From Delinda McCann

First, I’d like to thank Sandra Nachlinger http://sandranachlinger.blogspot.com/2014/01/writing-process-blog-hop.html for inviting me to participate in this adventure.  I’ve read her first book I.O.U. Sex and found it charming. I’ve particularly appreciated her work to bring the trials and tribulations of the older heroine to print.

Today’s discussion is on the writing process.  I am currently working on several projects.  For National Novel Writing Month I wrote a novel set in Eastern Washington.  My heroine is a library clerk in her early forties.  The story starts when her husband of nearly twenty years kicks her out of their home so he can live there with his pregnant girlfriend.  While Janette is busy adjusting to all the ramifications of her life circumstances, a mystery involving the local school, drug dealing, embezzlement and kidnapping unfolds with the clues being hidden somewhere in the library archives room. 

My second project is set in Ireland.  This was an assignment requiring hours of research.  It’s stalled because my adolescent heroine, Kathy is being an adolescent and refusing to tell me her secrets.  If she doesn’t start talking soon, I’m going to give her a crush on the senior class president and get the whole story moving. 

The third project is a love story comprising part of my series about Jake Jaconovich.  This project is comprised of the letters Jake and Celia wrote to each other before they met.  I’m sorting through a plethora of material to determine which letters are important and which are trivial.

This blog assignment asks the question about how my work differs from other works in my genre.  My English 108 professor would insist that the readers must answer that question for themselves, but I will attempt to give you my interpretation of what is different about my writing.  First I write general fiction so I am not restricted to any formula.  My characters are ordinary people who live ordinary lives until extraordinary circumstances propel them to become exceptional.  

My heroes and heroines are imperfect people from all walks of life.  They range in age from children to grandparents and may include cats, dogs, horses or cattle.  I usually include characters with disabilities in a story but do not allow their disability to define them. 

Why do I write about ordinary people instead of invincible, beautiful and wealthy heroes and heroines?  By education, I’m a social psychologist.  I’ve been an advocate for people with disabilities for more years than I’ll confess to.  I have been privileged to witness the power of ordinary people going about the business of living day to day.  I’ve met and interviewed thousands of people living in impossible conditions.  I’ve watched them struggle, persevere, and eventually triumph over circumstances even when they have to bring about change in  their communities, schools, medical systems and government in order to triumph.  I want to tell their stories of hope.

The writing process is different for each author.  I occasionally outline every stage of a proposed work.  I’ve learned to make story boards and write background for each character.  This methodical approach works for many authors.  I try.  When I get an idea for a character in my head I write an outline.  For my story about Janette, I even wrote a list of chapter headings to tell me what happens in every chapter.  Then I sat down at the keyboard and Janette began to tell me her story.  Why did I waste time and energy on an outline and chapter headings?  I didn’t know Janette’s story yet.  She totally surprised me with how serious her troubles really were.  I thought I’d be writing about how she met Benny—a romance story.  I ended up writing a much more frightening and compelling story about small town crime mixed with the trauma of losing one’s mate of almost twenty years.  Did my outline help?  Maybe as background that never made it into the story.

I look forward to hearing from three more authors next week.  Their stories and styles are different from mine, but I hope they will give the reader insight into the magical process of making sense of our world through the art of writing.

1)  Dan O’Brien, founder and editor-in-chief of Amalgam Publishing, has written 15 novels (all before the age of 30) including the bestselling Bitten, which was featured on Conversations Book Club’s Top 100 novels of 2012. Before starting Amalgam, he was the senior editor and marketing director for an international magazine. In addition, he has spent over a decade in the publishing industry as a freelance editor. You can learn more about his literary and publishing consulting business by visiting his website at: www.amalgamconsulting.com. Contact him today to order copies of the book or have them stocked at your local bookstore. He can he reached by email at amalgamconsulting@gmail.com. 

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2) March Twisdale.

www.marchtwisdale.blogspot.com

March Twisdale may live on a small island, but her mind is on the world.  A homeschooling parent, an activist, novelist, radio show host, and columnist, March's energy is always directed toward individual and community empowerment.  Hope is a verb that arises from the belief that, "Yes, I can made a positive difference in the world."  This, ultimately, is where March's work takes us.

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3)  Melissa McCann has a MA in creative writing and taught English at Eastern Washington State University. 

Melissa has been publishing her poetry, short stories and novels for more years than she admits.  Her latest is Symbiont, a sic-fi novel set in post The-Big-Earthquake Seattle.  She currently lives on Vashon Island where she raises poultry and pug/chihuahua mix doggies. For a preview of her books visit her web site at http://www.melissalmccann.com/books.html.

Find out her writing tips and secrets on her blog Feb. 3:  http://www.melissalmccann.com/blog.html

By Delinda McCann

Almost every day I see something on Facebook about cancer patients or cancer survivors.  I wonder who writes such nonsense?  Like anything else, humans have a wide range of responses to cancer.  I have a friend who had breast cancer.  She seemed to sail through her surgery and treatment and bounced back to being her usual self and before we realized it five years had passed with no recurrence.

My own story with cancer is on the other end of the spectrum from those who sail through treatment and never see another tumor.  My cancer story started years before the doctors found the tumors on my thyroid.  Part of my work involved commuting to the state capital in Olympia once or twice a month.  I’d been doing this for about fifteen years.  At the time, I was on the Developmental Disabilities State Advisory Committee.   After my January meeting, I came home and went to bed because I felt way too tired.  I stayed there for three days assuming I must have a nasty case of the flu.  I repeated this exercise after the February meeting and again in March.  By April I’d come to accept that I was becoming unusually tired after doing my usual activities.  In May I resigned from the committee. 

