Tag: books

Posted on in author, books, caregiving, disabilities, family, happiness, health, strength

How To Work Self-Care Into Your Family Caregiving Plan – Guest post by author June Duncan

The following is written by June Duncan, author of The Complete Guide to Caregiving: A Daily Companion for New Senior Caregivers, coming in Winter 2018. Click the link for more information. 

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How to Work Self-Care Into Your Family Caregiving Plan

When your life revolves around caring for another person, it’s hard to make time for yourself. But if you don’t, you could end up burning out, leaving you unable to continue caring for your loved one.

Caregiver burnout is a serious problem for people caring for elderly family members. It’s known to contribute to depression, concentration problems, and substance abuse, and even leads some caregivers to mistreat or neglect their family member in need. The cause? Chronic stress from neglecting your own needs as you care for another’s. For that reason and more, it’s important that family caregivers find ways to fit self-care into their schedule.

First, healthy meals should be part of any caregiver’s day. Preparing nutrient-dense meals is not only good for the senior in your care, it also ensures you get the nutrition you need to keep illness at bay. Develop a list of healthy meals you can prepare in 30 minutes or less to take the guesswork out of mealtime. When finding time to grocery shop for ingredients is a challenge, grocery delivery services or food subscription boxes can simplify the process.

Likewise, committing at least 30 minutes per day to moderate exercise like walking or gardening helps caregivers meet the activity levels recommended for physical health. If you exercise alongside your family member, it helps their health as well and provides an opportunity to bond — plus, finding time to exercise is easier when you can bring your charge along. For more vigorous exercise, consider signing up for a fitness class at a center that also offers classes for seniors so you both can benefit.

To round out the physical health side of things, ensure you get plenty of sleep each night. Not only does poor or insufficient sleep limit your ability to cope with stress and control your emotions, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute it could also contribute to depression, increase the risk of chronic health problems, and lead to dangerous mistakes like giving the wrong dose of a medication.

Of course, your needs go beyond the physical. It’s also important to take care of your mental health so you have the capacity to treat your family member with patience and kindness rather than reaching for alcohol or drugs to alleviate stressors. This may seem simple enough at the beginning, but stay true to yourself even when things get really tough.

Chronic stress, like the tension many family caregivers experience, can lead to serious mental health problems that include depression, anxiety, addiction, and even cognitive impairment later in life. And although many people don’t realize it, stress is also intimately connected to physical health: According to the American Psychological Association, chronic stress can cause muscle pain and digestive problems, suppress the immune system, raise blood pressure, and contribute to serious illnesses like heart disease and obesity. Since stress can affect every aspect of your health, it’s clear that keeping it under control needs to be a priority.

To manage stress while providing caregiving, identify stress relief techniques you can apply throughout the day, like flowing through a meditative yoga sequence, practicing 4-7-8 breathing, calling a supportive friend, taking a power nap, or visualizing a relaxing scene. Each of these stress-reduction strategies can be done in 10 minutes or less and requires nothing more than a quiet space, so you can employ them at a moment’s notice when you need relief.

It’s not unusual for family caregivers to feel guilty about taking time away from their charge, but self-care is an essential component of a sustainable caregiving plan. When you take care of your own physical and mental health first, you’re better equipped to handle the challenges of caregiving with dedication and grace.

Image via Unsplash

Posted on in books, publishers, writers

Goodbye Dan Poynter. Thank you for the guidance

Dan Poynter, the Godfather of Independent Publishing, passed away this week. He was one of the pioneers of independent publishing, self publishing a book on parachuting in 1973. Since then, he has written numerous books and taught thousands of people how to self-publish their own work. His “Self Publishing Manual” was the first book I bought when I started Medusa’s Muse Press.

I met him 10 years ago at a publishing conference and heard him speak. He was dynamic and positive. With hard work and dedication, anyone can tell their story, he said. Anyone can publish a book. Never give up!

Thank you Dan. You were an inspiration and I will never forget you.

Posted on in books, interview, memoir, writers

Interview with the Memoir: A Foreign Country, by Emjay Wilson-Scott

For my ongoing series of interviews with memoir writers, I spoke with Emjay Wilson-Scott, writer, artist and wine maker. Her book, A Foreign Country, shares her adventures in Sweden and Europe when she was a hippo,exchange student in the 1970’s/

Emjay has an MFA in Video Art from the SF Art Institute and a Masters in Scandinavian Language and Literature from U.C.Berkeley. Her poetry has been published in periodicals in Sweden and the United States. She and her husband own a small vineyard in Potter Valley, California, where they grow and bottle award winning Pinot Noir. Click the link to Naughty Boy Vineyards for more information.

