Author Interview with Elizbeth Silva/Another Cheesy Family Newsletter

Author Elizabeth Silva

“I ALWAYS WONDER WHEN I GET my friends’ and family’s annual holiday newsletters what really happened in the writers’ families. What titillating tidbits are they leaving out?” –Elizabeth Silva in Another Cheesy Family Newsletter.

I met Elizabeth Silva at on online writers forum we belong to, and was drawn to her story immediately. I enjoyed the searing honesty of her memoir, which follows the twists and turns of her adult children making unexpected choices that leaves Silva and her husband raising their three grandchildren.

I’m happy to have her as this week’s guest.

When did you decide to write your book? Was there one pivotal moment, or did you always know you’d write your memoir?

I really had no intention of publishing a book, though I’d written for a magazine and The Dallas Morning News for the last few years, and I’ve always written about experiences that were important to me, a sort of hit-and-miss journal. It wasn’t until I found all my Christmas newsletters at my parents’ house after they died that the idea of writing a memoir took hold.

The structuring of your book is brilliant. Tell us how you arrived at it?

I remember several years ago, as I was writing my annual holiday newsletter, I thought to myself that the people we never see any more haven’t a clue what’s really going on in our lives. Yet the idea of including all the family drama in each letter was absurd. These were Christmas letters, after all. But I never kept the letters, and I never backed them up. It wasn’t until I found all of them together in an envelope that I decided how to structure my story. With the letters as an outline, once I got on a roll, I churned out the story pretty quickly. I would write while my husband was watching the Texas Rangers play baseball, after the boys got settled in to whatever they were doing for the evening.

What was the most difficult part about writing Another Cheesy Family Newsletter and why?

The hardest part was that the more I wrote, the more I realized to what extent I had enabled my daughter and my son to become helpless – over and over again- and how I had allowed my daughter’s outrageous behavior to affect her children. Even now, it’s hard for me to admit how toxic our home was at times. When I remarked recently to my other daughter how surprised I was by a reviewer’s insight into our family, she said, “Mom, you’re just now realizing this?” And this was AFTER the book was out.

What kind of feedback have you had from other people in your position who are raising their own grandchildren?

Relief that they are not alone – that their feelings of anger, disappointment, and resentment are normal and ok, especially when others tell them that they’re saints for taking on such a responsibility. We’re not saints. We’re doing what almost anyone would do for these kids we love so much.

How did you arrive at your pen name? Why did you use one?

My grandmother’s name was Elizabeth. I just chose Silva because it starts with an S and has 5 letters, like Sisco. I ridiculously thought if I changed all the names and places, no one would connect my family with the story – still thinking of my daughter’s feelings. If I had to do it over, I would have used my real name, and I still may put out a new edition under my real name someday.

What message would you give to parents of adult children who are struggling to launch? Where can they find support as they find the middle ground – somewhere between assisting their adult child and enabling them?

That’s a hard one. You love your kids so much, and you take on their failures as your own. But I think you have to examine your own behavior and ask yourself whether what you’re doing for your child is supporting them in their quest for independence or simply making it easy for them to rely on YOU, delaying the “growing pains” we parents had to face and conquer to become independent ourselves. Especially today, we live in a different society. I was expected to move out when I graduated and never come back. Somehow, though, in the way we raised our kids, we conveyed the message that we would fix everything for them along the way, and they would always have a soft place to land.

What are you working on next? And where can readers find you and your work?

My granddaughter is a phenomenal artist. We are working on a children’s picture book specifically for children raised by people other than their biological parents.

You can find Elizbeth Silva on Facebook: @lizsilva47 Twitter: @pattysisco2 Website and blog: elizabethsilvawriter.com, or order Another Cheesy Family Newsletter by clicking here.

Wondering if you’re an enabler? Elizabeth has a quiz on her web page.

Thank you for stopping by. Feel free to share this link if you like what you’ve read.

The Importance of Sharing Ugly

Yesterday, I had a conversation with the Seward Library Book Group about coming clean in my memoir, or, as one member put it, telling on myself.  Referring to the times I mentioned my own flaws and frailties, being judgmental or quick tempered, that are sprinkled throughout the book.

