S.K. Brown's Blog

It drives me crazy in movies and television shows when two people supposedly in love decide to separate to pursue their dreams. Usually they say something to the effect that they’ll come to resent one another if they sacrifice to stay together. 

Guess what? Love is the dream. Everything else is just mist in the wind. 

Today, people put a lot of emphasis on their careers, but how many of them would quit in a heartbeat if they won the lottery? Is money really worth more than love?

“Life is a flower of which love is the honey.”—Victor Hugo.

In my second novel, The Fisherman’s Wife, Sarah teaches her daughter-in-law, Laura, an important principle of love when the tough challenges Laura faces start to impact her husband significantly: 

“But I hate being so needy, and I worry about dragging him down and ruining his life. Sooner or later he’ll start to resent all the sacrifices, won’t he?” [Laura said]

“I’ll tell you a little secret that most people don’t understand,” Sarah stroked Laura’s hair back again. “My father taught me this principle years ago. You love what you serve and sacrifice for. The more you invest in someone or something, the more you come to love them. You don’t resent them. Every sacrifice he makes for you is binding him closer to you. I worry about this rift between you, though. Sometimes adversity tears people apart, but never the loving sacrifices.”

When you lose yourself in the service of another human being, it’s almost impossible to hate them. What would the world be like if fewer of us took a stand and used our energy to lift others instead? How would things change if we championed the causes of other people instead of our own? If we listened instead of arguing?

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”—Maya Angelou.

In the end, our other big dreams matter very little. Someday we will all retire from our jobs, and the achievements of the next generation will eclipse whatever glorious thing we accomplished. The only real legacy most of us will leave will be the investment we made in others. 

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”—Albert Einstein.

Love is the only currency accepted to buy ultimate happiness. If you’re willing to pay the price for the ticket, you can win the lottery of love every time.

Image by Carabo Spain from Pixabay

Chaos Reigns: The Motto of an Author Mom

Hi! I’m Ashley A Quinn, and I write romantic suspense. As the title of this post suggests, my life is chaotic. But more on that later. First, here’s a little introduction to me and my family.

I grew up in a mix of the country and the city. My family moved several times in and out of town before I left for college, and I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house. They lived on an acre surrounded by fields, and I spent many a summer afternoon there playing ball, getting dirty in the “crick,” and just being outside. It was awesome. Anyway, as a result, I am a country girl at heart. Not too country, mind you, but the “I hate people and don’t like having to talk to others unless necessary, but I want to be close to the grocery store,” kind of country. We currently live in a small city, but we have an ENORMOUS yard, so when I look out my back windows, I feel like I’m in the country. Ultimately, we want to have a house outside of town, but that’s in the column “Someday.” I also have plans to buy an island, but my husband just looks at me like I’ve grown two heads when I mention it.

I love to read. Romance, mysteries, thrillers, fantasy—all of it. Laura Griffin, James Rollins, Dan Brown, and Heather Graham are some of my favorites. I’m also a crime drama junkie. I’ve seen all the episodes of most of the major police procedurals on television. The only saving grace to the summer months when the shows are on hiatus—besides the lovely weather, of course—is baseball. I grew up on it, played it (well, softball), and will love it until the day I die. Go Reds!

Now, back to the chaos part…

I have two children. They are a handful, but I can’t imagine life without them. My son is eleven and likes to think he knows everything—the preteen years have begun! He will also talk circles around you, trying to convince you he’s right. It doesn’t matter the subject; he has to be right. He hates school, but loves to read. Mostly about soldiers and war. He is a history freak (just like his parents) and devours anything about World War II. Lately, he’s branched out into World War I. 

He also has a heart of gold. When he was three, he was diagnosed with leukemia. It came back when he was six. Through that fight, he learned what it meant to be truly blessed. So many people wished him well and gave him things. When he finished treatment, he decided he wanted to help other kids who maybe didn’t have as much as he had and donated his birthday money to the local “Shop with a Cop” event held by our local police department instead of buying more stuff for himself. He might argue with me till we’re both blue in the face, but he would do anything to help someone who needed it.

My daughter is nine and is a wild child. She’s loud. Like, really, really loud. She’s also wicked smart. She likes space and superheroes and video games. At the age of three, her favorite show was Dexter’s Laboratory. Now, it’s Teen Titans Go! Her room is light purple, but there arestars and video game posters all over, and she has a nebula light. She demands I buy her books about the moon. And Jupiter. I am happy to indulge her. She can also play her brother into the dirt on just about any video game. She’s even expressed an interest in learning to code so she can make her own. I can see it now… Set in space—or at least on some very colorful planet full of rainbows and cats—where the good guys wield shiny bejeweled swords, collect stars for points, and eat candy to keep up their health.

She’s also very witty. My husband once told her to get a hobby because she kept pestering him. She looked him straight in the eye and said, “You are my hobby.” She keeps us on our toes, and I both look forward to and dread her teenage years. This girl has the personality and the smarts to rule the world if she so chooses.

