Tag: blog

Embracing Change

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The trees have sealed the spots where the leaves are attached, not allowing fluids to flow in and out of them, which change color and fall off.  The falling of the leaves does more than mark the season, it also helps the tree survive the cold, dry air of winter. Humans are also preparing for the dropping temperatures of the colder months. Where fire places are lit, winter blankets make their resurrection and even men’s hearts grow cold with the heightened stress and violence that occur during the holidays. As November eases its way in and we prepare to wrap up another year, my thoughts settle upon change.

It’s not always easy to embrace change. It is something that happens so frequently in our lives and yet remains something new; moving in and out of our day with the same glide as oil to a pan. Starting with a puddle and then auctioning pieces of itself off into different directions. This is not easy for us to do; to forgo tradition for a road less traveled by. To be reborn in a way that blows our minds and challenges us to become different. To think and to act in a way that is new; to adapt to a foreign idea or practice.

Those crippling brown leaves, the ones that have hardened across our front yards, begging to be burned or thrown into the trash are not pleasant to see. But if the tree did not embrace the change coming upon it, sealing the spots where the leaves grow, it would die. When spring brings warm air and fresh water, the tree will sprout new leaves and start growing again.

Like the unmovable tree, standing so bold against the bite of winter, and naked with vulnerability, I challenge you to change your routine for the sake of incorporating a new experience into your daily lives. Mine will be getting back into my workout routine, and cutting back on snacks.

While change can be difficult, it comes with a kind of strength that can only be experienced to define, and has the potential to open us up to endless possibilities, causing our minds to stretch beyond the limit. Embracing change, in short, frees us from the captivity of routine, and the stagnancy of ritual.

Black History Fun Fact Friday – The Fultz Sisters

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As a twin, I could not help but be attracted to this story, and as I studied their life in preparation for writing this article, it wouldn’t take long for me to see the red flags. From the media perspective, you’d think the quads and their families were wealthy, with a house on 150-acres of land and the live-in nurse.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

19a5122c74098a54eab59283a181042bMary Louise, Mary Ann, Mary Alice, and Mary Catherine were born on May 23, 1946, at Annie Penn Hospital in North Carolina. Known as “The Fultz Quadruplets,” they were the first recorded identical black quadruplets globally and the first set of quads to survive in the South.

If the fact they are all named marry isn’t weird enough for you, their white doctor, Dr. Fred Klenner, delivered and named the girls after women in his family. His wife, Mary Ann, his aunt Mary Alice, his daughter Mary Louise and his great aunt Mary Catherine.

The girls were born at the segregated hospital wing, which was really just the basement. Mr. Fultz (whose name was James, not Pete as he was called) was a Sharecropper, and Mrs. Fultz being both deaf and mute, couldn’t read and write according to “And Then There was One” by Lorraine Ahearn, (August 2002). Besides this, the Fultz’s had six other children without a car, electricity, phone, and running water.

Thus, they didn’t debate when Klenner negotiated a deal with a Pet Milk Company that paid all medical expenses, food, land, a house, and a live-in nurse to care for the girls. All of this was in exchange for using the girls for promotional purposes. Klenner even created a schedule where people could come and visit the quads, who were put on display behind a glass screen.

world-famous-fultzPet Milk sales skyrocketed as the girls helped to brand the product, becoming the face of Pet Milk. Pet Milk?

“And so it was that the Fultz Quadruplets left Annie Penn Hospital: under contract, named after their white doctor’s relatives, headed home to a glass-enclosed nursery and driven there in a pair of McLaurin Funeral Home ambulances.”

– Lorraine Ahearn

Blogger Ladyrayne on Talking Stuff, who wrote a post on the Quads after listening to The Tom Joyner Morning Show last year wrote, “According to Edna Saylor, the nurse who worked at the Annie Penn Hospital and who would eventually become the quads legal guardian, the farm that was given to the Fultz family really didn’t amount to much and PET could have done a better job when it came to helping the Fultz family. Ms. Saylor stated that PET took advantage of the Fultz family because they were considered backwoods type of people.”

The Quads were adopted by Charles and Elma Saylor, who moved them to Yanceyville, and their travels became more frequent. They flew to Chicago at the invitation of Ebony publisher Johnnie Johnson. He featured them on his cover four times, appeared in Chicago’s star-studded Bud Billiken Parade, went on TV with Roy Rogers and Texas Pete, and would go on to appear in many more ads and make TV appearances. At thirteen (1959), the sisters performed as a string quartet in the annual Orange Blossom Festival in Miami, Florida, and at sixteen (‘ 62), they were featured in a Pet Milk ad for an autographed picture. Many remember them most from their visit to meet Presidents Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy.fultz-quads

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Pet Milk became the first to offer nonfat dry milk, an advance over the powdered milk developed in the 1920s. Sales soared when Pet Milk took advantage of the post-war baby boom and promoted The Fultz Sisters, a national sensation due to their rarity, making 1950 the all-time-high sales year for Pet Evaporated Milk.

