“We all have our crosses to bare!”  

“God never gives you more than you can handle.”

“Don’t sweat the small stuff, its all small stuff.”

We’ve all heard these trite sayings, perhaps even said them. It’s the quick answer, the simple water cooler discussion solution to life’s problems. But what about when those problems are big, or at least a lot bigger than the normal day-to-day stuff we complain about incessantly? 

For people in the sick line of life there is a lot of pressure to hop to it, to not complain, to never give up. Rarely are we allowed to be, to feel as we want. And god forbid we accept where we are. We must always fight.

This pressure and the need to check ourselves is a fine balance. Its something I try to do. To weigh the two whenever it gets too heavy. It’s just that some of us have much bigger crosses. Sometimes those crosses are so big that even small things can trip you up and leave you flat on your back unable to move.

Cold Waters Press lives in these areas of life and likes to explore them. As you may know, on the twenty first of September, we will honoring national Myositis day. To celebrate we are continuing our series on people with this disease who have been successful in creating something beautiful in the midst of all this chaos all by themselves. This week we feature Lisa Sniderman, aka Aoede. She is a singer songwriter who hales from the Bay Area. A few ears back Lisa was faced with a life decision most never have to encounter. She was diagnosed with the form of this rare muscle disease called Dermato Myositis. With this challenge at hand, she not only confronted her disease, she changed careers. Trained as environmental scientist she took her background interest, brought it to the forefront and became an award-winning musician. Her eclectic style is punctuated with joyful twangs of a ukulele, a captivating voice and a theme that younger adults will truly enjoy and parents won’t be horrified by. To find out more about Lisa and how she does what she does, Cold Waters Press asked her a few questions.

To find out more about Lisa and her music go to these two websites.

http://www.aoedemuse.com

http://www.isloveafairytale.com  

To find out more about Myositis go to this website. 

http://www.myositis.org  

   

CWP: You suffer from a mysterious disease that few know about, yet you maintain a busy active life. Can you tell us a little bit about some of your daily struggles, how you overcome them or know when not to?

Great question! I focus daily on what brings me joy. That for me is music and a lot of connecting with friends, family and fans online through social networks. My struggle is with energy and stamina and muscle weakness, which I deal with primarily when I lack the energy and stamina. Since I am at home daily (I was forced to leave work as Environmental Scientist for the State of CA Coastal Commission in July 2009 due to DM), I can pace myself as I write, record, have computer time, play music or make dinner. I take naps daily when I get tired. It is when I am out that I can easily overdo it by taking on too many activities in one day. I tend to use energy if I have it-and when it is gone, I can be left tired and weak. If out, I try to pace myself too, but sometimes I just want to keep going and figure I’ll pay for it later!

CWP: Since there are no known cures, what sort of things are you doing to help heal? 

I focus on art as healing! I channel my energy into creating and all forms of art. For example, writing music, recording music, performing when able, creating music and other videos, writing blogs, connecting with others online, and over the past few years, writing scripts and musical stories for young adults. I’ve come to believe that everything I do is art, whether I am making a music video or writing a script for a children’s album. It isn’t so much the medium but the expression and desire to connect with new audiences that drives me. When singing for example, my spirit is lifted. When taking a walk outside, my muse can flow and I can focus energy on being creative instead of on being sick. I also started warm water pool therapy! That also does a lot for the body and spirit. I also have started going to film festivals, and it is a whole new artistic world for me to explore and focus on! Each new challenge helps me grow and pushes the envelope for me artistically and personally.

CWP: One of the words we keep hearing about the future is adaptability. Before you got sick you were a scientist and now you are a singer, musician, something you had never done before. How did you make such a leap?  

I actually was a singer-songwriter while I was an Environmental Scientist! I had been active in drama and musicals, performing, singing, etc. since I was a kid and through high school. It wasn’t until about 2002 when I went through a life transition that I turned back to music to “find” myself and discovered my muse at the same time. I was a lead singer in a cover band and started writing my own songs, playing guitar and never looked back. I started Aoede in late 2005. I worked for 10 years (1999-2009) for the State of California. So I basically was Aoede the singer-songwriter while I wasn’t working full time! As Aoede, I released an EP in 2006, an album in 2008. Then I developed DM and had to rethink my singer-songwriter dreams, especially those that involved live performance… I was unable to perform for several years. Even now I take gigs selectively. Since that time, I released an EP in 2011 and nearing 3 albums.  I did try to combine the two (music and my passion water) once I got sick by writing a song in 2009 that was environmentally focused called Blue Gold calling awareness to plastic debris and the ocean. But my calling was somewhere else-as a muse as I would learn later. 

