Just set up a page here for The Enemies Within Us – a Memoir by me, Sharon A. Crawford. Read all about the book, how it all began and continued to evolve and was finally published. And of course where interested readers can purchase a copy. You can also click on the title The Enemies Within Us above this blog post at the top of the blog site
I will start posting to this Sharon A. Crawford blog again more regularly starting next week.
Meantime, in these pandemic times, everybody stay safe and stay healthy.
I’m sitting before my laptop, trying to stare at my moving face image before me. At the same time I am rattling pages in front of my nose and stumbling through a short reading from my memoir The Enemies Within Us.
Thank somebody-or-other this is just a “dress” rehearsal. I used to be a good reader and could usually read right from my books. Only when I knew I would be in a place with dim lighting would I print out copies of my reading material beforehand. All that was before I went blind in one eye a couple of years ago. Now I sometimes seem to put my nose right up to what I’m reading. Not that the nose can see.
My other eye is still normal, if you can call some nearsightedness normal. But better than being blind. So, I shake, rattle and nearly roll the printed out pages which are still not big enough.
They were printed out from the final pdf copy which my publisher sent me for book reviews, etc. But having only a reading pdf program I can’t enlarge it. My publisher has also noticed this rattling and stumbling and includes it in his summary of watching the recorded version of our dress rehearsal. But I am not angry at him and I am not angry at myself. If anything, I am angry at the cause of my blindness.
But one must carry on – something I believe in. I email my publisher for the final edited Word copy of my manuscript, which he promptly sends me. That can be enlarged. Once that is done I have to figure out how to place the pages so they don’t rattle and I can view them and read like the pro I am supposed to be. Even if I have to masking tape it to my laptop and onto my desk – not too far because I don’t want my mug looking off into the distance or off to the side. At least we have one more rehearsal.
Meantime my publisher has posted the Invitation details for my book launch on the Blue Denim Press Facebook page and shared it with his FB friends, which includes me, so I get the notification to my author FB page and somehow (don’t ask how; he’s the technical expert, not me) moved it to my Events. From there I share it with all my Facebook friends and family I haven’t emailed an invitation. Yup, still doing email notifications. Both are bringing yeses to attend or interested in attending. Still lots more I haven’t heard from…yet. Then I remember when we did in- person book launches for my Beyond mystery series, when we lived in safe times (What were those? Anybody remember?), some people didn’t bother to RSVP. They just showed up. So hope this happens this time. I’ve also sent out invitations through Classmates.com and am posting the event on my social media and it is already bulletined on my website. And one invited guest started a thread in her Linked In group asking for comments from authors who have done virtual book launches and what it involves. Of course, I started the thread, including thanking her.
And for those interested, here is the invitation to my virtual book launch.
Virtual Launch of The Enemies Within Us – a Memoir by Sharon A. Crawford
The URL to get to my virtual launch at that time and date is the Blue Denim Press Facebook page link above. If you click on the Join Event Link above it will redirect you to that Facebook page. If you are not on Facebook, you won’t be able to get in. However, the launch will be videotaped and posted on Youtube. When it is on Youtube I will post the link on my website as well as on my social media, including here.
Sharon A. Crawford’s memoir is a powerful, sometimes humorous, account of a young girl’s lessons learned from difficult teachers – bullying, betrayal, and cancer. Set in 1950s/1960s Toronto
I’m finding it both interesting and challenging marketing my new book The Enemies Within Us – a Memoir. We live in uncertain and unsettled times with this COVID-19 business. Not only do we worry about getting the virus, but we have had our lifestyles turned topsy-turvy. Not something we asked for, but I guess we have to make the best of it. And that requires being creative.
Which is something I am learning to do for promoting my memoir. In person presentations, readings and book launches are now gone. I now have a very extensive market plan which is open to changes and additions. I check it daily and make a note i when I have done something on my list, and then save it yet again.
Some of you may notice that I have increased my presence on Facebook, both my Facebook timeline and its attached author page. That increase is all about my book, which includes (and will include more) small excerpts from my memoir. I will also be posting more about the actual writing of memoir as I have taught workshops in that for 10 years. I know that has generated some book sales from what my publisher told me about numbers sold through Amazon. Not a huge number, but the book has only been out for two weeks.
