I had my doubts when I received the invitation via email two days before. Is she seeing someone and she’s going to be coming home at 8 a.m.? How many people will get there that early? 9am is hard enough. It turned out her daughter was in charge of alerting her at 7:45 with “Mom, you need to get dressed. A bunch of people are about to show up to celebrate your birthday.”

She was stunned and delighted as each new arrival popped in, at least a dozen in all.

Now, I would need an hour heads-up but for this natural beauty who wears little if any make-up and probably has never woken up with Bed Hair, a quarter of an hour was fine. In order for this to work you also need to know the person’s schedule to make sure they’re not going to be running off to an important appointment (like their therapist or a beauty treatment if it’s their birthday).

Consider this:

1. People are more likely to attend. At the end of the day, invitees may be tired, stressed and have more on their to-do list than they did when the day started. They may feel they have to stay longer than they can and then not show up at all. With a party scheduled at 8am, guests are fresh and it’s perfectly acceptable to not linger and head off to work. One woman was there only five minutes and no one thought it odd.

2. It’s inexpensive (as parties go). Coffee, orange juice, a couple bottles of sparkling wine or champagne, two quiches, some bacon, fruit and a breakfast pastry is all you need. Stick a few candles in the pastry if you like. A cake seems too much in the morning to me but for some people it ain’t a b-day bash without a cake, a wish and candles to blow out while everyone sings that dirge-like “Happy Birthday” off-key. Up to you.

3. It’s different. That alone makes people more celebratory.

4. It’s a fun, unforgettable way to start a birthday. The honoree will always remember it.

I’m lamenting the limitations of the digital age. How much of a description can you put in a file name? What happens when technology changes and you can’t access old photos anymore? They’re gone.

Do you have a photo of a stranger that haunts you? Share it on my Facebook page.

I’m in the midst of working on a new book and won’t be blogging much for awhile. Here’s the photo I see every time I turn on my computer: my beloved, darling Tucker. We found each other in December 2006 at the Guilford County (NC) Animal Shelter. Sometimes when he meows he sounds like a pigeon and when he snores it’s like an elf wheezing. He rarely conks out on my keyboard but when he does I know it’s time to take a break.

Mama Jo-1940s

An adapted excerpt from the chapter “Watching a Photograph Slowly Fade” from When I Married My Mother

“Are we putting up a Christmas tree this year?” Mama Jo asked when our third Thanksgiving as roommates rolled around.

I groaned and was sorry I did.

The first year we lived together, after uncovering the ornaments of my childhood, I had effortlessly lassoed people to help me move furniture, get the tree in the house, string the lights, and do it all in reverse a month later. Now I was weary of cajoling or hiring people to help me out. Arthur and Janet had bronchitis, and the idea of directing my young inexperienced niece and nephew as to what to do made me more exhausted. I’d stopped wrapping presents for Mama Jo because it was too hard for her to unwrap them. Instead, I just put them in a decorative bag with colorful tissue paper. Now I was doing that for everyone’s presents because it made life easier on me.

The next time she asked me about a tree, I said, “Let me just finish with the Christmas shopping and cards.” I had a long list of my friends, her friends, business associates, family, and extended family to honor in one form or another.

The third time she asked, I said, “I’m too tired, Mama Jo. We’ll do it next year. I promise.” She’ll be here then. She will.

I placed a small artificial tree on a table that had white lights and Aunt Gladys’s wax cherubs on it. “How’s that?”

“That’s fine,” she said with a weak smile.

I never stopped to think how it made her feel to know there was nothing she could do to make that tree happen. Or how watching me do everything was probably tiring her out as much as it was me, maybe even more so. Or maybe I did. I knew I was losing her and was in deep denial.

Three times she asked.

“Hey,” I said cheerily one day, “let’s go to the Festival of Lights, Mama Jo! Let’s have an adventure!”

She smiled that big broad grin of hers I’ll never forget. “Okay!”

This was an annual event Arthur had suggested as an enticement for me to come down from New York City for the holidays many years before, and I’d had no interest. Now I’d be happy to do it with my mother. I invited her granddaughter to join us. On our way there, we turned on the radio station playing continuous holiday music and sang along, easily falling into the Christmas spirit. When we saw the entrance to Tanglewood Park lit up like the Vegas Strip with a grand archway inviting us to drive under it, we all let out a “Wow!” I hoped it made up for the lack of Christmas cheer at home.

