Second Act Reflections

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

Welcome to my Second Acts Series!

Today we have Lynn Chandler Willis reflecting on forgiveness, redemption and second chances.

Here’s Lynn!

I knew early on I wanted to be a writer. I thrived on junior high and high school writing prompts. I wrote short stories, misguided novels, song lyrics, poems, greeting cards, journal entries, newspaper articles…you name it, I wrote it.

So when the opportunity to pen a True Crime book came about, I jumped at it. I was familiar with the crime – it happened in the small town where we lived. I even knew the suspects. I had covered the story for the local community paper and knew it inside and out.

I pitched the idea to a True Crime publisher and they wanted it. The book, Unholy Covenant, was published in 2000. It would be thirteen years before I published another.

It wasn’t the dreaded sophomore slump that prevented the words from flowing. They flowed fine. I just couldn’t bring myself to pursue having anything else published. It took me many years to figure out why. The publisher of Unholy Covenant wanted more. He really liked my style. But, I kept remembering something he had said early on in our publishing relationship – True Crime has to have a murder. Someone has to die. And as cold as it seems, the bottom line was the more sensational the murder, the higher the profits.

I just didn’t have the backbone for it. Knowing people in my community thought I was profiting from a neighbor’s tragedy made me re-think the whole writing gig. Yes, I gave the victim a voice, and I told her story…but still…the reality was always there. A family lost their daughter in the most horrible way. No amount of pretty prose would ever change that.

But, like I said, during my thirteen year hiatus I never stopped writing. I just stopped submitting for publication. Until I ran across a call for submissions from Pelican Book Group. I read over it, and read over it again, and within the hour, The Rising was on its way to Pelican. It’s a story involving forgiveness, redemption, and second chances. It was a perfect fit, for us both.

The Rising was released through Harbourlight/Pelican Book Group in July. This time around comes with no mixed emotions. I’m very proud of the work that went into bringing it to life and humbled by the welcoming it has received. Is it my story? Not really. I’ve never dated anyone as handsome as Jesse.

Bio

Lynn Chandler-Willis has worked in the corporate world (hated it!), the television news business (fun job) and the newspaper industry (not a fan of the word “apparently” and phrase “according to”). She keeps coming back to fiction because she likes making stuff up and you just can’t do that in the newspaper or television news business.

She was born, raised, and continues to live in the heart of North Carolina within walking distance to her kids and their spouses and her nine grandchildren. She shares her home, and heart, with Sam the cocker spaniel.

She is the author of the best-selling true crime book, Unholy Covenant. The Rising is her debut novel.

Blurb

A little boy, beaten and left to die in an alley. A cop with a personal life out of control. When their worlds collide, God intervenes. Detective Ellie Saunders’s homicide investigation takes a dramatic turn when a young victim “wakes up” in the morgue. The child has no memory prior to his “rising” except walking with his father along a shiny road. Ellie likes dealing with facts. She’d rather leave all the God-talk to her father, a retired minister, and to her partner, Jesse, a former vice cop with an annoying habit of inserting himself into her life. But will the facts she follows put Ellie’s life in mortal danger? And will she finally allow God into her heart forever?

Excerpt

“Jack told me you were at lunch. Caper’s is one of my favorites, so I thought I’d take a chance.” He winked at her then sidled closer. “Anyway, I was thinking about your dead kid—“

“He’s not dead.”

A waitress slammed a sandwich down in front of Ellie, and Jesse helped himself to a homemade chip.

“OK, so he’s not dead. You have sent his picture to the National Center for Missing and Exploited

Children?”

She huffed. “Did Jack send you?”

“No, Jack didn’t send me. I was just thinking if the center didn’t get a hit, I’ve got a few connections with the FBI, and they’ve got some really cool equipment.”

Ellie pulleda piece of bacon from her sandwich and chewed on one end. “Thanks, but no thanks. I really don’t want the Feds involved.”

Jesse snatched another chip and shook his head. “No black suit with shades is going to swoop in and take your case, Detective Saunders.” He grinned and helped himself to another chip. “I thought we could get them to run his picture through the facial recognition scanner. Maybe we’ll get a hit.”

