Website

I'm really happy about how my "Author" website turned out. I had no intention of creating one today, but when I went to check out my MuseItUp Yahoo groups I went to visit a site of a fellow MIU author and Bang! the inspiration hit me.

www.lisaforget.weebly.com

It's simple but I have time to get it looking a little slicker before my stories are published - which is the reason I needed a website - for self-promotion. All authors have one and I'm going to need one too, apparently! I've linked this blog to the site - another thing I was happy about.

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I belong to the online writing group on author Kelley Armstrong's website. One of the things I love about the OWG is how we all share ideas on a variety of writer's issues. Here are my thoughts on one topic and my own cry for advice as well:

What we do when we have Writer's Block
(no I don't mean my sick and twisted 50 word story...LOL!)

In my experience, the best thing is to keep writing. That doesn't necessarily mean keep working on the thing that's got me in a knot. Sometimes I just have to write what's on my mind at the time to help unblock the flow.

I usually take my thoughts, paragraphs, pages of seemingly unconnected material and file it under whatever the subject is, ie: Fight Scene or Meeting a Stranger. Those pieces have often helped spark just what I needed to get back to my main writing project. I've even used some of those random bits in my main work (I don't delete anything). For example: I've sourced the sexy scenes I wrote a year ago for my Dark Lover WIP (work in progress) which I realize has the same title as JR Ward's first of the Brotherhood of the Black Dagger series, so I'll have to change it! lol! (book titles - definitely a topic worthy of a blog posting of its own) Of course, I didn't use the whole thing word for word but it was a great launching pad for the scene. I figure, I write what inspires me at the moment and somewhere down the line I'll need a little kick-start - using my very own words.

Another thing I like to do when my thoughts hit a wall is to turn to my favourite books, especially the ones that inspired me to write, and I read, read, read. Then when I'm pumped with creative juices, I write, write, write.

When someone uses the same idea you had...

Okay....so, I was reading "City of Fallen Angels" the latest by Cassandra Clare (a Mother's day gift from my 14 year old Emily) when I landed at the bottom of page 322 and started getting a little dizzy. The reason was not because I was sick or hungry but because of the beginning of the "who I am" speech made by a new character.

It went like this:

"I knew Adam before Eve did. I was his first wife, but I would not be obedient to him, so God cast me out and made for Adam a new wife, one fashioned of his own body that she might ever be subservient...." "....you may call me Lilith, first of all demons."

No. Freaking. Way!!!! And here I thought I had an "original" idea using the Lilith of this myth/story in the little sexy piece I've been posting to the OWG. Argh!!! This was frustrating. I bursted out a couple of no-way-no-way's using a a very loud "outside voice" (LOL!)

Now, I realize that the story of Lilith is ANCIENT and is out there in a variety of ways - but to be honest, I only recently came across her story while I was researching demons (for a story, of course) and it gave me the idea to start writing the darned thing! I feel like if I continue people will think I stole the idea for my character from her when, in fact, that is so untrue!!!

Has this ever happened to you, where you're in the midst of writing something and then BAM! someone else has done it first?? What did you do? This was the question I put to the members of my group.

Responses were that I should continue with my character as is and write the story I intended. Authors all have a different vision and my Lilith is definitely not the same as the one that appears in Cassandra Clare's popular YA novel.

I'm going to take their advice!

Deathly Quiet will be e-published!!

My short story "Deathly Quiet" will be e-published by MuseItUp Publishing in November 2011!

I'm looking forward to working with Lea Schizas and the talented team at MuseItUp.

As soon as details are available, I will be sure to shout it from the highest mountain top!

Chicken Soup for the Soul!!

Well, the day started off as usual. After getting my husband off to work and the girls off to school, I poured myself a coffee, toasted up some raisin bread and headed down to my office/studio to start my day.

