Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

Life's too short to play it safe

I live in the 3rd dumbest state in America

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Have you thought about how “dumb” your state (country) is? A few days ago, my husband sent me this link, confirming that we live in the 3rd dumbest state in the U.S., and I took it like a personal insult. How can that be?

3rd Dumbest State: California

“California has one of the worst dropout rates in the country, with nearly 20 percent of the population failing to graduate from high school. In recent years, the state’s approach to fixing this was to artificially inflate the numbers. Besides this, graduating seniors in California scored an average of 1511 on the SATs, placing it in the bottom third of the nation. It was probably a bad sign when, in 2008, it was considered a great accomplishment that the state would work towards getting eighth graders to learn algebra, a common requirement in other states. One of the main bright spots for California was its “gold standard” for higher education, where students would have access to the excellent state colleges at a lower tuition rate. But this too has suffered in recent months”

 So we may be dumb, but at least we have this in southern California:

 San Clemente Beach September 2011

   And we have this beauty in the north:

 Golden Gate Bridge September 11th, 2011 

 So where are the smartest people in the U.S.? According to the same article, Vermont is the place to be, especially if you’re raising a family. 

The Smartest State: Vermont

“Vermont was declared the smartest state by Morgan Quitno thanks to several factors. “A high percentage of the state’s students are proficient in reading and math. In addition, class sizes are small and the number of teachers per student is among the lowest in the nation,” the firm said in a press release. The average SAT scores in this state are not overwhelmingly great (just 1542), but Vermont makes up for it with strong classrooms that foster good students who are dedicated to continuing their education beyond high school. The National Center for Education reports that 91 percent of people in Vermont have a high school diploma or higher, and nearly a third have completed a bachelor’s degree.”

Just to prove I’m not dumb, here’s a photo my husband took of me last night while waiting for the boat tour of the San Franciso bay.

 

So I don’t think California can possibly be the 3rd dumbest state. Do you?

On a more serious note, feel free to add your thoughts on education.

The truth about writing a book.

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If you’re writing a manuscript and hoping to publish it, perhaps this post will inspire you to never give up.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of listening to two published novelists at the Pen on Fire writers series, hosted by Barbara De Marco Barrett. Two novelists, Heidi W. Durrow and Danzy Senna, shared the process they went through in writing their novels which made me reflect on the amount of time and effort it takes to write a publishable manuscript.

Heidi Durrow’s debut novel, author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky,  explained how she started her novel in 1997, and finished it in 2010.  That’s thirteen years from start to finish, and here am I on my sixth year of rewriting my travel memoir, Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of gutsy Living on a Tropical Island feeling like something’s wrong with me, for taking so long.

When Heidi opened up with her honest statement of how long it took to write, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky,  I instantly liked her. It also helped when she said, “My mother is Danish, my father is black, and I grew up in Portland, Oregon.” This probably sounds silly, but I felt a connection with Heidi when she mentioned “dancing around the Christmas tree,” something my own Danish mother kept as a tradition. My childhood in Nigeria, although not related to Heidi’s background, also made me feel connected and I love Portland. It reminds me of Denmark with its coffee houses, friendly atmosphere, and locals riding bikes instead of driving, just like the Danes in Copenhagen.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, is Heidi’s debut novel and it tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. Her novel won “The Bellwether Prize,” established by Barbara Kingsolver…the only major North American prize that specifically advocates literary fiction addressing issues of social justice.

Heidi mentioned she went through twelve massive revisions, and was rejected over and over. Because she wanted every sentence to be perfect, it took her six years to write her first draft.

I’ve put together a list of helpful tips, some from Heidi Durrow and Danzy Senna’s conversation with writers, and added some of my own, from what I’ve learned over the six years I started writing, taking classes, attending conferences and networking. They are in random order.

