Category: creative writing

Yecheilyah Needs Your Help

Hey guys,

Soooo….lol

I need a little bit of help and, you know what they say, “closed mouths don’t get fed.”

I am looking to increase my reviews.

I don’t have to tell you how important book reviews are for Indie Authors, we’ve been over this a million times. But, in case you don’t already know, book reviews help to enhance book sales, helps readers to make buying decisions, and helps with an authors ranking. Realistically, an Indie Author should strive for at least 10+ Amazon Customer reviews which is why I am looking to spice up my up my ARC Team.

ARC is short for Advanced Reader Copy and I am looking to add more readers to my team who are interested in reading Black History, Literary Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Poetry, Inspirational Self-Help or Women’s Fiction. I am looking for readers who are willing to actively participate in reading my books and offering feedback. Specifically, I am in need of more reviews for Revolution, book two in The Nora White Story. While this is book two in a series, it can be read as a standalone. Furthermore, book one is available now on Amazon at just 99cents if you’d like to read it first CLICK HERE. (If you sign up you can get both books free.) Either way, I am in need of more reviews all around.

If you would like to help me, you can SIGN-UP HERE.

Once I see you have signed up, I will send you a Kindle copy of book one or book two (your choice) of The Nora White Story. My only request is that you leave an honest review of the book on Amazon. You are not required to, but this team is specifically set up for me to receive feedback so my hope is that you will both read and review (Readers who sign-up agree to review or email me feedback.)

About Revolution

RevoTrans

When Nora White is drugged by her friend she is forced to deal with the harsh reality of life in the North. She meets Keisha and the women catch a ride to The Den, a gambling and numbers hole-in-the-wall in Jacobsville New York. Unlike the upper echelon of Harlem, Nora’s new friends are hustlers but down to Earth and feels more like family. They take her to Liberty Hall where she is introduced to Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A.).

Meanwhile, Nora has no idea her father has been arrested and back home Molly is hanging on by a thread. When the community discovers the truth of the alleged crime they devise a way to get Gideon out of jail but their actions could mean life or death for everyone involved. Will Nora come to her senses and return home in time to help the family or will her naiveté lead her astray once again?

About Renaissance

Nora White

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 embarks 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.

Again, if you are interested in reading any of these books you can SIGN-UP HERE and thanks so much!

(Serious readers with time to read only)

(pps. If you are here for poetry, let me know you would like to read and review my latest poetry book and I will add you to the appropriate ARC group.)

31 Years, 31 Life Lessons

Me having fun in Raleigh North Carolina #Travels

I am officially on vacation. This means that I am doing my favorite thing: traveling. I had a ball in North Carolina and my next stop is Alabama to visit the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. I also just had a birthday. Since I turned 31, I thought of 31 life lessons I’ve learned to date. Some of them I am still working on (like my patience) but they are lessons life has taught me were important nonetheless:

  1. Always put Yah and Yahoshua first. YAH is faithful. He can and he will.
  2. Be yourself. People don’t have to like you and you don’t have to care.
  3.  If it doesn’t feel right that’s because it’s not right.
  4. Remember, the more you know, the less you speak. Sometimes the loudest one in the room is also the weakest one in the room.
  5. Watch everything. Let nothing go over your head. Listen to body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions. Hear everything people don’t say in words.
  6. Establish boundaries, let people know what those boundaries are and remind them when they have transgressed them.
  7. No is a complete sentence. You are allowed to turn down a commitment without feeling guilty about it.
  8. Marriage is sacred. Protect it. Remember that everything doesn’t belong on social media. Learn to experience something beautiful and tell no one.
  9. New beginnings. It’s never too late to begin again.
  10. Love all. Trust few.
  11. Be patient with yourself.
  12. Call your mother. You only get one.
  13. Pay attention to yourself. Your actions reveal your heart.
  14. Speak up. People don’t know how to love you if you don’t show them. If something irritates or annoys you, say it.
  15. Never sacrifice your integrity no matter how enticing the opportunity.
  16. Don’t chase people. If someone wants to be in your life, you’ll know.
  17. Because of the increase in lawlessness, the love of the world has grown cold so be kind, be gentle, be considerate.
  18. Karma is a real thing. If you don’t want it to happen to you, don’t do it to others.
  19. “Some people say that cucumbers taste better pickle.” < See how this statement makes no sense? Just because something sounds deep, doesn’t mean that it is.
  20. Be a fool for no one.
  21. Friendships are sacred. Don’t go around calling everyone you friend or sister. Make them prove it.
  22. Remember to check on your strong friends.
  23. Assume nothing. Validate everything.
  24. Laugh. Let joy rub off on you. One day you won’t have the privilege of being in a good mood. One day things won’t be so joyous and you’ll just have the memories of when they were.
  25. Make memories.
  26. Don’t ever look down on someone for not knowing what you know. There was a time when you didn’t know either.
  27. You don’t know what you don’t know.
  28. Spend time alone. Get to know yourself.
  29. Be willing to walk alone, than with a thousand snakes.
  30. Remember the homeless as if chained to them. Let their condition be a reminder of your humility. Your life could always be worse.
  31. Remember that there is a way of correcting people without telling the whole world. Educate, but do not make people feel less than they are. Even if someone is wrong, give them the tools they need to be successful but leave them with their dignity.

