A Lifetime of Survival with Giselle Roeder

Have you ever wondered about the courage it takes to forge a new life in a foreign land? Or the grit required to pen a memoir that revisits personal traumas? Join us as we sit down with Giselle Roeder, Canadian author and German writer, whose life is defined by resilience and strength. Giselle shares her journey from living under oppressive regimes to becoming a successful businesswoman in the health and beauty industry. She opens up about the trials and tribulations she faced as an immigrant, and the valuable life lessons she learned from her experiences.

Giselle's story is not just about surviving, it's about thriving. She faced the harsh realities of online dating, gaslighting, and navigating a new culture with tenacity and grace. The conversation takes a thought-provoking turn as Giselle encourages the importance of meeting a potential partner before marriage. Her words serve as a stark reminder of the challenges immigrants face, and her inspiring journey from cleaning toilets to giving lectures worldwide is a testament to her determination and fighting spirit.

 As we explore Giselle's future writing plans, we discover how writing played a crucial role in helping her cope with life's difficult situations. This episode is an engaging journey through Giselle's life filled with invaluable insights and lessons. So, embark on this journey with us and discover the power of resilience.

Find Giselle’s books here:  https://www.amazon.com/stores/Giselle-Roeder/author/B001JRXX9S

➡️ Connect with Giselle here: ⬇️

➡️ Website:  https://www.giselleroeder.com

➡️ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeDontTalkAboutThat

➡️ Twitter:   https://Twitter.com/GiselleRoeder1

➡️ LinkedIn:  https://linkedin/giselle-roeder-39252562

➡️ Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/GiselleRoeder

➡️ Goodreads  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/814380.Giselle_Roeder

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome back everyone to the writer's parachute, where we are guiding author and writer dreams to a perfect landing. Today I have with me a special guest. I know I say special all the time, but this is a very, very special guest. If you never listen all the way through to one of my episodes or one of my interviews with my authors and writers, this is the one you want to listen to. I am so proud and amazed to have with me Giselle Rota. She is a Canadian author and a German writer and we're going to talk about her two books, which are part of a memoir we don't talk about it and Flight Into the Unknown, which are absolutely riveting. But of course, we always start the show with the housekeeping. We would love for you to go ahead and hit that like button. Go ahead and share and follow. If you are watching on YouTube or one of the podcast channels listening, please go ahead and subscribe. We do love our subscribers and we'd like to hear that you're watching us on a regular basis. Please don't forget to knock on the bell so that you get reminders anytime we have a new episode. You can follow us on social media. We are on Facebook, instagram, tiktok, twitter, which is now X and threads, so go ahead and follow us there. At writer parachute, that is writer parachute without an S, and of course, now we have with us. If you would like to get updates on new episodes every week into your email inbox, please go to send foxcom slash the writer's parachute, and you can sign up to get that direct to you every single week. So of course, we want to get on with the show. We start out with our topic of the week here.

Speaker 1: 1:48

On season two, we have been focusing on reviews. Reviews are so important. They are a vital part of being an author and a writer, especially if you're self published, but even if you're not. So we're going to kind of wind down on the reviews. We're getting towards the end of the season here, but I think there's still a few things we need to talk about. So one of them we need to talk about is early reviews gaining early reviews for your books before they're published.

Speaker 1: 2:19

I would strongly suggest that if you want to gain early reviews for your books, this is something you might want to start two to three months before the book is actually being published. First of all, you're going to want to gather a list of people that you believe would be willing to write a good review. Also, this needs to be someone that you feel trustworthy because you are giving them a preview of an unpublished manuscript. So make sure you're picking trustworthy people. You want to put together a file. I would strongly suggest you also watermark the file Now. It could be just the manuscript and maybe the manuscript if you're writing a children's book with mockup illustrations. Again, you'd need permission from your illustrator for that use. But put that together in a PDF format and send it out with an email to your reviewers asking them if they would write an early review. You can offer them a gift in advance of that review.

Speaker 1: 3:19

You cannot offer them a gift after the review is given. Nor can you ask them to write a particular kind of review. Nor can you guide them in writing review other than general information about reviews in general. You cannot say I would like for you to write this or that I don't like this review, can you rewrite it, or anything of that nature. What you can say is generally reviews say something about like the book, I would recommend it to somebody. You can give them general information, but you cannot give them specific information. This is disallowed by the community guidelines put out by Amazon, which is one of the biggest book retailers right now and, quite frankly, is frowned upon by almost all book retailer if you are directing reviews, so the next time that you have a new book coming out, think about gaining those early reviews. They do a world of good. We're going to talk next week about what to do with those earlier reviews, how you can use them in promoting your book, also talking about how to use current reviews or future reviews in promotion, but I hope that's helpful. As always, there is so much more we could talk about when we're talking about reviews. If you would like more information or you would like us to do a special episode where we're talking about a particular topic of reviews, please reach out to us here at the Writers Parachute. You can leave us a note in the comments or you can reach out to us directly at infoattherwritersparachutecom. So let's get on with the show.

Speaker 1: 4:57

As I said, I am so amazed and inspired by this young lady. It's Giselle Roder. She is a Canadian author, a German writer and, I say, a lifelong survivalist. We are going to talk about her two books that are part of a memoir series. We don't talk about that, a riveting story about surviving World War II and her second follow-up book, flight into the Unknown.

Speaker 1: 5:23

She was born in 1934 in a part of Germany which is now Poland and lived the first 10 years under Nazi rule. The next 10 years she lived under communist regime, escaped into the West and spent nearly 10 years as a second-class citizen. She decided to emigrate and left Germany in 1963. After five months in Vancouver, british Columbia, she moved with her then-Canadian husband and his four-year-old daughter to one of Peg's, manitoba. After many ups and downs she started her own business in the health beauty industry. That her own television show was interviewed on almost every radio and television station across the country. She became an international speaker about her special topic Skincare from the Inside Out. After a divorce she moved back to Vancouver and has retired and started writing books. We're so thankful that she has. Welcome to the writers' shoot, giselle. How are you today? Thank you.

Speaker 2: 6:25

I'm enjoying talking to you.

Speaker 1: 6:28

Well, I'm so glad to have you here. I know we've had a bunch of misfires. We've tried to have you on the show and just seemed like life just kept getting in the way and I think it was just because we needed this moment right now.

Speaker 2: 6:39

Maybe. Yeah, I always say nothing happens without a reason.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Absolutely, and so your second book, which I just read again, the Flight Into the Unknown, is about enduring. If no other theme could cover this amazing, fantastical story, I think enduring is probably what I would say it is. So I want to know what inspired you to kind of write and share this very personal employment story with the world now.

Speaker 2: 7:13

Well, I never thought of myself as a person who endured. I just lived one day at a time and did what I had to do in order to survive, and I never thought of enduring. That was a new word for me this morning. And anyhow, why do I write it? Why did I write it? I had to write it because I had hundreds, hundreds of emails after people read my first book. We don't talk about that as a title because usually people say, oh, I don't want to interfere, and then they ask me for a title and say we don't talk about that, no, that is the title.

