The Author That Opened Doors to New Worlds!

Book 8: The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

                The only fantasy novels I was introduced to growing up were Mercedes Lackey and Dungeons and Dragons, at least these were what my friends read, and I didn’t like any of them. It caused me to have the impression that there was nothing much of interest there for me.

                Then one day during a writing workshop, the instructor suggested that the next book we buy be one from a genre that we would normally not read. In the bargain bin at the grocery store the next day I found the book ‘The Lions of Al-Rassan’, bought it, read it, loved it, shelved it, and never thought much more about it for a long time. I enjoyed the book but it didn’t really inspire me to become a fantasy lover.

                A few months later my new brother-in-law lent me a book and told me that I would love it, it was the Fionavar Tapestry again by Guy Gavriel Kay. I devoured this book and went looking for more, since then Kay has become a favorite of mine and I’ve read all his books, even the poetry ones, and am eagerly waiting the day someone decides to make a movie out of one of them.

                That second exposure to his work was the kicker for me and once I read through all his books I went looking for more, spending hours wandering the fantasy shelves because I still had some doubts and wasn’t ready to commit to long series like Robert Jordan’s, but I wanted the magic, the mystery and the love, I had found in the other fantasy books.

                I bought a few anthologies of various authors and went from there, opening up a wonderful world full of many other wonderful worlds of fantasy. Yes eventually I read Tolkien too, even went past the Ring tales and into his other works as well.

                As much as I loved the books it still took me some time to fully embrace writing fantasy and how much freedom there was to it. For me fantasy and horror fell in together and my stories tend to reflect that a little bit.

                I only have one of my works that is totally fantasy and takes place in a fantasy world but I bring it back to tie in to my horror works. I just can’t seem to make that leap fully into the fantasy genre in my own writing but I can still appreciate the intricate and wonderful worlds these people have created and shared with us.

                I would, obviously, recommend Guy Gavriel Kay’s books to anyone but I also challenge anyone and everyone to go pick up a book in a genre you don’t like, you never know what surprises lie in store for you there.

                At least once a year I pick up a book that at first doesn’t appeal to me and I have yet to be disappointed, it is an adventure out of the norm – for me anyways!

For Author and Book Info, click here!

The Book Every Pregnant Woman Should Read

Book 7 – Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin

                I just recently finished this book and it has changed the way I see and feel about being pregnant, labour, delivery, and a bit about everyday life and the way our fears and perceptions affect us.

                The book starts with 127 pages full of positive and empowering birth stories – these aren’t the horror stories we’ve been brought up hearing, or the exaggerated drama birth scenes we see in the media, they aren’t about pushing a certain way of birth or lifestyle, they are just simple stories about women giving birth.

                That part really made me step back and think about how I was introduced and exposed to birth stories. During my first pregnancy when I was twenty-one, every woman I met had to tell me how hard it was and painful and they were in labour for this many hours and they wouldn’t have been able to do without the drugs and so on. I still delivered my first child with very little drugs and interventions but do feel that compared to today, I was ignorant of the true nature of birth.

                My second pregnancy – two and a half years ago – was a bit different because I was vocal and told everyone that I wanted a natural birth with no pain medications. I thought that would be enough to get them to help me but I was wrong, there were still a few things that happened during the birth that I didn’t like and that caused me more pain then necessary. (I still did it drug free though)

                Now with this pregnancy, I am very thankful that I picked up this book and read it through. After the birth stories she – Ina May (The Nation’s Leading Midwife) – goes on to break down the myths and medical jargon or birth and labor. She explains what all the interventions are, how they can benefit or hinder a natural birth or disempower a woman. She talks about the physiology of birth and pathology of birth and how our fears have a big part to play in how painful or stressful birth can be.

                This book made me a bit upset as I realized just how far down the medical world has brought the simple and natural process of birth. Birth is something that every woman is born and able to do, naturally, without drugs and independently. At the same time I do recognize the many children are saved from advances in medical procedures but unfortunately many of these ‘advances’ are used for convenience and not because there is any danger or because the woman is somehow made ‘wrong’ and can’t deliver.

