Leigh Goodison's Blog

December 19, 2016

Limboland: Could it Be Real or is it Just Speculation?

The release of my latest novel,Limboland, the second medical thriller in the St. Augustus Chronicles, has sparked a consistent thread in the reviews: could it be real?I suppose it depends on your level of belief and disbelief. Russell Brand, the British comedian and revolutionary, in one of his documentaries stated (sic): "Just because you can't see something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist."What happens when we die? Is there any form of life after death? If humans have souls, where do they go when we die? Are they tangible? If they're tangible, then those released souls must be ghosts, right? So many questions without answers. Which is why I write speculative fiction, to answer my own questions.Although I just discovered it a few weeks ago to provide research for this blog, the following website (http://uvamagazine.org/articles/the_science_of_reincarnation) depicts almost exactly the premise I intended when I wroteLimboland. I took it one step further with the notion of the soul leaving the body while the person is brain dead, though technically still alive.Two other sites I found also offer in depth research and expert opinions on the subject of reincarnation. (http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htmandhttp://reincarnationexperiment.org/home/scienceprooftruth.html). Interestingly, the researchers found that the subjects who recall past lives are young children, mostly male. What makes the premise possibly more believable is that children of that age rarely have the ability to create complex lies.Could a child's imaginary friend be the soul of a deceased child waiting to be reincarnated? It's comforting to me to posit that a person I've loved in life will one day be able to come back, though of course they won't look the same, and I may not recognize them as anything other than that intangible feeling of having 'known them from somewhere.'What are your beliefs on the subject of reincarnation?
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Published on December 19, 2016 12:28

November 20, 2016

Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Writers

This rant is either going to be ignored, which is to be expected, or it will raise controversy of some sort among writers. But it needs to be said.Unless you are writing just to get the muse out of your head, or for some cathartic reason like a memoir for your family: don’t waste your time writing books.I have been writing (and published) for more than thirty years. I began with short fiction and then articles, and initially had a fair amount of success with getting published in literary magazines and newspapers. But when I began to write novels, that’s when everything went pear-shaped, as the British say.No matter how many writing workshops you’ve taken, conferences you’ve attended, submissions you’ve made, editors you’ve hired, stellar reviews you’ve received, it won’t make a difference. There are now far more writers than readers. I see writers marketing their books to other writers. I have purchased more books than I will ever be able to read.Your chances of being picked up by a large, traditional publishing house are infinitesimally small, if not zero.With not too much difficulty, you can get picked up by a small, independent publisher, but you won’t receive an advance, your royalties will be small, and most of the marketing, including expenses, will fall upon you.Recently I gave a workshop at a writer’s conference about publishing options for writers. We all know about Amazon’s self-publishing arm, CreateSpace. The problem with publishing through CreateSpace is that most bookstores won’t accept books published through Amazon. So unless you want to concentrate solely upon online sales, you need to go through a company like Ingram, which prints and distributes your books to traditional brick and mortar bookstores such as Barnes and Noble.The problem with self-publishing through Ingram is that unless you already have a readership, your book sales will be miniscule. You also need to offer a 55% discount (15% goes to Ingram; bookstores get the remaining 40% discount on purchases). In addition, most bookstores will not order books that are not able to be returned. If a bookstore buys five books and only one sells, the returns will not just zero out, you will actually be in a negative sales bracket because they tack on a return charge. Your future book sales will have to pay off that deficit before you receive royalties, or if no royalties come in, you will have to pay it out of pocket.And the marketing time and expenses are still your responsibility.The people who are making a living in the writing business are those who are already established authors, or those who offer services to writers, such as editors, proofreaders, publishing services, and marketing services. By far the most difficult aspect for writers in the writing business is marketing. Most writers are not natural salespeople (unless they worked in sales), so marketing their own work can be excruciatingly difficult. And most often they throw thousands of dollars toward marketing programs, like Twitter and Facebook ads, that just don’t work. You will find that everyone wants your book to be given to them for free, whether through promotional giveaways or just because you’re a friend, family member, or neighbor.So, how do you get your book published, read, noticed, reviewed, and in turn, make good sales?I don’t know. If I did this would be a much different blog post.What I do know is that I would never recommend that anyone in today’s short attention span, quick gratification world, become a writer. The joy of having written a book, no matter how good it may be, is short and fleeting. Writing a book is the most colossal waste of time, and ultimately, all you will have to show for your years of effort and expense is a pile of unsold books that will ultimately end up at a Goodwill outlet or in a landfill.
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Published on November 20, 2016 12:28