We slowly drove through the park in Mama Jo’s thirteen year-old red wagon, oohing and aahing at more than a hundred displays and nearly a million lights. Even with my mother’s failing eyesight she was able to make out most of the mammoth animals, stars, and Santas that blinked and moved. Sometimes she was mistaken.

“Is that a cat?” she asked.

Chris, thinking it was funny, said, “No, Mama Jo! That’s a snowman!”

I turned around to give her a nasty look and then did the same thing myself a few minutes later when she thought Santa and his reindeer was a train. She stopped making comments, and I felt bad. What was wrong with letting her think it was a train? I described the things we saw and tried not to choke up over her loss of vision.

I also found myself imagining the army of people it took to put up these lights and how they would feel when it was time to tear them down. I could at least put up one tree.

We stopped at the Gift Village, and I waited in the car with Mama Jo while Chris went in to investigate. As the Christmas music continued, I held my mother’s hand, which was in a bright pink glove that matched her beret. We sang along to “Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland” and other holiday favorites, her soft voice giving out at the end of most lines.

When it was my turn to gift shop, I zipped through and returned with a few things, including something I’d been on the lookout for for months: a slim wooden table that was the perfect size and color for my brother’s guest bathroom. At last, when Mama Jo visited there she’d have something to grab onto. Even though someone was always at her side, the instability of the situation unnerved her.

I wedged the gifts into the back of the car around Mama Jo’s wheelchair, and excitedly told her about the table as we pulled out of the space. I reached for her hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze before we went off to cruise through the rest of the park and ooh and aah some more.

The table would never make it to Arthur’s house. Nor would she ever leave our house again. By Christmas she was in home hospice care.

She was gone by the following spring. Slowly I’ve been sorting through the family mementos, the hundreds if not thousands of photographs she took. Many are of Christmas trees throughout my childhood. For our family, it obliterated what was missing the rest of the year in a home that would eventually be shattered by divorce.

I still look back now, especially at that artificial silver tree that had the multi-colored device that rotated and bathed the tree in various colors, and kick myself for not putting up a bigger tree for my mother when she asked. I probably could have found one just like that silver one on eBay. What a smile it would have put on her face. In fact, I might just go look for one right now.

MAY YOUR HOLIDAY SEASON BE FILLED WITH MANY GOOD MEMORIES AND THE NEW YEAR WITH LAUGHTER AND COUNTLESS BLESSINGS.

Jo

After viewing an MRI of my lower back, I prayed New York neurosurgeon Dr. Ezriel Kornel wouldn’t utter the dreaded word “surgery.” He said, “You have a cyst in the ligaments around your L4 that has to come out.” I visualized a laparoscopic number with a tiny scar and I’d be back home the same day. Then he said, “I recommend fusing the L4 with spondylolosthesis (slipped vertebra) with the L5 to stabilize the area, remove the disc, replace it with OptiMesh that turns into bone and insert permanent titanium hardware of two screws, a rod and a clamp.”

When I could speak again, I asked, “What about going through airport security?”

“Not a problem,” he answered with a smile.

“Wow.” It took a moment to get my head around what he was saying. “Back bling.”

I’ve now learned that more people have back issues than I ever imagined and they’re all terrified of surgery; that it can be the best thing you can do for your body and mind; and that pretty much everyone asks the airport security question.

Ten months before, I thought I was fine. I had a few aches and some stiffness that, as a baby boomer, I attributed to (cringe) aging and arthritis. Then one morning I tried to get out of bed. My entire lower right side had turned into burning concrete and someone, somewhere, was driving a pickaxe into it. With my luck, I thought, I’d thrown something out in my Pilates class. You know, while doing something that was supposed to be good for me. I’d been doing Pilates for over two decades. It was doubtful.

Once I walked around I was fine. My hope that I’d slept in some funny way lasted until the next morning. The same thing happened.

Friends told me, “I had that. It’s sciatica. It’ll go away. Are you stressed out about something?”

Please. Who isn’t stressed out about something.

