Tag: writing life

My Mom And Hugging Away The Judgement

You Have To Believe in The Good–Living Happy Roundup

My mother spent a lifetime hugging other people. Meeting after meeting, interaction after interaction, for the entire time that she was alive, she would hug people when she saw them and hug them when they left.

Her hugs were many.

Her hugs were long.

She would open her arms wide, her eyes would twinkle, her dimples would show and it was almost impossible not to step toward that 5 foot 1 frame and hug. She’d often smell like vanilla and brown sugar on top of her perfume, a fancy kind that she’d ask for every Christmas. It came from Jordan Marsh, which was a big deal store decades ago. It was fancy, too.

She would open her arms and you would step into them.

My mom always wanted to be a teacher, but life got in the way. Love with my stepdad when she was still in high school became a big deal drama. He was run out of state. She was desperate to leave home. She married my little hobbit down and though she was brilliant—impeccable at math and grammar, the fastest typist anyone in Bedford, New Hampshire had ever seen—she settled for a life without college. She raised her children. Felt unloved. Unfulfilled. Had another child and a scandal. That child was me.

“Don’t let anyone tell you that you are less, Carrie,” she’d tell me before I knew even what less meant. “You are good, so good.”

“You are too, Mommy,” I’d say back for years and years.

You are too.

My mom with her brothers

My mom often felt judged by people who were richer, who had less drama, who weren’t addicted to Marlboro Lights or canned tuna, who got to go to college, by ministers who cheated at bowling, by men who cheated on their wives but didn’t get caught, and women too. She’d dance around the house when she vacuumed or did dishes singing about the “Harper Valley PTA” a song about a women judged in her small town for loving wrong.

But even then. She would throw her arms open and let people hug her. She’d know everything about everyone—she became the town clerk, a real estate agent, an office manager, organized her class reunions—and people told her things.

“We all have secrets,” she’d tell me. “You have to hug your way through them.”

My mom died over a decade ago. On her hospital bed, two days before she left, she tried to share her hospital ice cream with all of her surviving kids. She insisted.

“Good,” she murmured, “it’s so good.”

Hugs come in different ways. My mom knew that. Sometimes, people have personal boundaries and didn’t want one. She always respected that, too, but she’d find other ways to give them. In the offer of ice cream, in listening without judgement, in a dimpled smile, or in words. Sometimes her strongest hugs were words. Words like “You are good, so good.”

Despite all the drama in her life, despite her missed opportunities, my mom lived her life with purpose. That purpose? It was to hug. It was to remind people they are loved. It is to remind them that they are good.

So, in honor of her this Monday, let me share her purpose for a hot second.

You are worthy of hugs. You deserve them.

You are worthy of love. You deserve that, too.

And the inside of you? That part that sometimes feels too raw to share? It is good. So full of good.

A COUPLE OF COOL LINKS

Four Ways Hugs Are Good For You, which I’ve retitled My Momma Was Right

Berkeley’s Purpose In Life quiz

LINKS FROM LAST WEEK

I have another blog where I post this sort of thing more often than here on my writer website. It’s free, but it is a subscription model and I tend to post there on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays.

These are some recent links from there.

I’ve Been Talking to People I’m Scared of And It’s Turning Out Okay. And a Bit About Choice and Who You Are

Crawling Through The White House Fence And Let’s Get Stoic

Welcome To 2023, Writers

Let’s kick some butt (in a chill, non aggressive way)

Photo by Johnny Briggs on Unsplash

Hey! Thanks so much for being kind about me not posting during the holidays. It really helped be think about what and how to be helpful. I appreciate it a lot and you can expect some new things this year from me. Fingers crossed. I’m going to try to be braver about sharing advice and information and thoughts.

So . . .

Recently, a really popular YouTube author gave out some editing advice. She’s cool. She’s pretty. She’s sarcastic and fun. She’s promoting her own book.

But she also is a little bit wrong this go around because she says the first step in a professional edit is the developmental edit.

It isn’t. Not always.

The first step is often an editorial assessment. Then you revise. Then if you have a butt-ton of money because your daddy is rich and your mother’s good looking, you can hush like a little baby, don’t cry, and get a developmental edit.

Or . . .

You can realize that the first step in a developmental edit is an editorial assessment.

What are these two shiny bits of editing bling?

What is this developmental edit? An editorial assessment?

Let’s use Reedsy’s definitions, okay? Reedsy is a massive platform that connects authors to editors and other freelance professionals and makes sure that those freelancing professionals don’t suck. Full disclosure: I was recruited for Reedsy a couple of years ago and I make money there.

