Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
The Writing Life — and a “Changing Faces” Update
Folks, once again, I had a promising story bounce out of a market. I have tried this particular story, “Sounds of Nightfall,” at every major market and most of the minor markets . . . sometimes it gets good comments, and other times, it has drawn a “huh?” reaction.
Anyway, I’d found a jazz magazine that does a short fiction contest, so I decided to try “Sounds” there, as it’s about a jazz musician who’s been helped by the spirits of two deceased saxophonists — Charlie Parker and Art Pepper — and I hoped for the best.
Unfortunately, it didn’t win a prize there — they have first, second, and third prizes available — and it bounced out after about a month and a half.
I write urban fantasy, mostly. (Every once in a while, I surprise myself and write space opera. Or even hard SF, when I can wrap my mind around the concepts.) This was a story that was in the queue for the magazine Dreams of Decadence when it suddenly went under about a year ago; that’s probably as close as “Sounds” has been to actually getting published.
I’m starting to think that I should put together a bunch of my short stories that have drawn good comments, or, “I nearly bought this, but . . . ” types of things, and put them at SmashWords and at Amazon.com. I don’t know how well they’d sell, of course, but at least they’d be out there and off my computer.
See, this is how the economy affects writers. Mainstream magazines, even in the SF/F genre, have to be cognizant of the “bottom line” — how much profit, or at least as little of a loss as possible, can they make during this economic downturn? With the digital realm affecting print magazines in various ways, that means there are more markets available than before — but most do not pay very much. And all of them want to find people who have sales, and a following, and/or have gifts of self-promotion if at all possible, all in order to drive sales and page-views.
Now, this is perfectly understandable from an economic perspective, but it hurts newer writers — or unknown ones, like me — because we don’t necessarily have names. We don’t necessarily have enough of a Web presence to drive page-views. All we have are good stories that we want people to read, and sometimes, that doesn’t seem to be enough. (But I shall persevere.)
So that’s about it, as far as a short story update; a few stories and one poem are out at various markets — and I did get a story into the Writers of the Future contest last quarter, for whatever that’s worth — but my main strengths as a writer tend to come out when I’m writing novels, not short fiction. That’s why I work on my novels more, even though they take more time and thought to write . . . but I also work on the shorter forms (short story, novelette, novella) because I want to master them, too. (We’ll see how long that takes, or if I ever get there.)
My general advice for other writers is this: go out there and write whatever you can. Then try to sell it — ralan.com is one of the best places to go to find markets, while duotrope.com is another good one (both are free, but take donations if you’re able to help them out) — however you can. Some of my fellow writers have discussed how they use spreadsheets; they mark off which magazines they’ve tried, and when, and where, so if you find this a useful tool, go for it. And don’t let rejection get you down; just keep trying, because you never know when someone’s going to like your work.
As for the “Changing Faces” update, I’m happy to report I managed about 1800 words (the first words written on this project, at all, since last year sometime) and believe I have a good starting point for chapter 20. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m cautiously optimistic at this time.
Figure it this way: if I get any words in during this time of great stress (with the bad economy, many personal issues including the ill health of my very good friend Jeff, and other things), I’m ahead of the game. Which is why when I turn on my computer later tonight, and see what else I can get with regards to this MSS, I hope to be able to better develop the nascent “I think I know what’s next” feeling and get it actually down on the page. (Here’s hoping.)
Who Cares About the Friends and Family?, or, How to Stay Strong during a Family Health Crisis
Right off the bat, I want to say that I’m not a health care professional. I’m just a person who’s observed many people in crises and believe that caregivers, or family members, or those who are trying hard to support someone who is in the hospital, or has a serious chronic illness that impacts every part of his or her life, need to be supported.
Note that this particular post has been prompted due to the health of my good friend Jeff, who remains ill in a Fort Collins hospital at this time. Jeff’s been in the hospital now for approximately three weeks; two weeks ago, he had open-heart surgery, and there have been a number of people at his bedside ever since (along with the doctors and medical personnel that you’d expect).
I know that I’m far away from where “the action is” with regards to my friend; he is ill, and I am very concerned about him. I have talked with his family members, I have talked with his good friend (and medical POA), and for the most part, my focus has been on how to get Jeff better rather than how all these people, who’ve been around Jeff and his illness now for three solid weeks, can hang in there and remember their own needs at such a difficult and distressing time.
