Featured Interview With Eileen Rose Giadone
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m an author, singer, songwriter, guitar player and professional honky tonk girl. In addition to writing books, I’ve released 10 albums of my own material on established record labels and toured all over the world. I was born and raised in Boston, Mass. I lived in the UK for about 12 years and now live in Nashville, TN where I perform 5 residency shows per week. I wrote the self development book, The Habit Fix. With the success of that first book, my second book in the series, The Habit Fix 2: Quickstep, followed soon after. My first illustrated children’s book, Natasha The Party Crasher, was released in February 2016. I’m still figuring out what to do with that but it’s going to involve music and an audio book. I’m currently in the midst of writing a mystery/crime novel set in New York City.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My love of reading started early thanks to my mother, Edna. She is the most avid book-reader I know. She raised 9 children, I’m her 8th. Should would walk us younger children to the library as often as she could and we would stay there for hours. Then we’d make the long walk home with our choices piled up in my little brother’s baby carriage. I started to write short stories and poems when I was a child. When I entered my early teens, I began to focus most of my creative energy into songwriting which lead to much success for me as an adult. After releasing many albums and touring the world, I’ve finally gotten up the nerve to publish my own books and I’m having a ball.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I could be here all day talking about who inspires me! I’ve read and have been influenced by Stephen King for as long as I’ve been alive. I’m a real fangirl for his horror classic, but I’m particularly impressed with the short story books he’s produced the last few years. His book, “On Writing” is truly inspiring. I’m also a fan of John Irving – what a story teller! – and many of the classics. I re-read The Count of Monte Cristo every couple of years. For children’s books I love Roald Dahl, Dr. Sues, and the illustrations of David Catrow. I’m captivated by Lois Lowry, staggered by the creativity of Suzanne Collins and awed by the epic scope of Ken Follett. The Exorcist still terrifies me and would love to some day create characters as strong as Mario Puzo’s Godfather family.
I’m inspired to write by a thousand different things that change daily. My family, the need to be helpful, my music (I’m a musician), the sea of faces swimming before me in an audience, the sometimes drunken but heartfelt words they share with me at the end of the night, a particularly beautiful or moving passage in a book books I am reading, these all drive me to my keyboard. And afternoon reading my favorite authors will lead to a night trying to write something as good as they might write. My inability to say exactly what I want to say in the midst of a conversation inspires me to write. There is nothing more satisfying than finally putting words to paper that I’d wished I’d said at the time. The sheer comedy of life and particularly funny people – they inspire me too. Ghost stories, anything spooky, rainy days and unsolved mysteries all inspire me to curl up in my chair by the fire, my little dachshund dogs snuggled in with me and weave a tale that gives me the shivers or takes me to another place. My short time here on the planet inspires me to write. I want to leave a piece of me behind, however insignificant I may be.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I wrote The Habit Fix 2: Quickstep because my first book, The Habit Fix, was popular, and that made me feel important. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. It made me feel good because it helped people, and that was the reason I wrote it. I’m writing this one for the same reason and because enough people asked for it. Now, I’m not saying The Habit Fix took the world by storm, Oprah-style, but reception for the book was bigger and warmer than I was expecting. I didn’t see that one coming.
There’s always been a voice inside me that hasn’t felt like my own. This voice is not my friend; in fact, it’s trouble. When happy, hopeful, ambitious me gets a new idea, the voice can’t wait to sneer and whisper, “That won’t work. You’ll end up looking ridiculous. You’re too dumb to pull that off.”
In my first book, The Habit Fix, I gave this voice a name, the Me Monster. The book is a 7-step practical guide to self-improvement and self-empowerment that shows how to permanently abandon unhealthy habits by replacing them with new ones you’ll actally prefer. That book, like this one, focuses on the fact that habits create the framework for our lives. So, if you want to change your life, change your habits. That is, of course, easy to say, but not always easy to do. And everyone is different.
With that in mind, The Habit Fix included a lot of various but specific details and links to programs, teachers, books and concepts that I found tremendously helpful in my pursuit of health and happiness. They all came from my direct experience. I dug in deep to every one of them and only included those that really had an impact and were very accessible. So, that book is part motivational guide and part memoir.
After much of this work and self-education, I had a simple but powerful realization: my Me Monster wasn’t much more than a bad habit. A nasty, powerful, destructive, fun-killing habit but, still, just a habit. And all habits can be changed. The good news is that there is plenty of help out there and within easy reach for most of us. The hardest part is sifting through the sand of the infinite possibilities and coming up with what truly works. My books are all about what I found after the heavy sifting was done. They are about my battle with that voice.
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