tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65550391523677034062024-03-13T09:52:21.637-07:00Lori Schafer's Short Subjects I Feel Like Writing AboutLori Schafer's Short Subjects I Feel Like Writing AboutAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.comBlogger180125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-70318227574861180752015-02-22T18:06:00.001-08:002015-02-22T18:09:32.763-08:00I've Moved!<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Please visit me on my new website:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://lorilschafer.com/">http://lorilschafer.com/</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hope to see you there!</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-88257434411766594312015-02-15T21:36:00.001-08:002015-02-15T21:36:55.721-08:00Bad Book Reviews: Not About Your Book, But About Your Readers’ Expectations<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Several months ago, when I was planning the promotion for my first book, <em>On Hearing of My Mother’s Death Six Years After It Happened: A Daughter’s Memoir of Mental Illness</em>,
I decided to publish some free e-books in order to attract attention to
my work. I therefore released a handful of short stories and essays, as
well as a self-contained excerpt from my memoir itself.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My
strategy was a strange combination of successful and disastrous. My free
e-books definitely succeeded in promoting my work; however, as the
reviews clearly demonstrate, they also seem to have ticked off a number
of potential customers. And this is what’s interesting. Because when you
sit down to analyze the reviews themselves, it becomes clear that poor
reviews are often unrelated to the quality of the work itself. Bad book
reviews are, more often, a result of a failure to meet a reader’s
expectations.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Understanding this is crucial to achieving success
as an author. We’ve all read book reviews in which we simply disagree
with a reader’s opinion. But for authors, it is, to a certain extent,
irrelevant if we are right and a reader is wrong. It may not be our
fault if someone misinterprets our work. But it is most definitely our
problem.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I want to begin here with what I think is a highly
illustrative example. Back in November, I released my short essay
entitled “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: A Critical Analysis” as a free
e-book. I described it as “a lighthearted analytical look at the most
beloved Christmas special of all time.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It’s a humorous essay. In
fact, it’s the most popular blog post I’ve ever written, so I can say
with assurance that the writing is good and the subject compelling. The
e-book, however, although it earned a few high ratings on Goodreads,
only received one review, and it stunk:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><strong>Rudolph</strong> December 23, 2014 (One Star)<br />
Not quite what I was expecting when I had looked for a Christmas book
to read to my five-year old daughter the night before Christmas eve.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Clearly,
this is someone who saw my free e-book and decided to download it
without even looking at what she was getting. Somehow she failed to
notice that the cover includes the words “a critical analysis.” There is
a school of thought that suggests that you should never offer books for
free for just that reason – because it will encourage people to
download them who would never be interested in reading them otherwise –
and this is a perfect example. This woman didn’t leave me a one-star
review because my book was bad – she left it because it ruined story
time with her daughter.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">That isn’t my fault. I had categorized my
essay as humor, not children’s, and my keywords were mostly related to
Christmas. However, when I was looking at the book’s page just before I
unpublished it at the end of the season, I happened to notice something.
In the section marked “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” I
saw nothing but children’s Christmas stories. She was not the only
reader who made that mistake. Which makes you wonder if I was somehow at
fault, after all. Perhaps by including keywords that were related to
Christmas, I virtually ensured that the people who found it were parents
seeking stories to read to their children. Perhaps I would have been
better off using keywords that were related to humor – which is what I
will try if I decide to release the book again next Christmas.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Here’s
another example. I published an essay entitled “Is Your Anxiety Real?
One Woman’s Experience with Mental Disorder.” The description read “Read
my story of how I was misdiagnosed with anxiety – and what the problem
really was.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The piece was exactly what it said it was. Several
years ago I was misdiagnosed with anxiety and was treated by my doctor
with a prescription. Nearly a year later, I realized that the problem
was an excess of coffee! Now I didn’t pretend to have some magical
solution for true sufferers of anxiety. In fact, the story makes it
clear that I never even really had anxiety. But consider this two-star
review from Amazon UK:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><strong>No help to millions of people who like me suffer from anxiety every day - without the</strong> ... 28 August 2014 (Two stars)<br />
One woman's experience. No help to millions of people who like me
suffer from anxiety every day - without the help of branded coffee.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This
review is not about the value or worth of my little book. This woman
downloaded it seeking relief – hoping to find something that would help
her with her own anxiety. It didn’t do that, so she was disappointed.
The book did what it set out to do – but it wasn’t what she wanted from
it. Yet who pays the price for that? I do. Could I have avoided this
problem? Probably, yes. I had left the description intentionally vague
because I wanted it to be a bit mysterious. But if I had described more
fully the point of my story, the narrowness of readers to whom my
situation might apply, then some readers might not have gotten the
impression that my book would offer them solutions to their own mental
health issues. The book “sold” very well, and I wonder now if the title
was a bit too compelling in the manner in which it suggests the
possibility of misdiagnosis.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However, it was my memoir excerpt
“Detention” that resulted in the greatest rending of garments and
gnashing of teeth. The e-book did receive numerous four- and five- star
reviews across the various Amazon sites, from readers who said very nice
things about it like “I really look forward to reading the full book.”
But it also yielded a number of poor reviews, mostly related to the fact
that it was not a full book. But what really struck me were these
rather bewildering remarks:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><strong>One Star</strong>, 8 Nov 2014 (One star)<br /> Its ok but just getting into it then it ends. Did not realise it was so short.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><strong>Unexpected end</strong> 4 Nov 2014 (Two stars)<br /> was very good to start with but became to an abrupt end was looking forward for more details but didn't enjoy</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">You
see the irony here. These were people who enjoyed the excerpt – who
wanted to read more. They left me lousy reviews not because they didn’t
like my book, but because they never even figured out that it was an
excerpt. This, in spite of the fact that I stated that it was an excerpt
in the book’s description, on the title page, and again at the end
without even inserting a page break. Three places I said it, and they
just didn’t get it. In addition, Amazon shows, right in the description,
how long a Kindle book is. No one had a right to complain that they had
been misled. Yet somehow they were misled, and I think I know why. The
only place I didn’t state that it was an excerpt? The book’s cover. And
that was probably my big mistake. Because as seems clear from my other
examples, people don’t always read the descriptions of what they are
buying – and certainly not when books are free. Much of their
expectation is based upon the cover, and if the book doesn’t deliver
what the cover seems to promise, they’re going to be disappointed, even
if the author didn’t do anything wrong. Disappointed readers lead to bad
reviews – and potentially lost customers.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This shows that you
have to be very, very careful, not just in how you describe and
categorize your book, but in the look that you give it. You can have an
amazing cover, but if it gives the impression that your book is sci-fi
when it’s actually paranormal romance, you’re far more likely to wind up
in trouble. And the same holds true if you’re publishing a series, as
is, nowadays, so often done. You need to have “Part 1” or “Part 2”
showing in very bold letters, because you don’t want your readers
getting to the end of your book and being angry because it isn’t the end
of the story.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Finally, I want to look at one last example. This
is a four-star review for my actual memoir – not the excerpt – which has
been bothering me since the day it was posted. It’s a very good review,
as most of them have been. However, what she says at the end really
ruffled my feathers:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“I would have liked to hear more about
day-to-day life at home with her mother. She jumps between big events…
without covering the middle ground… It feels like the author held back
because these details are probably somewhat mundane but I have a feeling
that they weren’t boring details – the fact that the author felt so
hurt and angry that she left home and never looked back tells me that
there was a LOT that happened in between… Unfortunately, it feels a bit
like her inability to trust us as readers has kept her from being very
open in her memoir.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Now this last sentence, I’ll admit, I found
rather stunning. The majority of reviews have commented on how deeply
personal my memoir is, and how impressed readers were that I had shared
such private experiences. Now here’s someone who is complaining that I
haven’t been open, that I’ve held something back.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">She’s wrong. In
fact, I hadn’t left anything out. After reading this review, I wracked
my brain for other incidents I could include, and finally came up with
two additional paragraphs. That was all. If I hadn’t described much
about my last year at home, it was because my mother, as I had explained
in my memoir, had to have foot operations and was stuck in a chair for
nine months. A woman who can barely get up to go to the bathroom is
unlikely to be physically abusive, and is certainly incapable of
controlling a teen-aged daughter. There was virtually no day-to-day life
to describe. She sat in her chair, and I went back to school.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I
didn’t put my memoir in non-chronological order so that I could skip
over events that I was reluctant to share. It’s because in many cases I
don’t remember the order in which different events occurred. People
sometimes seem to believe that because you’ve had a traumatic
experience, that your recall of it must be flawless. It isn’t true – at
least not for me. A lot of things happened in a very short space of
time, and rather than pretend to the reader that I could tell the full
story from beginning to end, I chose to assemble it as a series of
segments telling what I remember. Yes, it is a bit fractured – but that
also perfectly reflects my experience of my mother’s psychosis.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But,
to be fair, I did not make this reasoning clear to the reader. The two
poor reviews that the book has gotten have been from people who were
simply unable to cope with it not being in order. And now that I’ve
spent some time analyzing reviews, I think I understand why. Because
people expect chronological order. They expect my memoir to be written
like ninety-nine percent of personal memoirs on the market, most of
which are not written by writers. They expect a traditional narrative
structure.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I can’t provide them with that. But if I had explained
in the introduction why the story jumps around, why there seem to be
gaps that aren’t really there, then no one would have read it expecting
it to be chronological, or expecting it to be complete in every detail.