I am also selling books via Canada Post – for those who live in Canada.
But perhaps the wackiest way I’m selling books is from my veranda. Let me re-phrase that. Some of that comes from my emails to friends and they come by to pick up the book by appointment (read, when it works for them and me).
My unofficial greeter on my veranda
So there comes the buyer up the veranda steps, past my unofficial greeter, money in an envelope dangling from the hand, and a mask on the face. He or she knocks on my front door and then steps back. Inside, I put on my mask and a jacket if needed, and with signed book copy in hand, step outside. We do a short greeting and the buyer hands me the envelope (still dangling from her fingertips), and I do the same with the book. We make comments about wishing we could do a proper visit/chat, but say “when this pandemic is over.” One buyer, also a friend, and I had decided via email we could do a short social distancing chat, but the rain began falling as soon as she stepped out of her car. On another occasion a month ago, this friend did stop by (pre-arranged) to pick up some flower seeds from my garden. The seeds were in a sealed envelope. We actually had a chat, 6 feet (2 metres) apart in my driveway. It wasn’t raining then.
Those are some examples of the new norm.
The other big change is going virtual – beyond the usual Facebook postings, the blog postings, Goodreads, Amazon, and the website. I’m talking about Zoom. Zoom has opened the door to us authors to promote our books. It is even how my writers group, The East End Writers’ Group, now meets. And yes, I have held up my book there and did a one minute elevator pitch. Ditto for another organization I belong to for its Literature group.
I am also getting bold in approaching newspapers, book buyers, etc. (via email). for book reviews. It has garnished (so far) one wonderful review and five stars on Amazon.ca.
And then there is my publisher, Blue Denim Press. Shane there has been very helpful and promo pro-active. He is helping me with my virtual book launch next month (November 17 – more on that closer to the date). He is doing more as he (well Blue Denim Press) is launching my book. We have had one Zoom meeting to go over what has to be done and how it will work. And he then emailed me the list of what we each do.
Preparing for a virtual book launch is much more work than an in-person book launch. With the latter, the publisher set the date (checking with the author to make sure she is available then and not doing promo elsewhere, for example. If it is a dentist’s appointment, she can cancel that). Then you email your invitations, distribute and post copies of the book launch flyer from your publisher, prepare what you are going to read and anything else like a skit, and show up early for the launch. And once there, meet, greet, and read.
Sharon A. Crawford reads from her Beyond series
But a virtual book launch has the potential for many more guests from all over the world.
And here are some online book links for The Enemies Within Us – a Memoir
October 1 was the big day. Blue Denim Press released my new book, my memoir. I am thrilled and am now busy with book promo and talking about the book and what’s inside it.
Part of that is posting to my blogs (I have another blog) but when I opened this author blog today to post, I got this new-fangled setup – supposedly to make it better and easier to post. Right. And pigs fly. The only thing “easier” is the print and setup on the eyes. Well, they did say it was coming setup, but no date set and no real warning.
Methinks I have to cross the M-line again to the mystery writing end and call on PI Dana Bowman to comment here. She is waiting to do so about The Enemies Within Us – a Memoir, but first…
PI Dana Bowman here. Like Sharon says, what is all this here? I think I have to agree with Sharon. Why fix what isn’t broken, what still works. Of course, that has different connotations coming from me as I’m from the late 1990s and going into 2000. I mean we did have email and Internet and cell phones, but not smart phones. Having had a gander at the latter, I don’t mind that change; but some things shouldn’t change, at least drastically.
This is maybe one reason why Sharon chose to write about her past, her childhood. From reading her book, I can see that some things, while appearing different from today, really never change – just some of the details. Take being bullied. Now kids are bullied online. It is there forever. It is…
Oh, Sharon wants to speak here.
