Princess Alethea Mermaid

Raise your hand if you’re a fan of Jude Deveraux.

*raises hand vigorously*

I am a HUGE fan of Miss Jude, having fallen in love with A Knight in Shining Armor when my mother brought it home in a bag of books she’d bought for me from the local Friends of the Library book sale when I was in my teens. (Those book sales saved my life, and if I could be a member of every Friends of the Library branch in the world, I would…but that’s another story.)

Right now, Jude Deveraux is making a rare appearance at the Romantic Times convention in Kansas City this weekend. Lamentably I am not at RT right now–because I am doing 4 conventions and multiple events across the US in the next 6 weeks and my stamina and wallet couldn’t take it–but I really wish I could be.

Happily, in this day and age of social media, I enjoy staying in touch with Miss Jude via her Facebook Fan Page, to which she posts regularly, usually daily, and usually very early in the morning. She posts a lot about what she’s working on, what changes her editor has asked her to make, what side projects she loves working on…it’s so awesome for me as a writer AND a fan to see all this go through her head.

One of the more recent projects has her writing about a girl who is treated very badly by her family, and she’s asked a lot of us if we’d had similar experiences and what our reactions were. At the end of several weeks’ discussion, she’s decided to make the horrible mother and sister step-relatives, more because of the rules of some inheritance plot she’s including than the stereotype of The Evil Stepfamily.

As a student of fairy tales, the whole stepfamily dynamic (and its reputation) has always fascinated me. There’s a GORGEOUS fiction book by Lisa Goldstein called The Uncertain Places (if you’re a fan of Grimm — the TV show or the tales, you must check this out). In the book, Goldstein mentions that the Grimm Brothers wrote about Evil Stepmothers so much because no one would believe that mothers could treat their biological children so cruelly.

I can’t find the academia to back this up (and if you happen to know, that would be awesome), but it makes sense to me. Some truths are just too far beyond the suspension of disbelief a reader allows when opening the cover of a book.

YA author (and fabulous curmudgeon) Richard Peck mentioned this once in a talk he did about a historical novel he was writing, and a French girl he had interviewed for authenticity. Essentially, he could not include all of her story, because no one would have believed it.

From this perspective I can see the fascination of true crime novels (I’m looking at you, Avery Mermaid), because the author is expected to shock the reader with events that are, indeed, stranger than fiction.

It seems a shame that in this world, there are things a fiction writer can’t include in her writing because “no one would believe it.”

Have you ever come across something in a book you just couldn’t believe?

Or have you had something happen to you that you know you could never write about…because no one would believe it?

As I mentioned last month, among my resolutions for 2013 were a few “Internal” goals. One of these goals I actually cheated and started before the New Year, mostly because I was in ghastly amounts of pain.

That’s right — I booked a massage.

Right now you’re thinking, “Oh, Alethea. What is wrong with you? It’s not terrible to book a massage, you selfish thing!” Part of me thinks that too. In fact, I thought that for so long, I never actually GOT a massage, because I was worried that I would fall in love with it and then never be able to afford it again. All I knew about massages I read in books and saw in movies. They looked like wonderful, magical things…especially for a writer with chronic neck & shoulder stiffness.

A few years ago, I tried a 30-minute chair massage.
I was in severe pain for the next three days.

I tried chair massages twice after that, thinking that it was ood for me, working out these muscles. Now, I’ve had whiplash from riding Outer Limits (now Flight of Fear) at King’s Island. The pain I felt after every chair massage was ten times worse than whiplash.

I did a lot last year — driving myself 2500 miles around the southeast for my own book tour, then sitting down to write an entire novel, all the while still attending conventions and Comic Cons every other week. I saw a chiropractor and hated every minute of it. By Halloween, I’d lost feeling in my right armpit. I bought a coupon for a local Yoga studio online…and then promptly got sick. By Christmas, I decided to make the call. I was prepared for the pain.

A month and three massages later, I’m here to tell you: I have found a new way of life. I’m sleeping better and have fewer headaches. Luis, my masseuse, is my new favorite person. This is one resolution I mean to keep.

If you have never had a table massage before, here are some helpful things to know:

1.) A chair massage and a table massage are totally different. A chair massage can be done in a mall. A table massage is done in a private room, with low lighting and soothing music. It’s amazing what a difference ambiance makes. The more relaxed you are, the better your massage will go. My massages were performed on a heated table, and were a million times less painful than my experience in The Chair.

2.) Get naked. This is really the perfect opportunity to get over all those hang-ups you might have with your body. What the masseuse needs you to be is a lump of dead weight on the table–he or she will move your arms and legs and head as needed. You are under layers of bedsheets, and the masseuse reveals only what he/she needs to, folding and tucking the ends under your body so nothing comes loose. It’s  very professional and discreet.

On my first visit, I kept envisioning myself as a big fat mob boss with a cigar, like in the comic books. THEY don’t care what they look like, and those guys get massages ALL THE TIME. (Plus, when your masseuse finds that magical pressure point in your size-14 butt that clenches around your sciatic nerve after sitting in a chair for 9 hours, you will be so happy you won’t even care.)

