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Guest Post: Barbara DeShong, author of Too Rich & Too Thin
Hiya All!
I'd like to welcome Barbara DeShong and thank her for writing the guest post below =)
Feel free to leave comments or ask questions after the post!
How Far Is Your Body from Perfect?
And Why You Don’t Need to Know
Barbara DeShong
Mysteryshrink.com
I'd like to welcome Barbara DeShong and thank her for writing the guest post below =)
Feel free to leave comments or ask questions after the post!
How Far Is Your Body from Perfect?
And Why You Don’t Need to Know
Mysteryshrink.com
The Story Behind the Story: TOO RICH and TOO THIN, Not an Autobiography.
On a Saturday afternoon when I was fourteen, my older sister invited me along on a guest pass to the fancy spa where she was a member. The idea appealed to me as a kid who spent fifteen to twenty hours a week riding horses, but had no experience with the more glamorous side of exercise. I donned my shorts and T-Shirt, excited and ready for my introduction to the world of women’s fitness.
On arrival, my sister greeted her spiffy pony-tailed trainer and I tagged along, spasmodically trying out a variety of machines that looked suspiciously like some I’d seen pictured as favorites of bitter European queens during the Dark Ages. But, I was having a good time, all and all. With my outdoor schedule, I wasn’t likely going to end up a regular at the spa, but I was enjoying the heck out of my guest pass.
At least I was having fun until a spandexed trainer roaming the spa with a clipboard spotted me floundering naïvely amongst the equipment and offered me a free body appraisal. Free being in my price range, I jumped on the opportunity to add value to my guest pass. The pretty lady led me into an office and whipped out a tape measure. As a fourteen year old with the above mentioned lack of spa sophistication, I sat, stood, turned, held out my arms, and offered up my sunburned neck. She was at least twenty-five and had instruments. Thus, I obeyed. Also, remember, at fourteen free was still a big draw.
Then the woman took the page off her clipboard and made entries into a calculator on her desk. After a few minutes of electronic humming, she swiveled her chair to match up her knees to mine. She knitted her forehead with great importance and proceeded to inform me that: my upper arms were 1.4 inches too big, my forearms and wrists were slightly out-of-sync, but perhaps, acceptable given my overly large hands. My waist-to-hip ratio was off by 2.4 inches, my neck was .4 inches under-sized which could be my age, and my ribcage was too large for my breast size. I lost conscious attention before she got to my thigh and lower leg deformities.
Amazingly, after informing me of the specifics of what was wrong with my body, with an absolute straight face the woman looked me straight in the eyes and asked if I would like a copy of the information. A free copy. I declined. Talk about some information a fourteen-year- old doesn’t need. Something no woman needs.
We have mirrors. We have clothes that fit and those that don’t. I couldn’t possibly think why any woman could possibly benefit from to the decimal records on how her body differs from the “ideal.”
When I chose the cover and the title for the humorous mystery, TOO RICH and TOO THIN, Not an Autobiography, I reflected on my teenage spa experience. The women who come into my psychology office, like the one who peers at me out of my mirror, tend to see a face and body worse than the reality. The cover for the book shows a regular-sized, normally saggy, middle-aged woman with un-fussed-over hairdo painting a self-portrait using a mirror. On her easel she has painted a slender woman with great hair. Studies show that people who over-estimate their physical and social desirability have more fun in life. Knowing those studies, I’ve often thought, “What if, as a psychologist, I could help people see themselves as better-looking than they are?
To approach the body image issue a bit differently through fiction, one of the lead characters is so obsessed with the way she sees herself that she has her bedroom walled in distortion mirrors reflecting a younger and slimmer woman.
Behind the mystery in TOO RICH and TOO THIN, Not an Autobiography is the story of women’s struggle with self image in an image conscious world.