I opened up my emails, immediately noticing a message from my composer friend, Blair Thomson, who sent me the unmixed version of the song I recorded for him in the studio yesterday afternoon. It's from his and Frayne McCarthy's new musical - The Virgin Courtesan. I smiled when I heard the character voice I used for "Harlot 3" coming through the speakers because it reminded me of Mme Thenardier from Les Miz (which immediately brought back wonderful memories and distracted me for a few minutes). I closed the email and was just about to respond to it when I saw one from someone whose name I didn't recognize at first. It was at the bottom, under a slew from the band members of Slice of Vegas confirming our next rehearsal date.

I literally held my breath as I clicked on the email.

"Dear Lisa,

Your story “Hope” has made it to the final selection round for Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada. Only about five percent of the submitted stories have made it this far." .... "The publication date is scheduled for November 1 2011. You will receive...." (then all the monetary and legal details followed...)

Oh my God!!! My first paid piece!!

I jumped out of my chair and started doing a happy dance! I immediately dialed my husband's work and cell numbers and couldn't reach him (argh!!), so I quickly called my sister Christine, who began to do a virtual happy dance of her own at the other end of the line. Bless her - she is so supportive of everything I do!

I finally reached my husband Shawn and even though he was dealing with some stressful work issues, he took the time to tell me all the wonderfully encouraging things a wife wants to hear her husband say, including, "we'll celebrate when I get home."

After that sweet conversation, I contacted my daughters. They are my first readers. They read everything I write (er...well most of the things I write. I am experimenting with a few genres that wouldn't be appropriate for them! LOL!)and so they're always interested to get news about something I've submitted. They were thrilled!

I guess they must be talking about it because, since I told them earlier today, I've been receiving congratulations from their friends via email, texts and Facebook messages!

I've spent most of the morning in a happy tizzy, writing the bio that will appear along with the story, dealing with the agreement as well as preparing this blog entry. Goodness knows, I've got a load of work to do and my taxes to prepare but I'm floating on a cloud and can't concentrate on anything else!

The truth is, there's always the possibility that "Hope" may not make it into the very final cut that will have it published in the O Canada edition, but there's always the very strong possibility that it will!

(Chicken Soup has permission to publish the story elsewhere so, who knows, it could one day end up printed in a national newspaper or family magazine.)

The way I see it - today is a very good day!

Irish Week

a.k.a Green Week!

Too busy singing Irish ditties to do anything else...

Here in Montreal, the Irish festivities begin the night the Parade Queen and her court are chosen. This year, that was February 5th. The celebrations will continue right up until the United Irish Societies Banquet on April 2nd.

I have the honour to be a part of it and today I especially enjoyed doing a concert for the long-term patients at the Richardson Hospital. I loved their enthusiasm and was so impressed by their participation. The old Irish songs brought back many memories for them - even those who weren't of Irish descent. Some shared a story or two and one sweet lady walked up to the performance area to hand me a box of her treasured "Smarties"! Moments like these make it all worthwhile.

I love this time of year but by the end of the Irish season, I'll be ready for a vacation, lol! (anyone handing out a trip to Ireland??)

I do look forward to when I'll have a moment to think and hopefully, write!

May the luck of the Irish be with you this week!

Lisa

PS: Here's a link that might be of interest: www.historypin.com

PSS: My song "Across the Sea", inspired by my love of the Irish people and the Emeral Isle, has been very well received. I think I may step into the studio with a few musicans to record it....

'Writer's Block"

I am the guest writer today on 50 Word Stories!

My twisted 50-word story, "Writer's Block" appears at:

www.fiftywordstories.com/2011/02/28/lisa-forget-writers-block

What a wonderful way to start off the week!

I wrote this while I was doing NaNoWriMo in November, in response to a challenge to write a 50 word story put forth by one of the members of our online writing group.
I'd never written anything so short but really enjoyed doing it. It was a great exercise in getting down to the nitty-gritty!

Hope you check it out!

Pull Me Out From Inside

Pull Me Out From Inside
by Lisa Forget

The music takes hold of me. I can do nothing but listen as it sweeps me away, one note at a time. The piano is slightly out of tune. The dissonance is heartbreakingly beautiful.

Poety entwines its rhymes with the musical lines and together they steal the breath from my lungs. I close my eyes. I see stars. I dream.