My husband is as much of a history freak as our son. We both majored in history in college, which is how we met. Neither of us has really used our degrees for their intended purposes. Hisdegree got him into the Air Force as an officer, and mine got me a job as a substitute teacher, though, now, I just write books. I also have a master’s degree in museum studies. However, itjust sits on a shelf gathering dust.

Life is nutty at the moment, but whose isn’t, especially right now. I’m a full-time writer in addition to being a mom. We also moved to homeschooling at the beginning of the school year.There was just too much uncertainty with our district’s in-person policy, and the remote school they offered was terrible. Finding curriculum we all like has been a challenge. Some days they despise their assignments, and we throw the plan out the window and find something new. It’s been eye-opening how little my son actually learned at school. Now, though, he’s caught up, and they’re both actually learning, so I’m not sure they’ll ever go back. While chaos most definitelyreigns in my world, it’s worth it.

BUT, I have had great success this past year in the writing world despite my crazy life. I launched a new book series in June called The Broken Bow. It’s romantic suspense set in eastern Colorado and revolves around the Archer siblings, Sebastian, Brady, Tara, Thomas, and Maggie. Y’all, I love this series. These characters feel like family. They’re amazing! The whole thing was inspired by a picture taken on a cloudy day of the ruins of St. Dominic’s Church in D’Hanis, Texas. It’s haunting and beautiful, and I immediately thought what a great place that would be to hide a body. My brain is not normal, I know. But, once I got past the beauty of the picture and that thought hit, an entire scene popped into my head, and A Beautiful End was born. There is now a second book out, Wildfire, and a third, called In Plain Sight, is on the way. There will be two more after that, and at least one novella coming out this year as well. 

Thanks for listening to me ramble. You can check out all my books on my website https://ashleyaquinn.com, but the blurbs for my Broken Bow series are below. Happy reading!

-Ashley

A Beautiful End – Available Now!

Will a threat to London’s life lead her to love?

London Scott’s routine, boring life gets a jolt when her niece discovers a woman’s body while out hiking with her boyfriend. It’s just her luck, though, that it’s Sebastian Archer who investigates the murder. Having known the man since childhood, she’s always been the annoying tagalong. Even though she finds him drop-dead sexy, that’s a ship that can never sail now that she’s guardian to her niece and his goddaughter.

Two years ago, Seb moved home to take the position as local sheriff, ready for a slower pace and to be closer to his family. That included his best friend’s sister, London. The beautiful innkeeper had held his heart since they were young, but the timing never felt right to start something. When a serial killer murders a woman in his jurisdiction who bears a striking resemblance to London, Seb realizes he could lose her before they ever get a chance.

Will London’s reluctance to date the handsome sheriff deliver her into the hands of a psychopath?

Wildfire – Available Now!

Someone is stalking Tara Miller…

All Tara wants is to forget. Home again after years traveling the world, she’s determined to put her painful past behind her. Surrounded by her big, loving, loud family, and with the distraction of her new restaurant, she feels like she’s finally beginning to heal. Then in walks Jace Travers. With one quirk of his beautiful, full lips, he shoots her carefully constructed life to smithereens. She does her best to avoid him, but that quickly proves hard to do when mysterious things begin to happen.

Jace needs a change. Memories of his wife and daughter surround him at every turn in his tiny Nebraskan town, keeping him from fully moving on. When the Boone County Sheriff offers him the position of Chief Deputy in Silver Gap, Colorado, he jumps on it, hoping it will help shake him out of his funk. It comes with the added bonus of living next door to the sheriff's beautiful and fiery sister, Tara. From the moment he sees her, she sparks his blood. Her skittishness only makes him want to know more about her. But unraveling the beautiful woman could prove deadly. Tara's past has come back to haunt her.

In Plain Sight – Available for Pre-order!

There’s something sinister happening in Boone County…

Since the debacle involving her friends and her ex, Rayna Nydert has kept to herself. Duped by the rotten bastard, she still feels guilty for her part in it all. With harvest season in full swing, her self-isolation has been easy to keep. But when she finds a beaten and terrified young man in one of her fields, to help him hide from his pursuers, she must turn to the one man who has the power to shatter her heart into a million tiny pieces, Thomas Archer.

It’s been years since Thomas and Rayna dated. Life led them in different directions, but for Thomas, the torch never died. Rayna’s always been his one and only. When she calls on him to help her care for the scared young man, he can’t say no. They soon discover, though, that they’ve stumbled over a dark secret. One that someone would kill to keep.

It’s been months since I wrote a blog post. This pandemic has thrown me for a loop. Being on lockdown has totally disrupted my schedule. I’m not great at creating schedules and order, anyway, but I need them like air! 

All the crazy events of this past year have left me with fractured thoughts and emotions, impacting my ability to keep my life on track the way I want it. The business end of my writing career has suffered, I’m afraid. I’ve succumbed to the temptation of escaping reality far too often.

