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GANE Insight: Kim Jorgensen Gane's Blog

I'm no longer directionally challenged--I have a clear vision to celebrate #MOREin2014 via GANEPossible.com. Preempting my novel in progress, Bluebirds, I'm very close to releasing my first GANE Possible publication (prescriptive "Dr. Mom" nonfiction), Beating the Statistics: A Mother's Quest to Reclaim Fertility, Halt Autism & Help Her Child Grow From Behavior Failure to Behavior Success. I'm also working on completing my memoir, My Grandfather's Table: Learning to Forgive Myself First.

It took a lifetime to get here. This blog documents my quest to self-fulfillment through my writing, and ultimately to shifting my focus to Beating the Statistics & My Grandfather's Table and speaking about them. They are the wellness and the memoir parts of my journey that had to be told, so that Bluebirds can one day be the meaningful, but fictional *story* it aspires to be.

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Why Write? Because You Should Always 'Listen to Your Mother'

5/12/2014

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AUTHOR NOTE: This post has been edited to include the embedded video of my LTYM performance, which may require a trigger warning for some. It deals with #SingleMom, #StepMom, #Infertility, #Suicide but it's also victorious and full of HOPE for #SuicidePrevention. #ItGetsBetter. Don't be alone. Please reach out and share your powerful story in the comments, below. Or call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK(8255).

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Scott R. Gane Photography
I once participated in a yoga session in which we learned to balance our chakras. My hands took their turn on each of my eight chakra points, as guided by our instructor’s soothing voice. I felt calm and at peace. At the end I noticed that one of my hands was very warm and one of my hands was cold. I asked the woman whether this meant something, and whether it was normal.

She nodded, knowing, her whole being smiling at me. “You felt it. One of your hands was giving and one of your hands was receiving.”

Once I hit publish on a post, I wait. Sometimes I get a comment or two or maybe several after a few days. Sometimes I hear crickets. I’m writing for myself, to process my own life experiences, yet I hope to help a few people who need my particular brand of reflection or awareness along the way. Sometimes when I hear crickets, it’s a little disappointing. Even so, I’ll still write, whether or not I get feedback that tells me I’m making a difference in the lives of others. I’m happier, more balanced, more fulfilled, more forgiving and more loving to those around me. Writing makes a difference in my own life, and therefore it’s worth doing, because I’m worth it.

Because of writing and blogging, I had the privilege last May of being part of one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done professionally.Listen to Your Mother hit 32 cities across the US over two weeks in celebration of mothers and Mother’s Day. I joined thirteen other women from the Chicago area, northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan to give some pretty remarkable Midwestern mothers a microphone. Here's my performance. I hope you'll watch the others, too.


Why was being a part of this show so remarkable? Because it stretched me, it challenged me, and it validated me as a mom and as a writer in ways I could only dream of before. I played Anna in The King & I my senior year in high school, and began singing solos when I was five years old--I LOVED doing those things. 

Listen to Your Mother was vastly different and so very much more than either performing or writing/blogging—it was a powerful, magical and mystical intersection of both. And I had no idea of its incredible power until I stepped on that stage.

I had to audition. That was similar to singing solos and having the lead in a musical. I had to perform. That was similar, too. My words and my story are things I’ve been sharing online for over two years now, with beautiful, heart-warming response via comments, shares and emails from many who have followed and been touched by my journey. What if I'd Said "Just Drive?" started right here, as a blog post for a #JustWrite exercise via Rebecca T. Dickson. I'm so grateful for her support and the kick-butt inspiration she offers so many writers, me included.

Performing my own writing was risky. It was gut wrenching. It was exhilarating. And yet it was like being enveloped in a warm, protective blanket of love and acceptance, much like my recent trip to a Laura Munson Haven retreat in Montana (by TRAIN, which I wrote about here). 

Our first reader, Donya Kolowsiwsky, had never done anything like it in her life—talk about a stretch! Despite never having spoken into a microphone before, she knocked her three-ring circus intro out of the park! Our second reader, Carrie, shared a story of infertility and victory through adoption that touched and enthralled us all. I was third to read. I stepped on that stage, completely naïve to what the two women before me had just experienced. I’ll try to explain, but I won’t do it justice:

My two predecessors set me up for only success, and every one of us that performed after made for a flawless show. I felt allied with my fellow cast members and with the audience like a golden shimmer of aspens—connected and breathing and responding as one organism. We were joined by a shared root system of struggle and joy and existence, warm and rich, clinging tight to the nourishing loam of our stories. It filled the room and pulsed back and forth like the warm blush of sunset. I received the audience and they received me. Our connected energy rose with laughter (as during Robyn Welling's hilarious, How to Scar Your Kids for Life), fell with heartache, and bloomed with understanding, as during fellow single mom, Sheli Geoghan Massie's, Prego at Summer Camp. I didn’t want my turn to end in eight minutes. I wanted to do it again, and again, and again. I close my eyes and I can feel the energy still. The unexpected and unprecedented gifts we gave and received in a ninety-minute show on a warm evening in May, will stay with me for a lifetime. I hope you'll enjoy watching the other touching, hilarious, and sometimes tearful readings from our show.

From national producer, Ann Imig’s, humble beginnings with one show in Madison, Wisconsin in 2010, to 32 cities across the US in 2014—if you don’t know what Listen to Your Mother is about, or if you didn’t get enough, you can spend hours watching this season’s and past seasons' videos. You’ll find all those who have come before, giving in exactly the ways you need to receive them on the Listen to Your Mother YouTube channel. Go watch, follow their blogs, and leave a comment now and again to let someone know how much their words matter. And check out our national sponsors, BlogHer (from where I received the Voices of the Year honor in 2013), and Chevy.

Northwest Indiana producer/director, Lovelyn Palm, selected my story as part of Listen to Your Mother this year. I am grateful for her faith in me and in my story, and I feel so lucky to have met this remarkable mother of NINE, as well as our entire cast. With Lovelyn’s support and blessing, I want to do this for my community. I will complete the application process later this year in the hopes of producing and directing Listen to Your Mother in southwest Michigan in 2015. 