But they, too, are suffering. They see Jeff in that hospital bed, and he’s not well. They’ve been there for weeks now, and that’s extremely distressing; further, there’s no timetable as to when he’ll get better and be able to go home or to a rehab facility — which is why I thought to post this at all, in the hopes that it might do some good, and that it probably won’t do any harm. (“First, do no harm,” that’s the Hippocratic Oath. And while I’m not a medical person by any stretch of the imagination, self-care is still a medical function, right? So it seems like that Oath applies.)
What I’ve learned is this: if you take some time for yourself — providing you’re in a long-term situation, where someone is ill for a long period of time (either at home, or in the hospital, or in a hospice, or whatever), you are actually better able to deal with your ill family member or friend.
I know this sounds nonsensical; you want to be there every minute, to show that you care, and to do all you possibly can to aid the health care professionals to get your loved one well, or at least keep him or her as well as possible.
But we’re human beings, and we need to take at least some care of ourselves during a health crisis. We have to remember that if we don’t take care of ourselves, we’re not going to be able to do all we can for our ill family member or friend.
Now, what I mean by “take care of yourself” is this: make sure you eat. Make sure you get adequate rest. Do something nice for yourself, even if it’s as simple as buying yourself a small piece of candy, or talking a walk outside in the sun.
Don’t neglect yourself, whatever you do. Because focusing all your attention on your ill family member is actually counterproductive, unless it’s such an urgent crisis (life-or-death, with immediacy, something like I faced on my husband Michael’s final day of life) that you have no choice but to do so. (Even then, the health care people told me I should make sure to eat something; I managed a banana, I think. To go wash my face; to have water; to talk a walk inside the hospital to clear my head. And they told me to take my regular medicines on schedule, too; I had to stay strong in case my husband was able to survive.)
For Jeff’s family and friends who are there in Colorado with him — and for those of us who care for Jeff very much, but do not live in Colorado and haven’t been able to get there — we have to remember to do what we can to take care of ourselves in addition to whatever we can do for Jeff. (What I can do right now is pray. That’s about it. But I am assuredly doing that.)
Taking care of ourselves is not selfish; instead, it’s our way of staying ready to help.
So if taking in a movie helps to clear your head, you should go do it.
If going out to eat is what you need — go do it. (If you can’t stand the hospital food, briefly leaving the hospital for an hour or whatever isn’t going to change things for your loved one — and it may really help you, which indirectly helps your loved one.)
In other words — self-sacrifice to excess is a vice. So please, do something nice for yourself every day — even if it’s just to luxuriate in the shower an extra minute, or take a walk, or eat a candy bar, or read a few pages in a book that makes you laugh . . . these are good things to do, and you should make a point of doing them for your own mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
Taking care of yourself should help you be better able to deal with your extremely sick loved one. So please, keep this in mind; I know it feels wrong to take care of yourself at such a stressful time, but if you won’t, who will? (And if something happens to you, how will that help your sick friend or family member any?)
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Note: I’ve walked this path, and I know how bad it feels to be there but not be able to affect the outcome at all. I think being there at your loved one’s bedside is the right move — of course it’s the right move! But you have to remember that in a long-term illness, you need to take care of you in addition to your loved one . . . also, if the person in question wasn’t so very ill, he or she would want you to take care of yourself.
My Goal for NaNo — Finish “Changing Faces”
Folks, I’m going to set this in stone right now: my goal for NaNo is to finish, for once and for all, my novel CHANGING FACES (a non-Elfyverse spiritual, transgender romantic urban fantasy).
NaNo, for those of you who are new to writing, is National “finish a novel” month — or “write a novel month” if you’re so inclined. Writers are encouraged to write 50,000 words or more on a novel, and some writers work the whole rest of the year setting up what they’re going to write in November because it’s become a very big deal.
Me, I don’t do that — I don’t plan my whole year around November — but I do have this novel, CHANGING FACES, that has been in need of completion for a few years now. What stopped me was this: my husband’s death. That, and only that, has been the main reason CHANGING FACES hasn’t made a whole lot of progress in recent years; I have finished a few more chapters, and am very close to the end, but up until now I haven’t been up to writing the resolution of this novel — how these two lovers, who are transgendered through no fault of theirs (a Deity figure intervened, for reasons that seemed good at the time), manage to become reunited.
