books – Page 12 – Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker

Cardinal rule

January 19, 2012January 20, 2012 by Karen, posted in books, no fear, writing

I have a cardinal rule with books that stretches all the way back to my college years and here it is:

I never write in a book.

It feels like defacement to me to write in or on a book. I went through four years of college and two years of nursing school (not to mention countless hours of continuing education courses over the years) and never once highlighted so much as a word, penciled in so much as a line, in a textbook (or any other book, for that matter),

Perhaps you can imagine the emotional distress I’m feeling every day as I write in my book, my own book. The book that I wrote.

I’ve concluded that the best way to proceed (if I’m ever going to finish it) is to make the corrections directly on the pages of the proof copy.

It is the most reckless act in which I have engaged in years.

Okay, so that’s not really true, but you get the idea. ..I’m living on the edge here, people!

🙂

Another book to read

January 11, 2012January 11, 2012 by Karen, posted in books, Date night, Marriage, relationships, writing

The Secret Lives of Wives: Women Share What It Really Takes to Stay Married by Iris Krasnow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought this book rocked. I was especially happy to find it when I did: at the end of my writing “How to Stay Married in Midlife” and launched the “Sharpen Your Knives” blog (http://sharpenyourknives.wordpress.com/), and not before or during that process. The book includes stories from women who have been married for a long time, and includes their strategies for having been able to stay married. Hint: some are sort of kinky. Iris sprinkles in anecdotes from her own marriage, about which I am not sure how I feel. It might have been okay if she had confined her marriage story to one chapter. Instead, she randomly sort of randomly puts in her two cents where maybe it isn’t needed. In some of the stories, the women retain their anonymity, in some they just let it all hang out. You get to hear from women who are in their 70’s and (yep) are still married. It’s really a quite hopeful, “You can do it!!” sort of a book. Definitely worth reading.

View all my reviews

A very interesting book

January 9, 2012 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, books, family, friends

Breaking Bread: Recipes and Stories from Immigrant Kitchens by Lynne Christy Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was mostly interested in the story told by the immigrant from Italy, and I was not disappointed. The woman’s words were very compelling to me. She talked about the difference between growing up in Italian culture, as she did, and growing up in American culture. She talks about American society as linear, and Italian society as more disorganized, messy. She concludes that this affects our neurological development. The example is shopping in supermarkets here that are laid out neatly in lines, and shopping for food in the Italian outdoor markets that are like noisy mazes. She feels that she, who grew up in Italy, has had a great benefit to her cognition that her son, who is growing up here, has not. She longs to take him to Italy. It made me long to go there too. This chapter alone made the book completely wonderful and worth reading for me. It essentially gave me a perspective on growth and development that I had never thought of before. Check this book out. Find YOUR chapter.

View all my reviews

Finishing my (first) book

January 7, 2012 by Karen, posted in books, education, my one word, no fear, writing

My One Word (aka New Year’s Resolution) for 2011 was to finish my book.

Instead, I wrote a second one.

What’s that about? Well, what I told myself at the time was that I was following a strategy that Stephen King advocated in On Writing, where you put your “finished” manuscript into a drawer and basically ignore it for a few months.

My gut tells me that it was really about procrastination.

So there I was, in December of 2011, and I had only reached Chapter 2 (of 50+) chapters in my book since I’ve been editing the typos and such out of it. My husband, once again, took pity on me. He suggested that I get a room with a view to work on my edits, freer from housework, mail, mommy (and wife!) roles, and other distractions, since this had been so effective (I’m ashamed to admit this) almost one year ago, when I was getting the printed out copy ready to become a proof copy.

And so I did. I got about one-third of the way through the proof that day. I set a goal to reach page 100, which I accomplished. I estimate the book is a little over 300 pages at this point (since I neglected to add them in the proof copy, I don’t know for sure!) so that’s not a bad day’s work.

The good news is that the manuscript for the second book is much less of a mess than was/is the first. I figured out that I needed to put in the chapter breaks and blank pages as I go, because they do not magically appear at the end when you finish, as I had previously thought. I also know how to paginate the darn thing, which I didn’t know for manuscript #1.

Maybe it was really all part of the writing process?

Here’s hopin’.