Then conversation quickly morphed to social media sharing, how we can feel so alone as we scroll through picture after picture of seemingly perfect images posted, and the disconnect so many of us feel, now that we’re all “connected.”

It reminds me of the memoir I’ve been reading, Another Cheesy Family Newsletter.

The author, Elizabeth Silva, structures her story with chapters beginning with the sunshine-y newsletters she sent out over the years tucked inside Christmas cards, followed by the backstory of what was really going on. Her feelings of helplessness as her now-grown children did not launch as planned. A daughter’s heroin addiction led Silva and her husband to become parents all over again of three vulnerable and resilient grandchildren. A second daughter’s divorce, and a son’s prolonged lack of ambition only added to the stress.

The Christmas newsletters and the social media phenomenon bring up the same feelings. When we only share only our best side, where we look attractive, accomplished, our kids seemingly brilliant and irrepressibly happy, we perpetuate the notion to others that they’re alone in their loneliness or failures or even despair. Even though that’s not the intention.

I’ve struggled with sheepishly giving optimistic updates on my Facebook author page. While it doesn’t make sense to draw attention to negative reviews or my angst about the financial hits I’ve taken to keep my book positioned well, it feels dishonest. So I’ve written essays about writing and parenting to present a more honest view.h

If one compared my author Facebook page with my real life this week, they would see an information gap that defined my days.

While it is true that I loved my youngest daughter’s 30th birthday soiree and the various writerly events, they were sandwiched between an increasingly impossible day job and an even more impossible, never-ending job as the parent of an oldest child experiencing profound mental illness who continues to flounder as an undue amount of tragedy is thrown her way.

Last week, her only asset, an old Camry, was shot repeatedly in the commission of a crime in downtown Anchorage while she slept nearby in her apartment. The car was parked at a meter outside. It was totaled. But worse than that, it triggered her PTSD, and has set her back further. The crime is unsolved, so no one will be paying restitution to compensate her loss.

Of course I’m fortunate she was not physically harmed. She’ll get through it, but not without a lot of support.

On good days, I remember to be thankful that I can give said support.

On many others, I’m angry or just worn out for having to.

I so appreciate social media for the many positives it brings, the same way I do when I get a chatty Christmas newsletter. But there is no substitute for real human contact, and authentic interactions. Sometimes, it’s important to share the ugly.

We all struggle. We all fail. We all get overwhelmed.  And none of us have to be alone as we slog through our journey, or keep our struggles a secret.

Maybe one of the greatest gifts given me post-publication is going place to place, finding pods of community where ever I’m invited to speak, and feeling encircled with caring readers and writers who often share their own stories.

I hope you have a supportive circle to both celebrate and grieve all life dishes your way. And thank you for being a part of my community.

A Week Inspired by San Jose’s Recycle Book Club

At the risk of sounding superstitious, I’m fairly certain that my house is jealous of my efforts to leave it.

The web searches for homes in less expensive states to live in after I retire, the upgrading of the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the floorings. The conversations that must’ve been overhead about my need for sun and warmth and a place closer to my extended family have not gone unnoticed.

I know this, because just before or just after leaving the state, some catastrophe occurs. Flooding. An earthquake. Flooding again. Every time I leave, some punishing event that catches me completely off guard.

As I packed for my book event in San Jose, California a couple of weeks ago, I found a huge puddle of water on the newly tiled kitchen floor. I sopped it up, hoping I’d simply stacked the dishes in the wrong direction and ran the dishwasher. It wasn’t. The puddle appeared two more times, the final one just as I was getting my luggage packed. My neighbor kindly guided me through the process of shutting the water supply off in the crawl space, schooling me first by phone and then finally leaving his date miles away to help me. Together, we slogged through the dirty area beneath the garage for a short-term solution.

I got to the airport just in time for my flight, smelling of scented kitty litter, with cob webs still in my eye lashes. Only to realize that in my haste to shut the water off, I’d forgotten to pack shirts.

At least I remembered copies of my book.

