I Know Where I Have Been.

My friend Bunny just set this off.

I told her it was really high time for me to go to New York to do some research for my new book, titled (if the publisher does not object) "White House, Red Carpet". It is mainly set in Brooklyn and the theater district of Manhattan, and while I have been in Manhattan my knowledge of Brooklyn is sketchy.

As most of my blog readers know, a big part of my first book, "TheDistant Shore" (soon to be published by Buddhapuss Ink. LLC) plays in a small coast town in Norway. Bunny just asked me if I've been there, and I told her, yes, I've been.



I remember when I got out of the car there, after driving all day long down from Alesund in the North. It was the middle of May, and quite cold, and when we got there it was raining and getting dark, quite early in the day too. I remember the hotel, just like on this picture, the parking lot not paved, and only this little cobbled street with the three stores on it leading up the hill. There were some small ships in the harbor, the water of the bay was calm and leaden in the steady drizzle, the sky low and grey, like a drawn curtain.  And it was so quiet.

I stood there while my friend complained about the weather, and just like that the place connected to me. It felt as if it had been waiting for me, as if we were drawing this breath of release together. My soul flowed away from me, flowed to mingle with the wind and the rain and the cry of the seagulls and the beacon of the lighthouse far out where the bay met the ocean. I looked out over the water and wanted to be a tree, dig my toes into the soil and take root, dissolve into my surroundings.

We had booked rooms in the only hotel, the yellow building directly on the edge of the water.



We went inside to register, and while the blond girl at the counter got our room keys I looked around. It was not a spectacular hotel lobby, but it had a charm all of its own in its simple elegance. As we went to the lifts I had this sudden vision.

Yes, I know it sounds trite, but that is how it was. I saw this one scene which now is a centerpiece in my novel, the moment when the long-lost lovers meet again after so many years, when Naomi steps out of that same lift, sees Jon and drops the tray with the plates.

For ever and ever this was the only instant of the story I carried around with me, this one look, this meeting. When I started writing down the whole story I never thought beyond this point, this was what I wanted to describe, explore the emotions and reactions, and I had no idea how it would go on from there. Thankfully, my characters knew quite well where they were headed and the novel wrote itself, just like the second is writing itself.

There is another scene in my story, where Jon remarks on something he witnesses and can't explain to himself. Naomi solves the mystery for him, and it is quite mundane, but I did not make it up.

Before my friend and I went down for dinner I spent quite some time staring out of the window in my room. Across a small arm of the bay was a sort of quay, a depot or factory building on it, and for the longest time cars drove up, stood there for a few minutes, their motors running, and left again. There were quite a number of them too. I never figured out what their reason was, but it fascinated me enough to pick it up again for my book.

I'm not going to tell you which explanation Naomi comes up with. If you want to solve the riddle of the cars on the dock you'll have to read my book.

I write about places I know. Places I've been. Most of the time, at least. I've not been to Malibu yet, but so far no one has complained about my depictions.

The main point though is, if you've been to a place you choose as a setting you can describe how it feels, smells, tastes. There will be a connection. Granted, Floro was a lucky find. But still. I like to write about places I've been. So NYC, here I come. Again.

The Morning After

You want to know how it feels when you've just signed a book contract?

Harebrained.

Like one of those crazy rabbits running from one corner of the cage to the other, holding their heads and going, "Oh my God, oh my God, what to do now?"

Oh wait there's something wrong with this image... nevermind. It's how it feels. I needed a drink. A four-finger drink, straight up. And I needed to TELL! The news sat in my chest like a huge big shining bubble, ready to burst if I did not let it out. Trust me, if this happens to you, you want to SHOUT it to the world. It is the proverbial dream coming true. The one you have lived through, as a writer, on many nights lying awake in your bed. The scene you play out in your mind, the one moment you long for, more than anything else.

Only when it happens, it is WAY different from what you thought it would be.

For me, it was a short email asking for a skype chat. Uhu. I hate webcams. They make me look even fatter and dowdier than I already am. I'm shy, and I did not want my family to be present for this "talk" (I had no idea what was coming!!!) and hid in my kid's room with my laptop.

So on comes this nice lady in a slightly messy office, and she tells me THESE THINGS! Tells me she loves my book and really believes in it, and what a joy it is to work with me, and yes, they really do want to sign me (Insert here: Mariam goes to pieces). There was some more business talk, of course, but the bottom line is: Yes, I have my book deal. And I got it sitting on my kid's unmade bed, the mess on the floor thankfully  not visible over the webcam. I must have come across like a total imbecile, but whatever. Nothing was said that I couldn't just nod to and say, "Uhu,uhu, right, sure." Business cards? Sure. Book tour? Hell, yes!!!

