A Little Barrel on Legs

I don't often get the time to sit down and write a post these days. I'm usually so busy writing, reading, working, studying that I don't get time to let you all in on my deepest thoughts.Today is different. Today, I wanted to share with you my lovely little puddy tat. Sasha. 

I took this photograph just a few weeks ago. My lovely other half had gone to visit his mum for the weekend and after working for six hours, I was in the home office and editing Behind Closed Doors when Sasha decided she was going to be quite happy sitting on my knee as I worked. It was so hot in the office I was surprised she stayed there. But she did and I, well, I didn't feel quite so alone. 

Believe it or not, Sasha's almost fifteen years old, blessed with the youthful look of a kitten (LOL) and a healthy appetite. So small, and rounded, she's often referred to a little barrel on legs or sometimes stumpy. So small, I didn't think she could get up on the kitchen unit. We've been living in This house for ten years and I've never caught her up there once until only a few weeks ago, she managed to get some meat off the counter while I wasn't looking. In fact, there was this one time, just after we'd moved in, when she jumped out of our bedroom window on to the roof of the bay window and couldn't get back up. It led to me dangling head first out of the window to grab her and bring her back inside. Daft cat!

She was healthy and happy and incredibly stubborn. She refused to drink out of a water bowl until less absolutely necessary, preferring the pre-run water from the bathroom tap. When she started to get too old to jump in and out of the bath we put a water bowl in from of it. We frequently had to refill it for her. :) and in the winter she'd snuggle up under the duvet with us or on long sleepless nights she'd lie beside me and I'd fall asleep to her gentle purring. 

Fast forward to this week and my little barrel on legs had been off her food for almost a week, not eating one thing but something else, then not eat that but a third, she wouldn't drink from the bowl and I had to put her in the bath to drink, and finally she began struggling with the stairs. Then two days ago she just wouldn't do anything at all. I think you know what I'm going to say and it was for the best. There was a lump in her stomach and arthritis in her back legs and the weight she'd lost over the last week or so ... I didn't want her in anymore pain. 

So I'm now sat imagining both Kiara and Sasha making more noise than a heard of elephants as they run up and down the heavenly staircases in the middle of the night. 

The Books that have Changed My Life

As part of the Tainted Love book tour, I was hosted over at Author's Friend last week where I wrote about the books which have changed my life.

I've read some fantastic books and I wish I could include all of them but there are some that have really stood out as pivotal moments in my writing, and reading, career. I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at the book that made me want to be an author.

The Gift by Danielle Steele

On a June day, a young woman in a summer dress steps off a Chicago-bound bus into a small midwestern town. She doesn’t intend to stay. She is just passing through. Yet her stopping here has a reason and it is part of a story that you will never forget.

The time is the 1950s, when life was simpler, people still believed in dreams, and family was, very nearly, everything. The place is a small midwestern town with a high school and a downtown, a skating pond and a movie house. And on a tree-lined street in the heartland of America, an extraordinary set of events begins to unfold. And gradually what seems serendipitous is tinged with purpose. A happy home is shattered by a child’s senseless death. A loving marriage starts to unravel. And a stranger arrives–a young woman who will touch many lives before she moves on. She and a young man will meet and fall in love. Their love, so innocent and full of hope, helps to restore a family’s dreams. And all of their lives will be changed forever by the precious gift she leaves them.

The Gift, Danielle Steel’s thirty-third best-selling work, is a magical story told with stunning simplicity and power. It reveals a relationship so moving it will take your breath away. And it tells a haunting and beautiful truth about the unpredictability–and the wonder–of life.

My eldest sister lent me her copy of The Gift on a train ride when I was fourteen and I have to say Maribeth and Tommy are possibly my favourite characters of all time. It opens with a tragedy for Tommy and I was already lost in the 50’s when Steele swept me away from Tommy's heartbreak and into Maribeth story. She’s abandoned by her family for something we shrug at today. Believe me or not, I have three copies of this book on my book shelf! Their romance and their journey will forever hold a special place in my heart. I finished reading The Gift and I knew I was going to be a published author. It was my calling.


Read the full post at Author's Friend

Erin

Schedule Madness!

I've been rather quiet this past week and for this I apologise. It's that time of year again when the Uni deadlines go super crazy for a couple of weeks and everyone, and I mean everyone wants their first assignment. So, I'm up to my neck in New Media and Digital Communications. Don't ask me why I do this to myself because right now I really couldn't tell you... but ... I love it!

