A Day in a Life with Autoimmune Disease

    Your alarm goes off and you lie there listening to it.  The buzzing is an annoyance and you are feeling a migraine coming on, but your arm has gone numb and you know the excruciating pain that will come along with reaching over to turn it off.  Eventually, you do it anyway.  This is a no win situation.

     After flexing each muscle individually to determine which ones are stiff today, you sit yourself up on the edge of the bed.  You slept like shit last night.  Your legs twitched for hours.  Every muscle contraction felt like a thousand bees stinging you from toe to thigh.  On top of that, your stomach disagreed with your choice for dinner and you had been in and out of the bathroom six times.

     You finally stand up because your bowels are telling you that it's ready for a seventh trip, but it takes you a few minutes to walk the ten feet to your bathroom.  It's not the muscles today, but the joints instead.  Your knees and hips moan, groan, and creak with every step.  Remember the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz?  Well where is that bitch and her oil can when you need her?

     About an hour later, you have done the best you can to look halfway presentable.  Your child is up now and wants French Toast for breakfast.  You smile and kiss him on the forehead as you hand him the box of Cheerios.  "Today is a bad day isn't it mama?" he asks.  You just nod your head and fight back the tears.  You wish you could be a supermom, but you know you have to save up energy reserves for everything you have to do today.

     You drop him off at your mom's house.  You have to rely on family because you aren't able to work enough to afford daycare.  You can't wait for summer to be over and school to start so your mom can get a break.  You've needed her a lot lately, dropping him off sometimes for a few days.  There was a heat wave recently.  The temperature and humidity caused a disastrous flare of symptoms.  Your son hugged you and sent signals of pain throughout your body, so you yelled at him and he started to cry.  You didn't mean to, but flare ups mean irritability and uncontrollable mood swings.  And then comes the guilt and feeling of inadequacy.  This is a no win situation.

     It's off to the doctor's office.  You are on a first name basis with the staff.  Your test results came back normal, but that was expected.  These are "invisible illnesses" after all.  So your doctor decides to try you on a new medication.  "Just take these three times a day for two weeks and come back so we can discuss whether or not they had any effect."  Great.  That makes eight prescriptions you are currently taking, in addition to the over-the-counter Tylenol and the nutritional supplements.  You know that this one may or may not help, but you are worried about the side effects.  This is a no win situation.

     You get to the grocery store parking lot, only to realize that you forgot your shopping list at home.  You sit in the parking lot for awhile debating the pros and cons of going home to get it.  You finally decide to tough it out since you have to fill the new prescription anyway.  The pharmacy staff are on a first name basis with you as well.  You watch the pharmacist walk away and shake her head in pity as she goes to prepare your order and you begin shopping.  This takes you an hour.  You only needed twelve items.  And when you get home you realize you forgot the milk.  The whole reason you decided to go to the store today instead of tomorrow was because you watched your son pour the last of it on his cereal this morning.

     

     Your dad calls.  He wants to know if you've been avoiding him lately.  You tell him "no."  The truth is you've been avoiding everyone, especially those that give well-meaning but unhelpful advice.

·        "You should get out more."  (Getting out of bed is a victory)

·        "It's all in your head.  If you stop thinking about it, it will go away."  (Some of it is inside your head.  Those are the neurological conditions.)

·        "You look fine.  If you were really sick you wouldn't look so good."  (You wonder if you should walk around in sweats with your hair undone and no make up with a constant grimace on your face.  But then they’d say you look like shit all the time, so this is a no win situation.)

·        "Try eating better."  (You do, and pray that you can keep it all down without throwing up or having digestive disturbances later.)

·        “If you worked more or exercised, you would feel better.”  (You realize that most people think you are lazy.)

·        “Well, I’m tired all the time too.”  (You can’t believe that they think that their tiredness is even remotely close to chronic fatigue.)

You tell your dad not to worry, that you will come see him soon.

     You get ready for work and wish for the hundredth time that you could find a job other than waitressing.  Is there even one out there that allows for constant hospitalizations, weekly doctor’s appointments, swapping shifts with coworkers when you are having bad days and you can still make a hundred dollars or more in the five hours before your body gives out on you?  It’s not likely.

     Driving to work, you stop for two energy drinks, not that they’ll do much good.  You walk in the door and someone says, “Hey girl, you alright today?”  Crap.  You forgot to put on the fake smile.  You don’t lie.  You tell them how bad you feel.  You stopped lying to them after a breakdown you had in the middle of a shift one night.  They don’t understand but try to be sympathetic, at least to your face.  You accept that and muster through the shift.  It’s not a good one.  You have to ask for directions to tables twice.  This confuses the other servers because you’ve been there a long time and you really should know your table numbers.  You enter a table’s order into the computer, but you only ring in the husband’s burger and not the wife’s steak.  This is embarrassing because you can’t come up with a decent enough excuse for why that happened.  You bring Sprites as refills to tables drinking Cokes.  And you flat out forget that several people needed take out containers.  They call this cognitive dysfunction you are experiencing “fibro fog.”  What a cute name for something that seems so much like early dementia.

