Music to My Ears

Have I mentioned how much I love to write? It never ceases to amaze me how, at this point in my life, I have found a new passion. After a lifetime as a musician, stage director, and teacher, I am actively creating. I loved what I did (and still do, I continue to have a private voice studio), but that was developing other people’s talent, organizing other people’s talent, recreating the original works of composers, lyricists, and writers. This work is from me—heart, mind, and soul.

Marketing is something else entirely. It’s time-consuming, requires some expenditure of money I don’t really have (if you want to write, do not do it with the idea you will become rich and famous!), and just plain tedious. I still don’t “get” Twitter and now I’ve established an Instagram account and really don’t know how to use it effectively either.

A very helpful tool in marketing is reader reviews that appear on Amazon. I have some reviews, and I’m happy that some of my readers have enthusiastically shared their appreciation for my books. I wish more would do so, but I can’t seem to find the magic formula to make that happen. Reviews are like a standing ovation for a writer. They don’t need to be lengthy, but if they are positive and encouraging, they may inspire a potential reader to buy a book!

One thing I am very grateful for are those readers who, while not posting a review, send me one. Readers who take the time to write an email, or a message on Facebook, or a note they put in an envelope and put a stamp on to tell me they appreciated one of my books. Here are a few I received recently, and these truly are music to my ears and a great encouragement.

From a neighbor:

“Finished Eli's Heart last night. It was beautifully written and so very emotional. It touched my heart and made me cry. Just thinking about it makes me tear up. I can see why some people might think it would be good as a series, but I prefer being able to get to the next part immediately! I actually like longer stories when they are good ones, because I don't want them to end. You can be very proud of that book!”

 

From a fellow musician (who was reading while she was part of a pit orchestra during an extended run of a musical theater production):

“Oh no! I've finished all your books and I still have 4 shows left!! They were absolutely magnificent. I'm glad I waited till they were all published to read them straight through. I'm horribly impatient when it comes to wonderful writing! Thank you for sharing your ‘new’ gift with the world!!”

From a local resident who participated in some of the shows I directed:

“I recently read your book, ‘More Fog, Please’ and enjoyed it thoroughly. I remember so many of those wonderful plays you directed over the years and participated in several. You have enriched our community with your gifts. Best wishes on your writing career now!”

Thank you, readers, for making the time to respond to my work. It’s appreciated more than you know!

Please visit my website www.susanmoorejordan.com

for links to all my books

Musings of an Indie Author

Bits and Pieces

So I had a nice surprise this morning when I received an e-mail from the music librarian at the University of Cincinnati library. We’ve been corresponding for a while now, and it’s his responsibility to keep track of “U.C. Authors” – of which I am one, by virtue of my three years as a student at the College-Conservatory of Music from 1955-1958. Paul Cauthen was nice enough to mention me in the library’s blog and give a plug to my most recent and only non-fiction book, “More Fog, Please.” There’s a link from that link to all my books which are listed at the library, and they have two physical copies of each … one has been archived, the other is available for circulation. I would love for more people who are contemporaries of mine to know about in particular Eli’s Heart, since about two-thirds of that book takes place on the old CCM campus in Mt. Auburn. The student uprising on campus in 1956 actually happened. Maybe this will help!

http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/liblog/2016/04/new-book-by-ccm-alumna-susan-moore-jordan/

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I am currently waiting to hear from two more Beta readers about their reaction to my work in progress, my fourth novel entitled Jamie’s Children. It’s great to have had two positive responses from the men who volunteered to read the book. I’m taking more time with this one. Basically, I had to … my character Niall Logan is bipolar, and trying to get inside his head took a lot of research. He also aspires to be a singer-songwriter, more research about a genre I knew very little about. And yet more research: Niall’s sister Laura is a virtuoso violinist. Though I was familiar with some of the literature, I’d never even held a violin. I’ve had great assistance with all three of these fields from some terrific friends, reinforcing how important networking is to an author.

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One of my Beta readers requested a little more about Jamie Logan, the famous father to Laura and Niall, and his reaction to Niall’s illness. Happy to oblige, so here’s a sneak peek at Jamie’s Children.

