In Defense of the Shape of Women

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It’s been a long time since Rush Limbaugh was able to say anything to upset me. In recent years, he’s seemed more like a pitiful old man trying to stay in the limelight than anything else, but he finally did it again. He got under my skin. In this day and age of every woman wanting to look like the models on the front of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, ol’ Rush decided to point out that our first lady wasn’t swimsuit material.

Really, Rush? Like you ever have been.

Let’s look at Michelle Obama with a critical but unprejudiced eye. She’s 47 years old and she’s had two children. She dresses nicely and she’s always well-groomed when in public. (Not so sure I can say the same for Rush!) She started the “Let’s Move” campaign to promote public awareness of childhood obesity and hopefully help prevent it. Rush, for some odd reason, seemed to think he was qualified to criticize Mrs. Obama’s eating habits.

Okay, time for a reality check. Women today need to stop being ashamed of their bodies. I’ve had three children, and I’ll tell you, my body does NOT look like it did when I was 18 or 19 years old. My last kid was really tough on my shape, and I’ve got bulges in spots that probably will never go away, at least not without surgical assistance. However, I don’t think I’m a cow, either, and it makes me sick to hear anyone call a decent-looking, average weight, middle-aged woman “overweight”…or worse.

It’s time to get over this obsession with looking like movie stars. I don’t expect all men to look like Christian Bale or Johnny Depp, though it might be nice. Women have curves, guys. Some of those curves aren’t always in the right spots, but if a woman eats reasonably and exercises regularly, maybe we all need to accept that curves and even bulges aren’t necessarily a bad thing.

My Quest for Validation

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On a writing site I frequent a debate has sparked about the validation I feel every writer seeks. Someone asked why do you write and I responded with the word “validation.”

Okay, not every writer wants validation for their work from outside sources. Somebody pointed out Emily Dickinson as an example of a writer who never sought outside validation for her work. Many writers write in a journal they never expect anyone to see. But certainly every writer who puts their writings out there for public consumption is looking for some form of validation.

So who are we seeking validation from? Readers certainly. Editors and publishers definitely. Ourselves? Well, I feel pretty sure if we put our work out there, the self-validation has already been taken care of. I know I have a lot of confidence that I’m a good writer. I also believe I’m a pretty good editor. So I don’t need self-validation, and that’s why I send my work out to be published.

Do I want my work to sell? Yes. I want to make money off my writing, preferably a lot of money. But as you know from my HONEOWP initiative, I don’t really want the money, at least not right now. What I want is to be able to say that a lot of people are reading what I write, and are willing to pay to do it. That’s the ultimate form of validation for a writer, in my opinion.

Does this mean I want to be conformist? Not necessarily. It’s true that what I write is fun, entertaining, and that’s all I want to do at the moment. But I think every artist of every type should seek to stretch the boundaries, to make people see things a little differently. Of course, this is sometimes hard to do. As has been pointed out quite often in the writing community, if you want validation from a reader, you have to get it from an editor/publisher source first. If you’re not writing something an editor/publisher is willing to take a chance on, you’re stuck in the self-publishing world, and while some people are able to make that work, it’s a long, hard road.

But then again, what isn’t in this business? Day after day we writers put ourselves out there in the written word, hoping to get some feedback, whether it be positive or negative, praying we’ve written something that will touch someone in some way. If we’re lucky, we find out we did. If we’re really lucky, we are able to get our words out to a lot of people and we get the ultimate validation, whether it be a lot of money, a bestseller, an article in a large print journal, a short story in Best American Short Stories, or a winning entry in a writing contest.

Good luck to all my fellow writers in their quest for validation, and if you’re a reader, take a minute to give your favorite author a pat on the back. Believe me when I say, even if he or she is a very successful author, they’d love to hear from you.

The HONEOWP Interview

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I’m sorry I didn’t see the email about this until too late to announce it yesterday because Valentine’s Day would have been a very appropriate day for it. You might have heard about my HONEOWP initiative where I donate my royalties (or a minimum of $25) to charity every month. For more information, see HONEOWP Update or HONEOWP Charities to the left. You might also remember that author Steve Lowe has joined me in this for the month of February. You can find a link to his blog Shitzengiggles under HONEOWP roll call.