To my happy surprise, the person I rented a room from picked me up at the airport. James worked in Silicon Valley before retiring and re-tooling, now renting affordable rooms and cars to people with short work stints in the area. Chatty and firm in his convictions that we must offer hope to the hopeless among us, he became my accidental life coach, filled with ideas and concepts of books he was certain I needed to write. They were great ideas, it turned out. “Stop aiming small,” he told me.

I felt welcomed and safe, and enjoyed some six- mile walks without ever getting lost, a true miracle in my world.

San Jose had warm temperatures, generous walking trails, and friendly people. I was impressed. Book group organizer Lloyd Russell of Booksage and his wonderful wife Joni took me to dinner. My longtime friend Richard from Berkeley made his time and home available, and I finally got to meet his new (to me) wife.

Richard is a loyal friend who never stopped encouraging me to write my book. When my computer died a decade ago, he gifted me my first laptop. He was that committed to the story being published. And it was through Richard that his cousin Lloyd got a copy of my book. I owe this once-in-a-lifetime book event and trip to him.

My friend Richard.

During the event itself at Recycle Bookstore, I got a warm round of applause as I entered the bookstore. Wow! An evening to talk with thoughtful readers about writing and publishing and the inevitable setbacks life dishes all of us, and how we choose to handle them. I enjoyed every moment of it.

Booksage’s Lloyd Russell and his wife Joni.
Wonderful Recycle Book Group

I took trains and busses to visit my cherished friend and former roommate Barbara, hosted me for a night in Redding at her apartment in a lively retirement community. We stayed up late, pouring through old pictures of when we lived together in ’92-’93, reminiscing about my daughters before their abduction, and the zany things the girls did in those years of near normalcy before the event that severed their childhoods.

 I returned to my welcoming little home and two needy cats just after 2am, and found that the water shut off had been successful. No new damage occurred in my absence. I crept around in the crawl space and turned the water back on. By default, I learned that this particular problem was the new dishwasher installation. No big deal. I’ll fix it when I can.

I got a text from James the day after I returned with another new book idea. His best yet. He’s asked that I send him a completed synopsis by next Thursday. He’s not kidding.

“The idea is to give victims and their families, as well as the good people in America, hope among the hopelessness… Your book is a step in the direction to help victims or potential future victims.”

So much love and inspiration packed in to a few days reminded me that home isn’t simply a place. It’s a moveable part, a sense of connection, not just where I toss my belongings.

But I do love my little weird place, with its memories of raising kids and cats. Of hosting friends for get-togethers. Memories of my neighbors, delivering freshly caught fish or helping when I needed them with frozen pipes or car or kid troubles.

Who knows? Maybe I can rent my house out and live here in the summers. It will be a while yet before I figure out where I will ultimately land.

But as a cautionary measure, I’m writing all of this from a coffee house rather than from home, just in case my home is looking over my shoulder.

The threat is just too great.

Thank you for stopping by, and thank you Lloyd Russell, Richard Illgen, and Recycle Bookstore and Recycle Book Club for the book love.

And thank you to my daughter for taking care of Oliver and Lou.

Single Mom Turned Solo Traveler/Interview with Karen Sim

I was the lone geriatric in my hip hostel in Buenos Aires a couple of months back when I stumbled on a treasure trove.

When I mentioned to the young woman from New Zealand, perched on the bunk across from mine, that I had not journeyed intentionally (can’t really count Greece and Turkey and England to find my kidnapped daughters) to faraway places until my kids were grown and flown, she told me about her mom’s adventures. Her mother, she said, raised four kids by herself before quitting her job and traveling the world for a year and a half.

“You ought to talk to her,” she offered.

So as soon as I returned to Alaska, I did just that.

An idea was born. I began formulating a plan for an anthology of single moms turned empty-nesters who became solo travelers.

I’ll begin the process with the remarkable Karen Sim. Some of this is paraphrased from our interview.

 What prompted you to book your first trip?

I was having dinner with a friend and she was sharing her goals and plans for the year.

She asked me about mine and I realised with horror that I was goal-less.

That night I discovered David Bowie died and this really impacted on me. He’d led a life full of achievements. I questioned my own life.

