“When you recognize success, you make people feel stronger … and you go on to another success.”

The very first benefit of the grant is the hiring of social worker Michelle Ratcliff. The grant will also allow BIST (Brain Injury Society of Toronto) to expand its programs to provide support groups for those with brain injuries and their caregivers; workshops; and community meetings in two locations, not just the current one.

The Error message reads: “Whoops! No publishing allowed. This lens is currently locked for a violation of our Terms of Service, as per the email we sent you. You’re welcome to a) Grab your content and take it elsewhere, if you’d rather not continue with Squidoo or b) Review your content and make edits here in the Workshop to improve the lens. But you won’t be able to Publish the lens live until you can demonstrate that the violation has been addressed. Thanks.“

I wrote this how-to lens on autographing books for authors almost four years ago. Squidoo decided three days before Christmas 2011 (when book sales spike) that my article was  — pick one, your guess, they won’t tell, shhhh — pornographic; contained profanity; spammy (guess too many copies of Lifeliner in my pic); something they couldn’t support cause, you know, authors autographing books for readers is so … well, words fail me; a “doorway” lens  to affiliate programs like promoting authors autographing their own books; unoriginal (all those hours I spent writing and polishing was just, well, meh); article spinning (whatever the heck that is, but if I don’t know what it means then I must’ve done it, eh?); and plagiarism.

I’ve been down the false accusation of plagiarism road with Squidoo before.

They sent a nice note saying sorry, it was a “false positive” after I found the plagiarist of my article that they blocked last May. They wrote that they would greenlight it so it wouldn’t happen again, but they didn’t think to greenlight the author, namely me. They seem to have a default stance that Squidoo authors plagiarize and so no point telling Squidoo authors when their work is plagiarized, just cut out the articles. Some site.

Squidoo also wrote in their email to me dated 22 December 2011:

“We aim to support high-quality, original and useful lifestyle content that real readers will be glad to land on.”

Yes I can see how comments like these most recent ones would mean readers were not glad to land on it:

“i like this..” Oct 24, 2010 5:14 pm

“I will release my first book and it is all about my experiences as a mystery shopper. I found this site very informative and I am so excited to sign my book to someone who will really appreciate it. Thanks for the signing guides and more power” MysterySh0pper, Dec 11, 2010 6:32 am

“Thanks for the ideas….my first book signing is coming up in a few days!! http://map-thenovel.com” nitronarc, Feb 21, 2011 9:23 pm

“A lens about how to autograph a book: now I’ve seen it all! I am impressed with the research you did! (I’ve never had to autograph a book, but I have had to autograph the CD copy of an ebook!)” TravelingRae, Jun 18, 2011 12:16 am

This week, after I finished revising my novel and finally had the energy to deal with this company and do their work for them, I searched for plagiarized words from my autographing article, and it looks like it was copied elsewhere then possibly taken down or made invisible. Although Google shows other sites as having plagiarized my article, the sites themselves no longer show it, as far as I can tell.

Violations of my copyright are the only thing important to me.

Then I also noticed all my Squidoo lenses on installing and using Ubuntu were taken down. I can’t be bothered yelling at this stupid company again. If it doesn’t have the ability to know which writers are original and to see that it had screwed up before with the same writer, it’s not worth the effort to tell them. I know I said I was going to take down my Squidoo account last time they blasted me with their spraying figure-out-which-term-you-violated-then-maybe-we’ll-talk gun. But didn’t. This time I am.

There may be orphaned links on my website to my old Squidoo lenses once I’ve cancelled my account. Please let me know if you find any.

Last time, they only made nice because I blasted them back and reprimanded my copyright violator — thanks for the help Squidoo in telling me about them and helping me demand they take the plagiarized copy down, not — but I was mollified. This time, I don’t see why again I have to be treated as guilty until innocent. If they default to that position, then they have a problem with their contributors. From telecoms to Squidoo, I’ve had enough of behemoth companies banging their weight around. I quit. Writers looking for autographing advice — and my other former Squidoo essays — can come straight to my own website, thank you very much.

"We're lucky to have you around."

Anywhoo, yesterday I went through the dialogue of three of the main characters, sticking with one character at a time and not listening to the radio or reading during breaks so as not to lose their “voice” in my head. Today, I wrapped up some vocab consistency chores — it boggles my mind how authors of old ensured consistency in futuristic or accented dialogue with no search and replace feature in their pens or typewriters to do things like removing every “me” in certain dialogue. I also stumbled across a couple of details I’d begun and never finished. Was it serendipity that Ctrl-F for “me” landed me next to the first one? And the second one? I finally added a line that dropped into my head the other day, cleaned up a thread, and converted the whole thing to PDF. My part is done. What shall I do with myself? Oh yeah, update my website.

Greg Ioannou has been my editor since the day I walked into his Colborne Communications office with my in-progress manuscript for Lifeliner. This was in 1999, just before my brain injury. I went to him seeking a structural editor and, perhaps, a copy editor. I’d worked as a copy editor and didn’t think I’d need much help in that area; however, structuring a book was new to me. We hit it off, and he set me a writing schedule. I dug into it enthusiastically. And then two cars hit my stopped car. But a most amazing thing happened: through all the years of recovery, Greg waited patiently. When I was able to return to writing Lifeliner in 2006, he happily met with me and worked with my new abilities (or limited at that time). He has provided sage advice and guidance for my novels ever since. You cannot pay for guidance and support like that.

This past Fall, when I made my annual trek to his office for novel advice, he stunned me by offering to publish my next novels, but not in the traditional way, in a new way, focussing mostly on ebooks. He offered fair and attractive terms. My work would be edited professionally by an editing house I knew and trusted. I would no longer have to work on the publishing aspect alone. My answer was a slam dunk: yes.

I submitted Aban’s Accension to him for editing, and until it’s released, he has listed me on his website as an affiliate author along with my already published books and a blog to boot. More blogs! This brings me up to three blogs — four if you count Google+ posts — and four websites I have to keep an eye on. There shall be some duplication, my energy being a tad limited.

In addition to my books and blog, you will also find on my Iguana Books page an exclusive excerpt of one of my short stories, free for you to read.

In the coming months, Iguana Books will be offering pre-sales for Aban’s Accension. And once I’ve completed Time and Space, I will be submitting it to them for editing. Keep an eye on this space or my Iguana blog for upcoming publication announcements.

You can find my post on a NaNoWriMo writing lesson — plus an exclusive excerpt from my third NaNoWriMo novel-in-progress Time and Space — on her website at lmstull.com.

I hope you will check it out, and while there peruse Stull’s writings as well!

“Now listen, you who say, ’Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’

’Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (NIV James 4:13)

When you’ve had a brain injury and life has been turned upside down and inside out and over-hard, you tend not to think about life goals. And long-term goals are about what to do next week, for next month is barely perceptible, and anything farther away than that is incomprehensible. It isn’t just because time and how I perceive it has strangely changed, it’s also because twice already I’ve had my dreams severely disrupted because of car crashes. I don’t feel like tempting fate again.

But my therapist, the one who helps organize me and keeps me on track, decided in our last session that we were going to set writing goals for me, real honest-to-goodness goals like other people, like normal people who don’t expect life to go into the dumpster without warning, making one’s goals a joke. Today, on the first working day of 2012, I’m thinking “you gotta name em to claim em.” And so here they are. But first, an introductory word:

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) provides the motivation and initiation I lack to put what’s in my head into action. A novel or book is a big undertaking, and computers and iDevices aren’t up to the task of making that kind of writing happen. An AI would. But since that technology isn’t in my realm yet, NaNoWriMo works plus I’d rather be part of a community, it’s more fun. (Yes, I wrote that, me the one who loves her artificial thinking machines!)

Knowing this, my therapist suggested we plan around NaNoWriMo:

NaNoWriMo has three events throughout the year: the big one in November (NaNoWriMo) where the goal is to write a 50,000-word novel; Script Frenzy in April where the goal is to write a 100-page screenplay, play, graphic novel, or similar; and Camp NaNo in June or August. I’ve done the first two but not the last one.

I will write my main novels in November during NaNoWriMo. I will then spend the following four months revising, getting feedback, having it edited, and finishing final revisions before April. Gulp.