Thoughts on writing

November 28, 2011 by Karen, posted in books, family, friends, my one word, no fear, Work from Home, writing

: My first book written during NaNoWriMo 2010

Okay, I was going to entitle this post “On Writing” but didn’t want to piss Stephen King off. This is my second year participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge. For those of you that wonder what that alphabet soup of letters stands for, it’s National Novel Writing Month and it takes place annually in November. Basically, we commit to writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

Seriously.

Why did I participate this year when the book I wrote last year is still languishing on the shelf, so to speak? When I asked not only my husband but my Angels (at the Clay Hill Farm Angel Reading in October) if I should do it and they said, in a word, “No”?

I don’t know. But here’s something that I do know: as I sat here on November 27, and I typed my 50,000th word….it felt freakin’ fantastic!!!

So now I’m going to borrow one of Oprah’s favorite sayings: “What I know for sure” on the evening that I finished my second NaNoWriMo and my second book (draft):

Writing flourishes when you have deadlines.
Writing is prolific when you stop editing yourself and just write.
Writing gets done when you commit to doing it publicly (to me, NaNoWriMo is sort of the writer’s equivalent of Weight Watchers).
Writing begets writing. The more I write, the more I write.

I also wonder if the fact that thousands of other writers are taking part in their own personal NaNoWriMo Vision Quest somehow results in a metaphysical momentum (you know, being part of something larger than yourself?) that carries us all forward to reach the finish line.

Marital strife and strength

November 20, 2011 by Karen, posted in books, Midlife Crisis, relationships

One of the things that my husband always says after an argument is “I don’t feel connected”. It’s true; there is a disconnect that occurs not just during, but also after any, um, heated disagreements, and it can take a while to get back to that feel-good place of harmony in the aftermath. Sometimes it can just take a few moments to get this back; other times, well, it can take days. 😦 This is the strife.

It’s worth putting all else aside to focus on getting that connection back up and running, however. Whether your connection has been forged over two months or twenty years, it’s worth protecting from harm.

Yes, I’m telling you that I believe that it’s true: we are tethered to our mates.

And I don’t mean just legally. I’m actually starting to think that it might be a spiritual sort of energy thread that connects us to each other (and not in ball-and-chain fashion, either; I think that phrase may have been coined status post knock-down-drag-out, if you know what I mean).

In the book Blissology: The Art & Science of Happiness the author Andy Baggott talks about this connection in relation to happiness.

He asserts that:

“Unhappiness has no source except within ourselves and is nothing more or less than a disconnection (italics mine) from happiness–” (p. 18)…or, you and your spouse from each other, I think.

He goes on to say:

“We are eternal beings of pure positive energy, and the only reason we don’t feel that way is because we have become disconnected.”

So, it’s our work, then, to regain that connection when it has been broken, that feeling that you are in this together. Talking can help (note: sometimes talking makes it worse; if it does, then stop!). Humor can help. Taking a walk, together or apart and then regrouping, can help, as well as any physical activity…(yep, I’m talkin’ sex here).

Working together (even when you don’t like each other very much) to regain your connection can be hard, but it’s certainly doable. 🙂 This is the strength.

So, in the eternal words of The Stereo MC’s:

“Somethin’ ain’t right
Gonna get myself, I’m gonna get myself
Gonna get myself connected.”

🙂

How do you regain your connection to your significant other after an argument?

Baking healthy

October 11, 2011October 11, 2011 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, books, family, friends, health, quest for the best

No, that’s not an oxymoron…or is it? I set out to bake some muffins that wouldn’t comprise my total recommended caloric consumption for the entire day.

It has not been an easy row to hoe (or is it ‘road‘? Whatever). First of all, I have a husband who will always tell me exactly what he thinks of whatever it is that I’ve baked (or cooked, for that matter). I understand that there are some people out there that appreciate this level of truthfulness.

Usually (at least when it comes to my culinary efforts) I do not count myself among them.

I found a recipe that largely drew me because I had everything I needed already to bake them immediately, so I made them while my husband was at work. I figured we’d have them for breakfast in the morning. I tried one (okay, three) when they came out of the oven and thought they were just fine. I tupperwared them up and went to bed.

The next morning, there the lovely muffins sat on my kitchen island. My daughter tried them. She said they were good. My friend Kristen tried them. She said they were good. I mentioned this to my husband, as he eyed them suspiciously, blatantly not trying them. He apparently was not convinced.