Speaker 2: 8:03

After that book came out and my wordpress told me that after the first year it went through 90 countries and it has been read by I don't know how many people, either as a paperback or cover or mostly ebooks, and all these emails I received asking for more. And what happened then? You left us hanging. You said you felt in your guts what happens next. But what is it? What happened next? So I had about 160 or 200 each day, and I remember once we went to Hawaii. I was away for three weeks and when I came back the computer crashed because there were over a thousand and Azeel couldn't handle it. So all these people were asking for more information and I thought about it and I reread that first book and I thought, yeah, maybe it wasn't quite right that I finished it the way it was, because I said I felt like in a boat on a fast river I can avoid the rocks, but I cannot change the direction. So I felt in my guts what would happen next. So now, all these questions, all these people and Donna, I could write a book about all the stories these people tell me. But almost all of them said please don't use this. But it feels so good to finally talk to somebody who has gone through this to the final and the ending and what happened afterwards.

Speaker 2: 10:04

And it was the two Germanis, west and East. I had, before COVID started. I had a lecture or presentation to give here in Nanaimo. I was asked by a lesion group or Rotary Club or something. I spoke to all of them and they said they wanted to know more structured, not just in general, what happened. So I had the title.

Speaker 2: 10:41

I lived 10 years under the Nazis, 10 years under the Russians, the Russian rule, the Communist rule and 10 years, nearly 10 years, in the Western world, the capitalist world, where I became a second class citizen because what I learned and studied doing my time in the East was not accepted.

Speaker 2: 11:10

So it was, and I must say, looking at politics right now and what's happening in the world, don't believe the communists because it's exactly like the Nazis. It was not much different, and so we never talked about things if we wanted to survive. There are more things that I have never written, and partially because I'm afraid and partially because I thought maybe they come out in the third book, in the final book, when I talk, when I'm retired and I'm talking looking back what happened and what drove me to write these books. But anyway, it was mainly the people who got me to write it, and so I sat down. The first book took me two and a half years because it was very tough yes, I hadn't talked about it for over 50 years and the second book brought back so many hurts, painful experiences that it was very hard, but I did it.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Right. Well, you did an amazing job and I loved the first book. The first book was so riveting just because how truly honest you were in making the person feel like they were walking beside you and going through every single step of just this incredible story of your life before you're even in your 20s. It's just like I'm thinking, I'm like I don't know that I could have done that.

Speaker 2: 13:06

Well, I don't know if I could do it again. Quite a few things that came out in the second book. I must say that the first book it's totally the way it was the Russian rapes and what happened and totally honest, and some reviewers and interestingly it was to me that it was mainly historic writers from the UK who had a similar experience with the Nazis, right as we had with the Russians, and just different but similar, and those have often one has said I miss the emotions in your book. You write like a journalist and I thought I thought there were lots of emotions because a lot of people had written back to me and said I needed a box of clinics next to me at certain times.

Speaker 2: 14:15

At other times they left their head off. I did.

Speaker 1: 14:19

Well, I'm going to disagree with them because I think there was just enough emotion to feel what needed to be felt. But you kept the story moving and you kept pulling us along, as you did in the second book, the Flight Into the Unknown, and in the second book. It reveals some very deep personal instance throughout your life and I wanted to know what message you're hoping that your readers are going to get from this book, flight Into the Unknown.

Speaker 2: 14:52

I had hoped that people who read about flight in the unknown that word flight includes not just the flight with the plane, but also to flee again. That was my third time right and people probably won't get that it's just a flight into the unknown. And what I did then? When I innocent and no language skills and came to Canada and married this unknown man with apparently one child but he had two and I was under the impression that he was as well off as his parents because in Germany we say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and my father had always warned me that I shouldn't believe everything I was told and I should go and shake it out myself. And when I wanted to go, my father-in-law, who was a lawyer, he prevented that. He said you don't have to go, everything is fine and you love me right and you trust me and it's fine. So I went on holidays instead.

Speaker 2: 16:14

But now, when I wrote that book, I also thought of all the people who try to find a partner online, because at my time back then that wasn't the case, because we didn't have computers or cell phones or all that technical stuff and people were well. I found my pen friend in Canada through an ad in a magazine that I read page to page, when I was kind of stuck in a in a maith room in a fancy hotel because they had messed up my preservation, and so I had hoped that these people who try find online and you hear all the time that people lost money and they send money to these people and they do this and they have lost Well, I would never have sent money to anyone because I wanted somebody who had maybe a little more than I did, and so I thought this book can also be a warning to open the eyes to people who try online to find a partner, and it gives them an idea what they should look for and what they should do or not do. And that was one of my reasons that I got so deep into it. And I always, even after the first book, when people looked at me and said I read your book, oh my God, I make it I felt honestly, I felt naked, because I always told the truth, I told the way it was, and I thought these people, they know everything about me, maybe more than they should know, because for 50 years I didn't talk about anything and here it all came flooding out and many ask did you ever have help, consultations or a psychiatrist or somebody helping you? No, I'll try it, but that's another story.

Speaker 2: 18:50

And so this flight into the unknown was again a flight, a fleeing from West Germany, and I mentioned briefly that I felt like a second class citizen, because everybody who came from the east was a second, not just me. Everybody from there. If they were doctors or lawyers or whatever they were, it didn't matter, because their experience, the western people, thought we were all communists underneath that, because they knew how the brainwashing worked in the east and that would be another book to write, you know. And so I tried to flee again because and this is something I don't talk easily about there was a man in power who abused me, he blackmired me and if I would have reported him, nobody would have believed me.

Speaker 2: 20:04

The second class Aussie, eastern people. They were called Aussies and so he was a man with high power and he stalked me and I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to get away. And that's why I finally gave in to marry this unknown pen friend, not really having been to check him out personally, and since his parents were really well off and lived in a very nice area and treated me really, really well.

Speaker 2: 20:46

And my father often wrote still living in East Germany wrote a letter and said they're blinding you. They are trying to find a good woman for their granddaughter, a new mummy. You know this was the ad looking for a new mummy and I fell for that. I also felt kind of I didn't have anybody else. I felt proud to be accepted into this classy family because families like that did not exist in East Germany anymore. In East Germany, everybody, no matter what your title was or it was always the familiar talk like do or not, the polite form you know, like in French, you have a room and first names, no titles, and so a family like this was a revelation for me to be accepted as one of them. So that's how I fell for that.

Speaker 1: 22:03

Well, yeah, you and I talked about this a little bit in the green room before we started the show about how I personally felt after reading the book, that there was just so much gaslighting by this family. I mean, they were, they were intent on finding, you know, a wife and mother for you know, their son, who lived in Canada, which makes the question if he was such a great son, why was he not living here? And I noticed that they never really answered your question when you asked that in the book and, you know, and they kept the pace so fast that it was almost as if they were, you know, trying to outrun any objections or any concerns that you had. I just felt like they were personally, you know, set out to to do anybody that fell into their trap to get what they wanted, and they didn't care about what you know, the the ramifications or the repercussions would be.

Speaker 2: 23:07

You know, a lot of funny things happened once I was in Canada and I asked him this this man that was my husband and who had taken the last penny from me because he needed to pay for the loan he had to take to come to Germany and marry me, I mean, if I would have known that. No, and that's one of the biggest reasons that I try to get this message across to people, it's it's at least they meet before and they maybe even have sex before, you know, and that was all not in for me.