“For no matter what the public thought, the highly publicized Pet Milk advertising contracts had brought in just enough money—$350 a month— to keep the Fultz Quads off North Carolina’s welfare rolls.” (Chares L. Sanders, Ebony Magazine, November 1968)

Sadly, all the Fultz sisters developed breast cancer later in life, with only one sister who survived it (Mary Catherine).

SOURCES:
EBONY, “The Fultz Quads” by Charles L. Sanders, Nov. 1968.

Ebony’s Spread on the Sisters can be found on Google Books HERE (Page 212) (Its cool going through the Ads from 1968 too!)

News & Record

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=caswellcounty&id=I37423

“And then there was one” by Staff Writer Lorraine Ahearn, Aug. 2002.

http://www.roccomanzi.it/IMP-VITAMINERALI/SCIENZIATI/scienziati-docu/klenner/FultzQuadswasone_file/FultzQuadswasone.htm

Talking Stuff Blog

https://talkinstuff.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/the-fultz-quadruplets/

Refocusing – Book Production Updates

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Morning!

You may have noticed I’ve been posting less frequently this past couple of weeks. I’d admit. I’ve been so into research of the industry that I’ve lost focus a bit on how I do things. So concerned about how it’s done that I’ve neglected my way of getting it done. You’ve been off focus Yecheilyah (Yes, I talk to myself, doesn’t everyone?) Now that I’ve disciplined myself, it’s time to refocus.

So, here’s what’s going on guys.

As you all know I’m writing a two-part novel series and I am approaching that six-month pre-release time. My hope is to launch Book One of The Nora White Story between June and July of next year. Though I haven’t decided on a date, I am putting together a plan that will help me to focus on execution. My husband says I suck at multi-tasking which takes someone who knows me well to see considering the load I carry.

The truth is I can only get away with doing so much due to maintaining a level of balance and by balance I mean deadlines and dedication. For instance, I host an online radio show every Thursday evening with a queue sheet that needs to be sent to my panel no later than Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning at the latest. These are deadlines I’ve given myself. That’s because I know myself and how much I need deadlines to keep me focused and as the excitement of another book release begins to creep in, I’ll be shifting my efforts to ensure everything is in its proper place.

I’ll admit something else too. I don’t like to reveal too much of what I’m doing during the writing and publishing process! At least not until I’ve met a certain goal. The reason is because I believe there are forces out there that are against us just as there are forces that are for us. I do not then think it is wise to reveal your plans or at least not everything that you’re doing. As I am refocusing I’ve noticed that my level of discretion is in need of a tune up so I won’t be divulging every detail but I will let you in on a little something-something!

  • Return on Time

The first thing I am focusing on is time management and ROT. We’ve all heard of Return on Investment. A high ROI means you receive a gain that is well worth the investment. Taking the ROI understanding and applying it to time, although I cannot foresee the details of the future I can take advantage of the time I am given in each day to dedicate toward some of the production work for this book. What I want to implement is practical tactics and execution that will produce a valuable gain from having put in the work, such as the completion of my work by the deadlines I set forth.

As of now, I’m thinking about things I can do to increase interest in the book (that I’ll implement later) that won’t be just a waste of time and resources. I truly believe hard work pays off and let’s just say it’s time to grind! Once I settle on a release date and announce that date, I do not intend on changing it, and if I manage my time right, I shouldn’t have to.

Speaking of release dates, I have my first real update for you!

December 2016

  • Book Launch Date
  • Book Cover Release
  • Matching Social Media Banners
  • Blurb

This is all tentative but if everything falls into place I’ll have a book cover and blurb to promote as early as December to accompany the decided launch date for next year. I’ve chosen to do this for several reasons, one of them being it’s different than how I released my other books and that’s what I love about Independent Publishing. With every book are new experiences so I love experimenting with different things. I also really want to have certain things done before I start promoting a release date. It’s important to me to have the Book Cover and blurb to go along with the date. This way the visual representation and a full idea of what the book is about will keep things exciting!

  • Guest Blog Posts and Email List

I enjoy blogging (*Waves to new subscribers, by the way!*) and consider it an important part of my work so of course, I’ll still be here but you should expect the number of posts to decline. (By decline I just mean I’ll be posting once or twice a day or every other day instead of my usual outrageous posting behavior). Instead, I intend to guest post on as many blogs as I can so I won’t be entirely out of the loop. As part of my refocus initiative, I am also dedicating time to building up and adding more value to my email list.

  • Book Reviews

Book reviews will commence. I know I’ve missed a couple weeks but I’ll have another author for you Friday. Those of you who submitted your book for a review I thank you for your patience. I’ll be reading and writing reviews as part of my refocus initiative so I should be churning them out more consistently. I do read a lot but that also includes my scripture studies (can’t neglect the word!) so I have to balance my time. If I haven’t responded to you yet no worries, I got them all and am organizing them to be read in the order in which they were received.