Here’s what that platform (that includes 1 million authors and 2,500 freelancers like me) says about those two styles:

“Editorial Assessment. This is a popular and cost-effective first step for authors, ideal for those at an early stage of their rewrites. Editors offering an editorial assessment will usually:

  • Read and analyze your manuscript;
  • Provide an evaluation in the format of a report, covering all aspects of the story, structure, and commercial viability;
  • Offer suggestions to guide your rewrites.”

And then . . .

“Developmental Editing. A nose-to-tail structural edit of your manuscript for authors who have taken their book as far as they can by themselves. A developmental edit often includes everything in an editorial assessment, plus:

  • Detailed recommendations to improve “big picture” concerns like characterization, plot, pacing, setting, etc.;
  • Specific guidance on elements of writing craft;
  • In-line suggestions and edits in the manuscript.”

So, you could go with a YouTuber’s definition or a platform’s. Totally up to you. But that’s the thing: a lot of people get a lot of money creating edicts for those of us who don’t know better.

They say:

  • These are the best ways to write.
  • These are the worst ways to write.
  • These are the best ways to start your story.
  • These are the worst ways to start your story.

And it’s all absolutes.

Here’s the thing (and I’m going to sound absolute here):

Art and writing aren’t about absolutes. There is diversity of thought and culture and literature and perception. It shouldn’t all be ‘my way or the highway.’ Your psychographics, your family, your culture, your education, your location, your gender identity, race, religion, all create who you are and your story.

Don’t Lose Yourself

When you’re trying to get published or trying to get a ton of readers, you can sometimes lose yourself and your story in the process of listening to those edicts. Stay true, okay? Learn and grow, but don’t accept absolutely everything that an influencer says as gospel. The world and you and your story is bigger than that.

Here is a photo of my cat, Koko,judging me for losing myself in the past.

WRITING PROMPTS

Because I was just talking about Reedsy, I’m going to take one from there. Thanks, Reedsy!

“Your character always makes the same promise; to change. Will they finally make it happen this time?

“Write a story about someone scrambling on New Year’s Eve to fulfil their resolutions for the entire year before the clock strikes twelve.”

You can submit your stories at those links as well. And enter a weekly contest.

SUBMISSION POSSIBILITY FOR THIS WEEK

SALT HILL PUBLISHES POETRY, FICTION, TRANSLATIONS, ESSAYS, INTERVIEWS, AND VISUAL ART. Oh my.

“We have two submission periods for fiction and poetry:

December through January

August through September

“We accept nonfiction and art submissions year-round.

“Salt Hill accepts only online submissions via Submittable for poetry, fiction, nonfiction and reviews. For visual art submissions, see below. Most, if not all, of our published work is selected from unsolicited submissions.

“We accept simultaneous submissions, but ask that you alert us as soon as possible if your work is placed elsewhere by either adding a note to your submission through Submittable or withdrawing the full submission.

“We ask that you submit only once per genre per reading period.

“Due to the volume of submissions, we can’t respond individually to submission status queries. We aim to respond to submissions within three to six months.

“Unfortunately, we are not in the position to offer payment to our writers.

“Curious about what we like? Grab one of our issues, or take a dip through our online archive.

POETRY:

“Please submit no more than five poems at a time, in one document.”

FICTION:

“Please do not submit works of more than 30 pages. We accept multiple flash pieces, so long as their combined length does not exceed 30 pages. Please double space, unless the nature of your work requires special formatting.”

NONFICTION:

“The nonfiction we are interested in pushes the boundaries of the genre, making use of the techniques of fiction and poetry to tell a true story. We want memories, arguments, meditations, revelations, philosophical rants. Salt Hill is a literary journal, so please don’t send us articles or reports. We will consider nonfiction for both our print journal and our website.”

There you go! Let’s go kick some butt in 2023 or make some beautiful music or just really craft our stories the best way we can: piece by piece, word by word, hope by hope.

We’ve got this.

This content and other writing tips, etc. is over here, too.

Writing

Writing Life

Writing Tips

Fiction Writing

Stuff a Crossbow Down Your Trousers and Be Your Own Guru

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Stuff a Crossbow Down Your Trousers and Be Your Own Guru
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When we follow people—be the authors or internet gurus all about self-help or celebrities or influencers, we only see one side of who they are: the shiny side.