While this went down, my family was grumbling about lunch - which was ready and heartily ignored by me - and ate without me.

And folks, I'm SO glad that camera catches only your face or my brand-new publisher would have seen I was not even wearing a bra... now is THIS how you picture your moment of glory? Certainly not, right? Well, it was mine.

So today I woke up and wondered... is my life different now?

And the answer is, yes. It is different. It is VERY different. Not outwardly, mind. I still need to clean the bathroom before our friends come over later to drink the bubbly with us and celebrate. And the cat still barfed on the carpet. Nothing different there. But on the  inside, everything has changed. It's the day of justification, the moment I worked for so long. Now I can look at my dusty shelves and the grimy stove and say to them, "See? You had to suffer, but it was worth it!" And my dear, poor hubby, who did most of the housework so I could write, and edit, and rewrite, and edit... now I can say, "Thank you, sweetheart, and look, it was good for something."

I know they say you should write for yourself and not think about publication. That's just whistling in the dark. If you are serious about it, you DO write to get published. Well, I did. Do. I need this vindication. I need it to return it to my family and friends. They deserve it, for all their support and patience and love during the past three years.

And hey, I rather like it, too. I liked walking through our book store today and thinking, "Soon, soon!" I like the feeling of being on the other side of the wall, I'm not going to lie. And yes, I do want the commercial success, both for myself and for the publisher who put their trust and money in me. There will be a lot of work before I can admire my novel in the shop windows and displays, but it will be there. If I have to stack it there myself it will be there. My publisher, MaryChris, will not be sorry for her decision to take me on.

My novel, "The Distant Shore", is a Contemporary Romance set in Norway, London, L.A., NYC and the outskirts of Toronto, and it tells a nearly impossible love story. I have the hope it will be published late this year, but that depends on me, and how fast I get the final edits done. So stick around, and watch this space for updates.

I think this will be a wild, wonderful ride.

Dark Chocolate, Every Day

Has anything ever happened to you that changed your view of the world within a few minutes? Yes, I know,  it does not happen all that often.

For me, that moment came yesterday when I was staring at twitter slipping by and one tweet caught my attention and led me to Sara Stein's blog. Now you surely remember my "Born To Be Fat" rant from not so long ago. So reading thing, and consequently getting talking to Sara, has both made me cry and cheer up a whole lot. I want to share this post from her blog with all my readers and friends who are struggling with their bodies the way I do. Take heart. We are not alone. Someone out there loves us and cares for us.

Thank you, Sara, for permitting me to post your "Open Letter To Oprah". Here it is:

 

NOOOOOO!!! That eardrum shattering scream you just heard was mine after I listened to Oprah Winfrey (I adore her) talk about her very public weight gain with emotional eating maven Geneen Roth. (Oprah on a Time She Forgot Her Loveliness, 5-11-2010)

I hear the thundering herd of hoof beats running for a book THAT IS NOT MEANT FOR OBESITY. And I hear the collective thud a month or two from now, of millions of copies tossed into the failed diet books collection. (Yes, we have those).

Don’t get me wrong – Geneen’s elegantly worded conversation on emotional eating is entirely appropriate for someone with 30 pounds to lose, or binge eating, or anorexia-bulimia. She even says that. Yet the audience was stocked full of morbidly obese people. Like me. And Oprah, God love her.

Certainly obese people have emotional eating that needs to be worked through for successful weight loss. But it is NOT the predominant driving force behind sustained obesity.

“I shamed my fat self”, Oprah said, “when I put myself on the cover of O and said how did I let this happen again”.

OPRAH! YOU DIDN’T LET IT HAPPEN! Anymore than you LET your bladder fill or LET your body go to sleep. This is your brain and body we’re talking about, not your soul.

Yo-yo dieting and weight regain are NOT the result of weak wills. THEY ARE THE RESULT OF AILING BODIES. And frantic brains trying to heal them.

Obesity is NOT a state of feeling badly about oneself – it is a MEDICAL CONDITION…with:

1) Chronic Inflammation, Pain and Exhaustion –  Addicted to sugar and caffeine? Maybe you’re an ENERGY addict! It takes additional energy in the form of calories to move your extra-large aching, swollen, inflammed self down the hall. The worse your end-stage illnesses of obesity are (such as sleep apnea, diabetes, arthritis, fibromyalgia, hypothyroid), the longer that hallway becomes. Even if the end-stage illnesses have not yet manifested, the inflammation of obesity is simmering inside you, and exhausting you.