Over to you Sharon A. Crawford
Dana is right. I was bullied by two people – a close friend and a nun. My memoir goes into that from my perspective as a child and my perspective as a senior. I don’t suddenly switch from young Sharon to old(er) Sharon. Occasionally I use the “in hindsight” type of phrase. But the content is from the two perspectives. What child of five, 10, or even 13 would have all the wisdom of an older person (this is a general question folks)? If I wrote it exactly and only like a five or 10-year old would say and see it, the story might not work; it might be uneven. I like to hold up Catherine Gildner’s Too Close to the Falls memoir as an example of excellent blending of her childhood but looking back from an adult’s hindsight, and still keeping the child’s perspective. I don’t know if Ms Gildner would agree, but I see it (at least with my memoir) as the younger me sitting on the shoulders of the much older me and the two of us going back to the 1950s, 1960s and very early 1970s to dig up, tell, and yes, even analyze what the heck happened back then and how did it affect me. And hopefully I have learned from at least some of it.
One thing is certainly different than back then. I am no longer a shy child. In fact, some days you can’t shut me up. And I do tend to get carried away speaking my mind and writing what I think.
But isn’t the latter all part of writing. Even with fiction, the author can come through – somewhat in attitude and certainly in style with the writing.
So, when you read The Enemies Within Us – a Memoir, this is something to keep in mind – maybe at the back of your mind. You want to enjoy your read and not get lost in analyzing. Despite the theme of me having to deal with my beloved Daddy getting cancer and eventually dying from it, there are lots of funny stories within the memoir.
And I’m going to end this blog post with a short excerpt from one of these stories where my parents collaborate to teach six year old me how to ice-skate.
Daddy turns on the hose, and out pours cold water. Overnight it freezes on the dormant grass in the backyard. I never think how the water passes through the hose. Wouldn’t it be frozen? Does Daddy put his ear to the lime green radio and listen to the weather reports to see when the daytime temperature sits around freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit then) or just below? When night falls, so does the temperature, and in the morning—magic—instant skating rink.
Then Daddy turns it over to Mommy. Like a dance instructor trying to teach steps to a nervous wannabe, she grabs my hands and tries to set me in motion.
“Come on Sharon. Just slide your feet, one foot in front of the other.”
My feet, tucked tightly into new white figure skates, scrape and totter along the ice and my fingers dig into her hands; her mittens no protection for the hard, petrified squeeze I give her. I do not want to fall. I might break a leg. I’m terrified of losing control, so carry on clinging to Mom as she steps backward, sometimes in her rubber boots and sometimes in an old pair of Daddy’s black hockey skates. I follow forward like a drunken clown. (Copyright 2020 Sharon A. Crawford, The Enemies Within Us – a Memoir, Blue Denim Press)
“Your dad has cancer.” That’s the beginning of my new book. And it has arrived.
If some of you thought I had dropped off the face of the earth, I can’t really blame you. It has been a couple of months, not just the usual couple of weeks since this author appeared on her author blog. Not COVID-19 (not yet, anyway, and hopefully never), but I have been busy. Yes, some with client work, some with my garden, some with moderating twice-a-month Zoom meetings of my East End Writers’ Group, and spending these COVID-19 times chatting weekly with my son on Zoom. Somewhere in there I was rewriting and rewriting another book to meet my publisher’s deadline. And I did. But there is something different here. My new book is not another in the Beyond mystery series (although I have been working on the fourth Beyond book).
Drum roll here: MY NEW BOOK IS A MEMOIR. After 18 years of on-and-off writing, through several versions with several different content, it is done. And it is about time. I’ve been teaching memoir writing workshops for 10 years, so now the teacher has to put her pen where her mouth is – or something like that.
So, folks, meet meet me from age four to 22 in my memoir THE ENEMIES WITHIN US.
Oh, oh. PI Dana Bowman, who is not in my memoir, is insisting she step in now. She wants to introduce the new book. She is already doing that elsewhere, Give someone an inch and they will take a mile. And don’t ask me to put that in metric. When I was a child we measured in feet and inches, not centimetres and metres. Okay, over to you Dana.
PI Dana Bowman from the Beyond mystery series
Sharon wrote a memoir about her childhood way way back in the 1950s and 1960s. Unlike me with my fraternal brother, Bast, she was an only child, her parents were what she calls “elderly,” She won’t tell you this, but the book’s title wasn’t the first. She went through many titles and finally her publisher, Shane, at Blue Denim Press came up with
THE ENEMIES WITHIN US – a Memoir
And here it is…
Another drum roll please.