Speaker 2: 23:55

He said to me what do you think I had to do when I came to Germany to marry you? Wow, if that would tell, talk to me now. I mean, no way I would have fallen for that, despite his nice parents, you know, and despite my lawyer father telling me that he could charge me for breaking a promise or something. But I was stuck because all my goods were swimming on the high seas, right, I know, I know.

Speaker 1: 24:33

It's they, they, they fashioned everything to put you in an untenable situation and I think they understood that you were so alone because of all these things that happened in Germany that became East Germany that you ended up escaping from. You were completely separated from any family.

Speaker 2: 24:53

Yeah, but I was a car, I had a very good job, I had a place to live and nice furniture and everything. And I was lucky that the next one who bought it bought all the furniture, you know, and it was a rental. But we still had to pay the years rent ahead of time when we wanted one of these places and they saw, hey, he couldn't have anybody better. But then when I was there, he told me that he, and he showed me a whole shoebox full of letters and said his ad in Germany had brought all these letters. And he said there was even one woman. She said I have saved 100,000 Deutsche Molex, but I weigh 300 pounds.

Speaker 2: 25:50

And I said why didn't you take her? If you needed money so badly, how did you know that I had some money? Then my my in-laws had never asked me and I have never revealed that. But they saw what I did, what kind of job I had, in what hotels I was staying every night, when I gave lectures all over Germany and all the fancy cities, and always the best, while the company paid for it, right, not me. And so they knew they had caught a good fish, right? Yes, I think that was it too.

Speaker 1: 26:34

I think that you were the best fish out of the sea in the shoebox and I got to say for anybody, you should read this book. Even if you missed the first book, we don't talk about it. Oh yeah, it's right into the unknown. It's so useful on so many different levels. Again, you talked about it being kind of a primer and a warning to people who are out looking for maybe a partner, online or otherwise, not living in your community, and I agree with that, but I also think it's a lesson in trust and endurance and with the Ukraine war going on and so many great countries.

Speaker 2: 27:24

I think it's a lesson in trust and endurance. And there are immigrants coming, and not just from there, from everywhere in the world. It's the whole world is on fire or underwater, and so even here in Canada they have no room for all these people, but they take them anyway. And these immigrants, they might be some of them down in the dumps and don't know what to do next. I personally didn't have any children to bring along, so as an immigrant, I came to help the.

Speaker 2: 28:02

Canadian child giving her a home, and later her second sister. That I had no idea of. But what's coming now? And also, not all of them speak English and I didn't speak much. I had some.

Speaker 2: 28:21

Well, in East Germany I had to learn Russian right and it was compulsory. And then, when I was in West Germany I always like to take courses so I took some English courses, not even having an idea why I did that. I just wanted to learn that language. And I also took French. And because I thought I want to travel and it's better to know the languages of the country where I go to, at least so that I can get along. And so when I was in Canada for three days, the bell rang. My husband was at work and the little girl was outside. She only spoke English, I spoke only German and we could understand each other and there was love right from the beginning. Right, my new mummy, my new mummy. And so I opened the door and there was this man with the two baskets and he said I am the fuller man I had no idea what that was.

Speaker 2: 29:34

I was new, he was a newbie. And then I said, oh, my man is not home. And he said, oh, and a light went on. Oh, well, then I will come back another time. Merry Christmas, because I was leaving for Christmas and my husband laughed his head off when I told him in the evening. But that was my first sentence. And now these new immigrants that are coming.

Speaker 2: 30:15

If they don't, I'm amazed how many speak English. It's absolutely really surprising, and I felt if they read this book now that they have learned enough English, they would see that there is always a way out. Yes, I took courses right from the start, and it was me, it was the YWCA, and I enjoyed that very much, because in Germany I was somebody, but in Canada I felt stupid, not speaking that language. So I tried really, really hard and a year later I was traveling the world giving lectures in English. There you go, and a few years later I was paid $1,000 in Australia and in Seattle and for being a lecturer for three quarters of an hour.

Speaker 2: 31:28

So you can see that your determination is very important and I never tried to stick to the German, because the Germans went very well, like, anyway, right because of the previous war. But that has changed and for all these newcomers from God knows where. But the rest of the world can take them all Right. There must be some other way. But the ones who come, they can make something out of themselves, they can become successful and many have.

Speaker 1: 32:11

Absolutely, and I think your books are kind of a primer for that, and I know that I talk to a lot of authors who write memoirs and a lot of times they tend to gloss over the emotional trauma. They kind of just downplay it. It's like, oh, here's just kind of the clean facts and you don't do that. I wanted to know why you felt like sharing some really uncomfortable moments were important to telling the story.

Speaker 2: 32:39

Well, the way the writing was flowing, I always felt there was somebody else writing it in me Right and I call it God or call it your guardian, or whatever is sitting on your shoulder. I've listened to a lot of speakers who talked about because it wasn't easy to become self-confident again when you're coming from East Germany to West Germany and then from West Germany to another country where you feel still as a stranger and you haven't put down roots yet Now, after 60 years in Canada, I have lived here longer than anywhere else. So Canada is my country, canada is my life. But I have seen and I have traveled a lot. That comes in the third book all these different. I can't even tell everything about all these different countries, but it's in the end. Every man is an island or every one, and you have to try to make to find a way of the way you want to live.

Speaker 2: 34:09

I was never afraid of working. I would never even have had the chance to get help from any government or whatever organization. I cleaned toilets, I did whatever I had to do to sustain myself during the worst times, always knowing that it will get better. And the more I learned, the more I can. So I went to a lot of lectures, like the road less traveled. You know, men are for mass, women are for, and I met many of these, these, these writers, later. That was interesting, part two, and I felt I didn't even realize until I read your questions that I was sharing so much information. That is very personal, but, as I said, it was the writer in me that just wrote that story.

Speaker 1: 35:23

Well, and I think it it makes the story so memorable and, you know, kind of invades the reader's soul when, as I said before, where they feel like they are walking hand in hand through all of this and I just find that such an intriguing and fascinating aspect of your writing and it made me just keep turning these pages, even through the tears and through the laughter and through the. You know, it's just like I keep going. I got to keep going and it was just. I felt like I was living your life in fast forward reading this book and it was. It was amazing, it was a roller coaster ride and you take a really deep dive into, you know, the emotional aspects and the toll that it has on people's lives and I want to know why you thought that was so critical to put in there.

Speaker 2: 36:21

I didn't think, I just did it. I just did it. You know, there was one, one moment that really stopped me in my tracks, so to speak, when that book was not out for a long time. I was walking along the street and all of a sudden, a man with a beard and a heart hat, and everything, stopped on a motor, on a small motorcycle next to me, and he said you are Giselle Roder, aren't you? And I said yes, and he said I just finished reading your book. I am not a reader. He said I have never in my life read a book page to page. I always skip pages, and you, I read every page. Sometimes I even went back a few because I couldn't believe what I read. Thank you for writing it. And you took off. And that really I thought, my God, this isn't a woman that has all these emotions and is more sensitive, just as a man, you know, an old man with a white beard, and I still think of that. So I thought I must have done something right.