What was with all the we stuff? The case was complicated enough. The last thing she needed was Jesse involved. She didn’t need a constant reminder of her downward spiral.

Where to find Lynn…

Website: http://lynnchandlerwillis.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Rising-by-Lynn-Chandler-Willis/326832037448082?ref=hl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LCWillis

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/438147.Lynn_Chandler_Willis

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/lynncwillis/boards/

Joanne here!

Lynn, thank you for sharing your extraordinary journey and reminding us that pauses can be powerful and lead to breakthroughs.

Sharing Favorite Quotations

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

Collecting quotations has been one of my lifelong hobbies. In the pre-computer days, I would jot down quotations on slips of paper and toss them in a desk drawer. Once a month, I would type them up and place them in a special file folder. I’ve kept the folder, but now use Pinterest and Goodreads to store my favorite quotations.

Some of my all-time favorites from four extraordinary women…

MARY OLIVER

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Listen—are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth, the world doesn’t need any more of that sound.

MAYA ANGELOU

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

When you know better, you do better.

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.

ANNA QUINDLEN

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination and the journey. They are the home.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.

The life you have led doesn’t need to be the life you have.

NORA EPHRON

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

And then the dreams break into a million tiny pieces. The dream dies. Which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream.

Movie Review: Elysium

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

I tend to stay away from the explosive alternatives, but I made an exception and went to see Elysium.

While the film deserves its R rating, this dystopic fantasy is actually a cautionary tale about what could happen if an elitist group decides to limit entry to their hovering paradise.

In Elysium, the “haves” live in a space colony where its residents have access to abundant food, clean water and magical machines that eradicate all illnesses. In 2154, near immortality is available to everyone who inhabits this luxury wheel that is tantalizingly close to the “have-nots” living on a dark and desolate Earth.

Matt Damon delivers an impressive performance as Max, a blue collar worker living in a stark, unrecognizable Los Angeles. Unlike the other “have-nots” who have accepted their fate, Max is determined to reach Elysium. After a serious industrial accident leaves him dangerously radioactive, Max brokers a deal with grubby entrepreneur Spider (Wagner Moura). Several gritty scenes follow and I had to avert my eyes several times, especially while an exoskeleton fighting suit was welded to Max’s body.

Secretary of Defense Delacourt (Jodie Foster), the 108-year-old protector of the space paradise, is determined to keep out any intruders. Foster nails the performance, but her scenes are few and far between.

I did not recognize too many of the other characters. Writer/director Neill Blomkamp selected A-list film stars from other nations, among them Sharlto Coley who plays a fearsome government agent and Alice Braga, Max’s love interest. The blending of different accents and languages— English, Spanish, Portuguese—give the film an international flavor, further driving home the universality of its theme.

I appreciated the softer moments when Max recalled childhood conversations with a caring nun. The scenes with nurse Frey (Braga) and her terminally ill daughter were also poignant, bringing even more attention to the virtues of universal health care.

Several days have passed and I’m still thinking about this film. Definitely worth seeing.

A Second Act with Al Capone

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

Welcome to my Second Acts Series!

Today, we have Linda Bennett Pennell talking about changing direction, taking risks and Al Capone.

Here’s Linda!

Life can at times be frustrating, joyous, depressing, boring, even mysterious. It is not always clear in the moment why things happen as they do, but one thing is for certain, unless we make the best of what we’ve been given, life cannot be lived to the fullest. I think I always knew this, but it took a change in direction and taking a risk to grasp its true meaning.

I never intended to be a writer. In fact, as an elementary student, I despaired of even being competent in the language arts. It should be said that my early education left a great deal to be desired, but that is another story. It was not until my senior year of high school that I had a rewarding creative writing experience. Thank you, Miss Miller, wherever you are. Once in college, however, I put aside creative writing for the rigors of historical research and expository writing. Another degree and several certifications later and I have come full circle.

My other life is in public education as a reading specialist and secondary school administrator, but about five years ago after I “retired” to part time work, I decided to pick up my creative “pen” again. I can’t say exactly why or when the decision was made. That is one of those mysteries. All I can say is that I came to feel a burning desire to write and the experience has been a revelation and a joy.