Would I have lost some customers because of that? Possibly. But I think
it’s more likely that those readers would have gone into it with a more
open mindset, more willing to accept a nontraditional narrative, had
they been forewarned that that was what they were getting, and knowing
that there were solid reasons why it was written that way. Ultimately it
would have provided all readers with a more fulfilling experience –
which is precisely why I’ve now added a foreword.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When I first
read this review, I was also annoyed that this particular reader seems
to feel that I didn’t experience enough trauma – that having my mother
beat and imprison and threaten to kill me was insufficient reason for me
to leave home and never look back. But then I took another look at her
final paragraph:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“I hope that someday she writes a more complete
story. I would be very interested in reading all of the ‘in between’
scenes and hearing about her final year at home. Not as a ‘looky-loo’
but as someone who has experienced something similar, it’s always a
comfort to know that you’re not alone. That someone else has experienced
the ‘spies in the attic’ delusions but also the general embarrassment
of being in public (in high school!) with someone who is clearly
unstable.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Ultimately, this review isn’t about me at all. It’s
about the reader, about her experience. She expected my story to be like
hers, the way, perhaps, she would have written it had she been the one
telling it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There is absolutely nothing that I can do about that. I
can’t make my story fit what every reader expects, nor should I try to.
But this merely emphasizes the incredible importance of setting up
proper reader expectations. Because if you can minimize the effect,
reduce the instances of not meeting reader expectations to cases like
these, which are entirely personal reactions, then you truly can
eliminate a large percentage of one- and two-star reviews.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So when
you are releasing your work out into the world, remember this always.
Because it may not be your fault if your book is not what your readers
expected. But it is always your problem.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/bad-book-reviews2.jpg" href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/bad-book-reviews2.jpg"><img alt="Bad Book Reviews" class="alignnone wp-image-43313 size-medium" data-mce-src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/bad-book-reviews2.jpg?w=214" height="300" src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/bad-book-reviews2.jpg?w=214" width="214" /></a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-77855221670815111592015-02-15T12:44:00.000-08:002015-02-15T12:44:00.371-08:00My Mental Illness Memoir Featured on Free Kindle Books and Tips and Bargain Booksy Today!<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>On Hearing of My Mother's Death Six Years After It Happened: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness</i> is featured on both <a href="http://fkbt.com/2015/02/15/free-discounted-kindle-book-offers-569/" target="_blank">Free Kindle Books and Tips</a> and <a href="http://bargainbooksy.com/blog/2015/2/12/a-touching-memoir-for-your-kindle" target="_blank">Bargain Booksy</a> today as part of my $0.99 promotion. If you get a chance, I would appreciate it if you could go in and "Like" the related Facebook posts. Evidently it helps with the algorithm or something - you know how that stuff works ;)</span><br />
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<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N0WYHDQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00N0WYHDQ&linkCode=as2&tag=lorschsshosub-20&linkId=MTHGVJ6DYAJJ6M3U"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00N0WYHDQ&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=lorschsshosub-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=lorschsshosub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00N0WYHDQ" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-6456690221047936712015-02-12T20:39:00.000-08:002015-02-12T20:39:32.415-08:00SALE! On Hearing of My Mother's Death Six Years After It Happened Just $0.99 through February 17th!<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><em>On Hearing of My Mother's Death Six Years After It Happened: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness</em>
is on sale for just $0.99 for Kindle through February 17th. I'm happy
to report that the promotions I scheduled seem to be working:</span><br />
<br />
<a data-mce-href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/2-mental-illness-us-twitter.jpg" href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/2-mental-illness-us-twitter.jpg"><img alt="???????????????????????????????" class="alignnone wp-image-42592 size-large" data-mce-src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/2-mental-illness-us-twitter-e1423801969328.jpg?w=625" height="463" src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/2-mental-illness-us-twitter-e1423801969328.jpg?w=625" width="625" /></a><br />
<br data-mce-bogus="1" />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> I've also temporarily reduced the price of the paperback to $5.99. What a steal! ;)</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<a data-mce-href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N0WYHDQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00N0WYHDQ&linkCode=as2&tag=lorschsshosub-20&linkId=L4ZTQ65SL25AT6LL" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N0WYHDQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00N0WYHDQ&linkCode=as2&tag=lorschsshosub-20&linkId=L4ZTQ65SL25AT6LL"><img alt="" border="0" data-mce-src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00N0WYHDQ&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=lorschsshosub-20" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00N0WYHDQ&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=lorschsshosub-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" data-mce-src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=lorschsshosub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00N0WYHDQ" data-mce-style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=lorschsshosub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00N0WYHDQ" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-34470699478609226492015-02-09T08:39:00.000-08:002015-02-09T08:39:11.004-08:00The Courage to Share Your Story<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have a new guest post up at <em>Wow! Women on Writing</em>:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2015/02/friday-speak-out-courage-to-share-your.html" href="http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2015/02/friday-speak-out-courage-to-share-your.html" target="_blank">http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2015/02/friday-speak-out-courage-to-share-your.html</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I think I'm probably in the minority opinion here, but the longer I think about it, the more passionately I feel that I'm right.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/7423d-themuffinbanner.gif" href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/7423d-themuffinbanner.gif"><img alt="7423d-themuffinbanner" class="alignnone wp-image-52 size-large" data-mce-src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/7423d-themuffinbanner.gif?w=625" height="104" src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/7423d-themuffinbanner.gif?w=625" width="625" /></a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-40630643498453903632015-01-31T12:11:00.000-08:002015-01-31T12:11:34.355-08:00What Are People's Reactions When They Find Out You Write Erotica?<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/i-write-erotica.jpg" href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/i-write-erotica.jpg"><img alt="I Write Erotica" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-40380" data-mce-src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/i-write-erotica.jpg" height="958" src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/i-write-erotica.jpg" width="620" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My author interview with Guy Hogan of <em>The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette </em>is online at the following link. (Note: As always when visiting <em>The Gazette</em>, expect to see pictures of naked ladies. Lots of naked ladies.