The other day my nine-year-old put on his Luke Skywalker costume and together we went to “Boo At The Zoo.” Basically it’s an event in which the LA zoo puts their animal’s food inside pumpkins and forces them to dig it out. The animals don’t seem to object too much (they frequently just smash the pumpkin to bits and get on with the eating) and it is oddly entertaining. But on that particular day there were other rare sights at the zoo as well. For instance while checking out the fossa (a Madagascan civet) my son took the opportunity to explain to a group of men exactly what subspecies the fossa belongs to, how it evolved and the geological and evolutionary history of Madagascar. The men were incredibly impressed. We ran into them a few more times as we checked out the other animals. Each time the men peppered my son with questions and expressed their feelings of “intellectual intimidation.” It wasn’t until we ran into them again at the Colobus Monkey exhibit that I bothered to take a good look at these guys and realized that one of them was Ron Howard.
After we had all gone our separate ways I told my little-Jr.-Zoologist who Ron Howard was and listed the movies that he had made: Curious George, The Da Vinci Code, Apollo 13, How The Grinch Stole Christmas and so on. “So,” I explained, “you made a big impression on a pretty famous and accomplished guy.”
My son took this in, nodded and said, “That’s really cool mom, but you know, it’s not like he’s Spielberg.”
Some people are so very hard to impress.
Anyhoo, I hope you all have a fabulous Halloween that is filled with impressive and surprising moments. And if you happen to see Spielberg amongst the trick-or-treaters tell him my son says hi.
Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS,
OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
What The Parenting Books Don't Tell You
The biggest surprise for most parents is that their kid isn’t who they expected him to be. Most parents start making parenting decisions way before they actually get pregnant. They know if they will co-sleep or not. They know what kind of disciplinarian they are going to be. More often then not they know what kind of school they’ll be sending their kid to and sometimes they even know that school’s name. They know what holidays they will be celebrating and how they will observe them. Prospective parents feel comfortable making these decisions because they know themselves. We all spend our lives observing ourselves in various situations and we can frequently predict how we will respond to specific challenges. Is it any wonder then that we allow ourselves to speculate on how we will respond to another human being?
The only problem is that perspective parents don’t know who that other human being is yet. Most moms and dads will admit that we have never loved anyone as much as we love our children. What we don’t tell you is what it’s like when someone you love that much consistently pushes you to the point of insanity. When a friend ticks us off we can take a breather. If our partner crosses the line we’re free to lose our temper or have a mini break-down without having to worry that our actions are going to affect our mate’s understanding of positive conflict resolution. If we don’t like the way a sibling is running her life we can (with effort) resign ourselves to the fact that it is her life.
But when our kid engages in behavior we believe is unseemly it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame. Yes, it’s still their life but we gave them that life. It’s inevitable that they’ll inherit some of our physical features but we also want to make sure they inherent our values and priorities. Furthermore we want them to share our likes and dislikes. But what so many of the parenting books forget to tell us is that children, from birth, are individuals. Yes, upbringing is important but different individuals will react dramatically differently to almost identical experiences. Any sports fanatic who gave birth to a child who would happily trade a baseball glove for a set of paper dolls will tell you that parental influence will only go so far.
This is an issue that always comes up for me in the month of October. I love Halloween. I always have. When I had my son I expected that my enjoyment of the holiday would enhance. I envisioned myself helping him get dressed up and taking him to Halloween event after Halloween event. I saw us decorating the house and trick-or-treating through the neighborhoods with the most elaborate decorations.
But my son isn’t all that interested in Halloween. Hanukkah? Yeah, he’s very into that, from the jelly donuts to the songs, to the gifts. New Years is fun too. But Ghosts and goblins? He’d really rather spend the day at a museum, thank you very much. He doesn’t like anything spooky so, as far as he’s concerned, there is no such thing as spooky fun.
And what about the candy, you ask? I’ll never forget taking my son trick-or-treating when he was four. After about seven stops he turned to me, thrust his goody bag in my face and asked, “Why are we still doing this? We have enough candy!”
It is my opinion that this unnatural distrust of excess totally goes against the spirit of capitalism. As a child I approached trick-or-treating the same way womanizers approach the task of getting phone numbers from multiple women: sure, I knew I wasn't going to get around to unwrapping every Dum-Dum inside my plastic pumpkin but knowing that I had been able to collect so many gave me a heady feeling of accomplishment.
And while we’re at it, why does my boy respond so well to that touchy-feely teaching style used in certain alternative schools? I never liked that stuff, not even when I was in preschool!
