Are you ready?!
Here's the serialization schedule, week by week
Okay, everyone … we are only one week away from liftoff. Woo-hoo!
My memoir, Good Eye, Bad Eye, is on the launch pad and ready to soar. I am beyond excited.
Next Saturday *** JUNE 1 *** is the magic date we’ll blast into our journey together.
As I have been promising you, this will be much more than a book you’re going to read online. The package includes videos, webinars, photos, and audio. Each week in your inbox you’ll receive a buffet of savory stuff to digest. You can take your time with it and come back to it later, whenever you want. A paid subscription unlocks it all for you.
REMINDER: Paid subs will open next Saturday. If you already have a free subscription, you’ll need to upgrade it to “paid” on or after June 1. Then you’ll be paying month-by-month for the months of June, July, August, and September. $5/month x 4 months = $20 total.
Now, at last … I’m ready to pull back the curtain and show you exactly how this adventure will unfold over the next four months. Here goes!
WEEK ONE: June 1, 2024
Author’s Note—I introduce myself as a psychotherapist who is familiar with trauma by working with my patients and listening to their stories. Stories are powerful. We all have stories—and I’m going to tell mine.
Prologue—The theme of a search for truth in the wake of trauma. Hints that the truth of what happened to me as a toddler was withheld from me for most of my life, and that later in the book I will discover the real story of my accident.
Chapter 1—You are My Sunshine: A gripping account of the accident that damaged my eye, as told in the voice of the 2-year-old who experienced it. Another theme is introduced: karma, and how it can alter the course of a life in one moment.
WEEK TWO: June 8, 2024
Chapter 2—Good Eye, Bad Eye: Emergency treatment and hospitalization, 1950s-style. Then returning home with one blind, disfigured eye. The first stirrings of shame due to my abnormal appearance.
WEEK THREE: June 15, 2024
Chapter 3—Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion: Bullying, self-loathing, and the yearning for normalcy. Getting my first artificial eye at age 10.
LIVE WEBINAR: Tuesday, June 18 @ 7-8 pm EDT: Renowned Southern author Janisse Ray on memoir and writing about family/childhood
WEEK FOUR: June 22, 2024
Chapter 4—Beautiful: Entering my teen years, marked by the longing for beauty and impossible dreams of an eye transplant or some other medical miracle.
WEEK FIVE: June 29, 2024
Chapter 5—Eyes That Will Not See: A doomed first love, which spurs mysterious dysfunction in my seeing eye, plus the compelling stories of others who've lost their sight due to emotional trauma. An explanation of conversion disorder. My dawning understanding of the effects of trauma on the mind-body system.
WEEK SIX: July 6, 2024
Chapter 6—Finding the Other: The difficulty of romantic relationships when shame is the shadowy third party. Marriage to my first husband, who was also disabled. Our discovery of Buddhism and establishing a meditation center. Divorce, then marriage to my second husband who is, finally, "the other."
LIVE WEBINAR: Author Q&A, Tuesday July 9 @ 7 to 8 pm EDT.
WEEK SEVEN: July 13, 2024
Chapter 7—The Brain’s Smoke Alarm: 3D movies that look flat to me, thoughtless comments from well-meaning people, gory film scenes—the unexpected challenges reminding me, over and over, that I'm not normal. A look at how the brain handles emotional "triggers" that send us into a trauma response. How I discovered somatic and earth-based therapies.
SHORT FILM: Nature Therapy Practices
WEEK EIGHT: July 20, 2024
Chapter 8—Blindsided: The worst 10 minutes of my life, during what should have been a mundane visit to the local DMV office. Self-identifying, for the first time, as a “disabled” person.
WEEK NINE: July 27, 2024
Chapter 9—An Eye for an I: The unique relationship between a half-blind person and their ocularist, the skilled clinician who makes them whole and normal, with two matching eyes.