Well, now AJ Brown has decided to get to the bottom of our motives for doing this. I’d already added AJ to my HONEOWP roll call (Type AJ Negative) because he blogged about my project a month or more ago. Well, now he’s conducted an interview with Steve and myself, and you can find it here: The HONEOWP Interview. I hope you’ll check it out and take time to explore AJ’s website. He’s done quite a few interesting interviews with even more interesting writers and his “Blood Bank” has some really great free fiction in it.

Five Books I Will Always Love:
1. Little Women
2. Murder on the Orient Express
3. Swan Song
4. Anne of Green Gables
5. Watership Down

Valentine Gifts

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Happy Valentine’s Day! I’ve got a couple of surprises and what better day for them? First, if you look at the top you’ll notice a new tab for “Short Romance”. A few weeks ago, I decided to try something new with my romance writing. I’ve never written a romance short story before, and I’ve only read a few good ones. I wanted to see if I could do it. Well, I did, and I even got some help from a writing buddy with the editing (thanks, AJ!)–and a little validation, too, since he enjoyed it. I couldn’t figure out what to do with the story, though, and then I figured I might just offer it up here. At 6,000 words, “Life After” is a fraction of the length of Secrets of the Lotus or even Winter Solstice, but it’s a pretty cool story, and I hope you enjoy it.

So on to my second surprise. I’ve been very fortunate with Secrets of the Lotus in that I have gotten some good reviews and one really nice blurb from Ellen Meister, a writer I both respect and admire (and whose third novel The Other Life comes out at the end of this week and has bestseller written all over it!). But much as I appreciate these comments from writing experts, they pale in comparison to what I feel when a friend or loved one tells me they read my book and enjoyed it. So for Valentine’s Day, I asked people I know who liked my book to send me a blurb about it. Here’s what some of them had to say:

“Without a doubt, Secrets of the Lotus is the best romance novel I have ever read. It is, in fact, the only one I’ve read. But that doesn’t matter. It’s a fantastic book, with engaging characters I quickly found myself caring about. The plot is solid and engrossing, set in a great city with artfully painted scenes. There is an undercurrent of tension between the protagonist and her leading man; I dont know how many times I found myself thinking, “when are they going to get it over with already!?”. Oh no, am I a romance fan now?” — Chris, my husband

“Michelle, I have read your book, I loved it and I think others would love it also if they would take the time out from this busy world and read it. Of course I might be a little bit partial to my little girl. After all I had to wait for you to grow up and write before I got to read your first novel. Now I am looking forward to reading another. l love you.” — Carl, my dad

“Secrets of the Lotus was a great read! I very quickly got caught up in the story of Josie and Dan. I enjoyed the intrigue surrounding the kidnapping, and found I couldn’t put the book down. I was glad there was a happy ending and that Josie’s dreams came true. I await Michelle Flye’s next novel with great anticipation!” — Phyllis, my mother-in-law

“What a wonderful pleasure it was to read “Secrets of the Lotus”. Grab a glass of wine, and start reading this lovely romance, you will be swept away. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters, and the fact that it was set in NY ~ the greatest city of all time!” — A.M. Celotto, my friend

If you’ve read Secrets of the Lotus and have something (nice) to say about it, send me a comment! I’d love to put it up on my blog! In the meantime, have a wonderful day of love and friendship.

Snow. Eastern Carolina style.

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Snow hit Eastern North Carolina this morning. I woke to a winter wonderland but by ten o’clock it was obvious the snow wouldn’t be sticking around for long. I enjoyed the short drive over non-icy roads to get one son to school, however. Tree branches laden and lawns crusted with snow on all sides with a gray snowy sky above gave me the feeling I had stepped back into Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” or maybe I was going “Over the River and Through the Woods”. The hum of my minivan’s engine replaced the jingle of the sleigh bells, however.

