Sometimes a mundane act, even a deplorable one, becomes a life-altering experience. So it was with the restoration of the ugly Green Box.
We moved for the thirteenth time in our twenty-eight years of married life. As we downsized, it became clear, the family heirloom would need a Hail Mary if it was to make the cut. I really don’t know why I was so attached to it. Maybe because family members handed it down for over a century, most of the time stored in sheds and garages. It was the underdog of family heirlooms. And I always root for the underdog. The irony of the Green Box finding its way to the namesake of the original owner wasn’t lost on me. It wandered over many roads only to find its way to another Sabra, my youngest daughter. By chance it came to rest with us. I owned it for many years before I realized it originally belonged to my great-grandmother, Sabra Carmina Hedges. But I really didn’t have time to strip it down, which was the only hope for its survival. The box was large and heavy. I ran my fingers over its surface, marred by years of abuse. Would stripping the paint be worth the effort? This act was unlikely to elevate it above the ugly category. As I stood over the box, I thought about a face I would never know. It was close to seventy years since anyone remembered her. Even her children never knew her. Re-focusing on the Green Box, it became apparent I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t part with it. But it needed a drastic face-lift to justify the twelve square feet of floor space it would occupy in a small townhouse. Tentatively I lifted the lid. The first step was to empty the packing paper stored from our last move. I experienced nightmares about what might be inside. The box sat on the mouse highway through our garage and I was not looking forward to encountering excrement, bodies and perhaps live mice. Gloved and masked, my husband and I prepared for the worst. We kicked the box and listened. No rustling noises. Maybe no live mice at least. Gingerly we pulled papers out one at a time. It smelled musty, but not mouse infested musty. No pee. No poop. No mice. Not a trace. I puffed up with pride knowing after all these years, the box was still mouse proof. In the early homesteading days my grandmother used it to store a baby bonnet and bootie (yes just one), a velvet cushion top, quilts, a buffalo fur coat and most treasured of all her mother’s wedding dress. It was the storage place for things she didn’t want the mice to get into. I imagined her watching over us, smiling, knowing it was still a mouse-free zone. We, and that would be a royal we, loaded the box onto the wagon behind the trusty John Deere lawn tractor and hauled it to the covered cement pad behind the shed at the back of our property. In the sunlight streaming in the lean-to shelter, that wooden box called out. But I couldn’t hear the words. Was it telling me to strip it down, or was it telling me not to disturb the past? I was torn. By contemplating the removal of layers of paint I worried I was planning an assault. I mixed the famous lye and cornstarch family recipe for paint stripper and lathered gobs of it on with my yellow oversized rubber gloves. The sun beat down, drying the stripper as fast as I applied it. But the paint bubbled. There was hope. Slowly spots of the brown paint peeled back, revealing a beautiful emerald green. The colour giving the box its name for over a century, even though it was brown for as long as anyone could remember. Perhaps my great-great-grandfather chose the green paint when he crafted this wedding gift for his daughter. A box used to transport her belongings, and a handmade chair with shortened legs to fit inside, fourteen-hundred miles to the prairies where, in her short life, she married and started a family. “So you’ll always have a place to rest,” were the words passed from generation to generation that my great-great-grandfather used to explain why he made a chair to travel inside the box. The past clung to that box. The paint stubbornly hung on to the wood below. Finally, I used an electric sander, paint vanishing into dust particles. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…” These words rang in my head as brown turned to green and then to bare wood. A few stubborn areas held on to the green paint, and I decided they could remain for future generations to admire. The sander did not reveal the walnut or cherry or oak I always imagined lying under those layers of paint. Instead, rather a common and unexotic fir. But it was beautiful. I saw the love poured into the tight dovetail corners and handmade nails. I felt the heartache of a father letting go of his daughter bit by bit. Each pass of the saw, each raise of the hammer, each gentle touch as he caressed the wood, sculpting it into something useful, yet beautiful. And the love he poured into it, the sadness, the hopes and prayers while shaping those pieces of wood, spoke to me. My great-great-grandfather’s burly bearded, gruff exterior staring solemnly out of a faded photo belies the kind and gentle man I came to know. His patience to hand-carve large pieces of wood with the precision of twenty-first century technology revealed a long goodbye to his daughter. I felt his arms around her, hugging her for the last time. I saw the tears well up as he choked out the words “goodbye” before she turned and boarded the train. I felt his heart breaking. Refinishing the box restored more than its appearance. It brought the box to life, releasing an abundance of love trapped for generations under layers of paint and years of dust. The box became a diary. The stories recalled by aunts, the Sherpas of memories across the generations, amplified by the wood, came alive under the warmth of the suns’ rays for the first time in a century. I became the medium inspired by auras conjured at the swirl of a sander, bringing to life the heartbreak of a father letting go. I thought the wooden box was about my great-grandmother, and I think it was, until I uncovered what lay below the brown and green paint. Digging down to its heart I found my great-great-grandfather and a love that transcends generations.
