My New Writing Venue

ENOUGH! about the book. I just read through the last several entries and myself got bored with it. I just finished an entry, but it has to do with…yes, the book, actually, my conscious limitation of the mention of God in my book But I think it’s a bad idea to post another entry solely about my book; however, not much else is going on with me. My braces, which I got November 1, are bothering me. The wire on the lower right sticks me, Ouch! But that’s not worth writing about, any more than I have in this sentence.

What might be my best bet is to introduce you to a new column I am starting come January. It’s called “Our Nation’s Treasures” and will be syndicated to the weekly papers for Miamisburg, West Carrollton, Franklin, and Springboro, Ohio (to replace “Health Hints,” which I wrote this year).

If you don’t get one of those papers, don’t fret because I will be keeping another blog, www.OurNationsTreasures.blogspot.com, where I’ll post every story that appears in the paper along with pictures. Mark and I have traveled pretty extensively across the nation, and I always keep a travel journal on our trips so can refer to those and write stories in detail about trips we took years ago.

My very first nationally published article was a travel story--with two accompanying pictures--that appeared in February 26, 2003 issue of The Christian Science Monitor. It was about a volunteer experience I had on Ireland's Aran Isles years before I ever met Mark.

In grad school at the University of Cincinnati for three months I wrote a weekly travel column, mostly about foreign travel, which I did more of when I was single; I intentially saved the U.S. to travel with my husband, whoever he would be and whenever he would come along. I traveled solo for about five years before meeting Mark. I'm glad I saved the U.S. to share. He and I have a great time exploring new places together.

I'm looking forward to travel writing again.

Share Your Lemonade

At the end of the epilog of My_Lost_Summer I give my Website and invite people to send me their thoughts on the book. This morning waiting in my inbox was an e-mail from a woman who bought the book yesterday at a signing I had locally:

Hi Libby,

I bought a copy of your book today at the Kroger store in Finneytown. I just wanted to let you know that I read the entire book this afternoon. I could not put it down. I want you to know that I have not read an entire book in one day for over 30 years, since before I had my children. Your story touched my heart and I will encourage others to read it. Thank you for sharing your story and I wish you the best.

Sincerely,

Lyn B.

How nice that she took the time to send me these kind words. Of the people I’ve talked to who have read_My_Lost_Summer, about half tell me that they do so in one day. (The book is 189 pages so reading it in one sitting would be a feat unless you have a tiny stomach [so don’t get hungry] and a large bladder.)

Another woman I talked to told me that her four-year-old granddaughter was in a coma for several days before life support was removed. I couldn’t believe this woman wasn’t tearing up as she recounted the events that lead to her granddaughter’s death, but she told me she has found peace in knowing that the pain of at least three other children was alleviated because her son chose to donate the little girl’s organs.

Amazing. Truly amazing that someone could be so strong and mentally healthy. But finding peace is so much better than the alternative: holding on to hate or wondering why.

I shared with this lady my feelings about my coma. I always wondered why God allowed it to happen, why my family and I weren’t spared the struggles, frustrations and pain of the many years of recovery. Yet when I started writing _My_Lost_Summer I, myself, found peace—or at least I started to accept that my accident happened for the greater good of others—because I wrote this book to tell family and caregivers what actually goes on in the minds of the newly conscious coma survivor. And with that information, doctors, therapists, and family can change their treatment of the patient for the better.

Through the years at different milestones in my life I’ve asked
1. Why did the coma happen?
2. Why have I been unhappy with the technical jobs I’ve held, which all pertained to my B.S. in environmental engineering? Why should I have had to struggle through earning that degree if ultimately I am unsatisfied with the work I do?
3. Why, after going back to school and earning my M.A. in Professional Writing & Editing (since I was unhappy with my B.S.), am I unemployed after more than a year of searching for work?

The one answer to all that is so that I would be prepared to write a book about my recovery that would motivate caregivers to alter their methods of care and coaching to better help six million yearly survivors of traumatic brain injury (U.S. statistic).

I encourage you to find peace within yourself by searching for answers to your life questions that will benefit the world or your community.

• Why was your score too low on the police entrance exam? Maybe you’d do the community better in another line of work?
  
• Why did you go through the pain of divorce? So your sons did not grow up learning that communication involved verbal and physical abuse.
  
• Why did you witness the atrocities of war? So that you become an activist towards ultimate world peace.

I don’t know who said it first, and you might think this an oversimplification, but When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. And share it with the world.

I Have a Fan

I honestly thought no one read my blog, that I was really just writing for myself. Sure, I’ve gotten legitimate comments from two different people, but that’s only two, and I figured they have likely lost interest by now. (I need to be a little more confident, I know.) But to my pleasant amazement, I learned differently last Sunday.

I had a book signing in Beavercreek, Ohio, the furthest from home so far (one’s coming up December 3 in Columbus!). Waldenbooks in the Fairfield Mall hosted me, and it was my best signing yet; 15 copies in two hours.

An hour or so in, a smiley woman pushing her son in a stroller with six-year-old daughter in tow, approached the table and told me she’d read about my signing on my Website. “I didn’t think anyone read my Website,” I told her, just like I didn't think anyone read my blog. “How did you find my Website?”

It turns out she gets one of the four weeklies to which my health & fitness column is syndicated, and every article gives my byline and Website at the end. She also told me she regularly reads my blog and enjoys my column in the Springboro Star Press.

We talked for five minutes or so, and I felt so honored that she came all the way from Springboro to Beavercreek (about 35 or 40 minutes). However, my new braces hurt my mouth from all the smiling I, myself, was doing at the thought of having a groupie. : )

I bet my biggest fan recognizes herself in this entry. If you do, J., please leave a comment. Let me know you’re out there.

