Yecheilyah

Writer’s Quote Wednesday – Wole Soyinka

This week, my Writer’s Quote inspiration comes from Wole Soyinka:

Also known as observation or people watching, you’d be surprised how much you learn just watching and listening. I think that not to pay attention to the works of others will only rob us of an important part of the growing process. It’s one thing to be taught something in the organized sense of the word, to be instructed and shown. We know that this is important in the cultivation of our minds, acquiring and using information (information that’s useful that is, can’t give ear to everything, it’s just not wise). However, I think everyone needs an example. For every question, there is someone living the answer. Somewhere someone is doing it right. They are usually not out in the front, not the most outspoken and not always aware of the pivotal role they play in just being themselves. But they exist and when it comes to writing or blogging, or photography or art or music or whatever it is we are seeking a better understanding of how to implement into our lives at this moment, for every craft there is someone who can give you a tangible example of how to get it done. But you gotta pay attention.

About the Author:

Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, poet, author, and teacher, and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.

Wole Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934, in Nigeria and educated in England. In 1986, the playwright and political activist became the first African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. He dedicated his Nobel acceptance speech to Nelson Mandela. Soyinka has published hundreds of works, including drama, novels, essays and poetry. As a result, colleges all over the world seek him out as a visiting professor.

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And that’s it for this week’s weekly dose of “Writer’s Quote Wednesday”. Hosted by Colleen of Silver Threading.

#Ronovan Writes #BeWoW Weekly Blog Prompt – Connections

What connects one person to another? What provokes them to inspire, encourage, and to display characteristics of kindness? What makes them care so deeply about the whereabouts and well-being of others as if come from themselves? As if attached at the hip, what makes an individual go out on limbs, what makes them sacrifice?

In “A Child is Born” a great photographic look on life inside the womb, Lennart Nilson and Lars Hamberger begin their work with love:

“Love is an incredibly strong, enduring force and has been since time immemorial. The pattern is recognized in every culture in our world: two people are mutually attracted and feel the irresistible urge to unite.”

When a baby first emerges from his mother’s womb, he is looking for Love. It is the reason he comes out crying. Once safely enveloped in the serenity of his mother’s womb, he emerges into this strange place and must instantly reconnect with love. So he cries, and she cries for it. And in their innocence this love connection is worn like a sacred garment until we reach the age where we are taught to hate. This teaching may take many forms, but we are taught it and eventually we lose our innocence, we lose the ability to love. Maybe we saw something that disturbed us; maybe we were traumatized by an experience. Whatever the reason, when we reach a certain age, a world that is absent of Love eventually teaches us how not to Love, and we thus spend the rest of our lives in search of this connection.

I seek to re-connect with people through love. Despite the stigmatizing of this word, the carelessness in which it is handled, and the abuse it has endured, Love is not just a word. It is not just here for our convenience when we need something or when we think it will be of benefit to us. Love is not just a four letter word we use to justify our wrong, but Love is action. It is not just spoken, it is seen. We see it when people forgive each other. We see it when a homeless man is fed. We see it when a wrong person is corrected. We see it when a hug is distributed. Not only do we see it, we hear it. The beautiful thing about love and how it connects one person to another is that it surpasses language barriers, and culture clashes. If I travel to China and I see that an elderly man has fallen while walking down the street, I will move to assist him so that he stands back on his feet. I have no knowledge of Chinese, but I do know the language of love. Likewise, for many of you good people out there, if you saw that I was in distress, you will move to give encouragement when you see that it is needed. So love is also an interpreter. It has the ability to discern motives and acts as a guide. In this way, we build a bridge of cohesion that makes room for further understanding of one another as individuals. Because there is an absence of Love in the world, it has caused us to disconnect and forget how to treat one another and how to build positive relationships.

So for this week’s Positive #BeWoW Post, I am re-connecting through love. Continuously seeking to better understand what it is, how to distribute it, and how to accept it.

$2,500 Small Business Grant to Help Entrepreneurs from Underrepresented Communities to Grow their Small Businesses

Special thank you goes out to Rich McIver, Founder of Merchant Negotiations, for reaching out to The PBS Blog in regard to this tremendous opportunity for small business owners!

MerchantNegotiators.com announces a $2,500 Small Business Grant, to provide entrepreneurs from historically underrepresented groups with the seed capital they need to start or grow their small business. The contest is open to any current small business owner or entrepreneur who meets one of the following eligibility requirements:

• U.S. military veterans or active military
• Minority Owned Businesses
• Women Owned Businesses
• Persons with a diagnosed disability as defined by the ADA

If you fit the following criteria, you have the opportunity to apply for a grant and finally make your aspirations of becoming a business owner a reality. But get ready! This small window will not be open for long. Applications, available at MerchantNegotiators.com’s website, are open June 1 through August 1.

