Domestic Violence: The Dirty Little Secret

Most of my friends are aware that back in late July I started a new job as the receptionist at Wings of Hope Family Crisis Center, which is a counseling center and women's shelter focusing on the problem of domestic violence and sexual assault. I've been with WOH for nearly three months now, and it's no secret to anyone how much I love my job. I've finally found something where I feel like what I do makes a difference in people's lives. It feeds my soul.

October 1st marked the first day of the observance of Domestic Violence Awareness Month when we at WOH will be involved in leading the community in all kinds of activities and events that bring attention to the problem of domestic violence and how it impacts our community. Thursday evening, October 3rd, I participated in our 7th annual Fashion Show to kick off the month's awareness campaign. It was a free event for the community and a way for us to get people thinking and talking about domestic violence. Several of our local retailers participated along with students and faculty from the Oklahoma State University Department of Design, Housing and Merchandising. 

We were told not to be surprised if someone came to us during the month and shared their story of how domestic violence impacted them. Today it happened to me; I received a private message from a friend from high school who was moved to tell me her story. She gave me permission to share it because she wants people to know that it doesn't have to destroy your life, that there is hope and healing. 

She told me of how her step dad would beat her, her mother, and her sisters on a regular basis and

that when her mother would call the police, she would be lectured on how not to provoke him (what is now known as "victim blaming"). She said that she would try to do everything "perfectly" so that her step dad wouldn't get mad at her and beat her. They never knew what would send him into a rage. One night he got so violent that her mother locked all of them in the bedroom and then helped her and her sisters escape out the window. She said that they all walked barefoot in the night down a gravel road into town. They were terrified if they heard a car driving on the gravel and they would jump into the brush on the side of the road to hide, thinking that it might be him coming after them. 

Her mother later divorced him after she and her sisters were adults. She told me that this experience damaged her, but that she refused to let it defeat her. She is a strong and determined woman who made a career for herself in the nursing field where she is a compassionate caretaker who helps sick people heal. She was also able to break the cycle of violence by choosing a kind and caring mate for herself, a man who loves, respects, and values her for the beautiful woman she is. All of this was going on in my friend's life while we were in school together and I never knew. It was her dirty little secret. 

I'm so grateful that my friend shared her story with me and that she gave me permission to tell it. These stories need to be told so that people will know that this problem is real and it's in their

neighborhood. The girl who sits next to you in English class, the woman who works in your department, the shy little boy you teach in Sunday School whose parents seem so nice - they're all victims and they need for you to speak out. 

It's time to out the dirty little secret so the healing can begin. 

Writer's Discouragement

I admit it. For the past several days I have been caught up in a funk of discouragement. I learned not too long ago that another novel with my book's subject has been published through a big house publisher. And although it appears from the previews and the reviews that have already been posted on Amazon.com that it doesn't even come close to matching the quality and depth of research, writing, or story-telling that mine does, because it is through a legacy publisher and not an independent, in the less-than-two months since its publication, it has already surpassed mine in sales and number of Amazon reviews. That's the advantage of a legacy publisher: Marketing. An author who is picked up by a big house publisher is guaranteed a mass market that an independent doesn't have access to.

Yet, if I were to try and get mine published through a big house, I would have to find an agent and then I would be subject to all the cuts, maximum word count requirements, and changes that the publisher would demand and then my story would be little more than a cheap paperback romance novel--just like the one that's getting all the marketing and crappy Amazon reviews. I won't compromise my standards to meet  some publisher's bottom line demands.

Damn, it's discouraging to be an independent author in a niche market stuck out in the middle of nowhere with few connections. Just damn.

Manifesting the Dream

Almost from the beginning of our relationship, Steph and I have dreamed of owning a home in the country that would be suitable for hosting an artist's retreat. It, in fact, is the primary reason we started our non-profit, Allabreve.org. At this point, our primary focus has been upon author support services and providing websites at a low cost to artists and arts organizations, but we've always had a dream of providing support to musicians, artists, writers, and actors with funding and retreats that encourage them to do what they do best. With the arts on the austerity chopping block in most governments and with public school budgets slashed to the bare-bones minimum, people in the private sector must move up to the forefront and provide educational opportunities and funding

to help artists realize their talents and promote the arts in a world that is literally starving for them.