December 2, 2015

Life according to Leigh

I'm such a reluctant blogger. The timing to write one seems appropos, though, because my latest novel, a medical thriller called The Jigaw Man, has just been released. The Jigsaw Man was also the first novel I wrote. It was actually completed about 27 years ago and just sat. Talk about letting it cool off before you start editing! I had to work out how long it had been lying dormant but I remember talking about the novel I was writing to my daughter's kindergarten teacher, with whom I used to
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Published on December 02, 2015 09:40

November 16, 2015

The Jigsaw Man book trailer

   
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Published on November 16, 2015 12:27

February 21, 2015

The Sad Wait for the Inevitable

My best friend is dying. I don’t know how long I have left with her. Maybe a day or two, maybe a few months. But the reality is, everything dies. Me, you, and my beloved companion, Xena, who has made it nearly to her 15th birthday. I once created a blog for her, but the last time I posted anything was more than four years ago. Of the ten cats named in her blog only five are still alive. I stopped posting when they died or went missing, one after the other. They all loved her almost as much as I have. Here they are in happier times: http://xenadogblog.blogspot.com/


We dodged a bullet a couple of weeks ago. Her hind quarters gave out and, as a large breed, I knew it was only a matter of time. For several days she refused to eat or get up, soiling herself at times, which embarrassed her. So I dosed her with more painkillers than I would normally have done. If she was to leave me I wanted it to be pain free and in her sleep. But true to form, she rallied once again and within two days was playfully chasing her pet cat around the house.


The last couple of days she’s gone downhill again. Not eating, refusing her pain meds no matter how delectably I disguise them, and only rarely taking a drink of water. The thought of taking her to the vet at this point is terrifying because I know what they’re going to say. At 15, and in her deteriorating state, it’s time to let her go.


Years ago we made a pact. I begged her not to leave me, no matter what. As silly as that sounds I believe she hangs on for me. And now it’s time for me to let her go.


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Published on February 21, 2015 14:45

May 31, 2014

WILD ONES: Stark School

When Wild Ones was published in March I discussed the conflict with the ranchers and Federal agents that had inspired the location of the Double T Ranch. However, the actual premise of Wild Ones was based, in part, on a story I read quite a few years ago about a series of suicides by teenagers in a youth correctional facility. I’d long since forgotten what magazine, date of publication, or any of the details, but I was just sent a box of my things in which I found the story. It was written in Feb. 1998 by a staff writer at The Oregonian (from what I can tell, still on staff there), who writes about family issues.


Stark School, the fictional correctional facility in Wild Ones, was inspired by the Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility in Salem, Oregon. It opened in 1914, the state’s first reform school for girls. It was turned into a co-ed facility in the ’70′s, but in 2008 became an all-male school. In fact, Stark School in my book is a co-ed facility. I have actually never visited Hillcrest, but my idea for Wild Ones was ‘what if the girls were actually happiest at the state-run school and it was the possibility of being sent away from their friends and to another foster home that they dreaded?’


And the story pretty much wrote itself after that.


Locally (as well as on their websites), Wild Ones can be purchased at:



Another Read Through Bookstore, 3932 N Mississippi Ave., Portland, OR  (503) 208-2729 www.anotherreadthrough.com
Jacobsen’s Books & More, 211 East Main Street, Hillsboro, OR  (503) 681-8243  http://jacobsensbooks.com

It’s also available at any bookstore that has an online store. If you can’t find it, ask them to order you a copy.