I’ve had a productive week, thank goodness. I like those. I’m working on a special Valentine for you for Monday, in addition to my “friends and family” blog post. I also got started on my newest editing project. I’m working with Cutting Block Press on the final edits for Tattered Souls 2. This one’s going to be a good one, so go ahead and make plans to buy it! I’m always happy to work with Cutting Block Press on any project, mainly because they don’t cut corners and they put out a high quality product. If I still wrote horror I’d be hitting them up to publish something of mine, but instead they let me keep my hand in the horror field by doing some editing for them.

I’m also getting back into the submitting business. I’ve sort of taken a break from it recently, but a couple of interesting markets have come to my attention, and since I had some stuff wasting away in my files, I’ve pulled them out and started going over them to get them ready. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the results!

Finally, I got two great bits of mail today. First, Ellen Meister sent me a signed bookplate to put in my soon-to-arrive and highly anticipated copy of The Other Life, which will be out on February 17! Second, I got a nice note from Habitat for Humanity thanking me for my $25 donation. At first I thought, But really, it was only $25. Then I realized every little bit counts for charities like the ones I’m trying to draw attention to with my HONEOWP initiative, and even if I only donate $25 every month to a charity, that’s more than the nothing I have always donated before. That thought made me feel good for a minute or two. Maybe I will accomplish something positive before the year is out.

February HONEOWP Charity Update

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Survival International posted some truly amazing footage of uncontacted tribal people on their website. You can view it here: Uncontacted Tribes. It’s truly incredible to think about what it must be like to be one of those people who goes days and weeks without seeing anyone outside their own tribe watching an airplane in the sky above. When you watch it, imagine the horror of having a logging company lay waste to the forest you call home and you’ll know why I designated Survival International as my February charity and why I sincerely hope everyone out there will either buy my book or recommend it to someone so I’ll have a lot of royalties to donate this month.

Five Flowers I Love:
1. Daffodils
2. Violets
3. Buttercups
4. Carnations
5. Daisies

Weekly Review

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It’s a quiet Saturday morning, what better time to take a breathing moment and look back at my week?

First and foremost, I received my royalty statement. Only sold one copy of my book last month, but that’s okay. I’ll still be donating $25 to Habitat for Humanity, and Steve Lowe signed on to donate his royalties to charity this month, so my HONEOWP initiative is moving forward. I would love, love, love to donate much more than the minimum to Survival International at the end of this month, though, so please consider (1) buying my book, (2) recommending my book to others, (3) spreading the word about this initiative! Talk about it on Facebook or your blog. The more people willing to talk about it, the more people will become aware of the charities being donated to.

Second, I tried an experiment over the last couple of weeks. I wrote a short romance story. Well, it’s short for me, anyway. About 6,000 words. I think it’s pretty good, but I’m waiting for word from my first reader, whose opinion I trust. In the meantime, I’m returning to editing ALWAYS FAITHFUL, trying to figure out what to do with it after I’m done. I’ve had an offer from a couple of friends to read and comment, so once I’m done with my pre-edits, I’ll probably turn to them for help.

Finally, since February is the month for love, I’ve decided to dedicate my posts this month to things I love. Which means at the end of every post, I’m going to list five things I love. This time, I’m going to list five cars I love. Literally love.

1. Corvettes. Any model year except the 90s.
2. Dodge Viper.
3. Camaros! Love the new ones almost as much as the old ones.
4. Lotus. (Obviously.)
5. The Pontiac Firebird Burt Reynolds drove in Smokey and the Bandit. Just that one, and don’t tell anybody.

HONEOWP February Charity

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I’m eagerly waiting for January’s royalty statement to find out how much will be donated to Habitat for Humanity, but in the meantime, I had to make a decision about what to do this month. I’ll let you know as soon as I know how many copies I sold!

I thought hard about where to dedicate February’s royalties. February is the month of love, so I wanted this month’s royalties to do something special. I’ve decided to donate whatever monies I receive from sales of my book SECRETS OF THE LOTUS to Survival International. Survival International works for tribal people whose way of life is being threatened by progress. Logging, mining, violence and slavery threaten some of our last unspoiled cultures, people who just want to be allowed to live the way their ancestors have for centuries. Their destruction will take with it invaluable knowledge about a way of life and living close to our earth that we should value.