     Surprisingly, you still get decent tips.  It must be the knee braces showing through your pants.  But by the time 9pm rolls around, you are beginning to feel the pain that runs your life.  You beg to be “cut” for the night.  That means you get to clean up and go home.  Management won’t do it.  They think another rush of customers is coming.  By the time you are able to leave at midnight, you are limping.  It took you three times longer than everyone else to clean your section because you needed to move slowly and with caution.  Your feet and every joint in your body hurt.  Your hands had problems closing around objects.  And while doing your financial to turn in your money to the office, you kept transposing numbers, so it took awhile to get your papers balanced.

     As you were leaving, you overheard people planning to go out.  They stopped asking you to join a long time ago.  You get in your car and wonder if you can make it home without falling asleep at the wheel.  You call your mom to tell her you are okay and that you will pick your son up in the morning.  She tells you to take your time.  She knows how rough the mornings after work are.  She tells you not to push yourself, and to try and rest as much as possible.

     You get home and can’t wait to take off your clothes.  The fabrics irritate your skin.  You rub on hydrocortisone cream to stop the itch and sit at the kitchen table to take your medicines.   You debate between the muscle relaxer, the pain killer, and the sleep inducer.  You know the risk of taking all three.  As usual, you forego the sleep aid and opt for a cup of chamomile.  It doesn’t help.  You lie in bed and wish it would all just stop, and you could go back to being you again.  And you pray.  You pray to God that this genetic curse has not passed on to your child.  Or if it does, that he is one of the lucky ones whose illnesses are not always as bad as yours can be.  And you pray for a cure.  You pray that one day they will find a way to stop the immune system from attacking healthy cells so that everyone with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Autoimmune Peripheral Neuropathy, Celiac Disease, Diabetes, Hashimoto’s, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, Addison’s, and the other one hundred or more autoimmune diseases, can live every day in a life without autoimmune disease. 

Romance Novels v/s Real Life Dating: Why I Prefer To Stay At Home And Read

     Chivalry is dead...except for on paper bound between a cover depicting a shirtless male in a provocative pose.
 
     It is no secret that I am a single woman.  I've been that way for longer than I care to admit.  I have never noticed a lack of any romance or companionship in my life and there is a big reason for that:  Book Boyfriends!  For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase, a book boyfriend is a fictional character that one reads about and then proceeds to fantasize about, stalk on the website of their author, and compare every man that crosses ones path to.


     I have had many of them; I'm not very faithful.  It started with Lestat, way back when I picked up my first vampire novel.  Later there was Sebastian Wroth from No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole.  Lately, I've had a thing for my own characters.  When you meet Dallas you'll understand.

   
     As I have very recently made the plunge back into the real life dating world, I've realized a few things.  Here's a list of the top ten things that irk me:
1.  Most real men do not have six packs. (This is very disappointing)
2.  Men no long open doors unless you stand there and look at them pointedly.
3.  If you want to hear a sexy voice at the other end of the phone line, forget about it and hope for a cute text     message with a wink smiley.
4.  Alpha males are few an far between.  I want, "I'm picking you up for dinner at [insert nice restaurant name here].  Be ready at seven and wear something nice, with no panties."  I get, "Wherever you want to go is fine with me."  Again, via text message.
5.  They don't always make sure you come first.
6.  When you meet someone for the first time, there is no immediate spark to let you know that they are "the one" unless there is a short in the computer or cell phone.
7.  You will not meet the love of your life when he saves you from a serial killer or rogue werewolf.
8.  Only 3.9 percent of men are over 6'2".
9.  While some men may fight for your honor, they'll probably yell at you later while you are dressing the numerous wounds they received while getting pummeled on by that neanderthal.
10.  A real life relationship does not go from love at first sight to happily ever after in the 250 pages it takes to wrap up that international spy mission.

   I wrote all this to say simply that women, particularly those that read a lot romance novels, don't need to lower their standards, but do need to make them more realistic.  And men need to step up their game to somewhere between Alex from Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks and the infamous Christian Grey.

Great Beginnings

     A few weeks ago I placed the first two chapters of The Angel Inside (WIP) on a website called Wattpad.  Mind you, it is the unedited version and meant only to relieve the curiosity of friends who kept asking what I am working on.  Here are two of the impressions I received from two of those good friends and avid readers:

"Oh my God! I have to read more." - Michele
"I have no clue where you are going with this." -Vivian

     These two reactions represent exactly what every single writer should want his or her readers to feel about the story from the beginning, or hook: Anticipation and unpredictability.  Too many times, I have read books (mainly from self-published authors who don't hire a good editor) where the first few thousand words give away the entire plot line or just too much in general.  I can't even begin to tell you how many stories I have read that go on and on, breaking down the protagonist's personal history on page one, leaving no mystery whatsoever.  It's quite annoying.

