Lisa Manterfield

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October 30, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

When Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

When Truth is Stranger Than Fiction by Lisa Manterfield -lisamanterfield.com

In A Strange Companion, a lot of peculiar things happen around Kat. Another character in another story might have chalked up all these signs as coincidence, and then maybe I’d be writing a romance novel about a girl who falls for a guy who bakes a wicked chocolate hazelnut marble cake (*see below for more about this). But that’s not this story. This story is full of strange coincidences that may or may not prove that Gabe is back.

A while back, I wrote a post about some of the weird things that happen when you’re dealing with grief. If you’ve ever lost someone you love, you’ll know that nothing is beyond the realm of possibility as you try to come to terms with someone being gone.

There’s always a danger of crossing a line in fiction and making coincidences unbelievable. I mean really, what are the odds of Mai calling Kat by the pet name Gabe gave her, or having a birthmark in the exact same spot as his? But while I was editing the book, I got a sign of my own that weird coincidences happen in real life, not just in fiction.

On my office wall, I have Plot Planner, a long sheet of brown paper where I keep track of my novel and its various storylines. I like to gather pictures as I write, images of how I see the characters and some of the settings. It helps to get the story clear in my head.

I found the perfect picture of Mai, cut it out, and stuck it on my story board. It wasn’t until weeks later that I took a close look at the picture and realized that the dress the little girl is wearing is made from identical fabric to my living room curtains!

Is this a weird coincidence or a sign of something else? I’ll leave you to decide.

* Owen’s chocolate hazelnut marble cake was a big hit with Kat and it was an equally big hit with Mr. Fab when I tried it out on him. If you’d like to get the recipe to make your own, plus recipes for five other dishes mention in A Strange Companion (including Kat’s mother’s prawn cocktail and Jon’s blackberry lavender scones) I’ll send you a free recipe book (plus a collection of short stories) when you sign up for my newsletter.

Filed Under: The Story Behind the Story Tagged With: A Strange Companion, Author, book, books, fiction, loss, love, novel, paranormal, reincarnation, YA, young adult Leave a Comment

May 15, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield 2 Comments

Weird Things That Happen When Someone You Love Dies

Weird Things That Happen When Someone You Love Dies by Lisa Manterfield -lisamanterfield.com

I was 15 when my dad died suddenly and unexpectedly. None of us is ever prepared for this kind of loss, and I was no exception, but I was surprised by some of the strange experiences that came along with grief. Only much later did I understand that almost anything extraordinary is “normal” when it comes to grief. Here are a few weird things that happened to me:

Every time the phone rings, you’re sure it will be them

It takes the brain a long time to process the idea that someone who has been there since the moment of your birth is suddenly gone. Every time the phone rang or there was an unexpected knock at the door, my first thought was always, “Oh, it’s my dad.” My adrenaline would start flowing and it would take several seconds for my grief-addled brain to catch up and realize that it couldn’t possibly be him.

The experience was worsened when, on the day of my dad’s funeral, I answered the door to find him standing there. It took me a lot longer than a few seconds to realize that the man on the doorstep was my dad’s younger brother, who’d I never met in person and who happened to bear an uncanny resemblance.

It’s a wonder the shock didn’t kill me.

Flippant expressions sting like hell

And speaking of flippant expressions like “It’s a wonder the shock didn’t kill me”, only when someone you love dies do you realize how often people use death-related expressions in daily life. “Don’t have a stroke”, “The good die young”, and “It’s like a cancer” all take on a different meaning when they happen to your loved one. “I almost had a heart attack” was an expression used often by many of my friends, but it stung like hell to hear it after my dad actually did have one.

Random items that belonged to your loved one suddenly take on new meaning

It’s been over 30 years since my dad’s death and I still have the travel alarm clock he woke up to every morning. It doesn’t work and I don’t even keep it on display, but I will never part with it. Same goes for the monogrammed handkerchiefs into which he always blew his nose. My dad won trophies for running and was an avid gardener, but it’s the clock and the hankies that suddenly became significant.

In my collection of worthless, but priceless, treasures, I have costume jewelry brooches from each of my grandmothers and a miniature ceramic teapot that belonged to my auntie. These items have become hugely significant to me.

Even if you don’t believe in the paranormal, you’ll get messages from the other side

You think about your loved one all the time in the weeks after their death. You’ll probably talk to them a lot, too. Then one day, as you’re walking down the street, you’ll recall a fond memory and in that instant, the sun will peek out from behind a cloud and shine on you. And you’ll know, I mean absolutely know without a doubt, that it’s a sign that your departed is thinking about you.

About six months after my dad passed away, my mother and I adopted our first cat. The cat had been abandoned, taken in by a relative of my friend, but hadn’t settled with the cats she already had. My friend couldn’t take the kitten, and so by a series of random events, Smudge came into our lives. One day, Smudge looked at me in a way that made me speculate if he could be the reincarnation of my dad. Crazy, right? Perhaps, but the possibility gave me a lot of comfort.

One day you wake up and can’t remember what they looked like

The dead never age. My mother is almost 85 now. She has white hair and her body has lost its strength. But my dad will always be young and vibrant, his body lean and strong from running, and his face slender and tanned.

For a long time, I couldn’t shake off the images of the last time I saw him on the night he died. But over time, I replaced those with fonder memories of him at the beach or walking in the hills. I’m no longer sure if I remember him this way in real life or just from the photographs I have. But I do know that there were days when I woke up and could not remember what he looked like. Those were terrible moments, filled with panic. But they passed because you never really do forget.

