A Dark and Stormy Night

What has happened to the news media? When I was in college and writing stories for my college newspaper, we followed the who what and where format. We described things in factual terms.

News in general was like that, too. Just the facts without all kinds of fancy adjectives.

But, all of that has changed. The words used to describe things are no longer just factual. The more emotionally charged the better. Didn’t that used to belong to the tabloids only?

So now a 3 alarm fire is called a raging inferno. A convenience store being held up is described as a daring robbery. You might say that it makes the news sound more interesting. How about it could change your perception of what actually happened.

There is a show I like on the National Geographic channel called Brain Games. It is all about - well, games our brains play with us. It’s also very interactive show. In the latest episode, they took a group of people to a movie set and told them they were going to watch a taping. In the midst of it, there was an unexpected event. A red car drove onto the set and hit a parked blue car.

As an experiment, they questioned two groups of people about the incident asking them how fast they thought the red car was going. However, they didn’t use the same words with both groups. With one, they asked how fast was the red car going when it smashed into the blue car. The other group was asked how fast the red car was going when it bumped the blue car. Now, both groups saw the same incident, but it turned out their perceptions were very different.

When they used the word smashed to describe the impact, the people all said they thought the red car was going 40 to 50 miles an hour. However, when they used bumped to describe the impact, the people thought the red car was traveling between 15 and 20 miles an hour.

I repeat, both groups saw the exact same thing, but thanks to the words used, what they saw was altered.

I am trying not to let that happen as I sit here waiting for a storm to come. I have gotten emails and calls from people asking if I’m worried about it because they have heard dire descriptions of the coming storm on national TV shows and the Internet. The truth is, I don’t know whether to be worried or not.

It has been described as more rain in one day than we’ve had in a year. That sounds like the end of the world, doesn’t it. Well, we’ve had only a few inches of rain over the past year. Then I’ve heard this coming storm referred to as the worst we’ve had in three years. But it’s three years when we haven’t had any bad storms. The news people seem to be big on making everything historic.

Should I be cranking up the ark? How bad will it really be? All I can do is hope that once again they are guilty of hyperbole.

Research Proves it! Viniyoga Reduces Workplace Stress!

I know from personal experience that Viniyoga is an amazing tool for reducing workplace stress—that’s what hooked me on it almost fifteen years ago, when I still worked at Microsoft.  But now, research proves it!

Aetna, inc. recently studied methods of stress reduction in the workplace. The results were published in the online version of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. The study evaluated the effectiveness of Mindfulness Meditation (a specific type of meditation) and Viniyoga on both perceived levels of stress and biological markers of stress. The Viniyoga intervention used in the study was designed by my teacher, Gary Kraftsow. The study participants included 239 Aetna employees located in California and Connecticut who were split into three groups:  the Mindfulness Meditation group, the Viniyoga group, and a control.

The results were encouraging.  Both the Mindfulness Meditation and the Viniyoga interventions saw over a 30% reduction in perceived stress levels. Participants also showed significant improvements in several heart rate measurements, suggesting that their bodies were better able to manage stress.  Even better, both Viniyoga and Mindfulness Meditation worked in about half the time as other commonly used mind-body interventions.

The Viniyoga intervention included a twelve-week yoga program that used physical yoga postures, breathing techniques, and guided relaxation. Participants met in class once a week and received practice handouts to use at home and in the office. Which just goes to prove what I’ve said all along—a well-conceived home practice gets results!

For more details on the study, check out the article on Aetna’s web site.

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out Tracy Weber's author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series.  MURDER STRIKES A POSE is available now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Whole Life Yoga, and wherever books are sold.

Letting Characters Excel at the Hobbies We Bungled: Guest Blogger Gigi Pandian

Please join me in welcoming guest blogger Gigi Pandian to Killer Hobbies!

When I was in graduate school at the University of Washington in Seattle, I loved taking classes through the student-run Experimental College. Avoiding writing my dissertation, I took everything from belly dancing to a tabla drum class.

Though I had a blast with all the courses, I didn’t continue with any of these hobbies I’d dabbled in. The creative passion that stayed with me after graduate school was writing.

When I created Jaya Jones, the Indian-American history professor main character of my mystery series, an interesting thing happened. She was a brilliant tabla player! That tidbit wasn’t in my outline, but springing up from the page was a relaxing hobby that Jaya refused to go without.

