Author: Yecheilyah

Writing to restore Black historical truth through fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

I Need Your Social Media Support

June is here!

That means we are ONE month away from the release of Renaissance: The Nora White Story Book One and I need your social media support.

My Thunderclap Campaign is LIVE now!

Thunderclap is like crowdfunding for social media. Instead of raising funds you are raising support. Neat huh? Here’s how it works:

You set up a campaign and set a social reach goal. Once the campaign is approved and goes live, supporters can pledge an action (a Facebook Post, Tweet, both, etc.) of the campaigns message as set by the host. This message will go live on the day the host sets. This means that if an author has a book coming out for instance (yours truly), the message will go out on the day of release from the social media accounts of everyone who pledged at the same time, making a thunderous noise of support!

The Kicker: Of course, there’s always something. For the free option, for the messages to go out, the host (yours truly) must reach her social reach by the date set. For this, I have set this campaign up a month in advance to give me time to build support.

I need at least 100 people to “donate” a pledge towards my message on their social media by July 15th. It’s free, of course, as you’re only donating a social media blast. There are 1,756 people subscribed to his blog as I write this. I am only asking for 100 of you to support me. Are you in?? Let’s do this!

About the Book:

When seventeen-year-old Nora White successfully graduates High School in 1922 Mississippi and is College bound, everyone is overjoyed and excited. Everyone except Nora. She dreams of Harlem, Cotton Clubs, Fancy Dresses, and Langston Hughes. For years, she’s sat under Mr. Oak, the big oak tree on the plush green grass of her families five acres, and daydreamed of The Black Mecca.

The ambitious, young Nora is fascinated by the prospect of being a famous writer in The Harlem Renaissance and decides she doesn’t want to go to College. Despite her parent’s staunch protest, Nora finds herself in Jacobsville, New York, a small town forty-five minutes outside of Harlem.

Shocked by their daughter’s disappearance, Gideon and Molly White are plagued with visions of the deadly south, like the brutal lynching of Gideon’s sister years ago. As the couple embark on a frightening and gut wrenching search for Nora, they are each stalked by their own traumatic past. Meanwhile, Nora learns that the North is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Can Gideon and Molly overcome their disturbing past in time to find their daughter before it’s too late? 

“When I finished reading Renaissance: The Nora White Story I actually shouted. I loved, loved this book. From beginning to end. The characters are still alive inside my mind. The setting as well. I could smell the hot soup the girls had or the rain on the hot earth. The dialogue is superb; I can still hear the soft southern accent in my mind.”

– Adele Marie Park

“The author’s writing is beautiful. She captivates the dialect of the southern speak wonderfully and I found the description of each and every action and location to just roll off my tongue as I read.” – Rachel Poli

“I consider myself and anyone else aware of her to be pretty lucky already as this author has a pretty powerful perspective and is more than capable of articulating her experiences and thought processes as it relates to the cultural upbringing of the African American experience. Her name is Yecheilyah Ysrayl.  – Dottie Daniels

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT

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p.s. To be the first to receive such exciting news be sure to sign-up for my email list! Click here.

Throwback Thursday Jam 00s – In My Mind, Heather Headley

Y’all was sleep on Heather lol. Favorite Line: “They say if you lost something you’ve got to let it go. And if it comes back then it means so much more. But if it never does, at least you will know that it was something you had to go through to grow.” < Can be applied to life in general, not just relationships.

 

Truth

Truth is not debatable

for integrity defends itself

it is not held captive to the dogma of religion

or held bondage within the framework of theology

it is not trapped inside the walls of College classrooms,

or oppressed by the lips of Baptist ministers,

It wears no stars of David

Sings no Islamic melodies

Truth is not religious

And yet is no atheist

Truth has always been

And always will be

It is neither canonized

nor done away with

not stolen away

or traded amidst the bowels of slave ships

truth is not lynched,

nor shackled against the cages of fear

it refuses to shake hands with deception,

and will never embrace the arms of uncertainty

because truth is always certain

It is sure to be like nothing you can ever imagine

but be everything you’ve ever hoped for

Truth is limitless

And humble

Needs no acknowledgement

And yet wears a crown

Truth needs no confirmations

and yet rules

wears no flowing garments

Is lowly

and yet royal

accepted by the faithful

and resisted by those who are afraid.

Who’s Your Favourite Black Author

Do you have a favorite Black Author? You can show them some love by voting for them!

jhohadli's avatarjhohadli

The African American Literature Book Club, which has featured me and my books in the past (thanks to them for that), has asked me to remind readers and fans in my network about the open poll (yes, remind, because I’ve plugged it before so I hope you’ve already voted. I have!).

The poll is for Your Favourite Black Author of the 21st Century. They noted in their email to me that so far it’s been pretty US-centric (and though I did remind them that we in the Caribbean claim Haitian-American writer Edwidge Dandicat and I think Nigeria would have something to say about America’s claim to Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie), I do think we could mix it up some more. That said, I can’t argue with the names currently in the lead; people like…

Bernice McFadden whom I met and co-facilitated a workshop with at the BIM Lit Fest in 2016

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No Whining Wednesday – Peace Under Pressure

Welcome back to No Whining Wednesday, the only day of the week where you do not get to whine, criticize, or complain. If you are new to this blog or new to this segment please do scurry on over HERE to learn more about what this is all about.