Although escaping hasn’t helped my writing business, it’s good for the business of writing. Since the pandemic started, I wrote and published a novella (Flight of the Crow), and I’m putting the last touches on a novel I started a while ago. I’m calling it Moon Over Shilshole Bay for now, but that could change. It was a tough one to write and gave me fits! I think I read over that book at least 100 times—I’m not exaggerating. But now I’m just about satisfied with it, and I could use some beta readers for it. If anyone out there is interested, I’ll email you a copy. 

Moon Over Shilshole Bay is a story about a couple who meet and fall in love, but a tragic family secret tests their close bond. The threads of love holding a broken extended family together could stretch to breaking with dire consequences if it isn’t brought to light in time. It’s a novel about forgiveness, sacrifice, the importance of family, and the true meaning of love.

The past year has tested everyone, but some more than others. Many have lost loved ones, faced joblessness, suffered with severe depression, increased substance abuse, isolation, etc. When I stop to think about that, it helps me complain less about how my life has changed, and remember the blessings I have. So far, only one member of our family has had COVID-19, and thankfully, she had a mild case. None of our elderly parents have had it, not even my nine-two-year-old mother-in-law. 

2020 was difficult, but it wasn’t all bad, in fact, a few pretty wonderful things happened too. My youngest daughter gave birth to a beautiful baby daughter in August, an angel come straight from heaven. A bright light in a dark night. 

Speaking of bright lights in the dark, Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.” It’s hard to appreciate the full brilliance of something good without a dark background of contrast, isn’t it? 2020 was a sieve, letting the frivolous, meaningless distractions shake out, revealing the nuggets of gold—at least for me. 

I’ve spent a lot of time with my sweet husband this year—I mean A LOT of time—and our love has only strengthened from it, even after thirty-five years of marriage. We’ve become so much closer, to the point we’re sharing the same brain. We’re thinking the same thoughts and finishing each other’s sentences so often, pretty soon we won’t even have to talk. How will I function without him when things return to normal?

If 2020 has been full of trial and sadness for you, I hope 2021 brings you a few more nuggets of gold. Maybe it will if we’re more loving, tolerant, and take better care of one another. 

Look for the stars.

If you’re interested in reading Moon Over Shilshole Bay, email me at sk@skbrownbooks.com. 

Two days ago, I decided my husband deserved something better to look at than a woman with flat hair and no makeup, lounging around in either pajamas or sweats. I jumped into the shower before noon, miraculously. I applied a little makeup and even did my hair. I decided to wear some real clothes for a change, but I also wanted to be comfortable so I slipped on a pair of my fat jeans. To my dismal surprise, they weren’t that easy to zip up! Yikes!!!

Covid-19 is a deadly disease sweeping the globe, leaving trails of devastation in its wake. It not only kills people, but sickens the global economy. These are serious outcomes of the outbreak for sure, but there are also some weird side effects. The ensuing unprecedented worldwide quarantine has flipped us into a bizarre, unknown life, almost overnight in some places. It may be flattening the curve on Covid-19, but it’s sparked an outbreak of cabin fever in epoch proportions. And cabin fever has some seriously strange side effects.

Fat Pants—often a result of bored or stress eating coupled with fewer opportunities to burn off excess calories. A contributing factor, in my case, is having a high energy husband pacing the house like a caged animal looking for something to do. He’s been working from home for nearly a month in a state with strict sheltering in place restrictions and work has been a bit slower, unfortunately. He’s been working around the house a lot which is great, but he’s also taken up some new hobbies; one of which is learning how to bake artisan bread. One of his friends had the nerve of posting a wonderful recipe for it on Facebook. My husband has been experimenting with it, baking loaf after loaf of delicious rounds, ever since—hence the fat pants. 

Shortages of basic goods (but weird ones like toilet paper)—a couple of weeks ago, my sister who lives in Phoenix, Arizona contacted me. An old friend of hers from high school messaged her and asked if she would ship some toilet paper to her in Tacoma, Washington. This woman was a single mother trying to raise her own children (one with special needs) and a couple of grandchildren on her own and she couldn’t find toilet paper to buy anywhere. She was thinking, since the virus hadn’t taken hold in Arizona yet, it would be more available there. The problem was that Phoenix had a shortage of toilet paper too. From the moment the pandemic hit US soil, it sparked panic and pandemonium everywhere. Since I don’t live too far from Tacoma, my sister asked me if I had any extra. I just happened to have some on hand, since I usually buy it in bulk at Costco. My sister asked if I would mind dropping some off to her, so my husband and I drove forty minutes away to Tacoma to deliver twelve rolls of TP to a grateful woman we had never met nor heard of before. One of the strangest things we’ve ever done, for sure.

Disruption or lack of routine—since I’m a writer, working from home isn’t new for me, but this quarantine has definitely changed my routine. I’m used to working in a solitary bubble, but now I’m sharing it with someone else—someone who doesn’t know how to function inside the bubble, someone trying to claw his way out of it. I’m ashamed to admit that staying in my PJs until late in the afternoon is a regular thing for me. I stop writing, jump in the shower, tidy up the house, and start dinner before my husband gets home from work. But now my charade is over. Although he’s been suspicious for quite a while, now he knows my dirty little secret. Even worse, he’s joined me on the dark side. Neither one of us puts on real clothes much anymore.