                I think this book should come free with every positive pregnancy test and that every doctor should recommend it, most midwifes do.

                This book has changed my life in so many ways including the path that I plan to take with it. I’ve decided to get my Doula Certification so that I can help woman make informed choices and be empowered by their birth instead of ashamed by it. Possibly in the future I may look to getting my midwifery license as well but it’s a hard thing to get where I am.

                If you or anyone you know is pregnant or plans to be, please recommend this book. If nothing else it will inform and empower you.

Click Here for the Book

Click here for more on Ina May!

The Book That Made Me a Better Mom!

Book 6 – Diaper Free, The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene, by Ingrid Bauer

                This books not only changed my life but my children’s lives too because it helped to change the kind of parent I want to be.

                For my first daughter, I did everything I was told, disposable diapers, breastfed till six months, potty trained around 2-3 years old, etc. It wasn’t bad but she had a lot of diaper rashes despite my best efforts to keep her changed and clean and there were the inevitable defiance surrounding ‘potty training’. She turned out ok though.

                When I was pregnant with my second daughter eleven years later I knew a lot more about raising a baby and about environmental impacts and health impacts on children. I kept thinking that there must be another solution to this diapering problem. I was all ready to use cloth diapers but still felt that there was something I was missing.

                Then I picked up a Natural Parenting magazine and in it was an article about ‘Diaper Free’ and it sent me to the book titled the same (actually there are two books with the same title and both are worth reading). I had the ever elusive ‘eureka’ moment complete with light bulb over my head and angels singing!

                Actually what I read just made sense, it talks about how children are born able to tell us when they are hungry, tired, and scared, and guess what, they can even tell us when they have to ‘go’! The truth is that conventional use of diapers wasn’t introduced until the late 1800’s and only as a means to help catch ‘oopsies’ when children were in public. We as the lovely enabled western society we’ve become took to it like flies to honey and started using them exclusively. With the use of diapers blossomed a trillion dollar industry full of diapers, creams, bins, books, aids, etc. Everything we needed to teach our children to eliminate in their pants only to teach them three years later that this was wrong.

                Now if you went for a walk in Africa, China, Russia, Northern Canada, etc., you would find that very few children wear diapers. It’s not because their parents just let them ‘go’ anywhere, it’s because their mothers learn to read the child’s signal and teaches them at a young age how to control and release their developing muscles (a skill they learn in the womb). Most children in every other country except Canada and USA are completely ‘potty trained’ by a year old.

                Believe me it’s not only possible but it’s easy too, a lot easier than cleaning and changing diapers over and over. My daughter started using a ‘yogurt container potty’ when she was two weeks old. For six months I never had to change a ‘number 2’ diaper and by a year old she could tell me with words when she had to go. Now at two years old she is almost completely toilet independent.

                I wasn’t perfect in my use of the ‘Diaper Free’ model written in the book, there were times when I got lazy and put her back in diapers, times when she was ill or travelling when we had minor relapses, but all in all I am very proud of her and myself.

                The book goes in to much more detail about the whole process and I highly recommend it for anyone who is expecting or who has children who are ready to get out of diapers. It’s a wonderful book and like I said, it opened up a world of gentle and respectful parenting that has improved all of our lives.

(Sorry went a bit over the 500 words but this is a topic I am passionate about – educating women on their empowering mothering skills and knowledge.)

Learn more here!

The Author that brought me to the Dark Side!

Book 5 – Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey

                I often wander through the book store just looking at books and jackets to pick a random book by an author I don’t know. This practice has led to many wonderful discoveries but I think the best one that I ever picked up was Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey.

                It’s a fantasy novel and yet the setting of the story is remarkably similar to Europe and Asia in history, even some of the names she uses relate to real life historical events.