But my son isn’t me and to be honest he’s not the kid I thought he was going to be when I was pregnant. That’s not a bad thing. In a million years I never imagined I would have a child who would, through his enthusiasm and knowledge, instill in me a passion for science that I never really had before. Nor did I expect a boy who would be able to teach me about the wonders of Greek mythology by the time he was 9. I didn’t expect him to be…well, him. He, like every other kid, is more than a child. He’s an individual. I’ve had to dramatically readjust my well-laid parenting plans to accommodate that little fact. Even for a go-with-the-flow-girl like myself that has been tough at times. I have done almost everything I said I wouldn’t do as a parent. My son isn’t attending the school I thought he would attend and our recreational activities are different than what I expected them to be. I have not reacted to the challenges the way I anticipated because my planned reactions simply aren’t effective considering my son’s nature. It’s also true that for every lesson I’ve taught him he’s inadvertently taught me three. That’s the thing about individuals. They surprise you, they challenge you, they make your life interesting. When it comes to the individuals who are our children we can either adjust in a way that allows for the success of both child and parent or we can open ourselves up to depression and a host of psychosomatic illnesses. But if we do adjust the rewards are pretty phenomenal.
Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS,
OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
The only problem is that perspective parents don’t know who that other human being is yet. Most moms and dads will admit that we have never loved anyone as much as we love our children. What we don’t tell you is what it’s like when someone you love that much consistently pushes you to the point of insanity. When a friend ticks us off we can take a breather. If our partner crosses the line we’re free to lose our temper or have a mini break-down without having to worry that our actions are going to affect our mate’s understanding of positive conflict resolution. If we don’t like the way a sibling is running her life we can (with effort) resign ourselves to the fact that it is her life.
But when our kid engages in behavior we believe is unseemly it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame. Yes, it’s still their life but we gave them that life. It’s inevitable that they’ll inherit some of our physical features but we also want to make sure they inherent our values and priorities. Furthermore we want them to share our likes and dislikes. But what so many of the parenting books forget to tell us is that children, from birth, are individuals. Yes, upbringing is important but different individuals will react dramatically differently to almost identical experiences. Any sports fanatic who gave birth to a child who would happily trade a baseball glove for a set of paper dolls will tell you that parental influence will only go so far.
This is an issue that always comes up for me in the month of October. I love Halloween. I always have. When I had my son I expected that my enjoyment of the holiday would enhance. I envisioned myself helping him get dressed up and taking him to Halloween event after Halloween event. I saw us decorating the house and trick-or-treating through the neighborhoods with the most elaborate decorations.
But my son isn’t all that interested in Halloween. Hanukkah? Yeah, he’s very into that, from the jelly donuts to the songs, to the gifts. New Years is fun too. But Ghosts and goblins? He’d really rather spend the day at a museum, thank you very much. He doesn’t like anything spooky so, as far as he’s concerned, there is no such thing as spooky fun.
And what about the candy, you ask? I’ll never forget taking my son trick-or-treating when he was four. After about seven stops he turned to me, thrust his goody bag in my face and asked, “Why are we still doing this? We have enough candy!”
It is my opinion that this unnatural distrust of excess totally goes against the spirit of capitalism. As a child I approached trick-or-treating the same way womanizers approach the task of getting phone numbers from multiple women: sure, I knew I wasn't going to get around to unwrapping every Dum-Dum inside my plastic pumpkin but knowing that I had been able to collect so many gave me a heady feeling of accomplishment.
And while we’re at it, why does my boy respond so well to that touchy-feely teaching style used in certain alternative schools? I never liked that stuff, not even when I was in preschool!
But my son isn’t me and to be honest he’s not the kid I thought he was going to be when I was pregnant. That’s not a bad thing. In a million years I never imagined I would have a child who would, through his enthusiasm and knowledge, instill in me a passion for science that I never really had before. Nor did I expect a boy who would be able to teach me about the wonders of Greek mythology by the time he was 9. I didn’t expect him to be…well, him. He, like every other kid, is more than a child. He’s an individual. I’ve had to dramatically readjust my well-laid parenting plans to accommodate that little fact. Even for a go-with-the-flow-girl like myself that has been tough at times. I have done almost everything I said I wouldn’t do as a parent. My son isn’t attending the school I thought he would attend and our recreational activities are different than what I expected them to be. I have not reacted to the challenges the way I anticipated because my planned reactions simply aren’t effective considering my son’s nature. It’s also true that for every lesson I’ve taught him he’s inadvertently taught me three. That’s the thing about individuals. They surprise you, they challenge you, they make your life interesting. When it comes to the individuals who are our children we can either adjust in a way that allows for the success of both child and parent or we can open ourselves up to depression and a host of psychosomatic illnesses. But if we do adjust the rewards are pretty phenomenal.
Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS,
OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Love Your Writing!
I have a confession: I love my reader emails. Writing a book isn't like performing a play. There's no one there to applaud. I can't look past the spotlight and see if all the seats are filled. Instead I wait six months for my publisher to tell me how many of you bought my books six months ago. I'm serious, that's how frequently authors get updates about their book sales and that's how delayed those updates are. So while I don't want you to write me unless you're genuinely moved to do so (not because you read this blog) I always take the messages that I do get to be good news.