If this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, either as a sponsor, as a reader, or as a necessary and vital member of the audience, please subscribe to my email list to the right. You do not have to be a mother or a working writer to audition and participate. Stories come from sons, daughters, husbands, moms themselves, motherless children, and childless mothers. Listen to Your Mother is a beautiful celebration of motherhood and story in all its forms. And it’s a giving franchise, as well. A portion of ticket sales for our sold-out Valparaiso show supported the northwest Indiana Food Bank. Given the chance, I will choose to support the Boys & Girls Club of Benton Harbor, where I’ve enjoyed the honor of speaking to young girls about their future.

Whether or not I’m successful at bringing the show to my hometown, I look forward to next year and the years to come. I will be a part of this remarkable, uplifting, entertaining celebration again and again, even if it's an essential place in the audience.

I'd like to thank Laura Munson for being an invaluable source of support and encouragement in my writing journey and for inviting me along on this Blog Hop. Laura has pursued writing as a career for years, and is New York Times best selling author of This Is Not The Story You Think It Is. She doesn't believe you can be successful without doing the work. Her disciplined methods are far more helpful (check out her post here) than my haphazard ones, but here are my answers to the questions about our writing we were tasked with answering as part of this Blog Hop originally:
1) What am I working on/writing?    
I have a LOT going on! I expect to release my first GANE Possible Publication, Beating the Statistics: A Mother's Quest to Reclaim Fertility, Halt Autism and Help Her Child Grow from Behavior Failure to Behavior Success late this spring. I'm always working on my memoir, My Grandfather's Table, for which I hope to secure a publisher who will go along with my plans to release it by my 50th birthday. That gives me two years. Hey! It's important to have goals! And of course, there's co-editing on the #JudyBlumeProject, which is ongoing and hopes to one day become an anthology in honor of Judy Blume's iconic and prolific contribution to libraries and homes across the world. In addition, I work as a part-time communications and media consultant (and future spokesperson) for UprightFarms.org, which is a small vertical farming startup, and which melds beautifully with my #MOREin2014 -- VARIETY & Veggies, GANE Empowered Wellness philosophy. We're currently doing all the behind the scenes work on getting our website and social media up and running in the very near future, but you can view our testimonials reel online now. As a freelance ghostwriter I've been published in a design industry magazine, and I've encouraged and advised numerous people on how to own the title of writer and pursue writing themselves. As such, if you feel called to writing, but need support in sharing your writing or finishing any writing goal you choose, I’m co-facilitating a local, face-to-face writing workshop with writer and editor friend, Ami Hendrickson (see her bio below, she's among the next participants in the BlogHop). *Every* writer dreams of spending a summer writing the Great American Novel--or maybe you want to write a screenplay, dust off a manuscript that's been sitting in a drawer, write a query letter, and actually SUBMIT it, or write a short story or memoir. #Write2TheEnd is an eight-week program that began in mid-June. We're finalizing our fall offerings now. It’s something you don’t want to miss, and it’s another really good reason to sign up for my email list. --->
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2) How does my work/writing differ from others in its genre?
Genre? That's one of those scary words that can frighten off those of us who aren't too confident about our writing. All this writing and blogging nonsense began for me back in San Diego when I was so miserable I couldn't stand myself. After wallowing the first year we were there, I decided it was time to build a life for myself. It all centered around my novel-in-progress, Bluebirds, which I've been working on intermittently for six years or more. I haven't abandoned Bluebirds, and I still work on it from time-to-time. But it was proving really hard to write because I found myself trying to fit in too much memoir. Thus, My Grandfather's Table was born--a story of contrasts that flows between the nurturing, love, and nourishment that was freely given me as a child, against the shame and sadness of untold secrets that I believe led to my struggle as a young single mother. It's my quest to forgive and to love myself through food instead of punish myself with food. I need to exorcise the memoir bits in order to just tell the beautiful story that I believe Bluebirds is meant to be someday--because my Gramps continues posthumously to tell me so through birds. 

3) Why do I write what I do?
I've covered that with question two, but overall, it's honestly to keep myself sane. As women, as mothers, we often judge one another. Through sharing my writing, I feel so blessed to have experienced the fellowship and support of other writers, which has led to so very much more than I’d ever dreamed possible. Between my trip to meet and learn from Laura Munson at Haven, and being a part of Listen to Your Mother, this is shaping up as an incredible year. I don’t believe I would have auditioned for Listen to Your Mother without Haven. And I don’t believe I would have tried without the support of my wonderful midlife women blogger friends of Midlife Boulevard. This is what they mean by tribe: I had fought the compulsion to write my whole life, pushed it aside as something frivolous and silly because I lacked a college degree. I had to seek out coaches and like-minded individuals and surround myself with their support, energy, and encouragement in order to feel justified in pursuing writing as a career. Because of my history, because of shame, because of allowing myself to be defined by perceived failure, before, I wasn't enough. The sky truly is our only limit, otherwise it's the self-limiting beliefs that hold us back from realizing our own greatness. Why NOT you? 

You are enough and you and your story matter; you have the ability to impact yourself and others in ways you can’t yet imagine. GANE Possible: make your life what you’ve always wanted it to be…and bring someone else along for the ride. Why do I feel compelled to share my story? To be better for myself, for my family, to follow in my grandfather's footsteps and fully embrace and engage in this life I'm so blessed to have (especially if, like my grandfather, I live to 100!), and to help others do the same.   