Breakdown in personal hygiene—this goes with the disruption in routine. Since we don’t have a reason to get dressed and go anywhere, because there aren’t many places we’re allowed to go, we also forget to shower as often. And sometimes we’re shocked to realize we haven’t brushed our teeth the entire day either (hopefully our dentist isn’t reading this). Now we have to make a conscientious effort to remember to do things like brush our teeth and shower, when before, they were just routine.

Lost sense of time—the days seem to be running together. We have to ask each other what day it is quite often. It’s like we’ve been shipwrecked. If it wasn’t for our electronic devices telling us what day it is, we’d have to scratch notches on the wall everyday.

News addiction—we don’t like it, but we still need our fix of constant updates and statistics, even if it makes us feel worse in the end. It’s also a concentration killer, making it hard to do anything like work or even read a simple book.

It’s not all bad though. There are some surprisingly beneficial side effects too. Think of it as a cosmic reset button. Many things we thought were so important before have slipped down the priority list. Our hectic, chaotic lives have ground to a screeching halt. We now know that children can continue to thrive without exhausting schedules of sports and lessons. Men (and women) can continue to live and breathe without professional sporting events to watch. Fewer opportunities for shopping and the need to cook most meals from scratch can save a family a lot of money.

A better understanding of what is truly meaningful is a valuable side effect of the pandemic. Having to protect the elderly and those with compromised immunity has become a priority for most of us since we all have people in our lives like that. We realize how much we love them and how small the price of quarantine is if it means keeping them alive.

Separation from our friends and family has made them more precious to us and we appreciate them more, hopefully. We value connection more with the emptiness of isolation. Since we can’t literally reach out, we have to do it digitally. I’ve noticed the tone of social media posts has changed a little since the outbreak. People are sending wishes of safety and wellbeing, sharing helpful information and tips, and posting about activities they are doing at home with their children instead of showcasing themselves, the sandwich they’re eating for lunch, or their enviable trips. Hopefully this will continue to mean more relevant and less boring posts in the future.

In the past, I’ve worried about what it will be like when my husband retires someday. Since we’ve spent more time together during this quarantine than any other time in our entire thirty-four-year marriage, now I know. And it’s no longer a worry because I’ve discovered that I like him even more than I thought I did. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had a few dicey moments during the past few weeks, but I’m still going to miss him when he goes back to the office to work. On that same note, I know he really likes me too. He loves me for me—fat pants and all.

Some people say that Easter will be cancelled this year, but for those who truly believe in Jesus Christ, it won’t be. It’s not about Easter egg hunts, candy, or expensive baskets of commercial goods. It’s about the love one man has for each of us and how it was manifested in the most painful and difficult sacrifice in the world’s history. He gave himself to satisfy the law of justice by the law of mercy, allowing us to wake up every morning and turn over a fresh leaf if we choose to. It also means we can let go and allow others to do the same.

I sincerely hope you and your loved ones stay safe and well, but if anyone out there reading this has lost someone because of the Coronavirus, I’m so very sorry. I hope you find some comfort and peace and know that you’re not alone.

Staying connected is very important during this crazy, uncertain time and it’s good to remind one another that we are going through some of the same things. I would absolutely love to hear about the annoying, sad, meaningful, sweet, and even bizarre side effects you’ve experienced because of this outbreak. Please share your stories in the comments below. 

Photo by Khusen Rustamov

Romantic love has long been associated with Valentine’s Day for centuries, but what is it?

There are different kinds of romantic love: the fast burning comet that blazes across the night sky for only an instant; the tiny spark that ignites the kindling of a long friendship; the ice of antagonism that thaws and comes to a sustained boil; the eternal flame, sometimes flickering in the wind, but growing stronger through the years.

The oldest surviving Valentine is a love poem from twenty-one year old Charles, the Duke of Orleans to his sixteen year old wife, Bonne in 1415. He wrote it while he was being held in the Tower of London after he was captured in the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years War between the French and English. It’s a little glum understandably, considering his dark circumstances, but full of longing.

I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine,

Since for me you were born too soon,

And I for you was born too late.

God forgives he who has estranged

Me from you for the whole year.

I am already sick of love,.
My very gentle, Valentine,

Well might I have suspected,

Having such a destiny,

Thus would have happened this day,

How much that Love would have commanded.

I am already sick of love.

(Source: Wikipedia)

It’s interesting to note that this relationship started out as a marriage arranged for political purposes, but obviously grew into something much deeper during the years they had together before he was captured.

I’ve been in love with the same sweet man for almost thirty-five years now, married for thirty-four. In my humble opinion, this kind of love is the best kind. It’s an endangered species in our day, but like the mythical unicorn, it’s well worth chasing after. Marriage is much maligned in modern times, because lasting, romantic love is poorly understood. Self fulfillment is the name of the game—self fulfillment at all costs. It’s why traditional and non-traditional families are falling apart, I think.

