Shelly's Therapy Hour: Leigh Covington

Today on the couch we have the effervescent Leigh Covington. She’s kinda new to blogging and I think I might be able to shake her of her penchant for writing. At least long enough to get her to fix dinner for her kids.

Welcome Leigh

Hello Shelly. So good to be here today. This couch isn’t as comfy as I thought it would be. Maybe I’m a little nervous.

No, I make the couch uncomfortable on purpose. It keeps the sessions short.

Abby how long have you been writing?

It depends on what kind of writing you’re talking about. I loved writing stories and poems all through school. I write plays and skits for church sometimes. I have been dabbling in the novel/picture book industry for a few years, but I only “came out of the closet” about three months ago.

Good for you for coming out. Now I can help you. Keeping secrets like this will just build and build until you become a crazy cat lady.

Church plays are just a gateway drug to nutty novel writing. You’ve learned that, haven’t you?

Unfortunately, yes.

What exactly do you write?

I’m all over the board! I write YA books and picture books. I thought about MG, but I’m not sure if it’s for me.

Because you forgot the S. MSG’s are for EVERYBODY. Picture books, huh? Did you know that most children under the age of 5 can’t read?

That is just a rumor. They can all read. Sometimes they hide it so their parents will read to them. It promotes family “togetherness.”

Sneaky devils. But adults don’t believe that they can read. Do you find this to be possibly detrimental to your writing career?

Well, hopefully their secret reading skills will soon come to light. However, if the picture book industry ever goes under, hopefully my YA books will save me from extinction. You may have to hook me up with some xanax in the meantime though.

I’m beginning to think that you are here so that I can ‘hook you up.’ I’m not actually licensed, you know that right? If I had gone through the trouble to get licensed I would be charging SO much more.

Back to your problems. Do you think that there should be a bigger push for literacy among these ages?

Picture book ages? Of course. I could hardly be a writer (or a reader) if I didn’t. I actually tutored kids with the Americorp Vista program for a while. It was fun. Reading is an amazing thing and important in everyone’s life. I love seeing a kids face light up when he starts to figure out the words and read his/her first book.

I volunteered with America Reads, a literacy program, where I was teaching inner-city 3^rd graders their ABC’s. Crazy, huh?!?!

But I regret every minute of it. For all I know they have all become writers and will be sitting here on my couch while I try to undo all the work I put in. **shakes fist in the air** Darn those government programs!

Speaking of which, exactly how much government money do you think should be spent on making babies literate? Please use round to the nearest nickel.

Babies? Ah, probably nothing.  But I won’t lie… those commercials with babies reading, fascinate me. Although… in a perfect world, I would wish that every child (or person) for that matter could have a stellar library of their own. Awesome books = lots of reading, right?

Ri-ight. Is this all that you think about? Writing. Reading. What do you do when you’re not writing?

Go to school, take kids to school, try to find time to participate in the PTA, help my kids with homework, do my own homework, keep the house from burning down, help my husband with the farm, go to my kids’ soccer games, bake (if I’m extremely motivated) and work in my secret lab on a drug that will save us all if there is a zombie apocalypse. Sometimes I even cook dinner!

Again with the drugs…actually that xanax might do the trick. It would save us from worrying about it.

Soccer mom, huh? That sounds...fun. Wouldn’t you rather be doing that instead of writing? Writing takes SO long!

It’s agonizing, isn’t it? It truly does take FOR.EV.ER! Still, I love it and it gives me an outlet. If nothing else, at least I have that. “What are you thinking?” often pops into my head, but nothing ever happens if we give up. I don’t want to be that person.

“What are you thinking?” I want this to be your new mantra. Say it when you wake up. Say it every time you turn on your computer. I think you do want to be ‘that’ person, you just don’t know you do. This is why I am here.

But…. This cure for a zombie problem does deserve a lot of my attention as well.

**under breath** And we’re back to the drugs…

And apparently my kids soccer games deserve the attention to. I am a sucker for soccer.

If you could alter reality and take credit for having written one book, what book would that be?