Recently, we've been sensing the "call" to step-up our efforts towards manifesting our dream into reality, but to do so is going to require contact with the right people--those with the same vision as ours and who either have the money to make it happen or who know investors who have

money and the desire to be a part of something like this. We do know many "right" people in many "right" places who very likely could put us in contact with the ones who could help us turn this dream into a reality. That's why I'm posting this entry today. It's one way of putting out the call. The universe knows what we desire. We're ready now to make this thing happen!

Announcing Alla Breve Books

Steph's and my new publishing company. Follow this link to our site!

Another dream realized: Alla Breve Publishing

In the early 20th century, a group of English writers and literary enthusiasts came together and formed a literary club known as The Bloomsbury Group. Its best known members were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey. Because their writing centered on controversial subjects and was on the cutting edge of literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality, many of them were shunned by the established publishers of the day. So in order for them to publish their writing, they pooled their resources and purchased their own printing press and put it in Woolf's basement.

Now I'm not comparing Steph or myself to the likes of any of the incredible or influential writers listed above, but it is no secret to many people that Steph and I have been frustrated by the state of the publishing industry for quite some time now. In the last twenty years or so, it has become quite evident that mass marketing and big profit are the greatest concerns of the publishing industry, and publishers only use writers as a means to that end, caring little for quality, content, subject matter, or originality. Now, snot-nosed kids with MBA's in business marketing serve as screeners, and if a book isn't "marketable" or doesn't have bestseller potential, the manuscript is flatly rejected no matter the quality of the story or writing. In Steph's case, she put over 15 years into the research, writing, and shopping out of her novel, Night Music: The Memoirs of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, and sixty-some-odd rejection letters later, it is still sitting on her hard drive unpublished, despite the fact that virtually every rejection letter came with the comments that it was a wonderful story that was beautifully written. The only reason it was refused in each and every case was that they didn't "know how to market it". She has now become so frustrated with the same old rejections, and so tired of re-writing the story over and over to please the publishers, that she has abandoned Night Music to write a trilogy of historical fiction novels based on the rock & roll scene in 1960's through 1980's England.

Because I have watched the frustration and heartbreak that Steph has gone through with Night Music, (and have had my own heart broken over it along with her), I knew that when I began writing So Faithful a Heart that it was most likely it would be doomed to the same fate. So about half into the writing of the novel, I made the decision to self-publish it. I had been introduced to the online print-on-demand publishing company, Lulu.com, through several other writers whose books Steph and I had read (and found to be outstanding quality), that were about obscure subjects on which standard publishers wouldn't take a chance. Because Steph and I are of limited financial means, we were unable to afford a vanity press (which we didn't want to use anyway), so I was excited to learn that I could publish my book through Lulu without any upfront money nor would I be required to purchase hundreds of copies of my book only to have them sitting in my garage rotting because I couldn't get rid of them. So in November of last year, when my book was completed, I published the first edition with Lulu and put it out there in a limited market format to test and see how it would be accepted. To say the least, I was blown away by the response! It sold around 50 copies in less than six weeks and the feedback was incredible. People loved the subject, the story, the writing, and everything about it. I was given comments such as "I can't put it down", and "I don't normally read love stories, but this one is fantastic",  or "I stayed up all night so I could finish it and then I cried myself to sleep!"  So after such favorable response, I decided to write an expanded version and publish it "for real" with an ISBN number that would allow it to be distributed and marketed internationally.  In the meantime, Steph had begun seriously writing her trilogy and we realized that this writing thing could actually lead to something bigger.

We have always dreamed of one day owning our own publishing company, but we figured that it would be too cost prohibitive. But what we didn't understand was that what we were doing with our books by writing them and publishing them through Lulu was actually the beginnings of our own company. We already own a web design company, Alla Breve Design for the Arts,  so why not incorporate a publishing branch under the same name and use Lulu as our printer & distributor? So when it came time for me to publish the second edition of So Faithful a Heart, I published it under Alla Breve, and thus our company was born!  In the near future, we plan to purchase our own block of ISBN numbers (which is not as expensive as one might think), and publish Steph's trilogy in the same manner, only with our own ISBN, using Lulu as the printer and distributor. We're planning to expand our company to include other genres and to invite other writers to submit their work to be published through Alla Breve, turning it into a small publishing company that specializes in "niche market" writing in which the "big" publishing companies aren't interested.

So there it is--another dream realized.