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4) How does my writing process work?
Ugh! My writing "process" isn't one I can highly recommend if production (organization? what’s that?) and completion is your goal--and yet I've built three websites and produced a TON of writing over the last three years. I need to give myself credit for that! I probably write more in the Evernote app on my phone, standing naked and dripping wet in the bathroom, than I do actually sitting at my keyboard. I pray it’s the water that inspires my cancer spirit and not the cracked pink tiles that line all. four. walls. of the loo in the rental we currently occupy. I'm very encouraged by my #Write2TheEnd habits/progress this summer. I've just completed my first draft of Beating the Statistics, a mini, wellness-focused memoir, which I'd hoped would help me break the finishing and publishing ice. Having this awesome cover done by Julia Mattice at Tice Designs has helped inspire me to keep working. I have many projects of my own in process, as well as volunteering, consulting, and freelance work. Taking time to focus on my own writing is always a challenge. When I do, I have a ready list of notes in Evernote from which to copy and paste. I can then take off with fingers flying and often produce thousands of words at a sitting. 

Mine was definitely the "pantser" method before. I'm benefiting greatly and producing more by adopting pieces of the plotter method, which is Ami's very large and essential piece of #Write2TheEnd, thankfully! ***WRITER/ BUSINESS TIP: Knowing and acknowledging our own weaknesses and joining forces with those who fill our gaps is a brilliant strategy I highly recommend! It's worked for my husband and me over almost twenty years of marriage, even though my creative "process" exasperates him!*** My new office is complete enough that I've moved in, so I'm getting better organized. It was difficult working from home where there was no separation of work hours and family or (barely existent) leisure hours. I look forward to getting settled into a routine after school starts this fall, and having designated work time and space. I will have to figure out where and when my writing time is most productive. This summer, it's been first thing in the morning before my son wakes and BEFORE social media, standing at my kitchen counter. Perhaps this fall I will devise a hanger for the doorknob to my new office that says, “Gone Writing.” 

And now, I'm pleased to introduce my #Write2TheEnd partner, Ami Hendrickson, as well as Sabrina Lovejoy, and Joan Stommen. They are the next batch of writers on this transformational and inspiring Blog Hop all about writing. 

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Ami Hendrickson is the ghostwriter for several internationally recognized master horse trainers and other notable experts. Books she has been involved in creating include: Clinton Anderson’s Downunder Horsemanship; The Rider’s Pain–Free Back, written with neurosurgeon Dr. James Warson, named by American Horse Publications as one of the “Top 3 Books of the Year;” Geoff Teall on Riding Hunters, Jumpers and Equitation;Beyond a Whisper, with behaviorist Ryan Gingerich; and Photographing and “Videoing” Horses. She is the editor of the Trainer’s Certification Manual for the United States Hunter Jumper Association (USHJA).

Ami is also an award-winning scriptwriter. Her screenplays have received recognition in the Cinequest Screenwriting Competition, the Great Lakes International Screenplay Competition, the Austin Heart of Film Screenwriting Competition, and others. "Valentimes Day," a short film written for the SONY 4K Challenge as part of the 2013 Napa Valley Film Festival, was a featured selection in the 2014 Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival.  "The Interview" won both the Grand Prize and the Audience Choice Award at the Out of the Box Playwriting Competition in 2012.  

A  tireless mentor and cheerleader, Ami has helped scores of writers from 13 year–olds to septuagenarians get their first byline. She is always looking for ways to help writers make the most of writing time, jumpstart creativity, and pack more firepower into the writer’s arsenal.  When she discovers something that works, she is quick to share it.  She especially enjoys speaking to writers and conducting writing workshops. She graduated with distinction from Andrews University and holds degrees in English and Education. 

Some of Ami’s favorite things (in no particular order) are: riding her horses, losing herself in a book, drinking good coffee, eating chocolate, smooching her husband or snuggling her daughter during a movie.  She and her family live with their “vast menagerie” on a 100+ year–old farm in southwest Michigan. Find Ami via her website, www.AmiHendrickson.com, and her blog, Muse Inks. Read her post here.


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Sabrina Lovejoy is most comfortable writing about what life has taught her. From becoming a single mom several days after her 18th birthday to her more than 20 years in corporate America, her hope is that her experiences encourage women to keep pressing towards their finish line. While fully aware that we all come from different backgrounds, Sabrina believes there is nothing that she’s been challenged with that someone, somewhere, hasn’t already experienced and overcome (Ecclesiates 1:9 “...there is nothing new under the sun”). She believes the journey of women would be easier if they’d more frequently seek those that know how to get from calamity to clarity. And, while that road has already been paved in many different ways by some of the most amazing women, writing has allowed Sabrina the opportunity to add her own bricks here and there.  

Sabrina’s blogging journey started in 2009 with a blog geared towards encouraging single moms in corporate America. Later, she decided to lean more towards sharing the life lessons she wished someone had shared with her. In 2013, while pursuing a career as a Life Coach and disappointed with her own corporate journey, Sabrina founded a 30 day challenge entitled “Career Success through Self-Awareness”. Due to its success, Sabrina has begun the process of creating resources for women new to or frustrated with the corporate climb.
 
Sabrina’s blog, Much Needed Advice, is a compilation of her journey as a writer. Read her post here.


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Joan Stommen has always been a writer. Her shelves are full of letters, essays, journals, newspaper clippings and lessons used as a writing coach. Retiring in 2007 after 33 years as an elementary teacher, she returns a few days a week to sub and stay active in the writing and learning process.

She’s a National Writing Project Fellow, a former staff development instructor for various school systems and taught writing instruction to teacher candidates at Kennesaw State University. From her college newspaper to various publications, she’s written news stories and columns for over 40 years. A native of Michigan who now lives in Georgia, she enjoys 5K’s, Zumba, hiking, gardening and reading.

In addition to compiling stories of her Dad’s war experiences, she contributes to national blogs and websites and writes the Gramcracker Crumbs blog  (www.gramcrackercrumbs.com). Initially started with her 5 grandchildren in mind, she now writes about the aging process in Senior, Single and Seventy, fitness, education, family and, after the death of her husband, about Becoming a Widow; befitting her tag line “the bits and pieces of my life.” Read her post here.


Yours in Wellness Always,
--Kim Jorgensen Gane, (c) 2014, all rights reserved

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REMEMBERING 911

9/11/2013

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I was working in our restaurant when a customer burst through the door and asked if we had a TV.  We did not, so he ran to his shop and brought us a little black and white one, the kind with the old rabbit ears.