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="http://pittsburghflashfictiongazette.net/lori-schafer-write-erotica/" href="http://pittsburghflashfictiongazette.net/lori-schafer-write-erotica/" target="_blank">http://pittsburghflashfictiongazette.net/lori-schafer-write-erotica/</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">You can also read my interview in my recently released collection of erotic short short stories <em>To All the Penises I've Ever Known: Erotic Shorts by Lori Schafer</em>, which is FREE for a limited time on <a data-mce-href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/to-all-penises-ive-ever-known/id960757437?mt=11" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/to-all-penises-ive-ever-known/id960757437?mt=11" target="_blank">ITunes</a>, <a data-mce-href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/509346" href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/509346" target="_blank">Smashwords</a> , and <a data-mce-href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lori-schafer/to-all-the-penises-ive-ever-known-erotic-shorts-by-lori-schafer/ebook/product-22002854.html" href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lori-schafer/to-all-the-penises-ive-ever-known-erotic-shorts-by-lori-schafer/ebook/product-22002854.html" target="_blank">Lulu</a> (coming soon to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo). <em></em>For more information, please visit the book's <a data-mce-href="http://wp.me/P4mxfj-78" href="http://wp.me/P4mxfj-78" target="_blank">webpage</a> or <a data-mce-href="http://eepurl.com/OYNDL" href="http://eepurl.com/OYNDL" target="_blank">subscribe</a> to my newsletter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/to-all-the-penises-ive-ever-known.jpg" href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/to-all-the-penises-ive-ever-known.jpg"><img alt="white underwear on a string against cloudy blue sky" class="alignnone wp-image-39800 size-medium" data-mce-src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/to-all-the-penises-ive-ever-known.jpg?w=188" height="300" src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/to-all-the-penises-ive-ever-known.jpg?w=188" width="188" /></a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-60682575623133052682015-01-25T11:58:00.000-08:002015-01-25T11:58:17.626-08:00Beach House<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My romantic flash fiction story "Beach House" has been published in <em>Romance Flash</em>:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.romanceflash.com/home-mainmenu-1" href="http://www.romanceflash.com/home-mainmenu-1" target="_blank">http://www.romanceflash.com/home-mainmenu-1</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I’ll
be the first to admit that this is a pretty sad story for a romance,
but compared to the first version I wrote, this one’s all flowers and
rainbows!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I originally wrote this piece in response to a contest
prompt. Stories for the contest were supposed to feature a weathered
beach house and a woman placing a key in an envelope. I confess I had
quite a bit of trouble coming up with a storyline, and when I finally
did, it was a doozy. The basis of the story was essentially the same as
in the second version you read above, except that Susan actually is
expecting Derek to arrive. However, in order to incorporate the element
of the key and the suggested wording, I had to take drastic measures.
This was the original (now the alternate) ending:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“The storm had
passed when at last she arose; vanished into the house and emerged many
minutes later wearing a clean, dry sundress and carrying a light
backpack; a weary traveler yearning for rest. Struggling her way over to
her favorite spot on the porch, she sat; took two pills from an orange
bottle clenched in her fist and swallowed them whole. She tucked the
bottle into her bag and then fumbled through its contents until she
retrieved a pen and a crisp envelope creased neatly in half. Awkwardly
she unfolded it; opened the flap and dropped a shining silver key inside
it; the key to the oceanside home that they had once so happily shared.
With trembling fingers, she inscribed the stiff white paper with six
simple words and left them there for him to read; for him to try to
understand.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Sometimes it does hurt to hope.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Hoisting her bag
upon frail, fallen shoulders, she tripped clumsily away from the
weathered beach house and across the weather-beaten sand, no longer
having a point or a destination. No longer having a companion, to walk
with her across the beach until the end.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Now that is a sad story.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Besides
being incredibly depressing, that version somehow never felt right to
me, but I couldn’t figure out a way to fix it. Finally I had the bright
idea of giving it a happy(ish) ending, and voila - my third piece in <em>Romance Flash.</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/beach-house.jpg" href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/beach-house.jpg"><img alt="Beach House" class="alignnone wp-image-39782" data-mce-src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/beach-house.jpg?w=230" height="400" src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/beach-house.jpg?w=230" width="306" /></a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-79237415393494523572015-01-22T12:44:00.000-08:002015-01-22T12:44:04.108-08:004 Things You Might Not Know About Queries<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have a guest post up on Savvy Book Writers that may be of interest
to those of you pursuing traditional publishing: "Four Things You Might
Not Know About Queries"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.savvybookwriters.com/4-things-you-might-not-know-about-queries/" href="http://www.savvybookwriters.com/4-things-you-might-not-know-about-queries/" target="_blank">http://www.savvybookwriters.com/4-things-you-might-not-know-about-queries/</a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-74438601720626882222015-01-15T13:22:00.000-08:002015-01-15T13:22:59.424-08:00Look, Ma - Two Hands!<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So five weeks after dislocating my shoulder, I'm finally out of my sling. Sounds great, doesn't it? I just wish someone had told me that my arm wouldn't work for a while afterwards!</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/oiugkNkLdAM" width="560"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-4174247776929365292015-01-11T10:56:00.000-08:002015-01-11T10:56:07.110-08:00Questions for Writers<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Recently I read the following Q & A on Sarah Brentyn’s blog <a data-mce-href="http://sarahbrentyn.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/questions-for-writers/" href="http://sarahbrentyn.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/questions-for-writers/" target="_blank">Lemon Shark</a>. She, in turn, had found it on <a data-mce-href="http://www.littlelodestar.com" href="http://www.littlelodestar.com/">Little Lodestar</a>, where writer Kristen had posted a series of questions entitled <a data-mce-href="http://www.littlelodestar.com/?p=4759" href="http://www.littlelodestar.com/?p=4759">Nine Things I Wonder About Other Writers</a>. Well, Sarah asked her readers to post their answers, and as mine, I thought, were too long to leave in the comments, here are my responses:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Do you share your work with your partner or spouse? Does it matter if it’s been published yet?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Very, very rarely. Every once in a while, I feel as though I need an opinion from a non-writer, usually pre-publication. My boyfriend will read my work if I specially ask him to, and he generally offers some pretty solid opinions. But he isn’t really a reader – his idea of compelling literature is homebrew magazines – so it’s unlikely that he’ll ever read any of my novels. To me, this is probably just as well. Some of my work might raise questions that I’m not sure I want to answer!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>How much of your family and/or closest “friends in real life first” read your stuff…let alone give you feedback about it?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I somehow manage never to tell anyone when I’ve had something published, so it’s rare that this happens. In fact, up until a few months ago, when I formally announced that I was releasing a memoir, most of my friends didn’t even know I was writing. Somehow it just never came up. Again, to me, this is just as well, because some of my work might raise questions that I’m not sure I want to answer!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>What do you do with the pieces that continually get rejected–post on your blog? Trash? When do you know it’s time to let it go?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So far, I only have a few pieces that I’ve given up on all together. For the most part, I believe that getting work published is mostly a matter of finding the right market. However, for those that repeatedly get rejected, I do reconsider whether they’re just difficult to place because of their subject matter or nature, or whether they actually stink. Stories that I still think are good I might post on my blog or story-sharing sites. Those that I suspect are completely unusable I would like to one day post on my blog, and solicit opinions as to why they stink.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Are there pieces you write for one very specific place that, once rejected, you just let go of, or do you rework into something else?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This has only happened to me once so far. Very early in my writing career, before I even had any publishing credits, I wrote a very long article – nearly a paper, if you will – analyzing the marriage penalty as it applies to taxation in the United States. It was a subject in which I was interested, anyway, and I had hoped to be able to get it published in one of a handful of financial magazines. However, I never received a response to my first query, and in the meantime, I had moved on to other things. Well, in the interim, a new year rolled around and there were tax law changes that affected some of my numbers. I would have had to rerun numerous scenarios in order to update the article – which was heavy on figures – and by then, I was having work published regularly and was no longer so desperate to garner credits. However, I still wouldn’t say I’ve given up on the idea. I may still revisit it two or three or five years from now, when I feel like sinking my teeth into something more academic again.