Thanks SO MUCH, Beverly. I am praying for Phil.

I got an email today that made me cry. In fact, I’m still crying. I was given permission by Beverly to share it with my readers.

Can I ask all my friends, family, and anyone out there in the blogosphere with a heart to add Phil to your prayers?  He can use them.  Maybe a whisper or two for Beverly, who must be feeling weary. And may angels continue to float through the halls of Dana Farber.

Dear Ms. Olinger,

I wanted to write to you to thank you for the short story, My Boyfriend's Back. A nurse at Dana Farber noticed me reading on my Kindle and wrote your name down on a piece of paper for me. I have been visiting the DF Cancer Institute with my husband for a few weeks, who is battling prostate cancer.  
I hope you don't mind if I share a small part of our story with you. Phil, my husband, was my crush when we went to high school together. That was 37 years ago, but we met up after years apart at our 20th high school reunion. Just like Rori and John! He was divorced and I had never married. We grew up three streets apart in Quincy. I always admired him, but was very shy. After sitting together at the reunion we began dating and were never apart again.
Your story reminded me so much of how lucky we were to find eachother, and how much Phil means to me. I also loved your angels! It made me wonder about every orderly, aide, nurse, and patient advocate we have met in this difficult time. How many are angels, like your Norman "Normiel" and his friends? I think all of them are!!
Phil is holding his own. I wanted to let you know that reading your story made me smile and laugh on a very hard day. My daughter bought me this Kindle for Christmas. I never thought I'd read on an ebook device. Boy, was I wrong! Thank you so much for making a bad day better. When I thanked the nurse she told me you were a very nice person who does a lot for families and survivors of cancer. That made me feel even better. I can just tell I'd like you very much. Waiting for your next stories eagerly.

Sincerely,
Beverly*

Brighton, MA

Blessings, and blessings, and grateful thanks to you, Beverly, for taking the time to write to me.  I’ll be praying for you and Phil with all my might.

*I deleted Beverly’s last name for her privacy.

Welcome My Friends at Kindle Kandy!

Just a quick hello and a recommendation for Kindle owners/readers… my friends Maria Alvarez, Odette Flannagan, and Sarah Levy are launching a Kindle blog with lots of fun stuff. 

Full disclosure: they have pimped me in their opening salvo, and I designed the site and helped them set it up. But it’s ALL them, and I am now just a fan.  Maria, Dette, and Sarah are planning to recommend books that have a minimum of 10 reviews, with an overall rating of 4 stars or higher.  They will list mostly free titles, but others, as well.  And they’ll be doing reviews and short articles, too.

Visit them and follow on twitter or FB to keep up!  Kindle Kandy

Anti-Social Media

A recent discussion on a forum I frequent resulted in a friendly debate about social media. The original poster cited an article claiming it was useless.  Others chimed in to question the source, the methods, and the proof in proverbial puddings.

Me? I’m with Eric Clapton.  It’s in the way that you use it.

Nearly all of my readers who didn’t simply find me on amazon itself have come to me via the web. Some were twitter encounters; some facebook; a few goodreads; many via blogs that list free/cheap reads and other blog reviewers.  Some of those tweets/postings were my own, many (probably most) were from others.

Yet a lot of writers claim to get no benefit. Why?

Not to be mean, but it’s not us, it’s you.

In most cases, if a person tweets nothing but pimpage, I unfollow/defriend and  never look back.  In a few cases, the person in question was someone I LIKED, so I didn’t want to be rude or insulting. I kept him or her in my twitter follows or facebook friends.  I see these authors post the EXACT SAME PIMP once or twice per day.  They don’t interact.  They don’t converse.  They are, to put it bluntly, ANTI-SOCIAL.  The “social” in social media is the difference.

I follow some writers I admire, but do not know personally.  They post links to their work, articles about themselves and their friends, photos of covers, and more.  I’ll click that link EVERY SINGLE TIME.  But I also laugh at their jokes, become interested in their charities, and think about the things they say. There is a reason I read Joe Konrath’s blog, but have only read a few of his books.  There is a reason I read Patrick Rothfuss with cultish-fangirl fervor, and will also await his somewhat rare blog posts with relish. There is also a reason I could give a shit less what my actual friend, Suzy Author is posting on twitter. She posted it yesterday. She’ll post it tomorrow.  It looks EXACTLY like this:

It will look EXACTLY like that every time Suzy shares… and it’s the only thing Suzy EVER shares. Twice a day, clockwork, Facebook and Twitter.  Suzy is not a real person, and that tweet was created in Paintshop… but I know a dozen Suzys and Sams, and only my personal affection for them keeps them in my feed at all.

