Thoughts of a Seeker

Lisa Suhay, who has had two fables published in previous Seeker issues, recently sent me an email announcing a change of email address. I wrote back asking if she had been writing anything new. She replied that there were several exciting things happening with her work, and I asked if she could described how her success bloomed. The following is her answer.

We sailed from New Jersey to the Gulf Coast of Florida. I do not recommend morning seasickness. It is worse than death. We lived aboard until our sons were ages 5 and 4 and then sold the boat and returned to land in New Jersey. I became pregnant with son number three.

While I was nesting and we were all struggling to adjust to suburban life, things were a mess. The children had bullies at school and in the neighborhood. I started writing freelance for the New York Times, and the editors there can really wear you out with their attitudes and demands.

We were completely broke and struggling to make the mortgage. I just sat down at the computer one night and gave up. I literally said out loud, "I can't do this anymore. I need help. I need some answers. I need a way to deal with all this stress!"

About three seconds later the story of the Diamond of Hope just popped into my head. I had never written fiction before. It was totally alien to my way of writing. But I just went with it and when I was done I felt great. Wrote it in about an hour.

Then the next night I read it to my sons as a bedtime story and they felt great. Then I put it on the Internet on a site called "Daily Wisdom," and many people around the world wrote in and said that it made them feel great. From then on every time one of us or a friend had a personal crisis or rock in their spiritual road I would sit down, ask for help, and the story would just pop. No outlines. No plans. Usually I don't even have a clue when I start as to how it will end. I try to picture an animal or element that fits the people and problem involved. Then I try and see the scene where it takes place. After that, it's as if I am listening to the story and taking dictation.

About 10 of the fables ran on the 'Net, and people from all over the planet were writing to me each time. One day a woman from Mule Shoe, Texas, wrote and told me she had printed out the stories and passed them along to a woman who is an editor for "Editor and Publisher Magazine." The woman wanted to know if she could run them by a publisher. Why not? A month later I had a signed contract from Paraclete Press in Cape Cod.

Because it is a small press, I decided to do as much marketing for the book as I could on my own. I decided the best way to sell books was to just pick a story and send it to someone important who might pass it on or endorse the book. I did everything by e-mail.

I e-mailed "Chandra's Change" to Ambassador Chandra of India in Washington, DC. He loved it and requested a book, which I sent. His secretary put me on their e-mail list for events at the embassy. The second one I got had a long list of other recipients that included Dr. Deepak Chopra. I didn't have anything to lose so I e-mailed "The Gardener" to him. His assistant Carolyn read and loved it. She passed it on to Deepak who phoned me an hour later. Within a month he had invited me to the Chopra Center in California to do a dialogue with him on the power of storytelling as a tool for transformation. The audio tape comes out Oct. 1 2001 from Hay House Publishing.

I got home from California, and the next day a local priest called to ask me if I would be interested in writing a story to go with the paintings of a friend of his. The artist was 80 years old and retired, but still painting. The artist turned out to be the legendary Louis S. Glanzman who illustrated Pippi Longstocking, the Louie L'Amour western novel covers, and the covers for "Time Magazine" that now hang in the Smithsonian. Our new book, The Dream Catchers, will released from Marsh Media on May 1, 2001.

The second book of fables comes out September 1 2001.

I could tell you about how I met a Seattle composer at a book signing in Kansas City, Mo., and how he and the conductor of the New Jersey Youth Symphony have gotten together to set my new fables to music for a new CD, but that might seem too far-fetched.

Lisa Suhay

The Magpie
Chandra's Change

I thought you both would be very interested to know that my poem, "Reality's Malice," will be included in volume 3 of the anthology, In Our Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself. It was chosen as one of less than two hundred among several thousand submissions. If you'd like information about the book, you can find it here: Starfishy.

Enjoy the coming spring or autumn (depending on the hemisphere) and keep writing!

Cherie