Speaker 1: 37:48

You absolutely did, because I you know I tend to read very fast because I have to read so many books for a movie. But this one.

Speaker 1: 37:59

As I said, I read this one for the second time because I wanted to make sure I remembered it correctly, because I said like we had this big delay in getting you here on the show and so I was just like, wow, it was even better the second time. I have to tell you, I was even more enthralled the second time when I read it and I just I am so impressed by your ability to draw the reader in was such a profound story. It's a lot of times when you read these memoirs it's like these are the hard parts of the memoirs to read through, you know when they get kind of the meat and the heart of the trauma and the emotional aspects. But yours was just the way you presented it with, like I said, just enough emotion, but always with honesty and truth that it kept me just glued to the story to the page, to just keep going for it because I had to know more. I just couldn't stop. I had to know more.

Speaker 2: 38:59

I had a Russian writer friend with books I have read too, and she lives now in these in the States. She made it out All this problem, these problems, mr Ukraine star, and she read that book and every single day I got an email with her upset how I handled what happened to me. Oh no, could you? You know you and I kept all her emails, because Monday I will put that together her comments to every practically chapter, and she said I do not understand that you took what was done to you and but writing to me daily with how upset she was, she really lived with me and when that happened I started looking into my book and I read it again too, and you see, I have all these these notes in there now at special places. But I read the whole book again and I thought I just write this.

Speaker 1: 40:24

Yes, that's always amazing when you go back to read your book and you're shocked at how well you did.

Speaker 2: 40:29

Yeah, but I am very disappointed in it. It took my energy and my drive and my passion away was COVID. When COVID started, this book never had a proper lounge Like the first one. It never had newspaper write ups.

Speaker 2: 40:52

It has reviews from readers, from me promoting it on on Facebook and LinkedIn and so on. And because of that I thought why? Why do I try so hard to write the third book? Because now people who read the second one want to know what's the my next life like. And I had started that book and I called it set sale for life after 50. And all this trouble was finished. I needed to find a new outlook and I had written 27 or 28 chapters and then COVID happened and I stopped and it's still not finished. It was supposed to come out in September 20. It says so in that book and it never has. So now I keep people asking which September did you actually mean? Is that a mistake? I'm waiting and I have a list. I have started a list with people who are waiting for that third book.

Speaker 1: 42:10

There you go. It's always good to know.

Speaker 2: 42:14

I think I need to find the energy, and the last year I was very ill and almost died, but I'm still not over it. Wrong medication, I had a fifth COVID shot and after that got down the hill and I hate to look at my face because I never looked like this before my other life and my other life and but I still feel I cannot let all these people down Waiting now for the finish.

Speaker 1: 42:53

I'm going to have so much to say about that. Number one. It's like let's talk about your book, flight of the Unknown, that you released during the pandemic. Okay, so I'm going to tell you my tried and true thing that I always say your book is out there for your lifetime and beyond. It's never too late to promote it. It's never too late to relaunch it. It's never too late to tell people about it. You have, from now until the moment that you stop talking, to talk about it, and we're talking about it right now. And as far as your third book, here it's like there's so much technology and I understand that there's an age gap, but you're kind of a tech specialist person, so I think you can handle it. It's like we carry around these amazing devices in our pockets.

Speaker 1: 43:40

So, many apps and tools. It's like, if you don't feel like typing or handwriting, then maybe use one of the speech to text apps or one of the recording apps that will convert it to text for you and maybe take some of the pressure off of yourself. There's all kinds of virtual assistants or you could hire a private assistant or personal assistant to help you with that. There are so many programs and things out there that you can hire people to kind of help you with that. So I'm going to say there's really not a very good reason to keep putting on.

Speaker 2: 44:17

It's never too late.

Speaker 1: 44:18

It's never too late, and please don't leave us sitting here wondering what happened with the roast.

Speaker 2: 44:27

Yeah, because I had a very exciting finish to my life.

Speaker 1: 44:34

Which is it makes me breathless when you say that, because I'm thinking I read book one and I've read book two and I'm just like hyperventilating. I'm like how much can this woman pack into one lifetime? And you're saying it, and it even got better. I'm like I need to read that book.

Speaker 2: 44:51

You know, I talked to about it with many, many famous writers, because lots of them have written reviews and because I think them and became digital friends, right, and Anne Victoria Roberts she is a very famous Scottish writer and her books she has sold millions of her first one and she has. When I'm at the end of my rope, kind of thing I send her an email and she answers and then there are several others, mainly English ones. It's weird, it's really amazing. And then that Russian one and they all kind of try to get me to finish that book. And there is one lady she has written over 70 books during the last few years and just lately I had a short exchange with her on Goodreads and she said just keep going, just keep going, don't give up. And I said, how can she as five children? And I said how do you ever find the time and your imagination is just second for none, you know to write 70 books in four years or something.

Speaker 1: 46:26

And she said yeah, I'm a busy lady, but I have to.

Speaker 2: 46:31

I do it, you know.

Speaker 1: 46:33

And then I'm going to say that I'm going to say part of the problem is you have to let go of the things that aren't really necessary. It's like first you just have to tell a good story, second, hire a good editor, you know, and then then you're kind of on your way. I think people get so wrapped up in the, the construction of each sentence and each paragraph, and you're an excellent writer, you need to trust yourself with that, and. But that's where they get bogged down in the technical details, which is where your actual editor comes in to help you with that. So you know, sometimes it's just just set that stuff aside and you know, just do it.

Speaker 2: 47:18

Yeah, yeah, I will get there again.

Speaker 1: 47:23

All right, awesome. Well, we're going to talk a little bit more about this and then we're going to get further into this, so I'm going to kind of do quick questions here for you. So you're a multi-time author and you've experienced a bunch of obstacles and challenges in writing and publishing your books, so I want to know what was the most surprising one that you ran into.

Speaker 2: 47:43

The most surprising one was when the first book was printed by Friesen Friesen Press. And all of a sudden I get a letter, an email well, not letters, nobody writes letters anymore an email from somebody who was working with Friesen and she said I have seen your book lying on the desk of a of a colleague and I got intrigued. We don't talk about that. And I read it and I just must tell you I have never in my right in my life read the book like that. And so she, I don't know. I have tried to contact her again later. I don't know if she got fired or if she left or I have not been able to make contact again. And but what she wrote to me, that was the most surprising thing that somebody who works for a publisher, who is an editor and who had read that book because she just saw it on the desk next to her, that I I thought would never happen.

Speaker 1: 49:13

You never know and that you know that is the wonderful thing about life is because every morning when I wake up I don't know what's going to happen that day. Something good, maybe something not so good, maybe something great, maybe something just average but it's a new day and I get to experience it for the first time. So you know that that is the wonderful aspect and I love that story you also experience in the lead up to this book. In the first book where you talk about we don't talk about that, you're talking about the lead up in the aftermath of World War Two and living in Germany as a teenager. And then I want to know how those experiences up to that point change your perspective about the world and the current attitudes that we have about things.