You ask: how do I capture this Unicorn? There is a lot of advice out there, but one simple principle stands out; each person in the relationship must put their partner’s comfort and well being ahead of their own. It doesn’t work if only one person does it. Feelings of resentment fester as the one doing all the sacrificing burns out or starts to feel voiceless and invisible, eventually cankering the whole relationship. But if both people can put each other first, it’s synergistic fire. It becomes a cauldron of refinement, forging each participant into pure gold. Unfortunately, most can’t stand the heat of selflessness and sacrifice long enough and jump out of caldron too soon.

Relationships change and evolve with time. If you nurture your love, feeding it regularly, it will grow into something strong and beautiful. If you neglect it or step on it with your big, fat foot, it’s going to wither and die—sometimes pretty quickly.

There’s a myth out there that long, committed relationships are monotonous and dull. Another myth that sexual gratification can only be sustained by changing partners frequently. If this is what you think, then let me ask you a few questions:

Would you enjoy being with someone who knows you intimately? Who knows your deepest fears and secrets? What you like? What turns you on?

How would it be for someone to see you at your worst and love you anyway? To forgive you for being human and have your back when the vultures start circling?

Would you appreciate someone who supports you in your dreams? To be happy for your achievements? To be proud of you?

Would you like someone to care for you when you’re sick or down? To protect you when you’re vulnerable? To weather the storm with you when life gets turbulent?

Does it sound nice to be able to trust someone for a lifetime? To know they will always be faithful and loyal to you? That they aren’t perpetually looking into greener pastures (which are usually mirages anyway)?

How would you like to know you will always come first in someone’s life—before their job, their family, or their friends? To know they would follow you anywhere to help you achieve your dreams, maybe even at the expense of their own? And that they would never resent you for it?

Would you like to have someone to argue with when your perception of reality gets a little skewed? Someone to gently pull you back?

Would you want to spend your life with your biggest fan? With someone who regularly sees the best in you?

Does it sound fun to have someone to do things with? To give you space when you need it? To respect the differences between you?

If you answered yes to these questions, then you would probably enjoy a long, committed relationship very much and you wouldn’t need multiple partners to achieve gratification. Does this seem like a pipe dream, an unrealistic vision to have all this? Well, it is, at first, but this is what long lasting romantic love looks like over time.

Can you achieve it? If the above qualities are what you’re looking for in a partner, you have to possess them yourself. Lasting love isn’t like a lightning strike. It might feel that way at first, but if you don’t do the work, aren’t willing to bend and change, it’s going to go away as fast as it came. But the effort is well worth it to have something sweet and lasting…

The Secret Haven book series I wrote is not only about suspense, but it’s also a study of the evolution of a relationship which starts out almost as a lightning strike. It develops into something else during intense struggle and sacrifice while powerful, external storms threaten to beat it down. There is a tug of war going on between the main characters, Laura and Nick, as they define what their relationship will ultimately become over the course of the books.

I would love to hear your opinions on lasting romantic love. Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

The marriage of Charles of Orleans and Bonne of Armagnac at the Chateau de Dourdan, from The Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry . (Credit: Online Library of Liberty)

A few months ago, I asked: how do you cope with depression? I’ve been thinking about it again since a couple of my friends are having a more difficult time with it lately than usual. Clinical depression as well as some other forms of mental illness happen to run on both sides of our family. It’s something I’ve been battling myself for years and have observed in many of my dearest friends. In my blogpost, I described it as a malady of the strong since most of the best, most compassionate people I know are battling it.

Depression is a mean fight that comes out of nowhere sometimes. Just when you think you’ve conquered it…POW! It hits you again. Pills definitely help, but are only one weapon in the arsenal for keeping the dragon from eating you alive. But finding the right pill is an arduous process in and of itself, by trial and error, and takes months and often years of painful experimentation. Things usually get a whole lot darker before the right drug is finally found. If you’re lucky, one day you’ll suddenly feel like asking, “Who just turned on the lights?” Although pills can help and make all the difference, they aren’t a magic bullet. Some people I’ve known search for years looking for it, thinking there is such a thing, but never find it. They don’t realize depression is a war you have to wage on several fronts. You have to be extremely vigilant in exercising religiously, eating right, and getting enough sleep, but the most powerful weapon of all is controlling your own mind. It’s not as easy as chanting positive mantras to yourself all day long. You have to swim hard against the river of negativity to keep yourself from being pulled under by its powerful, disabling currents. It’s a fight To the death. You have to pray with everything inside you sometimes to keep moving one stroke at a time, because it’s imperative to keep yourself floating on the calm surface of reality.

One of the most powerful exercises is to keep a journal with lists of what you’re grateful for. This can be really difficult at first when you’re in so much emotional pain. You may have to begin with simple, obvious things like being grateful you own a toothbrush or for the roof over your head. There are so many people in the world who don’t even have these. This exercise helps to ground you in reality. It helps you to see what reality actually is.