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>What is your main source of reading-based inspiration (especially you essayists)? Blogs? Magazines? Journals? Anthologies? Book of essays by one writer?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">That’s an interesting question. Reading it, I realize that I very rarely – if ever – read magazines or journals or anthologies or books of essays by one writer. Nowadays, I do read blogs with a fair amount of regularity, but I still wouldn’t say that those are my main source of reading-based inspiration. In fact, if I had to identify one, I would probably say that more of my ideas come from nonfiction. I very much enjoy reading history, and it’s actually quite rare for me to read a whole book of it without getting at least one new </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">idea.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>What tends to spark ideas more for you: what you see/hear in daily life or what you read?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It depends on the type of work. Most of my novels contain characters inspired by people I know in real life, and the settings in which I place them often mirror my own life scenarios. This is why my books’ pivotal events tend to transpire at beer festivals or while camping, because, evidently, I write what I know. However, for the other half of my writing life, in which I blog, write flash fiction and short stories, even essays, I tend to find more inspiration from what I read.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Who have you read in the past year or two that you feel is completely brilliant but so underappreciated?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Winston Churchill. Seriously, that guy was brilliant, and his writing is amazing. I’m very grateful that he played such an important role in history, and at a time in which voice recording existed. YouTube will keep Churchill’s words alive long after his written work has fallen deep into oblivion.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Without listing anything written by Dani Shapiro, Anne Lamott, Lee Gutkind, or Natalie Goldberg, what craft books are “must haves”?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Strunk and White’s <i>Elements of Style</i>. I also find the <i>American Heritage Guide to English Usage</i> to be extremely useful.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Have you ever regretted having something published? Was it because of the content or the actual writing style/syntax?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Not yet. I did, however, have a rather unpleasant moment a while back, when I first began having erotic work published. Most of my erotica is more humorous than dirty – or at least half-and-half. However, there was one piece in particular that surpassed the bounds of my usual work – the kind of story you would never admit to your mother or even your third cousin twice removed that you’d written it. Well, as it happened, I discovered around that time that my boss was reading my blog! Suddenly I felt very awkward about publicizing this particular publication. It wasn’t that I was ashamed or embarrassed about it, exactly – I was simply afraid of being subjected to questions. Somehow I just did not want to have that conversation with my employer – not to mention the fact that it probably would have changed how he looked at me from then on. Kind of a weird feeling. I still took ownership of the piece – in fact, it’s in my collection<a data-mce-href="http://lorilschafer.com/to-all-the-penises-ive-ever-known/" href="http://lorilschafer.com/to-all-the-penises-ive-ever-known/" target="_blank"><i> To All the Penises I’ve Ever Known </i></a>– but even there, I didn’t want to comment on it extensively. That was when I first realized that I’m perfectly comfortable writing about things that I would never, ever say. So please, no follow-up questions – at least not if you meet me!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>How about you? What kinds of things do you wonder about other writers? I know of one question that I’d add to the list.</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>What is your lifetime goal for your writing? You know, not the hard-headed, realistic version that you tell other people, but the starry-eyed, big dream scenario that you’re too scared to share?</i></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Y0t-RqjMH-A" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-34146625174241965212015-01-09T13:03:00.000-08:002015-01-09T13:03:58.256-08:00Reviews Wanted for "The Hannelack Fanny, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Rump"<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Are you a blogger or book reviewer who likes humor in your erotica? I am offering a free read-for-review for my newly published funny and sexy short story <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RPMSBSO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00RPMSBSO&linkCode=as2&tag=lorschsshosub-20&linkId=CPF7ACBMABQ4S4PC">The Hannelack Fanny: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Rump</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=lorschsshosub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00RPMSBSO" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RPMSBSO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00RPMSBSO&linkCode=as2&tag=lorschsshosub-20&linkId=CPF7ACBMABQ4S4PC"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00RPMSBSO&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=lorschsshosub-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=lorschsshosub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00RPMSBSO" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A young woman's life is changed forever when she discovers what everyone around her has known all along: that a renowned family characteristic has re-emerged in a most unfortunate location - her own backside. Follow her journey from embarrassment to acceptance to unbridled joy as she learns to appreciate the wonders of going through life with the Hannelack fanny. And don't forget to look for my commentary on the real-life inspiration behind this glorious tale of a glorious behind - me!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">6,000 words or roughly 27 Kindle pages.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">NOTE ON CONTENT: The Hannelack Fanny, while in large part a humorous piece, contains explicit sexual scenarios and is therefore inappropriate for readers under the age of eighteen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If you're interested in reviewing my story, please comment on this post with your contact information or email me directly at lorilschafer(at)outlook(dot)com. I look forward to hearing from you!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-49454625215526244782015-01-01T07:18:00.000-08:002015-01-01T07:18:16.978-08:00How New Year’s Resolutions Weaken Our Resolve<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></u></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s the first of January again, and all over the
world, people are making personal resolutions for 2015. Amazing what a date can
do, isn’t it? Millions of humans scattered around the globe, all simultaneously
attempting to better their lives by altering their own behavior in positive
ways. For many, a new year offers an incentive, a reason to push towards self-improvement
or greater satisfaction with one’s life and one’s being. And what better day to
feel as if you’re starting over than New Year’s Day? It’s a day of reflection
on the year gone by and on the year yet to come. It’s a day in which to
consider whether we’re moving towards the goals we’ve set for ourselves, or
whether we need to change the paths we’re on in order to come closer to
achieving them. And the making of resolutions is perhaps the vital final step
of this process, because there’s little point in evaluating the state of our
lives if we don’t then utilize our conclusions to bring us one step closer to
happiness.</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The trouble with the New Year’s resolution is that,
by its very nature, it doesn’t take effect until after the end of the current year.
And in a backhanded way, this encourages us to wait to act upon our resolve. We
don’t exercise in December because we’ve decided to get in shape after the
holidays. We don’t quit smoking in October because, without the motivation of
the New Year’s resolution, we’re afraid we’ll fail. We don’t start tucking
money away in August for that dream vacation we’ve always wanted to take,
because there’s school clothes shopping to do, and then the holidays are coming
up, and once again, we’ve postponed that project to another year.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And then what happens when we, as we inevitably
must, fail to keep some of those resolutions we made in so much earnest? We
wait again. We try again – the following year. How much of our lives are wasted
waiting for this imaginary turning point to roll around so that we can make
those changes we believe are so vital to our well-being and sense of
fulfillment?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is the core of the problem with marking time in
our lives by special occasions – it causes us to neglect all of the everyday
occasions that would have served us equally as well in helping us to attain our
goals. Maybe your sweetheart expects you to present her with flowers on Valentine’s
Day, but she’ll be much more impressed by the bouquet you bring in November.