In April, I will write a play or work on one I’ve already done, the idea being it’s for fun, to hone my skills, and maybe down the road, for publication. But mostly in the total spirit of NaNoWriMo, which is to create for creation’s sake.

In June or August (I think we said August…), I will write another novel, but something easier, lighter that will take less time to revise. I usually use the summer months to outline and prep for my November writing, so this might be a squeeze. On the other hand, it seems that each year, my outlining gets moved closer and closer to November. I’m feeling quite nebulous about this goal, but as it gets closer, I should, with support, be able to grasp it and make it work for me.

So there you have it: writing goals. Scary.

Friends and Readers:

May your end-of-year
Be happy

And 2012
Be blessed

And your tastebuds be acquainted with good macarons.

That’s what I told myself.

Yup.

I was determined to start the first week of December.

Yup, determined.

Didn’t happen.

Fatigue and appointments kind of got in the way. Or so that’s the excuse I gave myself. But during a stern session Monday with the therapist who helps me set goals and figure out how to organize my schedule to meet them, I recorded in my iPod Pocket Informant calendar that today I would start revising. Easier written down than done.

I began the day with my NaNoWriMo pre-writing routine of breakfast and hot chocolate. I made myself some coffee. I took it and a big glass of ice water (writing is thirsty work) to my computer and promptly procrastinated.

But if my energy levels are up to the task, my schedule is a powerful force on me. When I see something written down, it’s like a magnet drawing me in to obey. And so I finally did by deciding to begin gently. I began with making the changes and additions I’d jotted down in my Script Frenzy Moleskine notebook as I was writing last month. It wasn’t so bad, and I got through two pages of notes. I also blogged on Google+ afterwards, like during NaNoWriMo, and copied my thoughts here.

The ice is now broken. Revising should become easier and easier in the coming weeks.

Phew.

Winning National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) means I wrote 50,000 words of a novel in one month, the month of November. What it doesn’t mean is I’m finished. I wish! Nope, not finished. Sigh.

I took a break Monday from writing once I had completed my novel (which is officially 65,637 words), but today I bit the bullet and did what I ought to have done while I was writing: revise my outline to reflect the changes I’d made as I wrote. Next I need to write the logline — a 25-word summary — so as to focus my mind on the central theme or story of my novel Time and Space. I will also spend the next few days mulling over in my conscious mind — and giving my subconscious space to do its thing — how I have my time machine work and if I want to change it. Once I begin revising my novel, I’ll have had to decide one way or the other whether to stick with my current physics’ explanations or to change to something more out there. I’m getting better at keeping all these theoretical physics concepts in my head, but it seems like every time I turn around, I’m reading or seeing some new theory that pertains to my time machine — and to the future societies in which my novel is set. (My novel only begins and ends in 2011.)

Despite the challenges and me feeling like I don’t know enough (but then I’ve always felt that way my entire life), I’m still enjoying this novel. That’s a radical thing for me to say. My brain injury took away my ability to feel and the resultant circumstances turned writing Lifeliner from an accomplishment to a “thank god that’s over” moment. Plus my first two novels came from a different place than this one. It’s different, and I like it.

November 22

NaNoWriMo claims that at the rate I’m pounding out the words, I’ll finish — that is, get to 50k words — today. Uh, no. Methinks their computer will be changing that prediction tomorrow. Make no mistake though, I had a decent writing session this morning. I’m not sure I finished the chapter where it needs to be finished, but it is for now. Perhaps in revisions I’ll see something more that needs to be added at the end. But 1688 words that came out in spits and starts and flows and stops, is satisfying.

November 23

Back to my outline today, though looks like I’ll deviate again tomorrow. I’ve made such big changes in the last few chapters, I really should update it so that when I go to revise my manuscript, I won’t get lost.

I began this morning’s NaNoWriMo session by jotting down the steps to make the time machine as a guide for today’s chapter. But in the end, I didn’t need it, for I didn’t start building the machine in today’s action. I will tomorrow. It’ll save me some time tomorrow anyway for having done that today. I haven’t done much of that — writing down “facts” I’ll need to follow while writing. I thought I would have to. But I’ve been winging it, letting my fingers show me the way. I’ll “fact” check during the revisions, but I think it’s ended up being a more enjoyable experience having done it this backwards way around. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it at great length for months, and what I’ve relearnt and thought about has certainly come out in my writing. It’s the tenuous parts and the consistency parts I’ve left up to my imagination. It’s surprising the things I’ve invented. I think they’re viable in some distant future … maybe!

2019 words today. I’m oh so close to 50k. Tomorrow for sure, I’ll finish NaNoWriMo, albeit not my novel.

(On a totally unrelated note, why oh why does Google add extra paragraph breaks [or random letters to the end of my posts] requiring me to edit my post to take them out? Once I edit, at least Google doesn’t repeat the error. But it is annoying.)

November 24

Woot! My total word count as of today is an eye-pleasing 51515. I like patterns in numbers especially since I have now passed the 50k mark to win NaNoWriMo, which today it predicted would be — today! Well, actually I don’t technically win until I submit my masterpiece (self-deprecating tone in there folks) to NaNoWriMo for them to count up each and every word. But one milestone passed. Now to finish the novel!

November 25

Today’s outline didn’t make any logical sense as to how my main character would end up in the hospital, in an isolation room. So I changed it just enough to fit in with the rest of the book and still have her end up locked up and then rescued. A lot of back and forth as I filled in previous details as I went along. And then I picked up steam in the last few paragraphs. 2393 words today as I pull away from the 50k NaNoWriMo goal.

November 26

NaNoWriMo sent a pep talk for week 4 from Brandon Sanderson a few days ago. I put off reading it because I wanted to have it for when I really needed a push. Today was that day. Although I’m enjoying the writing, having fun with my story, I want a break. I want to lie on the couch and be indolent. I want to rest and recharge properly instead of lurching from writing session to writing session. But as I have learnt, once you stop the momentum, it’s almost impossible to begin again and far more difficult than to keep going, no matter how exhausted one is. Look how long it took me to get back into revising my second novel when I stopped? Forever.

Sanderson’s pep talk was just the ticket. ToNaNo (the Toronto Chapter of National Novel Writing Month) has been posting daily pep talks. Members have signed up for each day of November. I’ve read many of those, some brilliant, some so-so, although I have to admit the really long ones I skipped because my mind would wander and get drained. But it’s the official ones that have the real kick; they’re the ones that get me going when I can’t move from the kitchen table after breakfast.

Sanderson talked about the lessons of NaNoWriMo: Learning to finish (kick #1 — just because I finished 2009 and 2010, doesn’t mean 2011 is a given for me, especially if I don’t get to the computer and write, I thought when I read this). Consistency vs. Burst writing (hmmm… I think I’m a burst writer). Thinking like a Storyteller. This part really resonated with me:

“One of the lessons I learned as a storyteller was how to refill the creative well while doing other activities. You can do it while driving, exercising, eating . . . anything that doesn’t take your full attention. During these times, many writers I know run through plots in their heads, feel out character personalities, think about conflicts. They make connections, overcoming blocks.“

I had been dreaming of my book last night; I was adding details over breakfast this morning. Was I really going to let down my imagination and not make anything of what it was creating?

And his last lesson: Overcoming Writer’s Block. This is not usually a problem for me. But his advice to just keep writing in order to keep that momentum going, to keep in the groove so that the good writing could return, hit home. Not all my writing has to be non-stop typing. It’s okay if my words come in spits and spurts or with great wrenching to get them out — so long as I stay at the computer until I’m done. (Pacing is the mantra for those with brain injuries; one must pace, we are taught. Write ten minutes, pause for three. Talk about breaking the momentum. Pacing is antithetical to writing, for me anyway. I pace, my writing flow stops. It’s better to finish the scene or chapter until I “feel” finished; I can recover after that.)

So one more chapter done. 1561 words for today. My chapters are short.

November 27

I decided to make today a marathon writing session because the last few chapters are connected. (Plus I want it to be over! I’m impatient to see how it will turn out!) Even so, I still lost track of character changes and physics details and weather stuff. Sheesh. Better go back and fix the weather while I remember and am still in a writing mood. I ache, my neck is stiff, my eyes are heavy, despite the breaks I took, the chocolate I ate, the coffee I drank, and my usual cranioelectrical stimulation regimen. But I’m ready to revise. Go figure.

