Category: General Topics

Staying Humble

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Humility is not something that someone does once, but that one must strive to maintain if it is to be a consistent part of that individual’s life. As I thought of this, I also thought on how arrogance is not always boastful or typical of what we commonly associate with pride. There are many subtle ways to which a person can display a characteristic of pride.

Humility – a modest or low view of one’s own importance; humbleness

Assumption

It is a mistake to assume that people do not know what you know, or that they are any less intelligent than you are. Even if you are wise, remember that even a fool is considered wise when he just stops talking. I am sure we all have our own stories concerning people who were surprised to discover that we knew more than what was perceived by way of our silence or decision to withhold certain information. Assumptions cover a lot of ground as they are always based on preconceived notions and unanswered questions. It is always best to communicate with others to learn more about them, than it is to assume something about them. It may seem odd at first, but asking questions is a good thing because it helps us to understand and to get to know the individual.

Acceptance

This is a tricky one and comes through very subtly. At any time in our lives where we fight against acceptance, then we exhibit a form of pride. We must understand that stepping stones exist for a reason; they are bridges to the next level of our growth and for that we may not understand it when we first encounter it, whatever it may be. People who struggle with acceptance also have a habit of disagreeing with every single thing. This too is a form of pride. The person may not realize it, but they are expressing a form of arrogance. Why is it that you have something to say about every thing? How is it that everyone is wrong but you? That person needs to sit back and ask themselves why.

The thing to remember is that all is not meant to be understood in the moment, but to be accepted. In the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, “Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them.” Sometimes we are not in a place in our lives to understand, no more than a five year old understands how to safely handle a weapon, and for that we must accept the place we are in now until we can grow into the person who could. “At present you need to live the questions. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer.” (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Asking

No, begging is different. But seriously, being afraid to ask for help is another subtle form of pride. It stems from our fear that others will either judge us or think that we do not know something. But you know what? So what! So what if you don’t know? No one knows everything and everyone has something to learn from someone. If you are afraid to ask for help when you need it, now is a good time to ask yourself why. Why does it matter how others perceive you? People talk a lot about keeping it real but being afraid to admit our wrongs, or our mistakes, or ask for help is not being real. That’s being fake.

Contentment

This one is like acceptance. Once you’ve accepted what is, then you can just be. Another subtlety, people who are not content express a form of arrogance. What you’re essentially saying is that what you have is not enough. I’ve learned that discontent is also a triplet, she has two identical sisters who accompany her everywhere that she goes. Now, I actually have a twin sister and though we look alike, we are also very different. For that, discontent has two twin sisters and although they can be very different, they are also very connected. Their names are covetousness and complaint.

When you’re not content in your present situation, you can be sure that a lot of complaining will accompany it and leading you to ultimately covet what you do not have. However, I’ve also learned that contentment is like this undercover miracle worker. When you are truly content in your life, all worry, stress, and depression leave you. I know that many of you are off on weekends and especially on Sundays.  Just take some time today and embrace the stillness, and to practice being content in all that you have.

Beyond The Colored Line – A Year in Review

One year ago today, I published the second book in The Stella Trilogy, Beyond The Colored Line. I was shocked at the positive response I received from those who read it and the kinds of discussions it started. I hosted giveaways, book signings, and conducted an Interracial Interview series on this blog in which I interviewed couples in diverse relationships who still find themselves the victims of misunderstanding. I must say it seems more like a few years ago!  I’ve learned so much since then. Of course, there are lots of things I would have done differently with the knowledge I have now, but nonetheless BTCL still remains a favorite. And most importantly, still helping to expand the ongoing controversial subject that is race itself. I hope this book will live on through many generations and that my children will one day learn from this experience, as I did.

