Adjust Your Stance

Posted on August 21, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

Each month, I pick up a copy of the Oprah magazine and read it from cover to cover. My favorite column is “What I Know for Sure,” written by Oprah Winfrey herself. In 2014, Oprah released a small hardcover collection (also available in eBook format) of these monthly reflections. Here’s one of my favorites:

Every challenge we take on has the power to knock us to our knees. But what’s even more disconcerting than the jolt itself is our fear that we won’t withstand it. When we feel the ground beneath us shifting, we panic. We forget everything we know and allow fear to freeze us. Just the thought of what could happen is enough to throw us off balance.

What I know for sure is that the only way to endure the quake is to adjust your stance. You can’t avoid the daily tremors. They come with being alive. But I believe these experiences are gifts that force us to step to the right or left in search of a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Let them help you adjust your footing.

Balance lies in the present. When you feel the earth moving, bring yourself back to the now. You’ll handle whatever shake-up the next moment brings when you get to it. In this moment, you’re still breathing. In this moment, you’ve survived. In this moment, you’re finding a way to step onto higher ground.

Source: What I Know for Sure by Oprah Winfrey, Page 35.

Movie Review: Blinded by the Light

Posted on August 19, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

Set in the suburban town of Luton (England), this film is based on Sarfraz Manzoor’s memoir about growing up Pakistani in the late 1980s.

Javed (brilliantly played by Viveik Kalra) longs to escape the restraints imposed by his domineering father Malik (Kulvinder Ghir) and the bigotry of the town. A creative soul, Javed finds solace in his journals as he focuses on getting good grades. Manchester University—200 miles away—is his best (and only) hope.

Everything changes when a fellow classmate (Aaron Phagura) gives Javed cassettes of Born in the U.S.A. and Darkness on the Edge of Town. Transfixed by the music, Javed experiences an immediate connection with Bruce Springsteen. Typewritten lyrics start to swirl in what can only be described as a literal windstorm.

With the Boss as his guide, Javed starts to make changes in his own life. He drops Economics and signs up for Creative Writing, writes essays and poems about Bruce’s lyrics, stands up to local skinheads, and approaches his high school crush Eliza (Nell Williams).

On the homefront, Malik loses his factory job, and Javed’s mother Noor (Meera Ganatra) works twelve- to fourteen-hour days to keep the family afloat. Father-son relations intensify as Malik becomes more over-bearing, dismissing Javed’s writing dream and forbidding him to attend a Bruce Springsteen concert.

As the economy stalls and more people lose their jobs, white supremacy rears its ugly head. A violent skinhead march interrupts a Pakistani wedding, reminding us of the racial tensions that still exist in 2019. The indignities suffered by the Pakistani families are appalling. And what is even more heart-wrenching is the powerlessness of the community.

With the help of a dedicated English teacher (Hayley Atwell), Javed becomes more confident in his writing and goes on to achieve local and international acclaim.

A must-see film that will evoke many emotions. Bring tissues.

Spotlight on The Road to Reality

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome author and producer Dianne Burnett. Today, Dianne shares her inspiring memoir, The Road to Reality.

Blurb

Get ready to laugh. Get ready to cry. Get ready for a whirlwind of an adventure. Settle in for a powerful, poignant story of inner strength and courage-and get a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the making of Survivor, the world’s most popular reality show.

Spinning their mutual love of exotic adventure into gold, Dianne Burnett and her former husband, TV producer Mark Burnett, co-created Eco-Challenge, an expedition-length racing event televised on Discovery Channel that catapulted them into the arena of reality TV and set the stage for Survivor-a modern-day Robinson Crusoe with a million-dollar prize. But Dianne and Mark’s fairytale marriage did not survive their Hollywood success . . . she found herself left behind, her contributions unrecognized. She lost her partner in life and began to lose her identity. In that experience, she found an opportunity to grow.

A fascinating, fast-paced, heart-warming “page-turner,” The Road to Reality takes readers on a roller-coaster ride-complete with a zesty romance, as well as the ups and downs of going for your dreams-while it imparts the lessons learned as Dianne discovers what really matters in life is something beyond fortune and fame.

