Author Claire Marti on Meditation and Tuning out Distractions

Instead of my usual Monday Book Review, I have a guest post from author Claire Marti, who writes contemporary romance for The Wild Rose Press. The third book in her series set in Laguna Beach, California releases AUGUST 29 but you can pre-order it now for only $2.99...

I've read all three in the series and enjoyed them all, so when I asked Claire to write about some of her inspirations for this latest book, she sent me the following blog post on meditation.

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In Sunset in Laguna, Christian Wolfe is a veteran suffering from PTSD. Frustrated because nothing seems to help his chronic nightmares, headaches, and anxiety, he resorts to trying meditation. How hard can it be? When Christian attempts to sit still and focus in a group session at Peaceful Warrior, he learns how he actually has the attention span of a hummingbird, not a retired Special Forces major. Between his feet taking turns falling asleep, the man on the cushion next to him passing gas, and gorgeous Kelly Prescott across the room in stretchy red yoga pants, focusing on a mantra proves impossible.

Kelly has been meditating to manage stress for years, but Christian’s masculine presence across the room tests her powers of concentration. Instead of embracing the present moment, she can’t stop daydreaming about Christian’s powerful muscular arms around her and how his kiss would taste. After class, they connect and laugh about their shared inability to focus, which is their first step toward a potential relationship.

As a longtime yoga and meditation teacher, I enjoyed writing about meditation in the context of fiction. Students confess to me how they find meditation to be the ultimate challenge. When we finally sit still, we realize how we tend to have fleeting, often repetitive thoughts, sailing through our mind. Our brains can feel like we have a pack of wild monkeys bouncing off windowless walls.  It’s a hilarious and often humbling experience to truly turn your focus inward and listen. Distraction is easy. Focus is a challenge, but it is worth the effort.

One of the primary intentions in yoga and meditation is to center your mind and become grounded in the present moment. In our daily lives, it’s easy to become mired in the past and controlled by memories, patterns, and fears. Also, in our Western culture, the focus on the future, on doing, on achieving, on getting somewhere or buying something, pulls us out of the now. Both Christian and Kelly are haunted by demons from their past and benefit from learning to quiet those fears and find freedom.

Don’t we all want to feel more centered and clear? In our busy world, tuning out distractions and focusing on one single thing can feel unattainable. When you can sink into sustained attention, you are fully present and truly at the height of your personal power and light. Presence can equal freedom because you’ve released any attachment to future results and accepted what IS right now.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are considered the seminal text in yoga. Yoga is defined in Yoga Sutra 1.2: Chitta vritti nirodaha: Yoga is the ability to direct the mind without distraction or interruption. Or, put another way, quiet that pack of wild monkeys. It sounds simple, right? Simple yes, but not easy. Discipline, commitment, and patience are essential tools in developing a meditation habit.

With dedicated practice, you learn to tune out disruptions and simply focus on what’s happening minute-by-minute and breath-by-breath. True awareness and clarity arise when you are absorbed in the moment. Although Christian and Kelly spectacularly fail during their first session, over time meditation plays a part in Christian healing his wounds and Kelly letting go of the past.

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Thanks for sharing your knowledge and insight, Claire! I've tried meditation while I edited a book on Zen Buddhism titled Meet the Buddha, Kill the Buddha (which I totally recommend), but it's so much harder to actually accomplish than it sounds when you're reading about it. In Sunset in Laguna, I totally sympathized with Christian as he tries to wrap his head around the practice. 

About the Book:

Returning to Laguna Beach after four tours in the Middle East, Christian Wolfe leaves the military behind and buys a wine bar, vowing to keep his life simple. He fights to keep his devastating PTSD a secret and refuses to burden anyone else with his baggage. When stunning Kelly Prescott and her red stilettos saunter into town, she drives him past the bonds of his self-control.

Successful in her father’s stuffy law firm, Kelly’s too compassionate to survive in the cutthroat world of corporate litigation. Leaving behind both family and courtroom drama, she moves to Laguna to become general counsel for a nonprofit veterans’ organization.

She didn’t bargain on a gorgeous modern-day Heathcliff, and in Christian, she sees another kind of challenge—one she can’t resist.

LINKS TO PREORDER YOUR COPY:

AMAZON: https://amzn.to/2uaYvEm

B&N https://bit.ly/2NAsbmu:

iBooks: https://apple.co/2O5XDtL

TWRP: https://bit.ly/2KENE0i

About the Author:

Claire Marti started writing stories as soon as she was old enough to pick up pencil and paper. After graduating from the University of Virginia with a BA in English Literature, Claire was sidetracked by other careers, including practicing law, selling software for legal publishers, and managing a non-profit animal rescue for a Hollywood actress.Finally, Claire followed her heart and now focuses on two of her true passions: writing romance and teaching yoga. 

Website:  www.clairemarti.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ClaireMartiAuthor/

Twitter:  @clairepmarti

Instagram: @clairepmarti

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8203678.Claire_Marti

Come Visit Me TODAY at Cape Cod Beer's Outdoor Market!

On August 17 (oh wait, that's today!) I'll be at the Cape Cod Brewery in Hyannis, on Iannough Road, with my friend and fellow YA urban fantasy author, K.R. Conway. We'll be selling and signing our books, as well as jamming along with the live music and awesome atmosphere of the Friday afternoon Farmer's Market.

Check out the Cape Cod Beer website for more details and directions.

What's that? Mermaids and Beer don't go together?

Of course they do. Especially if it's Cape Cod Beer!