The No Whining Wednesday Badge

I’m excited about today’s inspiring quote so let’s get into it:

I’ve been loving on Ryan’s social media pages. His IG is hilariously funny with writer memes and as soon as I saw this nugget of wisdom I had to feature it for today. Whining, complaining, or criticizing really just comes from one source: Lack of contentment or peace. Whether this is because we are upset, confused or frustrated the point is that somewhere, for whatever reason, we are not content with our present situation and we are not at peace.

How do we overcome these situations? After all, it is not that stress is a bad thing entirely. It exists naturally in everyone for a reason. It is there surely to be helpful to the body in some way. How do we allow it to be what it is without over-stressing ourselves? Learning to identify the good in bad situations is one way.

This series I am writing, for instance, is probably the most challenging project I’ve ever written. There’s so much going on as I am writing these books. Personally, professionally, emotionally, mentally, its hitting me from all directions but I have to keep going.

I have been looking for the silver lining in every situation to help carry me through. The diamond in the ruff, the light in the darkness, the calm in the storm, the peace under the pressure. Here’s an example:

If I get not-so-good feedback on my manuscript, instead of focus all my energy on the negative, I look for something good. Unless the person is just a total (fill in the blank) about it, there’s always something positive that is said among not-so-positive feedback. After licking my internal wounds, I look to find the something good I missed and use it as fuel to keep pushing on.

Find the good and when you find it celebrate it. That’s peace under pressure. Don’t ignore changes that need to be made but celebrate the good as well. Be excited about it! Sorry. I don’t mean to yell, but you understand why I have to.

The good is a light. Take it and let your light shine.

But, dear non-writing readers…

….this is not about manuscripts and writing. I’m using myself as an example but this is about life in general.

The message is:

Celebrate your successes no matter how few or small.

It is not easy and sometimes it is good to vent. Good to let off the steam. The problem is when we do not balance this out with anything good.

See, I don’t want to get on my whole “balance soapbox” here but everything in life must have a balance. I spoke yesterday about being yourself on Social Media but even this is with a certain level of balance. You don’t just want to be all out boring. Or maybe you don’t care about blog stats. That’s cool. I get it, but there’s nothing wrong with paying attention to it sometimes. You don’t have to be obsessed with it, but it is good to know where you are. There’s nothing wrong with monitoring growth.

In life, we just do not balance things out as much as we should. We find ourselves venting too much and letting it rob us of peace. We find ourselves not celebrating the good and not forgiving ourselves for the not-so-good.

Today, we will strive to limit our number of complaints by looking for the good in not-so-good situations.

The Editor’s Blog: Writing Numbers in Fiction

Ever wondered how to write numbers and time in Fiction? Check this out! The Editor’s Blog shows us how it’s done.

 

“We’ve got rules and standards for everything we include in our novels—how to start those novels, how to increase tension, how to introduce characters, how to format, what to include in dialogue, how to punctuate dialogue, what to exclude from the first chapter. And we have rules for numbers. Or maybe we should call all these rules conventions.

This article covers a few common specifics of using numbers and numerals in fiction. I’m just going to list the rules here, without much explanation, laying out those that you’ll typically make use of in a novel. Keep in mind that there are always exceptions. For the most part, you’ll want to stick to the standards to make the read smooth and easy for the reader and create consistency within the manuscript.

Yet we’re talking fiction here, not a treatise or dissertation or scientific finding. You have choices. And style choices sometimes get to stomp all over the rules. If you want to flout the rules, do so for a reason and do so consistently every time that same reason is applicable in the manuscript. For a comprehensive list of the rules concerning numbers, check out the Chicago Manual of Style or another style guide.”

SOURCE: Writing Numbers in Fiction: Click Here to Keep Reading

Be Yourself on Social Media

Social media has created an environment where people who live in their mother’s basement can post pictures of traveling the world so that the world will never know they’re homeless. Couples can smile and cuddle under the flash of a Selfie while sleeping in separate beds. Writers are encouraged to show snapshots of their lives so readers can see the real but is it? Real? We want people to Like Us and Follow our life but most of what you see online is superficial. Just because you don’t see much of me doesn’t mean I am unhappy. You don’t see me posting lots of pictures of my life because I actually have one. Not many pictures of my husband because we are truly happy so I don’t feel obligated to prove it. I’ll post them when I feel like it. No images of food because I cook in real life. There’s nothing wrong with sharing a piece of yourself online but it does not define who you are. If you’re not into getting personal on social media that doesn’t mean you’ve doomed a failure. Just because they (I still don’t know who they are) say you have to tell us what you had for dinner last night doesn’t mean that you must if that’s not who you are. My social media of choice is Twitter but only because I like it. I Tweet and Retweet when I want to and to be honest I’m not thinking about how it makes me look. I’m not thinking about what people think of me, I’m just doing what I enjoy doing. The point is that the uniqueness we all talk about is important to have is really simple. It just means that you are being yourself. This automatically sets you apart because this “Yourself” is different from anyone else. Not even Twins have the same fingerprint (and as a Twin I can tell you we can be very different. Tracey and me are two different people who happened to be born five minutes apart). If the expert says I should post more about my favorite food, I get it. Try and be relatable but is this me? No, it’s not me because EC does not talk about food. My point is that advice must be filtered or it will have you behaving in ways that aren’t you. I am not saying not to be strategic but that you can still be successful without getting extremely personal if that’s just not you. If you remember nothing else remember this: in a world of sameness you’re either different or invisible so you may as well just be yourself because YOU are unique and beautiful and all the words I didn’t say.