Okay, back to you Sharon.
About time. Dana eluded to some of the memoir’s content. Perhaps the best way to summarize what the book is about is to post the synopsis on the back cover of the book.
“Your dad has cancer.” Ten-year-old Sharon hears these words. Not from her parents. They lied. Set mainly in 1950s and 1960s Toronto, this is Sharon’s story before and after Daddy’s dirty little secret surfaces. Before, she is Princess to her elderly father’s King. He protects her, a shy only child, from best friend, The Bully. Sharon also deals with a bullying nun at school. She distracts herself playing baseball and piano, riding the rails with Mom and railway timekeeper Daddy, and visiting eccentric Detroit and rural Ontario relatives. After learning the truth, Sharon withdraws from Daddy. At 13, she teaches Mom to play the piano. Then Daddy gets sick again, and again…and dies.
Sharon A. Crawford’s memoir is a powerful, sometimes humorous, account of a young girl’s lessons learned from difficult teachers – bullying, betrayal, and cancer.
In future blog posts I will quote here and there – sometimes – from the content, but I also will ask questions (and give a few tips) about memoir writing. Here’s a question to start you off,
Who reading this is also writing a memoir or has written a memoir? What is the memoir about (briefly)?
Okay, that was two questions. I’m a writer, not a mathematician.
The books’ arrival I alluded to at the beginning are my author’s copies, which this time the publisher sent directly from the distributor to me. Yes, we authors get our own copies, but at half price. The traditional reason for author copies is for us to sell them at readings, festivals, presentations, etc. we attend but the venue is not in a bookstore or the publisher isn’t there to sell the books. Or we want to give complimentary copies, for example to people who helped us with research, media book reviewers, etc. In these COVID-19 days in-person presentations, etc. are on hold. But hopefully sometime in the first part of 2021, things will change for the better. So why the author’s copies? Because some of them will go with my virtual book launch in November, which will have a bookstore (as in bricks and mortars) involved, although anyone will be able to purchase The Enemies Within Us at
Amazon and Chapters/Indigo online. Book sales there go live October 1, but pre-orders of the e-versions are available. Amazon also has the print version for pre-order.
And some of those complimentary copies, and I suspect a few books sold, wiLL go out to the buyer via Canada Post – for those who want to get their book directly from the author (i.e., a signed copy). Hey, these are different times and we authors, like everybody else, have to adjust.
I’ll leave you with a sample of one of the photographs from my childhood. It shows Daddy, Mom and I on the veranda of the house I grew up in. In my memoir, I sometimes refer to the house as “139.”
My Crime Beat Confidential TV show on thatchannel.com got a late start this year. We usually get things rolling by April. However, this year because of dealing with all the ramifications, difficulties, including lockdowns from COVIE-19, the show was postponed.
However, PI Dana Bowman, the main character in my Beyond mystery series along with me are back, with our first guest, author David Albertyn, whose first mystery-thriller Undercard is getting a lot of fanfare since its publication late in 2019. And that is with all the COVID-19 thou shall nots. His book, published by The House of Anansi in Canada is now available in the US (as well as France, etc. via the usual online sources such as Amazon. And available in print and e-copy. More info on David’s website.
David also has something else going, which is of interest to other published authors and readers. A way for the two to connect. He and another author Ann Y.K. Choi, started The Authors Book Club online earlier this year. This is a way for Canadian readers and authors to connect. Of course, now, mainly online. Check it out here.
Taping this episode was not the usual with Dana and I going into the thatchannel studio in downtown Toronto, thanks to COVID-19. The show was taped remotely from my home and from David’s home. Dana was fascinated by it all, especially as she got to sit at my laptop in my office. She couldn’t do her usual rant and then guest intro at the beginning because not being in the studio, I wasn’t in the office with the show’s producer. So she could say her piece and not have me hear it, she locked me in the bathroom. In my own home. Sheesh!. But I got out. And I went after her.
