When Life Throws Curve Balls -- Find The Blessings

There are times we go along thinking that our life in on track and moving nicely, making plans for the future and just being content with where we are.  Then here it comes -- a curve ball.  It can totally derail your thoughts, your ability in dealing with day to day life and a feeling of grief.

Over the years I have had numerous curve balls thrown at me in this journey of life. Moving through each one, facing them head-on, has been the only way I have been able to get through.  With each chaotic moment, I find my faith growing and a change in my perspective towards things and people.

I believe in the power of prayer.  Prayer can be a powerful tool if done with the right heart.  Have I seen miracles over the years?  Absolutely.  I have seen my son, diagnosed with autism who was completely nonverbal when he was younger and told that he wouldn't be verbal until well into his grade school years, start verbalizing by age of four.  I have seen my daughter walk away from a car accident that by looking at the car she never should have survived, broken hearts heal, marriages renew and yes, sometimes even fall apart again only to be restored fully in the end.

A good friend of mine last night told me that faithfulness brings blessings. Sometimes in the midst of heartache and crisis, we don't see what is right in front of us. So I sit here this morning counting my blessings.  The first seven of them are my children and my grandson. Looking around at my life, there are numerous blessings that need to be counted daily. As I sit here in the midst of crisis, I know I am held up by God and I can see the blessings coming out of having a faithful and open heart.

What's In a Number?

Please welcome Shelley Bell this morning as she talks about What's In A Number?

When I joined my twelve-step program a couple of years ago, my sponsor told me to stop weighing myself. Too many people, including myself, rely on a number to determine our self-worth. She was right and I stopped. What did it matter what I weighed if I was physically, emotionally and spiritually healthy?

Weight isn’t the only number we obsess about these days. I don’t know about you, but I check my Amazon and Barnes and Noble book rank at least once a day. Sadly, I’ve noticed my moods are affected with the ups and downs of my ranking. It doesn’t matter that I’ve gotten good reviews and accomplished something that I never dreamed possible. I’m focusing on the number. What does that number represent to me? It’s more than merely an indicator of book sales. To me, it represents a long ago buried anxiety of mine- the need to be popular.

Middle school was a difficult time for me as an adolescent. The pressure to be popular ran rampant throughout my network of friends. With a bad haircut, braces, thirty extra pounds and acne, I had no chance of being popular. By the end of seventh grade, most of my friends dropped me like a bad habit. I found a new group, kids who didn’t care about designer labels. They accepted me, bad skin and all.

In high school, I found my clique. We were the theater and choir geeks, not much different than the characters you see on “Glee.” Popularity was irrelevant. I had enough friends and boys to date to keep me busy. 

As an adult, I thought I had outgrown the issue of popularity. Then I entered the world of publishing. All of a sudden, I’m worried about people liking me. Worried about what people think of me. What is my Klout? What is my page ranking? How many Twitter followers do I have? How many likes do I have on my Facebook Page? What is my Alexa score? How many books have I sold? 

These ranks, numbers and scores shouldn’t matter to me, but they do. These days, being an author isn’t just about writing and selling books. Now, we have to worry about what I call the likeability factor. Agents and traditional publishers don’t want to take chances on newcomers unless they can prove they can sell books. They have to have a “platform.” I thought only nonfiction authors were required to have one, but I soon learned that I was wrong.  Agent Rachelle Gardner wrote that authors can build their platform through speaking to large audiences, having high profile visibility in the mainstream media or having a strong internet identity. In other words, they’re expected to be popular. It’s not enough to have talent anymore. Writers must further their own careers by becoming a household name before they even publish a book.

An author’s popularity isn’t based on reality, but on the audience’s perceived image of the author. The crazy thing is that the majority of writers I know are introverts, people who rather curl up on the couch with a good book rather than schmooze with the masses.  Instead of working on their novel, they’re blogging and tweeting and creating their public image. I didn’t play the game in school and I’m not so sure I can do it now. I’ve struggled too long and too hard to accept that I don’t have the control. Nor do I want it. I handed it over to my higher power over two years ago. Though it may hinder my career, I won’t give in to my urge to play the popularity game. I’m going to accept the things I cannot change and change the things I can. I’m going to stay true to myself and not worry about my numbers.

After all, what’s in a number?

Shelly Bell received her Bachelors of Arts in Social Work and a Certificate in Women Studies from Michigan State University and her Juris Doctor from Nova Southeastern University, Shepard Broad Law Center. Practicing law since 1997, she specializes in corporate, environmental and employment law as In-House Legal Counsel for a scrap metal company in Detroit. On the side, she dabbles in horseracing and crematory law. 

She and her husband have two children and reside in the Metro-Detroit area, where she reads on her Kindle each night when her family falls asleep.

A recovering compulsive overeater, she wrote A Year to Remember to share her strength and hope with compulsive overeaters and food addicts everywhere.  A member of Romance Writers of America, she writes both women’s fiction and paranormal romance.

 A Year to Remember is available as an e-book from Amazon ow.ly/93MzC, Barnes and Noble ow.ly/93MBE , and Soul Mate Publishing (for iBooks and other e-readers) ow.ly/93MEv. It will be released in print this summer. 