It didn’t go away. What was really strange was it was most comfortable to sleep on my left side but when I tried to get up the pain on my right was so excruciating I had to scream over and over to get through it. I couldn’t sleep on my right for long without it hurting. That left my back only which I don’t like. I wasn’t exactly a man-magnet at this time, nor did I want to be.

An x-ray showed a vertebra right above my sacrum had slipped slightly, causing the disc to bulge and press against the nerves that go down my right leg. No one knew what caused this. I wasn’t born with it and hadn’t experienced any trauma. But I’d been hearing popping sounds in my lower back for many years. Not one-time pops, like a chiropractic adjustment. It would pop and crunch every time I repeated a certain movement.

Each professional I saw commented, “If it doesn’t hurt don’t worry about it.” A Pilates instructor warned me, “That’s not right. You need to really strengthen those abdominal muscles. Even though you’re in good shape you can still have weak muscles around your spine.”

Apparently I was born with loose ligaments and fascia (connective tissues). Sitting/slumping at a computer for hours on end, often with my legs crossed, didn’t help. Something had to give.

To alleviate the pain I tried massage, acupuncture and chiropractic adjustments. The relief was temporary. I switched to a kneeling chair at my desk (Office Star™ Ergonomic Fabric Knee Chair that I found at Staples). It was definitely more comfortable and I sat up straighter but if I sat for more than 15 minutes and tried to get up I was sorry. I started using a timer to alert me.

I went through physical therapy. The pain was still there. I had a steroid shot, another. The pain was still there. Not burning-concrete-and-pickaxe pain, and I could get out of bed (carefully), exercise, walk, even cautiously enjoy my African dance classes. But daily discomfort, the constant worry that this would get worse, should I or should’t I do this or that, and not sleeping well muddled my mind and made me very cranky. I had a new understanding of people in chronic pain as well as painkiller addicts.

Through all this I was taking Tylenol and Aleve. I stayed under the daily max of each, usually under half the max. When I had my annual physical, eight months after this annoyance began, the ALT number for my liver was above normal. Not crazy above, but enough for my doctor to say: no alcohol or Tylenol for a month. The alcohol was easy to stop. The Tylenol? What I wouldn’t give for a hit of that.

I knew acetaminophen can screw up your liver (especially when mixed with alcohol, which I cut way back on), and NSAIDs like Aleve can tear up your stomach. I knew it’s easy to O.D. on acetaminophen because it lurks in everything from certain types of Alka-Seltzer and Midol to Vicodin. Click here and scroll down for the National Institute of Health’s list of products that contain acetaminophen. You’ll be surprised.  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a681004.html I was often tired but I was sure that was from not sleeping well and being in my ancient fifties. What did I expect? Here’s the danger of acetaminophen vs. NSAIDS. The liver is insensate. You know if your stomach hurts.

Now, almost a year from the onset of my back problems, the pain had skyrocketed due to the cyst. I had to have surgery. I was freaking out. Taking out the cyst, an out-patient procedure, didn’t concern me. It was the several-days-in-the-hospital and 6-8 week recovery time of the spinal fusion that I wasn’t sure I should have done. Hearing friends solemnly say “I know someone who went through that and they’re still in pain” then brightly adding “but who knows what they can do today!” didn’t help. Normally, I’d consult five doctors before having anyone cut into me. I was in too much agony to do that.

Luckily, among all the fear mongers, I found two people who’d had spinal fusions and were delighted with the results. Ian Lesser said, “Best thing I ever did, though I had it done right after 9/11 and had to wear a bone stimulator with wires hanging down in back for about a month. People thought I had a bomb.” He also told me what his doctor said when he asked before the surgery how much it would hurt. “More painful than stubbing your toe. Less painful than getting shot.”

Shelley White had her back fused from her shoulder blades to her tailbone! After hearing what she went through and that she was an inch and half taller and exceedingly happy that she did it — “I feel like God reached down from heaven and gave me a beautiful gift” — I christened my operation The End of the Suffering Tour. All would soon be better in every aspect of my life.

It’s now over two months since I went under the knife. I’m so giddy with energy and a body that feels twenty years younger, my girlfriend Nicki Tal proclaimed, “You’re like a frustrated stripper now!”

Bring on the pole dancing.