CWP: Your upcoming album has a very unique story theme to it, that is to say it is not just straight up music, it has a narrative to it as well characters to create a whole story similar to an opera. This is a fascinating idea/concept. Can you tell us a little about your creative process, does a concept like this come to you first or the music?

I had songs that I had released as part of an album in April 2012 called “Skeletons of the Muse.” Upon looking at these as a whole I realized there was a definite theme there-mainly relationships and love. The success of the release party for Skeletons, which included a multi-media performance and the debut of the video for “Fairy Tale Love,” ultimately inspired me to create a children’s CD. After the performance, adults and kids alike kept expressing how they loved my childlike stories and music, and it provoked my producer to encourage me to make a children’s album. The idea was to create a compelling fairy tale story for tweens, an age group not often targeted by artists, and I wrote the entire script and created a whole world for Aoede.

Is Love A Fairy Tale? is fashioned like a musical audiobook weaving spoken narrative around songs from Skeletons and several new compositions and geared towards a young adult audience. It tells the story of Aoede the Muse who goes searching for love in a magical kingdom called Wonderhaven and meets colorful characters along the way—each of whom tells her something about love.  www.isloveafairytale.com

I was so taken with this process and musical stories for tweens that I just created a new one called What Are Dreams Made Of? where Aoede has a bad dream and has to explore overland and underworld and meet fairies, goblins, and dream gods to figure out what it means. Whataredreamsmadeof.com Sep 24, 2013.

CWP: David Bowie once said he had always wanted to do opera, but rock was the popular music form. Who are some of your influences and how do you decide what kind of music to perform your ideas in?

Lately influences have been more compelling women singer-songwriters such as Ingrid Michaelson, Feist, Regina Spektor, Adele, but my influences over the years range from 80s music-like The Church, Chameleons, Nick Cave to blues, Billie Holiday-SOO many amazing musicians over the years! I write what is true for me-I strive to be real, honest, inspired and compelling-no matter whether I’m addressing a light or a dark topic… my influences are there somewhere but I listen to my muse to decide what to write and play J My main instruments I compose on are ukulele, guitar and piano-all can bring different ideas!

CWP: In a relatively short period of time you have won or been nominated for numerous awards. Has your early success surprised you and how did you start building that success, what were some of your first steps?

Thank you! Yes-completely, especially because when I received some of the early accolades I was dealing with so many health issues and complications from long term DM (eg started Rituxan treatment the day after coming back from Artist in Music Awards) It was all I could do to keep reminding myself it was about the music and being a muse inspiring others-not whether I was too weak to perform for example.  I have written before that receiving these accolades has been such an honor and privilege, especially considering the journey I have taken to get here. First steps were and always are make music that I want to put out there and that is true for me-and find people to help me realize my vision, in my case a great producer and team! There is a really eye-opening moment related to awards-if you want to read about it, see this blog-it helped me realize what all the awards were about under the surface..

http://aoedemuse.com/muse/dermatowhat-on-living-with-dm-pt-19/

CWP: One of the hardest things about having a chronic illness is also having someone tell you about people who have success while also being sick. Both illness and music are fulltime careers, are there special tips or secrets you have to maintaining a healthy balance?

Focus on what brings you joy each day! Be kind to yourself and allow yourself to have good and bad days. Realize you can’t be everything to everyone, and you can’t go this alone!

See my blog for 10 Confessions and Secrets of A Singer-Songwriter Who Became A Muse

http://aoedemuse.com/muse/dermatowhat-on-living-with-dm-pt-10/

and nowadays, I’m also ok with pacing myself and allowing myself to rest or nap if needed-especially when I am out in the world, or at an award show for example!

CWP: Writers have writing groups, other artists have peer review type groups, how did you first start to learn about the musical process, what kind of lessons, groups… did you utilize? What or who do you use for feedback now?

