BOOK DESCRIPTION
Love is a lesson
learned over lifetimes.
Spanning three generations, Daisies is
a stirring debut novel from a singular talent. In 1954, awkward Gwen
Hisel falls in love with the affable Willie Bennett on the dusty
Oklahoma prairie. What follows is a harsh life for the two youngsters
as they struggle to make the best of their difficult
circumstances.
Twenty
years later, Sheila Hisel, daughter of Gwen and Willie, marries
Darrel McAllister. But while her parents’ love for one another had
seen them through tribulation and adversity, Sheila’s own marriage
crumbles under the strain of hard times.
Now, if Sheila’s
son, Lonnie, ever wants to succeed in love, he must unravel the
mysteries of two very different relationships to discover the secret
to true happiness.
Guest Post:
Just Be
By Joshua Senter
I recently took a
trip up to Ojai, California. It was a friend’s birthday, and he’d
rented some insanely beautiful ranch house for a group of his nearest
and dearest to celebrate with him for the weekend. And it was
a celebration. Food, drinks, conversation, and fun flowed like we had
found a real life Shangri-La. It was one of those weekends you don’t
realize until later you’ll never forget simply because when you’re
there, you’re too caught up in the glory of the moments. And there
were plenty of wonderful moments: laughter over the dinner table,
playing Uno around the outdoor fireplace, hide and go seek under the
light of the full moon. And then there was a moment that stopped me
in my tracks, and I guarantee no one else from the weekend would even
be able to remember it happened. But, it did. Three words were spoken
to me, and in a way they were more beautiful than all the “I love
you’s” I’ve been lucky enough to hear over the course of my
life.
It was late on Saturday afternoon. The
sun was setting and everyone had woken up from various states of
napping to jump in the pool and begin a game of volleyball. What
really happened though was not so much volleyball as a dozen gay guys
deciding to splash around like children in the water, making the most
gigantic waves I’ve ever seen produced in a cement pond. And the
more waves that were made, the more people jumped in until everybody
was bobbing around laughing like crazy. Well, everyone except for me.
There was no particular reason why I didn’t want to get in the pool
and participate. I guess I was just so content and relaxed, and
thoroughly enjoying watching the shenanigans from my dry vantage
point that I stayed where I was. Soon enough, however, everyone
realized I was the only guy not wet, and they began pestering me to
join them. Well, I didn’t budge, laughing off their entreaties,
until finally the birthday boy pulled the “do it for my birthday”
card. So, I got up and headed for the pool. And that’s when I heard
the three words I never quite realized the stunning beauty of until
that moment. One of my buddies yelled at me above everyone else quite
matter of factly. He said, “Josh, just be yourself.” Maybe it was
the way he said it with such conviction that caused the words to land
with such impact. He definitely wasn’t kidding. He was telling me
if I didn’t want to get in the pool, not to worry about it. “Just
be yourself,” he repeated.
The way I grew up, there wasn’t a lot
of wiggle room to branch out and be different than all the other guys
around me. I was raised on a farm in the middle of the Ozark
Mountains where men drove trucks and wore cowboy boots. They drank
beer, listened to country music, and got married to their childhood
sweethearts as soon as they graduated high school. And I’m not
saying there’s anything wrong with any of that. In fact, I find
that sort of life quite romantic. The problem is, I was expected to
fit my life into that framework, as well. And for starters my
childhood sweetheart was a guy, which was totally out of the norm and
wildly unacceptable being as I was a guy myself. So, it was apparent
to me early on that the expectations placed on me were not going to
pan out exactly as those around me might have wanted.
For the longest time I did the best I
could to fake it, however, knowing that when I graduated high school
and made the move to California to study filmmaking at Art Center
College of Design, I’d finally be able to embrace the true self I’d
been hiding. Unfortunately, if I thought the Midwest was tough, LA
was even more difficult. If I wanted to be a filmmaker, I was
expected to like indie films, not blockbusters. And if I wanted to
run with the “cool” crowd, my Supercuts hairstyle and Payless
Shoes were not gonna cut it. It was the same in every click; be like
us or we don’t like you. And for the longest time, I did a pretty
good job of keeping up with all the demands of all the different
people surrounding me. And I will say that experiencing all of
different boxes people put themselves into, I learned a lot. But, I
will also say I began to realize the best moments of my life were the
out of the box moments. In particular, when I decided to become a
writer, I realized that my best and most admired work didn’t follow
the path someone else laid down, it created a path all its own.
Then, of course, there were my romantic
relationships. People say because there are two individuals in every
relationship, there are two people responsible when a relationship
doesn’t work out. But after having gone through a few different
relationships over the last fifteen years, I can assure you this
isn’t the case. In every relationship I’ve had, I can look back
and clearly see where I was the one who sent the relationship into a
death spiral or the other party was. Oh, my god! In my first few
relationships, I was awful. I don’t even know how those men who
loved me, did it. I cheated. I lied. I broke up with them or
threatened to break up with them just get my own way. I pushed their
buttons to see just how far I could go before they stopped loving me.
I think back on the way I behaved in those years of my life, and I am
appalled at myself. Then, I think about the relationships I’ve gone
through more recently, and I know without a doubt, there isn’t
anything I could do to change the outcome. Because of my past, I’ve
learned to be loving, committed, honest, and communicative. And as
much as I would like to blame myself for things ending, I can’t.
The only thing I could have done differently was to not be myself, to
look the other way in face of deplorable behavior or pretend it
wasn’t a big deal when it was. And that’s just not me.
I’ve begun to realize the same thing
in business, too. For the longest time, I thought I needed everyone
to like me. I thought if someone didn’t like who I was or what I
was saying or doing, that was bad. But, as I’ve grown older and
matured, the realization that some percentage of the world is never
going to like me has become okay. And the fact is, if someone wants
to like you, they’re going to. Even if you say something
accidentally offensive or insulting, they’ll brush it off because
they want to like you. And then there are the people who are going to
jump on any little thing you do and find fault with it. If they don’t
want to like you, it wouldn’t matter if you were perfection
incarnate, they’re going to take issue with something, anything to
make you a bad guy. And that brings me back to Saturday afternoon a
couple weeks ago when my buddy told me, “Just be yourself.”
Whether we’re talking romance or
career or friendships, when you break free of everyone else’s
expectations, it can be terrifying. But when you realize that you
don’t want to associate with people who don’t like the real you
anyway, you are taken to a whole new level of existence that in
actuality is what life is all about. As long as it’s not cruel or
unkind, the big secret that the majority of this world doesn’t seem
to get is that being different makes you king. So like my buddy, I
say: “Just be yourself!” And the only thing greater than
achieving that is when you learn to love others for being who they
are, as well.
AUTHOR BIO
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Joshua Senter was raised in the Ozark
Mountains where he was homeschooled along with his four sisters on a
five hundred acre farm. He moved to Los Angeles in August 1997 to
pursue a degree in filmmaking from Art Center College of Design. In
2002 he started writing for the hit Showtime series The L Word.
A year later, he joined the international phenomenon, Desperate
Housewives, where he was nominated for a Writer’s Guild of
America award for his episode, Don’t Look at Me. In 2013
Joshua began writing and co-producing a new show for ABC Family,
Chasing Life, which will begin airing in 2014.
Daisies, is Joshua’s debut
novel.
LINKS
Website:
http://joshuasenter.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/JoshuaRaySenter
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JRSenter
Purchase:
http://diversionbooks.com/ebooks/daisies
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