Now, there’s a coma involved — body displacement — with only one of the lovers awake and aware (knowing full well he’s in the wrong body, but not knowing why the Hell he’s in this situation), while the other one is speaking with an alien life form inside her own head (but also in the wrong body). In effect, these two lovers have “changed faces” — the man’s in the woman’s body, the woman in the man’s — due to a tumultuous situation that happened long before either one met the other.
For the longest time, I didn’t know how to get these two out of this situation — reversing the “body displacement” won’t work. Having it all be “a dream — a terrible, terrible dream!” (as Pam on “Dallas” said years ago when a whole season was wiped out) — won’t work, either. This has to be “played straight,” or it won’t work at all — and as some of it is really funny, I have to let it play out the way it wants. Not the way I want.
I now have an ending that works — not just the final scene, which I’ve had for years, but the whole ending. I have the additional characters I need. Now I just have to see how it all “plays out,” that’s all.
So that’s my goal — I plan to finish up CHANGING FACES in November. No, it won’t take me 50,000 words to finish it; it might take 30,000. (I am already at 108,000, but I believe a few thousand will go after the final edit.) It will take a lot of time and energy to do . . . but I believe it’s worth it, and I believe the final result will be a positive one, which is why I’m discussing it at all.
So expect some CHANGING FACES updates in November, along with my irregular “Elfyverse” updates (if and when I make any progress in any of the ELFY-derived novels), and of course the usual flotsam and jetsam of my other, non-publishing related posts.
When Life Does Not Go As Planned . . . .
Today was one of those days where I’m reminded of the phrase, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
First, my saxophone student’s mother called late to let me know that her son was not feeling well enough to take his lesson. (This happens. I’m just glad she called me before the lesson.)
Second, I was hoping to do something different this evening — something fun, maybe. Something frivolous, perhaps (that is, if I remember how to “frivol,” if that’s even a word). But that was not to be, either.
Today was all about getting work done — or in the case of my saxophone lesson that didn’t come off, being prepared to do the work but not being able to do it. So once again, it’s one of those days where life definitely did not go as planned.
That doesn’t make this a bad day, mind you. But it does make it a somewhat unsettled one.
And hey, at least tomorrow I know I’ll have a bit of down-time as I watch Dancing with the Stars.
World Series Tied, 1-1, and Other Non-Issues
Folks, right now the World Series is tied up at 1-1, meaning the St. Louis Cardinals won the first game, and the Texas Rangers won the second.
Of course, since my Milwaukee Brewers team is out of it, I don’t care that much about the outcome — and I won’t pretend I don’t. The only reason I’m following it at all is that there are at least two ex-Brewers on the Texas roster — those being pitcher Mike Adams and outfielder Nelson Cruz (both were in the minor-league system for the Brewers), and of course the Brewers’ former pitching coach, Mike Maddux, now is the pitching coach of the Rangers.
This reminds me ever so much of something my late husband, Michael, and I discussed years ago. I think we were watching a baseball game in 2003 — not a World Series game, either — and he said, “I remember that guy — he’s a former Giant.”
Not to be outdone, I told him, “Well, that guy over there for the other team” — I forget which teams they were — “is an ex-Brewer.”
Sure enough, we went to look it up, and we found several ex-Giants and ex-Brewers on both teams. That increased our viewing enjoyment in an otherwise mundane experience . . . though mundanity itself can be pleasant, if you have the right person by your side.
Anyway, right now I’m engrossed in another editing project, which takes up a large amount of my thought-space (even when I’m not editing the project in front of me, I’m thinking about it; part of the deal); that’s the main reason I’m not talking about politics (though I will, and soon), more about the Brewers (still deciding what to say about the overall Brewers season), or music (except that I’m glad to be playing, there isn’t much more I can say there right now).
Stay warm, folks.
Not Enough Words, Seven Years Later
Folks, as of midnight 9/21/11, it has been exactly seven years since I last saw my husband, Michael B. Caffrey, alive.
