Help for those suffering from cancer

As many of you know, cancer has played a big role in my family. I lost both my only sibling and my father to cancer, and my mother is a lung cancer survivor (so far). And I, like everyone I know, have also had many, many friends who have fought this insipid disease, and some of these friends have won and some haven't.

Having been in the position of cancer patient caregiver, I've seen many different things that can work to help cancer patients. In addition to traditional Western methods (chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, etc.), I've seen nutritional programs, prayer, acupuncture, massage therapy, meditation and imagery all play a role in cancer recovery.

My father considered himself an atheist. Despite this, he used both meditation and imagery daily in his fight against cancer. Although he eventually succumbed, when he was first diagnosed he was given a year and a half to live. He extended that time, through many different treatments and Herculean will, and he lived 9 more years, years that saw my nephew grow into a young person, saw my marriage, saw me enter a doctoral program at his alma mater. These were huge life events for him, and we're all delighted that we were able to share those times with him.

Diana Losciale edited PINK PRAYER BOOK.

From the Amazon page:

Review
Here in one special book are the prayers, hopes, fears, and comforts of women who have had breast cancer and the families affected by the disease. The all too common diagnosis of breast cancer can send a woman into such a frightening place that the support of others becomes terribly important, and their prayers essential. This book can turn the "mourning into dancing" for thousands of women. --Cokie Roberts, ABC News, NPR, author and breast cancer survivor.

Product Description
Inspired and written by breast cancer patients and survivors, and the mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers, husbands, and friends that surround them, Pink Prayer Book is deeply personal, yet universally evocative.

From the first realization of diagnosis through treatment, recovery, and the hope of lasting remission, Pink Prayer Book offers prayers for the journey into healing. Incorporating Scriptures and Psalms, this book offers support within a joyous healing network. These wonderfully personal prayers lift hearts and voices to ask for God's healing and never-ending love.

Diana is now putting together a second collection, and she's putting out a call for help:

"I am trying to reach people in every state this time and would appreciate your sharing this if you would consider it.
This is NOT an evangelical book.
It will be, simply, a collection of originally written prayers.
All contributors whose prayers are accepted for publication in the book receive two copies of the book.
And a byline, mentioning their name, their relationship to the cancer survivor AND the state/country from which they hale.

I know. This is a bit of a presumption on my part; but I learned when doing PINK PRAYER BOOK book that it doesn't hurt to ask. Those who can write and share a prayer jump right on doing it; others demure, which is totally cool.

In case you would consider participating and even in sharing this request, here are the "rules":
1) Original prayer written by cancer survivor OR friend OR family member.
2) Length: Anywhere from two lines to 20 ... or more.
3) Include name, email address, relationship to cancer survivor (i.e., survivor, friend, family)
4) Can be any faith; or, along the lines of a mantra or "something special" repeated as verbal offering.
5) The book will be divided into 3 sections which they can keep in mind as they write, or not! (a ) prayers upon hearing the diagnosis b) prayers during treatment and healing c) prayers on surviving and thriving

That's it!
Of course, I am putting this collection together in the next 6 weeks and would love to have prayers within the next 2 weeks or so. I have found that if people are interested and want to do it, they just go ahead and do it.
Prayer writers do NOT have to be writers. Nor professionals at all in terms of writing."

This is a generous offer from someone to allow us to make a difference in the lives of cancer patients and in the lives of those who love them. I know I would have taken a great deal of comfort from such a collection.

I know that many writers read this blog, but more importantly, that many compassionate people read this blog.

If you feel you can help, please send your writing to:

dlosciale at sbcglobal dot net

Thank you, and have a lovely Saturday!

Join the Club - again, no spoilers

It was clearly a weekend of decadence.

My desk is strewn with bills, catalogs and other reminders of tasks I left abandoned. My kitchen is piled high with dishes, the surfaces covered with more leftover chores. The compost bucket is full. The fresh corn, collected on Saturday, has still not been shucked. A corner of the living room couch has a pile of shoes beside it, kicked off over and over again, as people made themselves more comfortable. Half-filled glasses with various liquids and empty snack packages are lying across the end and coffee tables.