I’ll be doing a Rapid Fire Reading (a NIWA event http://niwawriters.com/) at Another Read Through, June 14th at 1:30 p.m. and signing books at Jacobsen’s Books & More on July 12th (9 a.m. – 1 p.m.) with the lovely, talented Anne Hendren, author of Project Runaway and A Dream of Good and Evil http://annehendren.com, during the Hillsboro Farmer’s Market.


Come and chat with us!


 


 


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Published on May 31, 2014 12:30

May 23, 2014

What Might Have Been

Today would have been my mother’s 87th birthday had she not passed away in February after a brief illness. A few days ago I wrote this essay about her, both as a person and a mother. After writing it I realized it would be difficult to publish anywhere because people would condemn me for not being more tolerant or harboring bitterness, although that’s really not what it’s about. I learned a lot from my mother, and I miss her more than I ever thought I would. She was a difficult, complicated woman, and so much of my grief comes more from “what might have been,” than that she is no longer around to talk with and share things.


There aren’t too many people who would disagree that our parents, or whoever raises us, form the framework of our character. Outsiders may influence us, but whether your father was a deadbeat dad, or your mother received the “Mother of the Year Award,” you grow up to be who you are, good or bad, largely due to your upbringing.


My mother could be a kind woman, but her kindness came with a caveat: You must remember that kindness and mention it every time you saw her. On the other hand, anything you did for her was virtually ignored, or downplayed to the point you regretted the gesture. Last Mother’s Day when I called to wish her a happy day the shocking response I received was, “Mothers are for shitting on.” I still have no idea what event brought that on. Imagined slights were the norm rather than the exception for mom, and she carried grudges as if they were her offspring.


When people ask me if she was still alive when my novel was published I tell them no, but I don’t have regrets that she wasn’t able to enjoy my success. Other published projects of mine were dismissed, or somehow downgraded, to the point I felt embarrassed that I’d shared them. My weekly phone calls, after the obligatory inquiry about her health, deteriorated to become a diatribe about one of my siblings, or their spouses, and how they had hurt her in some mysterious way.


Despite her animosity toward just about everyone she encountered, neighbors and even strangers, treated her with kindness. She was fortunate to be able to stay in her home of twenty-five years up until the last week before her death. Neighbors would bring her home cooked meals, baked goods, and fruit from their gardens. When they’d gone she’d threaten to throw them away (unless I was able to intercept first) and complain that the offerings made her sick. In truth, she’d often eat the stuff in secret, then rave about how good they were.


During my nearly thirty-year marriage to a surgeon, she never gave up complaining about the evils of doctors and the medical profession. After my divorce, my ex became a saint, and in her opinion I’d been stupid to leave him. She’d lost her status in the community, no longer being able to brag about “her son-in-law, the doctor.”


Though she lived a ten-hour drive, and a country away, I longed to be able to show her my new home, have her see my garden, introduce her to the man in my life. But the dread of knowing what would most assuredly happen once she arrived kept me from making the effort to bring her for a visit. It had been done before and the thought of living for a week with tantrums, accusations, and cold silence made it not worth even trying.


Now to those reading this, it might sound as if my mother was becoming senile, or perhaps experiencing early dementia. Such was not at all the case. My mother’s personality had been that way for as long as my siblings and I could remember. She alienated people, insulted them, and though one might think it was due to the era in which she grew up, she was as far from politically correct as anyone could be. And it was because of this that some of her enlightened grandchildren avoided contact.


My sister once confessed to me that when she was young, she wished our mother’s best friend, Jean, was her mother. My brother asked me if I’d heard the term “biological mother,” because he often wished he could. Buy a logical mother, that is. She had goodness in her, but it was rare for anyone to be exposed to it. It was an aching that gnawed at me always, yearning for praise, not only for me, but for my children, her grandchildren, for whom she appeared to have no interest.