It hasn’t been all easy sailing. Nothing in life worth having ever really comes without some pain. Sending out queries and the rejections that came with them were not particularly fun, but it was not as difficult as I thought it would be. With a debut novel that is being well received, I can now say that the process was definitely worth the risk. Most importantly, my venture in writing has allowed me to reinvent myself. We humans are truly multifaceted creatures, but unfortunately we tend to sort and categorize each other into neat, easily understood packages that rarely reveal the whole person. Writing has allowed me to tap into skills and talents I had all but buried for many years. I am a newer, better version of myself for the experience.

Perhaps you, too, want to step out of the box in which you find yourself. I encourage you to look at the possibilities and imagine. Be filled with childlike wonder in your mental wanderings. Envision what might be, not simply what is. Let us never forget, all good fiction begins when someone says to herself or himself, “Let’s pretend.”

Blurb

Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel tells a story of lives unfolding in different centuries, but linked and irrevocably altered by a series of murders in 1930.

Lake City, Florida, June, 1930: Al Capone checks in for an unusually long stay at the Blanche Hotel, a nice enough joint for an insignificant little whistle stop. The following night, young Jack Blevins witnesses a body being dumped heralding the summer of violence to come. One-by-one, people controlling county vice activities swing from KKK ropes. No moonshine distributor, gaming operator, or brothel madam, black or white, is safe from the Klan’s self-righteous vigilantism. Jack’s older sister Meg, a waitress at the Blanche, and her fiancé, a sheriff’s deputy, discover reasons to believe the lynchings are cover for a much larger ambition than simply ridding the county of vice. Someone, possibly backed by Capone, has secret plans for filling the voids created by the killings. But as the body count grows and crosses burn, they come to realize this knowledge may get all of them killed.

Gainesville, Florida, August, 2011: Liz Reams, an up and coming young academic specializing in the history of American crime, impulsively moves across the continent to follow a man who convinces her of his devotion yet refuses to say the three simple words I love you. Despite entreaties of friends and family, she is attracted to edginess and a certain type of glamour in her men, both living and historical. Her personal life is an emotional roller coaster, but her career options suddenly blossom beyond all expectation, creating a very different type of stress. To deal with it all, Liz loses herself in her professional passion, original research into the life and times of her favorite bad boy, Al Capone. What she discovers about 1930’s summer of violence, and herself in the process, leaves her reeling at first and then changed forever.

Where to find Linda…

Website: http://www.lindapennell.com/

Amazon: http://amzn.to/16qq3k5

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLindaBennettPennell

Joanne here!

Thank you, Linda for sharing your journey. It is an inspiring one that will provide hope and encouragement to all writers and creatives. Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel is simply riveting and should be on everyone’s ‘To Read’ list.

Book Review: Almost English

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

“Almost English is about the ugly years and a startlingly plain adolescent.”

While Author Charlotte Mendelson’s description is definitely apt, the novel is actually held together by two protagonists—mother and daughter—facing their own crises in West London during the 1980s.

Sixteen-year-old Marina is being raised by her emotionally fragile mother Laura and three elderly Hungarian relatives in a cramped basement flat filled with strange traditions and even stranger foods.

Longing to escape this tiny Hungarian enclave, Marina goes off to Combe Abbey, a posh, traditional English boarding school, hoping to reinvent herself and “set off towards the glorious adulthood which awaits her.”

Desperately homesick, Marina feels more of a misfit than ever as she tries to conform to English ways and customs. Several comedic episodes follow when she is invited to a classmate’s country home.

Struggling to deal with her own painful secrets and dilemmas, Laura wonders if she is on the brink of a nervous breakdown or simply having “a disappointing life.” Abandoned by a handsome and spoiled husband, Laura moves in with her mother-in-law where she lives uncomfortably for over a decade. The insecure and often distracted forty-two-year-old fails to notice that Marina is desperately in need of an intervention.

The scenes involving the endearing trio of aged Hungarian women provide much of the domestic humor. Their conversations are sprinkled with “darlinks” and “von-darefuls” and their extravagant gestures create constant drama, much to Marina’s chagrin.

A delightful read, Almost English is worthy of its Man Booker Prize nomination.

Thanks to Harper Collins Canada for my review copy.

Fun Friday

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

Book Review: Awaken

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

“A masterless student, learning from all but attached to none.”

