Tag Archives: Inspiration

A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because

Life Lessons, ,

A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because, as a storyteller, I long to decode its secret. I need to know why it has remained the narrative star it is for so very long with such a vast audience. What exactly did Charles Dickens create that keeps us coming back year after year to be absorbed yet again by this tale?

A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because, of course, the thing Charles Dickens created that holds us in his thrall is Ebenezer Scrooge. This character commands us to revisit the dark environs of his “money-changing hole” with astonishingly universal regularity. We simply cannot get enough of his story and the twisting trail it leads us along.

A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because it is essentially a ghost story, filled with things that go bump in the night, most literally, in Scrooge’s case. In the old Alistair Sim film version, which I favor, the gloomy black and white medium, the booming apocalyptic sound effects, Ebenezer’s perpetual scowl. All of it draws me back again year after “rolling year.”

A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because, all of the above not withstanding, at an essential center of my heart, I am Ebenezer Scrooge. Not because I am a miser of my worldly goods or a dour declarer of “Humbug this” and “Humbug that.” But because of a wound I carry, which Ebenezer also carries, and many others of us carry as well.

A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because, as a human being on the path of my life in this world, there is a wound in my heart. It is a deep hole, bored by the continual dropping of hot coals of malice or neglect onto that spot when I was very young. This hollow place begs, every day in every way, to be filled, and the only way to fill it is with love. But this love must be received and absorbed, and the problem is that the heart surrounding the wound has been singed by those hot coals into believing itself unlovable.

A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because I am certain many of us have been similarly singed by similar hot coals. I don’t ask anyone to admit that, because to do so makes us painfully vulnerable. Please, don’t think it necessary to point out how you are not in the least wounded. If this is true, I rejoice for you and pray for you to remain ever so. I suspect, however, that, more often than not, we have, almost all of us, been carrying our wounds and bearing up under them for decades on end.

A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because Ebenezer offers us an answer. He points us toward a road to take to a place where healing can happen, and that place is within ourselves, within each of our hearts. Action is required, of course, as is always the case where redemption stories are concerned, and Scrooge’s story is about redemption for sure. That action is love, in its active verb form. Please, indulge me if I now relate that call to action to myself.

A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because it reminds me that, in order to stop feeling unloved, I must love, everybody and everything, as deeply and as constantly as I possibly can. The place inside me that instinctively recognizes truth knows this to be right and good. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. I pray I will be able to do that. And I wish you all a maximally beloved and loving New Year.  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

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A Wrong Way Home – Alice’s Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 1 – is a FREE Kindle eBook HERE. Enjoy!

Alice’s latest novel is A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE.

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

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Gratitude Attitude Writers Style

Writers Life, ,

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. “At this time of the rolling year,” as our great storytelling mentor Charles Dickens wrote in A Christmas Carol, gratitude feels obligatory, or maybe just appropriate, if you are more comfortable with that.

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. Which got me thinking about what we, as writers specifically, might list in our thankfulness inventory. So, I posted an internet query under the heading “Writing Life Gratitude.” The responses have made me very grateful indeed.

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. Most prominently, we are grateful for one another. “Critique partners who give me their honest opinions and encouragement when I make mistakes,” says Kayelle Allen. Ruth Casie adds, “Writing partners who enrich my life with their friendship, caring and great brainstorming ideas.”

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. Each of us can reflect on a history of helpers: other writers who may themselves suffer through dark passages of career disaster, crippling self-doubt, or personal life turmoil. Nonetheless, they reach out to urge us back toward the light. Roni Denholtz, Marcia James, D.V. Stone and Jennifer Wilck echo the rest of us in saying, “Thank you all so much for that.”

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. Joan Ramirez is grateful for “a loving husband who shares my enthusiasm for my novel writing career” and is her best friend as well. Several others, including myself, mention family, including grandchildren. Writing may be a solitary pursuit, but we are definitely not alone.

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. And who isn’t thankful for readers? “All the readers who’ve stuck with me for so many years and keep buying my new books,” says Meredith Bond, while Marcia James reminds us to thank the Beta readers who help us hone our work, and I feel personally in debt to readers who make the effort to review what we write.Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. I was moved by those of us – Connie Bretes, Paul Lima, Nancy Morse – who shared their struggles through serious health problems, and somehow found the will and stamina to keep on working, or to get back to the writing desk eventually.

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. Jean Brashear, Marie Force, Joan Peck and Livia Quinn spoke of the 60 Minutes story of Tim Green’s battle with ALS. “How dare I ever falter for a second,” Jean says, in the face of such inspiring courage.

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. My own heart was hard-struck by the inspiration of one of our own, Susan Meier. “This year, every inch of my life, including my career, was tested when my son died in January,” Susan says, and thanks RWA and her sister chapters for their support. At the time of her loss, she had a manuscript due, and her publishers and editors helped her through when she insisted she must work on toward deadline. We are also with you, Susan.