It was the quietest that restaurant had ever been, the most food ever left on plates, and the tips were sparse.  The only hollow sounds were those of burners clicking, ventilation blowing.  Even the newscasters left many silent spaces between their attempts to speculate and explain.

There was no explanation.  Nothing could make sense of anything we were seeing.

The laughter and the joy and the community camaraderie you could always find at our restaurant were gone in an instant.  Like a giant vacuum had come in and sucked it all away, and it never did get its life back.  I’m sure there are others that were much more closely impacted that still feel like they’ve never gotten their lives back.

The restaurant industry was hit particularly hard, however, when (what felt like, and in some ways probably was) the world decided they wanted to hold on to whatever hadn’t been lost, eat at home, be with their children, gather close around the family table again.

Our restaurant was too young and couldn’t bear the sudden downturn in business that shut off the summer season so soon and so finitely.  Sadly, we had to close the following April, almost exactly three years after we’d opened.  We should have closed the previous November, and to this day we feel the financial ramifications of not doing so.  But we were worried about our employees through the winter, and it was so hard to let go of the dreams, the intentions, the maybes, the what-ifs.

Had we not closed when we did, I believe with every piece of my soul that my son would not be here.

Infertility was a battle I fought every day we owned that restaurant.  I had a miscarriage on a morning that no one was coming in to open and cook and be ready for customers at 6 a.m., but me.  I was bleeding.  I knew it was happening.  But I couldn’t leave.  We’d been trying four years at that point.

The month after we closed though, after my pH was suddenly, magically in balance absent the daily stress of operating the restaurant, which has an adverse chemical impact on the body, I saw my bluebirds, and I was given hope.

We traveled to England for my husband’s work.  That’s what the UK was called when I was a little girl, and it was the homeland of both of my maternal grandparents—there was no question, I was going.  Even amid all the money troubles we had like so many other restaurant owners across the country, I felt such a connection to my heritage and like my personal healing had truly begun.

Just a few short months later, after six long years—72 some months of disappointment—I had reason to take a pregnancy test again, and it was positive.  Even though we lived in a world that was broken and crazy, for us the Universe had finally aligned, and I knew it was meant to be.

Because I believed so deeply in the omen of those bluebirds sent by my Gramps.

Because tragedy and struggle happen, but life is for the living, and it goes on.

And every day that we wake up.  And we throw off our covers.  And we set our feet on the floor.  Has the potential to be beautiful.

God bless this one.


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BACK TO SCHOOL WITH A TWIST, or MIDLIFE WITH A SIDECAR

8/20/2013

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I heard Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook and author of, Lean In, speak at BlogHer ’13 last month, and I must admit to being surprised at how much I identified with her message.  The question the Lean In campaign asks each of us is,  “What could you do if you weren’t afraid?”  I’ve lived my life afraid for as long as I can remember, and I’d venture to say my husband has, too.  He’s run and relocated to the next corporate job because he was afraid of losing the last one.  I’ve written my whole life, but fear of failure as well as fear of success prevented me from sharing anything I’d written until I began blogging just over two years ago.

“They” say the definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting different results.  I guess my husband and I have been a little insane for going on the last twenty-one years.  When the inevitable challenge has presented us with the same obvious choices, we’ve gone with our usual response, until now.  This would be easier to grin and bear if we weren’t both at the same time attempting to make a midlife change to our knee-jerk response to life’s struggles, all while providing for a young child still at home.  
Every time I find myself not able to breathe or with a screaming headache, I try to understand and accept that it is taking all my husband has not to chase the easy money--for his American male, fifty-something work ethic not to risk another likely corporate disappointment, running on that hamster wheel.  We’re former Joneses in witness protection, only there’s no per diem. For my strapping 6’2” former firefighter/paramedic/police officer not to do what he’s always done--compromise his own happiness to feed us--but instead to marinate in this place where for the first time the actual possibility of failing to provide a roof over our heads does, too, is akin to taking a hot poker to his nether regions, something Corporate America has done enough.  Instead he’s limping along with his heart not quite in consulting as he builds a photography business on the side and dreams of having a food truck.  Things I want for him perhaps more than he wants them for himself.

Every fiber of my old self wants to run out and wait tables, tend bar, go back to being a miserable administrative assistant, or to throw together a hasty garage sale, even though everything I’ve done over the last two years has told me to keep writing, that I’m on the right path, that this me I’ve finally come back to is the me I was meant to be all along.  So instead, I’m composing this post from my new writers studio in a hip, lofty old factory turned (thankfully ridiculously cheap) artists’ Mecca, where I’ll focus on finishing my novel, and take the earnest leap to query and submit my writing for paid publication.

Our 500 thread-count sheets no longer possess the elastic wherewithal to remain tucked, and almost neither do I.  I try to be comforted knowing we still have friends with a big basement and even bigger hearts, and that we’re in this together.  We’ve been back home in Michigan where we belong for a year now, and where we have much easier access to our aging parents and married daughters.  This has been one of the longest summers in our history, but the ability to conduct our midlife crises nearer the support of friends and family has to be the only thing that truly counts right now.  

We will get through this, and come out the other side, hopefully having been rewarded and having taught our children to make choices that lead them to fulfilling lives much earlier than we did, even if today I wonder whether Ramen™ is available yet gluten free.

Maybe our son will always remember 5th grade as the year he had no new school clothes and carried a recycled backpack (hey, it’s a Jansport™, those things are guaranteed for life, right?), but hopefully he will also remember it as the year his parents eventually got it right.  This is the year we embraced the thrill ride of finding out who each of us is, instead of caving-in to what the Joneses would have done, even if neither of us has any fingernails left.  I’m calling it, 
Midlife with a Sidecar, where we’re all three taking the turns and holding on for dear life.  
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Flexing My FUN:  New Passion for Flash Fiction

7/15/2013

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PictureUrban sky. Photo courtesy of David Mark, Pixabay, via Flash! Friday
I’ve developed a new passion, and it’s one that doesn’t threaten my hubby in the least.  Whew! 

