Anca in Auschwitz

Tuesday I was wondering what I was going to blog about. I thought about seeing if I couldn’t outline how I was going about my edit process for Watching by Miriam Joy. Then I thought about posting up some responses to Beautiful People. But, after I got home and had the kids in bed there was only one thing I wanted to do...

Finish reading Anca’s Story by Saffina Desforges (Amazon US). And now, I’m going to relay it to you as I fight back the tears.

The cover, and of course my post title gives away the fact that this is a Holocaust story. The author’s don’t hide that fact from, nor the fact that it’s about three children who smuggle themselves into Auschwitz, that concentration camp that anyone who has paid attention to history class should know the name of. And from my recollection it was touted as the worst of all of them.

The story doesn’t start there of course, but rather in mundane classroom of the modern age, supped up with high tech gadgets, and a frail old lady asked to come in a relate her tale to slumped teens who probably all think Vampires should sparkle *scoff*. That is until Anca asks them if they have lost a parent and then tells them that she lost hers at the age of 12. Her father was executed in front of her and her mother... well, you’ll just have to read the book to find out.

Make sure you bring tissues. I suspect if I hadn’t taken three separate occasions to read the whole book I’d have been bawling by the end.

The Holocaust isn’t a pretty time in our history. But it is something that must be remembered. I’ve been horrified and fascinated by it since my Fourth Grade teacher read Devil’s Arithmatic by Jane Yolen. I followed that up by reading, and then watching, The Diary of Anne Frank in middle school.  In high school two busloads of kids, including me and my friend, the Rabbi’s daughter, were shipped to the theater to view Schindler’s List.

Now I add Anca’s Story (Amazon UK) to my list. I am glad I did and I hope they get a movie deal with a director who knows what they are doing. That way those who won’t read can be exposed to the tale. A tale I feel worth every tear I cried, and all the ones I didn’t.

:} Cathryn Leigh

Stepping Towards the Stars

So last week I talked about my dream goal. But you can’t just stop at dreaming. It would be nice if we could, though. Life would be so much easier, but as most of know life isn’t easy and it’s going to throw up road blocks of all sorts. So to obtain that dream goal you have to keep working towards it. In my case, I’m taking what I consider baby steps.

  

These baby steps are my goals for this year and I’ve tried to make them SMART. That means they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Or at least I’ve tried to make them that way. Let me give you some examples of what I’ve created.

Example 1: They say that part of being a good author is to read, read, read, so I’ve created a goal around this.

• Read at least one novel a month
• Read at least one short story a week

So by the end of the year I expect to have read 12 Novels and 52 short stories. That seems pretty specific and measurable. Is it attainable? I think so. I’ve already read my short story for the week and I’m currently working on that first Novel. As far as realistic and timely goes, well you have to remember I’m responsible for the feeding and clothing of my family, plus my own writing, so I think it is.

Example 2: the other part of being an author is to write, write, write. Needless to say I have a couple goals around that. I’ll show you the one related to The Phoenix of Vervell Trilogy

• Complete the editing and posting of Phoenix Triumphant (February)
• Complete the “Massive Revision” of Sarah’s Phoenix to align it with Phoenix Rising and Phoenix Triumphant (August)
• Send Sarah’s Phoenix out for critique and beta reading (September)

I’ve made these as specific and measurable are as I could. I haven’t been through the editing process enough to know how to measure revisions, but I suspect I’ll know when I’m done. Sending it out will be the easy part to measure. Again they are as attainable, realistic and timely, as I can make them. I gave myself an extra month on editing Phoenix Triumphant, just in case life throws some curveballs at me.
 

I also have some goals related to this Blog. The first is to continue weekly postings and the second to turn it into an Author Blog. The first is getting harder as I struggle  for topics each week. The second entails changing the name, and probably other stuff that I'm not entirely sure of. I do have a few ideas though. Some are more specific to this year than others.

• 30 days of World Building – Starting on April 11th, I’d lead you through the exercises as I flush out my own for NaNoWriMo 2012
• Setting a topic for each blog post such as: First of the month is a book review, last of the month is a goal review.
• Inviting some guests over to blog (yes Charley and Miriam I’m looking at you)
• Finding a book on writing with lots of exercises that we can do together. (could be one a month?)

I want to tie into my fellow writers as well as my readers without having to maintain two blogs (or a website), so please, let me know your ideas, comments and questions you have on how to make my blog better. Believe me I’d appreciate it.

:} Cathryn Leigh