I spent the next five years cutting back my activities and gaining copious poundage on a strict diet.  My asthma and arthritis flared.  Finally I had a stroke.  During the CAT scan for the stroke the doctors found the tumors on my thyroid.  My blood pressure continued to dip and soar as the thyroid continued to malfunction.  I was deathly sick before going into cancer treatment.  I assume that part of my challenges with cancer came from the fact that I had a type that effected every part of my body through the malfunction of the thyroid gland. 

My story didn’t end with the thyroid cancer.  Within six weeks after my radiation for the thyroid cancer.  I got a melanoma on my lip.  Months later I had a basal cell over my cheekbone.   Something was seriously wrong with my body.

The first thing my doctors told me was to avoid stress.  Avoiding stress doesn’t work for the person who holds the whole family together.  My husband grew angry that I wasn’t following the path of getting treated and resuming my normal responsibilities.  Both birth daughters had major meltdowns.  My oldest foster daughter got mad at me and dropped out of sight.  My youngest foster daughter got raped on her way home from church.   Less than ninety days after my last radiation treatment, my mom became terminally ill and the family needed to make some decisions about her care and disposing of her house.  Somewhere in this mess, my brother had a stroke and really couldn’t help with Mom.  May God bless the hospice people!  Oh!  And my hubby started the process of selling his practice and attempting to retire.  I confess I was so hurt over him checking-out on me when I needed help that having him home all the time still didn’t sound appealing.

So here I am four years after treatment for the thyroid cancer.  I should be well.  Most people would have gone on with their lives by this time.  I’ve tried.  Actually, on the good days I write novels and work in my gardens.  But there are bad days or weeks.

In late January with the house shrouded in the fog, it is easy to have bad days.  I know that it is normal and realistic to have down days.  I’m not so sure everybody around me knows that it is normal and realistic for me to have down days or weeks. 

So here is my plea, if you are a cancer survivor, don’t beat yourself up for the days you don’t have energy, or hope, or haven’t achieved some glorious state of knowing you are stronger for having been sick.  It is okay if you haven’t grown closer to God though your illness.  Sometimes life sucks.  You don’t even have to say, “And this too shall pass,” because it will most likely come back and bite you again.  The down days are days for the cancer survivor to take the little white pills the doctor prescribed, stay in your PJ’s and do whatever you want.  Be gentle with yourself.

Folks, I’d ask those who don’t understand what I just said or those who disagree with me to be gentle with those who are on a different path than you are on.  Don’t judge.  For some of us, the cancer path can be way more challenging than you would ever imagine.  Give us time and space to do the work of grieving the loss of our sense of wellbeing.

My guest author today is someone I met on a discussion of cute shoes.  Sandra Bswangin Webter in an author and advocate for other writers.  I agree with her comments below wholeheartedly.  They hold true for every endeavor. - Delinda

#HAO

Everything has an acronym nowadays and I decided I wanted to add one…#HAO is one that not many people know. Unless it has another meaning but it simply means, Helping Authors Out.

You see when I first became published in 2008, I reached out to NY Times Bestselling authors and not many responded but the few that did respond; I cherished their wisdom, their insight and their willingness to share. One actually mentored me for more than a year, calling me every Sunday to ask about my progress on marketing, writing and just seeing how I was handling being an author.

The piece of advice she gave me before she ‘turned me loose in the world’ was to help another author, just as she had helped me. Great…not a problem, but then I found that in a world of authors trying to sell books, they were as cut throat as a lot of corporations top CEO’s. I didn’t like what I saw so whenever a new author approached me, I gave my advice willingly and without holding anything back.

After all, someone had given it to me. I have gone so far as to seek out authors, when I see them making mistakes in their marketing efforts. What’s the worst that could happen? They tell me they don’t want my help? Ok, if that ever happened, I would just move along to someone who wanted my help, but that hasn’t happened yet.

For all of the authors out there, mainstream or just getting started; give your wisdom to someone else. In the world of books, you will never be the only person writing a particular book and I firmly believe that if you keep your hands closed, you will never receive what you could have.

So, for all authors that have been successful in selling their books, offer someone one tip that can help them be as successful as you are. #HAO and if you don’t know any helpful tips, feel free to email me and I will share mine.

You can find me on Twitter @bswanginwebster and on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/AuthorB.SwanginWebster and you can join my blog for more helpful tips; http://booksshoeswriting.blogspot.com

Bio

Sandra Bswangin Webster resides in Maryland where she works full-time for Intrigue Publishing and the local school system. She is also a full-time author.  She has been writing for most of her life for relaxation and is known for her shoes. You will never find her without at least 5 inches of shoe on her feet and you will see her with her seven grandchildren. She believes that every woman has the potential to be a ‘Diva” and she is in the process of writing her first mystery, #TheStilettoStalker

       There is a lot of talk in the media and among friends about how much we pay in income taxes in this country.  As a tax accountant, I’ve found that most people really do not know the answer to the question of how much of their income they pay in taxes. If you do want a better idea of how much you are really paying, you can find your tax liability on your tax return and divide it by your gross income to determine the percentage you pay in income taxes.  For example, on the 2012 tax return, you could divide line 55 by line 22 from the Form 1040. 

                If you want to include Social Security tax in the calculation, which is a good idea, the calculation is a little more complicated.  To include the Social Security tax you would have to add the Social Security withheld from your wages, found in boxes 4 and 6 of your W-2 forms, to line 61 of your Form 1040, and then divide that sum by line 22.

        Most people discover that they are paying a smaller percentage than they have been lead to believe.  Regardless of what you find as your answer, at least you will be dealing with facts instead of impressions or media hype.

Loren L McCann, CPA, MS (Tax)