I’m a new pain-free, pain killer-free person. And I’m a half an inch taller – which I think means I need to lose 1.7 pounds less than my previous goal, now in striking distance. I bet the body burns more calories to combat pain and to heal, or those painkillers deaden the appetite (or both). I easily lost ten pounds and have kept it off. I effortlessly reduced my intake of alcohol and coffee to special occasion use. I’m sure that’s enhanced my relaxed and centered state of mind. I find it easier to make decisions. Business dealings that had stalled are suddenly falling into place. There’s even romance in the air. Woo-hoo! Maybe all that oxycodone and restful post-op sleep recalibrated something. Or (here’s the airy-fairy in me coming out) I literally needed more backbone.

People keep telling me how young I look. What’s some short-term pain for that! Unlike a facelift, my insurance covered almost all of it. In fact, they shelled out more for this operation than I’ll probably pay in premiums for the rest of my life, causing me – for the moment – to stop complaining about their exorbitant rates.

As for whether you should go to a neurosurgeon or orthopedic surgeon when back problems persist, I went to an ortho in Greensboro, NC, first and consulted neurosurgeon Dr. Kornel, who was a NY friend, at the same time. They said basically the same things. I happened to be in New York and near Dr. Kornel when all this came to a head. But the orthopedic practice I went to told me during my post-diagnosis what-do-I-do hysteria that they send all their back patients to neurosurgeons and couldn’t advise me. Draw your own conclusions.

Most important, you have to go to physical therapy and you have to do the exercises. You also have to be careful about the way you move your body for the rest of your life. Twisting, for example, can increase the odds the vertebrae above or below the fusion can slip. As Dr. Kornel said, “Fixing it is the easy part. Making it stay that way is up to you.”

We’ll see how long I remain a happy camper. Does everyone who has back surgery have the great results I’ve had so far? No. I’m just reporting good news that I hope helps others. There’s just one thing I forgot to ask Dr. Kornel. How much does that back bling weigh? Maybe I can up that 1.7 pounds to 2.

For more on Dr. Kornel and his practice Brain and Spine Surgeons of New York in White Plains (and Dr. de Lotbinière who assisted) http://www.bssny.com/meet-our-physicians/Ezriel-Kornel/

Listen to his radio show Back Talk Live! on WOR (710AM) in New York City Sundays at 9PM. http://www.wor710.com/weekend-personalities/Back-Talk-Live-/8311878

He recommends this site for anything back related.  http://www.spineuniverse.com/

I would also like to thank Dr. Neal Guffey for his support and advice, Marion Jahalal for her excellent post-op care, and my friends who were there for me in my time of utter dependence and micro-managing mania. Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, NY, felt more like a hotel than a hospital — until I saw the six-figure bill. Thank you Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina for taking care of that. And, finally, to oxycodone. Our blissful one-month affair will always remain a beautiful memory.

Mr. Waters, whose name is synonymous with “filth” and has spent, I’m sure, far more on therapy than the budget of all his early films combined (Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, Mondo Trasho, Pink Flamingos, to name just a few) lures us in with a fairly safe but highly amusing chapter on his adoration of Johnny Mathis. He even quotes Freud’s line about psychotherapy as “transforming hysterical misery into uncommon happiness.” So we’re not only going to get his tales of the people he’s had mad, lasting fixations on but some high brow stuff, too. Sounds like my kind of book.

We traipse through unknown (to me) off-color stories about Tennessee Williams. Then it’s on to the sad tale of Leslie Van Houten, one of the unfortunate young women to be caught in Charles Manson’s spell and still in prison for it. He lightens the moment by next introducing us to his favorite fashion designer Rei Kawakubo who creates clothes Goodwill would reject and cost a fortune.

And then he gets to the Baltimore role models chapter.

Bring on the filth, throw out the airbrush gun. We’re up to our necks in foul-mouthed freaks. I tip my hat to Mr. Waters for his wonderful way with words, delicious dirt about himself and others, and insanely thorough research. When he interviews someone, no matter who they are, he’s done his homework.