2) Altered Metabolic Pathways – abnormal insulin, leptin, cortisol metabolism (and others) cause the obese person to hold on to weight, be hungry all the time, have higher blood sugar and insane food cravings. Your continuously elevated stress hormones have convinced your trillions of cells to HANG ON TO EVERY BIT OF FAT BECAUSE WE”RE IN A FAMINE!! Don’t you wish you could explain grocery stores to them?

3) Altered Brain Chemistry – Depressed and anxious brains screaming for serotonin and GABA and dopamine driving you possessed toward the chocolate counter. Searching for oxytocin love in all that comfort ice cream and macaroni and cheese. Driven by sleep deprivation, changes in genetic expression and medication effects. Responding to toxic food injury from junk food as addicting as crack cocaine in your brain. This is not emotional eating; this is your brain directing your chemistry ingredients.

4) Severe Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies – such as (but not limited to) D, B12, A, iodine, fatty acids:

Vitamin D from the sun – a prehormone – manufactured by the cholesterol in your skin when exposed to that beautiful yellow orb in the sky. Vitamin D that gives us energy and happiness and relaxation and protects us from diabetes and heart disease and cancer and obesity. You don’t get credit if you stay indoors and look out the window, or if you live in Cleveland like I do and there isn’t any sun half the year, or if you’re African American and your skin acts like sunscreen. And you’re never going to be able to lose weight with Vitamin D deficiency until it is corrected.

Vitamin B12 from animal proteins (not vegan diets). Blocked from absorbing by all those prescription reflux medications. Vitamin B12 that gives us energy, memory, concentration, happy moods, relaxation.

Vitamin A from fruits and vegetables for our skin and eyes – night blindness, psoriasis, eczema – the 5th leading cause of blindness in the world – not found in junk food, you can be sure, but a good carrot or sweet potato might help.

Mineral and element deficiencies like Iodine – Iodine that keeps your thyroid running and your breast tissues healthy, essential for the production of every hormone. Added to salt in the early 1900’s so you wouldn’t get a thyroid goiter, but now you eat fancy non-iodized kosher salt and sea salt or no salt at all. Iodine that used to be in flour until the 1970’s when it was replaced by bromine (the stuff they gave soldiers in World War II to kill their sex drives!)  Makes you tired, in pain, obese, dull.

Essential fatty acid deficiency – I know you’re eating fish 3 times a day, right? Essential means brain function – attention deficit disorder, memory, mood. Essential means skin – eczema, rash, dryness. Essential means inflammation and immune function – cancer, heart disease, arthritis, dementia. My grandmother frying those smelts every week – she knew something!

5) Food sensitivities like 1) gluten from all that fake wheat processed stuff used to thicken, texturize and cheapen your food, 2) corn from the high fructose corn syrup that makes you gain MORE weight than the same caloric amount of sugar; 3) processed soy that slows your thyroid down because it’s no longer recognizable to your immune system. 60% of people with obesity have food sensitivities, aka allergies.

Now…does that sound like ‘”only eat when you’re hungry in a quiet room focused on food” is really going to make a difference?? Treating morbid obesity with emotional eating techniques is the same as treating cirrhosis of the liver with 12-step programs. The proverbial peeing in the ocean.

Here are some suggestions if you are obese.

Get your vitamin and mineral levels checked. Be careful of those who tell you what you should be eating. Pay attention to when you feel sick, what did you eat in the last 24 hours? The hell trinity of obesity is gluten, dairy and sugar. Purify your food and water sources. If you can’t pronounce it or picture it, don’t eat it. It’s making you fat, and that INCLUDES artificial sweeteners. Forget gourmet, aim for plain. Like grandma used to make. Whatever you’re doing now…do the opposite. Get out of the chair. Sleep more. Eat grapes. Watch less TV. Spend more quiet time. Work less. Work out less. Play more. Do nothing that causes physical or emotional pain. Take baths. Dance in a chair. And if you cannot do anything at all, at least get a little sun.

Try 70% dark chocolate EVERYDAY to fool your body about that famine delusion. The heavenly trinity that treats depression…exercise, Vitamin D and dark chocolate. Can you add one in?

There is hope and healing from obesity. One medical condition at a time. Give your emotional soul a rest.