LIVE WEBINAR: Tuesday, July 30 @ 7-8 pm EDT: Ocularist Emma Boyd on the art and science of making artificial eyes
WEEK TEN: August 3, 2024
Chapter 10—Face to Face: How I stumbled into two professions—journalism and psychotherapy—that would challenge me to face people, eye to eye. Starts with a scene in which I’m interviewing Emily Lyons, the Alabama nurse who gained national attention after nearly dying in an abortion clinic bombing.
WEEK ELEVEN: August 10, 2024
Chapter 11—Ten Thousand Joys, Ten Thousand Sorrows: Finding a spiritual path where my eyes are closed most of the time and which emphasizes "inner" sight vs. outer. My decades-long friendship with Venerable H. Gunaratana, the highest-ranking Theravada Buddhist monk in America, and writing his autobiography together.
LIVE WEBINAR: Tuesday, August 13 @ 7-8 pm EDT: Buddhist monk and scholar Bhante Saddhajeewa on the practice of mindfulness (including a guided meditation)
WEEK TWELVE: August 17, 2024
Chapter 12—A Bird Glowing With Light: A month of silent meditation practice on the other side of the world at an ancient Buddhist monastery in Burma.
SHORT FILM: Home Buddhist Practice
WEEK THIRTEEN: August 24, 2024
Chapter 13—Noble Silence: Meditative nature walks called Silent Hikes, the value of silence in spiritual practice, and how hard it is to find true silence in our noisy world.
VIDEO: A brief silent walk through a mountain cove forest.
WEEK FOURTEEN: August 31, 2024
Chapter 14—Kintsukuroi: The power of community to heal trauma (my own, and helping my psychotherapy clients discover this). The symbolism of the broken-and-repaired bowl.
LIVE WEBINAR: Wednesday, September 4, @ 7-8 pm EDT: Trauma therapist and author Martha Paradis on healing from trauma
WEEK FIFTEEN: September 7, 2024
Chapter 15—Meeting Awareness: The challenge of having my portrait painted by an artist friend. Discovering that I have my own brand of normal, even with only one eye.
VIDEO: Professional artist Susan Watson on painting the soul (pre-recorded from her art studio in Juneau, Alaska)
WEEK SIXTEEN: September 14, 2024
Chapter 16—The Eye of God: Viewing the splendor of a total solar eclipse alongside 50,000 other people, and realizing that being a monocular does not diminish my capacity for joy nor my ability to experience beauty.
LIVE WEBINAR: Wednesday, September 18 @ 7-8 pm EDT: Professional eclipse chaser Rick Brown and author Jim Melvin on the thrill of witnessing a total solar eclipse
WEEK SEVENTEEN: September 21, 2024
Chapter 17—Search for the Truth: Confronting my mother for the real story of my injury—two times, twenty years apart—until finally she could admit the truth. Then discovering that she left even more truth for me to find after her death … at last, a lie uncovered and the full story of my accident.
WEEK EIGHTEEN: September 28, 2024
Epilogue: An encounter with a kitchen knife, 65 years after the first time. Also, a brief meditation on karma and the Buddha’s teachings related to suffering and impermanence. Finding peace about what happened to me at age 2.
Acknowledgments
Reminder: For one more week, only free subscriptions to “Good Eye, Bad Eye” are currently available. If you subscribe now, you’ll have access to all my posts throughout April and May. On June 1, when the first chapter of the book drops, I’ll open up the paid subscription option. At that time, if you upgrade your sub to paid, you’ll receive a new chapter each week. The serialization will span four months, June through September.
This is such an exciting way to launch what will be an incredible book that will help many, many people who has lost sight in one eye. Thanks for an incredible innovative way to do this. I'll be subscribing on June 1. And I can't wait for our webinar about memoirs that include childhood.
I can't wait for this serialization to start! The book alone is great, but the additional webinars and videos are worth the cost of a subscription on their own. This is going to be a fascinating journey and a great learning experience for anyone who has experienced trauma firsthand or who is close to someone who has.