To get away from the stresses of academia (and treasure hunts that lead her to Scotland and India), Jaya plays her Indian drums two nights a week at a San Francisco Indian restaurant, with her best friend Sanjay (a magician who goes by the moniker “The Hindi Houdini”) accompanying her on the sitar.
 

An unexpected theme of music from different cultures firmly entrenched itself in my Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery Series – so much so that Henery Press included a tabla and sitar on my book covers! If I hadn’t let my characters take the lead, I never would have found that gem. Thank you, Jaya and Sanjay.

Gigi Pandian is the USA Today bestselling author of the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery Series. She is the child of cultural anthropologists from New Mexico and the southern tip of India. Her latest novel, PIRATE VISHNU, was released earlier this month. Her short story “The Hindi Houdini” (featuring Sanjay from Gigi’s mystery series) is currently nominated for an Agatha Award.

Connect with Gigi on her website http://gigipandian.com/, Twitter https://twitter.com/GigiPandian, and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GigiPandian.

Two murders, one hundred years apart. And a love triangle... Historian Jaya Jones has her work cut out for her.
More about the book, including to buy the book in print or as an eBook: http://gigipandian.com/pirate-vishnu/
 

 

Free Offer! Free Offer!

Their own muse getting thin and ragged by the end of the twenties, the Burma Vita Company offered a reward of $100 every year to anyone who could submit a usable jingle for their little red signs.  That was a considerable amount of money at that time, and they would get as many as 50,000 entries. 

Once they made the mistake of buying this rhyme:
Free Offer!  Free Offer!
Rip a fender
Off your car
Mail it in for a
Half-pound jar.
Burma Shave

Thousands of people complied.  Of course, they didn’t rip a fender off the cars they were driving.  They went to junkyards and tore the fenders off rusty ruins and sent them in, or even turned up at the Minnesota headquarters in person.  More thoughtful customers broke the fender off a toy car and sent that in.  It didn’t matter.  Surprise and amusement were feigned and each customer got a half-pound glass jar of Burma Shave gratis.  Great customer service, and now an again a story in the papers about it!

February 15 I was in Excelsior for a signing and afterwards went to Leipold’s odd little store and to my surprise and pleasure they had a one-pound jar (empty, of course) with Burma Shave embossed on it.  It had been turned into a little table lamp.  Photo attached.  The shade is a replica of a child’s lampshade, printed with Teddy bears.  I am delighted.

This past Saturday we went to Madison, Wisconsin, for a “Slam” of authors.  The owner of Mystery to Me bookstore worked really hard to line up thirty (!) authors to come in Thursday, Friday and Saturday, each to get fifteen minutes to talk about their books and writing.  We were only there from Saturday afternoon, and just that taste of her efforts was astonishing in its variety.  She had poets, mystery writers, literary authors, science fiction and fantasy writers.  She had a woman who had written a slim little volume on how to to leave a long-lasting legacy even if you are only middle class (I bought that one – and some others).  It was fun and exciting.  I was the very last author and had some fear that I’d be speaking to maybe three people – but the room was full.

I had been contacted by a very old friend who lives in Madison (where I once lived and worked), and we agreed to meet at IHOP Sunday morning for breakfast before starting home.  She asked if she could bring some friends along and I said Sure – and we had ten people turn out!  I knew most of them, hadn’t seen or even spoken to them for a very long time.  It was great!

When we set out Saturday morning on this trip, I-94 through the Cities was covered with a thick layer of ice, polished to dangerous smoothness by car tires.  We crawled along, trying to put off a decision to turn back, until we got to the bridge across the St. Croix River, marking the border with Wisconsin.  About forty yards this side of the bridge, workmen had chopped a line across the road, exposing the pavement.  And there was no ice on the bridge.  In fact, the freeway was clear all the way to Madison.  Someone at water aerobics Monday morning said Wisconsin uses cheese brine to melt ice on the highways.  Maybe Minnesota needs to import more milk cows.  Or Scott Walker.


A free offer of my own.  To anyone who can come up with a book title I can use - four or fewer words, a needlework term, a hunt of threat - I will send him or her a copy of the book using the title, suitably autographed.  I've got a file folder of names, but I'm always looking for more.

