Starting Over ~ A Sisterhood No One Wanted to Join

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Linda Barrett

May the FORCE be with you…and me…

A breast cancer diagnosis slams into you with the subtlety of a freight train. You can’t breathe. You can’t think. And you can’t believe it’s happening to you. But it is. It happened to me.

As women, we’ve been trained to get our yearly mammograms and do monthly self-examinations. If we’re conscientious, we follow those rules. As our fingers touch and examine , searching our breasts for the unusual, we pray they find nothing. In the radiology lab, we pray our mammos are clean. For one in seven, our prayers are not answered, and suddenly we are members of a sisterhood we didn’t ask to join.

I often wear this.

Although I’ve been part of that sisterhood for twelve years, I know relatively few “sisters” personally. That situation is changing. When I was first diagnosed in 2001, I was working a full-time day job which was integral to maintaining my sanity. Sticking to my familiar routines kept me rooted. When the ordeal ended, I continued to work, write, and pay attention to family and friends. In 2011, the diagnosis arrived in the midst of our moving to the Tampa area, a thousand miles from our home in Houston. The side effects of chemo knocked me on my keister, and I just wanted to get through each day. Keeping the house spic-and-span ready for potential buyers was all that I could manage–and I even needed help with that.

Now that I am once more healthy and strong, I’ve connected with a national non-profit group that coincidentally is headquartered in Tampa called FORCE which stands for Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered. This group is dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.

Hereditary is the key word that makes this group different from other research foundations devoted to breast cancer. FORCE concentrates only on hereditary cancer. Have you heard of the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes? We all have them. For some ethnic groups, however, these genes have mutated and now cause big trouble–trouble such as breast and ovarian cancer. After being hit with a second tumor, I was tested for these mutations and learned that I carry the BRCA 1 gene mutation.

In two weeks, I’ll be attending a local get-together with other members of this sisterhood. I’m bringing Mike, my knight-in-shining tinfoil, with me. He’s been through it all. I hope I’m at the point where I can contribute to the strengthening of this force.

To learn more about hereditary breast and ovarian cancer: visit FORCE on Facebook or at their website: www.facingourrisk.org. .

CONTEST NEWS!! I’m thrilled to add a fabulous prize to this month’s drawing. Five authors from OnFireFiction are offering a five story romance package called: Love Me Some Cowboy. each story is a full novel from Lisa Mondello, Jean Brashear, Day Leclaire, Barbara McMahon and Ginger Chambers. I’m a proud member of OnFireFiction and am happy to provide this terrific prize in addition to a copy of Family Interrupted.

Post a comment and have your name added to this drawing. The contest runs through May 31st.

As always, thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you for the next edition of Starting Over.

Linda

Starting Over ~ Life in the Day Camp

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Linda Barrett

DIRTY DANCING? Hmm…not exactly…

Work before play. Work before play. That’s the philosophy my DH and I have followed since we married a million years ago. We’ve tried to live our lives responsibly. I’m sure you’ve done the same. We’ve worked hard while raising a family, contributing to the community and making friends. In what seems like the blink of an eye, however, my golfer guy is now chasing a little white ball over a sea of green grass every day and loving it. I wonder what happened to our old routine.. What happened to “going to work?”

“I am working,” says Mike. “I’m working on my golf game.”

Ah, yes. the golf game. Absolutely. And the fishing club. And the softball league, pickle ball game and the Dine-Around group. Let’s not forget the poker game at the clubhouse. And while we’re at the clubhouse, don’t forget about the swimming pool…and the pool table. Others who live here are still working real jobs. Ahem…that would be me. But with our move to the Sunshine state, the truth is that we live in a day camp for adults.

This is not my first experience with day camps. No indeed. Remember the movie Dirty Dancing? A sleeper that became a huge hit with Jennifer Gray and the late Patrick Swayze who played a dance instructor at a resort hotel for wealthy vacationers.. The movie was set in 1963, in the Catskill Mountains of New York about a hundred miles north of the city.

I spent many childhood summers in the Catskills. However, I was not wealthy and did not stay at a resort hotel. My family rented a little cottage at one of the many “bungalow colonies” for which the area was famous. A few hundred dollars bought us an escape from the concrete heat of the city during July and August. More important, the Catskills provided a possible escape from the polio virus, infamous for summer attacks in urban areas. And so my family schlepped “to the country” each summer, the car loaded with pots, pans, bedding, dishes – everything we’d need to sustain us through the season.

Every bungalow colony had a day camp for children. After all, mothers needed a break, too. Whether it was arts & crafts, nature walks, swimming, knock-hockey, punchball, softball, blueberry picking, or campfires with ghost stories, the kids were kept busy from morning til night. Every bungalow colony also had a casino–not the gambling kind–but a big social hall for adult parties and shows on Saturday night. These were the places where the comedians and entertainers of the time honed their skills and sharpened their acts. Buddy Hackett, Milton Berle, Eddie Fisher…they all found their way to these summer audiences. But the parents agreed that the best talent show of all was the one put on by their kids in the day camp.