  • Don’t write to make money.
  • Only start writing if you are truly obsessed about your story and believe in it.
  • Write the book you want to read.
  • Be a completionist, not a perfectionist.
  • Let the first draft be messy.
  • The key is in the revisions.
  • It takes time to write and revise a book for publication.
  • Don’t hire an editor to review your manuscript too early in the writing process.
  • Don’t change your story to please everyone, especially others in your critique group.
  • Don’t give up if you know you have a unique story.

At this point in my writing, I thought I had a completed manuscript. Several “positive” rejections from agents, (positive means a rejection with specific feedback on what to change)  have shown me that I have another rewrite to do. It’s taken me this long to understand what agents have been telling me, as well as small presses. They want to hear about an American family in Belize. As one agent put it, “What makes your story unique isn’t how you got to Belize, but the fact that you went.” So, I’m finally listening to agents and editors’  advice. The market is saturated with stories about the parents of troubled teens, just as it is with cancer survivors, autism, alcoholism, etc. So my new approach will be to start with the action in Belize.  My Freeways to Flip-Flops page has been updated.

I think we can all get off track while writing a manuscript. Sometimes we try to please those in our critique groups. I know this happened to me.

As Heidi and Danzy pointed out, ask yourself:

  • Why am I telling this story?
  • What is my relationship to this story?

Any thoughts? Are you writing a manuscript? Have you felt off track?

Happy writing to all, and remember to keep going.

 Photo credit above

 

 

Are women divorcing for frivolous reasons?

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Marriage takes work, lots of work, especially if you want it to last, and these days women are getting divorced not because of infidelity, but because of boredom.

In the article,  “Women and Divorce: Goodbye darling, you’re just too dull…” it seems that women are questioning if there isn’t “something more” to life and end up walking out even with a decent husband. Why is that?

  • Are women becoming more selfish?
  • Can we blame books like Eat, Pray, Love?
  • Are women going through a new kind of mid-life crisis?
  • Have women become narcissistic ignoring their vows, “Until death us do part”?

Apparently 7 out of 10 divorces are initiated by women, and the numbers are soaring among the over-45s, with break-ups in that age bracket increasing by 30 per cent in a decade. Writer Fay Weldon recently said:

“Women in their fifties instigate divorce because they are bored and want to be free and single again, not because they want the emotional and sexual excitement of another man.” They’re encouraged by a recent vogue of  ‘finding-yourself” literature, headed by the international best-seller Eat, Pray, Love, which recounted author Elizabeth Gilbert’s decision to divorce her husband and embark on a round-the-world odyssey of– depending on your view – inspirational self-discovery or nauseating navel-gazing.”

Julia Llewellyn Smith, gives the example of Lucy Valantine who, as she approached her 40th birthday, decided to leave her husband after a short five-year marriage.

“On the surface, life was perfect,” she says. “We had a gorgeous Victorian house in the Home Counties, I had a great job with a blue-chip company, and my husband was a lovely chap. He was kind and gentle and my friends all loved him. There was nothing wrong with him, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to change my life.”

Her husband was devastated when she left him, and in what sounds like a mid-life crisis, or perhaps a rebellious phase, she decided to:

  • Get a tattoo
  • Buy a Harley-Davidson motorbike
  • Ride across Australia and New Zealand
  • Teach English in Costa Rica and China
  • Work in a Zambian orphanage
  • Travel through Siberia and Mongolia.

Now, six years later, Valantine divides her life between the UK and Spain, where she runs a travel agency. Her ex-husband is happily remarried with a baby.

Just like Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about spending nights sobbing on her bathroom floor in her memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, Valantine did the same though for opposite reasons. While Gilbert questioned whether she still loved her husband, Valantine questioned whether she did the right thing in leaving her husband.

Julia Llewellyn Smith, author of “Women and Divorce: Goodbye darling, you’re just too dull…” states,

“Fifty years ago, a woman such as Valantine would have been rare indeed. Divorce was taboo and few women had the guts, let alone the financial means, to brave the social stigma of walking out on a decent husband simply because she felt there must be “something more”. Until recently, with nearly half of all marriages ending in divorce, the most commonly cited reason was infidelity.”