Yes, I had raised four children, getting my teaching degree in my 40’s while raising them and becoming a head teacher at a kindergarten – but i wanted more… That night I made a decision to have an adventure. I was watching my Dad fading away with dementia and a third bout of cancer. He’d never retired and now at 75, he was dying! All the money in the bank and invested in his farm but no adventure.
My 4 kids were living their own lives so it was time that I lived mine. I took a year off work, sold half of my belonging, put the rest in storage, saved like crazy and rented out my house. I finally had a plan.

How did you select destinations?

I had wanted to see the Cherry Blossom in Japan, so that was my obvious first destination. Plus, I had a friend in Nagoya.

I’d also discovered this wonderful volunteer site called Workaway.

I had only ever travelled to Australia from New Zealand, where my three girls live.

So I chose destinations/ countries where I had family or friends. This was my safety net. Once I arrived in London, where I stayed with my niece, I had the confidence to be more adventurous and spontaneous. True freedom as an older, female, solo traveller!

I ended up in a rural location about a twenty-minute walk from Okayama. I was in a very old and traditional home. Very simple, rice paper doors and walls…My host used English speaker workawayers to provide English experiences to Japanese families.

Japan

I ran a couple of play groups with mums and babies. The mums loved practicing their English with me.

Do you have budget tips to share?

Through Workaway, I got free room and board when I worked for 20 hours a week at a host home I selected through the site. I had fifteen hosts throughout my time there, plus I stayed with fifteen family/friends or acquaintances.

I also discovered how incredible hostels were. I got to meet fellow travellers and hear their inspirational journeys. And even as an oldie, I too had tales to share.

Walking tours are a wonderful introduction to a new city. Walk everywhere, as you see more. Eating out is a luxury. Travel the cheapest way-even if it takes longer. For example, you can take an overnight bus and avoid a night’s hostel rates.

Enjoy the big things and the small things, and be present!h

Amsterdam.

____________________________________________________________________

Before I could ask Karen how her adult children felt about her traveling the world on her own, I saw that her daughter paid her a beautiful tribute on Facebook on International Women’s Day.


Thank you, Karen, for being my guest, and for inspiring the next generation of solo women travelers.

Do you know a single mom who began traveling after her kids were grown and gone, and who might want to share her experience? Please give her the link to my website. If you’re considering traveling alone, here are a few sites that can help get you started.

Solo Travel Resources

Workaway

A Girls Guide to Travelling Alone by Gemma Thompson 

The Thought Card by Danielle Desir  L

The Journey Woman   

On Love and Motivation.

It’s February, and my mind is on matters of love and motivation.

On Love:

I may be single, but I adore experiencing second-hand love.

Here are two of my favorite Valentine’s reads. 

One is from my friend Ginni Simpson on being in the moment with her husband. 

The second is my blog post about my dear brother Danny and his wife Joan.

On Motivation:

I told myself that my New Year’s resolution to get rid of cable TV would be key to increasing my writing time.

It was not.

Instead, I’ve filled my time by enjoying more sleep, and have done a lot more reading. But recently, I’ve started putting myself on restriction, and not allowing book or movie time to happen until I’ve written a set amount of words.  It’s motivated me to make baby steps during a time of year when I’d rather crawl under the electric blanket after work than open my laptop and keep plugging away. 

Here are a few of my recent favorite rewards.

Films

They Shall Not Grow Old- a must-see documentary that renovated 100 year-old film footage from WWI and carefully gave it sight and sound.

Bohemian Rhapsody

The Old Man and the Gun

Books

Inheritance by Dani Shapiro (memoir).

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (fiction) by Gail Honeyman.

You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero (nonfiction, self-help). As much as I don’t love the title, it’s a fabulous read for reframing self-talk and changing attitudes about money, body image, and living life larger.

Entertainment-wise, my greatest find has been finding the series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel on Amazon Prime.

My book events are picking up again. Tonight I get to spend time with a set of dynamic, now retired social workers I was mentored by twenty-plus years ago when I was a child abuse investigator.

Who says writing doesn’t pay?

How about you? What’s keeping you motivated this time of year?

Thank you for sharing your time with me.  And if you have friends in the San Jose, California area, please let them know I’ll be doing a book event there at Recycle Book Store on March 20th at 7PM.

One Good Thing Leads to Another

Have you ever noticed that when you set out to take a positive action, you’re given a doubly positive reward?