A Bright Idea?

A light bulb burned out in my living room. It used to be I just would replace it with a 100 watt incandescent bulb and that was it. Not anymore. What do I replace it with now? My choices are a CFL bulb. Why are they considered a better replacement? Maybe they use less power and last longer, but break one and your house is contaminated with mercury. And you can’t just toss them when they burn out (it takes awhile, but they do). I still don’t know what to do with the couple I used before I realized how bad they are. I have them triple wrapped in my garage.

I think they are still selling halogen bulbs. They give off a nice light and aren’t toxic, but they give off a lot of heat. Could they start a fire? I don’t know.

Then there are the LED bulbs. I think they have become slightly less confusing. In other words they say on the box what they replace. The problem is you can’t tell what kind of light they give off. The last thing I want in my living room is a cold eerie bluish light. Home Depot has some turned on, but you can’t tell what it really looks like surrounded by all the florescent lights in the place.

Buying a light bulb used to be simple. This is progress? Bulbs that are toxic. Bulbs that give off light that is depressing.

So for now, the light is low is my living room. Tomorrow I will go sort through the brave new world of bulbs. This sounds like one of those bad ethnic jokes. How many (you fill in the group) does it take to pick out a light bulb? Sorry, I don’t have a punch line.

What do you think of the light bulb situation? Have you found any that you are happy with?

Research Shows It! Viniyoga Can Help Heal Your Back!

I'm happy to share with all of you a positive article about yoga from The Huffington Post.  This article discusses research showing what I’ve known for years:  that yoga, specifically Viniyoga, can help overcome chronic low back pain.

The research described is the most recent in a pair of studies co-sponsored by the National Institute of Health and Group Health Cooperative.  Both studies used Viniyoga—the same style taught at Whole Life Yoga. The yoga protocols were designed by my teacher, Gary Kraftsow.  One goal of the most recent study was to see if earlier benefits of Viniyoga could be replicated with a larger test group.

According to Karen Sherman, one of the study authors, they specifically chose Viniyoga, because “we wanted to pick something to test that was likely to be safe and easy for beginners to practice both in classes and at home.”

The results?  Students who participated in weekly 45 – 50 minute Viniyoga classes, including deep breathing and guided relaxation, experienced clinically significant improvements in low back pain and dysfunction.  And those improvements were still apparent at least 14 weeks after the end of the study. 

Similar benefits were found in students who practiced weekly 52 minute stretching classes with 20 minutes of home stretching on non-class days.  Although the article does not state this, I do believe the yoga students were also given home practices.

Researchers attribute the improvements to the physical benefits of yoga—specifically, stretching and strengthening, versus any mental benefits. So I guess all the stress reduction and emotional balance we yogis experience is just an awesome side benefit!  ;-)  (By the way, a recent study on Viniyoga for stress reduction also showed great results, but that’s a blog article for a different day).

And on a personal note—the Group Health study specifically looked at chronic low back dysfunction that interfered with participant’s day-to-day activities.  But I can tell you from personal experience, yoga also helps with upper back and neck pain, along with a variety of other physical, physiological, and emotional issues.

If you, or someone you know, suffers from chronic low back pain, consider giving Viniyoga a try! If you’re in the Seattle area, please check out Whole Life Yoga’s Yoga for Healthy Backs series.

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out Tracy Weber's author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series.  MURDER STRIKES A POSE is available now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Whole Life Yoga, and other retailers!

Going Inactive

Alright.  I've done it.

I've made it official that I'm a full-time writer... at least for now. 

I've been a lawyer for many years, but lately I haven't been practicing law.  That originally wasn't by design, but the way I practiced--real estate transactional law on a project basis--became impossible to do when the economy tanked.  I looked around for quite a while, but I was mostly unable to obtain projects the way I wanted to do them, and I didn't want to do anything else.

In the meantime, I stepped up my writing career and loved it!  I've already talked here about all the different directions I'm going in and others I'm trying, and I'm having a great time with it.

Plus, I've already had one novel published this year--Teacup Turbulence, my fifth Pet Rescue Mystery, which followed the December release of Covert Attraction, a Harlequin Romantic Suspense novel.  I have two Harlequin Nocturnes being published this year, and my new Superstition Mystery Series begins in October with Lost Under A Ladder.