I’ve discovered I have a passion and somewhat of a knack for Flash Fiction, and I wanted to share some of my stories with you here.

There are several opportunities I’ve come across via Twitter, and in fact Twitter itself is a good exercise for tightening up your writing, let me tell you!  I’ve never been someone with a shortage of words (probably why my hubs is more the strong, silent type), and you really discover what’s necessary and what isn’t in 140 characters! 

Same is true of Flash Fiction.  The requirements are varied depending on the contest holder’s prompt or not and set word count, but therein lays the fun.  To discover whether you can tell a complete story with rich, sympathetic characters in a finite number of words is great practice even for longer novel writing, and maybe particularly for longer novel writing.

My creative writing professor, Don Matson, PhD, of the University of California San Diego, tasked us to read many Flash Fiction pieces such as Ernest Hemmingway’s, “Hills Like White Elephants,” Raymond Carver’s, “One More Thing,” and Robert Parker’s, “The Professional.”  Of course we wrote some of our own, though it was a process I didn’t appreciate or enjoy very much until recently, when I began to see more of it done by women. 

According to Wikipedia’s description, Flash Fiction seems to have been a craft made most notable by men.  O. Henry, Bradbury, Kafka, Vonnegut, and other greats share a reference with short, short fiction, so perhaps you can understand my hesitation to attempt to join their ranks.  Thanks to social media and outlets like those I’ll share below, however, many women are quite successfully trying their hands at the art of less is more.  I’ve found it a great way to get your feet wet, to practice restraint, and to exorcise those little bits and pieces that swim around in your brain, or that might prove to be sprouts of bigger stories one day.   

It’s a process I’m delighted to participate in whenever the moment inspires, and I find it’s usually a knee-jerk reaction or image that pops into my mind, based on the topic or prompt.  It’s like something comes over me, and that is perhaps the best lesson of all.  It’s absolutely delectable to follow those little seeds wherever they take me, especially as a mental break yet mental exercise from working on my Novel In Progress, Bluebirds.  I find that each little success I have makes me feel only more validated to call myself a writer, which is in itself a gift beyond measure.

PictureCapbreton. Photo courtesy of Makunin, @ Pixabay via Flash! Friday
If you are a writer in your deepest of hearts, and wish to take a crack at some Flash Fiction yourself, I encourage you to start reading it first, and to give it a try through one of the many outlets available today.  Win or not, I’m always delighted with my results, and the pace of the contests often frees me from procrastination and the compulsive and usual need to rehash, review, tweak and perfect each little word.  It’s kind of a skinny-dipping-under-a-full-moon approach that I find deliciously freeing (cause Lord knows I don’t do THAT anymore…if I ever did….  I’m not telling!!)!


Flash Fiction is often dark, but it doesn’t have to be, as you can see from my first win with @99fiction, Never Dreamed:

[Posted here as ever so slightly edited, still 99(!) words or less]
Never Dreamed

She stands before them, the backs of her knees sweat, fingertips tingle.  A crisp long red velvet skirt, handmade with matching hair bow, love and pom pon fringe, her only conscious thought. 

Small at five upon vast planks, the Christmas congregation ponders what will come.

The introduction plays.  Words are trapped in a cupboard, too high.  She takes a deep breath and opens wide as a sparrow.  If speaking was required, she would have failed, but with music comes words, with words come smiles. 

A few bars have set her fate.  An attention seeker is born.

--Kim Jorgensen Gane ©2013, all rights reserved

My second win was with Mary Papas for, The Dinner Date, I believe we had to be between 300 and 500 words, this is 409, and I hope you’ll give Mary’s books of flash fiction a read:

[Posted here as since slightly edited]

The Dinner Date

She applied her scarlet lipstick, following the delicate shape of her flume with care.  She leaned close to the mirror to remove an errant speck of mascara from her lid with a perfectly matched and manicured fingernail. 

Step back; assess.  Her smooth black dress was perfectly pressed; cinching at the waist and crossing in the front to reveal just a hint of her décolleté. 

Not bad for this birthday marking her mid-fortieth.  She wished her husband was home to celebrate, but alas, international business and money and substance called more noisily.  She hoped her fiftieth would hold enough importance for him to stay home, or that he might invite her along.  Though she’d grown weary years ago of accompanying him on such demanding business trips. 

In the meantime, she admired the blaze of diamonds at her ears and wrist; consolation gifts of his absence from other important occasions--guilt appeasers, loneliness absolvers; pretty, but accusing.

She would not be dining alone this evening, however, and she thought deliciously of what her date might wear.  He was probably brushing his teeth and carefully gelling his hair just now.  Perhaps he was selecting a tie in her favorite color; some shade of lavender or Icelandic blue, to match his roguish eyes.

Evenings out were rare for them:  stolen moments amid the pace of reality; of responsibility; of all at once drudgery and chaos.

She donned her glittering shawl, slipped her slender, red-tipped toes into her most delicious and precarious red pumps, and carefully made her way down the curving stairs to where he waited patiently at the bottom.

He gazed up at her with a smile that reflected her beauty; that said she was the only woman in the world, and always would be.  She paused midway, reveling in it; knowing it was fleeting.

At last she neared the bottom.  She grasped the confident outstretched hand he offered to help her meet the gleaming marble.

He wrapped his arms lovingly around her small waist, and she warmly returned his embrace.

She kissed the top of his head, as only her red heels allowed her once again to do; not caring whether her lips left a mark there.  In fact, she hoped they would leave an indelible impression right down onto his heart.  He’d promised her they would when she’d delivered him to kindergarten, clutching her kiss in his palm, trembling and holding back tears, five all-too-short years before.