Below is an excerpt from the Press Release as obtained from the website:

Why Supporting Minority Entrepreneurs Is So Important

Entrepreneurs and their small businesses are the engines of the American economy. Half of all private-sector workers and 70% of all new jobs are generated by small businesses, and small businesses are responsible for more than 50% of US GDP or over $6 trillion dollars annually.

Today, minority owned businesses make up almost 15 percent of the 28 million small businesses and employ 5.9 million workers in the United States and are one of the fastest growing subsets of small businesses. Despite this growth, however, Hispanic and African-American owned companies still comprise just 15% of American small businesses, a massive under-representation considering they make up 37% of the US total population.

This under-representation is due in part to the fact that the banking, grant, angel funding and private equity communities consistently underfund and inadequately support minority’s entrepreneurial ventures.

“There’s clear statistical evidence that minority entrepreneurs have been disproportionately denied capital when they apply for it,” said Rich McIver. Because more than 80% of small businesses use some sort of financing to launch their business, the fact that minorities have a harder time accessing start-up capital means fewer minority-owned businesses are started.

Raising Awareness of Systemic Underfunding of Minority Entrepreneurs

The MerchantNegotiators’ Small Business Grant is a small but tangible step that the company is taking to help rectify this disparity, and raise awareness of the problem of the systemic underfunding of minority entrepreneurial ventures. Beyond providing seed capital to three entrepreneurs, the company views this as an opportunity to raise awareness about the abundance of minority owned businesses that are currently being underfunded.

According to Rich McIver, founder of MerchantNegotiators, “Given that minority entrepreneurs have a harder time accessing start-up capital, there are a lot more great business ideas in that community that are going untapped, that investors and bankers would be wise to consider more closely. We view this grant as not only a way to help a few of those ideas to materialize into small businesses through our seed funding, but also to encourage awareness, discussion, and change in the larger social causes underpinning this funding discrepancy.”

While $1,500, the winner’s grant amount, may not seem like enough for a person to launch a small business, it is in fact sufficient to cover the actual out of pocket cost outlay for most small business launches. Because more than 80% of small businesses use some sort of outside financing to launch their business, the funding hurdle for many minority entrepreneurs is whether they can come up with the 1% origination fee and related costs necessary to secure a small business loan.

Eligibility Requirements:

This grant is limited to individuals who own a small business (defined as having fewer than 50 employees) or want to start a business AND identify as members of one the following historically underrepresented groups in the small business community: Minorities, women, U.S. military veterans or active military, or persons with a diagnosed disability as defined by the ADA.

Submission Requirements:

Applications must be submitted electronically at MerchantNegotiators.com by 11:59 p.m. Central Time on August 1, 2015. Applicants must review and adhere to the full application rules and deadlines listed on https://merchantnegotiators.com/#small-business-grant. This document outlines program details and instructions for submitting an application.

Media Partners:

1. Encourage your readers to apply for the Small Business Grant
2. Add an application badge to your website
3. Write about the problem of the funding disparity for minority entrepreneurs
4. Support minority owned small businesses in your community
5. Engage with other minority entrepreneurship advocates by including the hashtag #GrantUsAChance in all communications regarding the grant

Remember: Every little bit helps!

Click Here to Learn How to Apply

Click Here to View Entire Press Release

What Do You Want?

Everyone has their own set of ideas about what makes good writing and marketing. But the key to it all, I think, is individuality. No one does a better job at being you than you, and no one knows the intricate details of your story like you. For this reason, it is important to stick to those methods that best fit your vision, values, and taste.

I think the most important question then for a writer is, “What do you want?” Everything else is extra.

The Conscious 70s

You better speak Michael …the conscious 70s, gotta love it. You don’t see truth in TV shows like this no more. A black family living in the projects with a man who ruled his household well and whose wife, while opinionated, still submitted to his authority. JJ was over the top yes, but his sons were not drug dealers and his daughter was not pregnant.That’s saying a lot considering the circumstances of their environment.

I Understand

As if I had not awakened
from a slumber of lies
baptized in tradition’s rebellion
As if I had not been unplugged
From the matrix of deception intoxicated by the signs of the times
I finally understand
As if you had not left prophecies etched on the calcium of my bones
Like you didn’t leave your footprints in the sand drenched blood
dripping from the curse of our ancestors lips
Like you didn’t carve your every scripture into my very skin
like a big brothers reminder that there is always a rainbow above our father’s head
And above your sister’s head
When it rains
I understand now
You see Endurance
the prominence
comes like a splashing dose of faith
like a car accident that knocks me off my feet
and kills me
I get it
18 years later
The irony
Of life and death
finds itself a home in this house of poetry
scattered somewhere across Yahoshua’s piercing skin and these broken bones
for this I know
somewhere between the compassion of Moses intercession, the call of John’s cry
to the forgiveness of my wretched sins
They mock you more than they did back then
today
Though you chose to wear the bravery of our lustful scars upon your skin
Your narrations written a thousand times greater than the stars
that your faith taught us never to put our trust in
cause milky ways never shed its blood for us
I swear
Of all the times I daydreamed in childhood
I never saw chocolate fall like snowflakes of obedience hammered to nails
Cause Cocoa beans never gave itself for me
But your salvation’s never been a fairytale
But they mock you now
As they did back then
And sell your story for gold encrusted tithes
they don’t know why
or what it’s like for a father to give birth to a son
For salvation to give birth to the sun
You are a millions times braver
Than the best solider and your skin shines brighter
Than the sympathy beating inside the chest of broken legs and wounded body parts
You are far braver than one trillion purple hearts
Or bleeding pens on the white paper of a soldier’s goodbye
deaths footprints on cold caskets
we should be ashamed
cause we value metaphors and similes like the colors of picnic baskets with healthy fruit
but there ain’t enough poems about the day they hung you
the burnished brass of your skin tone and the wooly texture of your hair
centuries before we knew what a lynching was
but at least we understand
that you was, and you are
and you will be
this
I do understand