If you’d like to know more about Survival International, click here: About Survival International. If you’d like to donate directly to Survival International, click here: Donate.

A Rose is a Rose?: My Final Thoughts

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I started this series because of my own struggles with naming characters. I always feel that if I don’t get the character’s name right, I can’t write him or her correctly. Sometimes the names are easy. The name Josie in SECRETS OF THE LOTUS was incredibly easy. I wanted something unusual, innocent and beautiful and Josie fit the bill perfectly. More recently however named and renamed a character and couldn’t get him to behave or look the way I wanted him to until I settled on the name Liam. Liam is now the main male character in ALWAYS FAITHFUL, which, though finally completed, is still my work-in-progress.

To wind up the series I asked some of my former guests two more questions, with the promise that I would also answer them. They are basic yes or no questions, but I did ask the others to go into some detail if they wanted.

BREATHE: Could you take the name of a person you dislike and create a character you’d consider lovable?
ME: I believe this is possible. Some of the names of people I dislike are actually very beautiful names in themselves.
JOE YOUNG: I don’t think this would be a problem at all. There aren’t many names of people I dislike that I associate only with that single person, and besides, I think it would probably feel good to “rehabilitate” the name of someone I wasn’t fond of by naming a lovable character that.
AJ BROWN: Yes. That would actually be fairly easy. Even folks we don’t like or don’t get along with usually have one or more redeemable traits. The key is finding those traits and focusing on them. Someone may be a jerk as a boss, but a great father to their kids. You can find something redeeming in that, right?
MARYANNE STAHL: Yes. The character takes on a life of her own over time.

BREATHE: Could you take the name of a person you love and create a character you despise?
ME: No. I don’t think I could do that, but it might just be that I wouldn’t want to. To me, a name of someone I love is a part of them and a treasure, so I think this is a boundary I won’t cross.
JOE YOUNG: This might be a sticking point, though probably just for a moment. I’d think, Do I really want to name this nasty character the same as she/he who I love? Well, yeah, why not, she/he would probably find it amusing. In any case, I’m thinking that, for both of these questions, I’m not sure how much they would ever apply to something I’d write. I’ve never thought to myself, well that character is lovable, that one despicable. Even my rather psychotic villain in NAME, Daniel, I kind of like.
AJ BROWN: Yes. Like the first question, even our spouses have things that annoy us from time to time (even if it is only once in a while, it does happen) so, like finding the redeemable qualities in someone you dislike, I think you can harp on the things you don’t like about people you love or admire just as easily, if not easier. I think it’s easier to create a person you don’t like than to create one your readers will have sympathy for.
MARYANNE STAHL: I possibly could, but I don’t think I would.

So what did I learn from all this? I now know that other writers have systems for naming their characters. I know some names are sometimes off limits, but for the most part if a name fits a character, I should go for it. (I’m thinking about writing a novel using only first names of people I went to high school with, so look look out for that BHS!) And I’ve learned that a rose is a rose…except when it’s not.

What a great idea!

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I’ve been out of it since Monday, guys, so sorry I haven’t updated. Multiple sick kids on multiple days and fighting a cold myself did not make for good blogging time. Maybe I can get back to normal next week!

My thanks to Ellen Meister for her great interview on Monday! I’m planning to wrap up my segment on naming characters this coming Monday with some of my own inconclusive conclusions and a last word or two from some of my guests this month. If you’re a writer and have some ideas, throw us a comment. We’d love to hear from you.

One great thing that happened this week was getting a comment referred to me by a blog I’d never visited. Ash Joie Lee’s blog is devoted to a “Meet ‘n Greet” for writers. Check it out here: Ash Joie Lee. A friend, McKenna (whose blog you’ll find in my Links of Interest to the left), mentioned my blog in a comment on Ash Joie Lee’s site, so I had to check it out. What a wonderful site it is, too! Devoted to helping other new writers get the word out about their work.

Since I spend a great deal of time on promotion, including a number of hours on this very blog, I recognize the value of this resource. I commend the owner of the blog and I thank McKenna for leading me to it! Cheers to you both.