You never fully get over losing someone

Losing someone you love changes you forever. You immediately feel like you don’t fit in, that you are the sole member of a club that even your closest friends aren’t eligible to join. Eventually, you learn to live without your loved one, you get on with your life, and you even love other people. You don’t drag around your grief forever.

But you never really get over losing that person. You always have a little hole in your soul that no one else can ever fill. But somehow you learn to live around it.

 

Filed Under: Love, Loss, and Grief Tagged With: behavior, death, grief, loss, love, paranormal, parent 2 Comments

March 13, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield 4 Comments

Remembering to Savor the Moments

Remembering to Savor the Moments by Lisa Manterfield -lisamanterfield.com

Things are suddenly getting very real around here. After months (okay, years) of writing and revising A Strange Companion, it’s suddenly a real book.

I know it’s a real book because:

  1. It’s available for pre-order on the major bookseller sites.
  2. A printed proof arrived and I have held it in my hand.
  3. I’m throwing a Publication Party, and I couldn’t do that without a real, published book.

It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind these past few weeks and I’ve been living or dying by the task list. I’ve eaten meals but, more than once, I’ve looked at my empty plate with no recollection of cutting, chewing, or swallowing food. My husband has asked me questions and I’ve found myself staring at him as if he’s speaking an alien language, while my brain spins to catch up. If someone asked me my plans for the weekend, I’d say, “Oh, nothing special,” but I’d be thinking, Duh. I’m working on my book!

I think it’s supposed to be this way. A book launch is supposed to be a crazy time of preparation, of dotting i’s and crossing t’s, of smoothing the way for the shiny new book to burst out into the world.

As insane as it’s been, it’s also been a lot of fun. I’ve had some incredible moments, such as:

  • The moment I finished inputting the proofreader’s final edits and realized I’d never have to read this book again. (I still love it; I just don’t want to read it again for a very long time. Plus, I know what happens at the end!)
  • The day I arrived home to find the printer’s first proof copy sitting on my doorstep.
  • When I read the first review and realized that someone other than me and the people who care about me loved my book.

So, in all the swirling madness, it’s these moments that I’m trying to remember and savor.

Now for some details:

If you’d like to pre-order the book, grab it by April 3rd for a special bonus gift. All that information is here.

Here’s the wonderful first review I received from The Reading Wolf.

Here’s my video of the unboxing of the proof.

And, if you happen to be in the L.A. area, I would love for you to join me at my Publication Party. It’s at {pages} a bookstore in Manhattan Beach. 7 pm, Friday, April 7th. There’ll be drinks and hors d’oeuvres. And of course, there’ll be the closest thing I can find to Owen’s legendary chocolate cake. (And if you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, you’d better take a look at the sneak peek of the book here.)

Filed Under: The Writing Life Tagged With: Author, book, fiction, grief, love, paranormal, story 4 Comments

July 22, 2016 - Lisa Manterfield 5 Comments

I’m Scared, So I Know I’m Onto Something Good

ASC-Front-med
Behold! The gorgeous cover of my new book.

There’s a school of thought that says: When you start to feel afraid of taking a leap or making a change, that’s when you know you’re making the right decision. I’m choosing to subscribe to this school of thought this week, because I’m starting to feel nervous about an upcoming leap of faith.

A couple of months ago I had a brilliant idea. You know the kind I mean. It came to me in an instant and I immediately wondered why I hadn’t thought of it sooner. I began thinking about this idea all the time and planning out how it would work. And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a really great idea. So, I told a couple of people and they thought it was a good idea. So I told a couple more. And before I knew it, I was committed.

Then this week, things started to get real. The pieces of my plan began clicking into place, money changed hands, and I passed the point of no return, or at least the point of no return without humiliation. Suddenly, I was really nervous.

All the reasons why this was the best idea I’ve ever had suddenly got a little fuzzy at the edges. I woke up in the night with a list of all the things that could go wrong, all the reasons why this was a stupid idea, and I knew I had to make a decision. I could:

  1. Call the whole thing off, cut my losses, and go back to my old safe, but ineffective, way of doing things.
  2. Put it off a couple more weeks, give myself some time to firm up a few more details and mitigate some of the potential disasters.
  3. Pinch my nose, close my eyes, and leap in feet first, hoping that I’d figured out quickly how to swim.

I’ll admit that all these options looked good, but finally, I made a decision. The only way I would ever truly know if this was the best idea since sliced bread was to commit and go for it.

So, here goes…

Next week, Wednesday July 27, I will launch my new serialized novel, A Strange Companion. I will publish a new chapter of the novel every single week until I get to “The End”, sometime in early 2017.

I’ve never done anything like this before and honestly, it goes against all my beliefs about how to go about publishing a book. I’m afraid it won’t be good enough. I’m afraid people won’t like it. I’m afraid I’ll get to Chapter 5 or 10 or 20 and realize I started in the wrong place or that there’s an important character or set-up that really needed to appear in Chapter 7.

Regardless, I’m doing it.

If you want to find out a bit more about this story, go to the book’s spiffy new web page. You can also subscribe so I can land in your inbox next week and bring with me Chapter One of A Strange Companion.

See you then!

 

Filed Under: The Writing Life Tagged With: A Strange Companion, fiction, paranormal, reincarnation, YA, young adult 5 Comments

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