Writer’s Wednesday – Writers, Poets, Leaders

It’s Writer’s Wednesday and I am promoting the amazing contributors to this year’s second annual poetry contest! These women are not just writers but they are leaders in their own right and a great inspiration to me personally. They each have their own flava and style that I love. They are funny, inspiring, and driven. Be sure to check out their blogs to get to know them better!

“It’s life through my lens and I’m happy to share it with others.”
– Dr. K.E. Garland

Be sure to follow Kathy on her outstanding blog at
www.kwoted.wordpress.com/

“My main focus will be on LOVE, Life and the pursuit of Happiness!”
– Lisa W. Tetting

Be sure to follow Lisa’s amazing blog at www.rebirthoflisa.wordpress.com

“I want you to be in a happy place in your love life by paying attention to your mind, body and soul and the things you allow to enter into them.”
– Tinzley Bradford

Be sure to follow Tinzley’s informative blog at
http://www.tinzleybradford.com/dating-blog/

“My hope is that I spark the soul of poets who did not know that even a whisper is still a voice. “- Tehilayah Ysrayl

Be sure to follow Tehilayah’s new blog at www.nolineleftbehind.wordpress.com

Details on how you can enter this year’s contest, the rules, guidelines, AND prizes we’re awarding to the winners is all being revealed next week! Stay glued.

From your host, Yecheilyah Ysrayl.

Can we Live?

gaelle-marcel-339781-unsplash
Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

We wake up just enough to stay woke but not enough to live. We live on hours and minutes and second hands, gas, and expressways. Espressos and Starbucks. From the bed to the car to the job, back to the car to the house and to the bed where we will lie down again so that we can wake up and exist again. Begin again. Breathe again. Boldly expecting these bodies to be there to back us up again. Do we ever back up? Can we stop? When was the last time you experienced something beautiful and told no one? Can we be beautiful without filter? Can we examine this breath? This gorgeous breath. This inhale and exhale. This miracle that is in us. Can we examine these lungs? Let the seconds and minutes and hours add up, can we forget about time? Let it pass. Watch the orange and yellow rays of the sun bleeding into the sky. Can we experience the day passing onto the next? Can we catch it moving? Can we listen to the sound of quiet? Do we even know if silence has a sound? Can we listen to the birds sing for hours at a time and let the leaves change and crumble into colors? Can we let the wind blow dust onto the windowsill, can peace be still? You have to wake up before you can stay woke. Can we live?

Weight

Photo by henri meilhac on Unsplash

They say it’s the ones with the dirtiest hands pointing the finger. That the world is fake on social media, where we hold our masks together long enough to log off. People pointing fingers and laughing at their neighbors while they pretend to be someone else…until no one’s looking. We forget that integrity is less about what you post and more about your heart. Is it in sync? What of our actions behind each others backs? Studying is not for taking pictures of scripture but for showing yourself approved. Bibles are not meant to be in pictures and blamelessness is not a selfie. To be upright for the sake of a post is not integrity. So unless your presence here is a reflection of your true self, that armor you’re carrying is not armor. It is weight. The unnecessary burden of trying to fit in when you were meant to stand out.