     Imagine that a good book is like a new relationship.  Would you go out on a first date and tell that person everything about you in the first few minutes?  Would you go on a second date if he told you his deepest, darkest secret before dessert?  The answer to both questions is "probably not" and a good book's beginning is in a lot of ways like a first date for the person reading it. 

     The main goal of the first few chapters should be to make them want to read more (or see more of you) without giving away the major plot points.  You can do this by interspersing the characters' revelations throughout the book, in dialogue or reflections, saving the juiciest stuff for the end.  Give the reader something to anticipate, or yearn for, plain and simple.

If you'd like to read those two chapters of the first draft, click here but keep in mind that this is not the final product.

What book have you read that had a great beginning that made you yearn for more?



   

Writing and Music: PLUS A GIVEAWAY

     There is no doubt that music puts most people in the mood.  For what, however, is up to the individual.  I, for example, cannot write without background music or a little lyrical inspiration.  I've found that this is the case for many writers particularly when blocked or in need of a little more detail.

     In her blog, The Inspired Classroom, Elizabeth Petersen writes:

"Being able to allow students to imagine their story, repeat it in their minds, and “walk around” their visualization to clarify details is a step worth taking in a prewriting stage of composing a story on paper. How many times have we asked students to add details to their stories or descriptions of what they are trying to convey? Music can be a wonderful vehicle to get those juices flowing."

(For the full story, click this link: http://theinspiredclassroom.com/2011/03/visualization-in-music-and-writing/ )

     My latest pop music obsession is "Daylight" by Maroon 5.  You already know that the Luminosi series has vampire-like characters.   Listen to the song and you'll hear exactly why it inspires me so much.   http://youtu.be/Wg9Urm2_7xQ

     I have also created playlists for the books based on scenes in my head like a movie soundtrack.  These playlists include artists like 30 Seconds to Mars, Muse, and Florence + The Machine.  Imagine how excited I got when I discovered that one of my favorite authors, Sherrilyn Kenyon, does the same thing:

     "I started building playlists for books as far back as third grade. Much like a movie, music added to the mood and it helped me to focus on the characters and stories, especially whenever I found a song that really seemed to capture the feeling of the character or book I was working with.

     "And while I have as many as 200 songs that I put in a book’s playlist (everything from rock, thrash, punk, alternative, country, opera, classical, hip hop to rap), there is always, always the one that really captures the feeling of the book and characters. That one song that even years after I’ve published the book, when I hear it play, takes me right back to what I was doing and thinking as I wrote." (http://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/2011/08/music-and-writing/)

     So I ask this question to you and anyone who comments and subscribes to this blog will be entered into a random drawing for a Barnes and Noble gift card!

For writers: What song(s) help you visualize your characters and plotlines?

For non writers:  Which songs get you in the mood for...whatever?

All I Need Is a Little Inspiration

     Like every other writer, the question I hear the most is, “Where do your ideas come from?”  I’ll never get tired of the reaction I get when I answer, “You!”  However, it’s very true.  Every single one of my characters, locations, and plot lines comes from some person or event in my life.  Right now I’m sure most of you are thinking that is highly unlikely seeing as I write paranormal romances, but, honestly, I have met some people and seen things that have planted the seed for all of my craziest ideas.

     My biggest inspiration was the city of Oswego, Illinois itself.  Originally a small farming community, the city was slowing becoming more popular with young families.  It began developing heavy several years ago with much promise as a booming suburban community.  It even got a Chipotle! *wink*  But, when the economy halted, so did Oswego’s growth resulting in random patches of open land next to housing subdivisions and businesses.  There is a school named Wolf’s Crossing, numerous coyote sightings, and a subdivision with street names like Twilight Drive and Midnight Court.  No more explanation needed, right?

     As far as the characters go, I have met so many interesting people in my years in the food industry that some have made a huge impact on me.  Some I have only met once, like the guy I served at TGI Friday’s with his wife and teenage kids.  When I paid out his bill with the credit card that had the cardholder’s name as Jackson Price, I ran up to him and told him excitedly that I was totally naming a Demon Hunter after him.  His response,  “Ya hear that kids? Dad’s an ass kicking Demon Hunter.”

     Others have become great friends.  Lillith the Spellcaster queen is modeled after my three favorite fiery redheads: My bestie Michele Zimmerman-Brann, a feisty bartender Melissa Elder, and the woman whose amazing voice I write to, Florence Welch.  This picture (below) is what I put up on my desktop when I’m writing Lilith.  