During the last few years of her life she became even more irascible. My siblings and our children dreaded visiting her because within hours of our departure one of us would be accused of stealing from her, or ruining something. Again, this may sound like senility, but the acrimony had always been with her, it just became more pronounced as she aged.


My sadness these last months since her passing is compounded by not only losing a parent, but losing what might have been. While we all tiptoed around her lest we inadvertently offend her, she could have had so much more enjoyment of life. We used to joke that she was only happy when she was miserable, or making someone else miserable. But was she happy in her misery? Wouldn’t she have enjoyed life more if she hadn’t been so judgmental and nasty, allowed us to take her places we eschewed because of the ramifications of taking her out in public? Unfortunately, we’ll never know. There was no way we could get her to see that her life could have been better because, in her mind, her unhappiness was the fault of others.


My mother’s gift to me was that I always make a concerted attempt to see myself as others see me. If one day my family or friends begin avoiding visits or calls, perhaps I’m falling into the trap my mother set for herself, and it’s time to take a good long look at the person I am, no matter what people, or terrible or unhappy event, are influencing my day. I don’t want anyone I love to yearn for what might have been, when it’s already too late.


But she was my mom, and I will love her as I always have, unconditionally.


Happy Birthday, Mom, I love you!


Image


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Published on May 23, 2014 10:54

May 6, 2014

All it takes is one great review…

I just received what every writer wants most: a terrific review of their book that wasn’t generated by friends or family. I’ve pasted the review of my coming of age novel, Wild Ones, by D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer with Midwest Book Review below this post. It will appear in the June 2014 issue.


What I loved most was that the reviewer really got the book. I was an Army brat and, along with my younger sister and brother, moved to a new town almost every year until my dad retired. I still feel the pain about leaving my friends where we lived in south Kelowna, B.C. when I was in Grade Five. I still wonder what my life would have been like if we’d stayed there, the only place I ever felt completely at home. At the time I deeply resented my parents for moving us, though as an adult I understand it. And so, in Wild Ones I tried to put in every bit of childhood angst about having your world torn apart, and being powerless to do anything to change it.


Now I realize that these moves shaped who I am. As a child I was a lonely, painfully shy introvert whose friends were books, horses, and music. We can’t change the past but we can learn from it, and share our feelings. And maybe in some way my writing a book that brought out so much of my own childhood pain will help other lonely children survive theirs.


Here’s the review:


Wild Ones

Leigh Goodison

Sheffield Publications, LLC

Publisher email: sheffieldpublisher@yahoo.com

0615981585 $10.00 220 pages


http://www.sheffieldpublications.com/books_and_dvds


Wild Ones centers on sixteen-year-old Breeze, who is the new kid at school. But the school is not your ordinary high school: it’s a state-run school for troubled teens and Breeze barely has formed friendships when she’s faced with the possibility of another placement in a foster home far away, in a remote Oregon area where there’s virtually no communication with the outside world.

Now, it’s not like Breeze has no experience with rural settings in general or Oregon in particular: before her mother died, they went to southeast Oregon for the annual wild horse roundup, and it’s there that she got a taste of the countryside and a respect for its offerings. So one would initially think that the new foster home setting would be a good match … and it would have been, had not Breeze just begun rebuilding her life in a challenging new environment, only to be torn away from yet another possibility of stability.


And so she resents the move, and once there she decides she’ll return to the only place that has offered her a measure of friendship: but she must make at least one new friend (in the form of next-door neighbor boy Jared) in order to successfully escape. And therein lies her quandary.


As Breeze comes to develop feelings for her new home – emotions that overlay the lure of her old/new school environment – she comes to face some difficult scenarios in which nothing is clear; especially when her newfound foster parents are arrested, forcing Breeze to take a stand.


Wild horses, wild children, and wild home settings all juxtapose in a well-developed, lively story with a spicy, spunky protagonist recommended equally for young adult to adult audiences, who will appreciate Breeze and Jared’s ability to develop positive paths out of challenging situations.