We see the end product of a book, a video, a photo, a blog post, a speech, but we don’t see the day-to-day humanity behind that. We consume the product, become devoted to the person, even sometimes think we’re friends with the person, and sometimes even think the things in their lives belong more to us than to them.

And that’s pretty interesting, right?

Cooking with a Writer Black Bean Soup Recipe
Fingers are yummy!

Last week our dog, Gabby, died and because Gabby is a big part of Carrie’s message and social media, she posted that Gabby had passed. So many people were lovely and kind and expressed so much sympathy because Gabby presented something good in their lives and because they were kind and had empathy because they’d been through loss, too.

But one person sent a message that said they were still really sad about Gabby and that Carrie may still be struggling. And that? That one little word ‘may,’ when combined with their statement about being really sad? It made us stop and think even though we know this person is absolutely lovely and only has the best of intentions.

Still, it was our dog that died, but we were the ones who may still be struggling?

We are no Tim Ferris or Kardashian or Tony Robbins or Anne Lamott, but our lives are real and not just consumption for others. We get joyous, desperately sad, grieve, make massive mistakes, and sometimes even do things incredibly right.

Sometimes when we follow others, we forget that those other people are people and sometimes we forget that we are people too.

We are all intrigued by the personality and human aspects behind the people we follow, be they entrepeneurs, philosophers, influencers, or Kardashians. But that doesn’t mean that we should forget that they are humans with whole teams sometimes helping them create a product.

You don’t need to be a product.

And you don’t need to feel bad about yourself if you aren’t an influencer or don’t have a massive following or don’t have beautifully curated Instagram photos.

You aren’t a product and even those famous people aren’t products. We are all humans, figuring things out as we go. We don’t need to imitate a Kardashian to be happy or to channel our inner Tony Robbins or Oprah or Anne Lamott or Jayson Reynolds. We need to define what it is that we truly want in life. If you are overwhelmed by the death of someone else’s dog, you might want to find more love in your life. If you are angry about something your town council did, you might want to be elected to a position where you can change things. If you are sad that other people are getting books published, you might want to start spending some time writing your own book.

Success is not about not eating carbs, wearing the right make-up, putting on the booty enhancers, and drinking a certain kind of energy drink. Success is about defining who you are, what you believe in, how you want to live your life. That’s not something you can imitate. It’s something you have to be. You have to choose to be who you are, not who the gurus want to be. You have to choose to live your life, not live through others.

That takes work sometimes, deep thought, and the ability to look inside yourself at what you want to be and who you are right now. It means letting go of past mistakes and moving toward a human-focused and humanity-focused present and future. It takes love, damn it. And the first step is loving yourself. Oprah, Kardashians, Ferris, Robbins, Reynolds are all probably great humans, but they aren’t you. And you? You’re just as great or maybe even greater. You just have to believe in yourself enough to let that greatness out.

Dog Tip For Life

best podcast Dogs are Smarter Than People
Follow your own nose

Follow your own nose. Be your own dog. – Sparty

RANDOM THOUGHTS LINKS

https://news.sky.com/story/florida-man-arrested-after-stealing-a-crossbow-by-stuffing-it-down-his-trousers-12550364

https://nypost.com/2022/03/01/im-in-love-with-a-couple-after-matching-with-both-on-dating-app/

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It’s pretty awesome.

AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.

Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!

Is Your Butt Shape Related to Your Character and How About We Stop Telling Authors to Get Their Butts in the Chair

Did you know that scientists classified women’s rear-end shapes? Or that people think that butt-shape is linked to character?

Yes. I know! This is terribly important information.  So important that the Black Eyed Peas have sung songs about bottoms.

What you gon’ do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?
I’ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
What you gon’ do with all that ass?
All that ass insigh’ jer jeans?
I’m a make, make, make, make you scream
Make you scream, make you scream.
Cos’ of my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps.

— “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas

Anyway, scientists have split us female bottom owners (not male bottom owners, of course)  into four basic categories:

  • Round
  • Square
  • Upside down heart
  • Heart

Sigh. So it looks like I need to get a booty-pump. 😉 


And also, people are also saying that your bottom shape tells something about your personality. And I say, “Um…. no.”

A lot of mentors tell authors to just get their butt in the chair and write, which is sort of simplistic and sort of true, but also not how all creative people work.

Some of us (me) don’t need that mantra because I have a big guilt complex about not working when I’m SO lucky to be a writer, but also because I (cough) actually look forward to writing.

But not all writers are me. And those who aren’t? Yelling “PUT YOUR BUTT IN THE CHAIR” like some sort of drill sergeant really doesn’t help.