Yecheilyah’s Book Reviews – Eternal Traces by Shonda Brock

Title: Eternal Traces

Author: Shonda Brock

Website: http://www.shondabrock.com/

ISBN 13: 978-0-9904242-0-8(ebk)

ASIN: B00KH8VGT4

Published: May 20, 2014

Publisher: Shonda Brock

Pages: 248

Genre: Romance, Paranormal, Multicultural, Multicultural Paranormal Romance, Fiction

Rating: 4/5

Eternal Traces is a Multicultural Paranormal Romance novel surrounding the life of Veteran and Cardiologist Meryt Brownstone. Brownstone is an African American woman who struggles to lay claim to her personal and mental life despite her professional success. While Meryt dreams of a change of scenery, she prefers to avoid getting too close to people and prefers to fly under the radar. She has not been involved in any serious romantic relationship in some time and frequents daydreams of an ancient world. Hardworking and driven, Brownstone is also an undercover agent for the government and divides her time between work, chatting with her friend Cindy, secret missions, and experimenting with synthetic blood.

Speaking of blood, Meryt’s life changes dramatically when she meets Dr. Fitzgerald and Dr. Rene Daniels, two brothers who start working at the hospital and are very interested in her study on synthetic hemoglobin. Meryt’s sexual trance is immediately sparked with even the slightest glimpse of Rene. She is drawn to him on many levels, and she is unable to keep her eyes off of him. Meryt is guarded with her heart and refuses to let love develop naturally, despite Cindy’s insinuations that she has feelings for the new doctor.

But Dr. Rene’s attraction goes above and beyond her expectations, and the tingling sensation of need makes her crazy. In addition to being hypnotic, Rene avoids her like the plague after first meeting her despite having stunning blue eyes. Meryt’s curiosity about him is further piqued by this as she starts to wonder why. Meryt is a former soldier with military training who occasionally carries out covert operations, but Rene has a secret of his own to be concerned about that, despite his ravenous need, keeps him apart from Meryt.

As the story begins to unfold, I enjoyed the Egyptian and African connection and the parallels between the past and present as expressed by the author. As the story picks up, we see that ancient Egypt is a key figure in Meryt’s visions and an important mission to the Sudan becomes a major turning point in the novel as the lines between dream and reality become blurred. Historically, Egypt is blood brothers to the Nubian and they both descend from Ham whose name means hot, burnt, and black. This means the Egyptians would have looked just like the African American today. In addition, the Kushites (Ethiopians or Nubians), whose name means burnt face, lived south of Egypt in what is called the Sudan today.

Meryt’s mission to the Sudan, therefore, was a nice complement. I also enjoyed the symbolism of which there were many. One example is Meryt’s temper when she’s upset and her career as a cardiologist, paralleled against the details of Rene’s life. It created an interesting bridge of commonality between the two. How so? You’d have to read the book to find out!

As my first ever Multicultural Paranormal Romance novel, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take a plunge on this one. However, I must say it’s one of those books where, even if you disagree with the concepts, it is hard to put down. You will want to get to the end and see how it all plays out. It also has a unique storyline, so I am glad I took the chance.

While some parts left me anxiously anticipating action, when similarities arose between Meryt’s life and that of Queen Nitocris, I was happy to see that my thirst for answers were quenched as the plot thickened. Between Dr. Daniel’s charm, Meryt’s stubborn ways, and their colliding worlds, Meryt’s carefully composed life will never be the same again. Shonda makes sure to have readers holding onto their seats and holding their breaths for one adventurous ride of Eternal Traces.

Ratings:

Plot Movement / Strength: 4/5

Entertainment Factor: 4/5

Characterization: 4/5

Authenticity / Believable: 4/5

Thought Provoking: 4/5

Recommendation: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Also check out Part 2 “Eternal Burns”. To learn more about Meryt and Shonda, visit them online: Website: http://www.shondabrock.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/shondabrock

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