Not only will nobody ever click the link… they are very likely to become utterly turned off.   The flip side of that practice—one of anti-social rudeness, if we want to put a fine point on it—is an engaging, pleasant relationship between author or publisher and reader.  I’ve purchased books in a single, casual CLICK simply because the person recommending it was somebody I respected. But I’ve picked up a title or two because everyone HATED the book and I was curious… or because there was a kerfuffle over the subject and I wanted in.  But the common denominator isn’t that I LIKE the people involved… it was that I found them INTERESTING.

Social. For those who are vague about the meaning:

so·cial adj \ˈsō-shəl\

: involving allies or confederates <the Social War between the Athenians and their allies>

2 a : marked by or passed in pleasant companionship with friends or associates <an active social life> b : sociablec : of, relating to, or designed for sociability <a social club>

3 : of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society <social institutions>

4 a : tending to form cooperative and interdependent relationships with others b : living and breeding in more or less organized communities<social insects>c of a plant : tending to grow in groups or masses so as to form a pure stand

5 a : of, relating to, or based on rank or status in a particular society <a member of our social set> b : of, relating to, or characteristic of the upper classesc : formal

6 : being such in social situations <a social drinker>

Source: Merriam-Webster Online

Letting A Cameo Go

Most people know I collect cameos.  My collection gets so gigantic that, occasionally, I have to let a few go.  I don’t mind keeping some of the museum pieces (several that are large and unset) under glass to be cooed over, but the rings, pins, and sets… these deserve to be worn by somebody who loves them.

My favorite collectibles are rings, but I seem to only wear the ones Ahmed has given me.  I like to see him glance down, spot it on my hand, and smile.  So this ring— a turn of the century piece I got at an estate sale—is going to a new home.  She is a beautiful Italian carved muse (there’s a harp at her shoulder) with AMAZING silver work in the setting— very fine and detailed rope and beadwork. 

She’s a size 8 and is up for paid-adoption on ebay.  I hope somebody loves her as much as I do.  It’s pathetic—I sell them because it makes me sad NOT to wear them, but I cry every time, too.

CLICK HERE TO BID

Crashed… Lyrics from a Song Within a Story

I’m working tonight on a short story written a few years ago that I would like to put out sometime in the next year as a free read.  The other stuff was making my brain mushy.

In the story, a woman uses songs she sings in a little pub to bare her heart to her husband.  I was looking through old lyric notebooks from the days when I wrote and sang with friends (loooong ago).  Then I thought about that adorable line Ahmed gave a friend, who asked him “when did you fall for her?”  He answered “I didn’t fall, I crashed.”  It has always stayed with me.  I’ve stolen it for the following song.

Crashed

Frame the question in your heart:
was it worth the sacrifice?
Second chances, second starts...
Second leases on a life.
If I had the chance to change
or to start it all anew
take a second shot-- it's strange,
but I'd run right back to you.
It's been rough and it's been tangled
but the twists have made a shape
that, while bruised, and torn, and strangled
it's an ache I can't escape.
Light casts shadows on the pain,
but the curves rise from the lows
and time lifts most of the stains
and time softens all the blows.
It's been coming-- we both knew
there's a choice we'll have to make
twisted, tiny, but it grew--
beat the odds-- found roots to take.
Sad and fragile-- weak and pale,
but it's yearning for the light
and the light may dim and fail
but there's hope where there's a fight.
Would you stay, and fight with me?
Will you give this thing a chance?
Will you look for light with me
in this tumbling, crazy dance?
Out of chaos comes-- I don't know
something worth the fear and pain.
And if we can't try now I don't know--
if I can ever try again.
Let it live. Let it breathe.
Let it struggle toward the sun.
Take my hand. Just don't leave.
Fight that tremor. Stay. Don't run.
We're a tide. Ebbing, flowing...
sometimes high and sometimes low.
And I know my fear is showing,
that I'm so scared you're gonna go.
Like the waves upon the shore,
scattering treasures where they've dashed
from the fear came something more
babe, I didn't fall, I crashed.

© Chrissy Olinger … last line stolen from Ahmed El Anjanar  :)

Thanks for Your Views

I would like to take a brief moment to thank everyone who has reviewed My Boyfriend’s Back.  The time you take to give feedback is a tremendous gift to authors.  Some authors don’t read reviews—I do.  But your remarks help move books, inform other readers, and keep our work active out there in the interwebs.

Not everybody loves me, though I have been very touched to discover most do.  Your opinions do matter, and the time you take does, too.

Thank you, readers!  Independent reviews from independent reviewers are perhaps the greatest gift to independent authors.