Leigh Goodison’s use of the first person to describe her protagonists’ struggles solidifies their personalities, closely involves readers in their lives, and succeeds in creating believable dialogue and responses to life: “It sounds sappy, but I couldn’t help wishing that one day I’d find someone to love me like that. Whether it was from a foster parent, or a boyfriend, or maybe just getting closer to my friends. The yearning inside me was so great my throat ached.”


In the end it’s the well-drawn, moving character of Breeze that brings her world and choices to life, and which makes Wild Ones a satisfying story of life’s evolution, the options people consider when facing adversity, and (ultimately) how to pick a path that leads to happiness and human connections no matter where ‘home’ lies.

D. Donovan, eBook Reviewer, Midwest Book Review


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Published on May 06, 2014 14:15

April 9, 2014

Naming Antagonists

You know who antagonists are: they’re the bad guys (or NOT the good guys) in your novel. It’s thoroughly enjoyable creating them because you can play God with their antics, but giving them names is one of the things I find the most fun in writing fiction. Still, how do you choose a name that readers (especially family and friends) don’t immediately say, “Aha, I know who that’s supposed to be!”?


When I created the antagonist Nolan Barker, the evil land developer, for my newly released novel Wild Ones, it was actually pretty easy. I’d been getting tons of spam (especially offers of porn) in my email inbox. At that time the spam senders usually had a first and last name, making the spammer sound like a real person. One spam I received was from someone named Nolan Barker. I have no idea if that was the spammer’s real name or if he/she had hijacked the name from some poor unsuspecting person to use for their nefarious purposes, but I decided that using the name in a negative way would be payback for the spammer’s deeds.


One other character, Rex Salter, who appears later in the book, also received his name courtesy of a spammer. However, the rotten punk, Kevin Palola, was named (partially) after graffiti that was found scrawled in a house I moved into when I was about ten. Back then it was unusual to see names written on walls or spray painted in public. I never found out who this Palola kid was, but apparently he “was here” in multiple places all over the property. Given the time frame, circa early 60′s, I’m sure he’s long since dead now, but his name lives on.


I’d be interested in hearing how other writers name their characters (good and bad).


 


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Published on April 09, 2014 09:34

April 3, 2014

WILD ONES (character, Emily Thompson)

Those of you who are following this blog know that my young adult/coming of age novel Wild Ones will be released soon (this week, I hope!) And as promised I’ll be providing tidbits about certain inspirational people and events, although nothing written was based on any one person, place or incident.


Quite a few years ago, when I was President of a local equestrian group, I was on my way to visit an author friend who had just purchased a horse. It was silly of me not to print out the address or directions as I knew the area and figured locating a boarding facility along that particular road would be easy. Wrong! The road was more than five miles long and every second property, it seemed, had a horse facility on it.


Finally, frustrated from driving back and forth, turning around in peoples’ driveways, I  stopped at one farm where I saw a woman my age out in the garden. Although she didn’t know the house I was looking for, she went in and got a phone book, and together we found the place. She gave me a glass of water and we chatted for a while about horses. I thought it was so kind of her to take the extra time for me and thanked her profusely. She was such a pleasant person and had the kind of thick wavy hair, rich and wheat-colored, that I gave Emily Thompson, the character in the book. But it was her mostly her calm demeanor that drew me to her and I knew instinctively that she’d be good with horses, traits I also gave Emily. I mentioned our riding club, which she’d heard about.


Several months later, she joined our group, and in fact, became our Vice-President (while I was President) and I got to know her a little better. I found out that she had, in fact, been a nun. She had left the convent to marry a local veterinarian with two young sons. Any more than that I didn’t know, nor am I the kind of person to ask. Suffice it to say that I was just glad to have her as a friend.


A few years later, shortly after I moved to Washington, I was devastated to learn that she had died, quite suddenly, of a brain aneurysm. It was a complete coincidence that we met, but I truly believe Karma threw us together. She’s inspired me in more ways than she could ever have imagined.


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Published on April 03, 2014 10:40