Speaker 2: 50:04

Well, you can imagine that I have my thoughts about that.

Speaker 2: 50:08

Yes, I'm sure you do, and still we don't talk about that, right. And it's not just me who says that. If you listen to news on the TV, or if you listen to certain speeches or something that sentence turns up so often by by other people you know on TV, online, and there are so many things that are just buried under the carpet, and that's not right. We should be able to say what we are. We have free speech. But then I also think of the way I have developed as a woman with hardly any rights to being totally independent. I was the first to ever got a visa card without a husband co-signing, and that goes back to 67. So on that, and people, the pleasant at the present generations, they are all thinking they're entitled to something.

Speaker 2: 51:35

Nobody is entitled to anything, hey, work for it, make something of yourself. Don't expect mom or dad or grandma or the government or anybody else to help you. No, do it yourself. Be proud of yourself. They become criminals, they become homeless, they become drug addicts.

Speaker 2: 51:59

I cannot identify with any of that, I'm sorry to say, but I have hardly any feelings for them. Sure, I have the human feelings of poor lady or poor guy or something, but I obviously it's their own fault. They could have done something, and I know of many people who have gone to the government for help and didn't get any because their unemployment ran out or something like that, and they didn't give them anything. So they don't pay their bills. They became homeless. They became went to drugs. Now for that they need money to. So what do they do? They take old ladies, purses or whatever and try and get into that criminal life. I'm sorry, but I could have been homeless, but I never was. I always found a way of paying for what was asked, even if it wasn't always easy. But there were many times when I didn't have anything to eat and all of a sudden the bell rings and my landlady would say this is for you and there is a none or somebody who brings me some food and said we are fed of you and here and it's Christmas tomorrow, so, and I absolutely had nothing. And there was a basket full of red and butter and even chocolate. And you know, if you don't ask yourself, there must be a God, there must be something that gets an idea into somebody's head to bring you this, this food, or to give you something. And you least expected.

Speaker 2: 54:04

I didn't have a doctor for six or seven months Just recently and I was practically dead because my husband found me one night at 130 in the bathroom and he could not wake me up. I was unconscious. I ended up the first time in the in the hospital in ER, and I still didn't have a doctor. But after that I got an urgent care doctor and I tried and then he was an internist and I was put on medication that I right now feel they are One of them is kind of poisonous for me because it makes me very dizzy and it doesn't get me feel better. It takes about seven or eight hours until I feel relatively normal after taking the data blocker. Anyway, I didn't have a doctor. So I had all kinds of tests and I'm back to life and sometimes I feel it might have been better if he wouldn't have found me and let me go, and but then there must be a reason that I'm still around, and my reason is I have to finish that book and yes, well, that, and you know, and you're you know.

Speaker 1: 55:31

I mean, if nothing else, yes, you need to finish that book, but also there are so few. I was so excited. To talk to you is like I love these books, but I was so excited because you are the history keepers, you are the storytellers from a time that there are very few people still alive who were there in which.

Speaker 1: 55:54

I feel, like you know, history is repeating itself faster and more violently than than before. It's almost like the wheel is turning faster and faster and we need those of you who live through those very turbulent times that can tell the truth.

Speaker 2: 56:15

That's right, yeah, what was not.

Speaker 1: 56:20

And I said it happened.

Speaker 2: 56:22

Yeah, I recently talked to a lady whose mother is 99 or something and I said did she ever tell you what she went through? Because she lives in the States but came from Germany. And this young lady also lives in the middle aged, lives in USA, and she said when I asked her she never talks about it and her father was in the First World War. He has never talked about it. She said in my family we just don't talk about that. That is the past and we want to forget it. And I said, yeah, how can the young generation, how can people who live now and they see there is war there and there's war there? And then there are the natural disasters and every country is yelling for help. How many countries are left who can help? They are over flooded with immigrants. And it's just when I see that I just. And then the young people they want everything given to them.

Speaker 1: 57:42

Well, and you know, all I can think about is the German poet, and I know exactly who I'm talking about. He wrote a poem and it was translated in. You know, no one left for me. You know he was talking about. You know, when they came for certain groups, he didn't see anything because he thought somebody else would speak up. And then they came for another group and he still didn't say anything. And then, finally, they came for him and there was nobody left to speak for him. And you know, and I thought I loved that poem that he wrote, because it is the truth of where we're standing right now.

Speaker 1: 58:21

Yeah, we're standing in that moment where nobody is speaking up because it doesn't affect them directly. Yeah, yeah, and they need to say well, eventually they will come for you to.

Speaker 2: 58:38

Women have made long strides to become accepted. They are lawyers, they are teachers, they are inventors. They have proven that they are just as good as men and some of them Better brains, and in the olden days they were a shadow, and no Women are losing their right over their own body. Yeah, and who is going to raise the kids that were not wanted or who are not right or who are incest or whatever? What happens to the mothers who are not able to keep them? What happens to these poor kids that didn't ask to be born? And a woman has no chance to say I don't want this sick child. Nowadays you can check and find out, but that is everything. That happens now is like 100 years back.

Speaker 1: 59:55

Yeah, it does feel like you know there is. It feels like the. That's why I was kind of giving the analogy of this wheel that's spinning faster and sometimes it feels like it's spinning backwards, yeah, so so I wanted to talk to you more about you personally. So I want to know what keeps you motivated. I mean, if I lived half of your life, I would be exhausted. I want to know if you're motivated.

Speaker 2: 1:00:30

I am exhausted, but I must say that people like you keep me motivated to have this talk with you. I don't have many people to talk to. I don't have since COVID happened. We lost a lot of friends we were in. I used to be a Italian and at my age I'm 89 years old. Now just a few more months and I'll be 90. And many have died. And you hardly make new friends at old age, especially if there are three years where you have no social life. You know, with COVID staying away and it's very tough. I have one German friend just because I am babysitting their doggies. They need to go somewhere. And this couple, when I'm at the end of my room, I always go there and my husband says oh, you need your doggy medicine, I need my doggy medicine there you go my biggest friends and they are going crazy when I love, when I come.

Speaker 2: 1:01:43

You know they love me so much and sometimes I feel their owner is jealous. They are always with me. They are two little puppies, puppy yonks. And books I read and but I wish I had more people to talk to like you, honestly and with an open heart, and that gives me new strengths and new energy and I feel more like finishing that book. You know, after talks like this and I feel like I'm going to be able to do that.

Speaker 1: 1:02:23

Yes, I thank you for that. You're very welcome and you know and I'm just going to say this to you, but to people in general you know the technology we have today offers us so many lifelines. You know there are so many writers groups around the world in person and online, and I think that's what makes this a great way to get people to know and learn and I think that's why I'm here today. I'm a big lifesaver. I can connect with anybody at any time, day or night, around the world. If I want to create a group, you know it's like I host twice a week. You know these writing groups where people come and join me on zoom and we talk about writing and we get some writing done and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 1:03:10

I absolutely love those things. Let me know that link. I'm going to be doing a lot of the work on these and Thursdays. You can do that through shut up and write at shut up rightcom and they will have it listed. It's either under the Roseville shut up and right or shut up and right with Donna and you can find those. I live in the Citrus Hyde, sacramento area, so you can find me that way. But also, just in general, you can go to shut up and writecom at shut up rightcom they will show you any of the online or in person.