And so, this year, when I had to renew my law license, I went inactive.

That doesn't mean I can't go back to active status someday if I change my mind.  But at least for now, I'll keep on writing... all the time!

How about you--have you changed careers?  If so, was it originally intentional or not?

Treading Ye Snow

Epitaph from 1786:
In memory of Mr. Elijah Bardwell
Who died Jan’ry 26th  in ye 27th
Year of his Age having but a few days
Surviv’d ye fatal Night when he was
Flung from his Horse & drawn by ye Stirrup
26 rods along ye path as appear’d by ye place
where his hat was found & where he had
Spent ye whole following severe cold night
Treading ye Snow in a small circle.

A rod is sixteen and a half feet - that’s 429 feet he was dragged!   No wonder he spent the night “Treading ye snow in a small circle,.” his brains scrambled.  A haunting image.

I saw an arrangement of flowers I didn’t particularly like – but I liked the flowers that made it up: white hydrangeas and red roses.  So when my husband asked me what I wanted for Valentine’s Day, I asked for that.  And it was lush!  I should have taken a picture of it, the gorgeous lacy white flowers lapping at the smooth, deep-red folds of the roses.  Just three of each with some fern-like greenery made a good-size bouquet.  And our cat Panzi waited until we were out to knock the arrangement over and chew on one of the roses - she loves roses.

A reader wrote to me care of my publisher, and Berkley forwarded it to me. The writer said she has read most of my books and that one in particular helped raise her from depression.  The book was Embroidered Truths and the part that moved her is the scene where Betsy goes to church and in a sermon the priest tells that joke about an old man complaining to God that though he has prayed every day of his life to win the lottery, he never has - and God speaks down from heaven, saying, "Berman, buy a ticket!"  The sermon continues that God answers prayers in His own time and that we have to be patient - and keep on buying that ticket.

I'm not sure why, but the letter writer found that comforting, and has resolved to continue to wait patiently and hopefully for God to answer her prayers.

When I get a response like that to sometime I've written I am overwhelmed and humbled and a little frightened.  We authors toss our stories off almost carelessly and are sometimes shocked when they strike home - especially when it's not the scene we thought might do that.  But think of it: that’s also true of remarks we pass among ourselves and to strangers.  A kind or cruel word can make or break someone’s day – or even, more rarely, life.


Speaking of snow, we are up to our elbows in snow here.  It's supposed to get up to forty today - but back into the freezer later this week with more snow.  Spring can't come too early for me.

I have a favor to ask of those of you who have already read A Drowning Spool.  This coming Saturday I am going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, attending a “Slam,” which is a gathering of authors, each of whom gets fifteen minutes to stir audience interest in his/her books.  I’m thinking a brief reading might help – not one that takes the whole fifteen minutes, but enough to whet the appetite.  And I don’t know what scene might best serve.  Any suggestions?  Thanks.

Putting the E in Reading

I have finally made friends with reading electronically. I had to go through a number of devices first though. I started out with a Kindle. I think it might have been the second model, but it was clumsy, easy to hit the page turner thingie on the side by mistake and had a very inefficient way to navigate using a roller that never stopped where I wanted it to. Add to that an irate customer service woman in India who started yelling at me because I wasn’t doing what she told me to with the Kindle fast enough (because of that inefficient roller thing) and my not liking the device makes perfect sense.

I tried a Nook next. The battery ran down so quickly that every time I let it sit for a few days and went to use it, the battery was so dead it wouldn’t even go on if it was plugged in. The screen was grayish and I seemed to be way too conscious that I was reading on a screen. I never got lost in what I was reading.

I stepped up to a Nook tablet. All the colors and extra features were nice. I could have a Nook app and a Kindle app on it, so could access all the books I had in either library. I could check email and surf the web. But it was big and a little slippery. Not comfortable to hold and read, or to set on my lap and read.

My smart phone also has Kindle and Nook’s apps, which is very nice and makes both library accessible all the time, so I’m never without a book. But since I was going back and forth between the Nook, the Nook tablet and my phone, I kept losing my place every time I went to another device. It didn’t help that there aren’t really page numbers. In a paper book, you at least have a visual where you are. I ended up spending all my reading time trying to find where I’d left off.