A couple of weeks ago, when I saw my maternal cousin’s Facebook post about her fitness coaching business being offered online, I jumped at the chance.  I’ve been meaning to do more strength training to get stronger. And though we’ve been Facebook friends for a long time, I’ve met my cousin Kerstin in person only twice. She lives in the south. I live in Alaska.  Meeting online with her regularly sounded like a great way to muscle up and strengthen our connection.

Who knew that this one effort would lead me to a long-estranged uncle I’d been hoping to meet?

Much of my family is splintered, especially on my mom’s side. Her other siblings died, and I’d looked for this brother of hers without success. And yet here my cousin recently gotten in touch with him. My uncle told my cousin that he and his wife were doing their own search for family and had actually found and read my book!

I was floored. Soon, I was emailing back and forth with my uncle’s wife, who gave me a swath of pictures from the early 1900’s, and page after page of wonderfully told stories that my grandmother left behind as a legacy. It gave a whole lot of context about all of the different issues my grandmother had been contending with as she raised her children, often by herself, which couldn’t have made life easy for her children.

There are few things as important to me as putting all the pieces together of my jigsaw-puzzle family together, or at least, as many as possible.  Each connection makes me feel more grounded, more alive.

I’d set out to build muscle, and was linked to more of my foundation.

What a hopeful beginning to this new year!

I hope yours is off to a good start as well.

Thank you for joining me.  

If you’re interested in an online fitness coach, please meet my cousin here. She’s the cheerleader you need in the privacy of your own home.


Committing to Less to Enjoy More/My 2019 Resolution

Happy New Year.

It’s that time of year where we make promises of transformation that are too easily abandoned by the middle of the month.

I typically make a small list in a few categories, but this year I’m making different commitments.

Last year, I ran my legs off. If someone asked for a volunteer, I raised my hand. If a friend wanted to go to a dreadful performance of this or that, I said yes. Between too much work with the summer job and my fulltime job, over-volunteering and writing (and getting a number of essays published in various blogs and magazines and making bits of new book progress) I was left cranky and tired. And bewildered as to how I got so busy (and so cranky and tired.).

I knew I was in rough shape when my eye doctor hinted at giving me a referral to a psychiatrist.

So I’m ready for a new chapter.

I have a goal list still, but in addition to looking like a To Do List, it includes a To Don’t List.

I’m letting go of a few things, even good things and fun things. I’ve adopted author Marie Kondo’s way of thinking about clutter as a way to think about activities. If the extra activity or invitation doesn’t bring me joy, I’m saying no to it.

For example, I volunteered in a civic group filled with delightful women. I wanted out pretty early on, but kept talking myself in to continuing. I left last week. It was like taking off a girdle and breathing deeply. Then I cut my cable television. Finally. After talking about it for years. No more reality television or news channels or even Twilight Zone on the SciFi network. Just podcasts or audiobooks or the radio now. I’m saying no to invitations to social gatherings that don’t thrill me.

I like my home. I love being at home with my cats and my thoughts and my laptop after a very long work day. Leaving home is a sacrifice that I need to want to make. And as much as I enjoyed the camaraderie of working in tourism last summer, I won’t do it again while working full-time at my day job. I don’t have the energy.

But I’ve found some fun new resolutions, or To Do’s this year.

I enrolled in a Spanish class which has gone pretty poorly thus far. I took a salt water aerobics class right by my work for the first time, and loved it. I have an appointment to meet with a virtual personal trainer this weekend (who happens to be a cousin!). And I’ll be a grants administrator for the local writer’s guild, a very short-term commitment.

I was inspired by Zenhabits blog about The Rule of the Edge. I want to keep pushing myself toward growth, but for me, that means getting comfortable doing and being less. Leaving myself open for other surprises.

I also loved the Write-Minded podcast habout selfishness as it relates to writing and prioritizing completion of essays or books in order that there will be works of writing to share.

Sometimes what we don’t do is as important as what we commit to.  I’m looking forward to less commitments and more room for fun and writing and even sleep this year.

What about you?

