The Art of Growing Older by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

 

 

 

https://books2read.com/The-Art-of-Growing-Older

https://www.bwlpublishing.ca/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

I am 75 and my husband is 77. In August we headed north, in our motorhome, on a three week trip to Tuktoyaktuk, NWT, Canada, to see the Arctic Ocean. I put my feet in the ocean while my husband dipped his shoe.

Some people think we were too old to have made the trip. I think I am never too old to do anything.

This book tells how I went from thinking 40 was old to realizing that I could do anything at any age. It just takes attitude and ability both of which I have in abundance.

And I am not the only one. My mother was 86 when she went to Europe with my sister and climbed the 251 winding steps of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I was on a bus tour through Spain, Portugal, and Morocco and one of the other passengers was a 94 year old woman who was with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. On one of the walking tours we took we made over 22,000 steps. She kept up with everyone because she had the attitude and ability to do so. Everyone can do the same. Age should not stop anyone from doing anything, because age is just a number. And a number shouldn't rule our lives.

Here is the blurb from the back cover:

After her ninth grade class served tea to a bus load of visiting seniors who were to be the students adopted grandparents for the afternoon, Joan Donaldson-Yarmey decided she didn’t want to grow old and have to be adopted by someone. So at the age of fifteen she resolved that she would end her life when she reached sixty-five.

Over the years, Joan read books, surfed the Internet, and watched documentaries about aging and learned that human beings have the ability to live to be over one hundred years of age and to be healthy and alert while doing it. This book is her journey from that decision at age fifteen to realizing that she didn’t have to grow old, that at a certain age some sick, decrepit person would not step into her shoes and take over her life. She is now in her mid-seventies and so healthy that she never gets any sympathy from her family and friends because she has nothing, health wise, to complain about. She has no illnesses, no aches or pains, and takes no medication, not even ASA or ibuprofen.

Read about Joan’s journey in what she playfully calls her futuristic aging memoir and find out what it is that she believes is her fountain of aging.

Changing Horses by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

After writing ten historical romance novels and three contemporary western romances, I am itching to try my hand at writing a cozy mystery.

So why change horses in mid-stream? Much sage advice has been written about whether an author should change genres. Although I have enjoyed every bored lord and feisty heroine in my historical romances and sexy ranchers and their ladies in my contemporary westerns, my go-to reading for light relief has always been mysteries and, more recently, cozy mysteries.  

Part of building an author brand is promising your readers sure-fire content and delivering it, so for an author, changing genres might be the kiss of death as there is a chance of losing readers. In the past, it was almost a must-do to have a pen name for a separate genre—think Nora Roberts writing mysteries as J.D. Robb—which might mean a workload that would daunt many authors. Two names might require two websites, newsletters, e-mail addresses or whatever media platform the author prefers.

However, this isn’t always the case. Jude Devereux writes historical romance with a side of paranormal and mystery under her name. Carolyn Brown and Alyssa Cole both write historical and contemporary romances. In these instances, and I’m sure there are many more, the author is the brand. If readers like your work, I think they will follow you out of curiosity, if nothing else.

Whether romance, paranormal, YA, sci-fi and more, every story contains the who, what, why, where, and when writing principle of journalism, which carries over into all fiction. Who are the leading characters? What are they doing, specifically what is being done to whom? Why is it being done? Where does that old road lead, or where will the spaceship land? When did XYZ become a vampire, or did ABC know FGH was a werewolf?

The classic cozy mystery format is that a body is found, often on the first page but usually in the first chapter, an amateur sleuth investigates and reveals the murderer. 

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It sounds simple, but starting with the problem is like working backwards compared to my previous books. What I like most about cozy mysteries is that there is no bloody description of gunshot or knife wounds or other causes of death. Sometimes, there is no description at all, only the information that someone has been found dead. This cuts out much research into weapons and the feasible wounds they produce—likewise, any police or legal protocols. A cozy mystery is not a police procedural, so there is little need for more than a detective on hand or a detective inspector and his sergeant, as in the Midsomer Murders TV series.

I have several more historical romances that I could write, but thankfully, my publisher has accepted my proposal for three cozy mysteries. I have my characters, the victims, and the plots, and I've created the village where all the stories take place. Now, I'm ready to start writing. It remains to be seen if my readers will enjoy them. I could lose some, but on the other hand, I could gain a new following. Time will tell.  

Victoria Chatham

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Do you speak Canadian?