My emotion takes on colour and paints my mind's canvas with rich purples and blues and wisps of haunting shadows. Music builds, emotions swell until every colour dances with the light of the sun and moon and creates perfect harmony.

A stringed instrument cries a note of longing that pierces my soul. It fills my head with sober musings. I'm so happy I weep.

My tears fall in time with the chimes of the music box that has drifted in like a ghost from the past. It mends the hole in my heart.

The song pulls me out from inside.

I am forever haunted by it.

Never let it end.


Inspired by my love for "Colorblind" by The Counting Crows

God bless songwriters.

Three Minutes

I didn’t realize it until recently but my children have become collectors. They don’t collect cards, or coins or anything like that but they collect little bits of information, stories or anything that strikes them as interesting, especially if they think I would find it interesting. They offer up their findings to me like gifts, as one would do with fine art, handmade lace or treasured jewels, to add to my collection of ideas and inspiration for stories that fuel my passion for writing.

Three Minutes, was inspired by something my daughter Caitlin told me this morning. It’s a recollection of sorts that comes from a 94 year old man who, when he was 92, died for three minutes. My daughter was fascinated by this and asked him the question most of us would ask, “What happened to you when you died?” Now, she’s promised that she’ll tell me more about this conversation, but we were in the throws of the morning rush so she only had time to leave me with the gentleman’s reply, which was:

“When I died, it was like every dream I ever dreamed came back to me, all at one time….”

“I bet it would make a wonderful short story,” she said as she walked to the front door, then she turned to me and winked.

She knows her mother so well.

Thanks Caitlin.


THREE MINUTES
a short story
by Lisa Forget


Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Ping.

The clouds are so white. The air is so clean. I’m soaring. Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon. I’m singing. My voice is flawless, pure and true. I feel the wind gusting past me, blowing through my silky-smooth chestnut-coloured hair. It gets tangled in the wind and I laugh. I love to fly.

I’m landing in green fields. I’m in Ireland. I don’t know how I know this but I remember this moment. I imagined it once when I was about twelve. I look down at my hands, ivory skin glistens a youthful glow in the sunshine. I realize that I am twelve and I am immersed in something wonderful, a new reality.

I jump from the wicker basket onto the ground. Long, lime-coloured grass tickles my legs as I run through the velvet fields. I’m anxious to reach the path that leads to the castle sitting atop the hill in the distance. People are waiting for me. I hear them calling. I run faster.

I blink and then I’m falling. I land on a rock jutting out from a cliff. I look down. Water crashes against craggy rocks. I scuffle quickly away from the rock’s edge and lean against wet, pungent, black earth. I feel roots and vines and both my hands grip on tight. I call out and hear nothing but the water below. I look up and know that if I could just climb the damp wall that’s at my back, I’d find my family sitting fifty yards away enjoying a picnic lunch on a blanket laid out on luscious green grass. I turn quickly, praying that I won’t slip and fall. I’m crying and calling for Daddy as I reach for gnarly bits of root sticking out of the dirt. I try repeatedly but my fingers slip and my feet never find purchase on anything solid enough to give me leverage. I pant and begin to feel dizzy. The view pans out and I see myself, alone on a jagged rock, one step away from death. I’m eight. I have lived this moment countless times. To me it is real, although my parents assured me it never was, that it was only my overactive imagination playing tricks on me. At this very moment, it is real.

I’m running again in that field where I landed the hot-air balloon. There’s a light in the window of the castle on the hill. I hear music. I hear singing. I smell Irish soda bread baking in a clay oven. I veer left.

I’m in a procession with a sea of beautifully dressed children. My mother made the dress I’m wearing. It’s my Communion. We’re all God’s little children and we’re going to make our sacrament together. I arrive at the altar. I’m wearing my wedding dress. My mother made this dress too. The church is filled with pink roses and white baby’s breath. My true love stands beside me. His love for me is making him tear up. I smile. He takes my hand and squeezes it. I look around. My family is there, as well as all my friends. They are the same ones who walked in the communion procession. They’ve been with me forever it seems. I’m blissfully happy.