"Extremely Touching"

Today at the end of my nine-hour work day at the end of my 40-plus-hour week, brain drained, I decided to devote the last several minutes of the day to Web surfing. I hadn’t Googled myself or my book in several months so typed “My Lost Summer” into the search engine. On page four of the results (all of which are not about my book, as “my lost summer” is kind of a commonly used phrase) I opened a link to the Website for the Brain Injury Association of Wyoming. In a PDF of their Summer 2006 newsletter I found some words about My Lost Summer, a copy of which I mailed to the association.

What I noticed right away was that the book is easy to read, and extremely touching in the way it presents various family members as they learn to cope with Elizabeth’s injury.
--Dorothy Cronin

I am particularly pleased with “extremely touching.” If you haven’t read it yet, what are you waiting for?

An Analogy of My Own

Do you remember in July I wrote of an analogy my husband made between a lady’s butt and two bags of dirty laundry? I was so jealous because it was a great analogy, for the lady’s butt did look like two bags of dirty laundry and I hardly ever think in analogies; I really admire people who can. In that blog entry I said that I’d work on training my brain to think that way. Well, this morning I came up with a doozie.

Please allow me to build the story. Friday night a friend and I had dinner together, and she told me that her soon-to-be-ex-husband came to the shop where she works and embarrassed her by being more than a bit obnoxious. She said she was into her second day without communication with him, which was the longest since their separation months earlier.

After our dinner of fine Chinese food and some good conversation, my friend and I watched the movie Chocolat—with dreamy Johnnie Depp. After the movie my friend showed me a text message her soon-to-be-ex had sent her that came in during the show. It was an apology for his actions the previous night, which was all fine and good, but the message continued on to say how he was readying for a date; he said he was moving on to “greener pastures.”

The message was plain hurtful. Why couldn’t he have ended the message after the apology? Because he’s a jerk, I say. I told my friend to be strong and not to communicate with him in any way unless it was imperative—like for some legal reason.

This morning I, myself, shot her off an e-mail asking if she were maintaining her show of stoicism concerning her soon-to-be-ex. I told her to resist the urge to respond to his asinine attempts at arousal. I told her (and here’s the analogy) that her soon-to-be-ex is like a rash, his text messages are the bothersome itch. As a rash goes away faster when one resists the urge to satisfy the itch, her soon-to-be-ex will go away faster if she resists the urge to satisfy her need to tell him to %&!!* off.

I am SO proud of that analogy. It’s a good one, don’t you think?

Gotta Get Rid of These Books

To take advantage of the holiday gift-giving tradition, I have scheduled five signings between next Saturday and early December: one at a grocery, where I sold 11 copies of My Lost Summer at a signing in May; three at Waldenbooks in Middletown, Dayton, and Columbus, Ohio; and the fifth and most recently scheduled is at a bank, my bank.

From my experience, books do not sell well in venues where books are not sold. (The grocery where I have sold and will sell again does sell books, and people who visit the grocery are in the buying mood.) However, I will take an hour and a half from my Friday afternoon and sit at the bank hawking my book to those interested simply because the employees at the bank, several of whom have read My Lost Summer, so graciously offered me this opportunity. Wish me luck there--and everywhere else. For I still have about 500 copies of the book taking up space in my house.

To get copies moving, what I need to do is follow through with some of the marketing ideas others have given me. A friend tells me that I should contact Catholic schools—where students buy their own books. Though inebriation is not a topic in My Lost Summer, she said my book could prove a deterrent to drunk driving as it offers insight into how someone’s life can be totally changed if he gets into an accident.

Last weekend at a family function, the teenaged son of my cousin told me that he read my book and liked it. He is the first young man who I know has read my book, and I was pleased he found it interesting. He said his teacher has read it and would like me to visit the school. If speaking would be worth taking a half day off work—if I was guaranteed a sale of five books at least—then I would definitely come to his school. But I haven’t followed through with it.

I’m thinking of doing it now, and my 2006 New Year’s resolution was (is) to call people right when I think about it, so that’s what I’m off to do: to start the process of speaking at schools. Hopefully, my stash of 500 will dwindle by the spring. Again, wish me luck.

The Good Life

In mid October a journalist with the Cincinnati Enquirer phoned to interview me about My_Lost_Summer. The small article appeared in the Hometown section of the October 21 edition. The last paragraph reads

Fryer says that because her injury occurred at such a young age, she isn't really sure what impact it has had on her life or her personality, but she doesn't feel that she's worse off for it. "I live a really good life," she says. "I don't know that it could be much better if this hadn't happened."

This past week has been a "My Life Sucks" week. Little things at home; a big project dumped on me (and another editor) at work near deadline; I got braces--at 37--and my teeth hurt; and I was cited for a car wreck I did not cause. This all fell at THE worst time in my cycle, and I can honestly say I've never felt more down in the dumps. I've been more depressed at other times in my life, but this week I just needed a big, teary breakdown.

The day before all this happened, I had lunch with a friend whose son is in kindergarten at a Montesori school, and his teachers are telling her he is not doing well. She's upset about that, wonders whether to pull him out and enroll him in a public school (and save $800+ in tuition). I talked to another woman at work about my bad day, and she was so empathetic and then mentioned how her husband would be accompanying her 16-year-old son to court later that day. A woman at my orthodondist's office is getting a divorce after 20+ years of a good marriage.

Wow! All that puts my petty problems in perspective: my problems will blow over in a week (and they have, more or less) while the situations my friends are dealing with are personal and perhaps life-altering.

How you choose to face life's challenges is all in your perspective.