An important fight scene takes place inside TGI Friday’s Oswego.  Present in that scene is Kellianne Firstin (MaryAnne), Shana Richards, and Kyle Rodrigues. 

Kyle Backus is Cam of Sebastian’s werewolf pack.

A Facebook pic (left) of Nikki Novello is why she’s the only female in the pack.

Glorya Villazana is, well, Glorya because she is a character on a whole other level and I would never change that.

Susan McCauley is mentioned a few times as “Endless Lunch Lady”.  She is a regular guest that I inherited from Shana when she left Friday’s.  Susie became a great friend and she was such a fixture in the restaurant for lunches, that she needed a part in the fictional version as well.

Fair warning, if you don’t want to end up in one of my books, please let me know.  And as the saying goes, never piss off a writer or you’ll end up dead.  (But not you, Kellianne.  I only killed you for dramatic introduction of a couple other characters. *smooches*)

What inspires you?  Tell us in the comments below.  And don’t forget to subscribe to this blog.  April first is the start of Camp Nanowrimo 2013 (Part I).  I’m finishing the last 25,000 word of The Demons Who Loved Me so expect word on a release date soon.

Luminosi, and Scuri, and Hunters! Oh My!

So, if you are reading this right now you are a loyal friend, family member, or someone who accidently stumbled across this page and are now wondering how the hell you got here.  So, just in case you fall into that last category, let me take a moment to introduce myself.

            My name is Tasha Driver.  I am your not-so-typical waitress, barista, single mother, and chick living with Crohn’s Disease.  In this blog you will probably hear about all of those things at some point, but the primary purpose of this is to promote my (in the works) book series, The Luminosi Brotherhood.  The books are Paranormal Romances and have plenty of steamy parts along with the action.  I have been planning this series for the last three years of my life.  Now that I have a clear picture (at least in my head) of where this is going and Book One is close to being finished, I figure it’s time to let you all in on why I get that spacey look on my face at inappropriate times and mumble about demon hunters and lesbian fairies.  Yes, I said lesbian fairies, but we will get to that later.

            What’s the basic premise of the series, you ask?

            Well, without giving the awesome parts away (you’ll have to purchase the final products for that) here’s a brief series synopsis:

In the beginning of time, when God was creating Earth, He called His Angelic Council, “Peace,” “Love,” “Truth,” and “Justice,” and asked how they felt about Him creating humans.  “Love” and “Justice” agreed while “Peace” and “Truth” made a strong stance against us lowly humans even existing.  What they didn’t know was that God had already made His choice and only wanted to know who among His angels would uphold His decision.  This began a long history of angels falling from Heaven. 

When they reached Earth, they were referred to as Daemons, or “those that are no longer holy and all-powerful.”  Our modern term for them is Demons.  Angels of death became vampires.  Angels of Destruction became Shifters.  Angels of Enlightenment became Psychics.  Angels of Words and Knowledge became Spellcasters (or witches) and those of Nature became Elementals.  All of our mythical monsters and bogeymen once lived beyond the pearly gates of Heaven.  Now they live amongst us.        

Two factions formed from these Daemons.  Those that wished to use and annihilate humankind – The Scuri, or Dark Ones, and those who protect us from harm and choose to live secretly among us until they are allowed to return to Heaven.  They are called the Luminosi Brotherhood.  Luminosi means Bright Ones. 

There are many leaders and heroes in the Brotherhood and these sexy boys and a few luscious vixens are whom each book in the series revolves around.  There will be separate postings about them individually.

Then, of course, are the bad guys.  The Scuri are led collectively, regardless of type, by Lykos, former Angel of Destruction and “Peace” (I know, the irony, right).  When he fell he didn’t just become a Shifter, he mutated into a giant wolf beast, raped countless human women and became the father of all werewolves.  And, yes, he’s kind of a dick.  His claim to fame was killing “Truth” back in the early days who he vilely refers to as “that pussy with daddy issues.”  Brownie points if you can guess one of “Truth’s” names that we are a little more familiar with.

Finally, there are the Prices.  A family of demon hunters.  These bad asses have been kicking Daemon butt since Before Christ.  Presently, they are led by Jackson Price.  He is the C.E.O. of Price industries, a government weapons manufacturer and front for the recruitment and training of Hunters worldwide.  Jackson, along with his brothers Seth and Javier, and little sister Samarra, make a lot of trouble for Luminosi and Scuri alike.  Throughout the series the Luminosi Brotherhood have to decide whether the Prices are allies or just humans that need to be considered collateral damage.

There you have it.  Hopefully, you’ll stay with me in this journey.  I’ll be posting excerpts as I go along and I’m sure I’ll have a few giveaways as we get closer to release.  I will be self-publishing so your dedication is integral to my success.  I thank you in advance for helping me to achieve my dream.

Be well,

Tasha