Before I begin real revisions though, I need a few days to think about my time machine. Do I want it to work the way I have it working? Or does it need changing? Changing will be a pain because there are so many outflows from it. But if another method works better, I should just bite the bullet and make all the changes. First though, a few days to think on it.

8105 words today (make that 8396 after fixing weather details). It has to be some sort of record for me. I am so thankful I finished both NaNoWriMo and my novel and am a bit in disbelief at it too. When it sinks in, I’ll celebrate! With revision time!!

November 15

Writing is therapy, they say, meaning writing about what troubles you is therapy. For me, the very act of writing is therapy. It’s a also great distraction from everyday troubles because all of my cognitive and creative processes are working overtime during the act of writing. Even my subconscious is engaged. Today’s NaNoWriMo was partly having to work out and describe the cultural norms in my future version of Toronto and partly writing therapy to escape the knowledge of my birthday tomorrow; the session went on for a very long time. My muscles and fingers are feeling it. But my word count is happy, if such an inanimate concept can be said to be happy. 3515 words. I’m ahead of my main competitors.

November 16

It’s my birthday. Of course I began it the best and only way I can: writing! NaNoWriMo and my time travel novel wait for no birthday to be over and regular routine to reassert itself. Today’s chapter was a continuation of a shopping and learning-about-the-future society journey my character started on two chapters ago. I think I’ve now filled in all the details about how this society thinks and acts. I’m sure during revisions, I’ll notice many gaps that will have to be filled in and details to be fleshed out. But I’m happy with this morning’s writing. It feels complete with nothing forgotten. 2771 words. I’m really pulling ahead of my goal word count now!

November 17

Two days of heavy writing have knocked me out. Thankfully, today’s scene was short. It seemed fairly straightforward too, and then I began writing my first paragraph. It went off in a different direction. Whoa. I had to reign my runaway fingers in and focus, focus, focus on the topic at hand, or the scene I’d originally envisioned anyway. I can’t move the plot forward if I’m obsessed with dogs.

November 18

I did the necessary today, the bare bones of a transition kind of chapter for my NaNoWriMo novel “Time and Space”. Or maybe I should say it’s a pivotal one, one that doesn’t need to be long but changes the course of my main character’s journey … for the moment. 1278 words.

November 19

I’ve reached and passed the 40k mark for NaNoWriMo! Yay! That’s all I got to say today. Today’s chapter wiped. me. out.

November 20

It makes a big difference when I have my normal (albeit low) levels of energy, instead of being so fagged I don’t want to move never mind think, like I have been for too many days. Having even some energy makes writing not a chore but exciting.

I looked at what was on tap today and made a face. Boring. And not right. Doesn’t fit. Doesn’t work. So I looked at little ahead in my outline, a little behind. Thought about it, remembered where I had left off yesterday, opened a blank page in WordPerfect and went off in a slightly but significantly different direction. I came to a pause, rather liked that line as the last one in the chapter, but was not happy with the word count: about 1400 words, over 200 words short of the NaNoWriMo suggested daily count. So I scanned back up my chapter, saw that one of my characters, Hope, really should say more. Wondered what? And then told myself, let her rip, let her loose, just let my fingers obey my instincts. So I did. I feel good. 2151 words (which according to NaNoWriMo is my daily average word count!).

Don’t forget that for this month only, in honour of my third NaNoWriMo, my first highly rated NaNo novel “She” ebook is on sale for 99¢ only!

At Amazon US

and Amazon UK

and Smashwords with coupon code PZ44G.

And now I’m getting offline to go snack and read. Happy Sunday!

November 21

My writing session was rudely interrupted by appointments this morning. Still, I had typed fast enough that I stopped at a natural break. I’ve completely left my outline now (though I think I’ll be returning to it tomorrow) — which is like walking on a tightrope over Niagara Falls without a safety harness — exhilirating and scary — and so the question for me was: was that break the end of the chapter or should I write one more scene? By the end of the day, I’d decided: time to write one more scene. NOW the chapter is complete. Two short writing stints equals one fat word count. And I think I really, finally have explained everything about this society and its tech … maybe. I’m only two-thirds of the way through the book though, lots of time left to explain more if needed. A little mystery is good! (I know, I know. Confusion is not.)

3179 words total for today. I should have cake after this. But I’ll content myself with a hot chocolate.

November 8

More difficult going today for NaNoWriMo. I had to go back and forth between the Index Card app on my iPad, to remind me what today’s chapter was about, and Penultimate app, to look and look again at the sketches of the new setting and new characters. As a result, I didn’t stray too far from what I’d planned. Sometimes whole new angles crop up as I write. Not today. Though I did make a decision on the dog character, something I’d been waffling over. Not anymore!

Still, I was not happy to be interrupted early in the writing process by a call from my case manager, saying she couldn’t come today. And of course she was only available on days that didn’t work for me when we tried to reschedule. Crap. I was sputtering along till she called. Maybe being annoyed by once again having my schedule dictated by others helped. After that, I sped up, and soon I was typing along. My fingers hurt. But that’s OK by me! I got 2028 words written this morn.

November 9

I took Classical Civilizations in Grade 9. My teacher: Mr Payne, a florid man with well-worn skin who kept a 40-ouncer in his office desk drawer and gave incredibly fascinating lessons on ancient Greek and Roman societies, philosophers, and literature. I have never forgotten his lesson on Plato’s realism or forms, particularly the day he shook a desk and told us in a loud voice that this was a copy.

I thought of him when I was devising my transporter for my NaNoWriMo novel “Time and Space” (http://nanowrimo.org/en/participants/shireenj/novels/time-and-space) but not for long. Today though, Payne and Plato came back into my head as I wondered what one of my character’s ought to read aloud. Suddenly, I knew. I didn’t have the requisite books in my own library — we used school textbooks or translations back in grade 9 — but Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) and Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com) ebook reading software came to the rescue.

2092 words for today’s NaNoWriMo writing marathon. Snack time!

November 10

I watched The Illusion of Time on PBS’s NOVA last night. I was hoping to learn something new about time and time travel. I did learn one thing, but most of it cemented what I had already learnt. Seeing the same information presented in a different way means the knowledge sticks a little better in the memory banks anyway. A good thing.

So having learnt everything I can about time and time travel, it was time to write my how-to-build-a-time-machine chapter. A lot more stuff came into the chapter as I wrote. I think I was procrastinating getting to the time of the matter. But I finally got there. Wrote it out. Looked at it. Checked my notes. Fleshed it out. And I think enough of the bones and details are there for me to know what I was thinking when it comes time to revise the novel.

I was going to add some details to previous chapters that had flitted in and out of my head yesterday and today. But I’ve run out of time, energy time that is, and my head needs chocolate! Perhaps tonight I will be able to focus and think. 2519 words today.

November 12

It’s a procrastinating, vascillating, restless kind of writing day. I read the paper and Zite on my iPad, drank hot chocolate, made coffee, anything to avoid writing. I read the NaNoWriMo pep talk of the week and finally felt initiated enough to sit down at the computer. The chapter doesn’t go exactly as planned. Right off the top, my writing starts to go off on a bit of a tangent from my outline. Eventually I finish, but it doesn’t feel right. I’m restless, I head for the fridge, I’m not hungry, I head back to the computer. I work again on some of the dialogue. Details appear I hadn’t expected. Cool. I’m still not entirely happy as in I-feel-something’s-missing unhappy. But the brain isn’t producing, so time for lunch. Maybe this aft, I’ll find it, whatever “it” is.

2279 words today. I’m 700 short of the halfway point. I can’t believe that! But I can’t believe how far we’re into November either!

November 13

One should not write about French Toast on a weekend morning at brunch time. And one definitely shouldn’t write an entire scene during which the characters are eating said French Toast with puddles of maple syrup and heaps of berries. I am starving! Although after interspersing dialogue with descriptions of the diminishing French Toast on their plates, it’s not so bad as at the beginning. I guess OD’ing on an image does have its rewards.