I keep wondering what, if anything, I could’ve done to save Michael’s life, but none of us knew that his heart was about to give out. If Michael had known anything of the sort, he would’ve camped himself in the nearest hospital ER even though he hated hospitals; there’s no way he’d have wanted to have his heart completely fail after four heart attacks, the first one having started around 10 a.m. on 9/21/04. He fell into a coma quickly thereafter and never again regained consciousness.
Michael fought hard; the doctors said they’d never seen anyone fight as hard as Michael did to cling to life. There was a pattern to the seizures he was having on the right side of his body; he appeared to be trying to communicate with me, even though he was in a coma. He certainly knew I was there and he was trying very hard to make his body work; he just couldn’t do it, that’s all.
At 8 p.m., about two hours after a fourth heart attack had lowered Michael’s blood pressure to 30/10 with a pulse rate of 4, Michael was pronounced dead. And I had to say goodbye to the man I’ve loved the most in all the world; I did my best to do this, even though it was and remains difficult for me to believe that my beloved husband Michael, an extremely creative, warm, and witty person, was dead.
I’ve told you in this blog post about how my beloved husband died. But I cannot tell you how he lived, except with gusto and grace; I cannot tell you how much he loved me, only how much I loved him.
So, even seven years later, I don’t have the words to express the depth of my feelings for my beloved husband. I wish I did; oh, do I wish I did.
All I can tell you is this: Michael changed my life for the better. I miss him every single hour of every single day. I know I always will. And because of that great love, I will keep trying to help our writing find its audience (his, mine, ours, makes no never-mind now because it all has to go through me); that’s the only way I know to keep even a small part of him alive.
Odds and Ends: WI Voter ID Law Problem, Writing, and Nyjer Morgan
Today’s one of those days it’s easier to write about a whole bunch of things, so let’s get to it.
First, it was big news yesterday when a top aide to the Wisconsin state transportation department told the staff at the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles not to give out free IDs, which are supposed to be given out due to our new voter ID law, unless people ask for them. State Senator Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, made sure to make this public as soon as he found out about it, and stated on MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation” with Al Sharpton today (Friday, September 9, 2011 to be exact) that he found this extremely distressing news and would be meeting with the appropriate people next week to get to the bottom of this. I also know from my friends and fellow Wisconsin political activists that this will not be taken lying down; no matter what Governor Walker’s hand-appointed aide says, those IDs are supposed to be given out for free or that law should be called what it is: a newfangled version of the older “poll tax.”
That said, we also have a problem here with the Milwaukee Brewers, and it’s not how poorly they’ve been playing (though that’s not been pleasant, either, as this article points out). Brewers OF Nyjer Morgan had a dust-up with St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter on Wednesday evening. After Carpenter swore at Morgan (which he now admits to doing), Morgan spit tobacco and swore at Carpenter before getting ejected. After that, Morgan took to Twitter in his alternate “Tony Plush” persona and poked fun at Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, calling Pujols a “she” and “Alberta” in the process — the reason for this apparently, is because Pujols immediately came to his pitcher’s defense and instituted a base-clearing incident that came whisker-close to becoming a brawl.
For now, Morgan is mum about it, which makes sense. (See the most recent JSOnline article about it for details.) All he’s willing to say is that he’s “glad it’s over” and that he doesn’t lie (the last in reference to Carpenter admitting he swore at Morgan), which is a good thing because what’s important overall for the Brewers is the entirety of the team, not just one player.
Mind you, I like Morgan because he plays hard, he seems like an interesting character, and he isn’t “muzzled” as so many of today’s baseball players are. He speaks his mind and I find that refreshing; I also don’t blame him for getting upset with any of the St. Louis players because there’s been some bad blood between the Brewers and Cardinals for years. I don’t condone it, but I do understand why in the heat of competition someone like Morgan might go overboard.
Here’s hoping Morgan can do what Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports suggested yesterday in this article:
Those guys in the clubhouse who love T-Plush and love Nyjer Morgan more, it’s maybe a good time to think of them. They haven’t come this far to blow an Achilles’ trying to keep Alberta Pujols from tearing off their center fielder’s limbs.
(from further down in same article)
. . . Morgan isn’t alone anymore. He has a franchise to consider. He has teammates who need him, as much as he needs them. He has a season to play out and a World Series championship to play for.