Excerpt

What I learned writing The Road to Reality

I couldn’t be quiet anymore. That would have been the polite thing to do; zipping it was the societally-preferred course of action. Just smile and take it. For years I did just that.

We do, after all, have two wonderful sons. I didn’t want them to feel torn in what was happening between me and my husband, Mark Burnett. I smiled at dinner parties, showing up with guy friends, explaining my husband was “on location” with Survivor or attending another awards dinner in New York. I explained to the boys that Daddy had a new clubhouse where they could play and where he could work.

The impact of an absent husband no longer living at home, however, sent my world into new orbit. I went from “Does not compute” to the realization I had to find my own path again. The one I’d been on before I met Mark—who, like me, came from a modest background, but who took me gallivanting around the world–the handsome Brit with whom I had a synergy and shared a belief that we were unstoppable. And we were.

We had no background in doing what we were doing, no fancy degrees, no connections. We had nothing but sheer will, and the willingness to research, put together proposals and run through our pitches again and again. But we did it—first with Eco-Challenge, the world’s premiere endurance-adventure race. And then with the idea for a TV show, that was a modern-day Robin Crusoe story. I gave the name to the program that would catapult reality TV into new directions. “Survivor.” And my handsome hubby finessed the concept, developed it, and pitched it.

Nobody bit. Ever single network gave it a red light. But Mark kept honing his pitches and I kept coaching him and encouraging him—“Honey, I know it will fly!”

And it did.

But winning at the lottery machine of life destroyed our marriage. Nobody preps you for success, for the way your credit cards suddenly don’t have limits, and you cause a sensation walking into a room. We went from “aspiring” to “golden” in six months time. And after another year, the union that had defined me for over a decade was seriously unraveling.

The truth is I didn’t know my marriage was effectively over until radio host Howard Stern announced it to the 18-34 male listening demographic. As calls came flooding in from friends asking if Mark and I were divorcing I took it calmly, still believing we’d get back together, that our trial separation wasn’t permanent. But then, as another year, then another went by, with Mark and I both dating other people, I understood that I had to get back on my own road. I didn’t want to be defined by my relationships any more. I wanted to have my own life again.

It wasn’t easy. At first, I felt like Chevy Chase in Vacation, caught on the roundabout, trying to forge my own way, trying to find my road again. I could see where I wanted to be but I wasn’t yet there. Writing this book proved to be the ideal exit.

I began writing it when I realized that I couldn’t get to where I was going until I understood where I’d been. So I went back and traveled my past, back to Commack, Long Island and the talent shows we put on at the swimming pools, back when I dreamed of entering showbiz. I relived my life discovering a tale of making one own way, with a love story at the heart, and a lot of adventure in between.

I understood finally that it wasn’t the destination that mattered, it’s the journey. And as I wrote the last words of The Road to Reality on a balmy, palm-breezy evening in the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona, I turned off the computer, walked into the night and felt like at last I’d found my road again.

Author Bio and Links

Dianne Burnett is an author, producer, and actor of stage and screen. She is also a philanthropist and entrepreneur. Dianne and her ex-husband, Mark Burnett, joined their creative forces to invent Eco-Challenge, the impetus for Survivor, which kickstarted America’s reality-television show craze and went on to become the longest-running and most lucrative reality TV series of all time.

Following the success of Survivor, Dianne produced and acted in the stage play Beyond Therapy at the Santa Monica Playhouse, served as Executive Producer of the indie film Jam (which won Best Narrative Feature at the Santa Fe Film Festival), and acted in Everybody Loves Raymond. In memory of her mother, Joan, who lost her battle with esophageal cancer in 2010, Dianne formed Joan Valentine—A Foundation for Natural Cures, a nonprofit organization that serves as a resource for those seeking alternatives to traditional medicine.

She also recently launched a multimedia platform and social network: called theotherside.com, it explores alternative views on everything from relationships to health. Formerly of New York, Dianne now lives in Malibu, California, with her family.