2129 words for today’s NaNoWriMo session. Best of all, I’m well past the halfway mark now. NaNoWriMo says I’ll be done by November 23rd. I wish. Hopefully, if I keep my word count up — not always a sure thing during the saggy middle — I’ll get to the 50k mark then, but I wont’ be done my novel. Onwards!

November 14

So I had to do some thinking this morning. I had done a lot in the last few months, but not enough apparently! It’s amazing how much knowledge we store in our heads about our environment, how things work, things like infrastructure and language and names and classes and races and genders. My Toronto of the future is not like today’s, and where things are the same, there’s a reason for that. But I got tired of thinking and just decided to write and see what comes out. Of course, this means lots of inconsistency can pop up, which means needing an eagle eye during revisions or revising for one aspect of life in the future at a time. I’ll probably do the latter. It’s how I did it for my previous two novels, given I can’t hold a lot of different details in my head at the same time.

Fewer words today although more pages. That’s dialogue and short paragraphs for you. 1995.

In honour of my third NaNoWriMo, I’m putting the ebook and Kindle versions of my highly rated and very first NaNoWriMo novel She on sale on Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Smashwords (with coupon code PZ44G) for only 99¢. Read a sample and download it today before November is over!

“I found this novel very difficult to put down.”

Another review of my novel She has hit the web! ReaderViews, an American company that specializes in book reviews, just published a review of She on their website.

Their reviewer Paige Lovitt wrote:

“What if you are traveling down a dark road one night and suddenly a gust of wind tremendously impacts your car, and all of a sudden your life as you have known it and loved it is over? What if you feel like your body is suddenly weak, in constant pain, and you have difficulties remembering anything? What if you career as a songwriter is instantaneously ended because the music has died within you?  How tragic it would be to have your fiancé and friends leave you because they believe you are faking your symptoms and don’t believe the truth about your condition.  What is the condition? While the symptoms sound like something that would be caused by a traumatic brain injury and depression, there is no disease. Instead there is a possession by an entity known to a few as Akaesman.

Akaesman seeks out individuals to inhabit and control. He feeds off of their life energy. For some people, he just invades them for a brief period of time, like for one week. For others such as the woman in this story, he inhabits her body for almost seven years.  Having lost almost everyone dear to her, except her beloved cat, this woman must fight to evict Akaesman.  Desperately fighting constant malaise and confusion, she searches outside of herself for others who understand this possession and for those who know how to treat it.  Discovering that there are a few doctors, lawyers and a Shadow Court designed to deal with this entity helps her know that this is for real.  Having friends and other professionals scoff at her diagnosis weakens her and strengthens him.

She has to do everything she can to fight from giving in to the weakness that invades her.  Trying out different medical strategies helps to some degree, but within the darkness that she finds within there is also a light. In this light is a higher being whose light becomes brighter as she seeks out spiritual help, and therapies based upon illumination.  Growing spiritually she becomes stronger, and she also seems to be led to the right people who can help her.  Shedding herself of this being also sheds much of who she used to be, but in some ways now she is a better person, because she is a survivor.  The real test will come when she knows that her music has returned.

“She” is an incredibly well written novel that made me feel like I had stepped into the main character’s shoes and was able to physically feel her struggling to survive.  Because of this, I found this novel very difficult to put down. I felt like if I put it down, then I wasn’t helping her to recover.  So I had to keep reading!  There were also times were I found myself covered in goose bumps.  Because of the intensity of her condition, it seemed so real.  The thought of having an unwelcome entity take over your body and your life is terrifying!  It is those fears and the emotional rollercoaster that this novel takes you on that makes it such a wonderful book to read.”

If you’ve read She, may I invite you to post your own review, a sentence or five, at Amazon or the website of the store you bought it at? Thanks so much!

1 November 2011

So NaNoWriMo began today. Usually, I’m so pent up in excitement and nerves, I can’t sleep the night before. But as +Errol Elumir put it in a tweet, I felt burnt out before it had even begun.

I’d been thinking about this novel since at least May, had been doing background reading since the summer, had been outlining and sketching it out for the last couple of months, had planned on writing up cheat sheets before November 1st, but life got in the way. And I so totally don’t feel ready; I feel in great need of a month-long nap first!

Time though stops for no one. It just keeps churning through each day until suddenly November 1st is here, and it’s time! That by the way, is a major theme in my new NaNoWriMo Novel: time. And space. Hence the name: Time and Space. Hahaha. Ahem. Anyway got the first chapter done. It helped that I’d written a few lines back in May and had saved them in my iPod Touch’s Notepad app and now that I have the newest version of the device and iOS, I was able to print it out to put before my eyes and inspire me. Now to go find a snack.

2 November 2011

Day 2 of NaNoWriMo went way better than Day 1. I had a couple of thoughts in semi-sleep last night about chapter one, remembered one of those thoughts, and made the changes. I reminded myself of how I ended chapter one, and then opened a blank document to start typing chapter two.

It was slow going at first, but this chapter is mostly about description and dialogue, not much plot movement, seeing as they’re in a ship and all. Once I got into those, especially the dialogue, I had fun, and the words flowed. It’s strange how voices come to me, how I know how to write dialogue for the different characters. I hadn’t thought much about how English would be for these characters, and in the end, the language was short, staccato, no casual words. It seems to fit. Of course, it isn’t at all what English will be like in a thousand years, and maybe I’ll have to add some sort of sentence that they’ve learned to speak her language so that she can understand to explain away why they speak our English. But at this point, I have the main bones down. 1960 words, a decent count.

3  November 2011

The biggest problem with writing, I find, is fear: fear of, can I write? Fear of, will anything come or will I just sit there staring gaga at the screen? Fear of, have I prepared enough, am I ready? But the biggest fear for me is will my energy last until I’ve finished my chapter? I suppose I could break up writing a chapter into two or more parts, but I found early on, back when I was writing “Lifeliner,” that if I did that, if I took breaks or did the pacing thing I was taught, the writing came to a stop. I lost the flow of my thoughts, I forgot where I was going and where I’d been. It was crap.

So I write a chapter in one go, hoping I can type fast enough to do it in an hour, and fuel myself with coffee and chocolate beforehand and ice water during. That Script Frenzy mug I received after my first Script Frenzy is the right size for my water-guzzling needs!

I had a lot of the caffeine-and-sweet stuff swirling around in my system this evening, and so I wrote another chapter. My imagination was on fire, and my energy was pretty darn good for the first time this NaNoWriMo. Four chapters done. 1919 words written tonight. Woot!

5 November 2011

The sun is such an energy giver. It’s blinding outside today, the sun is so strong. But it plus chocolate plus coffee plus ice water (I know, not the usual kind of writer fuel), have powered my words on today.

It was a slow start to the morning, and it didn’t help that I read an article in the “Toronto Star” about brain injury, specifically mild traumatic brain injury (which is what I have) that veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq are suffering from in droves due to concussive devices — IEDs. I was in a thoroughly bad mood by the end of it, even though it talked a lot about some of the new research into detecting this invisible injury, because it had brought back bad memories and reminded me of how abysmal brain injury detection and treatment is in Canada and how shockingly bad our veterans are treated. “Lagging behind,” is how the writer put it. I think that’s an understatement. But my Twitter followers bucked me up, reading @NaNoWordSprints inspired me, and off I went to my computer. 1866 words for chapter 5, almost all dialogue. Tis more fun to write, and my fingers had a hard time keeping up with my subconscious spilling out the words today. A good thing!

6 November 2011

One should not stay up late watching Masterpiece Mystery on PBS when doing NaNoWriMo, not even the night/wee hours before the clocks fall back. On the other hand, somehow sleep deprivation got me to break the 2000-word mark for the first time this NaNoWriMo! Woot! 2112 words today. I like the pattern of that number.Now I can turn off my computer and return to my regular Sunday schedule of being off computer, off the Internet (except to read the news, natch).