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Deep into practicing the Brahms concerto, feeling herself one with the music, Laura was annoyed when the buzzer in her apartment sounded and she almost ignored it. Her concentration broken, she went to the intercom and asked rather crisply: “Who is it?”

     “It’s Niall.”

     “Niall! Come on up!” She was thrilled to hear his voice. She hadn’t seen him since Bonnie had gone to Hunter Mountain and brought him back to the city. Bonnie had talked with her and with Meredith and Jamie, explaining Niall wasn’t ready to see them yet. Not at Thanksgiving. 

     Not even at Christmas.

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     It had been strained and strange, just herself and her parents trying to somehow capture the joy of the season. They were all recalling the Christmas two years earlier with Jack, when they had filled the house with music. This year a recording was playing of Vaughan Willaims’ Hodie – a work Jamie was to perform the following year with the New York Philharmonic. There were some half-hearted attempts at discussions about the music, but these trailed off into silence.

     Jamie especially had struggled with Niall’s absence, and he finally said, “It’s my fault. I should have been more … I’m not even sure what. I should have talked to him more.”

     “No, Dad, it’s not you at all. It’s Niall’s disease, and all the talking in the world probably won’t be much good to him until he’s ready to reach out for help.”

     “I knew he was depressed sometimes. I’d experienced that myself, more than once.”

     “Jamie, you never suffered the kind of depression Niall has,” Meredith told her husband. “You may have come close once … but with manic-depression, the lows are something none of us can really understand.”

     “Still, I should have done something more. I should have been more supportive. Niall is … well, there’s a lot of me in him. We want everything to be … we want … we want life to be perfect for the people we love. And I know that’s impossible, but I still feel it.” He looked at them, the pain he was feeling clearly reflected in his eyes.

     Both Meredith and Laura put their arms around him. The music had stopped, and for a few moments the only sound was the ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantle.

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     Another month had passed and still nothing. She knew her parents were very worried, but they were all relieved he was with Bonnie. She’d keep him safe. That was the operative word these days: they all wanted Niall safe. Bonnie assured them he hadn’t been drinking, but he was struggling with depression. And now, finally, he was at her door.

“A Long Time Ago in a Small Town Far Away”

Excerpt from More Fog, Please, “Carousel Revisited”:

The theater world is filled with drama of all kinds. Sometimes we hear “It’s not life and death”' when a diva ─ a stressed actor or singer ─ protests too much. True enough.

Sometimes, though, life and death hover over the theater like a sudden black storm cloud on a sunny day. High school is too early, but life can hand us a difficult lesson at a young age. This was how I first came to know Carousel. To understand the 2013 production at East Stroudsburg, I need to explain what happened a long time ago in a small town far away.

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In the fall of 1953, I was a junior in high school in my home town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and we received the exciting news that we would be performing this show – a real Broadway show! Not the operettas we’d done in the past. A serious show; a musical drama.

The show was performed in February of 1954. A close friend, Anita Barker, played the role of Julie Jordan. She had auditioned only days after burying both her parents, who had been shot to death by her estranged brother-in-law. Anita’s dedication and professionalism was a marvel for all of us involved with the production. I believe being cast as Julie helped her through a horrifically dark time in her life, and her performance was inspired and inspiring.

***

The [East Stroudsburg South High School, 2013] show was in March. On May 6, I was having lunch with Judy Lawler and whining about having the summer ahead of me and not much to do since Ragtime, two years earlier, had been my last summer show.

“Why don’t you write a book?”

I think I just stared at her. Might as well suggest I climb Mt. Everest, and I said pretty much exactly that. A book! Too daunting, too much, too … everything.

“Don’t think so big. Think of one event, one incident.”

Immediately I thought of Anita Barker and that Carousel production from 1954. I had told Judy the story before, and reminded her of it.

She nodded. “Then use that,” she said. “And try writing it in the first person.”

I went home and sat at the computer, and I spent many hours there over the next five months. The story had been there all along. I realized as I wrote what an impact Carousel ─ that Carousel in 1954 at Oak Ridge High School ─ had on my life. Reliving the show with these twenty-first century young men and women helped me to remember a great deal about that long-ago production.