You write what you know

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.  ~ Benjamin Franklin

Announcing a second edition

It has been nearly three months since I published the first edition of So Faithful a Heart and I have received nothing but glowing reviews. Since this is my first novel, I published it without a registered ISBN number (yes, there is an ISBN assigned to the title, but it isn't registered), so that there would be limited distribution in order that I might keep better tabs on the number of copies out there and get better feedback on it. As I said, thus far, the reviews have been fantastic--people love the story, the characters, the setting, everything. However I have gotten the valid criticism that my readers feel I rushed a bit through the ending and therefore the end didn't contain the emotional impact that the rest of the book had. And since Steph is now deep in the throes of writing her second novel, With a Bullet, she has been learning some tricks of the craft and passing them on to me. Since I published my book back in November, I have learned the writing editor's adage, "show, don't tell" and how to eliminate unnecessary words and phrases that only serve to slow the reader and bog the story down, and now I want to go back and apply them to this novel. So I am now in the process of re-editing and rewriting So Faithful a Heart, to be published as an expanded, second edition, hopefully in about a month. And unlike the first edition, after this one is published, it will be available internationally.

For those who have not yet purchased a copy and are interested in it, I encourage you to wait for the next edition, and for those of you who have already purchased it and read it, I will be happy to offer you the second edition, at cost (no royalties to me), once it is published.

Jumping back into the fire

It was just a year ago that I began writing So Faithful a Heart (January 13th, 2009, to be exact), and now, a year later, I'm jumping back in again and beginning the background research for my second novel, Rising From the Ashes, of which I am not going to reveal any details just yet. Several have asked if it was going to be another novel about Mozart and my answer to that question is not per se. Mozart figures prominently in the lives of two of the characters, but the story isn't about him, nor is it set in the 18th century, nor is it an historical fiction. I began the character analysis of the first character last night and will probably spend the remainder of the week doing that for three main characters before I begin outlining the plot. It feels good to be writing again.

The Author becomes the Marketer

It's true. One of the hard facts of publishing now days is that no matter if you're published by a firm or self-published, the author is responsible for a lion's share of the marketing of a book. I have learned that the term for this is "flogging" a book. I'm not sure where this term originates, as I am completely new to this.

The good news is that in a little over six weeks since my book has published I have sold 38 copies! The bad news is that virtually every one of those copies has gone to someone I know. BUT that is all about to change, for just yesterday I learned that So Faithful a Heart is now available for purchase on both Amazon and Ebay! This will greatly increase my market and since Ebay accepts PayPal and ships internationally (a feature that is not offered for my book on Amazon), that means that my market has expanded tremendously!

In the meantime I am looking for reviewers for my Amazon page. If you have read So Faithful a Heart and have an account on Amazon.com, I would be most grateful if you would go there and write a review. The more the merrier and the more recognition it will get!

The first book signings and a sense of accomplishment

Thursday afternoon, while I was at work, I received a very excited email from Steph, announcing that the first big shipment of So Faithful a Heart that was ordered in a group order had arrived!  When I announced it at work, one of my co-workers exclaimed, "Ooooooh! Go home and get them!" Since our little house is only blocks from where I work, I did as she suggested and picked up the books that had been ordered by several of my co-workers and took them back to the office. There I signed them and passed them out to those who had purchased one. Then on Thursday evening, I sat down after dinner and signed the remaining copies.

Last Sunday evening we had our dear friend, Dr. Allen Scott (who was the chair of my graduate committee when I was in graduate school several years back and has since become one of our dearest friends and is like family to us), over for dinner. It was Allen, who when he saw my passion for the subject, suggested that I do my graduate thesis on Nancy Storace and her relationship with Mozart. If it hadn't have been for Allen's insight and observations so many years ago, this book probably would never have happened. When I handed him a copy of the book, he beamed with pride for his former student, and asked, "So how did it feel when you held it in your hands for the first time?" I told him that it was indescribable. "There's a sense of  personal accomplishment that I've never sensed over anything else in my entire life!" He just smiled, and said that he was really proud of me.

I can't believe it's real!

So my copy of my first novel, So Faithful a Heart, arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon. (And yes, I'm still pinching myself!) When I opened the box and held it in my hands for the first time, I almost cried. I really did it! I really wrote and published a book! There were a few small issues with it (miscalculation on the spine so the wording was off-center and the font on the chapter heading in chapter seven didn't imbed for some reason), but those issues have been corrected so anyone who orders a copy at this point won't see them.