7 November 2011

An important chapter today for NaNoWriMo, and it strained my brain. No matter how many notes you write, how many sketches you draw and images you collect, trying to describe the future, even one completely of my imagination, is hard. Setting is important. Describing a setting that not one person on this planet will be familiar with because it’s all in my head, is even more important so that readers can follow the plot along and understand the characters and milieu of the time I’m putting my novel “Time and Space” in.But I’m done. The main bones of it anyway, and I’ve gotten my main character into the building that will become the central hub for the rest of the story. The one nice thing about writing so much description — including my main character’s reaction to this strange place — is the word count is higher than for dialogue. 2217 today!

Eight-hour later update: Oops. I forgot a detail, not a hugely important one but one that gives extra mystery and flavour to this time my main character is dumped into. Now added. Word count 2392.

She is the classic tale of betrayal and friendship – with an evil entity thrown into the mix. Akaesman is that evil entity. And a young Toronto songwriter is his latest prey. Akaesman violently invades her and tries to make her into his image forever. Her career dies. Her name is gone. And then as her friends and fiancé turn their backs on her as she fights to resist Akaesman, she realizes the worst kind of evil: betrayal. That’s when her real battle for life begins.

“Put simply this is the best urban fantasy story that I have ever read period….you feel exactly how the main character feels. “She” is written with a pace that makes you feel every single word combined with hauntingly beautiful descriptions to forge a story that is anything but forgettable. That is the mark of a truly talented writer, someone who tells a story that you feel as opposed to reading words on a cold piece of paper.

One of the greatest attributes of “She” (One of many I might add) is how mysterious everything is within its pages. Considering that this story is done in the real world that is quite an accomplishment.” From the five-star review by Shane Porteous on Goodreads.com.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve officially launched She now that it’s been rolled out to all the online bookstores and ebook stores, with the exception of Chapters and kobo, those Canadian bookstores that boast how they support Canadian authors like, um, me. I’ve emailed all my real-life contacts and have given up on trying to find where Facebook has hidden its “update Page subscribers” link. Of course, my email program didn’t do what I expected it to with its list feature and blasted everyone’s emails out to the universe. Figures. You spend hours agonizing over wording, preparing the lists, and the software mucks things up. I need a secretary! Or a virtual assistant, the newest kind of human resource for people like me. The hard part is trying not to send duplicates to people because of all the venues I’m announcing through: email, Facebook, Twitter, blog, and websites. To those who get multiple announcements, I apologise. But it’ll probably be a year before I do something like this again, about when my next novel comes out.

If you haven’t checked out She yet, I invite you to read a sample (scroll down to see links), peruse my web page on the novel, or best yet purchase a copy. Please don’t forget to leave a review! Reviews are invaluable. They tell readers who don’t know me that others have not only read one of my books, but they think it’s worth buying too. Reviews encourage readers to buy and try one of my books.

As I roll out She, I’m outlining my third novel and am scrabbling to be ready for National Novel Writing Month 2011. I’m also trying to squeeze revising my second novel in there somewhere. I think I need to clone myself.

They write: “Just as film previews help you decide whether to pay to watch a movie, each month our e-catalog will give you glimpses into the first chapters of books so you can read a preview before you decide to purchase a book.”

They focus on independent authors and publishers and provide an easy way to check out new authors and interesting books. Check out their e-catalogue now in PDF format. She is on page 20.

I’m a half-breed. I’m half of a people so decimated, there are purportedly only a couple of hundred thousand left on the entire planet and whose official structure didn’t recognize me as being Parsi (they do now) because of a deal they made centuries ago in order to survive. Half of hardly anything is rare indeed. It would’ve been an astonishing day to see a person like me teaching me or mentioned in any of my studies as people to admire. I was so rare that it wasn’t until the 21st century – until after an influx of people who worked and played alongside people like half of me on the other side of the planet — that anyone knew what I was talking about when I mentioned I was Zoroastrian or Parsi. My heritage is actually writ on my face – except for my nose. And thank God for that. Parsi noses are prominent. Anyway, because of that, some Russians, Indians, and Iranians look at me and know me.

It is strange.

And I’m conflicted.

I grew up in a school system who knew no one like me. It was so bad that when I was taught classical civilizations in high school, I rooted for the ancient Greeks in their war against the ancient Persians because that’s who my teacher – the irascible Mr. Payne – rooted for. And, as well, there were lots of Greeks left to care for and advocate for their history; Parsis don’t even live in their own land anymore, never mind have control over their structures, history, and names. (Many think my name is Muslim. It isn’t, it’s a Parsi name. The co-opting of Parsi names as Muslim ones would be like Cree names being co-opted by the English and identified as English names.) And despite being an argumentative, debating lot, Parsis as a people have no voice. It was a long time before I learnt that the ancient Persians were my ancestors. And so I can’t get excited about people blaming the lack of seeing themselves in their teachers and coursework for their lousy performance. In the end, it wasn’t seeing myself reflected at school that drove me to do well, it was what I was taught at home, told over and over and over and over and over again that only good marks would do, specifically “A”s.

Yet I find myself increasingly annoyed at the token female syndrome. You know, that’s when a talk show has a panel of which only one member is female so that the show or host can say they represent all perspectives. Yeah, right. When TVO gave the boot to Paula Todd, they also gave the boot to female equality in front of the camera on The Agenda. I’m not talking about going from female-male co-hosts to male host only. I’m talking about panels of five being all male but one. And why is it panels of three can only be two males plus one female? Why never the other way around? In the 21st century, there aren’t such a dearth of expert women that it would be hard to fill a panel with them.

Seeing these token-women panels makes me feel like I don’t matter, that as a female I have a voice so long as the men around me let me have one. As a half-Parsi, half-English Christian, I don’t feel like that at all. My Parsi heritage taught me to use my voice, that it counted as much as anyone else’s. And so as a teen and adult I never let patriarchy or misogynist attitudes shut me up or to feel less than. So what gives now?

Decades of being worn down by the inequity of being female.

And moreso, losing my personal identity because of brain injury.

It’s tough enough to belong to a group no one’s heard of, but to not yourself know who you are, with no solid group identity to hold on to, is a torturous place to be. Yet that’s not as bad as inhabiting the female identity, for women are treated so badly, so routinely that the fact the glass ceiling hasn’t moved in twenty years barely mentioned a blip on the evening news. In all the discussions of how hard it is to be a Muslim in a Christian society (try being a Christian in a Muslim society, ahem), an African- or Caribbean-Canadian in the ghettoes, a First Nations member on a poor reserve with no running water, the pundits and opiners forget that to be female in any society is to be below every culture, every ethnicity, every race, every creed. Is it any wonder then that too many women who achieve success lash out at the other females and keep them off the airwaves and out of the boardrooms? To be female is to have the most contemptible identity of all.

As of now, I’m on my 2 to 3-week staycation (my therapist chuckled at the idea of me resting for a whole 3 weeks) and plan on being offline for about a week in the last week of August. The rest of the time, I’ll be online only on and off to check for any emails I absolutely must answer. The only social media I plan on updating is Goodreads because I have a stack of paperbacks and ebooks I’m going to tuck into. I cannot wait!

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve just published a new ebook! But to backtrack a bit…

I wrote short stories and poetry all the way back to elementary school and up until my brain injury. In the 1980s and 90s, I got serious about writing shorts. Poetry not so much. After my brain injury, that flipped. Anyway, back in those days, there was no digital publishing and much of the mainstream press had long since stopped publishing short stories in their pages. A short story writer submitted stories to small literary magazines for the most part and to contests. If you were lucky, an anthology may publish an unknown. Established short story writers also had a chance to be published in the big American magazines or papers like The Atlantic. One of my stories received Honourable Mention in the 1988 Hart House Short Story contest and appeared in WORDSCAPE 3 in 1997. Another was accepted by the editor of a local literary magazine but nixed by the publishers. Not sure who was more upset by that. I developed a system of sending out, recording rejections, sending out again. They were usually rejected for “not the right time” reasons and “please submit again.” Give me a break. And though it’s taboo to say, after having a racist run-in with a publisher (you know how racists look through you) and attending a bookseller’s convention, I started wondering if my “foreign” name was getting in the way of me being published in Canada. That convention was rather like stepping back into 1960s Toronto where I was the darkest person around. (For those who’ve never seen me, I ain’t that dark. My skin tans deeply but is deceptively fair.) It was all rather disheartening. After my brain injury, I stuffed them away.