Why did you pick this particular moment in your life to write about?

Despite my dyslexia, I have always felt a need to write, I wrote my first poems at seven (that I am aware of) and I wrote a children’s book as a child. I have written and published poetry all of my life, read poetry in San Francisco, and worked in Performance Poetry. I entered the Art Institute in order to start working with Video and poetry in the 80’s. I have some work in the Museum of Modern Art and had a show at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

After living in Europe, I felt a need to chronicle events in my life in order to understand them. I tried many times but never really completed a book. My Brother was killed in a car accident in 2001. It made me realize how little time we have. I decided to seriously start writing at that time. I actually took him with me to Sweden in the Character of Fred. He is the only semi-fictitious character in the book, but represents the American side of me that I attempted to hide.

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

I was not very computer literate at the time and had a great deal of trouble with spell-check and Swedish words. I met with two other writers, but would only write and send them without reviewing as it was emotionally draining to write my history. They were amazingly patient with my messy manuscript.

Place is very strong in your book. You really feel the landscape and cultural difference. How did you achieve that?

I have a very good memory, which is sometimes a curse. Because it was such a milestone in my life, I was able to sit and remember and write. The most difficult part was actually sitting down to do it and rewriting.

You self-published. Did you consider a traditional route?

I submitted it to one publishing house and was rejected. It sat for another couple years. Like most of us, I fear rejection. I then figured since I had gone to all of the trouble to write it, I would like to share it with friends. I do not feel it is a great work of art, but I like having on record a time that is lost forever.

Do you plan to write another book?

I’m writing a children’s book right now.

Posted on in books, memoir, writers

Interview with the Memoir: Shannon Drury

This is the first in a series of interviews I’m doing with memoir writers. By interviewing memoirists, I hope to showcase excellent writers, as well as helping beginning writers and others tell their own story.
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Shannon Drury’s memoir, The Radical Housewife: Redefining Family Values for the 21st Century, was published in 2014 by Medusa’s Muse Press (disclaimer – I am the publisher). In her book she writes about her struggle as a “stay-at-home” mom and feminists. Can you call yourself a feminist if you’re a stay at home mom and homemaker? Get a copy of her book and find out.
Thank you so much Shannon for taking the time to answer my questions. 
Your book really shows the intersection of politics and personal life. How hard was it to write a book that is both political and personal? 
It wasn’t hard to write at all. As a lifelong feminist I’m acutely aware of how social and political movements intersect with and influence our lived experiences. I couldn’t write about being a stay-at-home mom without reflecting on the unique set of circumstances that made that possible, even practical, for me. And I couldn’t write about feminism without reflecting on its influence on my life, including how it affects the way I raise my children.
But what was easy for me to write was very difficult to market. A hybrid anything is less marketable than “if you love Jessica Valenti’s polemics, you will love this!’ or “if you love Cheryl Strayed’s memoirs, you’ll love this!” In fact, my neighbor just told me yesterday that she finished the book but can’t decide where to shelve it. I told her I’d sell her another copy!
How long did it take to write your book? Would you change anything about your book? 
Writing the book was the easy part, especially since I was building a framework on some previously published columns and blogs. I would guess that writing took a year. Editing, on the other hand, took some time. You can ask my publisher how she feels about that….!
You are very vulnerable in much of your book. How were you able to open yourself up so much, especially knowing there would be criticism?
I am of the opinion that the non-vulnerable memoir is not worth writing. I recently read a memoir that I thought I would love, as it was written by a fellow lefty mom like me, but the author barely revealed anything substantive about herself and her life. Without that glimpse of humanity, there is no opportunity for connection. Writing can be lovely for its own sake, but I write for a deeper purpose–to connect in some small way to the beating heart of humanity. That may sound corny or even quasi-religious, but it’s true.
Years of writing a column for the Minnesota Women’s Press and keeping up a personal blog have helped thicken my skin to criticism, especially from the online commentariat. One person on Goodreads said she knocked off a star because I cursed too much, and I can handle that. When I’m called evil and a rotten mother (which happened on Twitter recently), I know it’s not about me, it’s about their fear of what I represent.
That’s not to say that it still isn’t hard. Members of my extended family have the book but have yet to talk with me about it.  And I don’t mean in-depth analysis–I mean I have yet to hear “Hey Shannon, I read your book.” There is intergenerational discomfort about parenting, economic class, and mental health in most American families, not just mine.
 