Author Yecheilyah Ysrayl used with permissionFeatured Image -- 481920160226_150037ReviewDSCN013120151207_114849 - Copy (2)DSCN014320160203_174649

My Favorite Review Quote:

“Move over To Kill a Mockingbird – the next best thing is here. If I had the power, I would put this book in the hands of every middle school child in America and let them truly understand what it means to be beyond the colored line. The thing is, the literary classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn definitely bring up the issues of race, but they’re incredibly separated from what it’s portrayed as in today’s world. But this story, even though the setting went through the Great Depression and beyond, is still just as relevant. It is a concept of what it means to be of a race and how it affects us that still exists on every level, individually and socially. It is the name you put down on your resume. It is the cop that shoots. It is the indifference toward poverty and murder in non-white communities. It explains, in great detail and without fault, what white privilege is, and how it shows itself behind that line.”

– Anna Kopp

To learn more about Beyond The Colored Line, my blog buddy Colleen, host of the famous Writer’s Quote Wednesday weekly segment, did a special blog feature for me on the day of the debut last year. Check it out here.  You can check out the Interracial Blog Feature Here.

In the meantime, what kind of wine should I get tonight tho?

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My husband thinks my avatar is hilarious

When Did You Fall in Love with Writing?

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No. Not when you started writing, but when you fell in love with it. I’ll go first.

Freshman year, High School, Survey Literature. Mr. Clark didn’t know it, but his vocabulary list had me open. He thought I’d look up definitions. He was wrong. I devoured them. I tried using every new word in a sentence and like most people in love for the first time, I sounded like an idiot.

I became obsessed with their meanings, their pronunciations, how they looked on the page and, most importantly, how they made me feel.  Seduced by the euphoria of getting words off my chest, letting the emotions ooze from my heart and out of my flesh; stitching my soul into the page one heartbeat at a time, and riding the wave of stillness while traveling through books. I fantasized about how words would pair; how they would rhyme, mix and match. The smells of metaphor, and the taste of simile calling out to me from the words of healing written in a language I didn’t quite understand and yet, knew it was a necessary part of my sanity. For if I could not depend on writing to be my stepping stone to mental clarity, then I was truly lost. Forgotten in a world without meaning. No explanation for the question mark of our existence. No saving grace. No salvation to play just the right scripture to guide us back to the music sheet. Writing. It was my music sheet and goodness, how I loved him.

What about you? Are you in love with writing? When did you fall for it?

Not in love yet? Here’s a post about how to get there! 6 Ways to Fall in Love with Writing

The Top 50 Sites for Indie and Self-Published Authors

Excellent list of resources. Comments disabled here. Please refer to original post.

jenowenby's avatarJens Thoughts

I stumbled across this fantastic resource and wanted to share with you. I’d love to hear any feedback.

#URLCategory
1KBoards – Writers’ CafeALL
2The Newbie’s Guide to PublishingSelf-Publishing
3Amazon KDP & Author CentralResource
4The Passive VoiceIndustry/News
5Dean Wesley SmithSelf-Publishing
6TerribleMindsWriting Process
7The Creative PennSelf-Publishing
8No Rules Just WriteSelf-Publishing
9Self Publishing PodcastSelf-Publishing
10David GaughranSelf-Publishing
11The Book DesignerSelf-Publishing
12BookBubResource
13Nook Press / PubItResource
14GoodreadsSocial
15CopybloggerMarketing
16Jane FriedmanSelf-Publishing
17Seth GodinMarketing
18ScrivenerResource
19TED TalksAWESOMENESS
20Hugh HoweySelf-Publishing
21Lindsay BurokerSelf-Publishing
22Writer’s DigestWriting Process
23The Self Publishing TeamSelf-Publishing
24Kristine Kathryn RuschSelf-Publishing
25KOBOResource
26Digital Book WorldIndustry/News
27Storyfix.comWriting Process
28Karen WoodwardWriting Process
29Publisher’s…

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Why Your Book Isn’t Selling

Excellent points. I loved all of them. I always enjoy Kristen’s posts because they’re so real: Straight, no chaser: “Thing is, we don’t care about you or your book. We didn’t want to see that crap in our feed, we sure aren’t going to subscribe to a blog/newsletter that is nothing but self-promotion.”

