Tag: life

No Whining Wednesday – Complainers

“Tell me the alarm clock stole the keys to your smile, drove it to 7 am and the crash totaled your happiness. Tell me, tell me how blessed are we to have tragedies so small it can fit on the tips of our tongues.”

– Rudy Francisco

Welcome back to No Whining Wednesday, the only day of the week where you do not get to whine, complain, or criticize. If you’re new to this blog, check out post one for more on what this segment is all about. Check it out HERE.

Today I have a special dose of inspiration for you complainers out there. Below is a poem by Rudy Fransisco, an excellent poet, on complaining. Enjoy. (If you’re in a country where this video does not show, you can search it on YouTube wherever you are. Search Complainers by Rudy Francisco.)

“It doesn’t matter if the glass is half empty or half full, there’s water in the cup, drink it.” – R.F.

Understand Your Strength

the-kind-of-beauty-i-want-most-is-the-hard-to-get-kind-that-comes-from-within-strength-courage-dignity-ruby-dee

The first headline for this article was “Knowing Your Strength”. When I thought about it more, however, I was soon reminded that knowing your strength and understanding it are two different things. To know your strength is to have identified what it is. To understand your strength, however, is not only the ability to identify it but to fully comprehend it and to therefore incorporate it into your daily life. To understand your strength is to understand you.

The constant echo of Indie Author advice can be overwhelming. In addition, there are lots of people who take advantage of the new author’s lack of knowledge in its relation to both writing and publishing. (especially publishing) Everyone swears by their method and technique. The only problem is that what works for one person may not necessarily work for the next and it doesn’t take long for new authors to feel doubtful and overwhelmed. While many of you are professional, skilled, and experienced enough to offer valuable insight, what authors must keep in mind is not just what is right, but what is right for them. Look not just at what works, but for what works for you. And not just what works for you, but also where you’re the strongest.

People talk about weaknesses all the time. It is easy to boast in our weaknesses but we cannot be weak without also being strong. Yes, we all have flaws but we also all have strengths. It is when we embrace who we are and tap into what we should offer others according to who we are that we find ourselves performing better, putting out more valuable content, and making a greater impact on the people around us as opposed to “trying” something that may be a good idea but that does not represent who we are.

Strength can be defined as: the quality or state of being strong; strong: able to withstand great force or pressure.

What Happens if I Don’t Understand My Strength?

You become a carbon copy of someone else or a shadow of your real self. A silhouette of who you think you are supposed to be, an outline with no flesh and bone. In short, you become what you think people want to see and attach your actions and thoughts to that image. When that image is destroyed, so are you and you begin to feel just as worthless and as without substance as the image that you’ve made for yourself.

Understanding your strength does not just help you to begin, it helps you also to endure and this we can apply to every aspect of our lives. This message is not just for writers, but for everyone. Take exercise for example. I know that I am capable of doing no less than a 30min. workout but no more than 1 hour. I get up every morning and dedicate at least 30 minutes to my workout but no less. It takes discipline but because I understand my strength, I push myself to do what I know that I am capable of. By looking forward to the 30minutes, it does not seem overwhelming and I am more excited to get up and perform. At the same time, I do not push myself beyond an hour. I understand my strength is not there yet. It will also be taxing and I will be less likely to look forward to doing it or completing it. I will complain more and pretty much whine myself out of doing it.

While Indie Authors will run into many people trying to take advantage of them, people offering everything from products and services that Indies soon discover they don’t really have to pay for, what keeps me grounded—and what I offer to you with the same hope—is understanding the areas where I am the most strong. Having already a firm foundation in those things, it provides a great leverage on which to build. Instead of starting from scratch, pay most attention to those things that speak to who you already are, that connects with your spirit, and that bonds with you mentally in a way that is most you. Don’t just “do you” but know you and understand your strength.

  • What can you do for the rest of your life whether you got paid or not and actually enjoy doing it?
  • What are you the most skilled at? That thing you’ve always been able to do? That spark?
  • What are you the most passionate about?
  • What is your mission in life? What is your purpose?
  • How can you combine your purpose with your career goals in the most genuine way?