What was the hardest thing for you to overcome when writing this book?
Ironically, for a dedicated feminist convinced that women’s stories have the power to change the world, I had to fight daily against the quiet but insistent fear that I am a nobody who has nothing to say. Impostor syndrome can suck the life out of you if you’ll let it.
Why was it important for you to write your book? What do you hope the reader gains?
I truly believe that feminism provides the best, most sane and compassionate parenting philosophy out there, but we’re still letting the conservative right own the narrative of “family values.” I think it’s essential for feminist moms to tell our stories, to connect the struggles of our own families to the broader failures of American society.
My readership looks a lot like me: white, middle class, educated parents. We’re privileged, and to pretend otherwise is ridiculous. It’s time that we stopped judging and/or arguing with one another for what we feed our kids (organic or conventional? breast or bottle?) and asked larger questions about the systems that have more control over families than individual parents do. As I write in the book, “when is a choice not a choice?” I think most American parents would “choose” to take a year of paid family leave when their babies are born, like they do in Sweden. The manufactured war between working moms and at-home moms is ridiculous–the real battle should be parents demanding that government officials make “family values” a reality, not a campaign slogan.
What advice can you give to other memoirists?
I have no better advice than “write like a motherfucker,” the directive of the aforementioned Cheryl Strayed. For me this means that the process is embarrassing, painful, and exhausting. If I look at it and can say “damn, this makes me sound ridiculous,” I am probably on the right track.
Can you recommend some good memoirs to read? 
One of my all-time favorite books of any genre is Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir “Fun Home.” It is so smart, so revealing, so funny, and so tragic at the same time. And of course it’s beautifully drawn and designed. Other classic graphic memoirs are “Maus” by Art Spiegelman and “Persepolis” by Majane Satrapi.
I am always late to trends, which means that I only recently read Jeanette Walls’ “The Glass Castle” and Mary Karr’s “The Liar’s Club.” In the last few months I read the new memoirs by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and Viv Albertine of the Slits, but I still haven’t gotten to Patti Smith’s “Just Kids,” which everyone raves about. I have yet to even read “Wild”! Reading comic books takes up a lot of my time, apparently.
Shannon Drury is a writer, at-home parent, and feminist activist. She writes a regular column for the Minnesota Women’s Press and served six years as the president of Minnesota NOW. She lives in Minneapolis with her family. Read more from Shannon at her blog The Radical Housewife
You can buy her book from Medusa’s Muse Press, Amazon.com, Powells, and wherever books are sold. Also available as an ebook.
Posted on in books, publishing

The Radical Housewife and Family Values

Tired of election season nonsense? Me too. That’s why I published this book.

Ebook cover 978-0-9797152-2-8

On and on the rhetoric goes. “Abortion…” “Family Values…” “The Sanctity of Marriage…”Feminism…”   The debate is one sided; white men define what the American family should be and condemn women for destroying it.

Enter Shannon Drury, feminist and stay-at-home mom. Wait a minute, how can she be both? Because feminism is about choice, and Shannon chooses to stay home with her kids. How she made that choice and why she continues to fight for women’s rights is what you’ll discover when you read The Radical Housewife: Redefining Family Values for the 21st Century.

Posted on in books, family, publishing, writing

Summer, bored kid, publishing, and no time to write

My fingers feel tight as I stretch my hands outward, forcing the muscles to loosen. There is a large spot of something sticky on my computer screen; is it a mocha splash from last Spring? I blow dust off my keyboard and sneeze. How long has it been since I’ve written anything?

Every summer is the same: my daughter is out of school and bored. She and I try to find things to do in this small town. Because of her disability, going outside in 95 degree weather is impossible. While other kids swim, hike, go to camp, or ride bikes, my daughter hides from the heat and counts down the days until school starts. We do our best to have fun by doing crafts and escaping to the city as often as possible. At least in the city there’s an air conditioned shopping mall, aka Mecca for teenage girls.

