Where did he go?

A friend of mine from high school and college told me we lost a high school friend. I wanted to ask, "Where did he go?" Because at our age, we're too young to be losing people. It's not time for our schoolmates to start dying on us.

Yet, it's happened. This isn't the first school mate that has passed, but he's still one of the first and someone I spent a lot of time with in high school. So this one hits very close to home.

We're not young anymore. And this is the age that we start losing people. This is when people start having heart problems and contracting cancer. One out of 3 women contract cancer. 1 in 5 die from it. Think about your closest friends. Which one of them will it be? Men's outlook is even more dire. 1 out of 2 contract. 1 out of 4 die.

My mantra about life being short is sad but true. This is why I live big. I admit to
having used questionable judgment at times, but I learn from my mistakes and have few regrets. If I make it to old age, I don't want to be sitting around with my 50 cats saying to myself, "if only I'd done_____" or "I wish I would have tried_____" I want to have done all the things.

I also want to make an impact on the people around me. I want help, nurture, and support my family and friends. And if I've had a falling out, I want to be content with the lengths I have gone to to make amends.

When it's all over, I hope to look back at my life and not lament the things I never did. I want to go out satisfied that I'd lived life fully, leaving as few failures as possible in my wake.

I went to Vegas

And as I was having a great time in Vegas , people were dying in a tornado in Oklahoma.

And while I was having a great time in Vegas, a 18 year old boy succumbed to cancer.

But it's things like this that brought me to Vegas in the first place. I wrote a book last year. It was about a boy, much like the boy, Zach Sobiech, who died of cancer yesterday. It was about a boy who wanted to say goodbye. A boy who wanted to make a difference, even if it was a small one, before his time on earth was over. A boy who wanted to remind people that you only get once chance to live your life, and that you shouldn't take it for granted.

Though it was my message, I didn't live up to it, not until recently at least. But then people in my life started getting cancer. And people in my life started dying.

So I started living.

I'm publishing a book.

I'm kickboxing.

I'm getting out of my comfort zone.

Then a guy I'd never met asked me to go to Vegas and I said yes. 

Don't get me wrong. I've known him virtually for a while now, and I insisted we meet in person before  I actually made a final decision. So we hung out a couple times then I decided to go.

I went because at any moment I could take my last breath and leave this world without ever having seen Las Vegas and that would have been sad.

We continued to hang out until we went and we got along great and had a lot of fun together and we had a blast in Vegas, all while people lost their lives in different parts of the country.

But I don't think they'd mind much because we were taking advantage of the life that was given to us.

I hope when I die people are out there living life to the fullest. I know when I leave this place people will mourn my death, but I hope they don't do it for long. I hope they move on quickly and find solace in the memories they have of me whether I was their daughter, sister, mother or friend.

 I hope  they remember me when my spirit soared and how I tried to live like at any moment I could
get hit by a bus, or a piano could fall on my head or we could finally get that huge earthquake they've been promising for years and my world could come crumbling down around me, taking me with it.

But until that happens, I went to Vegas, and I know Zach Sobiech had huge Vegas moments, and I hope most of those who perished in Oklahoma had their Vegas moments.

Make sure you don't forget to take your Vegas moments. One day, you may not have the chance.

Love and Life,

Megan

Monkey Madness Monday: More to Walk Away With & a Little MLK

Don't you hate when you go away for a weekend for some R&R and you come back feeling like you never left.  I'm at the ocean. It's been a blast, but I don't feel rested. Which is fine. I've done a lot here: shopped, won some money at the casino, went to the beach, watched movies, played games. I didn't get to write though, which is my fault because I used to get up early. Now I sleep in. But now I stress because I have some projects to finish up.

Another thing happened too, and this is mostly what this blog is about today. This weekend I found out a writer friend died last July. He wasn't a great friend, I suppose more like an acquaintance, and I only knew him virtually, but still, he has been a pretty constant presence for me for five years. This is the third person in my virtual writing world that has passed in the last few years. It's strange because you suddenly wish you had talked to them more, found out more about them, instead of just joking around poking fun at the writing life and making gentle fun of noobs. So I took some time looking him up. I looked up past posts on a forum we were on together. Found a video on youtube. I know, it probably sounds totally psycho and stalkerish, but I wanted just a little bit more of him to walk away with.

I'd like to say that I'm going to go out and touch everyone's lives today. But it's hard to spread yourself that thin. I already have my personal friends and my family. I have different groups of writing friends, local, worldwide. I often regret that I can't keep up with all of them daily, but it's just not humanly possible. And of course, I meet more people every single day, in life, online...

I guess I'm just contemplative today. Even before this, I've been missing people I've met through my writing that I've just not been able to keep up with. And those I used to be super tight with, we just...have our real life to deal with. Our own writing, families, jobs, illnesses, vacations...it's hard.

And at this point I think I'm babbling. I just wish I had this expansive wingspan in which I could spread out over everyone I know and pull them in tight so I could always know what they're doing.

But alas...

Happy Monday All and a don't forget what today is...we celebrate a man who gave his life battling for equal rights against social injustice. 