You want me to pick something important right? Some sort of classic? Is Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice the right answer? **starting to sweat** Will I get kicked off the couch if I answer wrong?

**taking off glasses** Yes.

**couple deep breaths.** I’m going with either the Hunger Games series OR I would be Sandra Boynton and have written all her books.

Why?

‘Cause they are awesome! Why else? Should there be another reason?

No. Awesome is the best reason. If we were on Family Feud right now it would be the answer that most people gave.

Suzanne Collins and Sandra Boynton, huh?

I would have chosen The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin or Everybody Poops. I guess we are entitled to our own opinions.

Can I suggest, Sandra Bullock instead of Sandra Boynton? Or Suzanne Somers instead of Suzanne Collins? Actors are SO much more sane than writers.

Leigh, you seem really normal compared with some of the other people who I’ve had on my couch.

Define normal? You just don’t know me well enough. I’m all sorts of “out-of-control.”

I guess I just mean you’re not as crazy as Dave Farland, aka King Wiz. But probably with time you’ll become just as crazy.

Once you get to know me you may try to avoid me. I often break out in dance or song, not caring where I am or who I’m with. And I have no intention of dancing or singing with talent. I just let it out when the feeling hits.

This sounds a lot like Musical Theater. You should consider Musical Theater. Avoid the crazies in writing, go into Musical Theater. You know what? You seem nice. We should get some Jamba Juice sometime and chat when I’m not charging you.

You like me? You really like me! I am all about mango-a-go-go or a razzmatazz. As long as you are cool if I dance and sing, then I am all for it. Love me some Jamba, especially with Shelly and no service fees!

OK, cool. Your time is up. Be sure to pay the receptionist on your way out.

Thanks for the session Shelly. You couch is more comfortable now. Aren’t you going to give me a prescription of some sort???

Really you might need to kick this drug thing, Leigh. Unfortunately that’s not what I do here on Shelly’s Therapy Hour, I’m not a 12 step…not yet at least.

But here is some ‘counsel’

-Hugs not drugs. Watch THIS VIDEO, it might help.

-Remember “What am I thinking?”

-Bake me some cookies for our next session.

-And for heaven sakes, stop writing while you can. There is still hope for you.

-If you HAVE to write then go back into the closet. It’s cramped, dark, and uncomfortable in there and eventually you will quit all together. You will have to trust me on this.

-And Jamba Juice, next Friday, while the kids are in school?

Thanks Leigh for playing along!
Does Leigh look a lot like the super nice blogger, Abby Fowers? Well she IS! 
Here is her new (beautiful) blog Leigh Covington

Just so that everybody knows, she does not do drugs or obsess about them. That was me putting words into her drug-free mouth.

Or follow her here TWITTER 

FACEBOOK

Shelly's Therapy Hour: Maria Hoagland

Today on the couch I have Maria Hoagland, author of Nourish and Strengthen. Welcome Maria.

Hello, Shelly. Or can I call you Dr. Brown?

You are most welcome to call me Dr. Brown, unless the State Medical Board shows up, then you can call me 'Beautiful.' 

Maria, your book, Nourish and Strengthen, is about a busy body who can’t seem to do everything and then gets smacked with diabetes to top it all off. Does that sound about right?

Actually, she’s just more of a busy lady than a busy body. Someone overwhelmed with everything going on in her life, just like many of us are—a new calling, problems with her friends, worries about her family. Then she gets dumped with a chronic illness.

Diabetes involves needles does it not?

Yep…bright, shiny, pointy ones.

Aren’t you a diabetic yourself?

I am. This feels like an AA meeting…Hi, I’m Maria, and I’m a diabetic…

Do you have needles on you right now?

On me and in me. Well, kinda. I keep a few spares in my purse, and I have an insulin pump connected to me at all times.

Is that legal?

Shh—[Looks around to make sure no one else is listening.] I don’t like to admit that I have a drug problem. Face it, I’m addicted. I’ve got to shoot up every day—with insulin, that is.

Be sure to keep them hidden, OK? Because I kind of scream when I see needles.

Sighs. Okay, I’ll try to play nice.