All of that is true and I hope that Morgan will listen.
And last, but certainly not least, I wrote 2300 words in a new paranormal romance story that has re-started after a nine-year lull because I finally figured out how to get it done — take it from a different character’s perspective, and this character just so happens to be an angel. Before, this particular story was stalled because I didn’t have an older, wiser viewpoint in it; now I do, and it’s one I hadn’t expected.
As this is the first fiction writing I’ve been able to do in the last two or three weeks, I’m very well pleased. Let’s hope I’ll be able to do more later this evening, and that the editing I’m about to get started on won’t shut off whatever it is that lets me write.
This Labor Day, We Know Fewer are “Laboring”
After a horrible August, where zero jobs were created whatsoever in the United States, we know that as of this Labor Day, fewer workers are working than ever before — thus, fewer are “laboring,” which is part of what is keeping the American economy down for the count.
I don’t know what the answers are, but I do know a few things could be instituted right now that would help.
For example, in Betty Jin’s recent article at BusinessInsider.com, she suggested the following:
1) Cut the corporate tax rate by 5%; this may stimulate jobs. (The risk in doing so is that it would probably increase the deficit in the short-term.)
2) Print more money, and start taxing corporate savings. This would force companies to invest, but could cause inflation. The hope here is that the American companies would invest in American workers, which would keep inflation down to a manageable level.
3) Increase “infrastructure” spending — in other words, start building roads, bridges, and other things like rail lines, as this definitely would create jobs. Also, everyone of every party wants safe roads and bridges — this one seems like a win/win, especially if President Obama stops calling it “infrastructure,” something very few people seem to realize means “roads and bridges,” and starts calling this exactly what it is — putting people back to work doing something that’s vital and necessary.
This last one, to my mind, is the strongest of the 10 things Jin says can be done right now to improve the economy (it’s third on her list; to see the other seven, click on her article) because Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican President, was the one who pushed for the Interstate highway system we all take for granted back in the 1950s. So it would be really hard for the current crop of radical Republicans to say that this is a bad idea, considering it was started by their own party.
Next, there’s the New Republic’s article, written by Jared Bernstein, that’s headline states “Obama’s Got Plenty of Options to Right the Economy — He’s Just Got to Fight for them.” This article is part of the New Republic’s “Symposium on the Economy” that’s sub-titled, “Is there Anything that can be Done?” Other articles in this series can be found here.
At any rate, here’s the first few paragraphs from Bernstein’s article:
Here’s the policy reality facing the president: The economy is stuck in the mud and the American people are losing faith that policy makers can do anything about it. As long as GDP growth is persistently below trend—trend being around 2.5 percent—the unemployment rate won’t be going anywhere good anytime soon. Paychecks, meanwhile, are declining in real terms, so we’re stuck in a cycle where the weak job market hurts household budgets, which trims consumption, which discourages investors.
The only games in town are fiscal or monetary stimulus—there, I said the ‘s’ word—but the president is boxed in, it is said, by three forces: First, he’s got no job-creation bullets left; second, even if he did, and American people don’t believe the government can help on the jobs front (a pathetic 26 percent have confidence in Washington’s ability to solve economic problems); and, third, Republicans in Congress will block any idea he proposes anyway. Thankfully, none of these challenges are as insurmountable as they might seem, and pushing relentlessly to overcome them is the president’s best, and only, chance to change the fundamental direction of the debate, find his footing, and create some momentum for the economy and for himself.
Mind you, all of this means one thing: President Obama must lead, and the country must follow wherever the President leads with regards to the economy. This means a comprehensible strategy must be created, and thus far, I really haven’t seen very much out of the current Administration that leads me to believe there’s much going on there except reactionary spending — that is, Timothy Geithner, current Secretary of the Treasury, and Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, have performed well in their jobs but they haven’t really seemed to set policy so much as react to it instead. This may be an error on my part; I’m no financial wizard by any stretch of the imagination. But it seems to me that if these two men have a grand, overarching vision, it surely hasn’t been well-explained to the “men (and women) on the street” like me. And it also seems that if these two men do have a way out of this mess, the President doesn’t seem to know what it is, either — or, perhaps, he’s just not saying because he knows the Republicans in Congress wouldn’t like it and would say so with great vigor and dispatch.