At last, school started. My daughter is happier, and I can write again.

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Besides being a full time, busy mom all summer, I also launched a new book through my press, Medusa’s Muse. Publishing takes as much concentration and energy as writing, and this book seemed to take even more. All summer, I struggled with printing problems, last minute manuscript issues, legal questions, and budget constraints. Shannon Drury and I worked hard marketing her book, and then just when the book launched and all seemed smooth sailing, Shannon broke her wrist. Not a fun way celebrate the launch of a first book. But the book is alive and slowly gaining readers. I am so proud of Shannon’s book and my part in creating it. It was my most challenging book so far and I learned a lot, but I am so excited about this book I would do it all over again.

My daughter left for school on the bus this morning. I pour myself more coffee and return to this long ignored blog. Now, what shall I write about…?

Posted on in writing

Research counts as writing, right?

For the past three months, I’ve been immersed in research for a new writing project. I’ve spent many happy hours exploring the culture, history, mythology, language, terrain and daily life of a society I knew very little about, until now. I can’t tell you what  the subject of all this research is about because I’m sworn to secrecy. But I can tell you that the subject thrills me to my creative core.

Unfortunately, my love of research has led to an absolute abandonment of writing; even my blog has suffered. I eat, breath, dream, and drink the world of my newest book project. I hear the language in my dreams. The civilization died thousands of years ago, but they are as alive to me as my own neighbors.

I can spend every day for months in a library surrounded by dusty books on a single subject and not lose my mind. Or maybe I do? Do other people love research as much as I? In grad school, I loved my thick text books and all the knowledge they contained. I read chapters I didn’t have to, just because I was curious to find out what they were about.

Imagine me, a pale, too thin woman wearing thick glasses and an oversized sweater huddled over a book with such fragile pages I have to read them wearing cotton gloves. The room is dark, except for the brilliant light from the lamp on my table. My tea is cold and my leg has fallen asleep, but I can’t stop reading. I can’t stop learning.

Others might find it a nightmare. Why would anyone want to spend their whole life in a library? But to me, that sounds like heaven. There are a million stories in the library, and a million more waiting to be written.

I missed my calling; I should have been a research librarian.

But it’s time to set my books aside and write down what I’ve learned. It’s time to craft a story out of all these fragments of facts. Have I learned enough to make my characters breath again? We’ll see.

Posted on in publishing

You know I’m working on my book if I’m not blogging

Or at least that’s what I’d like you to believe…

I actually am working diligently on the second edition of What You Need to Know to Be a Pro; the Business Start Up Guide for Publishers, so my blogging and other writing activities have been put on hold. Creating the second edition has been a fascinating process because so much has changed since I first started publishing. Five years ago, ebooks were just emerging. The Kindle was barely functional and the Nook wasn’t conceived yet. Only hard-core techno geeks read ebooks, or pirates who stole manuscripts off of hacking sites.

Today, more books are sold via the Kindle than paper books on Amazon.com. The iPad has created a revolution in interactive books, and the Nook is gaining in popularity. My press, Medusa’s Muse, released its first ebook, the memoir Traveling Blind: Life Lessons from Unlikely Teachers, by Laura Fogg. This was the first book I published, so it seemed fitting that it was the inaugural book in our ebook start-up.

Because e-books have changed the publishing world, the 2nd edition of What You Need to Know needed a chapter on ebooks, which the first edition did not. Plus, technology has changed, so I’ve expanded the section on websites and the internet. Five years of experience has broadened my understanding of publishing, so I have a lot more information to share with start-up publishers.

I’ve been researching and revising and writing new chapters and creating exercises and lists for the “business book”, so that means I haven’t had much time to write new posts here or keep up with my favorite bloggers. It’s worth it; the 2nd edition of What You Need to Know is going to be excellent. I’m very proud of this little handbook of mine. Can you tell?

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Posted on in books

Not My Precious Books! Decluttering your library, courtesy of Houzz.

I have stacks of books all over my house. The reason they’re stacked up on the floor is because my book shelves are so packed several shelves have broken. And still, I can’t part with any of my treasured novels. Will I read them again? Probably not. But books are a work of art and just having them around makes my home feel peaceful.

This article from Houzz.com helped me re-imagine ways to show off my precious books, and yes, maybe even get rid of a few.