Read below the first 7 pages of the Award Winning book LETTERS TO DANIEL from the LETTERS BOOK SERIES. When Amy told me she was going to do this blog and write as if she were talking to Daniel Craig, I was not crazy about the idea. Amy is such an honest and sensitive person that I was wary of her getting hurt and she did. Some of the comments by people she considered friends were selfish and hurtful. I am ashamed to admit that after one not so glowing post about yours truly, I got upset. It took me several days to realize that this blog is not about me. Sure, I play a supporting part in the best friend role, but this is about my friend. Who she was, who she is and who she hopefully one day will be.
Amy was also the first person I ever met to say she was a writer. Not I want to be a writer. Not, I’m working a day job, but I also write (insert your genre here). She has never strayed from stating saying she’s a writer. Not even in the darkest moments of her life was her faith shaken. It seems like I’ve known my best friend my entire life, but, in actuality, we met back in 1996. We were coworkers at a bookstore in the Jefferson Mall. It was a great job that introduced me to people who would change the course of my life. These people were different from my family in that they were interested in things like movies, art and, of course, books. Amy was by far the weirdest person that I had ever met during my sheltered existence. Within days of meeting her, I knew her life story. I admired how open she was about everything from parents to customers to sexual abuse. It also scared me, if I’m being completely honest. Who talks that way with people they barely know? Amy does. It’s this openness that she projects that draws people from all walks of life to her. They understand that she won’t discriminate or judge them. She will welcome them into the fold. Amy doesn’t take the word “friendship” lightly. With social media like Facebook the word friend is thrown around loosely. Not so with Amy. If you are her friend, she will go the distance for you. Whatever you need, she will do it. Need someone to go to the ER at midnight, she’s your girl. Need a shoulder to cry on or ears to listen? She’s got those as well. I can only hope that I’m half the friend to her that she has been to me. I had a front row seat to Amy’s two nervous breakdowns. The first was in 2000. I admit I was stupid about mental illness even though I had been surrounded by it my whole life. It is only in the last decade or so that people have really opened up the conversation. Before that people just didn’t talk about it as much. When Amy realized that something was wrong, she actively sought help. The road wasn’t an easy one. She went from doctor to doctor only to be turned away or told it was all in her head. We laugh at that now. Did I mention that during this breakdown Amy and I were sharing an apartment in San Antonio, Texas, trying to make a movie? t amazes me the courage and/or the stupidity of those girls that we were. Moving away from everything we had ever known. There was no family, friends or safety net to catch us. I think it was that time in Texas that cemented the fact that we were going to be family for the rest of our lives. To me, it’s like soldiers in battle: once you have been through things together, you are forever bonded. We did not dodge gunfire and cannons, but we did survive on very little. Meals consisted of eggs, bologna, Kool-Aid, pasta and Ramen. Our feet served as our mode of transportation. The car blew up (and then was crashed into), the next-door neighbor was a soft hearted cocaine addict, we didn’t speak the language (neither Spanish nor Texan) and we had a run in with the man in one purple sock. We had no money, no furniture and no fear. While we eventually failed at this endeavour, it was epic. I wouldn’t trade my experience there for anything in the world. It was truly an adventure. Amy spent the next few years submerged in her healing process. There were times when it looked as if illness would consume her in its vast ocean. Wave after wave would push her farther and farther out to sea. In the middle of this madness Amy made me promise to make sure that she was never committed to a psych ward. I believe that it was and is still to this day one of her greatest fears. I kept that promise because I had faith in my friend. I knew that she would eventually make her way to shore. And my faith was validated when she recently graduated from her group therapy and was asked to speak in front of the board at Seven Counties about her triumphs. As Amy’s friend I have gone on the journey with her as much as I could. I’ve listened when needed and I helped as much as possible. Mostly, I watched as she became the phoenix rising up out of the ashes. She is truly an amazing writer and an even better friend. Now it is her time to soar. Dear Amy, I struggled with this assignment. I’m not a writer because I generally don’t do well writing when assigned subjects. One thousand words on a random subject that catches my fancy is an average Facebook post for me but ask me to write a piece on a specific subject, person or place and I will procrastinate until I sweat blood on my keyboard. As a result, I rarely accept this sort of challenge. This is different. You are, above all, my friend. That’s