As author and blogger Gail Gauthier said,

The expression butt-in-chair has come to mean, I think, a strategy that involves simply soldiering on. It’s often seen as a method of working for those who are strong enough that they can just put their shoulder to the grindstone and push. When I see it used, it is often accompanied by a certain amount of judgement addressed toward those who don’t have the natural discipline to simply plow through a project.

Author and teacher J. Robert Lennon wrote just this past April that what he termed “the ass-in-the-chair canard” “…is in fact an insult to almost everyone who has ever struggled with the creative process, and as a teaching tool is liable to do more harm than good. It embraces several dangerous lies: that writer’s block is the result, first and foremost, of laziness; that writing (indeed, any creative pursuit) is like any other form of labor; and that how hard you work on something is directly correlated with how good it is.” As he also says, being able to sit down and work relatively easily without struggle isn’t a moral victory making one writer superior to another. It is simply a method of working.

Gail Gauthier

Telling people they are lazy because they are blocked or not producing really is kind of uncool. Life is more than butts, isn’t it? To be the best authors we can be, we have to be students of nature and people, of interactions, of life and emotions so that we can replicate that on the page.

If your butt is always in the chair, you can’t always do that.

Plus, you run the risk of dead butt syndrome, and nobody wants that.

Publishing a Book a Month is Fun, I Swear

Earlier this year, I decided to do this big experiment where I independently publish one book a month for the rest of the year and everyone thought:

  1. I was depressed or something.
  2. I was going to kill my career in traditional publishing.
  3. I was going to burn out doing that on top of podcasting, editing, coaching, and just humaning.

This is going to sound weird, but it’s really hard to only publish one book a month.

Why is that?

It’s kind of addictive being in charge of your own work and having deadlines and getting it out there.

This is especially true because I’m really excited about these books and I’m especially excited about THE DUDE/JESSICA GOODFEATHER SERIES and the BAR HARBOR ROSE series and I’m working on the third and fourth books in each of those right now. And it’s so fun! And scary. And it’s getting sexier.

I also have a couple of ideas for a crime procedural and a romance brewing, but those are big steps for me. So, I’m focusing on these book babies right this second.

I just want to let everyone know that INCHWORMS (The Dude Series Book 2) is out and having a good time as Dude competes for a full scholarship at a prestigious Southern college and getting into a bit of trouble.

Here’s what it’s about:

A fascinating must-read suspense from New York Times bestseller Carrie Jones.

A new chance visiting a small Southern college.
A potential love interest for a broken girl obsessed with psychology.
A damaged group of co-eds.
A drowning that’s no accident.
A threat that seems to have no end.

And just like that Jessica Goodfeather aka Dude’s trip away from her claustrophobic life in Maine to try to get an amazing scholarship to her dream school has suddenly turned deadly. Again.

So What Is My Point?

My point is that it can be fun to take risks and do what you want to when it comes to creating. And it’s okay to do that. Once you start worrying about what people might think or that they might judge you, you start holding yourself back. Don’t hold yourselves back, okay? You’ve got this.

THE UPCOMING BOOKS

September – INCH WORMS! Second in the DUDE SERIES!​

October – THE TREASURES WE HIDE. Third in the Bar Harbor Rose Series.

November – ALMOST DEAD, an adult paranormal set in a Maine campground. It’s so much fun. So quirky.

December – When You Bring Them Back, YA paranormal – This title might change. 🙂

January The People Who Leave. Third in the Dude Series!

BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!

Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.

Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.

LET’S HANG OUT!

HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?

MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?

Email us at carriejonesbooks@gmail.com

HELP US AND DO AN AWESOME GOOD DEED

Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast and our new LOVING THE STRANGE podcast.

We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. 

Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday!

Thanks so much for being one of the 263,000 downloads if you’ve given us a listen!

One of our newest LOVING THE STRANGE podcasts is about the strange and adorably weird things people say?

And one of our newest DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE episode is about fear setting and how being swallowed by a whale is bad ass.

And Carrie has new books out! Yay!

You can order now! It’s an adult mystery/thriller that takes place in Bar Harbor, Maine. Read an excerpt here!

best thrillers The People Who Kill
The people who kill

It’s my book! It came out June 1! Boo-yah! Another one comes out July 1.

And that one is called  THOSE WHO SURVIVED, which is the first book in the the DUDE GOODFEATHER series.  I hope you’ll read it, like it, and buy it!

