Why What and How to Write

Since the beginning of the year, I have been working on a new book. As of April, I had only been able to craft six chapters. I literally felt as if I was swimming upstream in trying to clearly envision and create just the right storyline, and the characters to deliver it.

Taking pity on me and trying to help, my daughter messaged me a link to a mid-May online writer's workshop. The thing is, I have never attended a writer's workshop. In fact, I am usually the person teaching such events.

All that aside, there was something about this, my 6th book, that was demanding I do something different. I clicked on the link for the writer's workshop and read the title:

"Why Write, What to Write, and How to Write"

UGH!

I know why I write.

I definitely know what I want to write in this book.

After 40 years as an Op-Ed newspaper columnist, magazine profiler and author of five books, I certainly know how to write.

Then I came to the part of this event that convinced me to sign up.

It was the name of the person teaching the workshop.

The one and only NYTimes Bestseller, Anne Lamott.

While I was pretty sure the content Ms. Lamott would be offering was not ideally suited to my current author's needs, I was equally confident that there would be a moment in the three-hour event in which she would deliver one of her compelling gems of wisdom that would inspire me ---help me navigate back onto a writing path toward a book for readers to enjoy.

As it turned out, Ms. Lamott's gem ended up being something borrowed from a screenwriter friend she identified as, Randy. It was stellar motivation yet surprisingly basic...perhaps what made it so meaningful.

"Tell me a story. Make me care."

That was it.

So simplistic, yet it struck a chord deep within my writer's soul.

I fervently want Anne Lamott....and anyone who reads this book ...to care about the storyline, and the characters I am tasking with delivering it.

So, I am writing again. Still with struggles but also with worthy and encouraging results. In fact yesterday, I crossed over into the author's exalted realm of actually liking this book, this storyline, these characters.

It was a day of celebration, unexpectedly capped off with a package that arrived in the mail. A 25th anniversary edition of Anne Lamott's famed book on writing, Bird by Bird.

Part of the writing workshop was the opportunity to purchase any of Ms. Lamott's books complete with a personal inscription. When I pulled open that envelope and read the words scribed in Anne Lamott's own hand, exclusively for me, I understood that her writer's workshop continues to be exactly what I need, when I need it.
#TheSecretSandCircle

Birthday Joy!

My mother was a twin born on Christmas Day 1926.
She lived for 72 years, 2 months, and 78 days which, for her generation, was a pretty good age.

These days however, people claim that 70 is the new 50. And by those standards mom left us too soon.

 I’ve spent time meandering through these thoughts recently, as in three days I will celebrate my 70th birthday. Amid my ponderings one question has continually kept popping into my mind. "I wonder if I will outlive my mother?"

My wondering was not in a morbid sense. I’m not disturbed by hitting this new decade. I actually feel more positive about life now than I did at 50, and particularly at 60.

I’m in relatively good health, I’m blessed with Irish genetics of hair that's still the original color and skin that resists wrinkles. Sure, I’ve got some sags and bags and can’t remember stuff until I give up trying, but I do my best not to let advancing changes in my body and mind define me.

Instead, I chose joy.

Joy that I live in a home where I am safe and where I can create a space that comforts my being and inspires my creativity.

Joy: that despite starting at the late age of 45, I have been able to build a successful career founded on a variety of jobs as a restaurant manager, Op-Ed Newspaper columnist, legislative media consultant and chief of staff, marketing director for both a medical practice and a retirement community, move-in coordinator for that same retirement community, a weekly talk radio host and a morning drive time co-host, and finally, finally, starting my own events and PR/media business that fills my world with clients that I deeply value and to whom I can bring value.

Joy that I have had more courage than fear in taking risks. Some of those risks didn’t turn out quite the way I imagined---the most disappointing being my candidacy for the NYS Assembly, and my marriages.

Yet the times I risked and won resulted in a wealth of life experiences that still today inspire me to continue risking, no matter my age.

The short list includes my regular commentator/special reporter work at WBFO Radio, my 64 and More year-long interview project that took me nationwide and across the ocean, introducing me to people who changed the landscape of my heart and soul. And of course, there are the vast experiences I have enjoyed over my last twenty years as an author. Writing books have led to some of the greatest rewards of my life and have helped me to realize who I am and what I am meant to do with my story telling ability.

 Joy: that I am blessed with a life filled with love---from people who support my work, friends who make my world a gentler, kinder place, and family who never fail to fill my life with laughter, loving care, and the best hugs in the world.

So this December, as I think about my mother and her Christmas Birthday, and ponder if my life will span beyond her 72 years, I will definitely feel a sense of sadness that she is gone. I will also be grateful for the many joys that have defined my life for the last six decades and look forward to all that is yet to come....for as many days that I am given.

Social Media Hack Mirrors Plot of Money or Love

When preparing to launch Money or Love, Internet Dating From the Far Side of 40, my check list included securing a location (Community Beer Works) and time (October14th 7pm,) planning a menu, and organizing an entertaining program.

When all was in place the only thing left was to promote the launch using my social media sites with more than 5,000 followers. That is until, in a plot twist along the lines of her Money or Love narrative, several of my social media pages were hacked, eliminating half of my audience.

Frustrating?

No doubt. But here’s the irony of the whole messy turn of events.

“The Money or Love storyline is of a man scamming women on internet dating sites by stealing other people’s identities and creating fake profiles. So in a way, If feels as if this hacking of my social media sites brings me full circle in the telling of this story.

However, unlike Money or Love, a Hallmark-style story of family, friendship, and love with a happy ending, the consequences of this hack is that I have lost two of my social media pages and years of content and images, not to mention my diminished ability to market my new book and promote the launch.

After more than a year of publishing delays due to COVID and other circumstances, all I can do now is enlist family, friends, and neighbors to help spread the word and hope to generate my own happy ending.

Money or Love, Internet Dating From the Far Side of 40, is a light-hearted story that unfolds between Halloween and Valentine’s Day and reflects the challenges of internet dating from the far side of 40, and the rewards of finding love at any age.

As part of the book launch event, I have planned a Money or Love Dating Game and am looking for three fun-loving and eligible WNY guys to play along.

Why, you ask?

Because the focus of Money or Love is that whether 19 or 90, we all want someone to share our life and our love, So, why not celebrate that reality with a Money or Love The Dating Game at the launch.?!

For anyone who might be interested, there is a sign-up form on my website where any over-21-and-single guy willing to play for a chance to share lunch with me, can submit his name. Then a committee of people who know me well will choose three contestants.

The night of the launch, I’ll be on one side of a screen and three guys will be on the other. Three questions and answers later, I’ll blindly choose my lunch date.

I’ll admit I was slightly nervous about it before losing my social media pages. Now I’m meditating every day to stay calm as I try to figure out how to reach out to the single men of WNY and hope that three guys step up!”

Tickets for the launch, which include a signed copy of Money or Love, finger foods, a first drink and dessert with coffee and tea, can be purchased at christinaabt.com. Tickets are also available for the launch only, as well as for a livestream of the event.

Anyone interested in participating in The Dating Game can sign up at christinaabt.com.

A portion of the proceeds from the launch and $1 from every book sold will benefit St Luke’s Mission of Mercy in Buffalo, which is featured in Money or Love.

Please help a girl and share, share, share!

Look forward to seeing you on the 14th.

ABOUT