Life and Laughs of A “Facetious Little Squirt”

by Melinda Rucker Haynes

I love to laugh so I always open with—I learned to write fiction when I was a grant writer.

In that reality, we also used to joke that grant proposals were judged by the weight. Therefore, repetitive and wordy details, explanations, descriptions, and narratives (much like this sentence) were essential structure for a winning proposal.

Another happy thing about my grant writing was that all my education research grant proposals won funding. Ah, the stimulating life of living on soft money! So, my expectations were quite high when I escaped academe to live abroad and write novels.

Note: It was an envious Ph.D. pedant who snarked from his teetering, terminally unfunded ivory tower that I was a Facetious Little Squirt. And I’ve endeavored to happily embrace my squirtness since.

How Entering Writing Contests is Like Writing Grant Proposals

Truth was I didn’t get much novel writing done but I sure had a great time living in four different countries with my husband and son.

It wasn’t until we returned to the States and I fell in with a bunch of romance writers in Seattle that I learned to write fiction and apply my winning grant proposal skills to entering writing contests.

Most contest rules read like a Request for Proposal. It was like grant writing easy for me to come up with a “fundable” project or story.

Sometimes Publication Offers Fall Through

The first contest I entered was the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Contest and my entry finaled in the Young Adult Category. I fine-tuned my strategies and the next year my YA story, Ghostly Acts, which later became my first published novel, and won the Golden Heart.

The senior editor of a YA line of a big house took me (and my friends) to dinner. She loved my book but could I please wait two months and she would offer for it? Oh, heck yes!

Two months later her YA line folded. Eeeeeeee, it was the first time my funding didn’t come through and wouldn’t for the next six years.

I found that very frustrating because I’d always gotten paid for my writing and my work published. During that wait, I wrote, queried, pitched, continued to enter writing contests and won over twenty awards, which got the attention of editors and agents and my novels eventually selling.

Unfinished Stories are Deposits in the Creativity Bank

Yeah, I’ve got emotional challenges like everyone else. I’m not sure how or when it happened but I learned to open my mind to my higher or creative self for help and answers. I always get the needed answers and inspiration.

My particular mind has always loved to create stories. Ideas can roll from my every experience, memories and even my think time. I’ve gotten whole books from my dreams and daydreaming, which is like interactive lucid dreaming for me.

Quiet, focused meditation can be a real challenge as my “Story Monkey Mind” wants to chatter about plots, characters, themes, point of view or that I probably ought to go brush my teeth. The problem with my continuous story streaming is that I might focus and roll with the movie running behind my eyes as long as it’s juicy and interesting.

Then one day I don’t sit down and write another word on that story—that is, if it’s not contracted. Can’t tell you how many really cool stories I’m about 100 pages in and stop mid-sentence.

Happily, I’ve learned to consider these unfinished stories as deposits in the creativity bank that are earning interest and eventually, I’ll finish them.

Note: For help on finishing YOUR book, click here!

Never Underestimate the Importance of a Strong Title

Such is the case with my vampire parody. I was about 80 pages in on my vampire’s hilarious confessional but had to deal with a health crisis.

After I got well and The Wild Rose Press was bringing out my backlist, I pitched only the title, Bitten: Confessions of a Menopausal Vampire to the president of Wild Rose Press. She laughed, “I want that.”

Wow, how important a strong title is, right?

We went to contract and I told my editor that I’d start working on finishing the book in a couple of weeks or so.

She zipped right back, “The book is due thirty days after signing the contract.”

What!!! was my shriek heard ’round Tucson. Situational reality demanded that I focus on my creative center within and invite my menopausal vampire in.

I finished the book on deadline.

What Is Carpal Tunnel Butt?

I developed sciatica or what I call “Carpel Tunnel Butt” from long hours of sitting and writing.

When it becomes so painful that I can’t sit, I put the laptop on the kitchen bar and stand to write. That really helps. Also, bouncing on the minitrampoline and brisk walks are great for alleviating Carpel Tunnel Butt problems and other physical and emotional challenges I’ve dealt with.