Barbara DeShong is an award-winning speaker, practicing psychologist, and the author of “Too Rich and Too Thin: Not an Autobiography,” a humorous mystery novel. For more information, please visit www.mysteryshrink.com or www.toorichandtoothin.com
Tag :
author guest post,
Guest Blog: Kelly Harmon on Writing for Today’s Reader
Hiya everyone and please welcome Kelly Harmon as a guest blogger today. I would personally like to congratulate her on the release of her book "Blood Soup"
Feel free to drop a comment or two to ask questions or just say hi :)
Without further ado, here's Kelly as she writes about Writing for Today's Reader
**********************************************************************
I’m a huge fan of Tolkien, loved reading The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books as a teen, but I’ve long maintained that Tolkien would fail to get published if he attempted to do so today. What appealed to readers a decade or more ago, doesn’t apply to today’s reader.
(We don’t hold on to old technology...so why should we continue to read antiquated styles?)
In my opinion, Tolkien wrote a plodding history filled with exposition. He failed to get to the action fast enough, and used way too many words (these statements, I’m certain, rub a few readers the wrong way...apologies!) But, here’s an example:
In The Hobbit, Tolkien describes Bilbo Baggins home:
“It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel; a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats–the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of a hill–and many little round doors opened out of it...”
This goes on for quite some length.
I don’t have the time anymore to sit through pages and pages of such description. Do you? If you’re like me, you’re racing to work, picking up the kids, taking them to soccer practice, flying off to your own meetings, etc. Life is fast-paced.
So...what could Tolkien have done to appeal to modern readers?
1) He could have stepped up the pace by cutting out long descriptions and given us (mostly) the key information. A paragraph or two, three at most, would have sufficed as an introduction to Baggins and his home, then Tolkien should have gotten on with the story.
Other things he could have done: used shorter sentences to make the work read faster. Broken large paragraphs into smaller ones to visually appeal to the eye and create a sense of motion; and tightened his prose into shorter scenes.
2) Tolkien could have started with action. People enjoy thrills and danger...why else are police shows so popular on TV? 24, Law & Order, and The First 48 have us on the edge of our seat. We also like our adrenaline rushes: bungee jumping, roller coasters and free-fall rides, etc.
Tolkien does offer lots of thrills and excitement...but twenty pages into The Hobbit and Bilbo is turning down Gandolf’s adventure. Turning him down! And we suffer through ten more pages of a dinner party at his home. It’s not until Chapter Two, nearly fifty pages in, that Bilbo actually gets moving on his quest.
Most readers today want to see the action in the first few pages, if not on page one. Action drops you right into the story.
3) Tolkien could have stepped up the emotion, made us care more about the characters by showing us–not telling us– how events affected them.
We love our reality TV...couples fighting, battling weight, vying for marriage, singing their hearts out. We can’t help but become emotionally attached as we watch others’ lives unfolding before us. And we find ourselves aligned for this couple, rooting for that singer, hoping that marriage doesn’t break up over a slice of pie as the shows unfold. We care.
I’m not saying we don’t care for Tolkien’s characters, we do; but I know for me, it’s a mild sort of caring. I need more in order to relate.
Hobbits love to take a bath: they sing many-versed songs about it. But I’d rather have seen Bilbo sinking into a hot tub of water and sighing blissfully over the joy of it than endure his ten-verse song written into the prose.
In the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo is awakened by Merry at 4 a.m., making a clattering noise in order to get his attention. That would tick me off. How about you? Yet Frodo gets up without complaint and starts moving. Tolkien could have done so much with this scene.
For me, an author succeeds at making me emotionally attached if I’m crying at the end of a romance, or dreading the final battle scene, or hurt (and angry!) that someone got killed off.
Today’s author should strive to hijack the reader’s emotions as he relates the story.
Postscript: Please don’t hate me for picking on Tolkien! He’s only one example. I could find examples in many author’s books, including some of my favorites and by several authors of classics (who wrote when time wasn’t so precious to us now).
BOOK BLURB:
A tale of murder, betrayal and comeuppance.
