A Learning Curve...

Like I said before, there was a time if you were a writer you wrote your book and assisted in promoting it and prayed the sells hit the roof! Now, it's media and multimedia and blogging and youtube and book trailers (I've only known about them for a few months, believe it or not)...it's all so overwhelming! Writing...I can do that in my sleep! The greatest compliment I ever received (did I tell you this already?) is when I was accused (via my son's 4th grade teacher) of plagiarizing something I had helped him to write for a school project. Even when I gave in and told teacher that I helped him, she still insisted I had to have gotten it out of a book, and she was going to find the copy of the book I got it from to prove it! Needless to say, she never found that book! On one hand she was insulting my intelligence in insisting that I couldn't have written that well in the first place; on the other hand, it was a compliment because it was my very first hand at fiction. She had given the children a scenario whereas a young girl dressed in red (or was it white) was sitting at a bus stop (supposedly waiting for the bus) and the children (including my son) had to take it from there. This, of course, was a class assignment. It only had to be 2 to 3 pages long. Well, my son and I did it together: I asked him where was the girl going? Did she miss the bus? Was there a seat on the bus for her to sit down? Was the bus late? Did it come at all? The kind of questions that would get him thinking. And, the next thing you knew, we had a story! She gave him a B because she insisted he (even with my help) couldn't have made the story up! My point is, telling stories comes easy for me, but I didn't know it until that assignment. Until then, I had only written non-fiction; although, I loved reading fiction books.
       Finally, I've stepped out and am ready to do something with this fiction and the world has changed on me! I've been trying to edit for 3 months! Normally, that would have taken me 2 to 3 weeks, but having to stop and blog and stop and tweet and stop and add to Facebook and stop and respond to people writing me...by the time I finish all that, I'm exhausted and the editing gets an hour in and I'm calling it a day! My kids (who don't write and don't understand how it works now, either) are saying, Leave Twitter alone until you finish, but then you lose your following and have to start all over again. You ignore Facebook and in a few days they want to know...who are you?
       An assistant would solve that problem but who can afford one? Amanda Hocking, for sure. But, I'm not there, yet. Because I will hire one as soon as I am. I have 2 hands and 10 fingers...and I sure haven't learned how to type with my toes, yet!
       The thing is (truth time) people are hungry for interaction...any kind, any way they can get it. Parents ignore children, children are bored out of their minds...everyone is looking for that new wave of interaction, even if it's behind a keyboard. Words of encouragement. Words of kindness. A sort of media holding of the hands! We're human and we yearn for the human touch...even if it's behind the glare of a computer or smart phone screen!
       That's why I've named my Publishing Company, A Soft Place To Fall. I know it's a mouth full and not at all, a typical name, but it's what people need and it's what my books will offer when one reads them. Comfort, Hope, Care...Possibilities! And, no...it won't be all fun and games between the pages, but there will always be light at the end of the tunnel: There will always be a Soft Place To Fall.
       Yep, this great grandma has had to face and achieve a learning curving and I'm still going around that bend (sometimes a bit slow), but I've met a community of wonderful people that will help me to get where I'm going, just like I'll help the next person to get where they're going. If we all keep that shoulder strong and firm, we'll always BE that soft place to fall ON...or at least, to LEAN on. That's been my learning curve..realizing that in all this, I'm NOT alone! And, neither are you! So, come on...take my hand...Let's go around this next curve together!

What Would YOU Do?...

Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.  It’s not just little girls being snatched on their way to school anymore, or little boys being sweet-talked into an alley by an older boy; it’s far bigger, far more insidious than that! Our society is being raped on an inter-continental scale, far greater than our finite minds could even have imagined 15 or 20 years ago. We tend to speak of our ancestors turning over in their graves for some of the things we’ve imagined to do (and, indeed, DO), but we don’t have to go nearly that far back anymore. I can assure you, the turning over in the grave is now of massive proportion! What am I talking about? I’m talking about Human Trafficking across borders…from one country to another to another. Women, Men and CHILDREN who are stolen from their homes—their cities, their states, their COUNTRIES—to make a profit via sex (and in other cases, drugs) for men and women without hearts or souls! And, what really blows my mind (besides the sheer sickness and tragedy of it all), is that the people who do this sees themselves as normal family men and women trying to make a living. That’s what they call make money off of the backs of little girls and little boys! (Ok…I’ve got to move on to my point because I’m getting angry just writing this!). 