It is already Yours

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

The trial is the mask triumph wears until we are ready to receive what has always been ours. We live in a world where faith has lost its meaning, its vigor, its gloss. Woe to those who walk the Earth when faith has lost its shine. Who are we when faith has lost its power? Dare us to believe that something we cannot see is still ours. I dare you to believe that what you cannot see is still yours. What you cannot taste is still flavor. What you cannot hear is still music. We are far too busy chasing opportunities that aren’t ours to chase, forcing connections and misunderstanding the link between pain and growth. So we miscarry our blessings because of the labor pains. Too caught up in disappointment and heartache to endure the struggle long enough to find the strength. Too physical to see the spiritual. Too impatient to wait for what has not yet come. Too anxious to see that everything we are trying to be we already are and that everything we need, is already ours.

Writer’s Wednesday: Renaissance Sneak Peeks

“Alright, girl, here’s another one. This here from Caroline down the road”, said Pearl.

Molly rolled her eyes, “Alright, put it on the table.”

“Whew, child. You mind if I oblige myself to this here sofa? All this running around, can’t be healthy.” Pearl heaved in and out as she sat down, lighting a cigarette. She closed her eyes, savoring the nicotine in her throat before releasing it into the air.

Molly chuckled, “Did you just say running can’t be healthy?”

Pearl cut her eyes at Molly, smiled, and answered by taking another long pull from the cigarette. Pearl was a big girl, and proud of it. She had a plump backside, wide hips, thick legs, and big breasts. So is the make-up of all the Tate’s.

“Girl, you know I can’t be losing no weight. Charles will have a fit. Have me walking around here looking all sick like y’all skinny heifers,” said Pearl as Molly laughed.

“I’m serious. Shoot, the bigger the berry, the sweeter the juice.”

“No you didn’t!” laughed Molly. Pearl joined in. She cracked herself up.

Molly glanced over the table, almost completely covered with German Chocolate cake, sweet potato pies, greens, macaroni and cheese, yams, baked beans; you name it, it was here.

“She’s not dead, you know,” Molly spoke from nowhere.

“What?”

“All of this support. It’s like everyone’s acting like this is some kinda repass. Like my daughter is dead or something.”

Pearl let the cigarette die out in the ashtray. Whatever kinda buzz she had, Molly just blew it.

“They just tryna be supportive is all. You know how country folk are. Your child is their child. The men folk are out looking and the women folk are at home cooking. That’s how it is.”

“They will find her.”

Pearl shrugged, “Humph, I know they will. Got the dogs, NAACP and everything else. They better find her.”

“I mean alive. They’re going to find her alive. I can feel her, Pearl.” Molly thought about the last time she saw her very own mother that night on the porch, cold and tired. She wondered for a moment if that’s how Nora felt right now: alone, cold, and tired. Molly wanted to feed her. To give her all this food that was made for her.

Available now on Amazon

Pearl sat back on the sofa, Here we go again. She wasn’t entirely honest with Molly, but everyone wore the same consensus on their hearts. There was a strong possibility they were not going to find Nora alive. No one wanted to give her credit because she talked too much. Miss Irene talked entirely too much and spoke with an unfiltered tongue, but what she said was true. Children in 1922 Mississippi didn’t just run away.

First, no one would let them. Besides their parents, there were just too many eyes watching, which is what makes it hard to believe no one saw anything. This was the South and you had not one parent or two, you had forty, fifty, and sixty. The whole colored community. People looked out for each other and someone, somewhere was always watching.

Still, she didn’t know how to break the news to her friend that she should prepare her heart for the unthinkable. Besides, she had her Marie to think about and she didn’t know what she’d do if something happened to her. If there was one thing her parents taught her, it was putting yourself in other people’s shoes. “That the onliest way to sympathize wit ‘em,” her father would say. “You gotta be able to feel where they been, where they walked, and then you can help ‘em ‘cause you knows. You knows in your heart what they been through and where they is.”

“She gone be alright, Molly. She gone be alright.”

Pearl lit her cigarette again, leaned back on the sofa, looked at the table, and prayed her words were true

Grab your copy of Renaissance today. Part two is on its way!