 

Although I reside in Minnesota, we are close enough to Canada to make a day trip to Thunder Bay, Ontario. When in Arizona, I've been asked about our proximity to Canada and whether I'm bilingual, speaking Minnesotan and Canadian. Yep. That's really happened. On several occasions. Instead of explaining that most Canadians and Americans speak the same variety of English, I've started smiling and saying, "Yes, I'm able to communicate with my Canadian neighbors without a problem." 

Although we have somewhat different political situations, folks on both sides of the dotted line delineating the US/Canadian border, are frustrated by our politicians and swear at them using the same words. I'll leave that topic rather than getting into details...

The cross-border influences are even stronger when you get to Two Harbors, Minnesota, the setting for the Whistling Pines mystery series. In "Whistling Pines", the first book in the series, there's a character who served in the Canadian Army. Upon his passing, his family requested that bagpipes be played at his funeral. That request set off a whole series of attempts to locate a piper, including a female piper who advertised topless performances for bachelor parties. Although she was located in Ontario, it turned out she was related to one of the Whistling Pines residents. While the topless piper was pure fiction, the cross-border family ties aren't uncommon. Many athletes, particularly hockey players, move to teams across the border to get more ice time or to play for a more competitive team. People commute across the border to jobs. 

My grandfather moved to Minnesota from New Brunswick. I have hundreds of Candian cousins. I stand for both "O Canada and "The Star-Spangled Banner" when the Edmonton Oilers play the Minnesota Wild. The bottom line is, I am from a Canadian bloodline, and I have a good time including some cross-border crimes and antics in the Whistling Pines and Pine County mystery series. My Doug Fletcher series protagonist is from St. Paul, Minnesota, and is asked at least once in every few books if he speaks Canadian as he solves mysteries in national parks located across the United States.

So, if my Whistling Pines characters sound a little Canadian, through their Swedish and Norwegian accents, it's because we're one big, albeit sometimes dysfunctional, North American family. The US/Canadian border is the longest undefended international border in the world. Yes. Really. And aside from some minor hassles about carrying excessing quantities Canadian whisky home, it's a darned comfortable trip no matter which direction, north or south, we travel.

A substantial percentage of my book sales are in Canada. I feel that says I'm speaking Canadian pretty well. Eh?

Check out Whistling Wedding on my (Canadian) publisher's website:

Hovey, Dean Whistling Pines series - BWL Publishing Inc. (bookswelove.net)

The Oxford comma, and the wrong way.

I know some of you will have felt the wrath of my pedantic nagging on this issue already, but I regularly run into the issue of either inadequate or incorrect comma placement.  Now, don't get me wrong, as far as fiction is concerned, I'm all about maximal leeway for writers to punctuate as they see fit; where I have to draw the line is when clarity becomes an issue.  

In fact, there is no real convention stating whether you shall or shan't run the Oxford in a sentence, as with and without are both grammatically correct.  Some style guides would have you use it, some would not, so there's no legal standing for anything I'm blathering on about here.  

So, to the aforementioned 'clarity' issue.  I think my favorite example that I found (and shamelessly stole) off the internet is as follows:

        At my grandfather's funeral there were two strippers, his wife and his sister.

Can everyone see how this might be problematic?  Let us add the Oxford and see how this sentence changes:

        At my grandfather's funeral there were two strippers, his wife, and his sister.

Not only has this added some clarity as to who's who, but the number of the people at the funeral goes from two, to four.  

Also when the Oxford is omitted, the last two items listed are lumped together as a common subject in the minds of many a reader.  Now, all this can be fixed by completely restructuring your sentence to split up the three listed items, and some would say this is the correct course of action, but who has the time, and who speaks like that anyways?  

If you are one of those who stubbornly refuses to accept the superiority of the Oxford, try looking over some of your past sentences and seeing how much confusion you've caused with your wanton disregard for easy comprehension before again setting out to raise my blood pressure.  

If you want to make God laugh

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'If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans' is a well known adage from the Bible, and we have all experienced the truth behind it at different times in our lives. Monday was one of mine!

I was donating a Cindy doll house full of furniture and accessories to a family with three small girls aged 8, 6 and 4. My grandchildren had long grown out of it and as it was well used it was only worth the pleasure it could bring to another generation of children. I had found the children's mother via a neighbourhood App and we agreed a time for her to collect it. When she arrived I liked her immediately. She was thrilled with the doll house and said she would send me pictures of her children playing with it once it was set up. She also made a great fuss of my small dog, saying she loved dogs and had two of her own.