Another powerful tool is to examine the thing you think is causing you so much pain—the vehicle your depression chooses to drive around in. It may be something someone said, causing you to think they don’t like you. Or it may be something as stupid as thinking how your husband must not love you anymore since he doesn’t have the consideration to eat more quietly. When you have depression, little things get blown out of proportion in your search to find out where all this pain is coming from. Try to look at things from another person’s perspective, especially if it seems like everyone you know doesn’t like you all of a sudden. At those times, you have to face the fact that you’re the one with the problem obviously, because the whole world can’t be in on one big conspiracy against you. Although it can sometimes feel exactly like that. Give others the benefit of the doubt and realize that people are flawed and probably doing the best they can too. Understand that you can’t judge them because it’s unlikely you know all the crap they’re dealing with—just like most people don’t know about the huge plate of crap you’re dealing with in depression.

One of the most important tools against depression is to try to serve other people as much as you can. It may seem impossible at times because it feels like you can’t even take care of yourself. Depression definitely has a big, fat downside to it, but it can also be a priceless gift. Use your depression to be more empathetic to others and more compassionate. The strongest people I know are the ones battling depression and mental illness with this in mind. They make the world a better place for everyone by trying not to focus on their own problems and turning their attention to others who are struggling in all kinds of different ways. They know how it feels to be knocked down and how good it feels to have someone offer an outstretched hand.

Depression and mental illnesses are tough, so you have to get tough with them. It takes all your strength and mental and emotional energy to pull yourself out of it. You can’t let yourself obsess about how bad you feel and how sad your life is. You have to focus and make yourself take that cumbersome step out into the darkness to find the light. You have to quit talking to everyone about it, not because of the stigma of mental illness, but because you need to think only of becoming strong. You need to focus on that pin prick of light up ahead, miles in the distance and call upon every tool you have for help. Sometimes it’s all you can do to keep from locking yourself in your room all day long, but start with that. Maybe all you can do is brush your teeth everyday or take a shower. Whatever it is, then do it as consistently as you can. Do a little more each day. Some days you might back track, but try again the next. Don’t engage in ANY self criticism. Be kind to yourself, but also be tough. Don’t let depression become an excuse for not being the person you want to become, but keep moving in the right direction, pushing yourself gradually more from week to week. Focus as much as you can on making life more comfortable and better for the people around you. Don’t justify making other people clean up after you. Do as much as you possibly can to make their lives easier too.

If you love someone suffering with mental illness, it’s heart wrenching. It’s frustrating and sometimes maddening to have to watch them suffer while you feel totally helpless. You want to pick them up and carry them back to happiness and relief, but you need to be careful with this. Although you may mean well, treating someone with mental illness like they’re defective is not helpful. Treat them with the respect and dignity they deserve in this vicious battle they’re engaged in. Be aware of their limitations and be gentle, but don’t coddle them. Make them stretch a little while being careful not to push them too hard. Be loving and understanding. This is the outstretched hand someone with depression needs and longs for.

Please leave a comment and share your experiences with me about the struggle of mental illness as it relates to you or someone you love. We’re in this together.

We’ve all experienced it. You decide to get out of debt. You turn down the heat, eat Top Ramen for a month, and start buying cheap, generic laundry soap that turns all your whites to gray. And what happens? The washing machine dies and the head gasket blows on your car. It makes no sense! What is God, the Universe, or Kharma trying to tell you? Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem fair. Murphy’s law feels like a very real thing sometimes unfortunately.

One of my daughters recently took a job in San Francisco, California working for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Humanitarian work has been her dream since she was a little girl. She worked in a refugee camp in Greece for a while, assisted a refugee family from the Ivory Coast in Salt Lake City, Utah, was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arizona, and had a previous job in Utah working for the United Way. Now she’s working to help people in California who have Cystic Fibrosis, a debilitating, usually fatal disease affecting thousands of people. In all fairness, life should be going great for her, but this week it certainly isn’t. She found out she can’t go on the trip to Paris she bought a plane ticket for almost a year ago, her old car has had problem after problem since she arrived in California (this week it’s mysteriously leaking coolant), and she’s so ill with some unidentifiable virus, she can barely lift her head off the pillow. The problem is, when she’s sick, she isn’t allowed to come into the office to work under any circumstance because, if she came into contact with any of the people who have Cystic Fibrosis who frequently drop into the office, she could literally kill them. She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke, she’s very good at managing her personal finances, and she’s a very kind, polite person. So what’s up?

Another relative of mine, one of the very finest men I know and very successful in his field, decided to give up his lucrative job in the corporate world so he could work for a nonprofit organization. He wanted to use his highly developed skills to contribute something to society, to do some real good in the world. He took a sizable cut in pay and was told to come in and affect change in the particular arm of the organization he was hired to work in, so that’s what he set out to do. Right away, he found some troubling things about how certain assets had been managed in the past and, although he tried his best, he didn’t fit in with the culture of some of the others in the organization. He was seen as an outsider and a threat by his immediate supervisor who hadn’t been the one to hire him. Despite all his good work and expertise, this supervisor hauled him into his office one day and told him he could choose to resign or be fired. Of course, it was in his best interest to resign. Now he’s hunting for a new job, but it isn’t easy because his short stint at the nonprofit didn’t do him any favors. He’s feeling discouraged and depressed, as you can imagine. How could this happen to someone like him?