I scream. I’m in unbearable pain. My insides are on fire. It ends abruptly. I hold a wet, wiggly thing in my arms. It’s warm and I want to hold it carefully so I don’t break it. I look down. My first-born is beautiful. Her face changes and I see my second whose tiny perfect face morphs into my third whose rosy cheeks look like strawberry ice cream. I feel warm and wet, just like the angels in my arms. I’m bleeding and blood is dripping from the hospital bed. There’s panic around me.

Drums are beating. The fields are drenched in starlight. There are more candles in the windows. Someone is waiting; I think it’s my prince. I have to go…soon.

A whistle blows and a teapot is filled. I hear a gurgle and smell fresh coffee. I taste date squares and shortbread cookies on my tongue. My kitchen is abuzz with laughter. I’m wending my way through the group of people standing around my table and leaning against my counters. I don’t know any of them, yet I know one day I will. I wander into the living room. There are musicians with guitars and penny flutes and I hear a melody coming from the player piano. I didn’t even know it still worked. I make my way toward the music. The musicians follow me and we form a parade that marches out into the street. I’m in the midst of a photograph I’ve seen before, in a book about the past. I’m waving at myself.

The parade marches on through the streets of the bustling city. Everyone I’ve ever known, and thousands that I don’t, have lined the sidewalks. There are batons twirling in the air and trumpets blasting familiar tunes. There’s cotton candy in a rainbow of colours and frothy drinks being slurped up through foot-long straws. On my right, an elderly lady is walking my dog, Sparky. I buried him in my back yard, under the maple tree when I was fifteen. He barks a happy hello to me. I say thank you to the lady who’s walking him. I don’t know why I thank her, maybe it’s because that dog saved my life once and I’m grateful someone is looking after him until I can do so again.

I hear my name being called and I turn toward the voice. It’s my grandson. I realize I hadn’t heard my given name but one of the many other names people call me. The one he calls me is Grandma. Behind him is my sister, and behind her is my cousin, and behind him is my teacher from first grade who’s walking arm in arm with my best friend Sally, finally I see my parents. The parade stops. I know now that I’m in Heaven because that is the only place my mother and father could be. I change my course and make my way toward them. They lift their arms ready to embrace me.

I hear the music again, the one coming from the castle and it makes me pause. I have tried to not listen to it but it is hauntingly persistent. I will have to go and tell them to stop, that I’m busy at the moment. I make a sign to my parents but they are gone. So is the parade. My feet are on soft soil.

I am in front of the castle. My prince is standing in the window; his face is that of my true love. I’m wearing a fairytale gown of lavender and iridescence that billows in the heather-scented breeze. I am young. I am old. I am ageless. I make my way to the entrance of the castle and as I reach for the door my chest bursts into flames. My eyes widen and I am blinded.

“Mrs. Pearce?” I hear.

I am struck dumb. I am lying on a cold surface and my lips are sealed. I shake my head. I know that my eyes are full, but of what, I can’t say. I’m confused. Where am I?

“In the hospital,” the voice answers. I must have voiced my question aloud.

“W..what happened?” My aged voice falters as air passes, with much difficulty, through my dry throat.

“You died, Mrs. Pearce,” says the voice of the doctor that comes from behind the nurse holding my hand. I feel tubes taped to my wrist.

“D..ied?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says as he also puts his hands on me. “You were dead for three minutes.”

It’s no wonder they both want to touch me, to them I must be immortal.

“On…ly….th…ree?” My lungs won’t cooperate, giving me only enough air to manage a couple of words at a time.

“Yes,” the nurse answers. “You rest now. You’re family is here. They’ll be waiting for you when you wake up.”

“Yes,” I say, closing my eyes.

I know that what she says is true. What I want to tell her is that they’re waiting on the other side as well, but I’m too tired to force another word from my lips. I feel myself succumb to sleep. I welcome it; embrace the warmth of the little spot in my mind where I’ll go to dream more dreams that I know will welcome me when it’s truly time to go.