been true for more than twenty years now, more or less. In that time, both of us have changed dramatically, while our common ground has remained. First as classmates, then casual friends, then during a long interlude as we pursued our own paths, and friends again through the miracle of modern technology, we’ve grown to appreciate each other. I value your opinion and creativity, and I certainly hope you value mine. We’ve worked together, cross-promoting your writing career and my musical aspirations, and I certainly hope my words on this page are worthy of your talent, and rise to the level of introduction that you deserve. I’m immensely thankful for our friendship on many levels. You bear the type of light that, even at first glance, appears impossible to extinguish. Despite our long-term friendship, I did not know many of the things you wrote about in these letters. I was not aware of the trials you faced as an adolescent and young adult, and you never made many people aware of your internal struggles. These letters as written have been a revelation to me about my friend, about the person behind the cool, confident exterior—the girl who was a class ahead of me in school, who played field hockey and held her own with the future college professors, teachers, engineers and attorneys in a gifted group of high school students. You were the girl I always thought was far cooler than I. Some of the things you’ve related in these letters are simply remarkable.Your stream-of-conscious retelling of the things you’ve learned through education and experience as a student, a writer, a woman, a traveler and a fan is riveting to read, and, at times, rises to the level of must-read for young people in similar situations. There is wisdom in these pages: the kind of knowledge that only experience can grant, and the kind of things learned with the heart more than the head. Taken by themselves, the stories of events, situations and people in general, and specific persons, the things you learned simply by living, this book is worth reading and taking to heart—a sort of coming-to-adulthood story that Forrest Carter may have expressed had Little Tree been a young person in the late 1990's in an urban high school, progressing through college and the first half of an eventful life. But, if much of this book is a narrative of a life’s learning, most of the rest is a catharsis—I nearly wrote ‘confession,’ but that wouldn’t have been quite correct. Amy, we didn’t know. None of us. And I’m fairly sure you never knew how much we cared. By we, I mean people who will be shocked to find out just what you’ve endured, both during that time and after. Your ability to tell a story is at times humorous and heartbreaking, uplifting and uncomfortable, but above all else it is the one thing about you that I admire the most—it is absolutely, completely authentic. In a world of cheap substitutes, you are the real thing, and your words paint pictures, sometimes of hope and joy, other times dark and desperate, but always real. And it is this reality, this stark honesty that draws me to your story, again and again. I’m uncomfortable with the word ‘heartbreaking’ as painful as some of your experiences can read, but it is the reader’s heart alone that breaks. Your own heart remains strong throughout, a testimony to a girl who knows what she wants, isn’t always sure exactly how to get there, but won’t let anyone or anything deflect her path, wherever it should happen to lead. I admire you for that. The common thread is so unique, and so very you—these letters addressed to none other than Mr. Bond himself, Daniel Craig. The conversational tone with which you relate the good, the bad and the ugly to this artist you admire so much lends a delicacy to the proceedings, and a tenderness that doesn’t seem possible with such weighty issues. These are real letters to a friend, and the answer to the rhetorical question, “What’s on Your Mind?” Daniel Craig’s penny for your thoughts, whatever they may be on that given day. I also happen to believe that Mr. Craig is a good, decent man, and I can only imagine his response to reading these letters. Daniel, if you’re reading this, I assure you that Amy is not an obsessed, weirdo of a fan. And I personally appreciate the anchor you’ve provided for her to organize her thoughts and emotions and to provide a focus for the things she needed to get off her chest. As someone who aspires to a certain level of fame, I have learned through this experience just how special and important one’s work can be to someone watching or listening from afar, and I trust that you will treat Amy’s work with the respect that her deepest confessions deserve. Amy, there will be a day when your work is as important to someone as Daniel’s has been to you. I have the utmost confidence that you will not forget that you will treat that person with tenderness and care. I should wrap this up before I begin my habit of rambling pontification. Amy, I wish you the success that you deserve. If I were the person who would chose who is entrusted with the things that come with fame and fortune, I would choose someone like you, a woman who will always remember what it was like to be that scared girl just starting her life, who’s lived and loved and learned and survived to tell the story. I wish for you to meet your hero Daniel Craig on an equal footing, so that when you tell him what his work has meant to you, he can tell you what your work means to others. And I wish that this work, this remarkable collection of letters, saves even one person from abuse and mistreatment and shows them the value of hope and perseverance. You know why the caged bird sings, and someone, someday just might leave the door open. I’m proud and thankful to be your friend. We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. Tim Dear Daniel, Let’s get the elephant out of the way. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. But I know your work. And it’s impressive. And what it’s done for me is really beyond anything I could’ve hoped for. Or even expected. I’m a successful small press and soon to be indie writer. I write everything under the sun. Short stories, novellas, novels. I even write screenplays. None of which I’m sure you’re ever going to read or see. But I’m big believer in paying it forward. So, I’ll do what I do with anything I write and begin at the beginning. This blog is really a platform to thank you for all that I’ve been blessed with over the last two and a half years. But the seeds were planted in September of 2009 when I rented “Casino Royale.” I went out and bought it. And that’s saying a lot because I wasn’t much of a Bond girl myself. It’s not that the movies were bad; I just found they weren’t for me. But I’ll admit, the scene where you came up out of the water at the beginning of the film did make an impression on me. However, there are plenty of films where I think men are nice to look at, but if the story isn’t there, I won’t go see it. I’m a bit of a film snob in that regard. That being said, I loved the movie and thought Vesper Lynd was the best Bond girl ever. I know people say Bond Woman now, but the reality is this: I’m from Kentucky and I am 37 years old, so I say girl. It’s just the vernacular. I liked Vesper Lynd so much I chose Lynd for my last name on my sci-fi and dystopian books that I write. I digress. The May 2010 Coyote Con, an online writing conference, included a writing contest called MayNoWriMo. I wrote a 50,000- word book in 30 days. It was called “Another Way to Die.” And, for the first time, I used you as the hero template. In February 2011, at another online writing conference, called Digicon, I pitched the book and eventually landed a contract with a Canadian e-publisher called Muse It Up Publishing. I was 35. I’ve been writing for 30 years. Seventeen of those years I’d been seeking publication. Finally, validation. I cried. I had been through so much. And, really, I've been through so much in my life that I couldn’t possibly cover it in just one post. Hence, the blog. I’ve been emotionally and sexually abused. I live with bipolar diagnosis. And right now, I seem to be going through some sort of renaissance. I’m more confident than I’ve ever been. I have signed 23 publication contracts since February 2011. Seven of them are out under my given name, Amy McCorkle, or my pen name, Kate (for Kate Winslet) Lynd (Vesper Lynd). I’ve won awards, the high point so far being a 2012 Moondance International Film Festival award for Best Short Story. There have been extreme highs and lows. At one point I was going to bed hungry and waking up hungry. Struggling with symptoms of bipolar disorder can be very hard. All in the name of trying to make a movie. It’s just been recently that I’ve turned back to a love of mine, screenwriting. I’m better now. Sane now. And this summer and fall I’ll be going out to promote two books, “Gemini’s War” and “City of the Damned,” which includes a huge double launch that is going to be a sanctioned event at Fandom Fest/Fright Night Film Festival. Kind of like SDCC only not as big. Although, for me it will be. Your work has inspired me, even during some low and scary times, to hang onto my dreams and pursue my passion at all costs. As a thank you, I’d like to invite you, your wife and your daughter to the launch. Now, I don’t know anyone who knows you. And this is a relatively new blog, so I won’t hold my breath or even dare to think you would for a split-second think about coming. I’m not that self-absorbed or self-involved. But all the same, I really think you should know that you’re a big part of why this summer is going to be so huge for me. Again, thank you. I am forever indebted to you. Sincerely, Amy McCorkle
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Letters to Daniel has been reissued and the E-BOOK is already available. The soft cover and hard cover are in the process of being reissued. Make sure to download your copy today via AMAZON. Available at AMAZON
Letters to Matthew...the journey continues.
The sequel to the impactful Letters to Daniel, Letters to Matthew shows what it's like to manage mental illness along with an independent film's breakout success. Alongside a full circle moment, and a near brush with her hero she shows that stress whether good or bad can still have an adverse effect on someone with bipolar disorder. Brave and brutally honest, Amy lays everything bare and holds nothing back and shows sometimes the inside doesn't match the outside, but that the healing still wins out in the end. BUY OR DOWNLOAD LETTERS TO MATTHEW NOW BY CLICKING THIS LINK! |