Website | Facebook

All the elements are there—romance, adventure, betrayal, divorce—set against the backdrop of the world’s most exotic locales. The storyline alternates between the author’s childhood and adolescence on Long Island, New York and her globe-trotting adventures with television powerhouse Mark Burnett. An excellent storyteller, Dianne Burnett has provided an honest, often heart-wrenching, account of a fairytale marriage that didn’t survive the success and acclaim of the world’s most popular reality show. Intertwined with the narrative are the lessons and wisdom acquired on this extraordinary journey.

Definitely a survivor’s tale!

Giveaway

Dianne Burnett will award a $50 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a lucky winner via Rafflecopter. Find out more here.

Follow Dianne on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

On the Miracle of the Present

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

I highly recommend A Year of Miracles by spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson. I have followed the 365 reflections and devotions over several years. Here’s one of my favorites:

It’s nothing more than a mental habit to idealize another time, anther condition, another reality. It is simply a way to avoid the reality of our lives right now. And in avoiding the reality of our present circumstances, we avoid the miracles they offer. Everyone does it because that’s the way the ego mind works. But we can stare down this self-defeating habit and cultivate a truer perspective: that wherever we are is the perfect place, and whatever time it is now is the perfect time. That doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t improve things, particularly ourselves. But indulging the thought that if only we were somewhere else things would be better is a surefire way to experience pain.

Movie Review: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Posted on August 12, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

Having enjoyed reading Garth Stein’s best-selling novel, I wondered if the screen version could capture the philosophical dog’s witty (and sometimes) grouchy inner monologue.

I needn’t have worried.

Director Simon Curtis’s decision to use Kevin Costner as Enzo’s “voice” was a stroke of genius.

On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life and recalls all the experiences of his family: struggling race car driver Denny Swift (Milo Venitmiglia), wife Eve (Amanda Seyfried), and their daughter Zoe (Ryan Kiera Armstrong).

Intelligent and introspective, the adorable Golden Retriever believes that good dogs will be reincarnated as people in their next lives. With that goal in mind, Enzo spends his days trying to absorb as much as possible about the human condition. He watches over his family through happiness, tragedy, and a troublesome court case that dominates the film’s second half.

An avid television fan, Enzo follows the latest news in the racing car industry and takes to heart the findings of a Mongolian documentary. In spite of his enlightened views, he is intimidated and frustrated by a toy zebra in Zoe’s bedroom. A bizarre encounter follows.

Enzo often laments his limitations, among them a flat tongue that prevents him from speaking English and the lack of thumbs that hinder his ability to open doors.

This family-friendly film will appeal to dog lovers and wannabe dog lovers. Remember to bring tissues.

Spotlight on The Smuggler’s Escape

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome award-winning author Barbara Monajem. Today, Barbara shares her latest release, The Smuggler’s Escape.

After escaping the guillotine, Noelle de Vallon takes refuge with her aunt in England. Determined to make her own way, she joins the local smugglers, but when their plans are uncovered, Richard, Lord Boltwood steps out of the shadows to save her. Too bad he’s the last man on earth she ever wanted to see again.

Years ago, Richard Boltwood’s plan to marry Noelle was foiled when his ruthless father shipped him to the Continent to work in espionage. But with the old man at death’s door, Richard returns to England with one final mission: to catch a spy. And Noelle is the prime suspect.

Noelle needs Richard’s help, but how can she ever trust the man who abandoned her? And how can Richard catch the real culprit while protecting the woman who stole his heart and won’t forgive him for breaking hers?

“Open it, my love,” Richard said. “If you don’t like it, the jeweler will allow us to exchange it for something else.”

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Noelle opened the little box. Nestled inside was a delicate necklace of diamonds and sapphires. “It’s beautiful.” She didn’t touch it. She returned it to his hand.

“Take it, sweetheart. It will suit you admirably and as befits my wife.”

She sighed. “As I have told you over and over, I will not marry you.”

He tried to drum up his usual lighthearted retort, but fortunately she forestalled him.

“I will accept your gift under one condition,” she said.

He managed a smile. “A condition. How delightful! Do tell me.”

Noelle, his darling, the love of his life, said, “Will you take me as your mistress instead?”