Chocolate cake is sweeter when it’s not baked on your birthday. Why wait until
New Year’s Eve to have a beer and hang out with your friends? Won’t your mom be
more pleased if you call her in March just to chat, then if you wait until May
to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t ever want to wait until January 1st to
change my life. I might want to quit my job on July the 15th, or start writing
a book on September the 24th. It doesn’t need to be the first of the year or
the first of the month before I decide to move forward with my resolutions; any
given Monday will do. I’ll derive just as much joy from turning my life around
at 3 o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon in June, as at midnight on a Thursday in
January. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So that’s my New Year’s resolution. Never again to
wait for a new year to arrive before I make my resolve. Never again to pretend
that January will be soon enough for me or my life to change. It isn’t.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK6duXLdakHnTd9Mt0QnsWxJyfrftrhPxmpvHKDq4fMazfzFRe7R5-nKnAlbJbwQihyRQMN10K6_jZYPC2wHJk0Nmc56khB7LYILkT6AYhK-ss48yxgxOhi9MLSPEeIerljUyEfuQKQcQH/s1600/604-closeup-of-a-clock-pv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK6duXLdakHnTd9Mt0QnsWxJyfrftrhPxmpvHKDq4fMazfzFRe7R5-nKnAlbJbwQihyRQMN10K6_jZYPC2wHJk0Nmc56khB7LYILkT6AYhK-ss48yxgxOhi9MLSPEeIerljUyEfuQKQcQH/s1600/604-closeup-of-a-clock-pv.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-2749974362277895082014-12-28T21:14:00.000-08:002014-12-28T21:14:38.145-08:00“Lori,” Jesse whispers, clutching me tighter. “Lori, I think you’re going insane.”<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It is in one of the in-between times, when Mom has decided to let me out for a while. Perhaps she has grown fearful of Social Services. Perhaps she intends to inspect the house from roots to rafters and wants me out of the way. Perhaps she’s simply sick of watching me all day and all night. I don’t know. I know better than to question it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My friends and I are at a hotel for a school function of some sort. I don’t remember exactly why. Band, or perhaps Key Club? It doesn’t matter. I have reached a point where nothing seems very real anymore.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I am wearing an orange dress my mother bought me. It’s hideous, but I don’t realize that until later. Jesse is with me. He is holding me. I am grateful for that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We are on one of the upper floors. We are beside a railing. It overlooks the center of the hotel. We are talking. I don’t know what about.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I can see us standing there together. Me in that ugly orange dress with my hair cut short, my face buried in his shoulder. Him with his arms wrapped in a circle around me. I can see it, see it as if I’m above it and not inside it, and in my mind I’ve gotten up onto the railing and I’m teetering there, on the verge of going over, and I don’t know how to stop it; don’t know if I even care anymore about trying to stop it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“Lori,” Jesse whispers, clutching me tighter. “Lori, I think you’re going insane.”</span><br />
<div data-mce-style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">* * *</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This is an excerpt from my memoir <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N0WYHDQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00N0WYHDQ&linkCode=as2&tag=lorschsshosub-20&linkId=6B6MKDOPCUPOKJRL">On Hearing of My Mother's Death Six Years After It Happened: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=lorschsshosub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00N0WYHDQ" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />. I described in <a data-mce-href="http://wp.me/p4mxfj-5HP" href="http://wp.me/p4mxfj-5HP" target="_blank">this</a> post how I recently inquired of some of my high school friends whether they had in their possession any photos I might be able to use in assembling my book trailer. Imagine my reaction when my friend Ben – who was always the big picture-taker of the group – responded with this photograph:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-mce-href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/image0.jpg" href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/image0.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="image0" class="wp-image-22341 size-full" data-mce-src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/image0.jpg" height="319" src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/image0.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of Ben Sanford</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Stunned and happy and heartbroken. To see that moment, captured forever on film, somehow makes it all the more devastating, all the more real. The picture can’t tell what we were saying or thinking. Yet somehow it does. Somehow, it does.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-82924157727234613132014-12-20T09:55:00.000-08:002014-12-20T09:55:56.671-08:00Here’s What’s on Top of My Christmas Tree – What’s on Yours?<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'm helping <a data-mce-href="http://linkis.com/wp.me/pI0tI" href="http://linkis.com/wp.me/pI0tI" target="_blank" title="Angela and Hugh’s Christmas Tree Topper Challenge">Angela and Hugh</a>
raise up to £250 for charity by sharing what's on top of my Christmas
tree! This year blogger Hugh Roberts and his "special lady" Angela have
committed to donating £1 for each comment or pingback to Angela and
Hugh’s Christmas Tree Topper Challenge. You can check out all of the
entries <a data-mce-href="http://linkis.com/wp.me/pI0tI" href="http://linkis.com/wp.me/pI0tI" target="_blank">here</a>, but first let me show you my Christmas tree topper:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/abominable.jpg" href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/abominable.jpg"><img alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-25792" data-mce-src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/abominable.jpg?w=660" height="655" src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/abominable.jpg?w=660" width="660" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">That's
right - I have my very own Abominable Snow Monster! For years now he's
been coming by once a year in order to place a star on top of my tree.
