Writing and Writers: Candy Marie Bridges

Writer’s Block airs every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com

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Author shares her story in Meet Me in the Mountains

Candy Marie Bridges doesn’t claim to be a writer, and says her memoir, Meet Me in the Mountains, was written because people asked her to write it. Looking at her website and seeing all the things she’s involved in, writing probably does take a back seat, but there is no question that she is a writer. Meet Me in the Mountains is her story, told in her unique voice, and it speaks to readers about choices, living to encourage others, and the healing power of faith. 

In our interview on July 3, she was charming and upbeat, just the kind of person you would want to spend time talking to. It is obvious her faith shapes her character and informs the way she lives. Below are her written responses to the questions I asked her on the air.

WB: Let’s begin by you telling the audience a little about yourself.

CMB: Originally I am from Southern California. I was born and raised there until I was 20 years old. At that time in my life, I married my husband Mike Roe, and we moved to Chandler, Ariz., where we lived, worked and raised our three children. In 2003, my husband died suddenly of a wrongful death and in January of 2006, as a widow, I moved 100 miles north to Pine, Ariz., a rural mountain town with only 1000 full time residents.

WB: Meet Me in the Mountains is a memoir. What prompted you to write your story and share it with others?

CMB: People often ask me, "Why did you move to the mountains? Why are you doing what you are doing? How did this place come to be?” The answers to these questions are not simple. So my prompting came from the guests who stay here where I live, work and serve at Breath of Life Retreat House.

WB: Have you always wanted to be a writer?  

CMB: No I never wanted to be a writer. It never entered my mind. It's funny now because when I think of all the times I was asked the questions about why I am here and how I got to live in the mountains, I would jokingly answer,  "I could write a book." After a couple of years of saying this, I was encouraged by a friend who is an author and editor to tell my story so others might find the value in faith, hope and love.

WB: You also have a business creating personalized calligraphy gifts. What inspired this entrepreneurial endeavor?

CMB: I was inspired in college during a non-credit calligraphy class. I was captured with the lettering art and the perfection, yet non perfection with hand lettering. I desired to meld both words and art to create inspirational and scriptural sayings. It took years, but I finally created a line of prints and sell them online at my website.

WB: Are some of the messages on the items created by you and if so what inspired the sentiment?

CMB: Most of the items are scripture based messages. I have a few that I wrote myself like A Wedding Day Prayer, A Covenant Marriage, A Poem for Son and one for Daughter. The very first poem I wrote in 1981 is titled, Balloons. I was so enthralled watching them float by our home on early cold winter mornings that I was inspired to share my thoughts in a poem. I also share a story in my book about my own balloon ride and how my mom and I experienced the balloon crashing in the desert.

WB: Tell the audience about Breath of Life Retreat Center and how that came about.

CMB: Breath of Life came about several years after the unfortunate wrongful death of my husband. I share a dream I had just two weeks after he died during a nap where I heard the words, Retreat House. Through prayer and discernment, I created a place of rest, peace and comfort in addition to providing guests a place to share time with each other and with the Lord. The year and a half long renovation of Breath of Life involved many friends and family who supported me in this vision. The majority of our guests are quilters, scrap bookers, staff from churches and Bible study groups.

WB: You have your hands full between your calligraphy business, managing the center and writing. Where do you find time to fit it all?

CMB: That's a great question. I have yet to conquer the time issue. I don't think I ever will. I am constantly reprioritizing my day. Ultimately though, our guests and the retreats we host are priority. My calligraphy business is taken care of during the week days. There are phone calls, emails, shipping calligraphy orders, preparing meals for our guests during retreats and cleaning up that entail a big portion of both my husband’s and my week.

WB: What do you hope people get from reading your book?

CMB: I hope they receive through my story, the ability to realize when tragedy strikes, there is always hope. There is always a choice in how and where we get our strength to press on. I believe our lives will never be at rest or at full peace until we join Jesus in heaven, but in the meantime, we can find inner peace and hope through Him. Just as He died for each and every one of us, we sometimes need to die to ourselves and reach out to others who are hurting. This may be in silence through prayer or a listening ear or using our talents and gifts to help others. There can be great healing through service.

WB: What writer's inspire you and why?

CMB: I don't have a particular writer who inspires me. I am mostly inspired by those who step outside themselves to help others, both in big ways and in small ways. From mothers and fathers, nurses, teachers, missionaries, and just ordinary people doing little and big things for others in their daily lives.

WB: What did you learn about yourself in the course of writing Meet Me in the Mountains that you didn't know before?

CMB: I learned that although I am not a writer by profession or degree, I was able to tell my story in my own words. It was difficult re living painful memories through writing my memoir, but also healing. Many memories came to the surface while writing and I was surprised more than once how this happened, funny stories included. Even though I wrote my book to share my life with others, I have been told by close family and friends that I also wrote my book for myself. Being the type of person who is never bored and always too much on my plate, writing forced me to sit and reflect in an orderly way, my life then and now and put perspective on it.

WB: Where can readers find your books?

CMB: My book can be found purchased at my blog http://www.CandyMarieBridges.com in addition to Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

WB: Any last thoughts.

CMB: Yes. I would like to let people know that my book also has questions at the end of each chapter. If you are looking for a book for a group study or book club, the questions will promote thought provoking answers from those participating. I would like to thank you for having me as a guest. I appreciate the time and I hope people will visit my blog and read my book.

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Writing and Writers: Luke Benoit

Writer’s Block airs every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com

All Storms Pass, a writer’s look at life in bits and pieces

Luke Benoit

Life coach and hypnotherapist Luke Benoit, author of All Storms Pass, the anti-meditations, has written a book about getting through life, based on your own self-affirmation, not based on a lifetime of hearing other people tell you what's wrong with you. Reading some of the meditations on the air during the show on Tuesday, and getting his responses about why he wrote them, made me think differently about how I regard others.