I couldn’t help but smile at this description of author Patsie Smith. From the start, it is clear the book does not espouse any one school of thought. Instead, using clear and practical language, Smith shares lessons she has learned along her own twenty-seven-year journey.

Divided into two sections—“Before Awakening” and “After Awakening”—each chapter begins with stick artwork and ends with a short reflection.

While the book could be easily read in one sitting, it is better to take time with each chapter, absorbing the succinct and powerful messages. Only then, will you experience the many “Aha!” moments inherent in this book.

Some of my favorite “Aha!” moments…

“The biggest cause of the blindness and shriveling of our spirit is our analytical mind.”

“The words of the Buddha are like a raft built to cross the river. When the purpose is completed, the raft must be left behind if we are to travel further.”

“Sometimes life has its own way of working things out through the power of doing less or doing nothing at all.”

I enjoyed this book thoroughly and will return to it often, keeping in mind Patsie Smith’s advice: “Growing your spirit requires feeding it every day with wisdom, teachings and direct learning experience.”

I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway.

A Journey of Self-Awareness

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

Welcome to my Second Acts Series!

Today, we have Certified Life Coach Sandra Dawes talking about the experiences that have shaped her amazing life journey.

Here’s Sandra!

In my mid to late twenties I lived a very passive life. I lived to make others happy, often to the detriment of my own happiness. I was a constant people pleaser, a consequence of low self-esteem and self-confidence. In my heart, I didn’t feel like I was worthy of love, so I did whatever I thought I had to do to prove to the people in my life that I was worth the love I so badly needed from them. In doing this, I put my own dreams and desires on the backburner.

When my father died, my world shifted in ways I didn’t think were possible. While he had been diagnosed with cancer 6 years earlier, I thought he had beaten it. It came back with a vengeance in 2004 and he died on the operating table during hip replacement surgery. I wasn’t prepared for the consequences of my father’s passing. I was in denial that it was even a possibility! With all that happened after his death, I was left hopeless, believing that all that I had done for others was a complete waste of time and unsure if I was ever going to experience joy in my life again, or if I really ever knew what it meant!

It took years of self-help books and a journey of self-awareness to understand that I am the creator of the reality that I experience and that if I wanted different experiences, I needed to make changes in the way I lived my life. I now understand I am worthy of love and don’t need anyone to prove that to me. I just need to believe it in my own heart and love myself the way I wanted others to love me. Instead of allowing life to happen to me, I’m doing what I need to do to make things happen in my life. My self-esteem and self-confidence are stronger than they have ever been and I’m no longer afraid to step outside my comfort zone and try new things and put myself out there in ways that would have made my knees weak just a few years ago!

No matter how bad things may seem right now, or how impossible your dreams might look, the belief that anything is possible is a necessary requirement if you want to live a better life than the one you’re currently experiencing. Belief in your dreams, a plan to make them a reality and taking action each and every day towards making those dreams real, are important steps in living the life that you’ve dreamed about. You have to believe without a shadow of a doubt that you are worth all of the amazing things that you want for your life. Yes, there will be obstacles and challenges along the way, but when you want something bad enough; you can’t let anything deter you from your goals!

Wayne Dyer says “when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” How do you want to experience life? Do you want to live your life believing that you have no control over your circumstances and live a mediocre, unfulfilling life, or do you want to experience life where anything is possible and you can achieve your heart’s desires as long as you are committed to do whatever it takes to make it happen? I’ve chosen to live my life without regret and pursue my passions to the fullest. It’s scary at times, but every milestone I encounter reminds me that it’s all worth it, and so am I!

Where to find Sandra…

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Joanne here!

Sandra, your clients are truly blessed to have such a caring and insightful coach in their lives. Thank you for sharing your triumphant story.

Book Review: The Paris Winter

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

The young women in The Paris Winter are battling against poverty, overbearing relatives and other constraints that existed in early twentieth century Paris.

The protagonist, Maud Heighton, is a middle-class Englishwoman, determined to continue with her study of art, even if she has to go hungry during another Paris winter.

We are given glimpses of the desperation she must have endured the previous winter when “she had been feeding herself too little, been too wary of lighting the fire when the damp crawled off the river” and her illness “had swallowed francs by the fistful.”