And then I got an Apple Ipad mini with a case that can make the tablet stand up. It took some getting used to, but I found the Nook and Kindle apps worked just fine on it. And somehow it sinks up what I’m reading between my phone and it. So, no more losing my place. I’m not sure what it will do if I go back to the Nook tablet or the plain Nook.

I don’t know if it’s the quality of the screen or being able to read on the tablet while it sits on a table at a comfortable angle, but for first the first time I am enjoying reading on a screen.

I love that I was watching a PBS show with a doctor talking about her booke Mind Over Medicine and when the show was over and I wanted to read her book, I had it in front of me without having to brave the Chicago snow and cold. Within a few minutes, it was there in the Kindle app waiting for me to start.

I am not forsaking paper. I want it all. I want to read both ways. Aren’t options the best?

Sitting Pretty—and Comfortably—in Yoga Class

Whenever I see students struggling to sit comfortably in yoga class, I’m reminded of that old Alanis Morissette song—isn’t it ironic that we come to yoga class to decrease pain, then sit uncomfortably on the floor with our backs screaming in agony.

Sitting is notoriously painful for people with back pain; sitting on the floor, crossed legged, without back support is even worse.  Of course, that’s that most of us tend to do in every yoga class.  There are many better alternatives. A few of my favorites are below.

First, if you do choose to sit crossed legged, look down at your knees.  If your knees are above your hips, then your spine is not in neutral alignment, which will lead to back discomfort.  This problem can easily be fixed by elevating your hips.  Fold a blanket or two and place them under your sitz bones (or ischial tuberosities, for you anatomy geeks.) These are the bony prominences between the tops of your thighs and the bottoms of your hips.  Add blankets until your knees are below your hips, as in the photo below.

For people without knee issues, the sitting posture below is my favorite.  This is how I sit when I teach.  In the first photo, the student is sitting on a block, which elevates her hips to put less pressure on her knees.  In the second, she is sitting on a meditation bench. 

Meditation benches can be a little pricey, but they last forever.  I’ve had the one in the photo for over 11 years.

Finally, you can always lie down.  There’s nothing magic at all about achieving that perfect lotus pose.  In yoga, the goal is to connect the body, breath, and mind. To do that, the spine should be neutral. A neutral spine can be found sitting in a chair, kneeling, lying, or standing for that matter. While it’s true that the breath is subtly blocked in a lying position, for most people the effect is minor. If lying gets you out of pain, I say go for it!

Generally, the most neutral supine position lying with the knees bent, feet on the floor, as in the photo below.

The biggest risk in this position is falling asleep.  So try to keep your mind alert, and if you come to class with a friend, tell them to nudge you if you start snoring!

I look forward to seeing you at the studio soon!

Namaste

Tracy

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out Tracy Weber's author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series.  MURDER STRIKES A POSE is available now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Whole Life Yoga, and other retailers!

Republishing

I'm finally getting around to having books in my backlist republished in e-format.  The first one will be THE GLASS SLIPPER, initially published by Dorchester's Love Spell line in 1996.

With a title like that, it won't surprise you that the book is a fairy tale romance, my own update of the Cinderella story.  For this one, at least, I'm not going to make any changes to the text since most of it takes place in a small, fictional country and the technology references aren't too bad--primarily phone calls to other countries and within the castle without using cell phones.  Even so, it's a "vintage" story.

I'm having a new cover created.  Plus, I have to get the book scanned for e-formatting.  It was written long enough ago that even if I happen to have saved it in computer format, the only form I might be able to find it in is an ancient huge disk that none of my current computers could read.

I did reread the story, of course.  It had been years since I'd done so.  I certainly had fun with it.  I hope new readers do, too. 

I was told that it had been pirated on a "library" website but fortunately that site knew that authors who discovered their theft would want their work removed.  It appears, fortunately, that they have removed the text of THE GLASS SLIPPER from their site.

And since fairy tales seem back to being in vogue, judging by the TV shows that include them--some popular and others less so, of course--I'm hoping that romance readers will give this one a try.

How about you--are you a fairy tale fan?  An e-book fan? 

And what do you think of online piracy?