Speaker 1: 1:03:47

Oh, I am, I belong throughout the world, anytime, day or night, and they are free. There is no charge to join, there is no requirement. They do have some, of course, some community guidelines about things, but other than that, it is free and it is open to anybody who wants to join and I encourage people to do that. So I think that's really important to me. Writing itself is a lonely, isolating business To find your community, even if that community is around the world. I have people joining me from different countries. I have people joining me from across the United States and they are all welcome and we enjoy it. Like I said, if you don't feel like, you can make it to one of mine, which are at 9am to 11am on Mondays and Thursdays here on the West coast, or even Thursdays on the East coast. You know that's fine. Like I said, there are so many of them, you know, during the day and at night, on the weekends, in every country around the world.

Speaker 2: 1:04:53

Yeah, I have joined a few and in most cases I have found that I am more of a listener than a participant. Because they have rules that you cannot talk about your own book. You can't even mention the book, just about how you can help others. I'm doing that all the time. I am encouraging people to write when they write on my social media. You know I have five or six places, and then there is this place called Align. You have lots of different ones.

Speaker 1: 1:05:37

I think that's where we met on Alignable. You said I believe so.

Speaker 2: 1:05:43

Yeah, you were right, because of your little picture of the book. That's how I looked you up. I was impressed. I said, my God, a lady who writes children's books and she has so many other ideas. Great, and it's so funny that my former brother-in-law you know that he became a children's book writer, even if I don't have any contact. But that is amazing, knowing his past, his life past, you know, and it's. There was recently another lady who writes children's book and she has asked me if I would turn you something. Tanya Orttitz, do you know her? She has asked me to write something for an ontology that she was writing about the World War II, things that nobody talks about. Right, if I would. And I said, yes, I would, but I still haven't done it and she doesn't need it until the fall. No, it's not that I'm not busy, it's maybe I'm getting too spread out, maybe.

Speaker 1: 1:07:05

Yes, yes, find that focus.

Speaker 2: 1:07:10

And, and also my husband who is English. You can imagine that sometimes TV is always on BBC and things, and not that I want to see German shows or something. I find them stupid. You know, if I try, and so I like the history you know the English history and to see the other side, and it's just also similar and no, but I think I spread myself too thin. I should really get more focus on finishing that book. I have a few other cute ideas after, but I tell myself that's the last big book I will write. The other ones will be just short.

Speaker 2: 1:08:10

I have written a short storybook Forget me not Nice and I don't know if you've ever seen it, but that's the cover, is all. Forget me not flowers. Middle list is over and says forget me not a bookie of stories, thoughts, etc. And that's all about people who have influenced my life to the point where I'm now right.

Speaker 1: 1:08:40

That is, that is amazing.

Speaker 2: 1:08:42

And every story in that book. When that's, let's say, somebody in a family would read that story, it would lead to discussions. Even Churchill is in there and he's influenced me greatly, and some other people that I mentioned. Like this, this old friend, you know, who died, was telling a joke, he's in there.

Speaker 1: 1:09:11

I know you told me that in the green room and I love that she has a friend that that would made it to almost 104 years old, who'd literally died laughing, telling a joke, and I'm just right, that's the way I want to go.

Speaker 2: 1:09:25

I always say this is the only way that men could could die.

Speaker 1: 1:09:31

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:09:32

I was supposed to inherit his Bible because in Ottawa and the government, the Canadian government he was a Sunday school teacher and he asked me questions. He said do you know how a camel gets through a needle? Well, that's one of the Bible things. You know, the Bible stories and other things. And I told him he also was. I told him I don't want to inherit anything else, but I like to have your Bible because that had so many notes in it. You know that.

Speaker 2: 1:10:13

I thought that would be interesting to follow up his stories. Yes, and from having been a storeway it's a and the Red Cross and blah, blah, blah and a Jew really trained him to what he became. He wasn't a Jew, he was, I think, catholic. I don't know. To me it doesn't matter what you are. You know you don't choose where you are born into and I have lots of Jewish friends, nice ones too. One man said to me once do you know what dancing means? When I said dancing is my hobby and I have six years of ballroom dance training, he said you know what dancing means? I said well, it's one of the best exercises, like swimming, you know, and dancing you use every muscle in your body. And he said dancing is the horizontal, is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire. There you go, and things like that, and anyway, that's, I'm getting off, you see we're going into all kinds of directions.

Speaker 1: 1:11:35

Okay, so I have a couple of more questions for you here, and I wanted to know what advice would you give to anyone out there, whether they're right or not, experiencing any kind of a pain, trauma or distrust issues, and how to find their way to the other side?

Speaker 2: 1:11:51

To the other side, not to the other side of living, but no to the other side of what they're dealing with, that's the problem.

Speaker 2: 1:11:59

Read some good books. Get involved in stories, not necessarily criminal stories or high scientific stories. You know like happened to me and, of course, this lady writing science fiction. She really got me into her books and there are about seven or eight and no, but I think some really. There are some really nice books, maybe family stories, maybe romance, maybe something. But takes your mind off your present problems and if it gets so bad that you feel you can talk to anyone, start writing a diary.

Speaker 2: 1:12:58

Write a diary every day, even if it's a few lines. You know how you felt, but you will see that when you write it down, well, it wasn't really that bad. All of a sudden it's out, it's out of you, it's on paper there somewhere and I have lots of those papers and I think the first book especially. I had my own letters that I wrote to my kayak friend for 50 years and she gave them back to me and no, that was the flight into the unknown. Those letters. I read all of them and it's like a history because she was the only one that I told all those things that happened to me in Canada. And so, writing it down. And if you don't have a good writing, a writer friend or a correspondence with some cousin or a good friend to talk to. The next best thing is write a diary, even if you know you will never read it again or if you never use it again. But maybe one day when you want to write a book, that will be a great help.

Speaker 1: 1:14:28

Right and I agree with you.

Speaker 2: 1:14:30

It gets you out of that rut, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:14:33

Right, I agree with you and I feel like sometimes you know I go back to saying my mother used to always say she goes the monsters not as scary when you pull him out of the dark into the light and put a name. It's the process of purging that pain, that fear, that trauma, that whatever you're going through, it's giving the monster a name.

Speaker 2: 1:14:54

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1: 1:14:56

So I agree with you there. So we've talked so much about your books, especially this second book, flight Into the Unknown, so I want you, here on season two we're focusing on reviews to give us your review of Flight Into the Unknown.

Speaker 2: 1:15:17

As I said earlier, this flight wasn't just the airplane flight, it was again fleeing from problems that I had and I was at the end of my acceptance that I needed to get away from it. And I couldn't get away far enough. In 1947, my father, who had been in Siberia for two years as a capture of the Russians, took him in 1945, and he was the only one from our whole village who came back and he said we men had it bad but the women had it worse. And when he lived through that and came back he had a chance in 47 in the fall, to go to Canada to immigrate. And I wanted very badly for him to do that, for the whole family right to leave, to go to Canada. And my mother was like an stupid mule, stubborn, you know, when she said, no, I have been uprooted enough. We were three weeks on the road to nowhere next to the Russian army and I cannot be uprooted again. And that's at that time.