The Dude Goodfeather Series - YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones
The Dude Goodfeather Series – YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones

TO TELL US YOUR BRAVE STORY JUST EMAIL BELOW.

Make Dialogue Your BFF

Dialogue and voice both do some really important things in your story.

Provide context –

You can provide some pretty awesome information via dialogue and idiosyncratic character voice.

Show the subtext –

Subtext is basically the hidden motivation/emotion/wants of your character that aren’t right there out on the surface.

So if I wrote: 

“Look at you in that onesie! What a brave person you are.” Shaun said with a grimace.

You’d know that Shaun is really thinking that the other character is more unconventional than brave.

Make things more exciting –

When you have two characters bickering, it tends to be more interesting on the page than saying, “They bickered.”

Dialogue and voice helps provide context, drama, and interest. It pulls the reader in. It’s a big part of showing rather than telling.

“I can’t believe you don’t like my onesie,” she said, spinning around in front of the couch, arms out.

He smirked. “Didn’t say that.”

“Manatees are frolicking on this.” She stopped spinning and pulled out the fabric a bit. “Look! Look at the print. It is imported.”

“You look like you’re two. A two year old with boobs.”

“Boobs! Call them breasts. Oh my word . . .”

“That makes you sound like a chicken.”

“You are the chicken, mister, a negative, judgmental and derogatory chicken and I am incensed that you don’t understand the value of this outfit or me.”

“WTF, baby.” 

Shows character difference.

Good dialogue and good voice show us how the characters aren’t the same. Even in my horrible example up there, the two characters don’t sound the same. One has longer sentences and more Latinate word choices. The other is a bit more blunt. One uses conjunctions and the other doesn’t.

Dialogue and voice go hand in hand to really make a huge impact on your story. Get cozy with them. Learn their rules. Buy them a coffee. Make them your friends. You won’t regret it.

NEW BOOK ALERT!

I just want to let everyone know that INCHWORMS (The Dude Series Book 2) is out and having a good time as Dude competes for a full scholarship at a prestigious Southern college and getting into a bit of trouble.

Here’s what it’s about:

A fascinating must-read suspense from New York Times bestseller Carrie Jones.

A new chance visiting a small Southern college.
A potential love interest for a broken girl obsessed with psychology.
A damaged group of co-eds.
A drowning that’s no accident.
A threat that seems to have no end.

And just like that Jessica Goodfeather aka Dude’s trip away from her claustrophobic life in Maine to try to get an amazing scholarship to her dream school has suddenly turned deadly. Again.

What would you do to make a difference?

After his best friend Norah was almost abducted, Cole Nicholaus has spent most of his childhood homeschooled, lonely and pining for Norah to move from best friend to girl friend status. When birds follow him around or he levitates the dishes, he thinks nothing of it—until a reporter appears and pushes him into making a choice: stay safe at home or help save a kidnapped kid.

Cole and Norah quickly end up trying to not just save a kid, but an entire town from a curse that has devastating roots and implications for how exactly Cole came to be the saint that he is.

Can Cole stop evil from hurting him and Norah again? And maybe even get together? Only the saints know.

From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of the NEED series, Saint is a book about dealing with the consequences that make us who we are and being brave enough to admit who we love and what we need.

BUY NOW! 🙂 I made a smiley face there so you don’t feel like I’m too desperate.

The cover. Creepy, right?

You can read an excerpt right here.

Stopping Doomsday Thinking

A lot of great clients and students that I’ve worked with have what I like to call Doomsday Thinking. I’m pretty sure I didn’t coin that phrase.

What is doomsday thinking?

It’s basically catastrophic thinking.

In Psychology Today, Toni Bernhard J.D. writes, “The term refers to our irrational and exaggerated thoughts: thoughts that have no basis in fact, but which we believe anyway.”

Those thoughts become so big and so distorted that we get anxious.

I am a pro at doomsday thinking

I basically had these kinds of thoughts until last year.

Those negative, spiraling thoughts can become so big, so huge, that it’s almost impossible to be happy about who we are, what we’ve done, what we will do, or our life.

We forget there can be good outcomes too.

Instead, we think about all the bad potentials and build them up like super stores, giving them so much space in our thoughts that they take over.

The why is it always me syndrome.

One of my most brilliant and adorable relatives does this all the time. She gets stuck on a highway coming home from work because of a traffic jam and thinks, “Why does this always happen to me? The universe hates me.”

When in reality, she’s not alone in that traffic jam, right? It’s almost self-absorbed to think that the frustrating things are out to get you and only you.