Goodreads | Amazon

Winner of the Holt Medallion, Maggie, Daphne du Maurier, Reviewer’s Choice and Epic awards, Barbara Monajem wrote her first story at eight years old about apple tree gnomes. She published a middle-grade fantasy when her children were young, then moved on to paranormal mysteries and Regency romances with intrepid heroines and long-suffering heroes (or vice versa). Regency mysteries are next on the agenda.

Barbara loves to cook, especially soups. She used to have two items on her bucket list: to make asparagus pudding (because it was too weird to resist) and to succeed at knitting socks. She managed the first (it was dreadful) but doubts she’ll ever accomplish the second. This is not a bid for immortality but merely the dismal truth. She lives near Atlanta, Georgia with an ever-shifting population of relatives, friends, and feline strays.

Barbara Monajem will award a $10 Amazon Gift Card and Paperback and Socks Swag set to two lucky winners (United States and Canada only) in the Rafflecopter giveaway. Find out more here.

Follow Barbara on the rest of her Silver Dagger tour here.

15 Things Mindful People Do Differently

Posted on August 7, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

My well-honed left brain likes clear-cut instructions like those in this infographic:

Honoring Toni Morrison

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

The first black woman to receive the Nobel literature prize in 1993, Toni Morrison lived a life filled with achievements and presidential honors. Her novels, among them The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved, contain rich prose and unforgettable characters.

Ms. Morrison also taught at Princeton University and held workshops for aspiring writers. Her advice to her students is even more relevant in today’s world.

“When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”

Last night, Toni Morrison died at the age of 88.

Here are more of my favorite quotations from Toni Morrison:

You wanna fly, you got to give up the thing that weighs you down.

Make a difference about something other than yourselves.

There is really nothing more to say—except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Anger…it’s a paralyzing emotion…you can’t get anything done. People sort of think it’s an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling. I don’t think it’s any of that—it’s helpless…it’s absence of control—I have no use for it whatsoever.

You are your best thing.

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.

Make up a story…For our sake and yours, forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light.

Movie Review: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

Time appears to have stopped as Quentin Tarantino focuses his camera on every detail of that memorable era from posters to knickknacks to songs to television programs to the Playboy mansion. Immersed in the Hollywood experience, I could have sat in the theater for even longer than two hours and forty minutes.

The film unfolds over three separate days in 1969, an eventful year that included Woodstock, the first lunar landing, the Beatles last public performance, the Chappaquiddick affair, and the Charles Manson murder spree.

Initially known as “Tarantino’s Manson Movie,” the actual film veers in a different direction. In one review, it is described as a “Manson-adjacent story” … something to keep in mind as you watch.

While Charles Manson has a bit part and Sharon Tate is played by Margot Robbie, the primary characters are TV Western star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).

The film revolves around Rick Dalton’s entitlement issues. The star of B-movies and guest roles on television, Rick desperately wants to get cast in quality films. Always loyal and ready to help with any task, Cliff boosts Rick’s spirits while accepting his own hand-to-mouth existence. I would have liked more details about Cliff’s intriguing and somewhat shocking back story.

Other A-list actors include Al Pacino as Rick’s agent Marvin Schwarz, Kurt Russell as the stunt coordinator, and Mike Moh as Bruce Lee. Dakota Fanning, Lena Dunham, and Austin Butler play Manson followers.

As I watched, I experienced the full gamut of emotions. I laughed at the many character quips and the antics of Brandy (a well-trained dog), I felt uneasy when Cliff ventured onto the Manson compound, and I held my breath several times during the last horrific scenes.

A masterpiece of a movie!

Spotlight on Jane Renshaw

Posted on August 5, 2019 by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome author Jane Renshaw. Today, Jane shares her writing journey and new release, The Sweetest Poison, Book One in the Pitfourie Series.

‘How difficult can it be to write a Mills & Boon?’ That idiotic statement was my contribution to the conversation one lunchtime in the Edinburgh publisher’s office where I worked.