Well, I have a new flash for you; life is pretty difficult for every single person on the planet. It’s harder for some than others, but chances are, everyone is eventually brought to their knees in some way and feels like they’re at their breaking point at some time. One of my favorite speakers and writers is Neal A. Maxwell, a prominent leader in my church who had dedicated his life to service until it was cut short by a painful battle with terminal cancer. One of my favorite quotes of his is, “Irony is the hard crust on the bread of adversity.” If you think you’re here on earth just to party and have a good time, you’re probably pretty disappointed by now. The real purpose of life, actually, is to grow and learn how to solve problems. It’s to learn how to love others through experiencing difficulties of our own so we can be compassionate and relate better to one another.

So how do you cope with depression when everything seems to be going to hell? Do you curl up in a little ball in a dark room and cry? Do you complain to everyone you know, assuming that no one is as afflicted as you are? I’ve known a few people like this over the years and guess what; they’re annoying and they don’t help anyone. Most of all, they don’t help themselves. The best examples of people I know who make significant progress in their own lives and do more good for everyone around them are the ones who shut up about their own problems, persevere through the tough times, and reach out to help other people. They pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and climb themselves out of their holes if they can. If they need help, they ask for it, but not in a whiny, complaining way so others will feel sorry for them. The next thing they do, is to reach down and help pull someone else out of their hole.

In the Secret Haven series I wrote, Laura Adams is an altruistic young woman, self sacrificing and trying to make a difference. She had to face some significant challenges in her past life, particularly to do with her health, causing her loved ones to think of her as fragile, maybe even weak. She was minding her own business, doing the best she could when, on a dark, snowy road in Connecticut one night, her life was changed forever. She and her parents were targeted by a hate group as a means of revenge and also as a way to discourage the FBI team investigating them, of which her older brother was a part.

Laura became a victim in a terrible car crash staged by one of the members of this hate group to look like an accident. Her parents were both killed in the crash and she ended up in the hospital barely clinging to life. Her brother was forced to put her into hiding to protect her, all the way across the country with an old friend of his who was a complete stranger to her. Everything she knew and loved was instantly gone: her career, her family, her identity, and her freedom. Her body was broken and she was in severe pain, not to mention the bad case of PTSD she was experiencing, all while she had to adjust to life with a strange man, ten yers her senior. She realized she could curl up in a little ball and cry or she could try to carry on and make the best of the situation. She made a conscious choice to forge ahead, not letting the unfairness of everything rob her of a real life. In the process, she found an inner strength which surprised both her and her brother. To her great amazement, and her protective older brother’s horror, she also found true love. She had to face challenge after challenge as the hitman charged to murder her hunted her across the country, but in the end, she found the strength to overcome them with courage and love.

How do you cope when your freshly baked loaf of adversity has a big, hard crust of irony on it? Tell me your stories of when life gave you lemons and you made lemonade. We all need inspiration and encouragement sometimes to push through the tunnel to that pinprick of light at the end. Tell me about the people in your life who have inspired you.

Throughout the ages, many have asked this question and most of us would agree that there are several different kinds of love. It comes in many shapes and sizes, colors and textures. The ancient Greeks named seven types of love:

Eros-sexual desire, passionate love, most akin to our modern notion of romantic love.

Philia-friendship, platonic love.

Ludus-playful, flirtatious, uncommitted love.

Pragma-lasting love between a married couple, requiring the understanding of lovers who have been together for a long time (www.thoughtcatalog.com).

Agape-selfless, unconditional, altruistic love. Referred to as charity by Christians. It’s the love of humanity and of God. Many recent studies have linked altruism with better mental and physical health as well as longevity (Neel Burton, www.psychologytoday.com).

Philautia-love of self, divided into two kinds: the selfish kind seeking pleasure and attention and the healthy kind we refer to as self-esteem.

Storge-familial love like the kind between a parent and child.

But what is real love? Love is an action word and I’m not the only one who thinks so. The Hebrew word for love is ahavah, built upon the root consonants h-v, meaning “to give” (www.Chabad.org). It must be given to be real.

Love is arguably the most important thing in life and what we should most strive for, but, like all good things, it comes at a price. The truest forms of love require sacrifice; sacrifice of time; of self; and sometimes everything we have. Sometimes it requires sacrificing our lives like when soldiers lay down their lives for their country which is something I’m thinking about today on Veteran’s Day. Sometimes even more than that as in the case of Jesus Christ atoning for our sins by giving his life on the cross and taking our sins upon himself in the Garden of Gethsemane. Sacrifice elevates our love to the highest form.

In all three of the books in the Secret Haven series, love and sacrifice is a recurrent theme. When Laura tells Nick about how she sacrificed going to college out West in order to stay home and care for her sick mother, he says:

“That was a good thing you did though, sacrificing what you really wanted to do to take care of your mom. You’re a really good person, Laura. Family is important, more important than our dreams sometimes, don’t you think?”