Speaker 2: 1:16:48

We lived in East Germany. What became East Germany? And I have always thought that my father should have gone, but my mom would not have gone. And when I had this chance with his unhorned pen friend, my father was always kind of in the back that I wanted to do what he never could do because he was held back. And when I invited him the first time and he was allowed to leave East Germany because he turned 65 and people over 65 could go to West Germany for three weeks they got a visa because if they wouldn't come back they would save a pension or money right in East. So I had invited him. He came to West Germany to stay with my sister. I sent in a flight ticket and he came over to Canada and he couldn't believe the freedom we had. We didn't have to take the passport when we went out on a walk or he said at home, I have to take the passport when I go to the Elders house, even needed. And he was so funny and so he and what he said at that time when he, while he was in Canada, is all part of this flight into the unknown. And because I wanted to do what he couldn't do, and I did it and I, two years later, after he came the first time, he brought my mother because by that time she was old enough too and we had a big house at that time and mansion actually, and I said you can stay. I mean, you have a whole suite downstairs that we don't need. You have a bedroom, you have a living room, you have a kitchen. The only thing we need to share the bathroom with my office staff and I was only one secretary and myself doing the day, and he wanted to stay. But my mother didn't want to stay. And so this flight into the unknown, and even all the horrible things I went through with this unknown husband of mine that I was manipulated into marrying that's what I see today, that at that time I didn't see the manipulation, but I have come to accept that he, he, would stay, but my mother said I would never see my grandkids in Germany again. And she went back. And they went back, they didn't stay and I never saw them again. Right, and but their story is very much a story of my life, my feeling, my mother's, for my mother wrote me a letter once out of a hospital where she was put, apparently with dementia, but her letter didn't, didn't say that that was it. She was quite clear and she said if you were here, this wouldn't have happened. My younger sister put her there. And it's this.

Speaker 2: 1:20:39

This flight was to try to start something new, to start a new life, to to be a mommy, because I was almost 30 years old and I thought my time was running out, true, and to start with a four-year-old kid, that was just good, you know, in three years later I had a son, and that's my only son, and since I don't have any contact with my two stepchildren, my son is the only one that I have and he was married and had one son. My grandson and those two people are the only people that are blood relations in Canada for me and about everything that happened in West Germany that I was fleeing from. It was a big part of also writing the book, with all my emotions on my feelings at the point where that happened, where those bad things happened, are also a reason to let my children know what led to it, especially the oldest daughter, that I left Germany for that I left everything for to be her new mom and she is just nothing but me and wanting to be my Facebook friend. And my son said when I said, why, why? And he said well, it's a matter of keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer. I have never been an enemy, and so I hope that they also read my books. I know the second one, who used to be a teacher and a counselor. She reads the books but she doesn't talk about it, she doesn't write a review, she doesn't write an email. But the oldest one, that is a big, big hurt, because she was the reason for my whole new life after I turned 30 years old, and so this last book actually said sale for life.

Speaker 2: 1:23:13

After 50 I had accepted all that. My husband, my then husband, died of Alzheimer's. He didn't know who he was, and then pneumonia. Once I visited him in a home with my son, his, our son and he phoned after we left and toward my son hey, that is a really nice girl, you should keep a hold of her, you should marry her. He had no idea that I was his wife in the former life and and see these things to write them down and hope that the family will read them and, at the same time, teaching other people. Don't fall in these kind of traps that I fell into, because you can still make oops, make something of yourself in time. You know, you just have to have the will and and determination and don't just endure your life and do something about it.

Speaker 1: 1:24:29

Absolutely. I think that is an amazing review. Thank you so much. We have been focusing on reviews here on season two, and the reason we're putting our guests on the spot is we want to show you, the audience, the listeners, that while it's difficult to talk about something so personal as a book you've written, it is possible to write a review. So we encourage you to write a review or review is only your opinion of what you read, what you like, what you didn't like, who you'd recommend it to, what you thought about it, those sorts of things. So we're so glad that Giselle shared her review of her book Flight Into the Unknown. I know we've asked this question, but I'm going to ask you one more time what's next on your radar? Next?

Speaker 2: 1:25:16

we talked about what's next. Finish my book, finish the trilogy that my husband called the Nine Lives of Gila.

Speaker 1: 1:25:26

There you go.

Speaker 2: 1:25:27

You know, and it was the first book we don't talk about that is the first three lives. The second book, flight Into the Unknown, is the story of my next three lives because it's definitely always different lives and now the last one. Two thirds are done. It's the last three and then it becomes a trilogy under the title the Nine Lives of Gila.

Speaker 1: 1:25:59

Well, I absolutely believe it. I feel like I've lived six of those lives with you and I can't wait to live the last three. Well, I'm not going to say the last three, I'm just going to say the next three.

Speaker 2: 1:26:13

Yeah, the next book is almost frivolous compared to the first two. Well, you know, there's a lot of stuff that people over 50 will say what you can do, that you do that, why not? You know, life doesn't end at 50.

Speaker 1: 1:26:33

No, I think it's starting to get started at that point.

Speaker 2: 1:26:36

That's and you are free and homeless and you can do what you want.

Speaker 1: 1:26:40

Exactly. You've formed your opinions, you've made your choices, a lot of crazy things I did, like car rallies, isn't that?

Speaker 2: 1:26:56

Yeah, well, I think this way.

Speaker 1: 1:26:59

Why not try everything once, as long as it's legal? Well, yeah, never do anything unlegally, and then you can truly decide whether you like it or not.

Speaker 2: 1:27:10

No, I never, ever did anything that wasn't legal. I didn't even smoke, you know there are some.

Speaker 1: 1:27:20

like I said, there's some bad choices in all of our lives. So where can our listeners find your books? I am going to encourage every listener that can hear me this moment or in the future Go out and grab both of these books. We don't talk about that. A riveting story about surviving World War II, and the follow-up book, which is the second in the three book trilogy, Flight Into the Unknown. These are amazing, amazing stories. You will not be able to put them down. Where can we find these?

Speaker 2: 1:27:55

Well, the easiest if you don't want to just go to Amazon, because they are the biggest my biggest seller in ebook or printed book. No hardcover anymore. I have not redone them in hardcover. The first book is out in the second edition and now contains some of the reviews that these famous writers have written.

Speaker 2: 1:28:25

And the one that really got my heart going is the one from Robert Pickles. Robert Pickles he died a year ago who dedicated one of his books later to me, but his wife wrote to me that they have cancelled all the books so she couldn't send me one Anyhow. He wrote that this book could have been written by a Jew, by a gypsy, by just anybody of whatever faith, and it should be put next to Anna Frank's diaries. And I thought, wow, that is from a history writer who wrote about five or six history books in England. Quite something to hear. And so the easiest way is Amazon. Start the ABC with A B Bonson Novel, but I think the Amazon has the best prices Anyhow. The other thing if you don't know where to start, just use my name on Google. Okay, so get about 10 pages of all the stuff I have done.