And so began a hilarious few weeks in which I and two colleagues each attempted to write a Mills & Boon romance. Rachel managed one and a half pages of Chapter One. Her ‘plot’ involved her heroine slipping on rocks into the arms of a passing hunk. She couldn’t be bothered getting them off the beach and into Chapter Two. But Annie and I persevered. We visited the library and borrowed bagfuls of the slim romances (‘They’re only 55 000 words each – we’ll be finished writing them in a month at the most!’), cringing as librarians shouted embarrassing titles across the room at each other (‘Have you got Part-Time Wife?’). We acquired favourite lines (‘The toolbelt rode his trim hips…’ ‘His eyelashes could have sheltered small mammals…’ ‘You little fool!’). We laughed ourselves silly making up our own titles (Tender Jailer… Bush Fire…). We conducted ‘research’ (the less said about that the better).

Annie found she was unable to write a proper plot outline because she got distracted by the sexy scenes. She based her hero on Dex from Dynasty and kept a photograph of him pinned to her noticeboard. We had long conversations about the imaginary Dex of her ‘novel’ and what he would do in any given situation.

My ‘novel’, meanwhile, was progressing quite nicely, I felt. My bumbling heroine, struggling to make ends meet, had opened a guest house in the Highlands of Scotland and soon encountered the brooding hero, who relished pointing out her many mistakes at every possible opportunity (‘You little fool!’).

But somewhere along the way, something strange happened. I began to care about my heroine and her guest house venture. She and the other characters in the story became real, living, breathing people to me. It was vital, suddenly, that she and the hero should get past their silly antagonism and find love…

I finished my book and sent it off to Mills & Boon. Of course they rejected it – it was derivative and badly plotted and… Well, there was so much wrong with it that it could have been used as an example of how not to write a romance novel. But it was too late. I had taken my tongue out of my cheek, and I was hooked on writing.

How difficult can it be?

Writing that ‘novel’ was the most difficult thing I’d ever done, and the most unexpectedly rewarding. I realised that I wanted to write something ‘for real’ – something true and honest and from my heart. And so began the long, hard, satisfying journey towards The Sweetest Poison.

Blurb

When life has cast you in the role of victim, how do you find the strength to fight back?

When she was eight years old, Helen Clack was bullied so mercilessly that she was driven to a desperate act. Now she is being targeted once more, but this time her tormentor’s identity is shrouded in doubt.

When her life starts to disintegrate, she flees home to the wilds of north-east Scotland, and to the one man she knows can help her – Hector Forbes, the dubiously charismatic Laird of Pitfourie, with whom she has been hopelessly in love ever since those hellish days in the school playground, when he was her protector, her rescuer, her eleven-year-old hero.

But is Hector really someone she can trust?

And can anyone protect her from the terrible secret she’s keeping?

Excerpt

It was a day like any other. The sun fell across the windowsill like it had yesterday morning, like it would tomorrow. She put her palm flat on the warm ledge and looked out across the yard and down the track to where it kinked across the burn. Then she turned and slowly walked right round the room, trailing her hand on the wall like a blind person, and thinking, stupidly:

Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Stupid because it was just walls, a little metal fireplace, a window, an old hook on the back of the door.

‘Helen?’ Mum called from downstairs.

‘Coming.’

In the kitchen Mum was standing in the middle of the room, like a visitor.

‘Right, I think that’s everything.’

Their steps sounded too loud as they walked across the empty room, and Helen put her hand on the doorknob and opened the door and went through and out into the yard like she’d done all her life.

And now she was looking across the yard at the byre tap, set into the stone, a huge old thing, green where the copper had tarnished. She and Suzanne used to shove their fingers up it to make the water spurt out at each other. But the person doing the spurting always got just as wet as the one being spurted.

And – how daft was this? – she wanted to pull the tap off the pipe and put it in her bag.

Author Bio and Links

Having discovered early in her ‘career’ that she didn’t have what it takes to be a scientist, Jane Renshaw shuffled sideways into scientific and medical editing, which has the big advantage that she can do it while watching Bargain Hunt! Jane writes what she loves to read – series of novels in which the reader can immerse herself, which let her get to know an engaging, interesting and/or terrifying cast of characters slowly, in the same way you get to know people in real life. Ideally, the drama should be played out in a gorgeous setting, and the cast should include at least one dangerously charismatic, witty, outrageous protagonist with whom the reader can fall in love. A bit of murder and mayhem in the mix never hurts either… Hence the Pitfourie Series.