What do you think?

Halloween happens to be my birthday. I also live in the northwest corner of the continental United States, the setting for many a scary book, movie and television series from the Twilight Saga to Twin Peaks and many, many more in between. It’s no wonder that the title of my first book is Outrunning the Devil!

Those of you unfamiliar with the Pacific Northwest are probably picturing a dreary, gray, waterlogged landscape, inhospitable in every way. A place dark enough for vampires to wander the streets during the day, Native American burial grounds a plenty, and abounding in miles of deep, thick forests ideal for werewolves to camp out in.

Those of us who live here and love it, know it as so much more than that. Yes, the sun does shine here occasionally and most of the rain we get is just drizzle, rarely the heavy pounding squalls and monsoons in other parts of the world. We do get a good amount of precipitation over the course of the year, but we live in a rainforest region which stretches along the coast from Northern California to Anchorage, Alaska. It’s jungle-like, similar to the Amazon or Hawaii—only with evergreens, Salal and heavy moss. It’s the Garden of Eden.

The setting of my first book, Outrunning the Devil, was primarily in the small town of Anacortes, Washington, on Fidalgo Island, the jumping off point to the San Juan archipelago. Laura Adams comes to Anacortes from Connecticut as a fugitive from a dangerous hitman bent on murdering her. She finds shelter there in the home of a man she’s never met, an old friend of her brother.

She falls in love with the haunting beauty of the Pacific Northwest and finds comfort and safety in the overcast skies. She loves the deep emerald waters under the Deception Pass Bridge between Fidalgo and Whidby Islands, the tulip fields of Mount Vernon, and the mossy forest around her new home. She also has the opportunity to work at a seafood company in Seattle for a few days. She gets to know some of the members of the Swinomish Tribe as well as the Croatian community in Anacortes.

The place is haunting to her, but it’s not scary. It’s beautiful and safe, the place where she falls in love and finds a secret haven from the danger stalking her.

Deception Pass Bridge between Fidalgo Island and Whidby Island

Tulip Farm Near Mount Vernon, Washington

The next town over from Anacortes on the mainland

The Rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula

I was looking for something on the internet this morning when I came across an interesting article posted on a blog. It was unrelated to what I was originally searching for, but it captured my attention since I’ve been married to a man for the past thirty-four years. It was called, “6 Kinds of Compliments Men Would Love to Hear More Often,” by Jordan Gray. He’s a relationship coach and author of several best selling books.

In this day and age a lot of focus is on women’s rights and abuse, and rightfully so, but in the process, a fair amount of man bashing also takes place. We can’t forget that men are feeling human beings who bleed like all people and they need to be praised and appreciated just as much as women do. The article prompted me to do a brief search on the subject and I was presented with a plethora of sites.

Here’s a quick rundown of compliments to melt the man in your life into butter:

Let him know you have faith in him and believe in him.

Compliment him on his appearance or style.

Tell him how handsome he is. Be specific about what makes him physically attractive to you.

Tell him how much you appreciate his efforts, whether it’s taking out the garbage or listening attentively to you.

Let him know how much you respect him as a person. You can be specific, like telling him you love how forgiving he is.

Let him know you trust in his ability to lead in whatever capacity he has the opportunity to be a leader.

Let him know the effect he has on you. Does he make you go weak in the knees? Does he make you feel confident and like you can do anything (my husband does)?

Reinforce good behavior. Instead of just nagging a man about all the ways he falls short, start talking about all the things he does right.

Compliment him on his intelligence. Let him know when you think he’s done or said something smart.

One of the most important ways to compliment your man is to let him know the reasons why you think he’s a great partner.

These are just a few of the ways you can build up the men in your life, of course. And each compliment must be sincere and true.

In my book, Outrunning the Devil, the main character, Laura, is very innocent and naive. Her father was an incredibly supportive, but also an overprotective man. He worked hard to keep her very sheltered during high school. Afterwards, she ended up attending a university near where she grew up to help care for her sick mother during the years she underwent cancer treatment. Subsequently, she had very little experience with men by the time she had to flee for her life to the opposite side of the country to live with Nick, a man whom she’d never met before, ten years her senior.

For the first two weeks she lived with him, she was not beautiful. She had been in a terrible car accident that was intentionally set in motion. She was also shellshocked, depressed, and agoraphobic, reclusive even. She ended up on his doorstep with few clothes, all of which were baggy and shapeless. Although she was ordinarily pretty, her purple, swollen face, her partially shaved head revealing a nasty head wound, and her broken arm masked her true appearance. However, soon after she arrived, despite how awful she looked, she captured his heart.

Laura was a natural at making Nick feel good about himself. She was a kind, caring person by nature, which is why he fell in love with her so quickly even though she still looked hideous. We would all do well to remember that at the center of every person, man or woman, is a tender, feeling heart, vulnerable to harsh words and unspoken appreciation, no matter how high or how thick the walls are they build around themselves to protect it.