King Theodicar of Borgund needed an heir. When his wife, Queen Piacenza, became pregnant, he’d hoped for a boy. His wife, along with her nurse, Salvagia, knew it wouldn’t be so: with each cast of the runes, Salvagia’s trusted divination tools yielded the same message: “A girl child must rule or the kingdom will fall to ruin.” The women were convinced that the child would be a girl.
When the queen finally gives birth, the nurse and the king are equally surprised. The king is faced with a terrible choice, and his decision will determine the fate of his kingdom. Will he choose wisely, or will he doom Borgund to ruin?
Feel free to drop a comment or two to ask questions or just say hi :)
Without further ado, here's Kelly as she writes about Writing for Today's Reader
**********************************************************************
I’m a huge fan of Tolkien, loved reading The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books as a teen, but I’ve long maintained that Tolkien would fail to get published if he attempted to do so today. What appealed to readers a decade or more ago, doesn’t apply to today’s reader.(We don’t hold on to old technology...so why should we continue to read antiquated styles?)
In my opinion, Tolkien wrote a plodding history filled with exposition. He failed to get to the action fast enough, and used way too many words (these statements, I’m certain, rub a few readers the wrong way...apologies!) But, here’s an example:
In The Hobbit, Tolkien describes Bilbo Baggins home:
“It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel; a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats–the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of a hill–and many little round doors opened out of it...”
This goes on for quite some length.
I don’t have the time anymore to sit through pages and pages of such description. Do you? If you’re like me, you’re racing to work, picking up the kids, taking them to soccer practice, flying off to your own meetings, etc. Life is fast-paced.
So...what could Tolkien have done to appeal to modern readers?
1) He could have stepped up the pace by cutting out long descriptions and given us (mostly) the key information. A paragraph or two, three at most, would have sufficed as an introduction to Baggins and his home, then Tolkien should have gotten on with the story.
Other things he could have done: used shorter sentences to make the work read faster. Broken large paragraphs into smaller ones to visually appeal to the eye and create a sense of motion; and tightened his prose into shorter scenes.
2) Tolkien could have started with action. People enjoy thrills and danger...why else are police shows so popular on TV? 24, Law & Order, and The First 48 have us on the edge of our seat. We also like our adrenaline rushes: bungee jumping, roller coasters and free-fall rides, etc.
Tolkien does offer lots of thrills and excitement...but twenty pages into The Hobbit and Bilbo is turning down Gandolf’s adventure. Turning him down! And we suffer through ten more pages of a dinner party at his home. It’s not until Chapter Two, nearly fifty pages in, that Bilbo actually gets moving on his quest.
Most readers today want to see the action in the first few pages, if not on page one. Action drops you right into the story.
3) Tolkien could have stepped up the emotion, made us care more about the characters by showing us–not telling us– how events affected them.
We love our reality TV...couples fighting, battling weight, vying for marriage, singing their hearts out. We can’t help but become emotionally attached as we watch others’ lives unfolding before us. And we find ourselves aligned for this couple, rooting for that singer, hoping that marriage doesn’t break up over a slice of pie as the shows unfold. We care.
I’m not saying we don’t care for Tolkien’s characters, we do; but I know for me, it’s a mild sort of caring. I need more in order to relate.
Hobbits love to take a bath: they sing many-versed songs about it. But I’d rather have seen Bilbo sinking into a hot tub of water and sighing blissfully over the joy of it than endure his ten-verse song written into the prose.
In the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo is awakened by Merry at 4 a.m., making a clattering noise in order to get his attention. That would tick me off. How about you? Yet Frodo gets up without complaint and starts moving. Tolkien could have done so much with this scene.
For me, an author succeeds at making me emotionally attached if I’m crying at the end of a romance, or dreading the final battle scene, or hurt (and angry!) that someone got killed off.
Today’s author should strive to hijack the reader’s emotions as he relates the story.
Postscript: Please don’t hate me for picking on Tolkien! He’s only one example. I could find examples in many author’s books, including some of my favorites and by several authors of classics (who wrote when time wasn’t so precious to us now).