Sara L. Stein, M.D., is a bariatric and integrative psychiatrist  who runs Obesity Clinic at Kaiser Permanente in Cleveland, and is the author of Obese From The Heart: A Fat Psychiatrist Discloses (2009). Learn more at http://obesefromtheheart.com

 

If You Could Read My Mind

Today, I'm grieving because a wonderful, wonderful time of my life is ending.



This was my job for the past five years. I taught Musical and Theater at a high school in our neighborhood. The pic was taken just before last year's show, and you can see we are all happy about what we achieved in a year of hard rehearsing. The kids are proud of themselves, and rightly so. Nearly all of them are from migrant or socially challenged homes and learned, in this class, for the first time how great they are and what they really can achieve if they just believe in themselves. I invested many hours, many weekends, many extra hours in this project.

And it was MY project, right from the start. I brought it to this school, first as a volunteer, then paid a pittance (200$ for 16 hours a month, when I really worked at least triple that time). I didn't mind because I loved it.



We all loved it. And we worked hard.



Here is my son Mario, singing Neil Diamond's "I'm A Believer".

He is not a student at that school but a young medical doctor, but he enjoyed working with us so much he just took to the stage after helping us set up the light and sound for the show.

And here's my other kid, playing his role as announcer, with Bryan.



I'm not free to say why I had to quit the job, of course. There is a confidentiality agreement in my contract that makes me feel like I used to work for Stargate Command. That's ok. Let me just say, working with that school administration has become impossible due to mutual distrust, and too much anger on my side. I threw the job in their faces. At some point you've just taken enough, and then it is time to let go.

I will let go of my worries and watch them sail away like ships in the night. They will simply leave, and I will not even listen to their horns calling out in the darkness.

It was a great time. The kids taught me much, and I hope I helped them find joy in an otherwise often dreary life. and now it is over.

Born To Be Fat

I'm fat. There is no other way to call it. I've been fat since I was six years old and my parents and I returned home after two years in Brazil where I had been ill most of the time. Seriously ill. We came back, and wham, within half a year I was no longer the thin, fragile little girl but a roly-poly maggot. No one bothered about it. I was healthy again, and that was all my family cared for. Then my little sister was born and attention drifted from me to the baby.

When I was nineteen I starved myself into a moderately thin figure, but it did not last. I just could not keep the weight no matter how hard I tried. And NO I was no couch potato. I cycled, did sports, went dancing. And still I was fat.

I tried to hide it as well as I could. Wide clothes, practical clothes, flat shoes and a spike of guilt every time I put something in my mouth. And I only went to a doctor when I could not crawl anymore, afraid they would tell me I was too fat and needed to lose weight, when I never wanted anything more than that.

I wanted to wear something like this.



Be able to walk in these.



And I wanted to be an eye-catcher, but not because I had the widest butt on the street.

I'm a very sensible eater. I used to walk stairs whenever possible, rode the bike even during my pregnancies until I was nearly due. Granted, sports are not my favorite pastime, except throwing an American football or playing Badminton.

And yet. There are MASSES of people out there who eat way less healthy than I do, a lot more, too,  and don't work out and still are slim.

Two years ago I got sick and was diagnosed with a couple of auto-immune diseases, and the unthinkable happened: suddenly I was firmly in the clutches of doctors and hospitals. And while still no one was very interested in why I was fat, once they had started on their gazillion exams and test and found out everything about me there was to find out I thought, "What the heck, I might as well ask them why I am obese!"



A far cry from that girl in the lovely gown, right?

So they drew blood, prodded, tested, scanned again and came up with - nothing.

Now I'm in a very lucky position. My son is a doctor, and so he knows my lifestyle and how and what I eat, and he agrees I really should be WAY thinner. He is, in fact, the one prodding my GP into doing all those tests.

Last Friday I had my latest appointment at my GP's. New results, and he tells me I'm perfectly healthy - except for those auto-immune diseases - and he really sees no way of helping me reduce my weight. I broke out in tears.

He looked me up and down and said, "You know, you should be glad your metabolism is so slow. If we had bad times now you'd survive and I would die of starvation." I nearly smacked his mouth. When he saw I was upset he patted my shoulder and told me he had heard it was quite normal for women of Arab descent to put on weight when they got older. AFTER, mind you, telling me what HE ate during a normal day. And here I am, living on tomatoes and cucumbers and lean chicken, just like a Supermodel, listening to my slim doctor listing his three sandwiches for breakfast, three plates of lunch and how hungry he is at night... yeah thank you. He really, really tried to comfort me. But in effect he told me I was born to be fat, and do myself a favor and accept it.