Or, we get rejected when we send our book to an agent and think, “This is impossible. I will never get published. I am doomed to suck forever. I give up.”

When in reality, you don’t suck at all. Writing is subjective and that particular agent just wasn’t for you.

Change happens.

In doomsday thinking whenever something bad happens, we assume that this is the way it will always be. It isn’t.

The world is chaos and full of change.

I just was texting with one of my friends the other night and I wrote, “I bet Five-years-ago Steve would never have imagined this.”

The this was good stuff happening in his life. And he hadn’t. He hadn’t predicted any of it.

We’re all like that. I didn’t imagine I’d be where I am five years ago. That’s because change happens. Even the bad doesn’t stay always bad. We can’t predict the outcomes and all the variables even when we think we can.

Here’s the good thing about change

Since things change, it means that you don’t need to stay stuck forever. And you don’t need to stay in those negative thought patterns forever either.

Why not? It’s pretty easy to lean into your internal critic, right? But you don’t have to. You can stay calm. You can take chances and make choices and shut them up.

We all have inner critics, but we also need inner cheerleaders

I used to imagine my inner critic as John Wayne (the dead movie star/cowboy). He was so harsh on me. Always telling me to work. So, I created an inner cheerleader who turned out to be the Muppet, Grover. Yes, from Sesame Street. My brain is a weird place.

John Wayne and Grover would duel it out for supremacy in my head.

Weird! Weird! I know. But by giving an identity to that negative voice/inner critic, it helped me to recognize that doomsday thinking and shut it down so that I could take chances and risks and do things.

Allow yourself to treat challenges and projects like you’re playing

Another thing that helps is giving myself a chance to play and fail. You can do this, too.

Find something you’ve wanted to do. Start a blog? Make a video? Learn to paint? Ride your bike every morning? Make it something that excites you.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Give yourself a time frame. I have 30 days to do this! That sort of short timeframe.
  2. Schedule time into your day/week to do it.
  3. It helps if you have an end project. So, tell yourself what your end product will be.
  4. Do it.

By giving ourselves a product and a timeframe, we give ourselves a chance to try things. It doesn’t seem like a forever-worry that way and it usually shuts up our doomsday thinking and John Waynes a tiny bit.

You’ve got this. I believe in you. You need to believe in you, too.

xo

Carrie

BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!

Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.

Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.

LET’S HANG OUT!

HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?

MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?

Email us at carriejonesbooks@gmail.com

HELP US AND DO AN AWESOME GOOD DEED

Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast and our new LOVING THE STRANGE podcast.

We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. 

Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday!

Thanks so much for being one of the 263,000 downloads if you’ve given us a listen!

One of our newest LOVING THE STRANGE podcasts is about the strange and adorably weird things people say?

And one of our newest DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE episode is about fear setting and how being swallowed by a whale is bad ass.

And Carrie has new books out! Yay!

You can order now! It’s an adult mystery/thriller that takes place in Bar Harbor, Maine. Read an excerpt here!

best thrillers The People Who Kill
The people who kill

It’s my book! It came out June 1! Boo-yah! Another one comes out July 1.

And that one is called  THOSE WHO SURVIVED, which is the first book in the the DUDE GOODFEATHER series.  I hope you’ll read it, like it, and buy it!

The Dude Goodfeather Series - YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones
The Dude Goodfeather Series – YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones

TO TELL US YOUR BRAVE STORY JUST EMAIL BELOW.

Be Brave Friday: Don’t Small Down Your Self or Your World

Carrie Jones Books
Carrie Jones Books
Be Brave Friday: Don't Small Down Your Self or Your World
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On BE BRAVE FRIDAYS, we share other people’s stories (unedited) to build a community of bravery and inspiration.

Please let us know if you want to share your story with us and we’ll read it here and post it on our social media and website.

This life is too short to not be brave. We can do this together.

This week’s Be Brave Story is from the wonderful Sheri Boggs!

Sheri, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

You are so brave and so wonderful.

xo Shaun and Carrie

I have a story of bravery to share. It isn’t big, bold physical bravery but rather small, mild bravery in which my foe WAS MY OWN MIND. 

I took violin for a few years as a kid and started taking adult violin lessons in my late 40s. I was not great and probably would have given up a long time ago if not for my teacher, (let’s call her Ms.X), who is hilarious and reminds me of Candace Bergen. Half the time my lessons consisted of us ranting about politics or her telling me some marvelously gossipy story about when she played with our local symphony.