Luke pointed out that when you put your expectations and judgments on someone else, you are as good as saying, "Unless you're like me, I don't accept you.”

"That's insulting to the other person," Luke said.

Put in that context it redefines relationships as environments of acceptance rather than quagmires of rationalized discontent.

In the interview Luke came across as kind. I suspect that is his nature. He said he never intended to write a book. The meditations were thoughts he compiled and distributed to clients and friends. Over time he was encouraged to put them into book form and make them available. He finally did it and the acceptance has been overwhelming.

"I go to book signing events and the books just disappear."

Perhaps that's because everyone can see themselves in the snippets of encouragement written on the pages of, All Storms Pass.

Here are a few that resonated with me.

Today, I will stop waiting for

all the stars to align

Today I will give up the wish and the fantasy that someday

the stars will align, that someday it will be perfect and

everything will fall into place.

Because maybe this is it, right now... and the Happy Destiny

is the road and not the destination and it's already here.

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Sometimes I blow things

out of proportion

Sometimes I take things personally

and it hurts more than it should

when I think that you've hurt me

and sometimes

I hurt more than I should

when you blame me

and I feel compelled

to fix it.

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There is "me"

and there is who you think I am

and there is who I think I am

and beyond this, there is

who I Really am,

the True Self I have forgotten.

Today, I will learn to tell

the difference.

The meditations read like free verse poetry. All Storms Pass is a book you can pick up any time, turn to any page, and find something that will inspire you to think better of yourself, and of the world.

From Luke’s website: Luke Benoit is a Life Coach and Hypnotherapist who lives and works in Orange County, California.  He has worked as a consultant in the areas of Recovery, Personal Growth and Mental Health for 15 years, and previously worked in the film industry as a screenwriter and producer.  He holds an M.S. in Education from California State University, Long Beach and a B.F.A. in Film and Screenwriting from the USC Film School.

All Storms Pass may be ordered locally at Tome on the Range, through most on line retailers and from the author.

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On the air with Cindy Charlton

Cindy Charlton is working on a book and developing her professional speaking and writing career. She has multiple talents and is a mom watching two sons grow up faster than she may be ready for.

She had always loved writing, but did not blossom as a writer until tragedy beat her thoroughly about the head and shoulders. Cindy suffered an illness that left her with prosthetic legs and minus one arm below the elbow. Two years later her husband died following a two-year battle with cancer. She said she had no choice but to be a survivor. Cindy is working to build her writing platform and her speaking career while remaining dedicated to being a mom. She has an indomitable spirit. She is funny, thoughtful and passionate. In her interview she read from an essay about her illness and her husband’s passing, and talks about why being a survivor is for her a must, not an option.

I highly recommend becoming a follower of her blog, A Survivor’s Handbook. Below is the beginning of her December blog, Choose Happiness. Keep reading, especially if you’re looking for something that will make you stop and think about all the reasons to be happy in your life, despite bumps in the road.

From The Survivor’s Handbook: “’Happiness runs in a circular motion…you can be happy if you let yourself be.’ These are lyrics to a song I used to sing when I was a child. The tune was simple and easy to harmonize with, which was why I liked it.  But as I think about this song, I begin to realize that although the tune is simple, the lyrics are profound.” Read more… 

Become a follower. You will find inspiration, something to make you smile and much you can relate to.

 

One of Cindy’s essays has been accepted for Chicken Soup for the Soul which comes out in March. She will be back on the air soon to talk about that and other writing projects.

Blessings in Disguise

Joseph Baca’s memoir, “Blessings in Disguise,” is equal parts history, family dynamics under stressful and sometimes violent circumstances, humor, spiritual awakening and inspiration. It is the story of one man’s life and how it was shaped by circumstances, but not defined by circumstances.

Baca is brutally honest about himself, his father’s brutality, his own mistakes, triumphs and joys. Despite times of darkness in his life Baca could always see the light ahead. In the book he credits his wife Loretta, with helping him see himself in a new way.

His dreams were more than dreams they were affirmations: “Good morning KFUN and KLVF hill, I love you and one day I am going to own you and you will be mine.” He started repeating that affirmation more than 20 years ago and eventually made it happen.

He also told his wife his Wednesday and Saturday lottery ticket purchases would someday bring in a million dollars. Apparently Joseph was the only one who wasn’t surprised when it happened.

“Blessings in Disguise,” begins with vignettes of Joseph Baca as a child. It details the verbal and physical abuse he received at the hands of a troubled father who turned his own demons on those closest to him. Joseph felt the brunt of that alcohol driven anger many times. It created an angry youngster who ended up finding trouble even when he wasn’t looking for it.

The memoir is touching, funny, heartbreaking and triumphant. It tells of Baca’s own struggle against the power of his past, which threatened to invade and take over his present and his future. He writes about the spirit that seemed to guide him past these dark times when anger and a feeling that his father was right when he said, “You’ll never be worth a damn and you’ll never accomplish anything in life.”

With grit and determination Baca has proven El Wille (his father) wrong, although that wasn’t his intent. His success is a blessing he counts with thanksgiving in his heart, not with revenge in his mind.

Baca said writing the book has been cathartic, allowing him to perhaps shine a light on his past and blow away the shadows that have haunted him for years.

“Blessings in Disguise,” is available at Tome on the Range in Las Vegas, N.M., and from the author. Baca will be the guest author at a reading and book-signing event at Tome on Saturday, Sept. 17 beginning at 3 p.m.