I took voice lessons then started songwriting classes in 2003 or 2004? Then studied songwriting craft privately for about a year up until I got sick I believe. In 2006, I also co-founded WomenROCK, women artists and musicians in the SF Bay Area who met and played benefits and supported each other to raise awareness and funds for causes. For a few years (through 2009) I co-hosted an acoustic showcase in SF. Now I mainly rely on my husband Dave who also plays bass with me and helps engineer my music vocally, and my producer!

CWP: While devastating, illness can often teach us things. What are some of the lessons you have learned since getting sick?

See:  http://aoedemuse.com/muse/dermatowhat-on-living-with-dm-pt-10/

CWP:  Any last words of advice for people who want to do what you do?

I wouldn’t frame it that way-I would just say anyone can include art as a healing path. Even if someone is too sick to get out of bed, expressing yourself artistically can be healing. When I was too sick to leave the house, I wrote songs, recorded vocals, made a music video, developed a website started connecting online, etc. All from home. I think sometimes it just helps to know that anything you do can be art, and anyone can express her/himself artistically! The traditional ways of course, like painting or taking pictures, or creating videos or poetry or writing blogs, but other ways too. I know of one brave warrior, as I like to consider him, who is fighting a debilitating muscle disease. My song Perfect Day was inspired by his story. Though bed-ridden and constantly in need of breathing support, this fan finds empowerment, motivation and great joy through web mastering a site for an orchestra, is passionate about his hobby of ship-spotting from his bed and discovering and supporting new recording artists on the internet. Wow! Talk about inspiring!

Lastly, give back when you can-in my case I’m donating the proceeds from Perfect Day to CureJM for the remainder of the year. I’m also partnering with CureJM to involve CureJM kids in a music video for Perfect Day (see: http://www.curejm.org/songs/index.php)  

Well Cold Waters Press fans, this begins the part of the series on the writing life, interviews with writers who have achieved some modicum of success, what I like to call working class writers. These are people who have published but are not brand names, no Stephen King’s or Amy Tan’s here. Rather, these writers, like normal people they work, maybe three or four different gigs, but they still publish. They still adhere to the artist life while maintaining a foot in the world of normal.

My first interview is with Scott Sparling. I sat down with Scott to find out about what makes him tick. Having had the pleasure of working with Scott in a writing group led by Joanna Rose and Stevan Allred I knew Scott was a great writer, but I also that he knew a lot about the writing life, the ups and downs and how to keep going. I mean after all, when your first book is as old as your first born, you got to have something more than faith to keep the dream going. A long time coming, Wire to Wire was labored on for over twenty years. Scott finally saw his dream come true and was published in 2012. Quite unlike anything you have read before, this book takes the traditional crime narrative and sets it on fire, or rather, it characters hop freight trains high on glue and then set it on fire. The action is watched and told through a series of reruns in their brains years afterwards. A tour de force of descriptive narration, Wire to Wire won a Michigan Notable Book award and Scott received a 2013 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission.

Scott is currently completing his second novel, Dogs Run Free. The book deals with Occupy, a kidney stolen from a banker, money laundering, and Jimi Hendrix's legendary last guitar, the Black Strat. He will be reading a chapter from it on Oct 2 as part of Wordstock's LitHop PDX.  

Scott also runs a website http://scottsparling.net

You can read an except from Wire to Wire here  http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/8105/excerpt-wire-to-wire.html

   

Signing books with Zane at Bayliss Public Library in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan  

 CWP: One of the things we have noticed here at Cold Waters Press is that every successful person has had a mentor or friend that has helped them along the way. Are there any out there you would like to talk about, how they shaped your writing or helped turn your life in a certain direction? 

I think success has a lot to do with luck, more than we like to admit. Part of being lucky is meeting the right people at the right time. I met Jack Cady, a writer from Port Townsend, on my 30th birthday. He was teaching a night class on fiction through the University of Washington extension program. Everything changed for me that night. When I walked into his class, I was interested in journalism. I walked out three hours later, not just wanting but needing to write fiction. I feel his influence every single day. Jack inspired me, but I had to meet a second teacher, Joyce Thompson, to learn all the things that go into writing a novel. Joyce’s students have included Karl Marlantes. Karen Karbo, and many others. I took her workshop over and over, and learned so much from her that I was finally able to produce a finished draft.