Letters From Heaven is a story born of tragedy, but steeped in love and triumph. The story is based around a little girl conceived by rape (and of another race), born into an aristocratic family, to a young mother who refused to give her up. Unfortunately, the mother will die a few years after giving birth; thus, leaving her daughter with an eclectic group of people that will do anything from showering her with love, treating her like she's invisible, to torturing her almost to death! 

This is the 1^st in a series of 3 books with many colorful characters fighting their own demons their own way, but they all learn—ok, not all, there’s always one who just refuses to learn and will, eventually, pay the cost for not learning (oh, well)—and are better for it in the end. 

Oh, and the secrets! Everybody has a secret!  Good, juicy secrets! I mean…if Wendy Williams (How you duwin?) was reviewing and gossiping about “characters” instead of real people, these characters would be first in line…just saying.

Anyway, I did promise you the Prologue to my book a while back, so here it is.  Also, as we all know, rape is a very serious issue (and, not at all to be taken lightly), and because the main character in my book was conceived by raped, I will be donating a percentage (%) of my earnings via Letters From Heaven to The Polaris Project (www.polarisproject.org). Let’s do our part to help stop human trafficking: Lets do it NOW!

PROLOGUE

It was not my face that my mother saw on that unnaturally cold September day, but the face of a cruel and savage stranger.  It was the day that she gave birth to me, the day that she chose to keep me and see that face for the rest of her life. 

I will never know why she chose to make such an incredible sacrifice under the most deplorable of circumstances, but I would come to know that she lived with no regrets of it.  She would defend my very existence—time and again, declaring that I was but a delicate flower born from the twisted root of a poisonous plant, and would further argue that even some poisons are used in healing.  But her family would hear none of it and I was not to be accepted.  To them I was everything but a healing balm—my innocence lending them no comfort to my presence.  I was an abomination, plain and simple—a child born out of the malice of rape and rage; a mockery of decent, civilized folk.  And as my grandmother would so callously put it, “…not to mention, a horse of a different color!”

 But to my mother, I was beautiful.  I was the absolute sunshine of her life and she loved me more than anything.  She saw nothing different or lacking in me; all she saw was her precious baby girl who happened to have creamy caramel-colored skin,  and crinkly hair the color of gold.  As far as my mother was concerned, there was nothing more to see…and nothing more to be said of it. I was hers and she was mine, and the two of us would endure and conquer any and everything together…even until the day that death would come and do us part.

 Little did we know on that unnaturally cold September day that her death would soon eclipse my birth, and—little did we know—that from my unseemly beginnings to her fragile ending, a bond of love would be forged so powerful and so strong as to transcend the boundaries of life and death, to reach far into the distance of time and space…to live forever in the heart of a little girl.

This is my mother’s story, and these are my Letters from Heaven.

  

Now that you have read the the Prologue to my book, I want you to consider and write back to me your thoughts on this issue:  What would YOU do in a similar situation? 

I've been asked if the book is based on me or my life: No, it isn't.  But, as a writer we're taught to write what you know about.  Having worked in the fields of Social Work, Mental Health, Corrections, and as a Pastor, I've come across all type of people in all type of situations. I don't just write about what I know, I write about what touches me...what pulls at my heart strings.

Thanks for dropping by: Feel free to leave a comment, and don't forget to check out the Polaris Project @ www.polarisproject.org. A worthy project for a worthy cause!  And, in the meantime...Live...Laugh...Love!