This novel was inspired by my master's research thesis on the life and career of Mozart's original Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), Anna "Nancy" Storace. After I wrote my thesis, I realized that this story was so interesting, so exciting, and so beautiful that I couldn't believe that no one had told it. It took me nine additional years of background research on the lives of Mozart and Nancy as well as 18th century Europe, 18th century England and Catholic Europe, the French Revolution, and anything else on the 18th century I could find and read. Finally, on a cold day last January I decided to quit putting it off and I just started writing. I never dreamed that less than a year later I would be holding it as a book in my hands.

Last night I told Steph that I've finally rescued Nancy Storace out of the cobwebs of Mozart history, vindicated her, and given her the rightful place that I feel she deserves in the Mozart story. She had gotten lost, and it was shame because her/their story is incredible and adds an important perspective to Mozart's life that authors and historians have missed througout the last two centuries. (I have my theories as to why they were missed, and I explore that in the Afterword in my book.)

So many thanks go to so many people for this, but none so much as go to my beloved Steph, who without her novel, Night Music, and without her knowledge and expertise in so many areas, as well as her assistance in so many of the technical aspects of this project, this book would never have happened. I kept telling her that her name deserved to be on the cover of this every bit as much as mine, but she refused to accept that place, giving it to me alone. But that's how she is, and is only one of the many reasons why I love her so much.

And so here I am. I've accomplished something that only a few can say that they've accomplished: I'm an author!

So Faithful a Heart: The Love Story of Nancy Storace and Wolfgang Mozart on Lulu.com

The day has arrived!  I have published my novel and it is ready for purchase on Lulu.com!  Go to THIS LINK to purchase your copy! 

Here is an excerpt:

It was only a short walk from the Trattnerhof to the Burgtheater, just a few yards to the square, and across to the Hofburg. They arrived at the stage door, where the guard recognized them and allowed them passage within.
     The backstage area was dimly lit by some sputtering candles in sconces on the walls. Nancy's dressing room was only a few short feet down a narrow corridor, so she asked Mozart to wait for her while she went to retrieve the score. She took a candle from out of a small wooden box lying by the backstage entrance and lit it off of one of the wall sconces.
     Mozart loved the look and smells of the theater backstage. The aroma of dusty velvet mixed with sawdust, human sweat and stage make-up captivated his innate sensuality, and the thick, red velvet curtains reminded him of the draperies that hung in the bordellos he'd visited once or twice. Perhaps it was also because of the many clandestine encounters he had witnessed between so many actors and actresses, backed up against the walls or hiding behind heavy, velvet curtains, unashamedly indulging their heated passions between acts. Whatever the reason, being backstage always aroused him, especially when he was in the company of a beautiful woman.
     In only a few minutes Nancy made her way back up to the corridor to where Mozart stood waiting. Her hair was piled loosely on the top of her head with curls cascading partially down her back and little wisps softly framing her heart-shaped face. Her golden skin reflected the dim candlelight, giving her a soft, almost iridescent glow.
     "She looks good enough to eat!" he thought. He still couldn't separate his thoughts from their earlier conversation, and despite his claims that he was concerned mostly for her safety, he couldn't escape the vivid pictures in his imagination of the wedding night, and what would take place between Fisher and Nancy in the sanctity and privacy of the bedchamber. The thought of Fisher touching her was almost more than he could bear.
     "Is there nothing you can do to prevent this marriage?" He hesitated a moment and looked around nervously before he spoke again. "I can't stand the idea of Fisher's hands on you," he exclaimed.
     Nancy was taken aback by his sudden outburst. She stepped back slightly and peered into his eyes. They pierced into her, and she was mesmerized....

Blog Neglect

Yes I admit it. I'm suffering from blog neglect, but not without good reason, for I am now in the final throes of publishing my novel, So Faithful a Heart: The Love Story of Nancy Storace & Wolfgang Mozart and I am looking at a publishing date by the end of the week and a release date in a week or so afterward. So please bear with me as I get this project finished up. I should be back in full swing in a few weeks!

"So Faithful a Heart": the reviews are coming in!