Once that little episode was over, I got down to the business of interviewing David. And he had some interesting things to say. See the show here.
The world has turned into a horrible stressful place because of COVID-19. But we writers have a creative outlet to help us cope. I’m not referring to writing about COVID-19 or how we are dealing with all the crap and changes associated with it. Yes, my last two posts have done just that.
But I have found another way that as a writer I can use to cope much better.
Just write.
In a previous post I referred to writing both a memoir and the next novel in my Beyond mystery series in the same timeline, i.e., one day rewrite some of my memoir, the next day, write some of my Beyond mystery novel. That did help, but it was too scatty, too fragmented.
So, I had to choose to write one at a time.
My publisher had given me a deadline for later this month to get the rewrite of my memoir to him. The mystery novel is not due until at least sometime next year (depending on COVID-19 interference with when book launches and the like can be held). So, I put the novel on hold, even though my interfering main character, PI Dana Bowman, is giving me hell and some choice words about that. I’ve restarted my Crime Beat Confidential TV shows, which Dana appears on (see here to watch a previous show), so that should shut her up, except in the TV shows).
PI Dana Bowman on Crime Beat Confidential
I also put one other thing on hold until the memoir rewrite is finished and the TV show is taped – finish editing that long novel that requires a heavy edit for a client. Client isn’t too happy, but is accepting it, as I have come up with a way to shorten my time getting his editing work done in future.
One thing COVID-19 is teaching me is “one thing at a time and if others don’t like it, they can lump it.”
And as I began focusing on rewriting my memoir, I found a bonus – something I knew before COVID-19, but had forgotten about thanks to skipping from one project to another.
When rewriting my memoir, I am transported to a different period in my life – in the mid to late 1950s, the 1960s and early 1970s – the grey ages as I call them. I think it is because it is the past that it gets me out of these horrid COVID-19 times for a few hours at a time. Even though life was not easy for me back then, it is done; it is the past, and I guess it comes under nostalgia.
Writing fiction – short stories, novels, novellas – can also transport you out of COVID-19 times – unless that is what your fiction is about. I don’t really recommend that, but if that is where your creativity and ideas lie, I’m not going to say “don’t do it”. It would be fiction based on fact, so go for it.
My Beyond mysteries are set in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The setting is loosely based on where I was living in the late 1990s until I moved back to Toronto. But I have been back to Aurora, Ontario (where I lived from 1975 to late 1998) and also to nearby Newmarket many times since then, but of course today shows the changes in those now small cities, which were large towns when I moved out.
You could say these novels are nostalgic too, although they are fiction, not my story. But again, I’m out of COVID-19 times, temporarily, thanks to writing Beyond Truth, and I am doing something creative. It doesn’t matter what terrible things happen in my novels – they are fiction and each has an ending.
So, escape into creativity for a few hours each day. It will raise your spirits, is good for the mind and body, too. And you have accomplished something and created something as well.
So…
Just write.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford, author of the Beyond mysteries. All available in e-copies at Amazon. Link for Beyond Faithhere.
COVID-19 days and nights continue and so do a lot of changes. For those of you (writers and others) who think that we writers just write in isolation anyway and can continue to do so, think again.
Writing isn’t just about writing. You have to market your little written darlings to get published, and if a book, promote it.
Before all that you might want (and need) some feedback on your writing-in-the-works. And if you have been attending in-person writing groups, you just can’t do that anymore – or at least for nowthanks to COVID-19. And for me, to add insult to injury (pardon the cliché, but a cliché is well, normal in these definitely non-normal times), the writing group I founded and still run, East End Writers’ Group, is supposed to be celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. We had lots scheduled and being prepared for this year.
A Writers Circle reading in person before
Then, thanks COVID-19, things were cancelled. Public venues were closed, including the libraries and we were meeting at the S. Walter Stewart library branch in Toronto since July 2014. Before that we were meeting for a few months in a used book store until it closed; before that in a café which closed too; before that for 17 years in my tiny bungalow. The latter is not an option now, especially with COVID-19 and doing the self-isolation bit until who knows when. Also, even without COVID-19, I don’t want meetings in my house anymore. Too much work.