Yecheilyah Ysrayl is a Blogger, Book Reviewer, and the Young Adult, Historical Fiction author of Black American Literature and is currently working on her next book series. “Renaissance: The Nora White Story” (Book One) is due for release July 15-16, 2017 at The Tampa Indie Author Book Convention in Tampa Florida. Originally from Chicago, IL, she now resides in Shreveport, LA with her husband where she writes full time. For updates from EC, be sure to follow this blog and to subscribe to her email list HERE.

The World We Live In

0bb0c2891445bf8edd24fce6f179d125

We wake up in the mornings and we go to work or we go to our office if we work from home. We get the children ready for school and send them off. Kiss our husbands. Kiss our wives. We complain about our jobs or the traffic on the way. We go to the grocery store or we log into our social media accounts. We go about our day and we don’t pay attention nor are we prepared for the time when our days are interrupted. We dream like those in movies where disaster pierces the peace of those who never expected things to be different. Open your eyes and look around. Things are different. But we do not pay attention nor are we prepared. For those who do prepare, like the old man down the street with a basement filled with extra food and water, he is crazy. Even though we don’t really know what crazy is. He’s just it. A conspiracy theorist fool. He is mocked by those who go into the grocery stores never contemplating the moment when the land may no longer produce the potatoes they so casually lift into their carts. Never expecting that one day the land won’t produce and the trucks will no longer be capable of being driven to the store to put on the shelf the Idaho potatoes we never considered won’t be there one day.

We just go about our day, writing our books, taking our pictures, building our businesses and shopping at grocery stores we’ve claimed as our own. It will always be there when we need it, we say. Our desensitization to evil has gone unnoticed. Death itself is a past time no longer cloaked under the veil of mystery but walking around openly, shaking hands and taking bets. The constant fuel of white and black relations is just the same ole, same ole song we’ve been singing since the 1960s until we look up and a race war has begun (and I don’t trust the economy can take it. The old man is wise). Who knows what may come upon this Earth or if it will be our airport next time or our minds tampered with. Who knows where the next Manchurian Candidate will come from or who will hear the voices next, but I’m talking outside the box now, I shouldn’t do that. Isn’t that right?

Just as long as we can update our Facebook pages and RT our favorite Twitterbugs, maybe post a cool picture of yesterday’s meal on Instagram, all is well. Keep walking on the wheel. Hampsters spinning. People moving in the same place. Too busy living to live. Too busy to see the world ain’t safe no more. Louisiana dropped to freezing temperatures this weekend only to go back up to the seventies this week but that doesn’t mean anything. Half the continent is in the winter months. How fitting, for the love of the world has gone cold. A change has come and no one is paying attention.

Who Are You?

Business man pointing the text: Who are You?

I’ve been gone for a minute and I loved every second of it! Silence is my place of rejuvenation and reflection in a world that never stops talking. If I could, I would never say a word and in that muteness, soak up all the wisdom I could emanating from others. Watching in solitude at their actions, and reading their thoughts. In this time, I’ve had the opportunity to sit back and listen. Listen with my eyes. Watching and reading new year’s resolution posts, plans, goals, and aspirations for the new year.  I’ve seen many authors jump for joy over new projects and ideas, and silently I rejoiced with them. I’ve watched my emails and opened to find those I’m subscribed to talking about how to write better for 2017 and to overall be a better version of your author self. I’ve seen everything pretty much except for one thing and let me begin with a little bit about myself before I tell you what that thing is.

I grew up on the south side of Chicago and spent the first nine years of my life growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the Unites States. I’ve been homeless. I’ve been hungry. I’ve had to wipe myself with newspaper and clothing because there was no tissue. I’ve, at times, had to feed myself by stealing candy bars from Walgreen’s, clothe myself by stealing just the same. I’ve been jumped on so badly I had to get staples in my head. I’ve been hit by a car and had to get staples in my leg. I’ve been hospitalized, psychologized and the list goes on.