Last month I attended a talent show by the “kids” in my day camp for adults. A home grown entertainment that was second to none this year. As though the spirit of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland hovered over the place and cast, the “Let’s put on a show” theme had imbued this day camp. On the big night, the turnout in both talent and audience was exceptional.

So now that this day camper and her golfer guy live in a 55 and better community, what has changed about day camp from our earlier years?

Not a darn thing! The fun activities and making new friends are still part of the schedule. And if the distance from the pitcher’s mound to home plate is a little shorter, or more time is spent fishing instead of running bases…well, some accommodation is to be expected as gray begins to dominate our natural hair color. (Not that it dominates for very long around here!) We might not be up for some “dirty dancing,” but the dance floor is definitely crowded on New Year’s Eve.

From those bungalow colonies in the Catskills to this day camp for active retirees, my life echoes the past. I’m holding onto the happy times and the loving memories of family long gone. I’ve become an older iteration of who I once was, proving once again that the “child is father of the man.” Or, as a famous sailor enjoyed repeating, “I yam who I yam.”

What have you held onto from your childhood? Can you recognize yourself in the mirror of time? Has your life come full circle?

CONTEST NEWS!! I’m thrilled to add a fabulous prize to this month’s drawing. Five authors from OnFireFiction are offering a five story romance package called: LOVE ME SOME COWBOY. Each story is a full novel from Lisa Mondello, Jean Brashear, Barbara McMahon, Day Leclaire and Ginger Chambers. I’m a member of OnFireFiction and am happy to provide this terrific prize in addition to a copy of FAMILY INTERRUPTED.

Post a comment and have your name added to this drawing!! Contest runs through May 31st.

As always, thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you for the next edition of Starting Over.

Linda

Starting Over ~ Fingers on the Keyboard

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Linda Barrett

A BEAUTIFUL REMINDER…

My new bookmarks arrived yesterday. One one side is the pink banner that you see above. On the other side is the cover of Family Interrupted with some information about it. Ordering bookmarks is not new for me. I designed and had them printed for almost every book I’ve written. Their arrival at the house was always exciting. But it’s been three years since my last book was released, and the FedEx package that came yesterday contained more than my latest bookmark.

It contained proof. Proof that I’m still a working writer. Proof that I’m back in the game. Sure, it’s now a digital world, and I wonder how to distribute bookmarks to readers buying on their Kindle or Nook. But that question didn’t matter as I opened the carton. My hands shook a little as I stroked the top layer of polished pink 2 x 7 cardboards with reverence. And then I smiled. Widely. Yes. Writing is what I do.

There are easier ways to earn a living. I know that. I’ve gone through periods of doubt many times, especially in the beginning, and learned that a writing career is not for sissies. It’s not for the faint of heart. I don’t say that lightly. I don’t say that to show off or to scare those pursuing a writing career. The truth is that to succeed in this profession, not only must you produce a good story, but you must be a special kind of stubborn. Not the stubbornness of those “who will not see,” but rather the kind requiring belief in yourself and your stories.

Most important, that belief must reside in the very core of who you are. If creating stories is part of the air you breathe, if you talk to characters in your sleep, then you have the soul of a writer. The road to publication and beyond, however, is filled with potholes. Along the way, you will trip. And you’ll have to pick yourself up and begin again. And again.Stubbornness comes in handy.

There are easier way to earn a living. Teaching high school subjects to homeless adults for seven years was easier. I loved it. I gave 110% of myself to that position. But at day’s end, I jumped into my personal life, into my second career. Writing. When I worked a day job from Monday to Friday, I put in fourteen hour weekend days at the computer as well as a couple of hours at night during the week.

A thick skin comes in handy. Remember those potholes? Whether you submit your work to agents, traditional publishers or to an editor you’ve hired independently, be prepared for rejection. Be prepared for the brush off: “Thank you for submitted your work. Good luck elsewhere.”

Or be prepared for a ten page, single spaced critique that might turn your story inside out, upside down and backward. The timeline is wrong, backstory too heavy, and the pacing’s too slow. The main character is unsympathetic. Her motivation’s not clear, and no one will care about her. You’ll think that the editor knows nothing! Until you reread your manuscript through the editor’s eyes and realize she’s got a point or two. Or three.

There are easier ways to earn a living. But my bookmarks are here, and I am one stubborn gal.

How about you? What struggles have you had on your writing journey? Let’s talk among ourselves.

WE HAVE A WINNER: Louise B has won the April contest. Congratulations, Louise!

NEW DRAWING!! Leave a comment and you’ll be entered into the May drawing for a free copy of Family Interrupted or your choice of book from my printed backlist. Bookmarks included with either one!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope to see you next time for another edition of Starting Over.

Linda