Solo Travel to South America/Uruguay and Argentina

I was firm in my decision to delay a solo travel adventure since I’d financed long-awaited kitchen renovations. Yet solo travel, outside of bringing me joy and growth, is the subject of future writing projects. But I told myself that it was too time consuming, too expensive, too much work to squeeze in to 2018. I could do it the next year.

But losing a few close friends this year was a terrific reminder that the future is never certain. It inspired me to unclench my tight fists and spend over $1,500 on a round trip ticket to South America. Uruguay and Argentina, to be more specific. I’d start in Uruguay. A week or more after arriving there, I would take the ferry over to Buenos Aires, Argentina and enjoy the sites, and then wander back to Uruguay before returning home. In all, I’d be away from Alaska for three weeks. A long break from snow and work reorganization and routines and and all things familiar. Just me and my hostel(s).

The highlights?

People. Always the people. Plus walking often ten miles a day, thanking God that although I may be lost, I still had the capacity to move without pain, and found generous people who helped point me in the right direction.

Uruguay is a small and more affluent country. I felt safer walking the streets there than I do at home. Three million people, twelve million cows, according to our walking tour guide. From the beautiful museums in Montevideo to the beaches of LaPaloma and Punta del Este and Colonia del Sacramento, I saw more of it than I had originally hoped, hopping busses, wondering if I could understand Spanish well enough to know when to exit, and intermittently staying with a wonderful friend I’d met on an author Facebook group years before who let me use her casita as a home base. I appreciated that from the first day, our conversations were effortless and authentic, and I made a mental to list of things she’d suggested that I wanted to pursue.

Argentina was a little more challenging. Since I stayed in Buenos Aires exclusively, my love of the sights and the history was tempered with the noise and the crowds. And witnessing an attempted kidnapping. But I’ll write more of that in a later essay for publication.

The amazing Mafalda.

What I adored about shared housing was never knowing who I’d be in a room with. One morning-we were delegates from Israel, China, New Zealand, and America, sitting up in our beds, comparing and contrasting lives in our home countries as though we were representatives from the United Nations. Respectful yet real conversations that inspired more reading, more thinking, future travels.

Next continent- Antarctica. If you know of a way I can do it on budget, please let me know!

I find solo travel to be scary, lonely, and unsure. And character building, resilience increasing, and a stress reducer, at least once I return home.

Happy New Year to you. I hope you give yourself permission to do something you’ve always wanted to do.


Afterthoughts About the Earthquake of 2018

My return from South America was promptly eclipsed by the massive November 30th earthquake here in Alaska.

I’d landed in Los Angeles from a brief layover in Peru when I turned on my phone to find a flood of texts. The first was from my youngest daughter, giving me a heads up that something “big” had happened. Many others were check-ins from family and friends.

While I felt a little guilty for not being in Alaska when it happened, and a splash jealous for missing the experience, it’s been a fascinating event to witness through the eyes of others.

 I’d never been through a natural disaster, so returning home from a 3 week-long trip just hours afterward was memorable. While we Alaskans are accustomed to our fair share of earthquakes and aftershocks, this one was a doozy at 7.0.

Supermarkets ran low on food and water. Electricity was out in much of the city when I returned. So was cell phone service. Some roads and schools were destroyed. Yet no one died, a great tribute to careful city planning and building codes in Anchorage. There weren’t reports of opportunistic thefts. 

A few things stuck with me.

Each person’s reaction to the same event was unique.

 This reminded me of the birth order conversation I often had during my book tour.

 If a family of four was home together in the same room during the quake, their reactions varied widely, from getting under a table, crying and shaking, or running outside. Their ability to deal with the trauma long afterward was as varied as their responses, often due to their age and role in the family, past experiences, genetic makeup, and other traits and quirks.

Pets were/are and are as impacted by the earthquake as their humans.

Many dogs and cats ran away from home shortly after the big shake. They lost control of their bowels, and some continue to have problems. A doggy daycare staff member told me more dogs have to wear anxiety jackets, and have a compromised immune system from the stress, developing kennel cough at a higher rate. And a friend’s 15 year-old bird died soon after the quake, not due to injury, but due to strain.

Only the worst images were replayed by the media and were then shared in social media, though many people experienced no damage to their belongings or homes.