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I never planned to write genealogical crime mystery books. In fact, the book I set out to write would be classified as historical fiction. And yet here I am three books into this genealogical niche genre.
How did this happen? In early 2018 my historical fiction book rolled around in my head and had been for about 20 years, but I didn’t have a clue where to begin. My dad had a saying, “A job begun is a job half done”. His words came to me one day and I bit the bullet and signed up for a one-day course that promised to get me started. And it did. But I'll never forget the instructor's words. "Don't write the book you really want to write first. Hone your craft, learn, get better, then tackle that book you really want to write." I have to admit my heart deflated that day. But I knew his words made sense. I didn't have any other ideas. I'd been obsessed with "the book" for so long it hadn't occurred to me I might want to write something else. At the time I happened to receive findings from a DNA test. There was nothing earth shattering in my results, but my ethnicity was not what I was expecting. The instructor at the writing course had told us if we're struggling with a writing topic, to ask yourself “what if” questions about everyday events. And that's when I came up with the question that would lead me into the genealogy fiction genre “what if ethnicity did matter?” What indeed! I burrowed down the proverbial Google rabbit holes searching for real-life DNA stories where ethnicity mattered to people. This initial search quickly revealed, when it comes to genealogy, reality is stranger than fiction. And I grasped onto one thin strand of an idea and low and behold my first book, The Lie, was born. Some people have commented how my books don’t wrap up in nice neat packages; the endings aren’t happily ever after. I prefer books I read to leave me pondering issues, so it’s likely the reason this is my style of writing. And maybe because I want to venture into the historical fiction genre one day, I prefer to write realistic fiction, and we all know life doesn’t happen in carefully wrapped packages. Ending my books this way, also leaves room for a sequel. When I finished the last paragraph in The Lie, I realized I needed to follow up with another book. The characters weren’t done with the story yet. And that’s where the seed of an idea for Where Truth Lies, came from. This novel allowed the characters to delve deeper into how DNA testing can be used in criminal cases. My most recent novel, Consequences, stands on its own but explores another real-life murky side of using DNA to solve crimes. So, when will I get around to writing that historical fiction? I’m not sure. But I do believe one day I’ll wake up and know it’s time to start... because a job begun, truly is a job half done. I’ve been fortunate to work with talented, creative people to create my book covers. The one constant person in this process for all three books has been Stevie Ewashko. He’s a dream to work with. I know for many self-publishing authors, the cover is something they create themselves. But like, writing the book itself, it is great when you find someone to collaborate with, especially when they’re creative and listen to what you have in mind. So, I thought I’d share my experience with creating my third book cover. As I wrote the book, an image started to form in my mind. A book cover with blood and glass and maybe a shadowy figure. Now I just needed someone to create my vision. That’s where Stevie came in. I reached out to him in a text and he went to work. What follows is the communication that took place over a series of texts to create this fabulous cover.
This process lasted a few days – not because of Stevie, but because I didn’t have my tagline hammered down yet. Total time spent going back and forth wouldn’t have been more than a couple of hours. He made it a fun process and was so accommodating. If you’re looking for someone to collaborate with you on a book cover, I’d highly recommend him. His company is called Postur – click on the name to check him out!
If you were searching for an excuse to lay on the couch and lose yourself in a book today, I think you may have just found it!
It's UNESCO’s International World Book Day! As publication of my third novel looms on the horizon, this day holds extra meaning for me. Contrary to popular belief, writing a book is not done in seclusion. To show my appreciation for the support I’ve received along my writing journey, and to celebrate International World Book Day, I’m running a promotion this week. The Lie, will be available FREE in ebook format worldwide for 48 hours, starting Tuesday April 25 at 12:00 am PDT and ending Wednesday April 26 at 11:59 pm PDT. If you’re interested in realistic mystery, thriller, crime fiction, check it out, and pick up your FREE e-copy in that 48 hour window! Note: for genealogy enthusiasts my books always have a mysterious thread of DNA running through them. If you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber or prefer to have a book physically in your hands, these are also available on Amazon in your country of residence. The Lie Heather Dawn Gray and Where Truth Lies Heather Dawn Gray are available now. (Links provided are for residents in the U.S.A.) Not living in the U.S.A.? Search the title/author on Amazon in your country of residence. Happy International World Book Day (belated to those in the southern hemisphere)! After three novels (yes, I will publish the third novel very soon), I realize that writing is the simple part.
