Musings | Debra R. Borys

At the beginning of 2013 I started writing a new book, a different genre this time and under a different name. A Bull by the Horns is the first of what I hope to be a new cozy mystery series tentatively called the Coffman’s Country Art Colony Cozies. Quite a mouthful, huh? Because the books are intended to be light years more “light” in tone from my Street Stories series, I plan to publish under my maiden name of Deb Donahue and have even begun to establish a personae under that pseudonym on websites and social media sites.

My goal, as originally posted in my Current Projects page, was to have the first draft done by the end of March or April so that I could begin work on the next Street Stories novel and hopefully have a first draft of that done by the end of the year. It’s a reasonable goal, since the cozies really don’t take as much background research or time to write. Two books a year also has the potential to eventually bring in enough income that I might someday be able to support myself (minimally, at least) with my writing income.

I knew selling the condo and moving to Illinois would put a strain on those deadlines, but I really, really, really did believe I would have a completed, if rough, manuscript before I set out across country to move. The trip would be a nice break, I figured, from the months of focused writing.

Not gonna happen.

I was going gangbusters during the first half of the book and was even able to get feedback on most of it thanks to my wonderful critique group, the Seattle Fiction Writers. Then I got obsessed with trying to decide which things to take with me on the move and which things to give away or toss. I’ll be sitting watching TV or doing stuff at the computer and all of a sudden I’ll think “Oh, I could box up all that stuff in the closet and not miss it at all.” The concentration needed to get any serious writing done is totally shot right now.

That’s not to say I haven’t been working at my writing career. I’ve been going through quite a few lists of reviewers and interviewers trying to drum up publicity for Bend Me, Shape Me. I’ve been blogging and Facebooking and Pinteresting under both my author names. And I’ve been playing on online printer sites to create promotional bookmarks and postcards. I even edited and then self published an old romantic suspense novel I’ve had in the drawer, just for fun. Chasing Nightmares is available for download as an ebook and will even be available as a paperback once I proof the galley for it.

I miss the writing, though. I want to get back to it, I do, but now the move is ramping up. The condo is sold, the short sale paperwork getting finalized, my place is a half-packed, half-ready-to-be-packed, half un-packed mess. No writing of any note is going to get done here now. Plan aborted, timeline sidelined, muse hanging by a thread in a tiny, locked up closet somewhere.

So now my trip across country, expected to be a vacation break between one novel and the next, will have to serve as an opportunity to inspire the completion of my mid-Western-based Coffman Cozies. I plan to take plenty of pictures of cows and countryside, old barns and small towns.

Then when I get to Mom’s house in Illinois, I will be chomping at the bit to get back to work making those images come alive thorough my words.

Wish me luck!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizaio/4916989324

photo credit: elizaIO via photopin cc

I came across an article the other day about the effects of homelessness on children. The subject is part of a larger commentary on the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences. Recent studies indicate that not only do traumatic childhood events affect our mental health as adults, buy also our physical well being. In fact “many official causes of death, like cancer, smoking, AIDs, heavy drinking, or diabetes” can be the result of that underlying trauma. Homelessness is not only one of those stressors all on its own, but often the springboard for additional trauma: emotional, physical and sexual abuse; having an incarcerated relative; mother treated violently; mental illness within the family; parental divorce; substance use; and physical and emotional neglect.

The article made so many good points, I wanted to quote them all here for everyone to read, but I think the text is best read in author Perry Firth’s own words. Here are the passages that jumped out at me, but please click through the link to the entire article.

“What Dr. Blodgett found won’t shock anyone involved with this work, or for that matter, anyone who intuitively understands the importance of stability in a child’s life. In his study of elementary children, homelessness was as equally powerful in predicting troubling mental and physical health outcomes as other traumas, such as child abuse.”

“the brain doesn’t care what the stressful event is; it only registers the event as stressful. That is why children who are experiencing homelessness in many cases have the same chronic health outcomes as a child who has experienced abuse or neglect. If there was ever an argument for early intervention, it would be this.”

“Another way to look homelessness is not just to examine it from the standpoint of childhood, but to ask whether it can be an outcome of extreme stress during an adult’s youth. Questions assessing just that relationship between toxic stress in childhood and adult homelessness were added to the 2010 and 2011 BRFSS. What was revealed is that those adults who had experienced higher levels of adverse childhood experiences are also those adults more likely to experience homelessness. Adult homelessness can be the outcome of toxic stress in childhood.”

“But I would like to point out that every negative impact I have written about here is a preventable outcome. If we commit time and resources, there is no reason why any child or adult needs to go without shelter, mental health care, or in the case of stressed families, stabilizing parenting interventions. It all becomes a question of motivation and action. Yes, there is an uphill battle to fight. But that does not change the fact that childhood trauma is wrong, in all of its forms.”

via Firesteel / Blog / Children and Adversity: Childhood Homelessness Can Cast a Long Shadow. By Perry Firth, Graduate Student, Seattle University Community Counseling, and Project Assistant, Seattle University’s Project on Family Homelessness