--Kim Jorgensen Gane ©2013, all rights reserved

And I’m deeply honored to have received an Honorable Mention for Retribution, in the most recent Flash! Friday Contest that occurs weekly, amid some very tough competition (I love that Rebekah works so hard to find us great photo prompts like the two above, and that our micro fiction is entered as comments under the prompt to be enjoyed and commented on by all).  It is 272 words:

[Posted here as ever so slightly edited, same word count]

Retribution

It had been years since she’d seen anything more than this small slice of sky…years since she’d seen a flower bloom, dipped her toe into a cool stream, or dug in and turned the dirt, or picked a tomato off a vine she’d cultivated from seed or sprout. It had been years since she’d bit into its flesh, still warm from the sun, letting its juices drip down off her elbow in a scarlet river.

The last time she’d dug in the dirt is what landed her here.

The Brighton Women’s Correctional Facility, smack in the heart of her hometown’s downtown, was supposed to be a place for rehabilitation and learning. But what really happened beneath that small slice of sky, through which seldom a bird or plane passed, was neither rehabilitation nor learning. She supposed you could call it “learning” to survive in one of the roughest, most rank women’s prisons on the planet. Learning how to get fed from one meal to the next, by bargaining or stealing or unsavory favors. Learning how not to get shanked for looking cross-eyed at no one. Learning which ball-busting guards to avoid or befriend, and learning precisely what it would cost you.

She could still smell the loamy spring soil, and feel it’s coolness in her hands. She remembered waiting for the perfect moment to do what needed doing, however much she didn’t want to, and however much she did.

Once he’d touched her baby sister, Daddy had to die.

Every day under that small slice of sky was worth it.

--Kim Jorgensen Gane ©2013, all rights reserved

Last but not least, it didn’t win or earn a mention, but just because I loved it, here’s another 209-word example of one of my Flash! Friday entries, Impasse:

Impasse

Persephone’s eyes blinked at the searing bright light. Her ears welcomed the waves and the ocean breeze that caressed them, and her skin eagerly drank in the moist air. If only it wasn’t sea water as far as her troubled eyes could see, her parched lips and tongue and gullet and very cells would drink it in, too.

Her fingernails were bloodied and torn by her attempts to scale the pitched wall left broken and crumbling in the wake of Zeus’s anger.

It was her only hope of escape.

Hermes’ deal that granted her a mere six months above, just wasn’t enough. This latest squabble between Zeus and Hades, felt like the perfect opening; pomegranate seeds, be-damned!

Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the sunlight, but it felt hot on her desiccated skin. She knew the salt water would cause her wounds to sting mercilessly, but she couldn’t get herself into the water fast enough. She hoped she could resist the temptation to drink it, to lap it up like an eager puppy. Her thirst was so great.

It was a long way down.

She looked back the way she’d come.

She looked at the azure water, crashing below.

She would have cried.

But she had no tears.

--Kim Jorgensen Gane ©2013, all rights reserved

Oh yes!  I’ve enjoyed another amazing success!  I’m attending BlogHer ’13 in Chicago at the end of July, because I’ve recently learned that out of the hundreds of thousands(!) of blogs posted to BlogHer in the last year, I’m a top 100 VOICES OF THE YEAR HONOREE for my second featured post, “The Enlightened Middle Majority and Why the Sides Are Alienating Us.”  Enlightened Middle Majority is the same post that has been adapted for inclusion in the book, 51%: Women and the Future of Politics, that’s due out sometime in 2013.

I hope my stories will convince you to try Flash Fiction yourself, because you just never know where it might lead...and what the hell...why don't you enter a little below in the comments!! 

I'd love to read 200 OR FEWER WORDS OF FLASH FICTION OF YOURS about FOLLOWING A DREAM--any sort of dream!  If you have a Twitter handle, please include it and your word count.

No contest, no deadline...just challenge yourself, ENJOY and be inspired! 

Yours truly, WRITER, and author:

--Kim Jorgensen Gane

6 Comments

From HealHealthcareNow: Changing the Way We View Fertility and How We Treat INFertility

6/30/2013

0 Comments

 
I've been a mom for twenty-six years. 

I was a single mom first at the age of twenty, intent to do everything backwards, it seems.  I met my husband when my daughter was five, and became a married mom, and a step-mom to a second delightful girl, two years younger to the day than my daughter.  They were fast buddies, and eventually, when my husband adopted my daughter, truly became the sisters they were from the moment they first met.

My husband and I each had a child from prior relationships, so when I turned thirty we got to work *practicing* with every arrogant assumption that we would be fruitful together.  Two years passed without a pregnancy, we'd moved and I became a stay-at-home mom for the first time, and I got a puppy.  A furry little replacement baby until the Universe decided it was time for the human variety.

It would take six years, during which I was diagnosed with PCOS and endometriosis, suffered one loss, two surgeries, a multitude of disappointments, was one ovary down, and on my way to a likely hysterectomy if I didn't find an alternative to the conventional INfertility path.  The path that focused on IMpossible, and UNlikely, and ADVANCED age, and FAILURE.  The path that, the temperature charting and obsessing of which, caused untold stress, weight-gain and wrinkles.  I hate wrinkles, dammit!  And it contributed to adrenal fatigue and chronic acidosis, and babies won't grow in an acidic environment.

And so, I sought another path.  A path of healing, a path of spirituality, a path of empowering myself to follow my instincts and use my intuition to take control of my wellness and my FERTILITY; a path that would lead the little spirit I wasn't ready for before, to finally come to be my amazing, bright, imaginative now ten-year-old son.  I've come to understand that the Universe had known better.  There had been so much more I needed to know before I was ready to mother my son.  He was born when our daughters were sixteen and fourteen, and everything I thought I knew about being their mom/step-mom, I had to relearn when it came to my son. 

Please continue reading on Heal Healthcare Now, and JOIN Dr. Lissa Rankin, MD, and others like her, either as an empowered patient, as a facilitator, or as a medical professional/practitioner!!  Be part of the change you hope to see in the world!

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A Flake No More...Promise!  Bluebirds, Goals & Git 'er Done!