The silver bullet to my biggest health challenge was the complementary medicine physician on my oncology team prescribing a super smoothie that I still drink every morning. Her original recipe follows but you can adjust for taste, ingredients and amounts as I continually do. (Note: I buy most of the fresh/frozen fruit and vege at Costco.)

Into the Blender/Vitamix:

• A big handful of organic baby spinach (Freeze the box and remove only what you need.)
• 1 piece of fresh pineapple (Peel, cut, freeze and bag.)
• Small handful of Dark Tart Cherries (frozen)
• 1 Scoop of ground Golden Flaxseed
• Small handful of frozen organic Triple Berries (blueberries, strawberry, blackberry)
• Doctor recommended almond milk, no dairy. I use water.
• Blend until smooth and drink.

Personal additions: coconut milk, half banana, teaspoon of Spiralina, scoop of Orgain protein powder, half a frozen lemon or other citrus from our own trees.

Writers Must Experiment to Determine What Marketing Techniques Work for Them

I am so grateful that creative flow is mine on demand. But inhibiting my creative flow can happen when others, who may even believe they have my best interests in mind, insist that I must do or behave a certain way in order to—insert demand here—be successful or compliant or a team player. This is of course my great “squirtness” talking.

In my long experience as writer, I’ve seen many changes in the publishing business from the publisher doing the marketing and promoting of your book, to startup online publishers who expected the author to do the majority of promoting.

That perniciously morphed into today’s universal expectation that authors must incessantly promote/market themselves/brand on social and other media. As my husband said the other day, “Even insurance companies know no one pays attention to an insurance commercial and instead produce funny scenes of hoodlum woodchucks or a 70s detective guy with a crazed emu wearing aviator sunglasses that people will watch.”

I believe I know what maketh me ticketh and inspires my creative flow. Promotions-wise, I’ve maintained personal websites since the late nineties with blogs, newsletters, and guest contributors. I’ve interviewed all sorts of writers and creatives, written for online magazines and taught scores of online classes.

I’ve gathered thousands of emails, conducted drawings and contests—done just about everything, except endless social media posting that we millions of writers are advised to do every day. I know what works for me and I urge other writers to give whatever kinds of promotions a go, experiment and discover what works for them.

So, yeah, I feel like I’ve done it all. That all includes what I believe was my most successful and most enjoyable promotional tactics—entering writing contests and teaching/encouraging writers to find their voice and their story.

I do believe there are undiscovered communication tech, venues, processes or even magic in the quantum field. I intend to find them even if I have to create them. That’s probably how my story of discovery will go…and that is sooo good with me!

Did You Start Writing in a Past Life?

Very spiritual types have suggested that writing could be my soul focus for this life.

In my opinion, that why is as good as any other, though if I wanted to confirm that notional reason, I could self-hypnotize and target a past life where my present life’s interest in writing began and sift that for clues.

In my Personal Time Travel© hypnotherapy practice, I worked with writers and other creatives to discover why they were writers in their present lives, or why they wrote what they did, or why they were blocked, and how they could increase production.

That was such interesting work and the clients were so inspired. These days, I’m focused on my own creative development and don’t work with clients anymore. But I am making available on my website an audio CD (or download) of Personal Time Travel© Meditation and guided Past Life Regression that people can use for their own anytime inner exploration.

Chemobrain Stopped My Story Dead

We’d bought a house in Tucson, Arizona because our son was transferred there and was living in it. I flew to Tucson to prepare our house for my Seattle writer friends to visit in March 2014.

It seemed that suddenly I was too ill to return to D.C. and was diagnosed with Stage 4 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I swear I hadn’t been drinking weed killer!

During the next seven months all my energy went to survival. At my lowest point, my oncologist scolded me severely (as if I were purposefully on a hunger strike) that if I lost one more pound, I’d not survive the chemo. That sure kicked any possible joy out of my fitting into size six jeans!

My sister, who’s always battled weight, said she’d love the quick weight loss but not the way I was doing it. No kidding!

Frankly, the one of worst things about the illness and treatment was chemobrain. My story streaming stopped dead—not one creative thought or idea between my ears. That was a loss worse than no hair or eyelashes.