Writing Wednesday: Inadequacy and Perserverance

“The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing: isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination and consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that’s on a good day.”

Robert DeNiro said these words in 2014 on stage at the Oscars. He was introducing the award for best screen writing. But he could've been talking about me. 

Like most authors, I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting alone in front of my computer, drinking way too much coffee and obsessing over my imaginary friends. When my characters aren’t behaving or doing what I want them to, I procrastinate with social media as my more-than-willing partner in crime. So yes, all of what DeNiro said feels insightful on a scary soul-searching level. 

Like, oh my god, he’s REALLY talking about ME.

On the other hand, the feelings of “soul-crushing inadequacy” are the very things that make writers so introspective, analyzing the minutiae of everyday life and emotion to find what’s real and put it on paper. We search for Truth and make readers stare it in the face.

My own soul-crushing insecurities made me put off my writing dreams for twenty years. 

Like so many authors, I caught the writing bug early. In second grade I knew I wanted to write books and be the one standing at the front of the line in bookstores, smiling as I signed my name. My favorite book for years was The Girl Who Owned a City, by O.T. Nelson. Dystopian YA before they named it as a category. I wanted to write a book like that.

When I graduated college with my BA in English literature, I told my dad I wanted to write for children and teens, to inspire the same love of words and reading that had supported and comforted me through my life. He laughed and told me to find a real job.

My first "real" post-college job, entry level at a Boston advertising agency, came with computer access. I started my first real post-college novel on a floppy disc on my lunch hours. It was Bright Lights, Big City meets Brave New World. New Adult before it was even a category. I had over 80,000 soul-searching words written before a large metal stapler literally crushed my dreams by landing on the disc hidden in my desk drawer.

A computer-savvy friend retrieved some of the words – broken phrases and paragraphs from the corrupted data. Mostly little squares in rows where the words should’ve been. Soul-crushing.

I was still writing - press releases for different public relations jobs, articles for local magazines about my roommate’s comedy troupe, short stories for children’s magazines, finally landing a reporting position at the local newspaper… but every time I sat down to write my novel, I froze. The words wouldn’t come, stuck in the neverworld of computer Purgatory. Writing fiction sank to the bottom of the to-do list.

Fast forward 18 years… that same computer-savvy friend dragged me to his writing class. The other adults in the class pooh-poohed writing for teens and urged me to tackle more adult subject matter.

I did. And I got published. But. My heart remained mired in Young Adult fiction.

I finally indulged in my secret desire to write for tweens and early teens, but chose to write about mermaids before they became popular. Everyone wanted vampires. Then angels and demons. Rejection after rejection filled my inbox. “No one wants mermaids,” wrote one agent.

The third book in my mermaid series released at the end of 2017, and I've been busy promoting it this summer, with at least one event every week. I've met actual fans in person, teens who've read the first book and are eager for more and eager to talk about the characters. And it feels really, really good.

I always wanted to write YA, but kept putting it off. Listening to other people. Letting other people tell me what would be a better use of my time. I didn’t have the courage or confidence to pursue my dream until it was almost too late. 

But it’s never too late.

And it’s never too early. If you have a dream, go for it. Don’t let other people tell you what you want to do. Write what you love. Follow your dreams. Suck up those soul-crushing feelings of inadequacy and just go for it.

And keep the stapler on the other side of the room.

Monday Book Review: The Replacement Crush, by Lisa Brown Roberts

The Replacement Crush, by Lisa Brown Roberts
Published in 2016 by Entangled Teen

About the Book:

True love can't be strategized.

After book blogger Vivian Galdi’s longtime crush pretends their secret summer kissing sessions never happened, Vivian creates a list of safe crushes, determined to protect her heart.

But nerd-hot Dallas, the sweet new guy in town, sends the mission and Vivian’s zing meter into chaos. While designing software for the bookstore where Vivian works, Dallas wages a counter-mission.

Operation Replacement Crush is in full effect. And Dallas is determined to take her heart off the shelf.

 My Take:

I feel like I usually read YA with some sort of twist - paranormal, time travel, dystopian, alternate universe, superpowers... not straight up contemporary YA crush stuff, regular girl and boy kinda romance.

And yet, this book hit all my buttons and was pretty much a perfect read for a rainy Sunday morning. Go figure.

Lisa Brown Roberts perfectly captures how it feels to be sixteen and desperately in love, not in control of your own body or emotions.The main character Vivian hates that out-of-control roller coaster feeling and decides to go all Vulcan about her emotions - as in, denying their existence. Which may not sound like the basis for a teen romance, but trust me, it makes sense when you read it. Her characters seemed to be just the right mixture of self-aware and self-absorbed to be believeable, and the Southern California setting was such fun to read.

Yes, this may seem like a light review, but it was a light, fun read for your summer reading list, and a feel-good book for a gloomy day.

It also brought up a question for me about review blogs - because the main character Vivian has an anonymous book review blog where she can rant and/or rave about novels without fear of anyone coming back at her to criticize her opinions. How do you feel about reviewers who hide behind a blog title, not revealing who they are or participating as themselves in the discourse? Is that better or worse? I know sometimes I wish I'd decided to be anonymous with my reviews, but on the other hand, writing under my name keeps me on the high ground, becaues I have to be accountable for everything I write and/or recommend.

Which circles back to my review of this particular novel - if you enjoy contemporary YA romance, this is a funny, quirky, slightly nerdy take on high school crushes that's easy to read and leaves you smiling over and over again. Ignore the uninspired cover art. It's better than it looks.

Grab a copy on AMAZON.