BOOK BLURB:
A tale of murder, betrayal and comeuppance.King Theodicar of Borgund needed an heir. When his wife, Queen Piacenza, became pregnant, he’d hoped for a boy. His wife, along with her nurse, Salvagia, knew it wouldn’t be so: with each cast of the runes, Salvagia’s trusted divination tools yielded the same message: “A girl child must rule or the kingdom will fall to ruin.” The women were convinced that the child would be a girl.
When the queen finally gives birth, the nurse and the king are equally surprised. The king is faced with a terrible choice, and his decision will determine the fate of his kingdom. Will he choose wisely, or will he doom Borgund to ruin?
Tag :
author guest post,
Blog Tour: Right Where I Need to Be by Wendi Zwaduk
So, welcome to another virtual book blog tour. This week, I am featuring Wendi Zwaduk, author of "Right Where I Need to Be." Comment on the post and one lucky commenter on all the sites that's featured in the tour may win an ebook from Wendi's catalogue.
I’ve had stories in my head for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, we had a tiny little grove of lilac bushes next to our house. My overactive imagination and I would play with my Barbies in the shade of those trees. I had a fascination for replaying and retelling the General Hospital episode I’d seen that day, but I always added my own twists. However, when I grew up (or told the world I’d grown up), I put the stories away and tried to be someone responsible. Not to say that telling stories is irresponsible, but I tried to be a 9-5 worker bee and found it wasn’t for me.
Then life intervened and I had the itch to start writing down the stories in my head. Once started, I never looked back.
So what can I say? Is being a romance author all it’s cracked up to be? You know, I really don’t know. I mean, yes, there are those authors who write their first book and make a zillion dollars. Will that be me? I’d love for it to, but I realize there is a certain beauty in being practical.
Has writing a book changed my life? Nope. I still drive my great big truck to get my youngling from school, I still have oodles of laundry that needs doing, and I have animals that choose when and where they want to cooperate and if they want to leave me...er... um... presents. I should probably spend more time on the treadmill and less time daydreaming, but what’s the fun in that? My life isn’t glamorous, but I kind of like it that way. I love romance, but I’m not a girly-girl, so if I had to be glamorous, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.
But to ask if my stories parallel my life?
Yes and no.
Learning How to Bend is set in a little bitty town next to where I grew up. Crestline, Ohio is a real place one can go to visit. The Airlift Wing in Mansfield, Ohio really exists as well. I have a good friend who I used for a bit of inspiration for Seth, and yes, this friend of mine is in the Air Force. Between K and my hubby, I get all my plane and military information. The town Right Where I Need to Be is a conglomeration of a couple of towns I lived in while in college and right after. The library in the book is set up much like the library on my home town. One day I’d love to meet the inspiration for Logan, but I’d have to leave my little bitty town in Ohio to do that.
Otherwise, my life is boring compared to my books. Not that it’s a bad thing. If my life really paralleled my books, then I’d never have time to write them because I’d be, shall I say, busy. I’d love to write the next big novel, a la Charlaine Harris, Lori Foster, or even Lora Leigh. Will it happen? I don’t know. What I do know is whatever will happen is what’s meant to happen and I’m going to enjoy the ride.
So maybe the life of an author isn’t always thrilling, but it’s mine and I love it.
Sometimes the love of your life isn’t the one you expect, but he’s the one you need.
Cass Jenson needs an actor for her made for TV movie. The previous actor dropped out, leaving her stranded. Her savior shows up looking sinfully sexy and totally right for the part, but what part is she auditioning him for? Her movie or her bed?
Logan Malone needs an acting job and fast. With his string of broken hearts, his professional life lies in shambles. To resurrect his career, he must audition for a television role which could be the job of a lifetime. That is, if he can work with distraction and Cass is a major distraction with a heart of gold. Is their budding relationship enough to survive separation, lies, and a couple zany fans?
For more info on the book tour, please click HERE
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author guest post,
blog tour,