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. The greatest number of responses to my Writing Life Gratitude question were about being thankful for the opportunity to write in the first place. “To fill my hours with writing, and for the wonderful characters that keep me company,” says Carol Roddy aka Caroline Warfield. “To start with an idea and end with a published book,” says Joan Peck. Dee Knight speaks of her latest book, which “languished unfinished for years,” and now is completed at last.

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. The ultimate joy of writing is summed up beautifully by Elizabeth Tarry-Crowe. “I’m grateful that, after years of writing, I still strive to get better, shoot higher, try harder,” and Lisabet Sarai agrees. Whatever life and career setbacks confront us, we do what we can and must to heal, then we forge forward again.

Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. Finally, as in the beginning, we are together. “I’m grateful for my writing friends….” Alice Valdal says. “The writing world is so different from the one I first joined, but writers willing to share and laugh and cry and encourage and keep trying are still there. For that I am grateful.” Me too! Happy holidays.Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

– R|R –

Readers recommend Alice’s latest novel. A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE.

A Time of Fear & LovingPraise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”

A Wrong Way Home – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 1 – is a FREE Kindle eBook HERE. “Danger & romance explode in a red-hot read.” Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
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Conference Connection – How We Bond with Our Writers’ Tribe

Writers Life, ,

Alice Orr Books at Liberty States Conference Conference Connection. How We Bond with Our Writers’ Tribe. I am just now emerging from the fog of a writers’ conference. Why a fog? Because that’s what the misty airlock feels like between conference world and my daily world. A sweet fog of adjustment before re-entry. Why sweet? That is a more complicated question. The sweetness of the fog is a carryover from the sweetness of the experience and the many nectars of its ingredients.

We leave our daily world behind. This is the essential first step toward making the Conference Connection. My personal sweetness recipe begins with the hotel stay. I’ve long maintained that room service and maid service are among the supreme triumphs of this or any culture, with the twenty-four-hour lobby snack corner running a close third.

We open up from our solitary selves. Writing is a self-on-self pursuit. We sit in a room and commune with our muse. As fiction writers, we converse with folks who only exist inside our heads. Sometimes we stare at the wall, and we do it all alone. Thus, we can become a bit in-grown. Like musty bedding, we require occasional airing to remain fresh. There are few more refreshing opportunities for a writer than making a Conference Connection.

We fall in among our Tribe. Which brings us to the sweetest ingredient of conference ambrosia. Writers, writers, and more writers. In corridors and workshops. At informal get-togethers and more formal ones. Talking, laughing, debating, sharing. Writers everywhere, on furlough from the trenches, encouraging one another to fight through the obstacles we all inevitably encounter. This is the beating heart of the Conference Connection, and it is Us.

We celebrate ourselves and one another. My entrée into Liberty States Fiction Writers Conference 2018 was an impromptu gathering in the hotel lounge. I had been invited to join by my old friend, Sandra Barone. She introduced me to Christine Akins Clemetson, who immediately became my new friend, as often happens at writers’ gatherings. Christine had huge news to share. She’d just signed with a literary agent. Joy and wonder shone from her slightly dazed smile, encouraging and inspiring us all with a magical Conference Connection.

We learn. We learn. We learn. From workshops, keynote talks, forums and, most of all, each other. Author, teacher, maven Chris Redding took time from her busy day to share her marketing expertise. Amazon algorithms are incomprehensible to me, but Chris pierced that darkness with enough light to set me on a more fruitful track. She also reminded me of my own mantra, Do It Anyway! She didn’t have to bother with any of that, but she did it anyway. Such generosity is the gold which is mined for each of us when we make a Conference Connection.

We Book Fair. Book signings can be humiliation hell. I once signed next to Nora Roberts. R for Roberts, O for Orr and OMG. The Ps and Qs knew enough to stay away. But at Liberty States, the O section sat me with long-time author friend L.G. O’Connor. Sweet indeed. Because book signings can be heaven.

We know that these events aren’t about selling books. These book signings are about being there, showing up, sitting behind a propped-up copy of your latest publication. Or dreaming of the day when you’ll have a propped-up copy of your own to flaunt. Either way, we smile ear-to-ear and heart-to-heart amidst our tribe, linked to one another by our Conference Connection.

Is there a downside? Maybe the case of Crammed-Brain Syndrome many of us take with us from hours and days of workshops and panels. Or the soft brace you wear on your wrist after scribbling like crazy in your notebook to capture every morsel of information. But we can handle that and then some, in return for establishing a Conference Connection.

We re-enter our individual writers’ lives better off for the experience. We have shown our shining faces to the writing world. We have hugged old friends and discovered new ones. We have been embraced by the spirit of our community and participated in a powerful ritual of our tribe. Plus, last but far from least, we’ve had fun.

So, here I am, post-fog. I made another solid Conference Connection, and, best of all, I bonded yet again with how blessed I am to do this writer thing.                                                 Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

– R|R –

A Time of Fear & LovingConference Connection and her writers’ tribe have a lot to do with Alice’s joyful experience of her career and her novels. Don’t miss her latest, A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

 What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving. “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”

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http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
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