 “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Wednesday Writing: An Unbalanced Line

From my rewrite and now round of revisions. I'm typing them up right now. This is toward the beginning when my protagonist, Chelsea, loses her mom to cancer. Tell me what you think.

By the time the doctors found the cancer, it was already widespread so the attempts at chemo and radiation proved to be futile. They gave her four to six months. We had no family to speak of. Mom’s parents were long dead, having been taken from this earth by a crackhead mugger. I had no aunts and uncles on my mom’s side, as she was an only child. My parents divorced when I was six and my dad lived a couple states away along with his sister and my Grandma Frankie—that’s short for Francesa. My mom had lots of friends though, and they took turns coming in and helping out, along with hospice, but mostly my mom’s best friend, Suki,.

I felt so helpless as I sat by her side and watched her hair fall out, as she disintegrated in her own bed, as her body grew weaker and more frail by the day, then finally as she silently slipped out of consciousness. Her already labored breath would catch, and her chest would heave when it became too painful even to breathe. I slept when she finally died after just three months, and I was glad for it. I wouldn’t want to have watched her take her last breath.

     Upon waking that morning, I went downstairs to find Suki and an odd pair of undertakers in my living room. The first undertaker was just like the ones you see in the movies. His name was George and he was very tall and pale with dark hair and a deep voice. The other’s name was George too. I know, too weird. He was the comic relief. It was almost like watching a vaudeville act instead of the men who were going to take my dead mom’s body out of my house forever.

     I stared, numb and feeling as if I was watching a movie instead of standing there in my own life. Suki paid attention as the undertakers delivered their monologues and then went about their duties. I stood there for a long time and Suki just let me, staying quiet, occasionally walking by and patting my arm or rubbing my shoulder between phone calls and cleaning and such.  I finally sat down when the undertakers rolled my mom out on a stretcher in a big black plastic bag with a zipper down the front. They handed Suki some pamphlets as they left. I went to the door, peeked out the peephole and ran my hand against the smooth oak. I watched them load up the plastic bag that held my mom’s body. I watched the Georges climb into their death mobile and drive away, then went to my mom’s room. The air was suffocating and musty. The scent of decay lingered.

Queen of Dirt Part Deux

I check Amazon daily to see if I have new reviews, to check Never Eighteen's ranking, and see if I'm still on top book lists. I know I'm selling books if I'm on lists. Usually I'm on the following lists.

Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Issues > Illness

Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Issues > Death

Once I was on the romance list. 


Today I made a new list.


 Books > 4-for-3 Books > Teens > Health, Mind & Body > Sexuality

Um, that's different. I suppose the book has bits of sexuality within its pages. Very little bits. But, hey, this is a new realm. Will it help me sell more books? I have no frickin' idea. In truth, I have no idea what these lists really mean. What's a 4 for 3 book? Do you buy three and get the 4th free? I don't know. 

I am obviously still the Queen of Dirt. Maybe someone will send me a sash and a tiara this time. Oh, and if you want to find out just how much dirt and sex is in the book you can go buy it by clicking the title of the book at the top of the page, or you can enter my contest here.

Third Degree Thursday: Last Days

I've been thinking a lot about the message behind Never Eighteen, and what I would bring to schools were I to give a presentation.  I think part of it would be to pose the question, "What would you do if you knew your time on earth was coming to an end?"

I mean, what if you only had, let's say, a year left?  What would you do with that time?

I think I'd travel a lot.  I've always wanted to do a cross country road trip.  It think I would do that and see all the sites I've never seen while visiting family and friends.  There are many writer's I've connected to along my journey, but never met in person.  I think I would try to meet as many of them as I could.

I'd throw one hell of a going away party.  At the very end, I'd donate everything I own to charity, money to the children's hospital, possessions (the ones I don't leave to my kids) to people who need it.  Insurance money is for the kids.

And I may or may not buy a monkey.

So tell me, what would you do if you only had a year left to live?

T Tuesday. T is for Theme

Themes.  Do you have some that run through just about every one of your novels?  Here are a few things that I see me constantly writing about, whether they play a major part or a supporting role.

Soccer: I love soccer.  I love watching my kids play soccer.  I used soccer in the MG series I wrote (my very venture into novel writing), it also had it's supporting roll in Never Eighteen (NE).  It makes sense because every weekend for about nine months out of the year I am either watching one or two games a week.

Coffee, particularly Starbucks:  I'm addicted, so this just makes sense.  In the MG series, they have a favorite coffee shop, in NE Kaylee works at Starbucks.  In Lockdown there is a scene with the shooters mom and the police where they talk over coffee.

Death:  Yep.  I'm starting to think I may be obsessed with or at least fascinated by it.  People die.  I've killed or made someone gravely ill in every book I've written be it nemesis, best friend, or the entire cast.  I think in my WIP (work in progress) I won't kill anyone, though my protagonist is fascinated by death.

Teen social issues: Eating disorders, domestic abuse, drug abuse, alcoholism, depression, sexual assault, homosexuality, violence, I've written about all of them.  The sad thing is, teens face these problems every day whether it's their own issue, or someone close to them.

So, what reoccurring themes do you find running through your writing?

Do share.