As I Healed, I Knew I Needed to Reconnect with My People: The Local Writers

The happy ending to the health crisis part of my story is I have survived the chemo and Lymphoma, clear six years now. Woooohoooo! My story streaming magically restarted when treatment ended.

As I healed, I knew I needed to reconnect with my people, the local writers. I’ve been meeting with five of these wonderfully creative friends once a week since. We’ve all published—my entire backlist with The Wild Rose Press as well as three new books—the others have successfully self-published marvelous books.

I’ve joined the local chapters of Romance Writers of America and Sisters in Crime and am a very active, long time member of Pacific Northwest Writers Association where I’m the sponsor of the PNWA 2020 Writing Contest’s Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Paranormal Category.

One last observation about the health thing—it’s not lost on me that when I recovered from a scary blood disease that I wrote a snarky parody, perhaps allegory, about a menopausal vampire who possesses unusual powers and has a great interest in world domination. Oh, my dear subconscious, how your symbolism amuses me!

How My Dog Helps Me Get Out and Exercise

I was spending most of my time writing and needed to get out more—exercise, even, my son lovingly suggested.

So, of course I brought home a two-month-old Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier.

My husband, Puppy Mac and I make our two mile trek every morning to meet Mac’s many human and dog friends in the neighborhood. But before we do that, my husband and I have coffee as the sun comes up over the Catalina Mountains, followed by an always inspiring meditation that really jumpstarts our day of puppy chasing, feeding, playing and training attempts.

Just like raising a baby, when puppy naps, we race to get our stuff done and all fall into bed at night exhausted, happier, hopefully fitter and looking forward to what amazing blessings the next day will bring.

And just two days ago, my son and daughter-in-law announced that we’re going to be a grandparents of a beautiful baby girl in August.

Can my life get any better? I’m counting on it!

Advice for a Young Writer: Write About What Lights You Up

The advice I might offer to one wanting to be a writer—fabulous! You’ll have lots of laughs and fun while you learn about this world and the diverse beings on and off of it.

Write about what lights you up rather than chase the market or trends, because this is the best time ever for a writer with a story to tell directly to readers.

* * *

Before becoming a multiple award-winning writer, Melinda Rucker Haynes worked as an adult education research project director and published nonfiction. She jokes she learned to write fiction as a grant writer who moonlighted as a corporate trainer of fascinating people working at an area in the Nevada desert that didn’t exist.

After gypsying around the world, living in four foreign countries—most recently Washington D.C. and Tucson, Arizona—Melinda continues to search out enchanted stories in ghost towns, massive cities, vast night skies, and mysterious ancient sites throughout the world. Her interests and hobbies include magical thinking, frequent fantasy flying, past lives exploration, and opus magnum experimentation.

For more information on Melinda and her work, please see her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

---

Bitten: Confessions of a Menopausal Vampire: Kristen’s fiancé Rick turns into Houdini and pulls a disappearing act. Now years later her husband deserts her for a younger woman.

Disgusted with life itself, menopausal to boot, she doesn’t know what to do when Rick turns up—still young and handsome. Against her better judgment, but with her hormones going haywire, she accepts a date, and finds herself waking up in the morgue as an illegally made vampire.

Rick must hide his mistake or everyone dies. But Kristen refuses to go quietly undead into the dark, because her age, lack of estrogen and other physical and mental anomalies make her a very unusual powerful vampire with none of the limitations. And she has a bucket list a mile long of people who have done her wrong, and an eternity for payback.

Available at Amazon.

Breach of Trust: (Book 2, Soul Searchers Series) Jonathan Spencer has no memory of being a psychic spy until past life hypnotherapist Dr. Rian Farsante helps him remember too much. He wants to trust her but has good reasons to listen to his instincts.

Rian knows the one thing Spence doesn’t—his past. She’s been hired to bring him back into the fold of psychic spies and assassins and must accomplish her mission—even if it breaks her heart.

Thrust into a battle for life and love, Rian and Spence must overcome their separate and shared pasts. They must resist the lure of an ancient sword they have wielded in past lives, if they are going to overcome the breach of trust between them.

Available at Amazon.