He gives just enough of a reprieve from the lowlifes and larger-than-lifes that he loves by breezing into a chapter on his favorite books, none of which I will be running out to get but I loved seeing them through his maniacal eyes. The next chapter about his interview with Little Richard for Playboy had me caught in an insanity that felt like I was being pushed up the wall by centrifugal force. In “Outsider Porn” he tracks down more way-off-the-radar weirdos in the worst neighborhoods (one in California lived in a kind of cabana along with two 750-pound pigs, roosters and hundreds of rats and was famous for . . . Well, if I couldn’t share it at a dinner party last night, you’ll just have to read about it).

I found myself wondering if Waters ever wished he’d had a video camera with him instead of just his tape recorder while interviewing his subjects. Could there be a John Water’s reality TV show in the wings? Then it hit me. Reality TV today is just an early John Water’s movie with much better looking people.

His chapter on his “roommates” – his art collection in various homes – was illuminating. I’ve always marveled at how art aficionados can lay on the hype about something that would make most people say “My five year-old could do that!” With Mr. Waters, he goes much deeper than a gallery brochure. This is an example of his interpretation of a Cy Twombly work. (click on the image to enlarge)

From here he segues into “the amazingly aggressive and powerful female artist Lee Lozano, who in 1971 vowed for ‘art’ never to speak to women again.” For 28 years she kept her promise. He wonders how she managed with her mother when Ms. Lozano became ill at the end of her life and lived with her parents, as do I. How exactly did that work? He supplies a few possible scenarios.

But when John Waters explains why he lives alone by calling love “that terribly exciting disease that, to me, feels like another full-time job,” I realize he isn’t just a role model for the mega-misfits, he’s a paragon for a large part of the population who enjoy being single, or at least find it a lot easier to negotiate than Couple Land. That one paragraph could put Match.com out of business.

There’s so much to say about Sonya, do check out her site. One of my all time favorite book titles belongs to her: ONE OF THOSE HIDEOUS BOOKS WHERE THE MOTHER DIES. That was before I actually wrote such a book! And I still love it.

1. I’ve been recommending your novel-in-verse to everyone. Even the never-married-with-no-children ones love it. It’s the perfect gift for my friends with a child going off to college. Everyone laughs and cries. Did you have doubts, especially when known as a YA writer, that it would be so well-received? If so, what kept you moving forward?

You are such a sweetheart, Jo. Thanks for doing all that recommending! If you keep this up, you will turn me into the next JK Rowling. And if that happens, I will buy you a Ferrari… [Jo: I will paint it pink just like the Cadillac Elvis gave his mama.]

Of course I had doubts about writing my first book for grownups. I was born worried. And I was supposed to be working on a YA novel that I was under contract for. But every time I sat down at my computer, I found myself wanting to write about going through menopause instead, and about my imminent empty nest, and about being offered my first senior discount—not exactly subjects that teens would find enthralling. For a while, I tried really hard not to write it, but this was one of those books that grabbed hold of me and just wouldn’t let go. I honestly felt like I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Holly demanded that I tell her story!

2. One of the reasons your book is so captivating is that the voice of Holly is utterly authentic. I’m sure many readers confuse you with Holly. Can you share your thoughts on life imitating art. Where is Sonya, your husband, children, editor and more in this story?

By a very strange coincidence, Holly is a poet and so am I. And I’ve been through lots of the same things that Holly has— menopause, freaking out at the relentless decline of my body, being behind on a deadline, dealing with having an empty nest, and doing all of this while trying to care for a sick mom who lives thousands of miles away. But I am not Holly, and the husband, daughter and editor in the book are made up characters. Honest! I’ve got two kids, a son and a daughter,  and when I was writing about Holly’s daughter, I was drawing on feelings I’d had about both of my kids leaving for school. So the feelings were real, even though the situations were fictionalized.

Or as someone once said (of course, I can’t remember who, because my brain’s a sieve): “All of it is true, but none of it really happened.”

And it wasn’t easy to let Holly tell the whole truth—about her insecurities, fantasies and deepest yearnings—because I was painfully aware that people reading my book would assume that all the most humiliating parts were based on my feelings and experiences.  And on my body! Even the most sophisticated readers fall into this trap.

3. When taking from real life, do you have any rules to avoid lawsuits, or just having someone hate you forever?

I try not to write things that would embarrass anyone I know. If I think there is anything even remotely questionable, I check with the person first to make sure they won’t mind. And so far, I’ve only made a few enemies…

Just kidding! Everyone has been extremely generous with letting me “borrow” from them.