Is it wrong that this is my favorite part of Christmas? I'm neither very
sentimental nor very religious, but somehow seeing the Abominable
hovering at the top of my tree fills me with... well, I guess you'd have
to call it Christmas spirit!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So what's on the top of your Christmas tree?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-23889233872778913512014-12-14T08:17:00.000-08:002014-12-14T08:17:33.834-08:00Because for Once, Talking Is Easier Than Writing<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/0w3s-gPFgm0" width="420"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-46784140785185961812014-12-13T06:16:00.000-08:002014-12-13T06:16:05.373-08:00Guest Post with Mary Blowers<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have a guest post up on Mary Blowers' website, featuring a blurb about my memoir as well as my piece "Poisoned," which is an excerpt from it: </span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://marydekokblowers.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/guest-post-lori-schafer-on-hearing-of-my-mothers-death/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">http://marydekokblowers.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/guest-post-lori-schafer-on-hearing-of-my-mothers-death/</span></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguMRJb9_6Cgo8oPFhMavWSmXWWgBgPWosae1091JsI7BBrMsrFx3pFa22i3_3EYT1S84sNLYuRyLCZT1r9tXrJTJoR4WzVCYxwO6PQ8Gjj5CeYFhtoVgnr70sJb_DGD_DIhsnMVm4Oc0DU/s1600/15258-pills-spilling-out-of-a-medicine-bottle-or+Poisoned+Twitter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguMRJb9_6Cgo8oPFhMavWSmXWWgBgPWosae1091JsI7BBrMsrFx3pFa22i3_3EYT1S84sNLYuRyLCZT1r9tXrJTJoR4WzVCYxwO6PQ8Gjj5CeYFhtoVgnr70sJb_DGD_DIhsnMVm4Oc0DU/s1600/15258-pills-spilling-out-of-a-medicine-bottle-or+Poisoned+Twitter.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-67746838784626065162014-12-12T09:14:00.000-08:002014-12-12T09:14:22.869-08:00Guest Post - Only a Dream<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Many thanks to "The Bipolar Maniac" for hosting my guest post "Only a Dream."</span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://thebipolarmaniac.com/2014/11/09/guest-post-lori-schafer-only-a-dream/"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">http://thebipolarmaniac.com/2014/11/09/guest-post-lori-schafer-only-a-dream/</span></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkhvcUDGabdYg8vc5tUrvKeApqzCBMNOb0lvlZMFZYVbSxIe7tKR93XznJO2vZglzs0eHCj7BoeIDinzIMavvMhBH2ItNZ3I8vPT8ELyKRsC7kvXdN5oGbf6zMZKYPO2GhxFAMPW0UXFaG/s1600/Only+a+Dream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkhvcUDGabdYg8vc5tUrvKeApqzCBMNOb0lvlZMFZYVbSxIe7tKR93XznJO2vZglzs0eHCj7BoeIDinzIMavvMhBH2ItNZ3I8vPT8ELyKRsC7kvXdN5oGbf6zMZKYPO2GhxFAMPW0UXFaG/s1600/Only+a+Dream.jpg" height="320" width="310" /></a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-74237702228545909682014-12-10T06:40:00.000-08:002014-12-10T06:40:08.164-08:00Assembling a Book Trailer - Part I<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As some of you saw, last week I posted my first book trailer for <i>On Hearing of My Mother’s Death Six Years After It Happened </i>(I've included it again at the end of this post if you missed it). After I posted it, I got a request from one of my followers to explain how I went about making it. Terrific idea, I thought – I’m totally stealing it!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Let me start off by saying that I did not want to do a typical book trailer. Most of the ones that I’ve seen I think are too long or too dull, spending image after image detailing plot points or posing questions the book purports to answer. At the other extreme, you also see Hollywood-style trailers, which are usually very well-done cinematically, but often make me want to see the movie rather than read the book!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The second most influential factor for me was the realization that trailers, like other forms of visual marketing, are very expensive to have made. It’s not the kind of thing a writer will generally want to do for him or herself because it simply isn’t in their realm of expertise. In my case, however, cash proved to be king. I wanted a trailer and I wanted one now – later on, I reasoned, if it seemed worth the expense, I could have one professionally done.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However, given that my knowledge in this area is severely limited, and my experience with digital media slight, I cast aside some of the early daydreams I had had of gorgeous cinematography, professional graphics, and a custom soundtrack to fit the action. Over-shooting my own skill level, I feared, would only result in an inferior product. I might mess up a sausage soufflé – and why attempt one when I know I can make a mean breakfast burrito? It would be better to make a trailer that was technically simpler, but hopefully equally as meaningful.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The second problem was this – I had no idea what the trailer was going to be about. I wanted a trailer that would evoke the mood of my story without attempting to tell it, which meant emphasizing feel over plotline. I also wanted it to be short, yet the moments from my book that I had considered utilizing required camera work that I just wasn’t sure I could effectively accomplish. I began ruminating over the idea of maybe including some images from my hometown – the problem being, of course, that I don’t have any. So I contacted those few high school friends with whom I’ve stayed loosely in touch and asked around to see if anyone had any pictures or videos that might be suitable for me.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My hopes in this quest were very, very low. First there was the issue of quality, because naturally pictures from twenty-some odd years ago were generally not in digital format. Secondly, unless the images were of me specifically - which, in my mind, was not necessarily a selling point! - I would be unable to use any that contained recognizable people because I wouldn’t have model releases for them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My friend John Lin responded with a handful of photos from his graduation, which was the year before mine. Most of them were, as I suspected, unusable, as they were mostly of him and his family, and the quality, too, left much to be desired. And in any case, I still didn’t know what I would do with them. They weren’t even my pictures. This was not my graduation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And that’s when it hit me – this was not my graduation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have almost no memories of my high school graduation. Most of what I remember about that day was the thrill of knowing that I would be free once it was over. My happiness over unexpectedly meeting my boyfriend after the ceremony, who had graduated a year ahead of me and whom I hadn’t expected to see again before I left for good. The tension of knowing that the car I had bought without my mother knowing was waiting for me on the street behind our house, waiting for me to pack up and leave. I don’t remember anything like what John no doubt remembers – receiving his diploma, being with his friends and family, throwing his cap in the air. Those things were utterly irrelevant to me. Same type of day, entirely different experience.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I flipped through his photos again, saddened somehow by what they had revealed. There was one in particular that showed students streaming down the lawn from our high school building down to the field with a TV crew filming. The photo was blurry – but how perfect for me, because you couldn’t make out any of the students’ faces. It was someone else’s high school graduation. But in another life, it might have been mine.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I went to freestockphotos.biz and began searching for photos. I wanted typical things, people and objects of which most kids would keep pictures. Their homes, their friends, their pets – maybe even their parents.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It took maybe two hours. Again, there was the issue of model releases, which prevented me from using some of the images I might have liked for me and my mother. And since I preferred free photos over paid ones, I had to dig a little deeper into my well of creativity, as I simply couldn’t find suitable photos for some of my initial ideas.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Once I had assembled the photos, the text was easy. And once I found a site that features royalty-free music, the soundtrack was easy, too. I won’t cover the technical aspects of assembling the project here, as this post is long enough already, but I am going to put together a video that will walk those of you who are interested through the whole process from start to finish. The technicalities of this type of sequence aren’t terribly difficult to master, although there are certainly some tricks that can make it easier.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But the big thing for me was coming up with the idea. Once I had the idea, the rest of it fell into place. So if you’re considering making your own trailer, my advice is to ask yourself these three questions:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">1) What do you want to express in the trailer? A story, a mood, a character, a state of mind, an event?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">2) What style do you want for your trailer? Will that style effectively convey whatever you said you wanted to achieve in your answer to Question 1?