When Tanya (Tatiana Sergeyevna Koltsova), a rich and beautiful Russian classmate, invites her to take a stroll, Maud feels the first “curl of hope in her belly under the hunger.”

Tanya and Yvette, one of the life models, introduce Maud to a part-time position as a live-in lady’s companion. Maud’s health improves and she becomes a better artist—her lines are more confident and her use of color grows bolder. Maud is finally able to hold her head up high as she walks from the Rue de Seine to her classes.

This honeymoon period abruptly ends as the narrative takes a dark turn and meanders through an underworld filled with opium, diamonds, murder and revenge.

Different aspects of the three young women emerge as they experience the salons, slums, and sewers of the city during the Great Paris Flood of 1910.

Maud can no longer hide a strong fighting spirit behind her English manners. As artist Suzanne Valadon points out: “I’ve seen you sleeping with your jaw clenched so tight the muscles on your neck stand out and your fists pulling the sheets apart.”

Beautiful and spoiled Tania finally stands up to her chaperones, firmly stating her intention to modernize and carve a different path.

And most surprising of all, Yvette, a child of the streets, redefines what it means to be a guardian angel: “The whole point of a guardian angel was that they were with you whether you deserved it or not, that they stayed with you, that even if they could not save you, they were there.”

Imogen Robertson has written a dark and intriguing historical novel about a different Paris, one not so romantic or enchanting.

When the Universe Responds

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Joanne Guidoccio

Welcome to my Second Acts Series!

Today, we have Christy Johnson talking about the desperate request that led to the emergence of unexpected healing abilities.

Here’s Christy!

I loved languages and writing but my parents’ unwillingness to fund such studies combined with my aptitude in math and science led me to major in chemical engineering at Purdue University. I hated chemical engineering but I persisted through the program. Despite my reluctance, I went on to receive my chemical engineering doctorate at University of Michigan in 1990, returning to IBM where I’d worked seven semesters as a co-op student. I later declined the executive fast track when it was offered.

In my final position in an analytical lab doing microscopy, the closest match to my interests and aptitude I’d found during my tenure at IBM, I felt increasingly under-challenged and underemployed over the years. My job content felt empty and meaningless and so my substantial salary felt like blood money. I knew the corporation well by then and no other position tempted me yet I could not give myself permission to quit.

In 2007, I desperately “asked the universe for a change” which caused unexpected and stunning intuitive healing abilities to surface. A couple years later, I learned about Jin Shin Jyutsu®, a healing art combining intellect and intuition. Within a year, I completed the practitioner certification requirements and quit IBM two weeks later, seven years short of retirement. Next I discovered an unexpected aptitude for reading the Akashic Records, a way of viewing your life from your soul’s point of view. I now offer clients healing world-wide with these three modalities, inviting harmony and wholeness on all levels.

I wouldn’t have consciously chosen any of this, especially considering I’d never heard of any of the pieces before they presented themselves, but I love my work, my clients, as well as my return to writing via my blog. My work reflects my authentic self and is meaningful in a way IBM never could be.

If you’re considering a second act, I suggest you view each act as a separate lifetime. My grandfather was a grocer all his life, my father a professor for his, but many people today deviate wildly from their original trajectory. What you’ve done, no matter how tangentially related to where you want to go, built a foundation of life experience supporting your evolution into who, what, and where you are today. Leave the past behind but don’t discard its substantial gifts.

Also remember, you can’t cherry-pick the positive parts of your prior act. Retaining my desirable IBM salary, benefits, and relative job security would mean continued unabated misery for me. Trust your own knowing around what does and doesn’t satisfy you and remember the dissatisfying aspects were part of the package.

Finally, if you start feeling stuck, return to “How can I serve today?” In serving, we can find ourselves and get centered. Honoring who you are is the greatest gift you can give and receive.

Where to find Christy…

Website: http://www.intuitiveheal.com

Blog: http://www.intuitiveheal.com/blog/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/intuitiveheal

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IntuitiveHeal

Joanne here!

Thank you for sharing your extraordinary journey, Christy. I would encourage everyone to visit Christy online for more of her amazing advice and insights.