So Faithful a Heart: The Love Story of Nancy Storace and Wolfgang Mozart by K. Lynette Erwin skillfully draws the reader into the often mysterious and romanticized world of 18th century composer, Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, and his operatic leading lady, Anna Storace. The story is told mostly from the point of view of Storace, called Nancy by her family and friends, as she works as an opera singer and actress under contract with Emperor Joseph II. She is drawn into an intense, and sometimes tumultuous, affair with the married composer that leads to scandal, heartbreak and hope and explores how far soul mates are willing to go for one another.

Erwin's masterful grasp on not only the lives and personalities of her characters but the atmosphere and intricacies of 18th century Vienna immerses the reader in a world that engages and pulls at the heartstrings. Her ability to write a defined historical piece and still inject modern relevance into the characters and plot is sure to reach a wider audience than the average historical romance novel. The romance is realistic, as is the world of 18th century music and theater, and readers will easily find themselves rooting for Mozart and Storace to find peace and happiness against all the odds. Erwin manages to humanize the Herculean legend of Mozart and displays his flaws, humor, passion and genius with the vulnerability of a man struggling to cope with the mistakes in his life. Storace is a likable heroine with a healthy balance of fire and the demure expectations of women in her time. They make an unstoppable pair.

Music and theater enthusiasts, history enthusiasts, romance readers, and Mozart and Storace fans will all greatly enjoy So Faithful a Heart. –J. Jewett, author, Unveiled

It's getting close!

My book is with the editor as I write this.  She contacted me last week and said that she was going to give it a second read and finish her corrections and suggestions and then send it back to me to make my final edits and rewrites.  Steph is in the process of building the marketing website and will be writing the Foreword, (I wrote the Afterword last week). I have lined up a couple of fellow writers, (and possibly a third), to read the book and write some reviews which will be posted on the marketing website.  After that is all accomplished, it will be sent to Lulu to be formatted and the cover added, and then will most likely be available for release sometime in mid November.  I was really hoping for an October 27th release date, which would have been Nancy Storace's 244th birthday, but that isn't within the realms of possibility at this point. 

I'll keep everyone posted on the exact release date and the opening of the website.  Thanks to all who have been so supportive and encouraging during this process.  You don't know what it means to me!

The Book Cover

Steph made a couple of mock-ups for the cover of my novel last night and this is the one I've chosen.  It's really happening!  I'm about to become an author! 

Click on the image to enlarge.

It's getting down to the wire!

Several months ago I invited Steph to collaborate with me on my novel--to add some of her research, expertise, and knowledge into the mix and thus we began to work on the project together.  Now I'm happy to announce that this weekend I finished it and will, in the next few weeks, be in the midst of the final edits, a final reading, and then I'll be self-publishing it with the on-demand publishing company, Lulu.com, under the title of So Faithful a Heart: The love story of Wolfgang Mozart and Nancy Storace.

I have a wonderful sense of accomplishment today.

If I could be anywhere, doing anything...

 

...this is what I'd be doing.

Update on the novel

I haven't made any entries about my book on my blog lately, not because I haven't been working on it, but because it has undergone some transitions over the past several weeks and I wasn't ready to disclose what was going on with it.

Last month I asked Steph to join in as a co-author, seeing as a great deal of the story and research for it can be attributed to her work for her own novel, Night Music, which is the story of Mozart as told by the composer "himself" in memoir fashion. At present, Steph is going through what I have already written and is editing, adding, cutting, and re-working and as each chapter is finished, it is being posted on a private blog, (by invitation only), for selected readers to read and comment on. Thus far we've received some excellent comments. People are responding well to the story, which those familiar with the Mozart story will recognize, but from an entirely different angle and perspective,adding of course, Nancy's story into the mix, with which few will be familiar. This book isn't really about Mozart or Nancy, but their love story. The love story is the central character.

We're excited about it because it's a fresh take on what can often be viewed as a worn-out story with nothing new to offer. Never underestimate the power of a love story!

Blow, blow, thou spring wind

I had such grandiose plans for my writing today! I was going to drive out to Couch Park, one of the most lovely spots in town, and plug my laptop into one of the pavilion outlets and spend the afternoon doing rewrites on my book in the shade of the many large oaks, amongst the chattering squirrels, and the chirping of the birds. But alas, the weather refused to cooperate with my wishes as the Oklahoma winds are blowing in a thunderstorm. I guess I'll have to stay inside to write.