Note that at a Labor Day rally and speech that President Obama gave today in Detroit, Michigan, the President seemed to not only understand the high stakes of this “game” (if he loses public opinion on this issue, any chance he has of a second term will be gone), but understood the need to boldly counterattack the current crop of Republican Presidential candidates including Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Gov. of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney according to today’s AP article listed at Yahoo News. Obama said:
“I’m going to propose ways to put America back to work that both parties can agree to, because I still believe both parties can work together to solve our problems,” Obama said at an annual Labor Day rally sponsored by the Detroit-area AFL-CIO. “Given the urgency of this moment, given the hardship that many people are facing, folks have got to get together. But we’re not going to wait for them.”
“We’re going to see if we’ve got some straight shooters in Congress. We’re going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party,” he said.
Now, this sort of rhetoric is exactly what most Democrats and Independents have been waiting for, but until voters see some action beyond the words, it’s unlikely to help overmuch. Still, this is the right message — people are hurting, and the President seems to “get” that — and one can only hope that the President’s advisors are reading the same articles I am that offer some real possibilities rather than just allowing the economy — and workers — to continue to be flushed down the drain.
What to do when a Publishing Relationship Ends
Why is it that most writers plan for the beginning of a publishing relationship, but never plan for the end?
I know, I know. The end of any relationship, in or out of publishing, is not what most people prefer to dwell upon because it’s depressing. The end of any relationship means the end of any current possibilities, and that’s sad and extremely difficult for most human beings to contemplate.
That being said, in the current world we live in, we need to plan how to deal with failure graciously. (Not that every end to every publishing relationship means you’ve failed, mind you; just that it’s going to feel like failure, especially when you know you’ve tried everything in your power to make a publishing enterprise work.) We need to learn how to come to terms with setbacks, be they minor or major, and learn to deal with them as graciously as possible.
See, I look at the publishing business as a long-term thing that, in its own way, is a microcosm of life. We’re going to have good days and bad. The good days are usually easy to handle; it’s the tough ones we must learn from as best we can.
What I do when a publishing relationship has ended is to acknowledge it, make some sort of announcement to those who need to know about it, and am otherwise as polite as humanly possible. My thoughts, which are greatly influenced by those of my late husband Michael in this regard, are these: who knows if I’ll be working with this person/these people in the future? So why be obnoxious now when there’s really no need for it?
Yes, we need to acknowledge when we’re upset or frustrated. I’ve never advocated “sitting on” any emotion, as in my experience that tends to fester and make things worse later on. But we don’t need to go out of our way burning bridges this way and that, either . . . in fact, if we can avoid burning bridges, that’s probably the best way to handle things.
All that being said, it’s sad when anything you’ve spent a great deal of time and effort on goes for naught; I’ve had this happen a few times this past year, and the only thing that can be done is this: chalk it up to experience, be as polite as possible, and move on.
This is very hard to do, granted. But if you can do it, others will notice and appreciate the professionalism of your attitude, which may lead you to further and better work in the future.
So, to sum up, here’s the three things you need to do when a publishing relationship of any sort ends:
1) Come to terms with it and write a brief, polite, professional note saying you’re sorry things have come to this pass (whatever it is), and that you’ve appreciated working with whomever. Also, if you can bring yourself to it, wish the person (or people) well in the future as this costs you nothing.
2) Acknowledge it to those who need to know in a brief, polite and professional note. (Keep your feelings about it, as much as possible, to yourself.)
3) Allow yourself to grieve the loss, because it is a loss — give yourself an hour, or even half a day if you must, to be upset over it. Then, do your best to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on.
Most importantly, do your best not to bear a grudge. Remember that we’re all human, we’re all fallible, and there’s no need to spread nastiness. You don’t need to put up with bad treatment, mind you; far from it. Just try to rise above it if you can while knowing that it’s possible that someday you might work with this person (or these people) again. And if that opportunity arises, you want to be able to work with whomever without undue rancor if at all possible.
You need to think long-term at a time when your inner self is screaming, “No!” at the top of its lungs. This isn’t easy, but if you can do it, it’ll help you in the long run.**
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** Michael’s name for this was the “better in sorrow than in anger” method. Try it. It works.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 