A few months before the pandemic we decided I was ready to join the New Horizons Orchestra. New Horizons is an international organization with orchestras in cities all over the United States. Anyone is welcome, regardless of experience or skill, and their motto is “Your Best Is Good Enough.” My first time there, however, I realized I would need significantly more than my best. Everyone seemed to be a music teacher, a retired symphony member, or someone who practices for three hours a day. I stared in bewilderment at the sheet music (a medley of tunes from Chicago) and struggled to keep up. My bow was barely able to land on the right string much less hit the right note. 

Needless to say, when everything shut down I was relieved not to have to go back and be so noticeably behind everyone else. I also quit taking violin lessons, falling into a Covid-related funk and reasoning that Ms. X would only want to deal with Zoom for her most promising, high school and college-aged students. I didn’t touch my violin for a full 15 months. 

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Ms.X emailed me to see how I was doing and to let me know New Horizons was starting up again. I wrote back that everyone had been super nice but I’d felt embarrassed the few times I went, I never had time to practice, and I wasn’t planning to go back. She wrote back that she would “entreat me to reconsider,” claiming that, “some of those people have no talent whatsoever and I would know because I taught some of them.”  She assured me that New Horizons is about the joy of playing and that I was already way ahead of some of them, even if it didn’t feel like it.

So, much to my own surprise, I went to my first practice this week! I was again completely lost in the sheet music and unsure what key we were even playing in but it felt good to be there. Everyone was so welcoming and if anyone heard me scratching away at the wrong string with my bow, they didn’t say anything. I came home, practiced, figured out the key, watched videos of other people playing the pieces, and practiced some more. I plan to go back next week. 

The takeaway for me is how, when I’m anxious, I try to make my world smaller and talk myself out of things where I have to experience being awful at something, but what actually helps me is to keep pushing outside of my comfort zone, and letting my world get bigger. I had fun, seeing a few familiar faces and occasionally hearing my violin blend in with the violins all around me. 

BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!

Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.

Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.

LET’S HANG OUT!

HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?

MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?

Email us at carriejonesbooks@gmail.com

HELP US AND DO AN AWESOME GOOD DEED

Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast and our new LOVING THE STRANGE podcast.

We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. 

Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday!

Thanks so much for being one of the 263,000 downloads if you’ve given us a listen!

One of our newest LOVING THE STRANGE podcasts is about the strange and adorably weird things people say?

And one of our newest DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE episode is about fear setting and how being swallowed by a whale is bad ass.

And Carrie has new books out! Yay!

You can order now! It’s an adult mystery/thriller that takes place in Bar Harbor, Maine. Read an excerpt here!

best thrillers The People Who Kill
The people who kill

It’s my book! It came out June 1! Boo-yah! Another one comes out July 1.

And that one is called  THOSE WHO SURVIVED, which is the first book in the the DUDE GOODFEATHER series.  I hope you’ll read it, like it, and buy it!

The Dude Goodfeather Series - YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones
The Dude Goodfeather Series – YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones

TO TELL US YOUR BRAVE STORY JUST EMAIL BELOW.

What I’m Up To

Last week, I was in Georgia helping my daughter who had surgery. She’s totally fine! Thanks to everyone for asking.

While I was there, I had an epiphany. Ever since Book Expo America in 2011 or 2009 or something when I had this ridiculously long signing line, I’ve been thinking, “This is it. This is the top of my career. It will never get better than this.”

And I said it.

And my editor at the time was like, “Yeah. Probably.”

I love her, by the way.

I was a New York Times bestseller and an international bestseller and I didn’t know what else to do. Because I am one of those over thinkers, I can think two ways about this.

  1. I can be fine with it because holy crud, I got to be a NYT bestseller. Someone bit someone else in line because they wanted my book. Someone committed assault for my book! Which is so wrong, but kind of an honor.
  2. I can not be fine with it because I am achievement oriented and don’t want to peak already.

These two possibilities have been fighting inside my consciousness for so long and they are pretty self defeating. So, in Georgia I had this epiphany.

There are four things I want in my life that don’t involve my family being safe and happy and all that.

  1. To write stories and share them people.
  2. To paint.
  3. To not worry about money all the time so I can do #1 and #2 in a happy way.
  4. To make the world a tiny bit better and make people a tiny bit happier with themselves.

So, I realized that my goals don’t have to be about achievement. They can be about stability and contentment, about balance and love.

And that’s okay.

(Although, to be fair, as I’m writing this, I teared up so I probably have some work to do on that still.) You can insert an ironic smiley-faced emoji here if you want.