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">3) Are you technically capable of achieving your vision for your trailer? Does it need to be flashy, or will simple suit you better? Will your fancy trailer look stupid if you can’t pull it off, or will your plain trailer be too dull even if you assemble it well?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">One last important thing to consider is where you will be promoting your trailer. For me, my main outlets are Wordpress and Twitter, both of which consist of audiences that are fairly forgiving. There’s a certain amount of leniency people are willing to grant if your ceramic ashtray is homemade – and for some that may even increase its charm. But if you’re looking to win competitions or be featured on fancy promotional websites, then you might want to consider making an investment in a professional product. Don’t, however, get stuck on the idea that many writers seem to, which is thinking that you can only have one trailer. For the amount of time and money they take to put together, you can make as many as you like, of whatever styles and lengths you like. You are limited only by the size of your own imagination.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/sMI39OJn7NE" width="560"></iframe></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-69112552113208839162014-12-09T16:59:00.000-08:002014-12-09T16:59:02.010-08:00Promotional Site - Free Kindle Books and Tips<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My memoir is up today on Free Kindle Books and Tips:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="http://fkbooksandtips.com/2014/12/09/free-discounted-kindle-book-offers-450/" href="http://fkbooksandtips.com/2014/12/09/free-discounted-kindle-book-offers-450/" target="_blank">http://fkbooksandtips.com/2014/12/09/free-discounted-kindle-book-offers-450/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">From
what I hear, this is supposed to be one of the better promotional
sites. As to how the resulting sales are going, so far, so good, but I'm
still keeping my fingers crossed ;) </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-24293064809281003142014-12-09T03:55:00.000-08:002014-12-09T03:55:50.292-08:00Thank You: An Open Letter to the Friends of My Youth<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I am honored to have a guest post featured on <a href="http://elizabethhein.com/2014/11/07/guest-post-with-lori-schafer/" target="_blank">elizabethhein.com</a>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"Thank You: An Open Letter to Those Who Stood By Me During Mom's Mental Illness"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtxALRdERInZEVUmtQNr9FQXVEoDdFOHcGL07VZ0m6TNzKHACr0rrksRIYmMvRr58CuijMHc9oMYEpJYTvkyZRZ85aHnSzzCizXjtRgvkSoP82vFFDFUevjxXiPuBkGRIqFVkR0DrNKxJP/s1600/Open+Letter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtxALRdERInZEVUmtQNr9FQXVEoDdFOHcGL07VZ0m6TNzKHACr0rrksRIYmMvRr58CuijMHc9oMYEpJYTvkyZRZ85aHnSzzCizXjtRgvkSoP82vFFDFUevjxXiPuBkGRIqFVkR0DrNKxJP/s1600/Open+Letter.jpg" height="320" width="298" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-47090030479438189752014-12-08T11:31:00.000-08:002014-12-08T11:31:28.925-08:00Life Raft - Guest Post by Elena (Mrs. Bipolar)<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My cell phone rings. It’s 2:30 a.m., but it hasn't woken me. Sleep
has abandoned me for weeks, to be replaced by worry and thoughts of
rearranging my future. I do not need to look; I know that it's him.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"Hello?"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"I need you." Quietly and softly. A tone of voice I haven't heard in months.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Instinctively
I pick up my keys and go to the car. Thoughts begin to race through my
mind as I drive. He left you. He says it's over. After all his illness
has put you through, why are you going to go to feed the mania? But
something in his voice had the whisper of my husband. A faint hint of
the reason why I fight so hard and forgive so easily.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As I pull up
to the hotel and get out of the car, the cold snap of the wind slaps me
in the face as if it’s trying to remind me why he's here. He can't live
in our home anymore. The laughter and conversation has been replaced by
anger, aggressiveness and arguments. The illness is winning. It wasn't
so much that he left me as that I let him go. I'm exhausted. So tired
from the battle. A battle that seems to be so entrenched in him right
now that no amount of medication can halt the forces.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I enter the
room and he's standing there, waiting for me. His eyes look at me with
such longing. A longing that says come and find me, I'm still here. I
see the man I married. He strips me of my clothes and takes away all of
my insecurities as easily and naturally as a caterpillar sheds its
cocoon. I step into the light, naked both emotionally and physically.
I'm not the tall, tanned, slender girl I once was. The years and the
illness have taken their toll.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">He inhales as if catching his breath. "You're beautiful."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'm
not sure if he is reminding himself or reassuring me. I let him take
over, and explore my body. His touch is slow and gentle, comforting in
its familiarity. And yet at the same time, it is filled with a newness, a
rediscovery. His hands and mouth cover me as if to memorize my body. My
skin burns from his breath, his lips, his kiss. I press myself to him,
urging him to move faster, but he's lost in the pleasure of my
excitement. Only after he feels my body shudder and go still does he
climb on top of me. I feel the animal instinct that is driving him. He
makes love to me with such passion and need that it spills forth in a
crescendo that leaves us both gasping. We lay intertwined, in body and
soul. Each of us holding tight to the other as if we were life rafts; as
if we were saving one another from drowning.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Reality begins to
sneak back in like smoke beneath the door of a burning building. My
emotions take control. I can't let him see me cry. I know that the
illness will soon return and it will use any weakness I exhibit to wedge
its way between us. I have to get out.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">He asks me to stay, but I
get dressed and leave. The door slams behind me, locking the moment
behind it. The sun is rising. In a few hours we will be back at the
hospital, seeing psychiatrists, therapists and doctors. I am overcome
with the feeling that this is the beginning of the end. What end, I do
not know.</span><br />
<div data-mce-style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">* * *</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Elena
left her retail corporate job over a year ago and began a journey to
mold the next chapter of her life by her own rules. She loves to keep a
journal and write short stories so it was an easy transition for her to
enter the world of blogging. Though it has been an ongoing learning
curve, she has jumped in with both feet. Now on the precipice of 50, she
has begun a blog to share her humor and bits of wisdom as a woman
entering into the prime of her life. You can join her on her quest for
serenity at <a data-mce-href="http://livingwithbatman.wordpress.com/" href="http://livingwithbatman.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">www.livingwithbatman.wordpress.com</a>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">On
a personal note, Elena was a divorced, professionally educated woman
raising two children alone when she met her second husband. After a
whirlwind romance, they married and blended their families. Together
they have four wonderful children, three dogs, two cats and one very
busy, noisy house!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Elena’s current husband was diagnosed with
Bipolar Type 1 very soon after they were married. To raise awareness for
mental illnesses, she shares her personal experiences as the spouse of a
bipolar person on her second blog, <a data-mce-href="http://thebipolarmaniac.com/" href="http://thebipolarmaniac.com/" target="_blank">thebipolarmaniac.com</a>,
which she co-authors with another blogger living with bipolar, giving a
twin perspective on the disorder. This blog has recently been nominated
for Best In Show and Rookie of the Year in the Wego Health Activist
Awards. Please visit and endorse her nomination here: <a data-mce-href="https://awards.wegohealth.com/nominees/10251" href="https://awards.wegohealth.com/nominees/10251">https://awards.wegohealth.com/nominees/10251</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/elenaspic.jpg" href="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/elenaspic.jpg"><img alt="elenaspic" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-21655" data-mce-src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/elenaspic.jpg?w=223" height="300" src="https://lorilschafer.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/elenaspic.jpg?w=223" width="223" /></a></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-49361616370537702372014-12-07T07:37:00.000-08:002014-12-07T07:37:28.889-08:00I Had Promised Myself That I Would Do No Writing<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">December 6, 2014</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I had promised myself
that I would do no writing. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Coming from a
writer. Some writers have to force themselves to sit down and write.