This desire for women to do what they want, to live a more fulfilled and exciting life is something I myself am experiencing today. Just like Valantine, I have a strong desire to teach English abroad, perhaps in Laos or Vietnam, to travel to Australia and New Zealand, to help children in Africa. You can keep the tattoos and Harley Davidson though. The good news is I’m not leaving my husband. He knows I’m always dreaming of new ways for us to do exciting things in life, and I know we shall within the next five to ten years.

What I find interesting is the new trend among baby boomers who are retired to go in different directions. This doesn’t mean they divorce, but simply that they allow one another to pursue their dreams. ABC shows this new trend in a video,  “Together but Apart.”  My friend Bob Lowry from Satisfying Retirement has a different opinion on this matter in his post “This Can’t be the Answer.”

So I believe that all relationships, however good, go through bad patches. There will be times when you drift apart and you need to find a way to reconnect. The difference is those who stick it out, who manage to live their passions  together, and who don’t stop their spouse from experiencing a new opportunity just because, “they’re not interested,” will survive.

As with anything, marriage is about give and take and also about being flexible. It should not feel like letting go of your dreams just because your spouse has no interest. Who wants to feel imprisoned?

Do you think women are changing? If so how and why?

Photo credit

My tips for kids moving to college on GM’s blog

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Last week, I received an e-mail from the PR team that supports GM’s Western Region asking me if I would be willing to contribute some tips to their blog.

Of course I accepted, and here’s the post: The Cheat Sheet: Moving Your Kid to College. I wrote from the perspective of a mother with three sons. Dave Barthmuss, the Group Manager for GM’s Western Region, wrote tips about taking his daughter to college.

I have to share an amazing coincidence. A few minutes before I found the GM e-mail in my inbox, I had just read my article from 2009,  published in the OC Register blog about taking my son to college for the first time. We loaded a 7′ surf-board and a bike in my husband’s bright yellow Chevy Aveo, a GM car. (photo above)

I want to thank Suzanne Broughton who writes for OC Family and also founded the  OC Blog Crush, the largest regional blogging organization, for referring GM to me.

Please jump over to read our tips on: The Cheat Sheet: Moving Your Kid to College, and comment on GM’s blog. That would make me so happy. Thanks Suzanne, Sara, Dave and everyone else at GM and OC Family blogs.

Are you ready to celebrate blog day?

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Are you ready to celebrate Blog Day?

Have you heard of blog day?

I had no clue what blog day was until my blogger friend, Barbara Hammond and her other blogstresses, at The Blogstress Network mentioned it last month on their blog talk radio interview.

Blog Day is held on August 31st, and it’s an opportunity to connect with new bloggers from around the world. Here’s what happens:

“Bloggers from all over the world will post recommendations of 5 new Blogs, preferably Blogs that are different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers. “

But something important is happening on August 30th, one day before Blog Day, well it’s my birthday,  (sorry I couldn’t resist)  but it’s also the day when  The Blogstress Network is having a call in show where bloggers can promote one new blog they admire, as well as mention their own blog. You can find the call-in details on The Blogstress Network website. Hope to hear your voices on the show.

Blog Day is not to be confused with Blog World, a large conference being held in Los Angeles this November, 3-5, 2011, where some blogging, social media and marketing experts will be speaking.

Since Blog World Expo is in my backyard, please let me know if you’ll be attending so I can drive up and meet you. I know three bloggers who are hoping to attend this event, and what a fantastic opportunity to finally meet them in person. Annabel Candy and Barbara Hammond are two of them. This event is packed with presentations and workshops on social media, and an opportunity to network with bloggers from all over the world.

Let’s give a boost to all bloggers, in particular bloggers from around the world. I shall try to contact new bloggers in Kenya, Cambodia, Laos, Peru and Vanuatu. I guess I need to start researching.

What about you? Do you have any new bloggers you’ve discovered you’d like to share with us?

 

Photo credit to woodleyonderworks

 

 

 

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