Jack and Joyce got me deep into it, this place I think of as the forest of fiction. But then I got a bit lost, and wandered around for years. I’d still be there, surviving on nuts and berries, if I hadn’t had the luck of meeting Stevan Allred and Joanna Rose, who teach at The Pinewood Table in Portland. They taught me to understand story in a very honest way. And they insisted that I finish. I’m still learning from them.

I met Jack Cady, a writer from Port Townsend, on my 30th birthday. He was teaching a night class on fiction through the University of Washington extension program. Everything changed for me that night. When I walked into his class, I was interested in journalism. I walked out three hours later, not just wanting but needing to write fiction. I feel his influence every single day.

Jack inspired me, but I had to meet a second teacher, Joyce Thompson, to learn all the things that go into writing a novel. Joyce’s students have included Karl Marlantes. Karen Karbo, and many others. I took her workshop over and over, and learned so much from her that I was finally able to produce a finished draft.

Jack and Joyce got me deep into it, this place I think of as the forest of fiction. But then I got a bit lost, and wandered around for years. I’d still be there, surviving on nuts and berries, if I hadn’t had the luck of meeting Stevan Allred and Joanna Rose, who teach at The Pinewood Table in Portland. They taught me to understand story in a very honest way. And they insisted that I finish. I’m still learning from them.

One other person, of course, is Iron Legs Burk, aka D.C. Jesse Burkhardt. He taught me how to hop freights.

Jack Cady is the author of The Jonah Watch, and many other books. Joyce’s latest book is How to Greet Strangers. Stevan Allred’s book, A Simplified Map of the Real World, is being published in September. Joanna Rose is the author of Little Miss Strange. D. C. Jesse Burkhardt is the author of The Crowbar Hotel and other books. All great reads.

CWP:  Many artists who have a successful first piece of work, but then have a hard time replicating that success. Do you think this is the result of arbitrary time lines set by the outside and if so, do you think the artistic schedule can be dictated or does it have its own rhythm? 

There’s certainly more time pressure for the second book. That’s a cause of stress, but I don’t think it affects the writing. For me the issue is going in deep enough to find something you can’t shut up about. In the first novel, that was freights and Northern Michigan. The struggle then was to weave a story through those topics that might interest a reader.

In the book I’m working on now, I’ve had to ask myself much more intentionally what I’m addicted to. And it turns out to be the politics of money and the power of music. It’s taken a while for that to coalesce. Once it did, the writing schedule began taking care of itself.

CWP: Setting is a very important theme for a writer; you set your first novel in Michigan. How important is the location to you as a writer and does the location help inform you about what to write or does the story come first? 

Northern Michigan was everything to me in the first book. I couldn’t have, and wouldn’t have, written a book set anywhere else. That’s another piece of luck – I knew from the first day where the book was set.

The current book is set in the Pacific Northwest, but the politics of wealth and the Occupy movement have become the landscape. I’m pretty sure when this one’s done, I’ll go back to writing about Detroit. I’m from Michigan. It’s in my blood.

CWP: You have stated you prefer third person both in reading and writing, what is your stance on first person versus third person narrative? As an author how do you choose, is it a personal choice, either you are or you aren’t one or the other, or does the story ever dictate which stance you choose? 

I happen to like third person. I know that’s a little contrarian, given all the great stuff being written in first. I’ve written a few short stories in first, and that’s been rewarding, but I’m just not as hooked by it.

Wire to Wire had six or seven POV characters, and the current book has four. That’s part of what’s fun about it for me, and it doesn’t come as naturally in first.

That said, I’m considering first for the next book, partly because it might be a stretch.

CWP: The standard format for success as a writer is to get an MFA, drink lots of espressos, send out well written, but meaningless short stores, get rejected. Then one goes out, people-watches, smokes cloves, writes more, gets something published, then they teach, all before they are forty. You on the other hand have no MFA, are over forty, and took like twenty years to get published. How do you explain your success in such a non-traditional way?    