And then I published Lifeliner on Smashwords. I followed up a year later with She, A Nibble of Chocolate, and The Job Sessions. And I got to thinking: I could package those short stories into an ebook. I could make them available directly to readers. There’s something rather freeing about going around capricious publishers and getting your work into the public realm at last. All I had to do was go find the files (easier said than done as most were still on floppies) and shoot a photo for the book cover.

I trotted down to Sugar Beach, shot hundreds of pictures, looked up into one of the pink umbrellas, and thought, simple is best, and clicked. That became my cover.

I then formatted it for Smashwords and discovered that their Meatgrinder — which converts Microsoft Word docs to ebook formats — now includes an ePub Check, which failed my book. Although I always use their nuclear method, as I know how sneaky Word is in introducing codes that muck up documents, I had made the mistake of copying Author info and other standard text into the document after nuking out all the codes. At least the second time around went quick. And while I was at it, I uploaded it to Kindle publishing too.

Eleven Shorts +1 is now available on Smashwords as a multi-format ebook and Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.de as a Kindle ebook.

I am awaiting approval for distribution to other retailers, and distribution can take a few days to a few months, depending on the retailer. I will be uploading it to Goodreads too in due course and creating a page for it on my website.

These stories are unlike my books. Several are literary, a couple are creepy, some have funny bits, and they’re all a nice-sized bite for a quick read. I have also included a bonus, a romance short story that my grandmother wrote back in 1919. I hope you will check it out!

Being a long-time Torontonian, I have “known” Jack Layton since he was first elected to Toronto City Council. Back then the city was the centre of what was Metropolitan Toronto comprising Toronto, Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke, East York, and York, all of which were at odds with each other. Today, we are all one big city under the moniker “Toronto” and still don’t like each other. In the 1980s, Layton entered the spacecraft-shaped Chamber and roared his protest. That’s pretty much how I remember Layton: one big noisy antagonistic protest. It came to a head for me during the SkyDome building days when CityPlace (if I remember the name right), owned by CN at the time and in charge of developing the lands around the SkyDome, was almost brought to a halt by Layton because he said the buildings had to be one hundred percent social housing, else no building. No kidding. That’s why there was lots of green space, one narrow park dedicated to the Chinese rail workers, a driving range, a concrete crushing plant and no building for years. Needless to say,  I was heartily glad when he finally lost an election shortly after that. Since the Art Eggleton days, Toronto has been about destroying our past and doing nothing in the present, and Layton seemed to be a big part of that. I did not like the man, and I was not alone. Many of us cheered at his loss.

After three years in the wilderness, Layton returned to municipal politics. I was not happy. And then I began to notice he had changed. No more was he one big bossy noisy protest; instead he was envisioning solutions to current problems and using larger and larger stages to make life better in Toronto. Life in the wilderness had made him think. His demeanour had changed from fist and protest to energy and grins. He infected people with the idea that Toronto wasn’t about petty left-right bickering but about creating an urban space in which rich, poor, and middle class lived, worked, and played. Although he had become a driving force in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities, I hadn’t realised he was dreaming even bigger until I read the news that he had become leader of the NDP party. I’m not sure why that surprised me. Toronto City Council bans party politics, but we had all known Layton was an NDPer, even before the days the NDP Party began blatantly showed their backing of certain municipal politicians. Still, I had always seen him as a city man not as a national politician. But then eighty percent of Canadians live in cities. Why should we not be represented by a politician who loves cities and knows how to make them work?

The election he started talking about becoming Prime Minister, even in the face of scoffing and rolling eyes, is when I knew Layton had transformed himself  completely and methodically over the years. He had become a politician with an unattainable dream. And he was going for it.

In the last few years, Layton won me over completely. He had a happy optimism that wasn’t Pollyannaish or head-in-the-sand-refusing-to-see-reality. No, it was an optimism that faced reality and still rejoiced in the coming triumph while planning how to make it happen. It was so rooted in reality, it was infectious. He was savvy and understood that by lifting people up you could get more things done that helped people, made life better, made us productive and energetic, made Canadians want to do more for their country together. He was tough. You can’t make statements like “I’m campaigning to be Prime Minister” and then weather all the tomatoes and eggs and laughter lobbed at you and keep dancing forward without being tough. He was resilient. He took the failure, thought on what kind of politician he wanted to be (apparently even before his big public failure of losing an election), and came back with bigger dreams and an inspiring way. He had courage. I’m not sure when he decided the NDP would form the national government, but a person can’t envision such a thing and plan for it as if it is entirely possible without having courage. Even with the plethora of support he enjoyed from family and friends, it was and is a breath-taking dream. He had energy. Some people have loads of energy; some don’t. But I believe that pessimism is an energy-stealer; division is an energy-stealer; dwelling on failure and nurturing hatred for not getting your own way (politically) is an energy-stealer. Optimism gives energy; bringing people together creates more energy for each person; dwelling on failure long enough to figure out why and thus come up with a solution then sticking the failure in the past gives energy; shrugging off not getting your own way and figuring out how to do things better puts the focus firmly on the present and propels a person into the future. I think that’s why so many people liked watching him: his energy and joy flowed out of him and into us.

On July 26 when we heard the news of Layton’s cancer, I wrote:

“… when you are at the point of achieving your greatest goal … there is something intensely grieving about receiving that kind of news. One moment, you are happy, laughing, loving each day, anticipating with excitement the fulfillment of all your work; the next, you’re facing the death of your dream, and in Jack’s case, perhaps his very life.”

That is what makes this news intensely tragic. Layton had worked a long time, had spent a long time thinking and planning, to make his dream a reality. And it wasn’t his spirit that killed it; it wasn’t lack of opportunity or even ill health; it was an evil process that today’s medical science and knowledge was helpless against.

When I saw him on TV on July 26th, I first saw his body: emaciated, pale and flushed, failing. My heart sank. Then I saw his eyes, his spirit. So strong, so determined, full of hope and planning. If spirit alone could delay death, Layton would be alive. After all, it was that spirit that had already done the impossible: gotten him through the first six months of this year, including an election. His fractured hip puzzled me – the explanations given didn’t seem to jibe to me – and his shrinking frame not just from diet alone. Yet he showed more energy than Prime Minister Stephen Harper and then-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff combined. And he triumphed. He achieved the penultimate step to his unattainable dream. That’s what optimism, courage, facing reality, yet dreaming big do for a person. And not relying on contacts or others to make things happen.

I am overwhelmed by the tragedy of his death, of witnessing the death of a man who thrived on life and was cut down as he was seeing the fruition of all his work. Only four more years, and perhaps he would have become Prime Minister. I am also overwhelmed by the tragedy for Canada. We have a Prime Minister who thrives on division, who is about as inspiring as a wet teabag. We have an unproven Official Opposition who doesn’t seem to have a member with Layton’s combination of dreaming and pragmatism and ability to negotiate. We have a Liberal party who still doesn’t seem to get why they were tossed out. And if Toronto is any indication, we have a country full of middling politicians and apathetic people who all believe the best we can achieve is mediocrity, the best thing to do in all cases is nothing or dreaming small, and the best dreams are not about people – rich, poor, middle class — and how to make their lives better.

After my last injury, I became afraid of having dreams. It wasn’t the first time injury and events out of my control had derailed my dream. Previously, I had been able to pick up and get going again, but my closed head injury put paid to my dream – I heard the final clanging shut of that door six years post. And then help arrived out of the blue. Still, I remain fearful of dreaming, for to me dreaming equals bad things happening. The power of Layton is that he never stopped. His legacy is for us to switch gears, from envy and division, from apathy and learned helplessness, from waiting for others to do – to being the dreamers and doers ourselves.

No man is indispensable. But what Layton gave us is. Layton did seem to understand how tough life is for the vulnerable in society, and so few politicians really do. They spout trendy phrases but act in a way that makes life more difficult. And so perhaps Layton’s best legacy is not to look for an NDP politician to replace him, but to take on his best characteristics and to dream the unattainable for our country, our fellow citizens, and ourselves, and, through our actions, force politicians to make our dreams happen. Illness and brain injury has a dampening effect on how much one can physically do yet our spirits can still act. Perhaps those of us with low physical energy cannot march in protest, but we can goad others into marching. Perhaps we cannot write letters every day, but we can blog or tweet our thoughts directly to MPs every time we can, even if all we can is once every six months. Perhaps we cannot express ourselves well, but expressing ourselves even in a few, short words is better than not at all. And most of all, we can mimic Layton’s resiliency. His seminal failure was not  of health but it was a mammoth one nevertheless, and he came back like the proverbial cat.

