHarry Potter almost never saw the light of day because of the number of rejections J. K. Rowling had from publishers. After his 27th rejection, Dr Seuss considered burning the book he had worked on over many, many months. Even the amazing Agatha Christie fielded six rejections prior to success with one of the most iconic detectives ever, Hercule Poirot.

Fast forward to April 17,2023 as Susannah Scaroni, paralympic gold medalist, scored her first win after nine attempts at the Boston Marathon, Wheelchair Division. She finished in 1 hour, 41 minutes, 45 seconds. She beat the former record holder by a more than five minutes.

 A car crash had left Scaroni paralyzed when she was 5. She determined she would never let that hold her back.  Scaroni represented the USA in the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London followed by the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Los Angeles.  She touched gold in the 2021 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo. Susannah Scaroni has challenged almost every major U.S. marathon. She captured first place in Los Angeles (2013 and 2014) and winning two back-to-back victories in New York and Chicago Marathons, both in 2022. Boston Marathon was a stunning achievement; she was alone at the finish.

Why mix Susannah Scaroni’s achievement with writing?  Writing can be a dalliance or a commitment. Maybe you like the idea of being seen on a book tour, having your name in big letters on a book cover, or wistfully fantasize about a movie deal. The test of attainment is consistency and self-motivation. 

It isn’t endless drudgery, but it is a core motivation that you shore up with time management, working when you’d rather binge watch.  It is always keeping an eye out for improvement, not just hearing it from the critique group or your partner, but using it when it means starting over or throwing out favorite passages.  And it is the commitment in the way an athlete trains with a dedication to self, to the work and to a “room of one’s own.”  Every day.

I leave you with a quote from Stephen Covey: “I’m not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”

A Blast From the Backlist – Something You Missed?

A Blast From the Backlist – Something You Missed?

In a 2003 interview this is what Carol O’Connell had to say about her character, Mallory: ”The way her character is,” O’Connell said by phone from her home in New York, ”Is in that line from James Joyce’s ”Ulysses” — I’m sure you’ll remember when Bloom is downstairs, looking at his wife’s cat — the cat is also a metaphor for the wife: ”Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it.

The chilling descriptors above set the tone in O’Connell’s Blind Sight.  A blind child and a Catholic nun disappear from a city sidewalk in plain sight of onlookers. There, then gone—vanished in seconds.

Detective Kathy Mallory and the NYPD’s Special Crimes Unit enter the investigation when the nun’s body is found with three other corpses in varying stages of decomposition left on the lawn of Gracie Mansion, home to the mayor of New York City.  Sister Michael was the last to die. The child, Jonah Quill, is still missing.

Unknown to the police, that blind boy is with a stone killer.  Though he has unexpected resources of his own, his rescuers have no suspect, no useful evidence, and no clue — except for Detective Mallory’s suspicions of things not said and her penchant for getting to the truth beneath lies.

Carol O’Connell has penned a thriller of singular intensity.  At times the plot switched back and forth, making the read a bit confusing.  O’Connell also introduced a number of characters early; this gives the reader pause to try and sort who’s who.  Nonetheless readers are rewarded by Mallory’s logic and relentless pursuit.  

Mallory takes the lead on this case. Unlike her fellow detectives, Mallory is not bound by the limits of the typical.  Her intuitions and her street smarts are unique tools.  Mallory is spot on and, as always, she keeps her SCU colleagues in the dark as she hunts.

There are many instances of “blind” in this thriller.  O’Connell thoroughly captures the world of the physically blind in her portrayal of Jonah, the kidnapped boy, where reliance on other senses is critical for survival.  But the police are blind as well – few clues, few suspects, and few opportunities to connect the dots.  

As for Mallory, she seems blind to the human aspect of the crime.  We bear witness to how Mallory armors herself to create that façade.  Deep in her psyche, she carries the eternal flame of love and compassion even if she wishes to hide and protect that vulnerable part of herself.

Blind Sight is well worth the read.  Stick with the maze of a start because the ending will blow you away.

Sharon Kriegisch is a psychological thriller fan, a beta reader/editor and successful entrepreneur