Don’t get me wrong; there was a lot of damage done. Most everyone I know sustained loss of belongings due to the earthquake. 

Yet it reminds me how scared we become after watching news images, whether it’s on television or the social media shares. Perhaps it’s about an American tourist who died overseas. Or an image of violence, played and shared, over and over.  We become fearful and wary.

We might forget to mention who all emerged safely from this earthquake, who all helped one another, and how grateful we are that no one died as a direct result of such a seismic quake.

After I called my daughter from Los Angeles, and she told me that she and her sister were fine, as were my pets, I wondered about my newly renovated kitchen. Twenty-three years of ugly had been replaced by beauty just before I left on my trip, and I had been over the moon about it. But I knew what a complete jerk I’d be for asking about it long distance.

My plane landed in Anchorage several hours after the shake, and I hailed a taxi. My driver was an African immigrant, small yet loud, and hidden under his oversized red wool hat with a pompom on top.  On the way home, he told me about how it was for him, a relatively new citizen, to be jarred awake from a deep sleep. How he ran outside and fell to the ground, and how he calmed himself, realizing there was nothing he could do to control the outcome.

“We can replace things,” he told me,” We cannot replace peoples.”

It was just the message I needed to hear.

 I opened the door to my place, and looked at each room, saving my new kitchen for last. And though it appeared someone held a raucous party on the second floor and left the mess afterward, my kitchen, my long-awaited kitchen, was undisturbed.

I am truly thankful. 

I’ve heard a number of people say they wanted to leave state after this earthquake. It came without warning. The aftershocks still continue. It was too much to deal with. 

But for me, showing up just after to witness the inspiring recovery efforts, Alaska still feels like a soft place to land.

Thank you for visiting.  

 


Author Interview with Susan Joyce on Screenwriting and Redefining Her Next Chapter

Author Susan Joyce in 2103Meeting author Susan Joyce in person was a highlight of my trip to South America.

We had originally connected through the Facebook group, We Love Memoirs two years earlier.

Susan has written two memoirs, and authored and edited numerous children’s books with her husband, author Doug DuBosque.

In addition to writing award-winning books, Susan has lived in several countries and ran a thriving publishing business with her husband for more than two decades. After all that, plenty of writers would have been content to retire. Yet when Susan spoke to me about her latest writing passion–screenwriting–her radiant energy was infectious.

I´m pleased to have Susan as my guest this week.

What led you to screenwriting?   

My heart led me to screenwriting. I´ve always enjoyed the theatre and films; even turned two of my books for children into stage plays with original music; songs I had written and by collaborating with an elementary school music teacher. Great fun! A thrill to see the productions performed on stages in schools and at a community college in Oregon.

Describe how the screenwriting process differs from writing books.

 Screenwriting is a different art form using different set formats. It´s a challenge and exciting to learn new ways to express my imagination with words in a community which encourages writers to think outside the book box; to SHOW and not TELL.

I receive advice, again and again, to write more books. The more the merrier for fans and followers. When I dreaded “making time” to write, I knew I needed something different to stay excited about creative writing. Script writing is fun, feels as if I am playing with words as I imagine the scenes they fit into.

A book or a film originate in the writer’s imagination first. Once the writer writes her version on paper, the script begins a new life when others involved in the production process; the editor, the director, the producer, the cameraman, etc share how they imagine it.

Like magic, the final creation becomes a dance shaped by the keen observation of others from different angles.

How do you engage with a writing community from your home office in Uruguay?

In today’s internet world, it’s easy. I belong to several online screenwriting groups and attend online workshops where I can share ideas and pitch my projects.

What takeaway do you have for other writers who face burnout?

Ask yourself what makes you tick, what makes you happy and move forward to a new adventure.

What are you working on now?

Many projects.

At the moment, I’m turning my book Good Morning Diego Garcia into a screen script and into a mini-series for television. Hopefully BBC. I will do the same with my first memoir, The Lullaby Illusion. I’m also writing a TV series set in a jazz club in Germany where expats gathered to make new friends in their new homeland.

Stay tuned.

 

For more information, you can find Susan at Susan Joyce Journeys.

Or click here to connect on Facebook.

Here her books can be found.