Well, I'm not. And I'm also not going to eat the lovely fresh bread hubby just brought home. So there. Tomatoes and cucumbers it is.

And yeah, why am I telling you all this? I'm telling you because I'm going to fly to the States this summer, and my biggest fear is they won't let me on a plane because I'm too fat.

Thank You, Please Carry On!

I've just been awarded the "Stylish Blogger Award" by http://ange-aspiringnovelist.blogspot.com/ (and I hope the link works!). I've also been told I'm now supposed to tell you seven things about myself and then nominate a handful of other bloggers for this award. Seriously, Ange, you might want to reconsider after watching me mess this up.

1. Early spring, like now, makes me want to take off and be in new and strange places. There is is this wild yearning to be away, have adventures and meet people. Maybe I'm a secret hobbit. One of the daring tribe.



2. If I could I'd live in a house with a porch on the beach in Virginia. The porch would lead directly on the sand and there would be a big fridge with plenty of drinks for when all my friends come visiting. At day I'd sit on the porch and write novels and at night I'd sit on the porch and party with the Mimosas. Can you see how important the word "porch" is?



3. I don't like chocolate. No, really.

4. I'm fat, and I'm working so hard on slimming down, only my stupid chemo will not let me. I guess I'll never wear a strapless gown again.

5. On the upside, I've finished my first novel, edited and submitted it.

6. And started on a new one. Goal: finish the first draft before I go to the States in summer. I have 110 days to achieve that.

7. And now I'm going to go back to writing.

Here are my Stylish Blogger Award nominations:

http://www.understandblue.blogspot.com/

http://thecrookedstamper.blogspot.com/

http://steinwaystreetny.blogspot.com/2011/02/running-quick-errand.html

http://creativityhaus.blogspot.com/p/rooms.html

http://southboundcats.blogspot.com/

Thank you for this awesome nomination!

The Last Thing On My Mind

This eBook hype, right? I'm way too busy finishing the edits on my own novel so I can send it back to the publisher, but this is getting to me enough right now so I have to write it off my chest.

Let's say printed books go out of fashion. Bookstores close down. There are no more printed books, or only in rarity shops or on your grandmother's shelves. Everyone reads their stuff on a Kindle or an iPad or something similar. Or listens to it on their smartphone or iPod. Probably self-publishing gets easier, anyone can put their story up there, right, and as a reader, you can browse and find whatever you want.

There are two things about this I find really disturbing, and I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, but...

Who will tell you what to edit? Who will say to you, "This is great, but you need to cut it down, change that part, consider that character again," and help you shape your novel into a sleek, elegant book? A paid editor? Someone who will put their stamp on your work instead of kicking you into doing it yourself? Or are you maybe one of those authors who think their story is perfect right from the start and no one has a right to meddle? Come off it, friend. No one is. Are you going to throw it at readers with all its repetitions, typos, superfluous people and lame side plots? Please don't tell me you're good enough to see all the faults yourself. No one is. That's what publishers are for. Really.

And then there's this.

A book reading. This here is the amazing Neil Gaiman, reading from Graveyard Book here in Hamburg last year, and I tell you, he is the best. Hearing him read his own words to you in person brings them to life like no other medium could. And standing in line to get him to put one of his lovely drawings and his signature in the book you hold in hand is an experience I would not want to miss, and with me, hundreds of other fans that day. Obvious question: How do you sign an eBook? How will you be able to stand in front of an admired author and tell him, "I love your graphic novels, but your others are not that hot." and have him smile at you and reply, "That's ok. I love the graphic novels too." Which he did, to me.

 

My big fear is that with this eBook thing authors will become a lot more anonymous, and I don't want that. I want to be able to go to book readings and I want to be able to GIVE book readings some day soon. I want to meet my readers, read to them, have them ask questions about my books, my writing and my publishing experiences, heck, about whatever they care to know about me. I want to be a person behind the stories. I want to hear that cute conversation Neil Gaiman had with his then-fiancée and now-wife while he signed for me, when she commented about how he would be spending hours  with his fans and she would go shopping in the meanwhile and he smirked at her and asked if she maybe was jealous of his popularity. Which earned him a slap on the shoulder.

 

So many things are easier, better, faster and even nicer with the internet and the many things it offers. Books, I think, need paper. And a cover to make you want to read them. Don't you just love the smell of a new book? The excitement when you open the crackling pages for the first time? I do. And I don't want to miss it.