3.) Communication is key. Be sure to let your masseuse know up front that this is your first time. He or she will help guide you through things (like when it’s time to flip over). Ask any questions you like and bring up any concerns you might have before it all starts. No need to overshare–just tell them if you have areas you’d like them to concentrate on. They’ll find the rough spots, even the ones you don’t know about.

Then it’s time to shut up and relax. Relaxing is difficult for me, so it requires concentration. Similarly, your masseuse is doing the equivalent of seeing inside your body with their hands. They need to concentrate as well. Of course, if you are feeling unbearable pain, let your masseuse know immediately. It’s okay to feel uncomfortable as they work on those rough patches, but pain is not the goal.

4.) There are different types of massage. Books and movies teach us to be scared of “deep tissue” and anything that involves someone walking on your back. Massages can range from 1-10, 1 being Relaxation Massage and 10 being Deep Tissue. The massages I get are “Therapeutic Massages,” which are at about a 7 or 8. In Therapeutic Massage, there is a lot of work done with thumbs and forearms. With Deep Tissue, it’s all elbows. Communicate to your masseuse about the level of massage you desire.

5.) Tip well. Yes, massages are expensive, and I balked when I realized that I was expected to fork over an additional $15-20 to the masseuse when my hour was up. But consider: this person has just spent an hour intimately touching your naked body with the express purpose of you feeling better. And at the end of that hour, when you DO feel better, you will wish you’d brought more than a $20 with you to give this person. Trust me.

This doesn’t cover everything, but hopefully this post will help some writers who might be on the fence make the decision to treat themselves better and spring for a therapeutic massage. If exercise and chiropractomancy hasn’t worked for you and you’re leaning toward physical therapy or–heaven forbid–surgery, give massage a try. Personally, I am SO glad I did.

And maybe one day in the future I’ll get Luis to have a Guy Day with us… *grin*

It’s 2013! Congratulations: you’ve made it to another year!

While every morning or hourly call of the cuckoo is enough to start a new project, exercise, or 1000 words, the tick of the clock from one calendar to another is traditionally when we all get down to the nitty gritty and make The Big Life Plans We Hope To Not Lose Sight of In a Month.

We all make New Year’s Resolutions, whether we write them down or say them outloud or wish them on stars. What I am challenging all writers to do this year is to make GOALS instead of Resolutions.

Think about yourself as one of those annoying corporations with bad coffee and worse management, the kind that asks you to turn in one of those ghastly self-evaluations every year and forces you to set your own lofty goals, goals that may or may not have anything to do with the actual direction of the company, but paperwork that can be submitted on behalf of the pointy-haired boss who can’t be bothered to actually work for the space where his company car is parked.

Please place your goals into these five categories:

External Goals

These are the kinds of goals most of us typically make. Decide how many books you want to write this year, how many contests you want to enter, how many essays you want to write, and how many stories you want to submit. Write those down and start marking them off.

Internal Goals

These goals are not as difficult to make, but almost impossible to follow through with, since the general public often sees these goals as selfish pampering — so much so that you’re not even allowed to write them off on your taxes. But why not? If maintenance has to be done to that horrible corporation’s building, that’s typically a write-off. As writers, our bodies are our buildings. We need to take care of them, or they will fall apart and trap our minds inside them.

Regardless of what the IRS thinks, I challenge you to set a personal pampering goal for yourself. Establish a relationship with a local masseuse or farmer’s market. Look into gym memberships and personal training sessions. Check out yoga and barre classes in your area. And if you’ve been putting it off (like I have), get your tucus to a doctor and/or physical therapist. We may not be able to write off our bubble baths and candles and reiki meditation CD, but they are as vital to our survival as those words on the page.

Research Goals

You’ve wanted to try something new, so this is your year to do that. Video blogging? Podcasting? E-publishing? Comic book conventions? Local book clubs? Art? Hiring publicists or book tour companies? Choose something this year that you have been considering but haven’t tried — something that teaches you a new skill and will leave you with valuable information. Even if that information is DEAR GOD, REMEMBER TO NEVER DO THIS AGAIN, that’s a valuable lesson you wouldn’t have learned if you didn’t try.

Altruistic Goals

‘Tis better to give than receive. Put out in the world what you expect to get in return. Whenever I am feeling blue, I go online and do something for someone else, even if it’s as simple as voting for a cover, “like”ing a book on Amazon, rating a book on Goodreads, or sharing a friend’s new book on Facebook. Challenge yourself to do some of these little things every week — every day, if you want — along with a bigger goal. Talk at your kid’s school. Volunteer at the library. Answer your fan mail. Bring snacks to the next meeting. Be sure to put some love out there into the universe.

Family First

All these goals are great, but you need to remember to not lose sight of the people who believed in you in the first place. Do something nice for your significant other. Call your mother. Buy your kids silly presents on Valentine’s Day. Make gingerbread houses in June. Decide to go somewhere touristy in your area once a month. Go see a play. Start a Popcorn and Bad Movie night. Turn off the phone and turn your attention back to your friends and family for a significant time every single day. It makes a difference.

Do you have some good ideas? Please feel free to share them! I’ll be posting my own goals for 2013 on my website later today…or later this week. (Obviously, an emphasis on regular daily blogging isn’t on there this year.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY!

xox Alethea