But every once in a while one of you will write me an email that will actually bring tears to my eyes. I've heard from a mother of a mentally ill child, a woman whose husband is in Afghanistan, a guy whose friend was just diagnosed with AIDS and they've all written to thank me. They thanked me for making them laugh at a time when there wasn't much in their life to laugh about. If I was a politician I'd say that these emails are "humbling" but in truth they make me both grateful and proud. Sex, Murder And A Double Latte started out as a means of emotional escape, not for any particular reader but for me. I needed the escape. I needed to laugh. And now I'm grateful that I was able to turn that escape into a career and I'm proud that I was able to turn my personal escape into a refuge for others.
Then there are the emails I get from people who have read So Much For My Happy Ending. Those are the ones that elicit the most emotion from me. Those letters are almost always from people who have loved someone who is bipolar. Others are from people who are themselves bipolar and are just coming to grips with how they hurt the people closest to them while they were in their manic state and a few of those emails are from psychiatric nurses. In addition to all that I've gotten a significant number of emails from women who have recently been in emotionally abusive relationships with men who act a little crazy despite the fact that they haven't been diagnosed with anything. I've even heard from a woman who told me that after she read my book she broke off her relationship with her boyfriend because she realized that she wasn't helping anyone by staying in a bad situation. What strikes me most about these emails is that there are so many of them and yet So Much For My Happy Ending, which was barely publicized, didn't sell nearly as well as my other books. So that means a larger percentage of people who read that book wrote me than those who read the books in the Sophie series. And the one thing all those emails say is that in my book I have described their life. They tell me that the book gave them a new perspective on their situation. I've read a few online reviews that question the realism of the book but I don't get those complaints from those who have lived through similar situations. In fact most of those people assume that the book is a fictionalized memoir because, to quote more than one email, "no one could have written this so accurately without living it."
They're right. I did live it. Not all of it of course. The mother of my protagonist bears little resemblance to my own mother and my marriage lasted a lot longer than my protagonist's as well. But honestly I can't say that events in my own life didn't inspire that novel. My marriage ended seven years ago and in many ways I'm still recovering from it. My ex hasn't recovered at all. I'm constantly wondering if he will ever step off the path of self-destruction and save himself. But that's not the point of this post. My point is that your emails touch me. I know that there are times when it takes me forever to respond but I do read them all. Not only do they motivate me and inspire me but they actually give me a sense of validation. You are the reason that I continue to write the Sophie books and I hope that the next book makes you smile and makes you laugh and gives you the escape that we all occasionally need and you most definitely deserve.
Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS,
OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
But every once in a while one of you will write me an email that will actually bring tears to my eyes. I've heard from a mother of a mentally ill child, a woman whose husband is in Afghanistan, a guy whose friend was just diagnosed with AIDS and they've all written to thank me. They thanked me for making them laugh at a time when there wasn't much in their life to laugh about. If I was a politician I'd say that these emails are "humbling" but in truth they make me both grateful and proud. Sex, Murder And A Double Latte started out as a means of emotional escape, not for any particular reader but for me. I needed the escape. I needed to laugh. And now I'm grateful that I was able to turn that escape into a career and I'm proud that I was able to turn my personal escape into a refuge for others.
Then there are the emails I get from people who have read So Much For My Happy Ending. Those are the ones that elicit the most emotion from me. Those letters are almost always from people who have loved someone who is bipolar. Others are from people who are themselves bipolar and are just coming to grips with how they hurt the people closest to them while they were in their manic state and a few of those emails are from psychiatric nurses. In addition to all that I've gotten a significant number of emails from women who have recently been in emotionally abusive relationships with men who act a little crazy despite the fact that they haven't been diagnosed with anything. I've even heard from a woman who told me that after she read my book she broke off her relationship with her boyfriend because she realized that she wasn't helping anyone by staying in a bad situation. What strikes me most about these emails is that there are so many of them and yet So Much For My Happy Ending, which was barely publicized, didn't sell nearly as well as my other books. So that means a larger percentage of people who read that book wrote me than those who read the books in the Sophie series. And the one thing all those emails say is that in my book I have described their life. They tell me that the book gave them a new perspective on their situation. I've read a few online reviews that question the realism of the book but I don't get those complaints from those who have lived through similar situations. In fact most of those people assume that the book is a fictionalized memoir because, to quote more than one email, "no one could have written this so accurately without living it."
They're right. I did live it. Not all of it of course. The mother of my protagonist bears little resemblance to my own mother and my marriage lasted a lot longer than my protagonist's as well. But honestly I can't say that events in my own life didn't inspire that novel. My marriage ended seven years ago and in many ways I'm still recovering from it. My ex hasn't recovered at all. I'm constantly wondering if he will ever step off the path of self-destruction and save himself. But that's not the point of this post. My point is that your emails touch me. I know that there are times when it takes me forever to respond but I do read them all. Not only do they motivate me and inspire me but they actually give me a sense of validation. You are the reason that I continue to write the Sophie books and I hope that the next book makes you smile and makes you laugh and gives you the escape that we all occasionally need and you most definitely deserve.
Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS,
OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
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