And that’s how I came to write How I Grew Up in 2013, and followed up with two additional novels over the next two years. The show is almost a major character in the book because it was so important to my character “Melanie Stewart” at this traumatic time in her life. While I was writing about Anita, I also was writing a work of fiction, and Melanie became a person in her own right.

I gave her a leading man named Jamie Logan. I really liked my character Jamie Logan, a handsome boy with a good heart and a superb tenor voice, and I just wrote a book about him entitled You Are My Song. In between, I wrote a book about Melanie’s friend Krissy Porter and the young man who becomes her life, a brilliant pianist named Eli Levin who has a frightening congenital heart defect: hence, Eli’s Heart. All three have their beginnings in that Carousel production. So without it being my intent, I guess I wrote a trilogy.

But in writing How I Grew Up, I was able to talk about the rehearsals for the show and recapture the feeling of being part of a musical. There’s really nothing quite like it, and having been with the South kids so recently, I drew on the feelings I knew they had experienced.

Here’s a very brief excerpt. It’s a school day; it’s also opening night.

We all kind of went through the day as if we weren’t really there at all, but were waiting for our lives to start that evening. At lunch, everybody in the cast tried to sit with each other. We had a connection that nobody else could really understand. The cast was a group for the weeks that we rehearsed the show, especially that last week. For that brief time, there really were no other groups in our high school.

It was pointless for us to talk about anything except the show, because that was the only thing any of us were thinking about.

And if you’ve ever been in a high school show … you’ll understand exactly how these young performers felt.

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How I Grew Up is available on Amazon, paperback $10.00 and Kindle $3.99.

It’s a good story! I’d love to share it with you.

http://tinyurl.com/h257dyo

www.susanmoorejordan.com

  Carousel, South H.S., 2013

"More Fog, Please"

My New Book

After many months, and much rewriting, editing, re-re-writing, re-re-re-writing, more editing, proofreading, and a great deal of joy and angst and everything in between (every author can relate!), “More Fog, Please” – 31 Years Directing Community and High School Musicals has been available for sale on Amazon for just over a week.

To my great delight, the book is doing well. People are buying it! People like it! I already have four five-star reviews, and for us independent authors, those reviews are like standing ovations (especially the five-star ones). If you’re interested you can click on the link below and read the nice things that have been said about the book. And maybe buy it? (Just an example of the shameless self-promotion we have to learn to do.)

Most of the reviewers comment on the humor in the book, which was also gratifying. I don’t think of myself as a very witty person, but I did have a ton of fun directing the shows I talk about. When I released it I selected “Theater>Direction and Production” as the category. I have no idea why, except that  the title alerts the reader to some fun, but Amazon also chose to put it in “Humor and Entertainment.” The ways of Amazon remain mysterious.

The book is about some of the shows I directed and the people who were involved. Theater is a team effort, and I had some great team members involved in those productions. Probably several thousand over those thirty-one years, and in the book I named a good many of them ─ but barely scratched the surface. Scrolling through my Facebook News Feed last night, I saw a photo that caught my attention – a former cast member, one of the “PLA Kids” I talk about frequently, stretched out on her sofa reading “More Fog, Please.”

I left her a comment, thanking her for buying it. Liz Groff Heuser became a “PLA Kid” with our 1993 production of Cinderella, and six years later she played a leading role in the 1999 Cinderella as Joy, one of the stepsisters. Her reply made my day, if not my week, because this is one big reason I wrote the book:

“This PLA Kid has seen 16 of your shows and performed in 13 (not counting Mouse Country!)! I could write my own book on how all of those experiences and people I met changed me. I recently showed my husband the VHS of Cinderella #3 since he had never seen me perform and now completely ‘gets’ my addiction to it. Thank you for writing this and sharing our world! My time under your direction will remain some of the best in my life!”

That’s what I wanted to do, share the world we made with our musicals. And it seems for at least one former PLA Kid I succeeded.

“More Fog, Please” – 31 Years Directing Community and High School Musicals

http://tinyurl.com/p6metaf

cover by Tristan Flanagan