I may be afraid of personal dreams, but I can dream for my city and my country. We can together adopt Layton’s brand of optimism, face reality then let our minds wander freely into amazing visions of better things, and ask ourselves why not?

“Groucho Marx got a lot of laughs for saying that he’d never want to be a member of a club that would accept him as a member.” (Katherine Wise)

So begins the brainline.org article Brain injury Blogs: Voices from People Living with Traumatic Brain Injury about five bloggers, including me (!), whom they declare as being the people to read “if you are searching for encouragement, advice, or information from an authentic source.” All I can say is I agree with Groucho: this club of people with brain injuries — invisible injuries many deny to boot — is not one I would volunteer to join. But it sure is nice being tagged as a blogger to go to for encouragement and information.

I encourage you to check out Wise’s piece. And even if you don’t have a brain injury or know a person with one, you may find the stories of my four fellow bloggers interesting. One thing I noticed — we were all injured by (words removed for polite ears) drivers. A red-light runner, a truck rear-ender, a double-rear-ender with a push forward into fourth car (me), car crash, drinking and driving. Four sober, one drunk. There’s a message in that, methinks.

A 24-hour monitor is like a regular blood pressure test in that the lab tech wraps the cuff around your upper arm on your non-dominant side, except it stays on for 24 hours and the other end of the hose that comes out of the cuff goes into a big-wallet-sized heavy rectangular box. That box inflates the cuff at fifteen- to twenty-minute intervals (yeah, ouch) and records all the data. It sits in a fabric pouch that is belted on to you, either with your own belt (can get a little tricky at bathroom time) or a supplied waist strap. I was given the waist strap the second time round, but at its smallest setting was too big. I think they make these for obese people and forget normal or overweight people use this too.

I think the cuff is a little thinner than the one at your doctor’s office, but the one on the new monitor was considerably stiffer than the old one. Not good. Softer fabric equals happier arm. A cuff that didn’t slide down over my elbow, even after some furious readjusting would’ve been nice too.

The winter is definitely a better time to get this done, for you can hide the cuff under long sleeves and the monitor under layers of clothing. Summer it all hangs out.

I went home. And stayed there … well, except for a trip to a coffee house. I put a bulky shirt on for that.

But winter or summer, there’s nothing you can do to muffle the loud beep it gives to warn you that the cuff is about to inflate, time to relax your arm because if you don’t, the reading will be bad and it’s going to go off again in a couple of minutes. Double ouch. At the end of the reading, it gives a double beep to tell you that it’s safe to move your arm again.

This is my second 24-hour blood pressure monitor test. I had the first one in early 2007 after I’d been put on atenolol for my fast heart rate. I was concerned that the test would not show my normal blood pressure but as it is under medication. How could we know what was happening to me if it was being masked by a beta blocker? But such has been my story with cardiologists since my traumatic brain injury (also known as concussion or closed head injury).

In the early years, I would have my blood pressure taken during one of those many interminable functional assessment tests, sleep tests, medical consultations, psychological tests, neuropsychological tests, and on and on, ordered either by the insurance company or occasionally by one of my doctors. Usually, my blood pressure was up. Then I’d go to one of my doctors, and my blood pressure would be down. This went on for years, and all the docs would say is everything is okay, also the same about my high heart rate. I think they’re idiots to ignore the latter. I’m not a hummingbird or a baby. I’m an adult female whose heart rate should not be above 90, never mind 120 — it’s a symptom telling them something is wrong. But I digress. I’m supposed to be talking blood pressure. Deep breathe, bring it back down. Okay. To continue.

My newish GP has started off on the right foot by convincing me to have the 24-hour test done. He’s probably done it now as opposed to a couple of years ago because I took myself off the atenolol this past winter and now he can see what’s actually happening, plus is no more relying on the cardiologists to take care of it (ha!).

For years, my yo-yoing blood pressure has not been dealt with. I should say at this point that all my life my blood pressure has been low, so low that under stress it dropped like a stone, and only willpower kept me from not following suit. At the time of the injury, it had reached an all-time high of 110/70. It never, ever rose in reaction to stress. A very smart specialist figured out that I did not produce enough epinephrine and norepinephrine normally and also during stressful situations. That’s why my blood pressure dropped instead of rising under stress, including exercise.

Stress can be mental, as in doing mentally taxing work; physical, as in exercise; emotional, as in those notorious family get togethers depicted in movies; psychological, as in not having the coping skills to deal with difficult people or situations.

To figure out out what to do about my yo-yoing blood pressure, we have to look at my coping skills (fine), the actual stress I’m under (situational, emotional, physical, mental), my physical parameters (weight, diet, exercise), and how my brain has affected the whole shebang.

A properly functioning brain is rather important to cope with stress or to learn how to do so and for your body to react in a normal fashion. Luckily, I already had excellent coping skills (as measured in a stress management course at Toronto Rehab). I couldn’t imagine trying to learn coping skills with having an acquired learning disability from the injury and, at the same time, relearning a whole bunch of things. Still, my skills were insufficient against the stress the brain injury and its sequelae had suddenly subjected me to.

So basically my blood pressure started to yo-yo because of damage to the brain area that regulates blood pressure, to the area that responds to stress, and the extreme stressors inflicted on me.

This is my theory.

To really understand all this one has to know how the brain affects blood pressure and how other parameters like weight and diet interact with that. The sympathetic nervous system affects a whole bunch of organs and systems in the body. We already know mine has been in full alert since the injury, and so it really isn’t surprising that my blood pressure goes up. What is puzzling to me is why it goes down. We also know that people with brain injuries have a harder time coping with stress, not just in lack of skills but in having damage to the brain. For example, a noisy environment can bother anyone. But the sensitivity to noise is so acute after injury that the same environment that may tire a normal person out after a couple of hours is like being under a 747 taking off, next to a jackhammer, with a bass-thumping car nearby for a person with a brain injury. You want to run and hide fast.

Another thing I should note here is that I get all my test results because care between specialists and GPs is so fragmented that if the patient doesn’t have copies of everything and can take copies to all their docs, there will always be big holes in one’s care.

I have had several Holters and blood pressure tests, and this past week I have finally, finally learnt to keep my own activity log because most labs don’t correlate the log you give them with the test results unless they correlate with arrythmias. The mainstream media may yak on about stress and heart health, but cardiologists and labs couldn’t care less about looking for signs of stress in your heart rate or blood pressure test results. I think, whether or not you have a brain injury, but particularly if you do, you as the patient should keep your own activity log, then ask for a copy of the test results and correlate your activites with the list of every reading over the 24 hours (of course this presumes the lab gives comprehensive results — kick up a fuss if they don’t — you don’t need to go through this hell for a crappy report).

There are three things the report can tell you: On average, do you have hypertension? What makes it go up? What makes it go down?

So I have borderline-mild diastolic hypertension. But it goes down at night, which is a normal and a good thing.

Emotional and financial stress make it go up. Surprise, surprise.

The 32-minute alpha-wave session on the audiovisual entrainment unit makes it go down, as does massage in my robotic chair and possibly a minimum of one-hour with the Cranial Electrical Stimulation (CES) unit on the Sleep setting. But nothing makes it drop as deeply as deep breathing does. Wow. A good twenty to thirty points.

One thing that was really awesome to learn was that the CES device has done amazing things for my skin. Its effect doesn’t last long, which is why I have to use it twice a day. But it meant when I took the blood pressure cuff off, my skin wasn’t red all over, puffy, and itchy-painful like in 2007. Sure, there were red marks at the elbow crease and a small patch on the upper arm. But that was it. When I had adjusted the cuff prior to the previous night’s CES, I had seen that angry red puffiness already beginning, and a largish patch it was too. So despite not having taken the cuff off at any time, and after two CES sessions, to have it look as good as that, and fade so quickly too, at the end of the test is amazing.