My favourite meeting place – closed for now
So enter online.
Like many writing groups (and other groups, including my gardening club), we have zoomed into Zoom. I probably don’t need to tell anybody what this is, although how it works, is something else. Both my son, Martin (the IT guy) and a retired IT guy, Nick, who belongs to East End Writers’ Group suggested Zoom and although I haven’t too many clues about how it works (I’m improving with their help), I’m enthused about using Zoom and grateful they came up with the suggestion, and grateful that Nick is doing all the technical stuff to get the meetings going and creating the invitations for members. I am sending out the invitations, so not sitting on my laurels (cliché). So, I like to say, Nick hosts the session and I moderate it. In our two hours or so we have time for four members to each read a poem or two or a short prose excerpt and then after each author reads, it is my turn to lead a discussion and everybody else (and me, too) to give constructive feedback. At the end of our last Zoom meeting (we are meeting every two weeks) the diehards who stayed behind after all the feedback was finished, got into a discussion of how COVID-19 is affecting our writing. The consensus was it is causing us to be distracted and not get as much writing done as we would usually do.
As for the East End Writers’ 20th anniversary celebrations, that too has gone online. Earlier in May, novelist Shane Joseph, who is one of the EEWG’s original members and I were guests on Liquid Lunch on thatchannel the online TV station where I tape my Crime Beat Confidential Show. Liquid Lunch’s host, Hugh Reilly, interviewed Shane and I (remotely – he was in the studio and Shane and I were in our respective homes and coincidentally in our respective offices. Maybe some underlying wish that it will inspire our writing?) to tape the show. The episode is on You Tube now and also you can get to it via thatchannel. Shane and I talk about the early days of East End Writers’ Group. But pay attention to the last part and what we talk about. You can probably guess. Note: as we are isolated, we are not wearing masks, but Hugh is wearing his trademark toque.
And the link to my East End Writers’ Group is here.
So, I guess the message for writers is: don’t let COVID-19 get you down. Find a writers’ critique group online and KEEP WRITING. If you go to my Facebook author page, I post daily writing quotations on weekdays, from other writers, some well-known, some not, to inspire you and get you thinking and writing. Here is that link.
Sometimes I think my mind is fried. Or imitating (badly) the Energizer bunny. A lot of that is dealing with all the changes and problems that arise from COVID-19 and how it has changed all our lives whether we get sick or not.
I sit down at my computer to rewrite a short piece to submit to an anthology. Or I go back into rewriting my memoir and think – my writing/rewriting here is crap. Not as good as earlier in the memoir. Or go back to writing the latest Beyond mystery novel – Beyond Truth. Or write a blog post (I have two blogs). I am also doing the final edit of a client’s long novel – which is interesting and suspenseful but requires a heavy edit. Then something related to COVID-19 interferes.
Interference could be something as basic as going grocery shopping. Yes, I hate lining up outside stores, and dealing with a lot of the crap from store employees that is really the fault of their manager’s bad organization and training. I have dropped those few stores off my shopping list and go elsewhere. No, the big thing about grocery shopping interfering with my writing is when I have to grocery shop. Being a senior with a disability, I am encouraged to shop in off-peak hours. So, no more evening or weekend grocery shopping (which I was doing, so I could write and edit during the day on weekdays, best times for that), except for the local Shoppers Drug Mart, a five-minute walk from me where I go just after 9 a.m. every other Saturday. I am not an early morning person, thanks to health issues, but I can do 9.15 a.m. close to home. Not so grocery stores. But I have found that during lunch time or just after lunch time the grocery stores (and the buses to get there and back) are not busy, partly thanks to social distancing, partly due to off-peak times. But because of dietary restrictions and grocery items’ cost, I have to go to a couple of grocery stores (besides the Shoppers which carries some groceries). So, despite my plan to grocery shop every two weeks, I find that time-line is stretched into two or three days – one shop a day. Doing all three in one day is too tiring (i tried that the first time and after I got home, collapsed on the couch). And then I run out of some fresh veggies and fruit like lettuce and bananas in-between the two weeks.