Shoot the Brute

Verse by the side of the road from 1930:
Does your husband
Misbehave
Grunt and grumble
Rant and rave
Shoot the brute some
Burma Shave

Something I forgot to mention in last week’s blog: I made chili as my contribution to a Super Bowl party, and it was the best chili I’ve ever made.  It had cocoa powder, cumin, corriander, sweet bell pepper, and beer as ingredients, along with the usual ground beef, beans, onions, chili powder, jalepenos, salt and pepper.  I couldn’t taste any of the odd ingredients (which were called for by several recipes I found on the Internet), but the whole thing was more delicious than I expected.  I’m going to use them from now on.

This past Saturday I did a book signing to introduce A Drowning Spool to the world.  As usual, I dressed up, wearing a suit with a black skirt and a coat of gray flecked with black and a bright red hat that sits on the back of my head then rises in a pleated fan ornamented with gold braid and gold ornaments in front.  Very striking.  The  dressy clothing and fancy hats at signings and talks has become my schtick, or signature, and I really enjoy making a special occasion of them by dressing up.  I’ve taken it lightly, even made gentle fun of this thing, but I recently read an essay by a Jewish rabbi, Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, in which he says “clothes make the man” is more than a trite (even untrue) saying.  He quotes Erasmus and Shakespeare, among others as affirming the notion..  A sample: “(Late fifteenth century) Rabbi (Isaac) Arama notes that in Latin, too, the word habitus refers to both a special garment (e.g., a nun's habit) and a character trait (e.g. a good habit). He persuasively argues that ‘just as it can be determined from a person's external appearance as to whether he is a merchant or a soldier or a monk, so too, the discovery of our hidden inner personality begins with our external behaviors.’"   If you’re interested, here’s his column: http://jewishworldreview.com/0214/weinreb_Tetzaveh_clothes_make_man.php3

I’m doing another signing starting at 1 pm this Saturday, February 16, at Excelsior Bay Books – and I’ll be dressing to the nines again.

On Monday I was listening to the radio and heard a new word: Epistrophe.  It means a word repeated at the end of successive phrases or clauses.  The most famous example is from Abraham Lincoln’s Gerrysburg address:  “. . . this country, of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” But an almost-equally famous quote from First Corinthians in the Bible: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.”  Very powerful rhetoric.

I just learned this morning that Shirley Temple has died.  Very sad, I love her movies. What an astonishing talent she had!

For Dru’s Book Musings, new today, go here: http://wp.me/p3nHH-4yl.  Click on A Day in the Life and then on the top offering, A Day in the Life with Connor Sullivan, for a glimpse into Betsy Devonshire’s happy Valentine’s Day gift, from A Drowning Spool.  That candy shop is real, by the way, and their chocolates are both spendy and to die for – and they ship.

My Taste of Winter

It still amazes me how I can get on a plane on a pleasant sunny warm afternoon and feel sharp cold as I step off the plane onto the jet bridge a few hours later.

We have been having a mild sunny winter in Southern California and even though I’d heard about the weather in Chicago, it was still a shock to feel the sharp cold in person. It was also a surprise to have to climb over a pile of snow to get to the curb when I was dropped off.

I usually take my pull cart to the grocery store to pick up supplies. I figured the sidewalks would all be shoveled. Not exactly. And I didn’t consider the ridges of snow at every street corner. Let’s just say I had to lift the cart over the snow.

Then the snow came over the snow that was already on the ground. And all the sidewalks that were shoveled, weren’t anymore. It was pretty when it fell, that is if you didn’t have to go anywhere. I saw on TV that a commute that would normally take no more than a half an hour was now taking 88 minutes.

Today the sun was out, but the temperature dropped. Now the TV weather people are talking about dangerous wind chills and the actual temperature is hovering around zero. It’s been cozy and nice inside, but tonight I can feel cold air swirling around the living room.

It makes it easy to hover over my computer, working on finishing Knot Guilty. It’s set up in the center of the apartment where it’s sheltered from the blowing cold. A mug of hot green tea with strawberry bits adds a pleasant fragrance.

I feel for the residents of the city who have been dealing with this harsh weather for weeks and will have to deal with it after I leave.

More snow is due on Saturday and I hope it doesn’t mess up my flight. I am looking forward to doing the reverse of getting here. Watching a puff of my breath as the cold air blows in through the space between the sky bridge and plane as I get on and then feeling the damp air way above freezing when I step on that sky bridge in L.A..