2/27/2013

2 Comments

 
Wow, from a fellow former ... ok, WIP ... flake, this from @KristenLambTX & #WANACon Mama, is spot on.

Yes, I'm working through that perpetual starter behavior and truly-in-a-meaningful-way-with-a-specific-goal finishing my novel, Bluebirds, in order to pitch it at the Chicago Writers Conference in September 2013. There, I've said it out loud!  It's right across the lake. Flights, hotels, finances won't stand in my way [sometimes they still do--when it's that or groceries*]. The only thing that could stand in my way is me. Afraid to fail, afraid to succeed, only my own personal brand of paralysis will keep me from achieving this goal, if I let it. And I won't.

With amazing mentors like Kristen and so many other authors & friends on Twitter, on Facebook, and in *real life* ... the cautiously optimistic among my posse ... with my wonderful business coach, Nancy Kaye, and my PR guide, AlissaSheftic.com, the lovely ladies in the daytime writers group at the Box Factory, with my monumentally hopeful and supportive husband, and with "Grampa Willie" making his feathery appearance from time to time, I cannot fail.

Like a breathing thing, Bluebirds has taken flight, and it simply must be. A starter no more. I'm growing up, and a finisher I will be.

Here's a back cover blurb about Bluebirds:

"Author Lynette Bower, six years into a battle with infertility, is wrestling with the idea of adoption versus continuing to fight her body to do what it's supposed to do. Her husband wants her to stop all infertility treatments and pursue adopting an Asian baby. We meet her preparing to receive her third and final in vitro procedure. A chance meeting with a NICU nurse, who appears (and just as quickly disappears) suspiciously old-fashioned, puts her on a path to meet a terminally ill little boy who will change the course of her life and the way she looks at it forever."



I hope that entices you to follow along!

Here's how you can:
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Enemies of the Art Part 8 - Being a Starter Not a Finisher

My Wordpress blog site, which I will use as an about me author page (51%: Women and the Future of Politics is due out this spring!) and where I will reblog pertinent writing information can be found here.

Where it all began, and where I will provide occasional updates in the comments, my post about Gramps and the bluebirds:  bit.ly/WCSnOL

Kristen is very generously picking a winner a month to receive a critique from her of the first 20 pages of a novel, a query letter or synopsis, and I wish like heck that included a copy of her book, We Are Not Alone. It's definitely on my purchasing wish list!  And I definitely hope to win an opportunity for her to take a look at Bluebirds.

I wish you all happy writing, and especially, happy FINISHING!! 

With love,
Former Flake

[*UPDATE 09/25/13: I should be getting ready for the conference this weekend, but alas, finances have indeed prevented me from registering.  I'M NOT FLAKING OUT! I took a First Five Pages class with Kristen recently, am participating in writers groups at the Box Factory for the Arts in my new writers studio, and working diligently on completing and perfecting my story.  It'll be even readier next year!]

2 Comments

#JustWrite Draft of a Chapter From Bluebirds, a novel:

12/27/2012

4 Comments

 
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The contents of Lynn’s stomach splattered the tops of her bare feet without warning, speckled the couch, and quickly seeped between the floorboards.  She’d dropped her coffee cup which shattered, it’s contents joining her barely digested breakfast that was now everywhere. 

Ben had forced her to eat something; made her a cup of coffee, and handed her one measly piece of toast with smashed banana, even though she hadn’t felt like eating in days.  This was the longest she’d been home in…what was it?  Seven?  Ten days? 

The mirror told her this morning what Ben had known—she needed a shower, she needed to really eat something, and she needed to be someplace other than the hospital, even if only for a couple hours to sleep in her own bed and have a few moments respite.  He’d told her he would stay with Samuel until she got back.  This wasn’t the way she wanted to spend the time; cleaning vomit and the perfect home-brewed cup of coffee she didn’t get to drink from the microfiber, from her still damp hair, from between the floorboards, from between her toes.

Lynn sighed; continued to survey the mess, without really seeing it clearly.

Poor tiny Samuel.  He hadn’t vomited in days, because he’d finally been placed on a feeding tube. 

She missed the sound of keys jingling in the lock.

“Yoo hoo!  Anybody home?”  Her mother’s voice shattered the dim stillness.    

“Mom?”  The word croaked out between dry lips.

“Hello, Dear…what the…?”

Betsy quickly surveyed Lynn’s dim look, still outstretched hands that shook slightly, trace of spittle on her lip and in her hair, and moved to the mess on the floor. 

“Oh, Lynnette, what’s happened to you?”

She deposited her things in a nearby chair, after checking to make sure it wasn’t dirtied, and guided her daughter to tiptoe just enough away from the splat.  She rushed to the kitchen, searched drawers for a dish cloth and waited as long as she dared for the water to warm slightly.  She hurried back to Lynn and gently wiped her face, her hands, and down the length of her honey-toned hair.  She bent with effort to wipe the tops of her feet, wiggling the cloth between her toes.  Betsy took her elbow and guided her to sit at the dining room table, all the while, her lips pursed and eyeing her daughter from time to time over her glasses.

As she watched her mother go about wiping up the floor and scrubbing at the couch, she waited for the onslaught to come.  This was, in fact, the perfect situation for her mother to get all worked into a pissy frenzy and let loose, Lynn thought dully.  Clean and bitch, clean and bitch.

“You’ve probably caught something from that damned hospital,” she finally half mumbled, while she scrubbed vigorously.  A clump of hair escaped from the heavily sprayed helmet she wore, and bounced to the effort.

 “Why on earth did you have to take this on, Lynnette?  With everything you’ve been through, what were you and Ben thinking?  He never should have allowed it.  I told him there was no way I was picking up any more pieces with this fixation of yours, and here I am, cleaning up this goddamned mess.”

Lynn watched as her mother hefted herself up off her knees, her face reddened with effort and anger, and lined, perhaps, with worry.  With years of worry, she supposed, though the often stilted or merely absent communication in recent years left Lynn wondering whether she did care.  She couldn’t imagine what, in fact, her mother was doing here.