4. Which poems do readers recall the most when they meet you? What are the “Hunchback” Greatest Hits?

Well, everybody’s got their own favorite, but this little rhyme is the one that most people seem to really get a kick out of:

To the One-Pound Bag of Oreos I Just Bought:

It’s so sad

to think

that just moments

from now

you

will be gone

and I’ll

be a cow.

It’s ironic, because my editor suggested I cut it from the book. But I thought it was funny, and it happened to be my agent’s assistant’s favorite poem,  so I used that as ammunition in arguing for keeping it in. And I’m so delighted that it made the final cut.

Here is another one of the “greatest hits”:

If Only Michael and I Had a Court Reporter Living With Us

She’d record every single word

we said to each other—

her silver hair pulled up into a neat brioche

on top of her head,

rocking ever so slightly, her eyes closed

in Ray-Charlesian concentration,

her quick fingers clicking away

on the keys of her stenotype machine

while the ticker tape transcript,

that oozing ribbon of absolute truth,

gathered in white-looped paper mountains

around her primly crossed ankles.

Her presence in our home

would doubtless cut in half

the length of time Michael and I

spend arguing.

Whenever our fights escalated

to the you-know-I-can’t-stand-it-

when-you-say-that stage, Michael would

protest (as usual), “I didn’t say that!”

But there she’d be,

our intrepid court reporter,

to check back through her tape

and set him straight.

“Actually,” she’d say,

glancing at him coolly over the top

of her tortoise shell spectacles,

“your exact words were…”

5. I saw a video of you speaking to a group of women writers and thought, “She should have her own TV show!”  Anything in the works? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04iYme5KCnM

Why? Do you know any TV producers? If you do, please tell them I’m available! Seriously though, I love speaking so much that sometimes I fantasize about trying to create a one woman show using the poems from The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus. But I’m very busy writing that YA novel that I should have been writing when I was writing The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus. The new one is about a compulsive liar named Colette. She’s so devious. I love her!

But even though I’m busy writing, I want your readers to know that if their book club chooses to read the book, I’d be happy to Skype into their book club discussion of the book. Because all writing and no play makes Sonya a dull author…

And for the next few weeks, I’ll be posting poems from The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus to my blog, about how it feels when your child leaves for college, so if you know of anyone going through that, please send them this link: www.sonyasones.com/wp/whats-new

Thanks for having me Jo, and for asking such fun, thought-provoking questions!

xx,

Sonya

Sharyn Wolf is the author of Love Shrinks: a memoir of a marriage counselor’s divorce - a fearless look at her own dysfunctional former marriage. A New York licensed psychotherapist and relationship expert, she’s been on over 400 radio and TV shows (including 8 appearances on Oprah). Her books include This Old Spouse, How to Stay Lovers for Life and Guerrilla Dating Tactics.

1. For the most part you were in a sex-less marriage for 8 years. How common is this and what advice do you have to others in a similar situation?

When I posted a piece in the Huffington Post about my sexless marriage, I received over 500 comments on the site and another fifty to my website. Half were from people in sexless marriages for one reason or another ranging from chronic fighting to chronic illness. I wasn’t that surprised that so many people aren’t having sex. They all said that it is a secret and others see them as perfectly happy, well adjusted couples.

Sex is the glue that holds relationships together for most of us. So, if you are in a relationship and you aren’t getting any, it’s important to figure out why. You can do something as simple as plan a date night and see if that works. But, if it doesn’t, then you can count on a deeper issue—most likely to be anger. You can try to work it out on your own. With a few good books like the ones by David Schnarch, you might be able to. If you can’t, a good couple therapist or sex therapist is likely to be able to get you on the right track.

Read essay

2. I love the image you used of the “drawer that gets stuck” and figuring out what it is in the patient’s head that’s keeping it from closing. You also say every therapist will ruin your life and to choose one that ruins it for the better. Please explain.

Therapy is a process that invites self-exploration into your motivations for those behaviors that are making a mess of your life. No one wants to spend time in those dark places, but you cannot move forward without doing just that. Most good therapy makes you feel worse before you feel better. So good therapy insists you change and change comes with us kicking and screaming all along the way. Change isn’t easy. Neither is therapy.