I spent the weekend with an old friend. Several old friends, really - Harry, Hermione, Ron, Hagrid, and to show my tuna fish sandwich side, some of my personal favorites of their crowd - Severus, Luna and Neville.

I swore I was going to savor this last adventure. I was going to read it slowly, wait until after my other family members had devoured the 784 pp. as they usually do.

But like the glutton I am, a day and a half after arriving early at Barnes and Noble and actually finding it open, the thing was done.

My orgy was over.

I'm also reading The Courage to Write, as I mentioned in a previous entry. I haven't finished it yet, but the crux of the book is being courageous in your writing. Staying true to yourself and your observations and your characters, etc. Very pretty words, and true ones. But it's often hard (from what I hear and read) doing that in the current publication environment. Publishers, naturally, want to sell books. Books become longer and longer, because the public wants more when the latest of their favorite series comes out. Mysteries get sexed up. I still love John Burdett and what he's trying to do with his Bangkok series, but whereas his first one only touched on the ideas of sex (which can be a lot more sexy, than being explicit, thank you very much), his second book becomes almost soft porn at points. And from what I've read of the third, it will go even further in this direction.

J. K. Rowling has got to be one of the most courageous authors I know. There has probably never been a writer in history who's had more notoriety - or pressure. One of the world's wealthiest women, coming from her infamous tea rooms and single motherhood, scratching out bits of Harry on legal pads, I believe she succumbed to certain pressures in the middle of her beyond-famous series of the boy wizard and his fight to save the world.

Not this time.

For those who can eat a box of chocolates and let it last for weeks (which I can, actually, but don't have this discipline with cheeses or favorite books), no, I'm not going to give anything away here. But let me just say, that I think, this time, Joanne Kathleen Rowling did things her way.

And we should all be grateful.

So, I'm off to put my house and family back in order, and to leave those two summer days of ravenous reading behind me. If anyone who's finished The Deathly Hallows wants to e-mail me to discuss, well... anything, please do! I'd love company.

I'm missing my old friends already.

Pirates

As I continue with The Courage to Write and struggle with some writing group issues, and as I read Marianne's blog today, writing is very much on my mind.

Not my writing, per se, although thanks to some encouragement from my friend Charity, I'm finally finishing revisions on a long dormant YA.

However, I really am thinking more about the process of writing. What it means to write. To critique. To support others in their acts of writing.

What writing means. Why do we write?

Okay, so these are the same topics that most writers grapple with.

So, why, suddenly, did I want to really get back to writing? Why did my excuses run out?

And even without writing, I was having a perfectly lovely summer. I love to cook, and I was doing a lot of that. I love to teach, and I was doing a lot of preparation for the fall. I love my family, and I was doing a lot for them.

But you know, you cook a meal, you eat it. People might praise your cooking. You make people happy. That's good. But it's gone, over, finis. That's it. Reliving the meal isn't going to bring you (or anyone else) the remotest bit of pleasure. You can cook the same thing again. People will enjoy it. But they'll consume the calories, many or few, and then it's over.

You can, however, read beloved stories over and over. The revisiting can be lovely. You'll get new things each time. I could read Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice every year and see new points. And learn new things. And grow from entering these favorite worlds again.

And writing, we're all pirates. We're all searching for treasure which we'll find by trying different angles. And we can live in fantastical worlds and have the most fascinating people (or creatures) for company. And if we don't like where we are, we can change it with a tap on the keyboard. We can leave fat bodies and become acrobats; leave skinny bodies and grow voluptuous curves, leave troubles and become adventurers, leave safe lives and fall into unimaginable dangers.

We can get inside your head.

How much more pirate is that?

So I realized that I've blocked this wanting, this longing that I've had by burying myself in the mundane. And yes, Charity was sooooo right to nudge me towards The Courage to Write. Because it's so much easier to bake a quiche than to be a pirate.

But it's a lot less fun.