So what does this all mean? Some thinking is in order.

Parenteral nutrition, or “IV feeding,” isn’t just for patients in the hospital. We know that. And it isn’t as uncommon as it once was. The Oley Foundation has set aside August 7–13 for HPN Awareness Week to help spread the word that people can survive, and live a full life, on HPN, and to help create understanding of some of the challenges HPN consumers face.

HPN stands for home parenteral (or IV) nutrition.  When Judy Taylor became the willing and joyful guinea pig that made this medical technology viable, it was called TPN for Total Parenteral Nutrition. As I wrote in my biography on Judy, she became the first one because all her bowels were surgically removed; today most go on it because their digestive tract doesn’t function properly. They may not get or absorb enough calories and nutrients from food taken orally. Instead, like Judy, they get everything they need — proteins, fluids, calories, fats, vitamins, etc. — from a parenteral nutrition solution, or PN, delivered through a catheter directly into their bloodstream. Efficient.

Like Judy, people on HPN can sometimes be hospitalized due to a complication from the HPN (and they can be quite serious) or because of their disease. But because of Judy, it has long been common for HPN consumers to administer the HPN themselves, at home. HPN allows them to live at home, not be stuck in a hospital, return to work or volunteer, raise their families, and have all that people without bowel disorders take for granted.

The Oley Foundation is an American, independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1983 by Dr. Lyn Howard and her patient, Clarence “Oley” Oldenburg. In 1987, Judy was the first to receive their LifelineLetter Award, given to an adult consumer or caregiver who has been on therapy for at least five years and has demonstrated courage, perseverance, a positive attitude in dealing with illness, and exceptional generosity in helping others in their struggle with HPN. That was Judy to a T.

In a nutshell, the Oley Foundation provides information and psychosocial support to consumers of home parenteral and enteral (tube-fed) nutrition, helping them live fuller, richer lives. Their biggest programs are a bimonthly newsletter, conferences, and a Web site (www.oley.org), with a forum and online learning modules, and a network of volunteers who give their time to support other HPEN consumers. Through these, they provide the latest medical information on home nutrition support, coping tips, and networking opportunities. All of their programs are free to home nutrition support consumers. No matter where you live, if you know of someone who has a bowel problem and is going on HPN, let them know about this wonderful Foundation.

Journalists get that it’s a great way to talk to their readers, to talk to each other, to talk about the stories they’re covering, to opine, to show up the ridiculous, and to let people know when columns/articles/blogs are up.

Writers, book or freelance, seem to be divided into two groups – traditionally published who sort of get it and indies who think it’s solely a platform to sell books or help fellow writers learn how to write and market.

Either way, journalists are way more interesting to follow than book writers. There are exceptions in both camps, as you can see illustrated in the writers’ tweets above, and my experience is limited by the relatively small number of hundreds of people I follow (I have no idea how people can follow thousands – I’d be permanently glued to my Twitter feed if I did that just to keep up, but then perhaps they don’t want to keep up, they just collect us like others collect coins, oh look, more shiny people to collect and follow but hardly ever read). Still, as a book writer and non-journalist, I stand by my opinion.

So what does that mean for my own book tweets? I tweet on a lot of stuff – from politics to news to brain injury to the TTC to writing – but my book tweets are boring. They’re the usual run-of-the-mill kind: here’s my book, please check it out, here’s what someone said about it, please look at it, here’s where you can buy it, please review it, please, please, pretty please with a sugar plum on top buy it so I can get a measly royalty cheque cause I’m not Margaret Atwood and need to beg, and I really, really, really hope you will buy it. I was never very happy with that, but after the difference between journos and writers became apparent to me, I became quite dissatisfied and started thinking about how to copy journos with regards to my book tweets.

I could tweet about my stories as if they were news stories… The only problem with that when it comes to my novel is that tweeting about a fictional story as if it was real may be a tad confusing, and so I’d have to indicate this is fiction and do all that within 140 characters minus the number of characters the link to the book consume. Yikes! I could opine on my characters, but once I publish my work I do not like to comment on the plot or the characters because I like to see what readers come up with, and the variety to me is fascinating. If I opine, then I will skew that. Still, that would be alright with my non-fiction works. I tweet about my writing when I actually sit down and write; those I don’t think are too bad. I just need to be more disciplined about getting them out of my head and onto the internet.

As you can see, tweeting (and writing Facebook statuses) about fictional works is challenging. I think what I might try is to use a journalist’s tweet that captures my attention as a template for one of my tweets on She until I get the hang of it.

“I let America borrow my rake and pruning shears and they defaulted.” (Paul Wells, one of my favourite columnists, from second illustration above)

I let evil take over my imagination, borrow my concentration, and it got me to write SHE. Hmmm… Or I let evil take over my imagination, borrow my concentration, but good got me to write SHE. Well, it’s a start. May use that one anyway.

“In theory, I *guess* he could grant permission to use it in parody, but — no, I don’t see that happening. The Commons would go crackers.” (kady, a fantastic live tweeter of all things House of Commons)

In theory, Akaesman could enter our space-time from a distant galaxy, but that wld send conspiracy theorists crackers. Lordy. Too long! Or In theory, Akaesman could appear on earth, but that wld send conspiracy theorists crackers. S’OK. But this is fiction, so I suppose I should tweet: In theory, my fictional Akaesman cld appear on earth but that wld send conspiracy theorists crackers.

The other challenge in coming up with more creative “buy my books, please, please, oh god, please buy my books” tweets is being able to do that every, single, friggin’ day. Unlike Amazon, Smashwords allows me to see when and how many people view my book page, as well as download samples and the ebooks. The days I don’t tweet on my books, no one comes on over. Not one single, solitary person. But tweeting every day about the same thing gets tedious for both me and my followers. I must change it up, and I suppose I can look at it as another way to practice the art of expressing imagination, but not so wordily.

I published this on my other blog too and received some insightful comments. Please feel free to join the conversation. I’d love to know what you think!

It is awful and frightening when you receive a troubling diagnosis; it is shocking enough when you’re trucking along and either a couple of bad drivers hit you or your doctor sits you down to tell you have cancer. But when you are at the point of achieving your greatest goal — or in Jack’s case having reached it and being placed to reach further — there is something intensely grieving about receiving that kind of news. One moment, you are happy, laughing, loving each day, anticipating with excitement the fulfillment of all your work; the next, you’re facing the death of your dream, and in Jack’s case, perhaps his very life. It is a devastating fall. And the grief both drives you to get better and infects your every moment. The grief rocks your world and rolls your emotions from anger to bawling. Over the long term, it buries hope.

But Jack is probably going to have a relatively short fight, given the nature of cancer; it’s easier to keep up the spirit over months or a few years of active work-interfering treatment than years and years and years. Being a politician, he also has a well of hope that never runs out. For decades, he has faced constant rejection and ridicule from naysayers and political enemies until after this election victory, yet the well of his hope and optimism only became deeper. He has close support in his family and friends and a net of well wishers from one end of Canada to the other, from the south to the north, lifting and holding him up. He will not lose hope, and he is a determined man. I hope for him, and for us, that his dream, that the pursuit of his ultimate achievement will not be derailed.

Lifeliner and She will both be fifty percent off their regular price. And as always, all ebook formats will be available for download. So whether you have a Kindle, Sony Reader, kobo, Nook, iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, smartphone, or a computer, you will be able to read all my ebooks. And for July only, at a special price too! Just click the images below to be taken directly to the respective book pages.

If you need instructions on how to download and read ebooks from Smashwords, please check out my 2010 post on Reading Any DRM-Free ePub on iPod Touch, iPad, or iPhone. To read an ePub ebook on your computer, download the free Adobe Digital Editions, then download the ebooks from Smashwords. And when you’ve finished reading, please don’t forget to leave a review on the Smashwords book pages! Enjoy!!

Here it is: front, back, and spine. Way cool! Flipping through it, I already found my first sentence to rewrite. Needless to say the manuscript needs revising, feedback, and editing. So this won’t be the version I’ll be publishing, and it will be awhile before it’s available to the public. But it is rather nice to have a book version of the first draft!