3. To those who haven’t read Love Shrinks, what is the meaning of the origami birds on the cover. And were there other titles considered for the book?

This was the only cover presented and everyone immediately loved it. In the first chapter of the book I have a patient who constantly makes origami during our sessions. He tells me that story that, in Japan, there is a belief that if you make 1,000 origami cranes, your wish will come true. It was an ‘aha’ moment for me. I was in a 999 crane marriage for many years. I just couldn’t complete my wish, my thousandth crane. I was too scared.

When I submitted the book, the title was, The Marriage Counselor: A Love Story About Divorce. At one point it was Who Gets the Dogs? and at another it was We Have to Stop. In the end, and I’m very happy about it, Love Shrinks won out. That was my publisher, Bronwen Hruska’s idea.

To find out more, visit Sharyn’s website or view the trailer.

I took the long, scenic route to getting published. Fifteen years, seven other books, and four literary agents preceded the publication of When I Married My Mother. Whatever success my writing brings me is the result of never giving up, working with great editors and agents, taking criticism extremely well, having from-the-heart stories to tell, and being crazy. I’m now convinced that “writer” and “addict” are interchangeable.

My efforts were nothing compared to what the author of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly went through. He wrote his entire extraordinary memoir by blinking his left eye—the only part of his body that moved.

If there’s something you want to write, just write it. If your goal is to make money from your work, remember that most start-up businesses fail (“fail” being open to interpretation). You may only get brutal rejection letters and/or not make a dime. You may look back years later and say, “What was I thinking?”

I say, so what?

Especially if what you want to write is about your family. At the very least you’ll leave a legacy for future generations . . . or get a bucket of bile out of your system that’ll make you feel better but should best be kept to yourself.

When our possessions are gone or become meaningless, and our bodies are no longer recognizable as our own, or even here, what are we left with? Our stories.

Write yours.

(I recommend The Editorial Department for editing services http://www.editorialdepartment.com/, Renni Browne’s book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (good for non-fiction as well), Stephen King’s memoir On Writing, Nicholas Sparks’ advice found here http://www.nicholassparks.com/ForWriters.asp?PageID=1, and the websites Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/and RedRoom http://redroom.com/)

Summer 2011

As the Bachelorette nears its “most dramatic final rose ceremony ever” I find myself thinking back to the Bachelor debut in 2002. Twenty-five beautiful young women vied for the heart of one alpha male. Many weeks later, he whittled it down to one. Kind of like a harem in reverse. I was horrified. I couldn’t stop watching.

If I had teenagers, I’d encourage them to watch this show. It teaches how to behave (and not behave) with your dream mate. When your love is unrequited, you’ll know how to read the signs and graciously bow out. Wait, I know a few people way past their teens who need this primer.

I’m sure a lot of my addiction comes from the horse race thrill of it; divining who will cross the finish line, in this case, last. Or do I still crave the Cinderella fairy tale? Am I intrigued by the bizarre psychology that takes over the contestants’ brains that’s a combination of Lord of the Flies and Stockholm Syndrome? If I was stranded somewhere with only one man around I’d probably fall hard and fast for him, too.

Or am I just at that age (42 forever) where I’d much rather watch other people go through Dating Hell and feel smugly wise than to subject myself to that mess. One woman’s adventure is another’s headache.

A bigger question is why do these people go on the show in the first place knowing that they’re opening themselves up to massive public embarrassment and heartbreak? Is it the idea of wanting romance, wanting it now, and all the seductive trappings? There is a certain appealing efficiency to it. And there’s the fame. Can’t discount that.

Here’s what I find most fascinating about the Bachelor/Bachelorette. It always comes down to two strikingly different people capturing the chooser’s tormented heart. Every single time we hear: “I never thought I could fall for two people . . . This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make . . . I have no idea who I’m going to pick.”

I’ve been in that place before. It wasn’t tortuous. It was head-swirling delicious. Unfortunately, it didn’t last. But just once, I’d like to see that final rose sliced down the middle, the Bachelor/Bachelorette give half to each finalist, and say, “Let’s try time-sharing.”

No one under forty would ever say that.