                The story centers around Phedre no’Delaunay an orphan adopted by a spy.  She has been chosen by the God’s or Angels of this story to fulfill a very hard path. One of the angel’s is Kushiel who finds pleasure in pain and who took the lash unto himself in order to protect the ‘God’ that the angels followed. The other angel who has chosen her is Namaah, who laid down with strangers in order to secure food and lodgings for their God. She learns to become a ‘companion’ which is a woman who sells herself for profit. However this occupation is revered and has strict rules to follow. Despite this the novel doesn’t center on the sexual, it is simply a part of who she is and a part of the wonderfully rich society that Jacqueline Carey has created.

                This book changed my life for a few reasons; one because it opened my mind up to the real possibilities of fantasy writing – I had previously thought it was all about epic tales full of dwarfs and elves. Second, after contacting Jacqueline Carey by email through her site, she taught me a valuable lesson, how to let go of my own insecurities and fears.

                Before she told me that I was always worried that if my family and friends read my work they would think that I was either very sick or had very disturbing fantasies. She taught me that it’s ok, as a writer, to delve into the dark side of humanity and even the perverse and disgusting side too, because they exist. Just because you can write from the point of view of a serial killer doesn’t mean that you want to be one, it just means that you have a very good imagination and understanding of human nature.

                These revelations helped me so much in my own writing and  letting myself jump off the ‘safe’ topics I wrote about and delve into the darker side of my mind as well as my characters. She freed me to just go for it, go as deep and dark as you can and then find your way back to the light, or sometimes not, as in her Banewreaker Series.

                I have since and continue to read all her books because her characters are so wonderful and ‘real’ and when I pick up her book, it’s like going home and visiting family that I loved and missed.

                If you haven’t already then I highly recommend getting lost in her world, it will be a trip well worth it.

For more Jacqueline Carey click here!

The ones that got me writing!

Book 4- Johanna Lindsey

                This one isn’t so much one book but many by the same author. Johanna Lindsey is a Romance Author and many of her books have been on the New York Times Bestsellers List, but that’s not why I like her.

                Hers was maybe one of the first ‘adult’ fiction books I ever read. A friend was scandalized by the content of the book and gave it to me with a lot of giggles. The first one that I read was Savage Thunder, and at age 11, in grade 5, yeah it was a little scandalous but that’s not why I loved it so. Immediately and forever afterwards, I have loved her characters.

                I did spend some time exploring other romance authors but none of them ever captivated my attention quite like she did with the simple complexity of her wonderful characters. When I read her books, I cried, laughed, raged, and loved. Until one day, in grade 7, I decided that I could write.

                At the tender age of thirteen, I started writing romance novels complete with detailed and rather nice sex scenes. I have more than a dozen half-finished ideas and two almost complete novels that I haven’t looked at since high school.

                The reason I put her and her books in my list of books that changed my life is because they did, they opened my mind to the stories that were inside and convinced me that I could write them out almost as well as she did (ok I got a little ego trip, I was 13!)

                I am not actually a big fan of romance anymore and she is the only romance author that I still purchase and follow. I have every single one of her books and although I’ve thought of selling them a few times, I just can never seem to let them go. It would be like letting go of a lot of close friends.

                To this day I can still call upon any number of her characters and have them walk around in my head and they still make me smile and laugh and love. The stories weren’t always the most original, but they didn’t have to be, the force of her characters was all I needed. I didn’t care much about what was happening in the background, as long as I knew what they were doing and feeling and thinking.

                I would recommend her if anyone is interested in reading romance, or if only for a challenge to pick up a book from a genre that you might have preconceived notions about and be pleasantly surprised. If nothing else reading her books has taught me the importance of having and creating characters that the reader will love with all their hearts.

                If you make me care about the people I’m reading about then I will carry them with me always. Is this not the truth of many great novels out there and more than a few humanitarian efforts as well!

Find her here!

Is there an author or book that really influenced your start as a writer?

My First Blog Award!

Thanks to Marianne who passed on the One Lovely Blogger Award, it's my first award ever and I'm so excited. More so since this is only my sixth post on my 'newish' blog.

Now I have to tell you seven things about me, which I know you've been dying to know! They aren't in any order of importance.