I tried again. “You always say you don’t like baked goods because they’re too sweet. This recipe is not too sweet, which is partly why I chose it.”

“Okay, I’ll try it…” he said. He picked one up. He gingerly took a bite. He turned and spit said bite into the trash. “Ugh, that’s horrible!” he said. He started to throw the remaining piece out when I grabbed it and said, “Stop! I’ll eat it! It’s good!”

Later on that evening, after I’d mostly forgotten (but only partially forgiven him for) his performance earlier in the day, he leaned over and whispered…”You know, I even threw one of your muffins to the chickens this morning.”

“They threw it back.”

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Susan Conley at Kennebooks

September 21, 2011September 21, 2011 by Karen, posted in books, friends, good grief, health, local fun, no fear, relationships, writing

Susan Conley recently came to Kennebooks to read from her book, The Foremost Good Fortune. Susan is a Mainer, raised in Woolwich. In addition to being a great writer, she is also a great reader. Maybe this is because (as we learned in her talk) Susan is a poetry teacher, and when she reads passages from her book aloud, in her slow, sing-song-y sort of way of drawing out the syllables, the consonant sounds…it makes her book sound like poetry. Could this manner of speech perhaps be connected to her learning to speak Mandarin?

I also learned that hula hooping and badminton are “huge” in China. That she was involved in the founding of The Children’s Room.

“Memoir is all about honesty,” Susan says, and further states that “you feel it when it’s not (honest).” This is why, after her writers group read her earlier drafts of this book they basically asked her, “Where are you in this?” and she ultimately rewrote so that she was now “showing up” on the page. “You’ve got to take us to those places,” her writing friend said, of “emotional complexity” that were lacking in the earlier work. Oh and of course, I learned the significance of the title of the book.

🙂

Susan started writing her book, was diagnosed with cancer, then started writing it all over again. A different book. This book. She says she told her story in the present tense in the book and thinks of it as a love letter to her sons, who she hopes will read it one day.

Finally, The best thing that I learned is that Susan has been cancer-free for three years.

Susan may be back at Kennebooks in March as part of the Maine Women Write Book Club. Consider joining! The first meeting is slated for mid-October at the time of this writing. Call (207-967-6136) or email Ann (ann@kennebooks.com) at Kennebooks for more information. Hope to see you there!

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Angels at the beach

September 7, 2011September 7, 2011 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, good grief, local fun, Midlife Crisis, relationships

I was walking at the beach with my daughter and my husband the other day. I was thinking about how big she’d gotten, which led to thoughts of her at different ages throughout the years, and how I received that sign from my dad that I was pregnant with her.
Of course, thinking about one dead relative inevitably (for me) leads to thoughts about other dead relatives. Wells Beach reminds me of Nantasket Beach in the 1970’s, and Nantasket beach reminds me of my grandmother. She always took me to the beach (ocean) when I was growing up, and I always think of her when I am near it, so granted, thoughts of Nana had been hovering there in the back of my mind for the past hour or so.

After we finished our beach walk we went to Forbes to get some lunch. I was telling my husband how I had been trying to get to Forbes all summer but something kept coming up and I never made it. I decided to take it as a sign that it was because I was supposed to be there this day in particular. He smiled at me, indulgently. He is used to me ascribing meaning to things that he does not.

As we were finishing up our lunch, I suddenly became aware of the conversation at the table behind me: “Nana, are you happy here at the beach? You’re an angel!”

I swear to God.

I felt a huge surge of emotion as the tears welled up and spilled forth (zero to 180 in a millisecond!).

I just finished a pretty good book that has an angel subplot: Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt. Check it out!

Summer vacation (day 4)

August 29, 2011August 29, 2011 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, italian, local fun, yoga

Broke with routine and went to a second yoga class at Windsong Yoga.
Housework (like taxes, no one gets a vacation from that!).
Finished the book I was reading, Oxygen by Carol Wiley Cassella; didn’t like the ending much.
Spent an hour at the library leafing through magazines. Fun for free! 🙂
Sea Dogs game at Hadlock Field. Ate Italian Sausage with peppers and onions, french fries, 1/3 of a pretzel, ice cream sundae. Bleah.
Found the copy of The 17 Day Diet by Mike Moreno that I bought at the library book sale a few weeks ago. Sigh. Will peruse.