If you don't follow me on Twitter and your not friends with me on Facebook, or haven't liked my Facebook Page, or you don't have me in your circles on Google+ hint hint!

Then here's what you missed last week.

• I gave an interview to Mummy Adventures on Sunday, 


• I talked about going from 4 years to write my first novel to just 2 weeks to write Tainted Love over at Bunny's Review on Monday, 


• I gave an interview to Blog-A-Licious Authors on Tuesday,


• Tainted Love's Faith McKenzie made a special appearance over at Patti Larsen.com on Tuesday


• I guest posted on the booked that have changed my life on Friday at Author's Friend, who also wrote an awesome 5 star review of Tainted Love.


• Eden Baylee interviewed me on Friday with the popular Get Inside the Mind of @erincawood 


• I gave an interview to Tribute Books on Saturday, 

Erin

Posts You May Have Missed

How Do Horror Novelists Sleep At Night?

I never intended to traverse the world of domestic violence, be that in a fictional one or in the real world. My character made a passing reference to his sister's former abusive relationship and now she'd moved on. That was all. 

But this sister, her name is Julia, she had a story to tell. And it is a fascinating story to listen to. But that was all it was supposed to be; A fictional character, a fictional story.

As a novelist you write what you know and what you don't know you research. The further into Julia's secret world I have walked, the more people I have had to meet, the more stories I have had to read, and the more real domestic  violence has become for me. 

Again, as a contemporary romance author I'm used to waking up in the middle of the night. I'm used to voices screaming in my head, couples arguing, love rivals bickering as one tries to overthrow the other. My Blackberry is beside my bed so I can 'write it down'. What I'm not used to is the sinister dreams.

They're not really nightmares. But they are disturbing.

About 8 weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night after the following dream. It was so vivid I wrote it down.

There's a group of friends in a supermarket. The main female (I do not know how she is) overreacts to her best friend's boyfriend's playful gesture. As the dream continued I learned she knew her best friend because they have both been victims of what I do not know. Except, her friend has little understanding or compassion for the main female because she does not go tearing everyone a new one at the flick of a switch.

In the dream the main female was supported by someone I assume was her boyfriend. He revealed the person who did that to the main female was not anonymous. It was someone she knew and trusted. The thing was she ran away from the group and my attention followed her so I never found out who or what they were talking about.

But there is a third man in the dream. Someone she knew and trusted as much as she did the other men in her life now and as she stands by her car waiting he asked her if she was okay. She broke down. She can't do this. She can't live in the real world anymore.

I woke up. 

In the last 3 to 4 months my writing has taken a darker, edgier turn. But I love the challenge of  tackling these themes in a modern contemporary romance style. My characters might be fiction, and their stories I have made up, but somewhere out there someone lives this life for real. Delving into those lives, trying to put a voice to subjects that at first I tried to dismiss as out of sight out of mind, its upturned my psyche. I do not enjoy dreaming I'm being smothered with a pillow! 

So it makes me wonder... How do horror novelist sleep at night?

Erin

Posts You May Have Missed 

Novel Excerpt - Tainted Love -   Valentina Secrets (Book 1)
Novel Excerpt - Behind Closed Doors - Valentina Secrets (Book 2)
Sharing the Light with Laughter - Migraine Awareness Week 2nd - 8th Sept 2012

Sharing the Light with Laughter

I love all the things that are bad for me

I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t do drugs... I DO COFFEE.

It gets me through the work day. I am more than willing to pay for my coffee. Now in the UK, I pay more than £3.50 for my caramel macchiato and at the current exchange rates that’s more than $5.50 for 1, yes one cup of coffee. I have no idea if that’s normal in the USA but you can buy at least 2 kindle books for that price.

I don’t mind though, because I love the smell of the sweet coffee and vanilla, the feel of the fluffy milky foam on my tongue, and the warm caramel coffee tantalising my taste buds for the first time. I enjoy every sip of that 20oz cup and it usually lasts for 2 hours because I can drink it lukewarm.... ice cold coffee? Ew!

BUT- and this is a HUGE but - I can’t drink COFFEE... I have to drink – ugh – DECAF! Now, you coffee lovers are hissing “don’t swear at me!” aren’t you? And you have my sincerest apologies. :-)

I also love melted cheese, especially Pizza, and pastries we brits call chocolate éclairs, caramelised and roasted hazelnut chocolate, some curries. But I can’t eat these either. Well, I can. But I’ll pay for it if I do.