I’m not trying to scare anyone who thinks they want to publish a book, because even the tough parts are worth the effort. But it’s a lot more than just writing. I wrote most of this third book in about two weeks. Then I made the mistake of letting it sit. I’m going to blame the pandemic (because isn’t that what we blame everything on these days?) as I languished in too much time on my hands. And it was in all that languishing that I lost the plot. Yes, I had an outline, but too many of my ideas had changed and it was hard to get back on track. Over two years later, I picked it up, determined to sort out the mess and come up with something people might be interested in. And I did. I completed what I considered a decent final draft. But I knew the one big downfall of this novel was that I wrote it pretty much in isolation, with very little feedback as I went along. In the past, I was part of a writer’s group and we helped each other along the way. But I moved across the country, and lost my group, although I had another person willing to look at anything I had. Instead, I squirreled away in isolation, and again I blame the pandemic for that, because… why not? Anyway, with what I felt was a solid piece of work, I rallied my beta readers and released it to their critical eyes. I received a lot of feedback and again felt overwhelmed. It was going to take more work than I thought to address what I knew my beta readers were trying to tell me. So, again, I let it rest far too long. Recently, I rented an Airbnb for a week to get it done. It worked… mostly. Editing wasn’t quite complete as my week ended. I needed a few more days. So lucky for me, my husband returned from a business trip, sick, and we rented another Airbnb to isolate. It’s just what I needed. This time, I credit the pandemic for forcing me to finish what I started. Now I know people around me wondered; how can it possibly be taking her this long to edit? But it isn’t just editing. It’s formatting, creating a cover, writing a description and bio for the cover, a description for the Amazon site, and updating my website to include this novel. Putting the final manuscript into the Amazon book template, fixing formatting errors and then repeating for the ebook template are yet to come. Then, there’s the dreaded marketing plan. Should I hold a pre-order event, or just publish and announce it’s available? There are a few schools of thought on that, and I haven’t quite landed on a decision yet. Facebook and Amazon advertising narratives need to be created and budgets considered. I read through the manuscript for the last time yesterday and my husband just finished the final read with a few more edits for me to capture. Over three years later, I almost have a novel to release to the world. And that’s probably the hardest part of all. You’d think after all of this, I’d be thrilled to let it go. But it’s like sending a child out into the world. There’ll be people who like it and people who don’t. There’ll be praise and there’ll be critique. Words will be uttered that I’m happy to hear and words that will make me doubt my abilities as a mother… I mean as an author. But as a writer I know, there’s no sense writing if you don’t let someone read it. Soon, I promise. Soon. Even in this socially connected world we live in, the personal face of war is still in a post, on a screen, far away.
And yet it is technology that has brought this war closer to us all. Two years ago, I ran a contest to give away my book The Lie. Yevhenii was the winner and I shipped off my book, and a Canadian coin (at his request) to his residence in Ukraine. As I watch the horrors of war play out on my phone, computer and television, Yevhenii's face peering out from a photo he sent me of him with my book, connect a real person to this war. Yesterday I reached out to him and asked if there was anything I could do from Canada to help his situation. I felt inadequate even asking. I mean, what can I possibly do for him? This was his kind, calm response: “Wow, I am impressed with your concern, thank you so much! I'm fine, I am in a peaceful city, but friends and relatives, in other cities in danger, they are hiding in the basements while the artillery shelling is going. It is very important to spend their public opinion now, enter the peaceful rallies, is important even a simple post in social networks. Thank you again for your support, it is important to me.” So, if you’re like me, feeling helpless and wondering what you can do to help, please make your disgust with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine known through social media or peaceful rallies. Let Ukraine know we are supporting them from afar. Yevhenii also sent me photos and a video. The photo above is from him - a bombed kindergarten. I will share the other photo and video he sent on social media. I find beginnings are a good time for introspection. So, with a new year, and now a new month, I've been contemplating my need to enter writing contests. Is it just a procrastination tool to put off writing my next novel? Do I really need the disappointment of not winning or even being recognized for my efforts?
As I weigh the pros and cons, it becomes clear, contests are an important writing tool for me, and these are my top five reasons why:
Sometimes I need to take a deep breath and just enter a contest. It’s never easy. But it’s always worth it. Writing a review doesn’t have to be daunting and authors really do appreciate them! So if you've thought you'd like to write a book review on Amazon, but didn't know how to start, here's a step by step process and some tips to make it easy.
Let’s get started…
Reviews mean a lot to authors. The number one reason people buy a book is because it was recommended. If you’ve read my books and feel inspired to write a review, please leave me a review – your feedback helps me improve and increases my visibility/sales on Amazon. I’ve stepped away from writing lately and have focused on marketing my two books, The Lie and Where Truth Lies.
Marketing is an area authors, for the most part, dread, ignore and avoid. But if you want people outside your family/friend circle to read your books, it’s a necessary evil. This quote by Jon Stewart crossed one of my social media feeds the other day, and it resonated. I’m so goal oriented and task motivated, I often focus on completion, rather than process. During this pandemic, some of us have more time on our adult hands than ever before. Our years of blaming time, or rather the lack of it, for not getting things done, looms before us. We have the time. So why aren’t we tackling those projects we’ve been putting off? |
Heather Dawn GrayInspired by authors such as Lawrence Hill, Khaled Hosseini, Margaret Atwood, Esi Edugyan and so many more, I have decided to leave behind my healthcare/ post-secondary education career and follow something I have always loved to do...write.When you have a backup plan, you fall back. No backup plan for me anymore! Archives
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