Nourish and Strengthen sounds like something that an LDS kid wants his food to do. Did you write this for an LDS market?

Yeah, now my twelve-year-old son giggles when someone says “nourish and strengthen” in a prayer. The book is definitely written for an LDS market, but I think women of any faith will relate to the issues of raising a family with young children, responsibilities at church and school, and relationships with friends.

So what does the title mean?

I think it can mean several things, but one of the most obvious is how Chloe changes through the arc of the book. Because of her illness, Chloe Taylor is almost obsessed with taking care of her body, but through the course of the book, she learns that she needs to nourish and strengthen both body and spirit equally to deal with the ups and downs of life.

Do you think that I could cure you today of your diabetes?

Don’t I wish!

What about your LDS-ness?

You’d probably have better luck curing my diabetes. You might even say I am stuck on being LDS and my faith is as important to sustaining my life as my insulin pump is.

Alright, how much would it take to get you to stop writing? I’ll give you half of whatever you pay me to treat you. That’s a hefty sum, you should consider my offer.

How about I double your fee and we schedule another session when I release my next book? You can try to cure me of my writing issues then.

So then why exactly are you here?

Well, Doc, you see, I have a problem.  I just published my first novel. I just don’t think I can sleep or quit worrying until I get the word out! It just might eat me up inside if I don’t! 

Then let me do some shouting for you.

MARIA WROTE A BOOK!

YOU CAN BUY IT HERE!

There, are you cured? 

Ummmm.... yep. I feel so much better now.

Sometimes, I amaze even myself.

Thank Maria for not pulling out your needles during the session :)

You were a great sport to all my shinanigans!

Follow the fun Maria 

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

BLOG

Nourish & Strengthen

Purchase link for eBook versions: HERE 

Paperback: HERE

Amazon: HERE

P.S. I just read a good review of the book HERE if you're interested in learning a little more.

Shelly's Therapy Hour: Dave Farland

Hello everyone. 
Today on the couch we have author Dave Farland, author of Nightingale, which comes out tomorrow, November 4th. Book release time is a stressful time for many authors and I’m never surprised when they come knocking.

Dave, I’m here to help you, OK?

How do I know that you aren't a figment of my imagination?  I mean, this whole world feels so real sometimes, and then at others I see the universe for what it really is--a cockroach scuttling over a corpse.

Lovely way to start off, Dave.

This is going to be a long session.

Anywho, I told my husband that you would visit my couch today, and he said that you were really famous and wrote a New York Times Bestseller. Is that true?

No, I've written several of them. Or at least the voices in my head seem to think so. They're yammering now. Fifty books. Some sold very well. Some won awards.

Wait, did you say fifty books? Fifty? Do you sleep?

I try. Sedation helps. Fatigue helps, too. Work until you drop. Work until you drop. And if you wake? What is life really all about? Work some more. Prove that you live, by working until you drop.

Speaking of sleeping, my husband attended one of your lectures in March. Do you remember him?

Yes, the one with the knife behind his back?  I remember him--that piercing gaze, the malevolent grin.  I could tell that he would have a hot wife. His kind always do. . . .

You have an amazing memory! I hope he didn’t stress you out too much. He only brings knives to things because he says it makes people take him more seriously.

It worked when he proposed.

But seriously, huh, fifty books! **Takes off glasses and rubs eyes** Fifty books! This isn’t just a passing phase is it? What drives you to write?

The need to communicate eloquently, to shape words as an art form, even if only to bestow them upon the wind. . . .  I've been doing it for so long now, so long.

How long?

1973. It was in April, a sunny day. Paul Toups started me doing it. Can I stop? Will death ever give me respite? Or even in death, will my spirit still continue to compose?

I’m not even going to acknowledge that last question.

You’ve been doing this since 1973?!?! Most people who started back then have stopped. The sane ones at least. You know that don’t you? **pretends to look up stats on iPad while really playing Angry Birds**

I don't know most people. There are billions. Some leaving the earth, and more keep coming. How could I know them all.

If my sources are right, 97.7% of writers who started in 1973 have quit writing.