I tell you this because people often ask me if this is the reason that I write. While every experience has its influence I am sure, it is not the reason that I write because without the overcoming, the struggle is nothing. I did not start writing because I’ve had a not-so-pleasant life. It is not the life itself, it is what has been drawn from that experience. Human thought, emotion, trial, and triumph. It is as Maya Angelou described as facing evil or the good that comes out of evil. Though the rape she suffered as a child drove her to silence it was what came out of that silence that made the difference. The reading of every book in both the black and white libraries and the memorizing of whole plays.

Who Are You?

While I too have goals and plans for this year, I decided my first post of 2017 won’t be about any of that. Writing is much more than a series of goals, plans, and even passion. It is the purpose. A written monument of who you are and why your contribution to the world is significant.

Purpose. It is a word that’s been thrown around so much that perhaps it lost its flavor, became tasteless. Maybe we’ve underestimated the power of purpose. That drive that compels you to do something not just because you want to do it but because if you don’t do it then others will suffer. As Will Smith once said, it is when you wake up in the mornings and your life means something to someone other than you. It is when you know in your hearts that your work is special, not for yourself alone but special because of how your influence makes people feel. In that if you didn’t exist or if you gave up today then there are people who will suffer.

Who Are You?

I’m not asking about your occupation. You’re not a writer and neither am I. Writing is what we do but it is not who we are. Do not misunderstand me. Who you are drives the writing and thus, it is more important than the writing itself and you will not write until that foundation of self-awareness is solidified, least you crumble under the pen of imitation. Trying to mimic the latest trends, writing what you think a writer should write, and doing what the majority is doing instead of being an individual and doing what the majority are not doing. Before plans and goals, writers need to discover who they are because the energy of who you are and what you put out into the world always comes back to you, drip feeding itself into your relationships and your work.

Who we are drives our writing. Moves it. Pushes it forward. Who you are will dictate what you write and how you write it. Who you are is made up of what you value, what’s important to you. Who you are represent what matters to you. It is that thing that wakes you in the mornings and sends you to the keyboard whether you get paid or not. Who are you? The answer to this question will compel you to push on despite opposition, never allowing your clarity to be fueled by how others respond because trust there will be days. Days where the business of writing will strangle your love for it. Yes, it’s true. You will get tired. You will get overwhelmed, and you will question if you’ve done the right thing, made the right move, or are on the right track. This is when purpose steps in, that thing that far exceeds talent or passion and even skill but reminds you why you do what it is that you do because trust, there are days when you will forget.

Who you are is much deeper than the blank page and your pen will give birth to not a single word until you are first capable of answering this question. Further, the words on the page won’t have a heartbeat until you are first capable of answering this question honestly. For the heart, will determine the direction of your life since out of it is the sources of life. The heart will lead and guide and be there even when we think it is not. The heart is ever present, and yes, even in your writing your heart is there. It speaks and it dictates every single word. It is your purpose for being. Not just for writing, but for being. It is you.

Who you are is important because who you are will always be right. In the words of Maya Angelou, what is right may not be expedient and it may not be profitable but it will save your soul. It is the why in why you write and until you understand exactly what it is (not what you think it is or hope it can be but what it actually is) then writing itself will never make sense.

Yecheilyah Ysrayl is the YA, Historical Fiction author of eight books most notably, The Stella Trilogy, Blogger, and Poet. She is currently working on her next book series “The Nora White Story” about a young black woman writer who dreams of taking part in The Harlem Renaissance movement and her parents struggle to accept their traumatic past in the Jim Crow south. “Renaissance: The Nora White Story (Book One)” is due for release July, 2017. For updates on this project, sneak peeks of other projects, nuggets and tidbits, video tutorials, writing inspiration, and more, be sure to follow this blog and to subscribe to Yecheilyah’s email list HERE.

Endurance

Black woman sitting with eyes closed outdoors

Endurance, the prominence, comes like a splashing dose of faith. Like scars praising the scarlet letters on my skin. As if strength poured forth from the sky and left its prophecies etched on the calcium of my bones. It’s courage far braver than purple hearts or bleeding pens on the white paper of a soldier’s goodbye. Like a car accident that knocks me off my feet but does not kill me, I get it. Nineteen years later the irony of life and death finds itself a home in this house of poetry.