The Healing powers of Your Story

I have always been a firm believer that everyone has a story to tell.  Why do I think that?  I know this to be true because even if people have shared similar experiences, like war, poverty or family tragedy, each person's experience is unique to them.  

I could be in the same war, same natural disaster but I will see it totally differently.  My experiences will cause me to see things in a different light than even a person standing next to me. 

That being said, it is good to write about our lives, about what we personally have been through, how we may or may not have handled the situation.  By writing, by sharing, we just may touch on the heart string of another reader who has or is now, going through something so similar that they are changed, forever, by what we have written.  Is everyone an excellent writer?  Maybe not, but writing your story isn't as complicated as you might think.  With self-publishing these days, I know that what you might see as ordinary in your lives, can now reach hundreds maybe even millions of readers.  I love self-publishing because I think the reading public is not stupid.  I prefer to let the readers decide what they like, not some publisher who chooses for them.

I have assisted people in editing, arranging and telling their stories.  I enjoyed it very much.  Why?  Because while helping a writer arrange their thoughts and notes, I have read some very touching stories.  I am going to show you some great examples of that.

My husband's book is at the top of this blog.  While I may be a bit biased on his, I can assure you it is somewhat a universal story about war.  About one soldier's experiences of a war that has been such an embarrassment to the United States government, that for a very long time, the government tried to bury it and pretend it never existed.  Kind of like the WMD fiasco that has now drawn us into wars where we do not belong, to this very day.  Steve tells about his experiences in Vietnam, how it's so easy to be drawn into a war and hate faceless enemies.  But once there, once he got to know the people of that country, it became increasingly harder and harder to hate people who did nothing to us personally.  He tells of the fears soldiers face when fired upon, how most soldiers, from both sides, will shoot others more from fear than from hatred.  How propaganda about the perceived enemy, is the driving force behind all wars.  He tells why he chose to make the military his career and why he chose to become a Drill Instructor to be able to teach all soldiers how to survive when faced with combat.  I'm sure anyone will love his story. 

 Poems of a Forgotten War is a series of Steve's feelings about a war he participated in.  They express how he felt.  Sometimes torn, sometimes he loved the country, sometimes not so much.  But they can certainly express how many people in a war feel about those sometimes mixed emotions.  Did he have regrets?  Well, does anyone ever experience anything as emotional as war and not have regrets?  Vietnam may be in the past, but stories he has read about concerning our recent wars are similar.  So he has come to the conclusion that war is war, no matter the era in which it takes place.  These are poems that modern military people can relate to.

The nursing home book is my story.  I guess you can call it my baby.  I've worked with the elderly in nursing homes for a long time.  I've worked with the elderly in the community for a long time too.  This is a book about my observations of the situation that many elderly find themselves in when they are too frail to take care of themselves at home.  It is a tale of many people facing this situation.  Some like nursing homes, but far too many hate the experience.  I try to explain why people hate it, what causes them to feel like it's hopeless.  But I also tell how and why, it can all change, if people stand up and demand changes for the better.  I explain how the Federal Government and state governments think throwing money at the problem should change it.  It doesn't.  But I also tell of the Culture Change movement taking place in America right now.  I explain how it can change for the better and why it should change.  I'm hoping everyone will read it, learn from it and I hope they will demand changes and understand that the government is not the hope for changes they might have expected them to be. 

I have one more story to share.  I'm hoping this writer will not mind my sharing it.  I chose it because it is so powerful, I think everyone should read it.  This story is set in a time when home health for someone who is dying of cancer, did not exist.  This writer tells about a time when a woman, her own mother, had to experience the shame of having a child out of wedlock.   She tells of growing up and feeling she was hated by her own mother.  How she, as a very young child, had to care for a mother who was so sick, she almost felt overwhelmed by it all.  But most importantly, it is a story of healing.  A story of coming to understand that it was not her that her mother hated, but it was the situation her mother found herself in, that was the object of her hatred.  She tells of a mother who was so proud and strong, she felt like she lived in her mother's shadow as a child.  A very unique story that anyone who may not have the perfect parent, can relate too.  I hope you will take time to read it.  The author related to me how just telling her story has given her the emotional healing she so desperately wanted and needed.  A good author, a powerful book.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about the healing power of stories.  Do you have a story to tell?  If so, I'd be happy to help anyone compile their story into a manuscript.  Yes, I charge, but I charge far less them others and far less than you might think.  I can work on a sliding scale. 

Thank you for reading this blog. 