If my sources are right, 97.7% who begin this craft cease to speak. The voices in their heads fall silent, and the lips follow suit.

Yet I keep writing. Nightingales sing at night. Their small voices swell with the rising wind, and they warn against coming storms. I am a nightingale.  I wrote a book called "Nightingale." About a boy like me who is lost. But then aren't we all lost?

The people who sit on my couch are, yes.

Dave, I’m looking over your forms here and it says that you have two names?

I have many names. Some are legal, others are not.

O-kaaay. Well, this paper says Dave Farland and Dave Wolverton.

Dave Wolverton was the name of my youth, though my friends called me Wolf or Caveman. David Farland is the name that I use now. Though I have been called many things. Publisher's Weekly called me "a wizard of storytelling." In the United Kingdom they called me "The King of Fantasy." So am I a wizard, I wonder, or a king? Perhaps I am both, or neither. Perhaps I AM the cockroach scuttling over a corpse.

I’m going to call you King Wiz from now on if that will make you more comfortable.

I can understand you being so embarrassed to be a writer that you would use a fake name. **coughs in hypocrisy**

It is necessary to lie at times. When they put your books down near the floor only to maintain "alphabetical order," well what can you do?

Change your audience to leprechauns?

Alphabetical order is the hobgoblin of little minds. I defeated them all--the booksellers and librarians with the penchant for order!

Way to go, King Wiz. Did you ever consider becoming anything besides a writer?

Yes. When I was a child of eight, a woman once asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I thought about it, and strung some words together to describe what I wanted to be: "A paleo-biological engineer." She asked what we do, and I told her: "We build dinosaurs." Not now, of course. Someday. Time is such a bother. I wish I could dispense with its linearity. I would build dinosaurs if I could. Instead I am relegated to designing imaginary world, elaborate fantasies. I create nightingales instead.

That scientist guy on Jurassic Park built dinosaurs

but he’s dead.

I’m just sayin’.

Yeah, when I think about it, I think you made the right choice. If you had become a paleo-biological engineer you probably would have ended up a bigger nerd than you are now.

Pat yourself on the back.

That’s an order.

I have done other things. I have designed videogames and scripted movies. I have guarded prisoners and kept society safe. I have run entire companies, and built software to educate children. There may be hope for me yet. I have been considering more lucrative lines of work. Perhaps pizza delivery?

Pizza delivery would make you appear more normal but it doesn’t pay well and you’re married, right?

Indeed, I found a woman who would have me. She is a charitable soul, given to caring for stray cats.

What a saint. Does she get to see the therapist as well? The things you must put her through.

It's terrible being married to someone like me. However, all of her conversations with her therapists are confidential.

I want you to understand that this therapist can’t say the same thing. If my sessions were confidential I wouldn’t have anything to laugh about on facebook.

Tell you what I am going to do for you. I’m not actually licensed to administer counsel, but since you’re paying me, I’m going to give you some advice.

Are you listening?

You were meant to write.

I feel that in my bones.

Dave, Dave, King Wiz, the caveman, keep writing!

But stop telling people that you’re doing it.

If someone asks, you should laugh, and say, “No way! I’m way cooler than that guy.”

Wise counsel. Wise counsel indeed. Are you an elf? Perhaps part of the White Council itself, like Gandalf and Radagast the Brown? "Never go to the elves for council," the voices say, "for they will answer both 'yay' and 'nay.'"

Do I look like an elf?

Wait, do you mean like Keebler elf or like Liv Tyler elf?

I am most definitely a Liv Tyler elf.

It might be time for you to get a new name King Wiz.

A new name, yes, that is what I need. Another pseudonym, something rational and commonplace, to make me fit in. Perhaps . . . Gloriast? Gloriast Profundus, Master Nightingale?!

Wow. Oh my Gentlemen Broncos! **shakes head** That’s all the time for our session today. I’m glad I could help. Now don’t hit your butt on the way out the door.

**watches Dave leave, rings receptionist**

Chad? Is Dave gone? Good. I’m going to need you to bill both Dave Farland AND Dave Wolverton for that. That was a two bill kinda session.