Others have to force themselves not to.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">For thirty days following
my book’s release, I had intended to do no writing. For months now I
have done nearly no writing. Only blog posts and interviews; tweets and
requests for reviews. I wanted to complete my media kit and compose
press releases; I wanted to post my already-written stories on a
multitude of sharing sites, and register my book with the hundreds that
offer free promos to authors. I wanted to be able to look back on my
launch and know that whatever came of it, I had done what I could to
ensure its success.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I didn’t quite make it. I broke down last
Saturday – in a very big way. I didn’t even edit, or return to
completing one of my several works in progress; I began a new novel. The
first day I wrote three thousand words, the day after that, four
thousand more. Yesterday I did nothing else and added seven thousand
words to the project; in seven days I’ve written twenty-seven thousand
words in a book that a week ago I hadn’t even conceived. Today I wrote
most of a four-thousand word short story, plus a thousand-word blog
post, plus this little one here – I simply don’t want to stop. I don’t
want to stop.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I had forgotten how easy it was, how smoothly the
words could flow and fly off my fingers, how frustrating it could be to
be hampered not by my mind but by the slow speed of my typing and the
ability of my back to tolerate being hunched for long hours over a
computer. I had forgotten how good it feels to do it, to relax and fall
into it, what it means to be working at writing instead of working at
promoting my writing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I forced myself to forget. I didn’t want to
remember. I needed to be promoting; I didn’t need to be writing. But now
I wonder if maybe I did.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-11073385228101373662014-12-05T10:24:00.000-08:002014-12-05T10:26:04.051-08:00Author Feature on BooksandOpinions.com<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have an author feature up today on BooksandOpinions.com: </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="http://booksandopinions.com/2014/12/05/lori-schafer-author-feature/">http://booksandopinions.com/2014/12/05/lori-schafer-author-feature/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Many thanks to reviewer Angela Gibbs for showcasing me on her site! </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxK-3QhrLF6qWglnn9nJ3utbAKX7q1h5bI_ghNS1LxtqyiEZyx2BGwCI9L5bKDs-O_v9YmqvcPDxukUScbTtoPqIQ_OF3eKROXzbBONGZpdbbGQL5Jf4r3Au7FH8zj-oTYtyx2XoXWXQRz/s1600/readerofallthings_1382283203_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxK-3QhrLF6qWglnn9nJ3utbAKX7q1h5bI_ghNS1LxtqyiEZyx2BGwCI9L5bKDs-O_v9YmqvcPDxukUScbTtoPqIQ_OF3eKROXzbBONGZpdbbGQL5Jf4r3Au7FH8zj-oTYtyx2XoXWXQRz/s1600/readerofallthings_1382283203_2.jpg" height="320" width="246" /></a></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-15957485175309364112014-12-03T19:49:00.000-08:002014-12-03T19:49:37.342-08:00This is Not My Trailer<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/sMI39OJn7NE" width="420"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Comments welcome.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555039152367703406.post-61950456976706310342014-11-23T09:12:00.002-08:002014-11-23T09:12:40.384-08:00Rest Stop<section><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0u5THPF_SOOewsOx6nuSuGzrpayKztusG2Oc6GRNzGYHJRH4Ldd6nX_Zor55p8DdiE_4odNSjOsuXmW0Yhwve5GXcyVX5d4jBJ8_-FN0sAViWH7QCRH-5amzTKk7ickAJlBTROE-HTtrn/s1600/Rest+StopTwitter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0u5THPF_SOOewsOx6nuSuGzrpayKztusG2Oc6GRNzGYHJRH4Ldd6nX_Zor55p8DdiE_4odNSjOsuXmW0Yhwve5GXcyVX5d4jBJ8_-FN0sAViWH7QCRH-5amzTKk7ickAJlBTROE-HTtrn/s1600/Rest+StopTwitter.jpg" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It was hot; Texas-hot, hot like she’d never known. It relieved her to gush forth from the car, to leave the non-air-conditioned enclosure for the open heat, heat that seemed more natural, less oppressive and confining somehow. She looked ruefully down at her body: tank top soaked with great splashes of sweat, denim cutoffs sticking rudely to her skinny thighs. Embarrassing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Her windshield stood splattered, smashed with insects, unfamiliar enough in their unwrecked form and unrecognizable at all now, their gooey guts of green and yellow speckled and crushed all over everything, everywhere. Resisting the full force of her forearm and the gas-station window-washer, they clung tight to the tempered glass, insistent stowaways for the remainder of her journey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“Where you headed?” a voice called out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">She glanced up and saw him, an affable-looking man in his late thirties, perhaps early forties, bearing a bit of an accent but no cowboy hat; maybe a local, and maybe not one. There were only two of them there; he had to be speaking to her. She supposed there was no harm in answering.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“California,” she said, bending her elbow again to the window.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“That’s a long way off,” he replied, whistling softly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“Yes, it is,” she agreed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">He approached her, thumbs tucked into the pockets of his own full-length dungarees, evidently immune to the heat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“Say, that’s an expensive trip,” he observed. “You, uh — you got enough money to get there?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Instantly she was on her guard. She circled casually around to the other side of the car, in the direction of the shop and its sleepy attendant. Was he going to rob her? Find out if she had any cash and then knock her down and take it? Instinctively she felt for it with the muscles of her behind, the wallet tucked tightly into her back pocket, crammed into a space too small for its contents, and plastered there now with sweat and fear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“I think I’ve got enough,” she equivocated, ears burning with the lie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“You sure?” he prodded encouragingly, penetrating her with moist periwinkle-blue eyes. “Because I, uh, know where you could make some — you know — some extra money. If you needed it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So he wasn’t going to rob her; he was offering her a job. The windshield was nearly clean now but she continued scrubbing, pondering the proposal. She wondered what kind of work it would be. Day labor, no doubt. But didn’t people usually want young men for that kind of thing?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">He stood smiling kindly, warmly down at her, almost fatherly in aspect. She really could use the money. It had already been two days since she’d eaten. Was saving the rest of it for fuel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“Thanks,” she said finally, deciding. “But I’m in a hurry; better get going.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“You’re sure you won’t change your mind?” he replied, a hint of pleading in his voice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“No,” she asserted. “But thank you for the offer.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">What a nice fellow, she thought as she headed back towards the highway. People sure were friendly down here in Texas. They sure were friendly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">*** </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“Rest Stop” is the true story of something that happened to me when I was seventeen. I had run away from my home in Massachusetts shortly after graduation, and now found myself baking in the scorching heat of July in rural Texas. I was supposed to start school at U.C. Berkeley that fall, but since I was still underage and therefore subject to recall if caught, I was understandably anxious about conserving the little money I had, as I wasn’t sure how easy it would be for a kid with no parents, no home, and no local references to find a job. Being mathematically minded, I quite naturally spent the long miles driving in calculating a fairly precise budget, which, once I’d paid for necessities like gas and oil, had little room in it for luxuries like food. And then I stopped at this gas station and here was this wonderful man asking me earnestly if I had enough money to get where I was going or whether I wanted to earn a little extra to tide me over until I arrived safely at my intended destination.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I’m embarrassed to admit now that I was just as naive as the girl in the story. I spent a lot of time traveling alone in the years that followed, and was propositioned numerous times by other equally friendly fellows seeking the company of a young woman for an afternoon or an hour. But this was the first such occasion, and I was so utterly confounded by this man’s incomprehensible behavior that I spent many miles pondering it in my head. Why had this stranger been so inexplicably nice? Who offers money to a girl he doesn’t even know, in exchange for services he isn’t sure she’s qualified to perform? I’d probably driven a good half hour before comprehension finally came roaring into my addled teenaged brain and I understood that I’d come unbelievably close to becoming an unwitting body for hire. At length amusement over the incident replaced my horror, and at least the next time it happened, I was prepared with a polite, “No, thank you, sir.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">* * *</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“Rest Stop” is one of the stories featured in my autobiographical short story and essay collection <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Stories from My Memory-Shelf: Fiction and Essays from My Past.</em> You can learn more about it by visiting the book's <a data-mce-href="http://wp.me/P4mxfj-6G" href="http://wp.me/P4mxfj-6G" target="_blank">webpage</a> or by clicking the image below to be taken to the Amazon details page:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MYNUD8K/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00MYNUD8K&linkCode=as2&tag=lorschsshosub-20&linkId=CKNBCNR5BANDX3KT" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MYNUD8K/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00MYNUD8K&linkCode=as2&tag=lorschsshosub-20&linkId=CKNBCNR5BANDX3KT"><img alt="" border="0" data-mce-src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00MYNUD8K&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=lorschsshosub-20" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00MYNUD8K&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=lorschsshosub-20" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><img alt="" border="0" data-mce-src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=lorschsshosub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00MYNUD8K" data-mce-style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=lorschsshosub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00MYNUD8K" style="border: currentColor !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></div>
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</section>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10935825774195785605noreply@blogger.com2