We carried the doll house and the boxes containing the furniture out to her car, which was parked a short distance down the road despite my driveway being clear. It was slightly odd but I thought no more about it after she said it wasn't necessary to move the car, and I walked down the road carrying two bags. Her husband was standing beside it with a large dog on a rope lead, again slightly odd as it wasn't a big car and there were a lot of boxes. I assumed, however, that they were going to take it for a walk before they went home as we live opposite a big field popular with dog owners.

I've owned and been around dogs of all breeds, shapes and sizes all my life so, as any responsible dog owner would, I asked her if I could say hello to him and, when she said yes, held my hand out, fingers safely curled under, for him to sniff. Unfortunately he wasn't interested in sniffing. Instead, with absolutely no warning, no flattened ears, bared teeth or any sign that he was angry or scared, he reared up on his hind legs and lunged at me. His master couldn't hold him back and before I knew what was happening he had taken a chunk out of my upper lip and gouged my nose. There was a lot of blood!!

Now stitched up, I am recovering entirely thanks to the English National Health Service (NHS) which is really what this post is about. Free at the point of delivery since 1948 it has, for many years, been extolled across the world...until recently. Now, every newspaper seems to find a daily criticism and the new UK government is telling everyone it is broken. It is NOT!

I was treated with nothing but kindness from the moment I entered the Accident & Emergency Department of our local hospital. I was given a tetanus jab  and a very strong dose of intravenous antibiotic as an immediate precaution as dog bites are known to cause infection. This was followed up with a 7 day course of equally strong antibiotics and, after cleansing and dressing the wounds, an appointment was made for me to attend the Plastic Surgery Unit of another hospital at 9.30 the following morning. I was also given packs of gauze, dressings and a wrapped pair of sterilised scissors in case I needed to use them during the night. 

By 1.30 the following afternoon I had been stitched up by a very clever and kind Plastic Surgeon who has assured me all will heal with little if any scarring. Before stitching he doused my lips in so much antiseptic  wash I was grateful to be covered in plastic sheeting. He then applied more antiseptic cream before even starting to stitch. What was particularly clever was the way he used a marker to draw my lip curve before he gave me a local anaesthetic. This, he explained, was to ensure he stitched it back into the correct shape. Before I left he double checked all my meds and gave me additional antiseptic cream to use for 7 days.

And it is not only me who has received such prompt treatment. My husband had a very successful hip replacement last year within 2 months of first seeing a doctor and within 6 days of an appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon. So not the long waiting list for him that is so often referred to in the news. And neighbours, and friends in different parts of the country, have all received similar efficient treatment from nurses and doctors who have been unfailingly caring and professional. Some for broken bones, one for osteoporosis, one for oil burns, several for suspected heart problems only one of which proved to be an issue, but all of whom received electrocardiograms anyway to check the symptoms. I could go on. As well,  we receive regular texts from our local surgery asking us to make appointments for flu and COVID vaccines plus now another one for a respiratory virus called RSV. All free. No waiting. Yes, I know we pay our taxes and I know it is becoming increasingly expensive for the country, something that needs to be dealt with, but when we are at our most vulnerable we don't need to stop and think. We know we will be seen and treated. 

Now I am not naive enough to think that all hospitals and clinics are the same. I know that some will be inefficient and that there will be less caring nurses and doctors,  because that is the same in all walks of life. Waiters, shop assistants, police personnel, administrators, chief executive officers (CEOs), anyone in any role can either be excellent, good, moderately okay, poor or dreadful. What is not fair, however, is that the excellent are conflated with the bad so that the whole system is considered to be failing. It is not fair to the huge numbers of medical staff who are doing a good job and it frightens the population as a whole.

Oh and the woman who came to collect the doll house, and who I liked immediately...she has disappeared! She's no longer on the Neighbourhood App and, as I had no reason to ask for her address and phone number until the accident, at which time I was too busy thinking of other things, I cannot contact her. All I hope is that she protects her three little girls from what is very obviously an out-of-control dog that is far too big and strong for its owner. The thought of what it might do to one of them doesn't bear thinking about. 

At the insistence of the medics I reported it to the police but with only a name to go on it is unlikely they will be able to do anything. So my message is, however much you like dogs, think twice before you make physical contact, and don't believe everything you hear about the NHS! It might no longer be the best in the world but it still does what it says on the tin. It's an ever constant, free at the point of entry, caring national health service.