A big thanks to Dave for being such a good sport!

David Farland has just released NIGHTINGALE, the story of a young man, abandoned as a child, who discovers that he's not even human.

"Soon to be a best-selling, award-winning book!" David hopes.  If you don't believe him, just go to www.nightingalenovel.com and see the cool enhanced novel, with its own soundtrack and illustrations!

Have a book you want to promote? Willing to sit on my couch for it? Email me at shellybrownwriter at gmail

Shelly's Therapy Hour: Heather Cashman

Welcome to Shelly’s Therapy Hour. Today we have with us Heather...

Thanks, I need to get some of these things off my chest. Can I lay down?

Um, just don't fall asleep. Today on the couch we have Heather Cashman, author of Perception and a blogger. Blogger, huh? Aren’t bloggers rather narcissistic blabbermouths? **scribbles on paper **

I suppose I've been rather self-absorbed lately. I like to talk about myself all the time, but doesn't that make me more like Paris Hilton or Lady Gaga? Don't people love narcissists?

The kind of people who watch reality TV, perhaps. What drives a rather sane-looking person, like yourself, to write?

Sane-looking is the key. I hear voices in my head all the time. I can't even do laundry without seeing these continual movies play on the stage of my mind. The only way I can get them to stop is to write it down. But then the voices start again with another problem they have to solve, another adventure they have to overcome.

Do you think you can make it stop? I've written an entire book about these people!

You wrote a whole book? Interesting. What is this “book” about?

I wrote a book about a girl from the future. I think she's warning me about what's going to happen, but I don't want to say too much or the CIA might want to find out what I know. Is that paranoid? Do you think I'm paranoid?

**removes glasses** Yes.

Anyway, I wrote the story of this girl exactly how she told it to me--her adventures from the future. Here's the description.

** hands over paper **

Why did you chose to write Perception?

This is everyone's story in some way or another. Ardana is a brave soul trying to find her place in the world. Like so many of us, she feels like there is no way out, like there is no freedom of choice if she wants to do the right thing. Instead of giving up, she depends on the love of her tiger to see her through. It is a story of loyalty, sacrifice, and the internal battles we all fight.

These characters in your book, they talk to animals. This is not a sane thing to do. Do you talk to animals?

Well, of course I can't exchange thoughts with animals like Ardana and so many humans in Calem can. But they are from over five-hundred years in the future. Ardana has told me that right now, in the middle of Kansas somewhere, there is a secret military facility where the government is doing research on test-tube babies and animals to create super-human soldiers. Mixing DNA has consequences that the scientists of today can't see. It will eventually allow the human and animal to link mentally--a human companion and their animal ingenium. That is where her race evolves from. But I'm still avoiding checking out the facility in Kansas. I really think the CIA might know I'm on to something. **glances over shoulder warily**

I visited your blog, Heather, and I am rather concerned. The apple, on your blog, looks like it is going to kill me. Is this depiction of fanged fruit something deep seated from your childhood?

I love my bad apple. It might be a deep-seeded apple, but isn't from my childhood. It represents my quest for knowledge which I satiate through reading. This is the explanation from my blog: [Eve's] thirst for knowledge some consider a sin. I consider it the best thing that could have happened in the history of man. What better tribute to her than the depiction . . . of an insatiable thirst for knowledge?

**exaggerated sigh** Did someone talk you into becoming a writer? You know that you choose to be a writer, don’t you?

I chose to write the stories I wanted to read. My family talked me into publishing them. The rest has been a roller-coaster that seems to be exponentially increasing in speed.

Well since I have no actual medical license to administer counseling, I guess you are free to continue being an author. I cannot prescribe crazy pills but I offer my condolences to your husband. Have him take two pizzas (since I know you’re not cooking dinner and writing at the same time) and call me in the morning.

Isn’t Heather a good sport?

Thanks for playing along J

For more ACTUAL information about Heather visit her at

http://www.heathercashman.com/

Blog http://heathercashman.com/better_off_read/

Buy her book at http://www.heathercashman.com/perception/perception.html

Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/HeatherCashman