I'd like to welcome Dara Edmondson who's a new face in publishing. She gave up a career in marketing three years ago to follow a dream of writing fiction. She's currently with a small press--Wild Rose-- and has both print and ebooks. Her first print book was The Kitten Club which was out in May and snagged some good reviews.
She writes about "women in their forties, aged to perfection and ready for whatever life throws at them, from cheating husbands to problems with adult children to starting a new relationship or career." Don't you love that "aged to perfection" part??
Dara's a hoot and I thought the riders would enjoy her as much as I did the first time I met her at a workshop. So here she is to knock some salon sense into us!
First, a big thank you to Deb Dixon for inviting me to guest blog today. It's a pleasure to be in the convertible with such amazing ladies. I write contemporary romance for The Wild Rose Press but what I'd like to dish about today is the salon experience. We're all familiar with it – we confide all sorts of stuff in the person who does our hair or nails.
I got an up close look at the Salon Phenomenon (yes – I've named it!) when I owned a tanning and nail salon in the eighties and nineties in Orlando. I was a nail tech for many years and worked on clients so diverse it boggles my mind. Everyone from heiresses to prostitutes to housewives. I even rubbed elbows with a Saudi princess once, but that's a post for another day.
The Salon Phenomenon occurs when a beauty worker has very close contact with a patron (i.e. – touching hand or head). Something amazing happens. The patron reveals deep, sometimes dark secrets to the worker. And it's not the usual we're-friends-and-have-similar-disclosure-levels thing. No. The hairdresser/nail tech might reveal only her name, but the client, nonetheless often tells all.
Countless women revealed details of clandestine affairs, shady business practices or family secrets. They told me of long-ago sexual abuse and ongoing physical abuse, of friend and family betrayals. But why did they trust me when most knew very little about me? Not only was I touching them – a barrier most people don’t allow others to cross – but I faced them, one-on-one, on a weekly or biweekly basis. I listened and remembered details of the continuing sagas of their lives. They had an hour of my undivided attention and an assumption of confidentiality.
All the stories I heard, misery and joy I was privy to, turned out to be excellent fodder for my ideas file years later when I took up fiction writing. I changed names and details, but some of the situations I come up with are based in fact. Some were way too strange to become believable fiction. I got to play amateur psychologist to so many women – many who even told me I was their shrink with the benefits of having gorgeous nails when the session ended. But when I write their stories, they come out the way I wish they'd turned out for the clients. Some did, of course, have happy endings, but not all.
These days I often find myself missing that salon experience, hearing the inner workings of relationships and the adventures of women with exciting lives. When I do, I think about the worlds I can create on paper, the ones with Happily-Ever-Afters and loose ends neatly tied. There's a lot of job satisfaction in that. Where I couldn't fix things in real life for the women, I can in a book. I owe so much to those ladies, I dedicated my last book, The Kitten Club to them. Many were so touched, they actually cried when they read the dedication.
What about you? Do you value the salon relationship as sacred? Have you confided in your hair dresser or manicurist lately?
I got an up close look at the Salon Phenomenon (yes – I've named it!) when I owned a tanning and nail salon in the eighties and nineties in Orlando. I was a nail tech for many years and worked on clients so diverse it boggles my mind. Everyone from heiresses to prostitutes to housewives. I even rubbed elbows with a Saudi princess once, but that's a post for another day.
The Salon Phenomenon occurs when a beauty worker has very close contact with a patron (i.e. – touching hand or head). Something amazing happens. The patron reveals deep, sometimes dark secrets to the worker. And it's not the usual we're-friends-and-have-similar-disclosure-levels thing. No. The hairdresser/nail tech might reveal only her name, but the client, nonetheless often tells all.
Countless women revealed details of clandestine affairs, shady business practices or family secrets. They told me of long-ago sexual abuse and ongoing physical abuse, of friend and family betrayals. But why did they trust me when most knew very little about me? Not only was I touching them – a barrier most people don’t allow others to cross – but I faced them, one-on-one, on a weekly or biweekly basis. I listened and remembered details of the continuing sagas of their lives. They had an hour of my undivided attention and an assumption of confidentiality.
All the stories I heard, misery and joy I was privy to, turned out to be excellent fodder for my ideas file years later when I took up fiction writing. I changed names and details, but some of the situations I come up with are based in fact. Some were way too strange to become believable fiction. I got to play amateur psychologist to so many women – many who even told me I was their shrink with the benefits of having gorgeous nails when the session ended. But when I write their stories, they come out the way I wish they'd turned out for the clients. Some did, of course, have happy endings, but not all.
These days I often find myself missing that salon experience, hearing the inner workings of relationships and the adventures of women with exciting lives. When I do, I think about the worlds I can create on paper, the ones with Happily-Ever-Afters and loose ends neatly tied. There's a lot of job satisfaction in that. Where I couldn't fix things in real life for the women, I can in a book. I owe so much to those ladies, I dedicated my last book, The Kitten Club to them. Many were so touched, they actually cried when they read the dedication.
What about you? Do you value the salon relationship as sacred? Have you confided in your hair dresser or manicurist lately?