(P.S. I have a surprise, guess what’s coming back Friday? Black History Fun Fact Friday! Friday, I am officially bringing back this segment. Our first story is a group of beautiful women that not a lot of people know about. Their story is, well, something. You don’t want to miss it).

Confidence and Writing Discipline

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The most important factor in a writer’s life, at least in my opinion, is not mere talent. Neither is it some mysterious entity floating in the air called luck. It is not how much you blog or how less you blog. It is not how much money you spend or how little money you spend. It is not even your profound research and marketing skills. These elements surely help, but the greatest difference and perhaps the most unique too, between writing and other careers is a writer’s level of discipline and confidence. To keep writing, I often find that I must maintain a proper balance of each of them. Believing enough in your ability to write and having a consistent writing practice is often the difference between aspiring authors and published authors. Of course, it does not stop here but it is a step in the right direction.

The advice we hear from like-minded bloggers, agents, editors, or just authors, in general, have always, and perhaps will continue to be, our focus on writing. Because engaging in any activity of whatever sort on a daily basis naturally makes one more familiar with it, we will always hear how important it is to write and to keep writing. While this is good advice, I think that for many writers finding the time to write and sketching out a daily routine is not always easy and this is often underestimated  by those who are not writers or those who consider writing to involve less work than other careers.

“Self-discipline, what many call will-power, refers to the ability to persist at difficult or unpleasant tasks until they are completed. People who possess high self-discipline are able to overcome reluctance to begin tasks and stay on track despite distractions. Those with low self-discipline procrastinate and show poor follow-through, often failing to complete tasks even tasks they want very much to complete.” – Wikipedia

When a writer transitions from the workplace to fulfill a writing career, his initial challenge will be to maintain a certain level of self-discipline. For years he has not had to create his own time sheets, develop his own projects, and schedule his own lunch breaks. All of this has been done for him by the corporation in which he has worked for. It is now that, as a full-time writer, he must put in the necessary time to ensure a proper work day, rest, and vacation time.

He must dig deep into his resourceful mind and find the inspiration to write, in some way, daily. If he is not writing, then he must attempt to focus that energy in the direction of reading, social media marketing, offline marketing, and public speaking events to keep in line with the workflow. As we can see, the full-time writer has a lot to do and it is not always easy finding the discipline to get it done.

Sometimes it is just so hard finding the time. What I have come to invest in, however, is my purpose. As long as I remember my purpose and invest in that it is usually enough to keep me moving. This is because discipline works hand in hand with motivation and drive. It is that ingrained, determined urge to attain a goal or satisfy a need. It is the answer to the question, “Why do you write?” This answer is different for each of us but the result is the same. If every full-time writer kept his primary goal, the answer to the question of why he or she must write, always at the forefront of his mind it can undoubtedly become the catalyst to a more disciplined writing life and as a result more material.

Yet, in all of this, a writer must still believe in his ability to write and speak this into existence.

There’s a lot of criticism out there for writers. It is enough to keep us full for a lifetime. Not only in its relation to the backlash geared at Self-Publishers, but many people also do not see entrepreneurship, specifically writing, as being a “real job”. For this reason, confidence is necessary to be an apart of this movement. It is not to think more highly of yourself than you should think, (*caution: recipe for disaster*) since there is a power greater than you. But confidence is the state of feeling certain about something.

Working for you can feel like a blessing and a curse. There is so much to do, so much to strive for and (wait for it) so much failure. But if you believe in that aged old saying, “hard work pays off”, you will allow self-discipline and experience to train you into the professional you need to become.

One of the greatest ways to maintain just enough confidence to get the work done but  at the same time maintain just enough humility is to be of help to others as best and as often as you can. What you do always comes back. How you treat others will almost certainly reflect how you yourself are treated. It’s not always about you, and yet your personal goals are still important.

So there’s a balance between our level of discipline–which will get the work done–and our level of confidence, which will keep us going when a project has failed to meet the goal. In the words of Kevin Nance, “failure curdles into something else… I go down into that failed place, and I think, ‘I’m going to take a look at that failure and make something of it”.

Quick Tips for Paperback Page Numbering

Most valuable tutorial on numbering your print books.

jorobinson176's avatarLit World Interviews

When numbering the pages of your paperback manuscript, the thing quite a lot of Indies have trouble with is that they use Page Breaks rather than Section Breaks. A Page Break is just that—starting a new page within the same section of a book. With a Section Break you can have totally different numbers and Headers and Footers for each section. The way to ensure that your numbering doesn’t bounce back from the first chapter of your book to the front matter is to get rid of all the Page Breaks in first pages and replace them with Section Breaks.

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Section Break after title page, and again after the table of contents, and every other page you have in your front matter.

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Then double click into your Headers and Footers up to and including the first page of your first chapter, and unlick Link to Previous. This will ensure that…

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