One I like pens, like crazy like pens, the smaller the writting the better, so far I've found 0.3mm but there's got to be smaller out there right, I'll just keep looking. Some one could fill my stockings full of pens for Christmas and I would be crazy happy.

Two I'm very creative,  I write novels, short stories, poetry, I paint, I craft, I like to redecorate my house, but I have horrible confidence when it comes to showing my work and one bad word can stop my creativity cold for a long time. I try not to dwell on it and know that I shouldn't but it hurts, especially when it's family that tells you these things.

Three I love being outside, anyday, anytime, any weather. I sometimes get up in the middle of the night and go walk around my pitch black acreage. It is totally freaky - especially with the Moose out there, but it rejuvenates me and makes me feel so much better. I dream of designing a house that truly brings the outside in and makes it possible for me to 'live' outdoors.

Four I'm an insomniac and a Lucid dreamer. One is caused by the other actually. Because I never get more then three hours of consecutive sleep, I've learned to push myself into REM sleep very quickly. Since I have such vivid dreams they can sometimes be very disturbing, but in my self-preservation of wanting to sleep, I've learned to 'walk'  in my dreams and make conscious changes to them while sleeping. On the plus side, I get a lot of good story ideas from my crazy dreams.

Five The two things that I always wanted to be when I grew up, was someone who can help people get healthy (holistically) and create homes for the way we live. I have countless architectural designs of homes and health articles clippings and pages. One day, maybe I'll grow up! lol!

Six I have one sister and two brothers. The brother that I was closest to died when I was fifteen. My other brother lives far away and sometimes I forget he's there and vice versa. My sister lives close but we are like night and day. Somedays I really miss my siblings.

Seven I don't think I'm very good at blogging. I tend to talk myself into circles when trying to make a point and always feel that I never really get the right message across. But I keep at it, hoping that practice will fix the problems.


And now to the nominees.

Avangeline - who doesn't post often but I always enjoyed her posts.

Angela - Because her posts always make me think, which is always a good thing.

Books can change more than just your mind!

Book 3 – 28 Days to a New You. – Christine Green

                I don’t ever pick up let alone buy ‘diet’ books because I tend to think that they are full of lies and garbage meant to keep us ‘fat’ so as to perpetuate the ‘diet’ industry. This book was on the bargain table at Chapters one day and since I was interested in learning more about ‘detoxifying the body’, I picked it up.

                The first thing I noticed and what convinced me to buy it, was that it wasn’t full of fad gimmicks, disgusting drink mixes, crazy lifestyle changes, or anything else outrageous. I also liked that the Detox diet that she talks about happens over the course of 28 days, actually all the plans in this book take 28 days based on the fact that it takes that long for our bodies to develop habits.

                I didn’t ever think that a three day or one week detox diet was ever a good idea – I liken this idea to taking an ice cold shower on a hot day, sure it gets you cold really fast, but it shocks your body into recovery mode so that your body will start to heat itself up making you hotter not colder. If you started with warm water and then gradually cooled it down, then your body cools down slowly and safely as well. This idea works with detox and any diet in my opinion.

                So when I opened this book and looked at the detox plan, it made sense to me, and I did the diet the following February. I didn’t do it to lose weight and I didn’t lose a lot, just a few pounds, but what I did loose was inches, about three of them off my waist, hips, and thighs. But that wasn’t the best thing that happened.

                The best thing was the way I felt, I had more energy, less mood swings, was happier, had better relations with family, worked better, thought faster, felt smarter, etc.

                The Detox plan also taught me something very important about how my entire being reacts to the food I eat. Not just my body but my emotions, my brain, my skin, all of it. During the diet I had one day of temptation – Shrove Tuesday I had pancakes and sausages – within an hour of eating the pancakes I literally fell asleep in my chair at work.

                I did manage to develop some habits from this plan and continued to use them in my life for about a year and a half afterwards. Until I got a whole lot of stress in my life and fell back into the easy old ways of eating poorly and feeling worse. It’s a lot easier to eat unhealthy then it is to eat healthy but hopefully as I take on another of the Diet plans in this book, I will develop and stick with some good habits.

Click here for the Book.