Here are the things I’m doing right now and if you’d like to learn with me or buy my book or subscribe to our goofy podcast? That would be amazing. It’s nice to be on a journey with friends.

LEARN WITH ME AT THE WRITING BARN!

The Write. Submit. Support. format is designed to embrace all aspects of the literary life. This six-month course will offer structure and support not only to our writing lives but also to the roller coaster ride of submissions: whether that be submitting to agents or, if agented, weathering the submissions to editors. We will discuss passes that come in, submissions requests, feedback we aren’t sure about, where we are feeling directed to go in our writing lives, and more. Learn more here! 

“Carrie’s feedback is specific, insightful and extremely helpful. She is truly invested in helping each of us move forward to make our manuscripts the best they can be.”

“Carrie just happens to be one of those rare cases of extreme talent and excellent coaching.”

Write. Submit. Support’s Mission: To empower writers, pre-published or published, as well as the instructor, to embrace the many joys and challenges of leading a literary life.

WSS for Novelists will meet February 2, March 8, April 5, May 3, June 7, and June 28, 2020.

Last week there was a bit of a video about it. I wasn’t there for the questions and answers because of Em’s operation, but the Writing Barn founder was. 

And here is the link for the session with me.

WSS Novel with Carrie Jones begins on February 2. 

And there is a $200 off code here –  WSSRC2 – this code is only for my class and only for my friends (That’s you if you’re reading this).

DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE PODCAST

This week’s writing podcast.

WHERE TO FIND US

The podcast link if you don’t see it above. Plus, it’s everywhere like Apple Music, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and more. Just google, “DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE” then like and subscribe.

NEW BOOK!

I’m about to publish a super cool adult novel. Gasp! I know! Adult! That’s so …. grown-up? It is a mystery. It is romantic. It has death. It has Maine.

The Places We Hide by Carrie Jones
The Places We Hide by Carrie Jones

I have a new book coming out!

Rosie Jones, small town reporter and single mom, is looking forward to her first quiet Maine winter with her young daughter, Lily. After a disastrous first marriage, she’s made a whole new life and new identities for her and her little girl. Rosie is more than ready for a winter of cookies, sledding, stories about planning board meetings, and trying not to fall in like with the local police sergeant, Seamus Kelley.

But after her car is tampered with and crashes into Sgt. Kelley’s cruiser during a blizzard, her quiet new world spirals out of control and back into the danger she thought she’d left behind. One of her new friends is murdered. She herself has been poisoned and she finds a list of anagrams on her dead friend’s floor. 

As the killer strikes again, it’s obvious that the women of Bar Harbor aren’t safe. Despite the blizzard and her struggle to keep her new identity a secret, Rosie sets out to make sure no more women die. With the help of the handsome but injured Sgt. Kelley and the town’s firefighters, it’s up to Rosie to stop the murderer before he strikes again.

You can preorder it here. Please, please, preorder it. 

So, um, please go buy it. I am being brave, but that means that despite all my reasons for doing this and my epiphany, I’m still terrified that nobody will buy it and I really, really love this book. A lot.

Dogs Are Smarter Than People – Episode Two – Living With a Writer

Living with a writer isn’t always easy. Shaun can give you some mellow tips that he’s learned from the dogs.

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People - Episode Two - Living With a Writer







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Podcast Two – It’s Hard Living With a Writer


Writers and over-thinkers like Carrie break down every word and symbol into multiple layers and levels. That’s because authors spend so much of their time analyzing interactions and sentences and people. We recreate the world into our story by building that story word by word and symbol by symbol.

 

Sometimes that’s hard to live with especially when the writer is (cough) sensitive (cough).

Dog Tip – Cut Through the Noise. Dogs don’t pay attention to every word. They pay attention to intent. Live like a dog, but write like a writer.

 

Writing Tip – Make yourself more aware of the words you use and the symbols they are sending to a reader. When I write, “tree,” Shaun sees a kid’s drawing of a tree – a triangle with green crayon colored in. That’s not what I ever expected. Write all the different kinds of trees you can think of. Then write all the states of being a tree can have like, barren, bent, ice-covered, growing, etc. There are so many ways that one word can be interpreted. Pick the words in your stories that need to be specific and think about the words that don’t have to be. Your choices matter as you create the story in your reader’s minds. Writing is about communicating. Choose what you want to communicate.

Hey!

There’s some bonus content over on my website with links to free things. FREE THINGS!

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