Viniyoga Videos for Anxiety and Depression

Like many Viniyoga teachers, I’m not a huge fan of yoga videos, as the video format doesn’t allow for the customization and adaptation to the individual that is such a hallmark of this rich lineage.  Still, as much as I’d like everyone to experience yoga first hand at a yoga studio, I know that for many students, videos provide a much more convenient and accessible connection to a consistent yoga practice.  Who knows…maybe someday I’ll even create a video of my own!  ;-)

Until then, two  Viniyoga videos have been created by my teacher, Gary Kraftsow, on topics that are personally important to me:  Yoga for Anxiety and Yoga for Depression. I’ve suffered from both conditions off and on throughout my life, and yoga has been an incredibly powerful tool in helping me manage my symptoms. I may have come to yoga to overcome back pain, but by far the first and most important thing to heal was my heart.

Gary’s videos introduce the Viniyoga therapy approach to anxiety and depression.  They are a bit different than typical videos, in that he provides cognitive learning in addition to yoga practice.  Each video contains approximately an hour of lecture on yoga therapy and its applications for anxiety and depression, along with two practices: one that is thirty minutes long and one that is closer to an hour.  Even more unusual, the practices aren’t just asana, or movement.  They contain multiple facets of the rich and dynamic Viniyoga lineage:  asana (movement), pranayama (breath work), meditation, and chanting.

These videos can  be purchased at amazon.com and via other online sellers. Let me know what you think!

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out Tracy Weber's author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series.  MURDER STRIKES A POSE is available now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Whole Life Yoga, and other retailers!

Changing Directions

Okay, I'm a writer published in multiple genres.  I'm used to having my mind veer off in different directions and actually enjoy it at times.

This week has been the same, only different. 

I've started writing the second book in my Superstition Mysteries, which of course is great fun.

When I wasn't working on it, I'd started typing--yes, typing--into my computer the manuscript of one of my long-ago creations that happened to be the last of the dozen manuscripts sitting rejected under my bed before I started getting my novels published.  It had gotten "good" rejections--in other words, I had agents and editors tell me it was well written but unpublishable.  That was in yesterday's world.  The reason it was unpublishable is that it contained too many genres and subgenres, which today is perfectly acceptable.  I decided to type it onto the computer rather than have it scanned because I could work on editing and bringing it current.

But then, after a couple of conversations I had, I changed direction.  Instead of typing that story into the computer right now, I first decided to work on what could become the book of my heart, or at least plot it more than I'd done previously.  I'm now working on its synopsis.

Plus, I may even be taking a chance on an entirely new genre for me.  At the moment, I'm just reading in that genre, but who knows?  Maybe I'll write something really different for me, too.

One thing that the two ventures I've just taken up have in common is that, yes, they have dogs in them.  My old, resurrected story does not.  I still think it's a fun story, of course, but maybe I was distracted easily because of my canine affinity.

How about you--do you ever start off in one direction, then veer off in one or more totally different ones?

A Dagger to My Heart?

A very angry epitaph (I wonder if he composed it himself or if a supportive friend did it for him);
Seth J. Miller, 1848, age 46, of Rehoboth, Mass.
My wife from me departed
And robbed me like a knave
Which caused me broken hearted
To descend into my grave.
My children took an active part
And to doom me did contrive,
Which struck a dagger to my heart
Which I could not survive.

A problem with epitaphs like this is that you don’t get to hear the other side.  Perhaps he was an awful person whose wife finally fled to save her sanity – or her life.  Back in that era, if a couple broke up, the husband routinely got the children.  That she got them is a warning flag.

Work on A Needle Case continues.  Had a small glitch yesterday when the plot point I so carefully set up fizzled.  Fortunately, there is someone I can talk with when this happens, so now I think I can re-write the scene laying down the clue subtly enough that only on a second reading will it appear.  That’s the great fun of writing mysteries, playing fair but not making it too easy.  I hope I’ll accomplish this in the scene I’m working on today.

Since childhood I have read Dear Abby.  Last Thursday I found a real gem in her advice.  “There is give and take in all healthy relationships. A balance is reached when you can give without feeling used, and take without feeling guilty that you're being given too much.”  Perfect!

I wonder if this harsh winter will be “balanced” by a roaring hot summer.  I hope not.