Comments disabled. Please comment on the original post.

Author Kristen Lamb's avatarKristen Lamb's Blog

Screen Shot 2016-08-22 at 10.22.38 AM Original image courtesy of Juhan Sonin via Flickr Creative commons.

The writer’s worst nightmare. You researched, you wrote, you finished, and then published your book. You wait for the sales and……….*crickets*. This is something that can happen to any kind of author, traditional or nontraditional. We think we have a hit on our hands only to later be checking it for a pulse.

What happened? Why is the book just not selling?

The Market

Remaindered Titles Remaindered Titles

In the not so distant past, there was only one way to get published and that was traditional publishing. Though many authors cheered when they were finally able to cast off the chains of New York, let’s at least respect that agents and editors might have known a thing or three about the book business.

Writers would often get vexed at the stack of rejection letters, believing they couldn’t actually write well. This was…

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Mistakes

Blog Post Mess Up

If you got it all together, there is no room for growth. If you know it all, there is nothing else to learn. If there is nothing else to learn, there is nothing to strive for. If there is nothing to strive for, there is no hope. If there is no hope, then it is all in vain. Vain. It means nothingness. producing no result. Useless. Are you useless? Let it not be that your existence here is pure poverty; a wasting away of flesh. A joining of bone and marrow, flesh and blood yet dull of emotion, of mistakes, or faults, of trial and error. When you started writing; when you started a blog; when you started school; a new relationship; a job; when you started whatever it is that you started, no one expected you to turn into a robot. Mistakes exist to be learned from and they make up our experience but, when you’re pinched, no one expects you not to feel. Having faith does not mean that you have to pretend as if it doesn’t hurt. If you want to be the best, then there is one thing you must be willing to do: Mess Up. That’s right, you must fall, trip, stumble. If you are to be the best, then you have to make all of the mistakes that are necessary in order to know the difference between what works and what doesn’t. So, fall. Break. Burst forth. This is not your destruction. This is your birth.

Do Black Lives Really Matter

Abortion is the number one killer of black lives in America. It has killed more Black lives than AIDS, Cancer, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and even the entire Vietnam War, but no one speaks out about this. Alcoholism, drug addiction, child abuse, and molestation plague the Black community, but no one speaks out about this. 70% of African American women are single, and 42% have never married. This means 70% of African American women are left alone and unprotected, and 70% of Black children grow up without fathers. Contrary to popular belief, fathers provide more to the household than just money. They provide financial stability, yes, but also protection, leadership, and guidance for our children.

In fact, the state of the black man and woman relationship is worse today than it was over 50 years ago (and even during slavery. We were more communal as a people during slavery than we are today). In the 1960s, 40% of Blacks had their own businesses and 87% of black families were two-parent. Today, less than 7% of blacks own their own business and only 25% of black families are two-parent. But, no one talks about this. However, African Americans have been told over and over again what the problems are so this post is really not about that. This is not just about Slavery, Jim Crow, and Discrimination. This is about the revolution of self.

The African American community is in a state of spiritual crisis. As a community of people, we continue to fight for change that never comes. We continue to vote in an attempt to change our political clout. We continue to march, speak, and debate about the many changes necessary in this world, from education to discrimination and from discrimination to gender equality. But while we seek to change everything around us, we have yet to seek to change ourselves. We know what our problems are, but what we need at this point are solutions. Solutions that are deeper than government-funded organizations, protest marches, and ballot boxes. People cannot change anything around them if they cannot first change what is inside them, no matter their color.

In the words of the African Proverb, “When there is no enemy within, the enemy outside cannot hurt you.” Freedom is deeper than social economics. Freedom is spiritual and spiritual freedom begins inside the individual. To change the way that we live, we must first change the way that we think. Otherwise, if we continue to depend on outside sources to change our current conditions, we will be marching for the next 50 years while our sons’ blood cries out to us from the ground.