A Boy a War and a Dream

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All wars will once be forgotten

Even though that fact seems rotten

War, like tides, ebb and flow

They are hot when they are hot, and not when they are not

We rush to them with anxious feet

We roll out the bugles, the drum strikes a beat

They come, they go, they eventually run cold, as you know

I was a boy, like so many these days

Anxious to grow up, to become a man, a soldier was my way

A young soldier in search of myself

We can hate wars, as we well should, but this boy grew up

I grew to know all people are real, they hate,they love, and eventually heal

As new soldiers are finding out

War cries start with a shout

But they too will come to know, wars on a land they come and they go

On a land is one thing, the bombed acreage and sites heal

But to many a soldier, wars, well your youth, your sanity they can also steal

I cannot tell you about horrors of any war

Most don't believe me, they have to sail to that shore

You cannot prepare for any battles or fights

But I assure you, wars are all a terrible sight

So wars start with a cry and a shout

They start with a bugle charge and a drum roll

But believe me when I tell you, on you, young soldier, the rest of your life a war takes its toll

A Young Soldier's Journey to Find Himself

I was very conscious of how out-of-place I felt in school anymore. I never really liked high school much anyway, I never really fit in with the jocks. You know, those guys who eat, drink and sleep sports and take it all too seriously. I knew, even then, that beyond high school, those guys, who had once been big men on campus, would just become ordinary people as soon as they graduated. I was never very athletically inclined. I had tried out for the football team once, played one game and immediately decided it was not for me.

 A lot of the kids in high school were headed either for farming or college. Those kids had a purpose for staying in school and graduating.

My parents were poor, we didn't own a farm, just a house and ten acres with woods. I knew my parents couldn't afford college and frankly, the idea of four more years in a learning institution just didn't hold any appeal for me. Too boring.

I was much more interested in cars than sports and books in those days. But in Indiana, sports and farming was everything, especially in high school so that pretty much left me out of the ‘cool’ loop. I had great grades in school until I reached high school and decided what I'd rather be doing in life, which wasn't hitting the books.

Besides, I thought the guys who liked cars were much cooler anyway. I could relate to cars. Cars were something tangible, steel and chrome you could touch and work on. I was able to see and feel the satisfaction of a job well done when I worked on a car that had stopped running. Maybe there were no trophies involved, or a sweater with a letter on it, but there was a feeling of deep accomplishment from fixing and customizing a beautiful car.

In the 1960's cars were everything.

Everybody wanted to be seen in a hot car, even farm boys, jocks and yes, girls too.

The part time job I had recently landed as a bag boy at the local Kroger’s grocery store gave me a small taste of the adult world. In summer, weekends and holidays off, while those other kids were hanging out at drive-ins trying to pick up girls, I was helping little old ladies with groceries to their cars. But even that bit of responsibility was not enough for a boy in a hurry to grow up, the small responsibility of that job only made me hungry to experience more of what the world had to offer.

I felt like most of the crap they were teaching in school was junk I’d likely never be using in real life anyway. I fancied myself as older than my high school peers. Maybe not in years, but in my mindset. Just about everything they thought was important, I viewed as being useless.

I already felt that what was important in high school, would matter very little in the real world. 

Growing up, I had jobs as young as age 12. I picked berries one summer to earn money, later on I delivered newspapers every day after school and on weekends. I was used to hard work, the kind of physical labor you do with your hands, not always your head. 

 I think seeing my parents work so hard all the time, I grew to appreciate the value of it all and the value of money. Oh, I was smart enough, but school just couldn't hold my interest long enough for me to care about it much.

Available on:

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Resurrection of a blog

I hadn't been writing on this shared blog as much as I could have been.  We breathed new life back into it recently so I'm continuing to write here once again.

I have been steadily making progress on my third Something in the Blood book.  This is the last and final episode of what happens to the heroine, Cheryl.  There are some interesting twists and turns in the final installment and I hope my readers will enjoy them.  If I am lucky, it will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

I want to take a brief moment to thank my good friend, Suzanne, for giving me at least one interesting idea and I am  weaving it into the story line. I get ideas from news feeds, the Internet, on the street, at the mall, my wonderful husband, at the grocery store and from friends. So my followers on Facebook had better watch out, you never know when you might be giving me ideas for a story.   I love keeping alert to anything that will give me a glimmer of something interesting to place in a book.  

This last one has taken me longer to write because between my computer dying to making sure it is the most interesting ending I can write, it has been a rather long journey.  But it is, as always, an interesting and fun journey.  I want this last one to be my best yet.  

Thanks to all my readers who remain loyal and I want you all to enjoy what happens to the band of vampires of Something in the Blood, the Turning. 



Excerpt: Something in the Blood, the Turning
 I stopped packing for a moment to look at the newspaper lying on the bed.

Visiting detective found dead, three area young women missing.

A detective, who had recently been called in to assist the local police, was found this morning, dead in his car. Police said that three area young women have been reported missing as well. Authorities think there may be a connection between the incidents. Police theory says that the visiting detective had been called in to assist with solving a series of strange murders and missing people in our area. They speculate the detective may have tried to rescue the three young women, confronted the killer and was shot for his heroic efforts. That was all the police report had to offer, we hope to keep you updated as the case unfolds.

Hero indeed, I couldn't help but be irritated by that line, but the part about 'three young women reported missing' did make me feel a twinge of sadness. Sadness for my mom and for Karla's mom too. Not ever knowing where your children went or what happened to them is something they'll have to live with the rest of their lives.

Yet, here we are, here I was, packing to take a trip to move to Transylvania. I figure the police will tire of looking for us, especially with few clues to help them and no bodies to ever confirm we were dead.

We are dead, at least by human standards, but not the lie down in your grave, staying dead, kind of dead. Not in the conventional sense as humans understand death anyway.