I considered entering an MFA program for about a day. But by then I was already 30 and had just finished paying off my student loans. Plus, I was working with Jack Cady, and then Joyce Thompson, and I didn’t see how an MFA program could be any better than that. This was in the 1980s when MFA programs weren’t such an established path.

The fact that the book took 20 years is a different story. I thought it would take five. When I was 33, I quit my job, spent every penny I had, maxed out two credit cards and created a first draft in those five years. And nobody bought it. I’d gone from having $20,000 in the bank to owing $10,000 on credit.

In short I threw five years and $30,000 at my first draft. Jim Harrison said he liked it. Other people said they liked it. But the publishing world was looking for the next Bright Lights, Big City, the next Less Than Zero, the next Joy Luck Club. I did not come close to fitting into any of those categories. So maybe a period of bad luck had begun, or at least the absence of good luck for a while.

I kept working on the book. I also got married and started a family – two things that were and are every bit as important to me as becoming a novelist. We bought a house, I got a job.

Jack Cady told me that the thing I needed most was tenacity, and I had made a promise to myself that I would never quit. But the pace of writing slowed down for about a decade. I started a successful website and put Wire to Wire away for years at a time.

The manuscript that Tin House bought in 2009 isn’t that radically different from the one I had in 1999. It’s tighter, and the story is much stronger. But the bones were there for quite a while before anyone was interested. I think of it like waiting for a wave, which I know you understand. You have to be ready when the wave comes. But you also have to wait for it to come.

CWP: Authors are famous for having particular habits for their writing, you are somewhat famous for writing in a tree house. Can you tell us a little bit about that and other habits you have to get the creative juices flowing?   

I built this tree house for my son, imagining that he and his friends would spend a lot of time here. That never happened. As a kid growing up in Michigan, I climbed trees all the time, but Zane (my son) had other interests. The only time the tree house ever got used was when I’d sit up here reading Hank the Cowdog stories to him. Eventually I decided it would be a good place to write. I’m lucky to have such a space – it’s a world unto itself.

The other thing I need is music. For Wire to Wire, it was Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, and Jon Dee Graham. For this book it’s Jimi Hendrix and the Black Angels.

CWP: Your first book, Wire to Wire, was published on a well-known and respected small press. Tell us a little about that experience and now that you have achieved what most writers only dream of, what are your next steps? 

Working with Tin House was an amazing experience. I remember having lunch with them the first time, having never met any of them. Afterward, I told my wife it was a dream come true. Tony Perez, who edited the book, made it much stronger. He made many, many great suggestions, which I took. Everyone I met, including Lee Montgomery, who bought the manuscript and who is no longer there, believed in the book and was wonderful to work with.

The next step is to finish the next manuscript.

CWP: Besides writing books you also do a website dedicated to Bob Seger. What’s the deal, I thought all ex-hippies were obsessed with the Dead?

The record industry has a term called “catalog album,” which refers to albums that are no longer current, but which stores still stock. Beatles albums, for example, are catalog albums. It would probably surprise a lot of people to know that the number one catalog artist of the last decade – 2000 through 2009 – was Bob Seger. Beating out The Beatles, Michael Jackson, the Stones, the Grateful Dead and everyone else.

But I didn’t start liking Seger because he was popular. I fell under his spell because he wasn’t. I’d follow Seger to clubs in Michigan and Ohio, and sometimes there’d be fewer than 50 people in the crowd. And Seger would just stun me. I knew he deserved to be playing in big arenas. He also became a role model for me, because he wouldn’t quit. He’d play 250 club dates in a year, and his records still weren’t selling, but he kept going.

In 1997, I was all tangled up in Wire to Wire and I needed to step away for a while. The web was new, so I started a website about Seger’s music. It’s still the biggest and most authoritative Seger site on the internet. It’s been one of the best experiences of my life, because of the friends I’ve made.

CWP:  It has been said you can’t go home again. Your work is set primarily in your home state, if its true you can’t go home to the place you thought existed, is that what the writer can do, go back to the home they want?

I’ve never been sure how to interpret the line, “you can’t go home again.” I think it’s the unwritten line that comes next that’s important. “But you can’t stop trying.” On one level, that’s kind of what Wire to Wire and the current book, are about.

CWP:  Any last words of advice for people who want to do what you do?

Tenacity. Luck. Tenacity.