Speaker 1: 1:29:54

Right, and your book has been translated in other languages. So if you can't find it, yes, amazon is one of the easier places in all the different countries. But also you know Barnes Noble and we will have a list of links directly to both of her books in the show notes for you, as well as her website. So are you still offering signed copies if people want to contact you directly?

Speaker 2: 1:30:21

or is that?

Speaker 1: 1:30:22

something you're doing now.

Speaker 2: 1:30:24

I have signed a lot of copies when I was still able to do book signings and things. But now if people want to sign copy, that includes a lot of postage, which is sometimes more than what the cost. But it's kind of difficult. If they are in my area, definitely.

Speaker 1: 1:30:49

Yeah, if you're in the Vancouver British Columbia area, you can reach out to Giselle and see if you can get a signed copy. Maybe if you send her a note she might send you a book plate. That might be a little more reasonable than sending a book, but we'll go ahead and include that information for you, and I know that you're on social media. You mentioned Facebook and LinkedIn a couple of times. Are there any other platforms that you're currently on?

Speaker 2: 1:31:16

Yeah, there is one that I'm absolutely amazed. How many people read my posts on there, which are always little excerpts of especially the first book, and that is called my German ancestry, and it's mainly people who are living in the US but who either came as children to the new country, or their parents or sometimes even their grandparents. Many don't speak German anymore, but they still want to know, and I get a lot of emails from some of them who said, my God, my parents came from the same area as you are. Can you help me tell me a little more about such places? That is, I mean, the last post.

Speaker 2: 1:32:19

I got 391 people commenting, plus many more just liked or loved it, and the one that got the most way over a thousand was when I told the story of my father the beekeeper and what you actually, and with pictures and that was, and there were lots of men right in that one, and I just couldn't believe it. After about half an hour I posted it and half an hour later I had a hundred people already reading it. But it's also the time change right when this comes out. So that is my. It's a sight that I feel almost obligated not to forget.

Speaker 1: 1:33:17

Well, I'm glad you didn't. I'm glad you did include that for us. And of course you are on Goodreads or anybody that reads your book. We encourage you to go back to the bookseller where you purchased the book to leave a review. But if you can't remember, or even if you do, we do encourage you to go to Goodreads.

Speaker 2: 1:33:37

We will have a link to Giselle's Goodreads account where you can leave a review for I'm always disappointed when people tell me in emails how much they enjoyed the book and even made comments. We have started copying these and trying to put them into my WordPress Instead of these people putting that into WordPress right now, right away. Under reviews, there is an archive with over 200 stories that I have written and there is the home page and then there are reviews and you can read many there. But people who send me emails and tell me don't they write reviews.

Speaker 1: 1:34:31

Well, I find that most people just don't understand how reviews work. They simply have to have some kind of background to be able to leave a review, or something of that.

Speaker 2: 1:34:43

And Amazon, because it is so important for an author even if it's two or three sentences, you know to write that because you are helping an author to get into an Amazon, a different kind of class and it helps their algorithm.

Speaker 1: 1:35:05

It also helps potential new buyers because, like anyone else, when I go to look at an item, especially online, when I can't physically hold it in my hands, I go look at the reviews. I look at the good reviews, I look at the mediocre reviews and I also look at the bad reviews too, and sometimes the bad reviews helps me make the decision more than the good reviews.

Speaker 2: 1:35:27

So I have to do the same thing I read it all. I read it all.

Speaker 1: 1:35:31

Yeah, they're so critical to authors, especially in this day and age. It is how we reach our readers and it's how we get recommended to other readers, because the more reviews that you have, the more likely you'll be recommended to a reader of another book from a similar category or genre or subject matter. You know, if your ranking is high enough, then they will start recommending you. So it's very important. It's advertising for authors and oftentimes it's the only kind of feedback we get. Now, I appreciate that Giselle is getting all these emails and comments and stuff like that, but for most authors they get very few of those. What they do get is the reviews, so don't forget to leave a review. As we said, we've been focusing that here on season two and we want to encourage that to continue. Was there anything else that you would like to add before we go over and do our tip of the week?

Speaker 2: 1:36:39

Maybe the only one that I should let you know when that third book is finally finished.

Speaker 1: 1:36:45

Oh, absolutely. We want to have you back when that one's ready.

Speaker 2: 1:36:49

And we might have a bit of laughter. What kind of funny things happened to me doing that life, absolutely the last three lives.

Speaker 1: 1:37:04

Right? Well, of course we will definitely love to have you back. I'm so glad you're here with us, but we're going to jump over for our tip of the week. Of course we talked to Giselle about so many different things, but there were a couple of things that I wanted to talk about, and she talked about trying to get her second book out during COVID and so she was having difficult getting traction going with her book, and I think there's also a little bit of self doubt and fear that went into that, you know, with the first book and continue to honor the second book, but also about what people's opinions would be about her sharing a story.

Speaker 1: 1:37:42

I think those fears have been laid to rest, or at least I hope they have, but it's a common thing that we do see, especially with people writing memoirs or things that are extraordinarily personally revealing, and I think all books reveal something about the writer. I think that you are taking chance with the public in general and putting your ideas and thoughts out there. That's why they call it opening a vein, and bleeding on a page is because you really are putting yourself out there and hope people don't think about what you're writing or what you're thinking or what you believe. So I understand that, but I want to remind you there is always, always, always someone somewhere desperately waiting for the words and the story and the way that you tell it, as I would have never met Giselle, probably in my lifetime, if it were not for her and these books, and I am so glad I am so well enriched by reading these books again for the second time I feel even deeply further about that. So I want you to remember that when self doubt comes about and the thing that I have learned about self doubt and fear it only comes forward when I'm succeeding, because if I'm failing it, it doesn't bother me. So remember that the next time you're feeling self doubt and fear, just realize that you're succeeding and some part of your mind, some part of the cosmos, doesn't want to let you succeed or is questioning whether you have the passion to continue going. So that's all it is. It's a test of your willingness to keep going, which I think Giselle has shown us in her book that she is not afraid to keep going.

Speaker 1: 1:39:38

So the second thing is talking about gaining traction. Getting traction is something that happens over time, it's not something that generally happens immediately. I know we love to do that. There's so many tips and tools as to help you gain traction. But again, remember, once your book is published, it's out there for your lifetime and beyond. There's always more to do. There's always more readers to read. There's always more things to be said and done to get it to the right readers, finding new audiences, finding new generations of audiences sharing your story.

Speaker 1: 1:40:14

So don't beat yourself up and don't feel defeated. If it's not happening right now, it doesn't need to be done this week, this month or even next month or next year. You still have all the many, many years after. So try to keep things in perspective and remember it's the same thing. If you're succeeding, then the self doubt is going to creep in and try and throw you off track. So that's our tip of the week. Of course, we always have so much more that we could say and share with you here on the Writers Parachute. I'm so grateful to be your guest here on the Writers Parachute and we hope that you find this a safe place for your dreams to land. Well too, of course, I would love to invite Giselle to come back. I'm so very thankful that she has agreed to come here on the Writers Parachute, share her story and her books with us. I encourage you to go out and grab your copy and, as always, we hope that you join us again next time. Bye everyone.