It’s been two and a half years since I was diagnosed with Chronic Daily Migraine with Aura. You’ll see at the top of the screen a tab referring to the ‘M Word’. We don’t talk about it around here. But today I’m going to break the silence because today I wanted to think not about my lifelong debilitating condition. No, not about me, I’m incredibly lucky to have the life I have and it can all change in a second so I won’t complain.  But I wanted to think about those who don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel yet.

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your situation. So I can only tell you what helped me and how I managed to see the light at the end of tunnel with a condition where I spend up to 2 out of 3 days with a migraine and at my worst I spent weeks in bed. A condition that put me on the verge of losing my job. A condition that prevents me from not only leaving my house but from watching television, listening to music, reading books, opening curtains, using the telephone, doing domestic chores, there are days when my symptoms make personal hygiene a major difficulty. So I hope that in sharing my strategy I can help you in some way with yours.  

I learned to change the way I thought about my situation. It started with Big brother like posts. “Day 37 and the migraine is...” I was so fed up with the permanent migraine and the situation I started to poke fun at it on social networking sites.

“Is fed up of having a headache. Yes I've DOWNGRADED it to a headache to p off the migraine and yes the migraine has a personality of its own and I do fight with it LOL! ;-)”  

I began to amuse myself at the migraine’s expense, stopped taking it so seriously all the time because frankly, I was cracking up. Or maybe I did crack up. Either way I was the best thing that happened for me because after this life did get hard and humour helped me through. I was able to detach the end of the world effect the migraine had had for eighteen months and take my life back. Become pro active, gain control and start figuring out what my new limitations were. After all, my condition isn’t going away. It’s part of who I am. How I handle it is how I define the person I am.

Two weeks before I was due to start studying at university I had a migraine so severe they suspected I’d had a stroke. Now I have tremor in my right hand. It’s a permanent symptom that varies from barely noticeable to uncontrollable depending on the migraine day. It was a setback. But I was able to start my course. I rule my life, although I’ll admit the migraine has a say and on those days when I can’t get my symptoms to shut up I don’t want to listen but I do.

These are the hardest days. These are the days when I’m cut off from the rest of the world, from my family, from my friends, my colleagues, and my classmates. I can’t bear to hear the children playing on the street and its torture twofold. They make so much noise, they cause me so much pain and still I want go out there to enjoy the day like they are. But I can’t and I can be like this for weeks.

I understand how hard it is to keep your head up high. When day after day, week after week, month after month there is a constant reminder that you aren’t completely whole. And other people remind you that you aren’t completely whole also, regardless of the laws which are supposed to prevent this.  But the constraints placed around you are there simply for you to break free from. You only have to find a way to work around them.  I love coffee... Now I drink decaf. LOL! Okay, okay, but seriously the tremor in my right hand... it’s so bad at times I can’t hold a pen, not good for a right handed author, so I learned to write with my left hand.

My symptoms are affected by natural light rather than artificial light. So when I’m at my worst I live in our attic room away from the noise that the rest of the world creates. I talk to people in the online communities. My online friends keep me sane. I’ve found a profession I enjoy which I am pursuing a qualification in that won’t be hindered by my migraines because I can work from home when I’m suffering.

I am also a soon to be independently published author. I take some powerful meds daily to control my migraines and find that sometimes a distraction works just as well as a pain medication. For me, writing is a fantastic escape from the real world and to forget what holds me back. When my symptoms subside and I can go back to my life again, I’m more positively minded than I used to be.

This is my life and I am in control. I eat pizza, but only freshly made pizza because frozen ones trigger migraine. I eat chocolate when I’m at my peak of non-migraineous symptoms. I eat chocolate éclairs but only on Tuesdays and Fridays or on annual leave because I can’t always guarantee they won’t trigger a migraine. And I went on the search for the best coffee house whose DECAF tastes like their regular coffee. And as frustrating as they are, I take each acute migraine with aura attack as it comes. I don’t worry about when the next one is going to come because I can’t change it.

As I said, these are the tools I use and they work for me. Please share my story with your family and friends and anyone else who doesn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. I hope I help.

Erin

Read an excerpt from my debut novel Tainted Love

Read my migraine story at http://authorwithamigraine.tumblr.com/ 

email me: erin@erincawood.co.uk