Now getting into gardening season, there are all the garden supplies to chase down – from seed catalogue orders put in that are slow to arrive to stores carrying gardening supplies cum hardware stuff now on the “unessential business ” list for in-store shopping and they are using alternative ways. Plus I don’t drive so can’t do curb-side pickup (per se)… I think you get the picture. Dealing with business emails is enough extra, now there are emails and news stories related to COVID–19 to keep up with. What’s a writer to do? Tear his or her hair out. Maybe, hairdressing services are not on the essential business list – but dry cleaners are. Go figure.
I do a daily “to’do” list the evening before. But sticking to it??? I need to do some heavy changes mixed in with some softer actions. Heck, I’m a writer. I am creative. So besides following the “to do” list, I am going to try the following and I’m keeping itbasic. the three D’s – Dilute, Delay, Dump. And the three R’s – Review, Re-arrange, and Relax.
How are you as a writer coping with all the COVID-19 confusion, worry, anxiety and fear? Please comment. And speaking of relax – time for my daily walk in the neighbourhood and looking for signs of spring and crossing the street or walking on the street if someone is coming the other way. That’s rude, I think,
As for some of my writing – the anthology submissions, they are ready to go (finally) and will go out as soon as I hear back from the editor about if they can be all submitted as one email attachment or… I know…dealing with all this COVID-19 business has fried my brain. But not enough to fry my creativity.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford, author of the Beyond mysteries. All available in e-copies at Amazon. Link for Beyond Faithhere.
It has been awhile since I posted. I am still here, but engulfed coping with all the changes with this coronavirus or covid 19 pandemic as it is also called. One thing I have also been doing is writing and what I am writing is affected by this virus pandemic. Except for some Facebook postings and comments about the virus, I find what I am writing goes back to the past, before 2001.
This isn’t strange because it is common; it is soothing to go back to earlier times (even before you were born if you are writing historical fiction) when your life becomes a huge trauma with no answers for relief, no certainty. And everyone worldwide is in the same position.
Research does show the benefit of what they call “nostalagia”. See The Psychological
Benefits of Nostalgia
Although some writers are writing stories (fiction or nonfiction) about the pandemic, writing something set in the past can be uplifting. If I am writing more of my latest Beyond mystery in the works (Beyond Truth, working title), I get completely absorbed in the story and the characters. Some of you have read my past postings over the years where my main Beyond character PI Dana Bowman has shall we say, taken over the writing of the Beyond books. At least, she claims she wrote the latest published one – Beyond Faith, but after a few “talkings” from me is now conceding maybe she co-wrote it. For more info on Dana Bowman and her connection to see me my website Beyond Faith page.
But Dana is someone other than me and getting embroiled in her stories (and the other point of view characters in Beyond Truth) gets me into a better world, albeit fictional (or is it? Dana would say otherwise) than the one we live in now.
With fiction, the characters have problems, many traumatic, but it is fiction and in the end (as in end of the book), there is usually some sort of resolution. This is true even with series books (yes, I know I had a cliffhanger as part of the ending to Beyond Faith which picks up in Beyond Truth). This resolution, albeit it may not be all happy, is something we all need today. Fiction can do this. Whether you write fiction or read it or do both. Whether libraries and bookstores have temporarily had to close their bricks and mortar stores, you can “borrow” e-books online from many libraries, buy e-books and print books online at Amazon and elsewhere.
And having said that (warning: shameful self-promotion) here is the link to my Amazon profile
and from there my Beyond books in case you are interested.
For those with Kobo readers you can go to Kobu directly
And here is a free takeaway. On my Facebook author page, for the past few months I have been posting daily (on weekdays) short words of wisdom for writers under the title Today’s Writing Quotation. I feature quotes from writers – well-known and otherwise, dead or alive, to help writers with their writing. The link to that author Facebook page is here.
So, how are you writers and readers coping with the virus pandemic? Are you reading more? What are you reading? Are you writing more? What are you writing? Is it helping you to get through this dark night of the body, mind and soul? Let’s start a sharing conversation on this.
“Your dad has cancer.” That’s the beginning of my new book. And it has arrived.
Sharon A. Crawford author 