“Mother.  Why are you here?”

“Ben called last night.  He wanted me to come.  So I came.”  She gestured around the room, then hurried to the kitchen to dispose of paper towels, broken crockery, and to rinse out the dish cloth. 

Lynn watched her squirt it with soap and work it into a lather before rinsing it again and again.  She looked back at the couch and could see a swoop of clean area where the dust had been cleared from under it.  Her arms felt like lead, and as badly as she still wanted a cup of coffee, she couldn’t seem to muster herself to get up.

“Could I have some water?”

“What?  Oh yes, yes of course.”  Cabinets opened and closed until she apparently found the one she needed.

Lynn didn’t know why she had to look so hard.  Her kitchens were laid out exactly like her mother’s had always been:  spices and hot mitts near the stove, silverware, dishes and glasses nearest the dishwasher, cleaning things under the sink, and at least one junk drawer nearest the phone.  Even though she hadn’t exactly gotten to know the home her daughter shared with her husband, she ought to have been able to figure it out.  Maybe she was making a point.  Lynn wouldn’t put it past her.

“No, Mom.  Not from the tap.  There’s a pitcher in the fridge.”

Exasperated, Betsy made a dramatic gesture of dumping it into the sink and schlepping to the fridge, wrenching it open, and sloshing water into the glass.  She handed her daughter her glass of water and then made another dramatic gesture of getting her own from the tap.

Betsy drummed the counter for a moment, then rolled her eyes and brought her water over to sit with her daughter at the table.  She placed an uncertain hand over her daughter’s. 

“So, what’s going on with the little boy, Lynn?  Is this it?” 

Lynn could see her mother trying to be sympathetic.  But she couldn’t quite let go of the weeks of silent treatment that easily.  She pulled her hand away.

“You mean, what’s going on with my son?  He’s days away from death, Mom, that’s what.”

“Oh, Lynnette, how can you call that boy your son?  You’ve only known him a few short weeks.  How could you let yourself get so involved in this madness?  You’ve set yourself up for nothing but a heartache.  It’s insane.  You look horrible; clearly you’re sick yourself….”

“I don’t expect you to understand any of this, Mother.  I certainly can’t explain to you, of all people, the connection I feel with Samuel.  He simply is my son, was already my son, before we even made it official.  He was my son from the first moment I began reading to him in the hospital.  I don’t understand it fully myself…it just…IS.”

“Why couldn’t you have adopted a nice, normal child who you could actually be a mother to?  Just holding court in a hospital, waiting for a child to die, is no way to be a mother!”  Betsy stood suddenly, rocking their half empty glasses.

Lynn stood to meet her fiery eyes, “Being with him as he dies is the only way to be Samuel’s mother!  He’s seven years old, Mother.  How could he possibly die alone, with no one ever having loved him?  Even after he dies, I’ll be Samuel’s mother forever, which is better than being no mother at all.  I didn’t know whether I had the capacity to love another child.  Not until we did this.  Ben has wanted to adopt, but I wouldn’t even consider it.  Yes, my heart will be broken, but it will also be full; full of the realization that I can love a child who isn’t biologically mine, even an imperfect one.  And that is a beautiful thing, Mother, whether you agree with the methodology or not!” 

Lynn’s tears were flowing freely now.  Wrenching sobs shook her shoulders, as Betsy stood there, frozen and stiff.

“I didn’t choose this.  I didn’t know this would happen when I rode the elevator up to the Peds floor that day—when that little boy looked at me with those eyes—I, I couldn’t look away… I certainly couldn’t walk away.  Oh, Mom.  However will I finish this?”

Betsy’s arms engulfed her daughter roughly, and her own tears mixed with her fresh shampoo and awakened it’s orange blossom scent.  Several moments passed before either of them could speak.

Betsy pushed away from her daughter gently, brushed hair and tears from her face and cupped her cheeks in her cool hands, forcing her to look up. 

“You’ll just do it, that’s how.  Because that’s what mother’s do, Lynn.  They clean up vomit, and they wipe tears, and they hold their children while they sob, even if they’re mad as hell at them.  And if we’re lucky enough or cursed enough, we get to be there to hold them when they need us most.  I’m so sorry I haven’t been here for you, Dear.  But I’m here now.”  Betsy took her daughter’s hand, “Now where are your shoes.  We need to get you back to the hospital.”

By Kimberly Jorgensen Gane, © 2012, all rights reserved.

[Our prompt this week was the beautiful photo above, by Diana Gonsalves, which fit a scene I needed to write perfectly.]




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    Write2TheEnd | 

    Kim Jorgensen Gane

    Author|Award-Winning Essayist|Freelance CommercialWriter|GANE
    Empowered Wellness Advocate, Facilitator, Speaker

    Kim is a freelance writer, living and working on Michigan’s sunset coast with her husband, youngest son, a standard poodle and a gecko. She’s been every-mom, raising two generations of kids over twenty-seven years. Kim writes on a variety of topics including parenting  through midlife crisis, infertility, health and wellness, personal empowerment, politics, and about anything else that interests her, including flash fiction and her novel in progress, Bluebirds.  Oh, and this happened!

    Kim was selected as a BlogHer '13 Voices of the Year Honoree in the Op Ed category for this post, an excerpt of which has been adapted for inclusion in the book, 51%: Women and the Future of Politics, to be released late 2014.  Visit her Wordpress About page to see her CV.
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*GANEPossible.com is an anecdotal website and in no way intends to diagnose, treat, prevent or otherwise influence the medical decisions of its readers. I am not a doctor, I do not recommend going off prescribed medications without the advice and approval of a qualified practitioner, and I do not recommend changing your diet or your exercise routine without first consulting your doctor. These are merely my life experiences, and what has and hasn't worked for me and my family. You must be your own best medical advocate and that of your children, and seek to find the practitioner with whom you have the best rapport and in whose advice and care you can entrust your health and medical decisions.


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