2015 A to Z Challenge: Pianissimo - Day 25 (Y)

 For the third consecutive year, I am participating in the A to Z blog challenge.
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

This year, we're going to go through my latest full-length novel, Pianissimo.

This is the twenty fifth day of our challenge, so we are up to the letter Y. Y is for Yes.

Yes. Yes to this story. Yes to these characters. Yes to Pianissimo.

This is a story unlike any I've ever written before. There were challenges as well as successes. There were lessons and rewards in writing a book like this.

There were times I doubted myself. There were times I was ready to give up. There were times where I shook my head and wondered if this was even feasible.  

Thankfully, neither Agnes, nor Margaret, nor Corinne would let me abandon ship. Though sometimes quietly, they just kept chanting, "yes."

With them as my cheerleaders, I continued to type and type and type. I researched, I studied, I created. The further along I got, the louder the cheers were.

After two years of working on this, Pianissimo came into being. Yes. Yes it was meant to be written. Yes it was written. Yes it is a story I can be proud of.

Yes is a very powerful word, and yes is the word for Pianissimo.

http://www.amazon.com/Pianissimo-Lauren-Shiro-ebook/dp/B00OEOTZMC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1420832795&sr=8-2&keywords=lauren+shiro

A to Z '14 - Listening

For this year's A to Z Challenge, I am honoring my grandfather who passed away on April 3, 2013.



L is for Listening.


We were given two ears to listen and only one mouth to speak.



My grandfather taught me the value of being a good listener in a few ways.

First off, the man deserves sainthood for listening to me for the 33 years I was in his life (or he was in mine). I was an avid talker from a young age. God knows how much he had to listen to me ramble, but he did. And he never complained about it.

Simply teaching by example, he showed me that we needed to not just hear the words that were being said to us, but to listen. To fully comprehend the person, the emotions, the language. By watching him, I learned to listen.


On the flip side of that, I would listen to him all day if I could. I was the child who actually loved to listen to her grandfather's stories. I would sit and listen and converse and ask questions and soak it all in. Listening to him was simply the greatest.


Listening is so important. We need to listen to our spouses, our children, our co-workers and bosses. So often we just hear other people. Like Charlie Brown's teachers, we hear noise, not words. But that needs to change. We need to fully engage ourselves in our conversations. We need to listen and pay attention. We need to be respectful of those we talk with. Note that I said with and not to. We need to talk WITH people, not TO them.


Listening is a skill we can learn at any age and need to practice at every age.


L is for Listening.

A to Z '14 - Honesty

For this year's A to Z Challenge, I am honoring my grandfather who passed away on April 3, 2013.


H is for Honesty.


My grandfather always told us to be honest. He was a man of his word, and he was a great role model for it. He taught us the importance of honesty and integrity. He always told me to be a person of my word and to have a good handshake. For me, those are both so tightly intertwined. A good handshake is the mark of an honest person.

Honesty is so important. For me, I have to wonder about people who lie (whether patholoically or not). Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect. I've lied. For whatever reasons, I have. But I have met some people whose entire lives were based on lies. Or they had huge lies within their marriages (a lack of fidelity, for example). That's the kind of stuff that I don't understand. How can you live with yourself? How can you keep your stories straight? How can anyone ever truly believe you?



I don't know and I don't want to know. At the end of the day, we are the ones who have to live with ourselves, our decisions and our actions. Honesty is important - it's a tremendous indicator of character.



I choose to be honest, because the greatest man I have ever known was.

H is for honesty.

Q: Questioning

One of the biggest obstacles that any creative person encounters is questioning. More specifically, questioning ourselves, questioning our abilities, questioning our motives, questioning our place in the artistic world. We simply question EVERYTHING.



It's hard not to question. We live in a society that idolizes perfection. The perfect hair, the perfect body, the perfect family, the perfect novel, the perfect masterpiece. How can we not question ourselves and our abilities when we are comparing ourselves to such unattainable standards?




The thing is: nothing is perfect, no one is perfect. In fact, contrary to the US, there are many other countries and cultures that actualy revere imperfections! The sign of a good, hand made oriental rug is a specfical, purposefully created imperfection. The rug weavers do not question themselves. Instead, they embrace their humanity and infuse it into their art.



From one questioning artist to another, don't question yourself or your capabilities. You ARE good enough and your art has its own place in the art world. Don't compare yourself to others. You are not like them and no one else will ever be able to create in the same way you can either.



Go embrace yourself, your humanity and your art. There is no need to doubt or question anything!