Follow Shelly at her website and blog at www.shellybellbooks.com. And though she proclaims not to care about popularity, she can be found on Twitter as ShellyBell987, Facebook as ShellyBellBooks, Goodreads, Shelfari, Triberr, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. 

So Much To Learn

I have wrapped up my blog tour for Crashing Hearts and I must say I had a blast doing it.  I met some great authors and readers in the process.

As I am promoting my book, I am finding there is quite a learning curve with the promotion process. Where do you start?  As you know I started with my blog tour.  I have used social media, .i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, to help get the word out there. Word of mouth is great as well. There have been some reviews posted on Amazon.com, which is exciting for me to see.

As I continue on the journey, I have become more active in Goodreads.  This is a site for readers and authors. You are able to review other books, have people review yours and more. At this juncture, I am involved in a giveaway for Crashing Hearts. The link below will get you there if you are interested in trying to win a free book.

 
 

    Goodreads Book Giveaway
    

       
   
   

 
 

     
          Crashing Hearts
     
  

          by Emma Leigh Reed            Giveaway ends February 20, 2012.

         
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
            

      Enter to win
 
 
 

What have you found as authors to be good promotional tools, or as readers what would bring a book to your attention?

Welcome Morgan Wyatt

Please give a warm welcome to Morgan Wyatt who joins us this morning.

Who Writes Erotic Romance Anyhow?

As a Catholic school teacher, I penned serious novels about abused women escaping their abusive mates to carve out a life for themselves and their children. It all sounded rather noble in print, but it wasn’t riveting enough to get published, although an agent did pick it up and went immediately out of business. I am not sure the two were connected. Getting published always managed to elude me.

There was one woman in my former RWA group that managed to get everything she wrote published. She wrote erotic novels, some of the other members whispered as if it were a secret. No secret since she dressed like a character from the cover of her books in a major push-up bra that peeked out from a top barely resting on her shoulders. With her flamboyant hair and tiny stilettos, she became our own regional Dolly Parton.  In my mind, she was the epitome of an erotic romance writer.

Can’t say I knew exactly what an erotic romance writer wrote, but I knew it was hotter than anything I ever wrote. My stories pounded out of the gritty reality of day to day life were less than slinky. They didn’t enter a room on a cloud of perfume and promise, instead they clomped in with a chip on their shoulder.  I was that angry white woman writer.

Something unusual happened. I kept going to workshops, conferences and Nationals and met tons of writers, even ones who confessed to writing erotica. Their ordinariness amazed me. I met school teachers, nurses, grandmothers, and stay-at-home moms that wrote such steamy, and complex tales that I had to ask a few for explanations of how certain things were possible. Sometimes I would argue that they weren’t, but they’d assure me they were. I never asked how they knew.

My image of the erotic romance writer evolved from my flamboyant friend to a middle-aged woman, a mom, a teacher, maybe even someone like myself.  I played with writing hot love scenes, and felt a little silly for my efforts. My first success came when I sent a snippet from a story I wrote to PLAYGIRL Magazine. They published it in their twins edition. I got paid and got a free copy for my efforts, which did not please my husband at that time. I still have the magazine, but not the husband.

Even with that small success, I did not consider myself a writer of steamy scenes until a fateful submission call from Secret Cravings for hot cougar novels. Why not? I gave it a try with my first erotic novel, RELUCTANT COUGAR, whose main character is a fortyish woman who is pursued by a younger man she meets at a funeral.

I followed that novel with my current one, CUB IN BLUE, which details a woman getting passionately involved with a young police officer wounded in the line of duty. I still have another one coming out in February, PUPPY LOVE, followed by two more in the works. Suddenly, I am an erotic romance novelist.

Have I changed to suit my new genre? Not too much, although I am less the angry white woman. Now, I am more the smiling author. Partly because Secret Cravings took a chance on me, but mainly because I took a page from one of my novels and winked at a younger guy, and now I’m marrying him.

What is your image of an erotic romance novelist?

 

Two lucky commenters will get their choice of either RELUCTANT COUGAR or CUB IN BLUE book.

Also go to www.morgankwyatt.com to win Godiva chocolate and a strand of cultured pearls. The answer to the contest question is 9 ½ Weeks. Good Luck. 

Welcome Robin Helm

Please give a warm welcome to Robin.  Robin Helm has published the first two volumes of a trilogy (The Guardian Trilogy), Guardian and SoulFire, and is presently writing Legacy, the third and final volume, posting as a work in progress on four different forums. She has also published two Regency short stories.

She and her husband have two daughters, the elder a Navy nurse stationed in Guam, and the younger a university senior. They live in South Carolina with their Yorkie-Poo, Tobey.

Ms. Helm graduated with a BA from Piedmont Baptist College. She is a member of the Delta Epsilon Chi honor society, the American Legion Auxiliary, and the scholarship faculty of the United States Achievement Academy.

Q: Welcome to my blog, Robin! Tell us a little bit about yourself. When did you start writing?

I have always loved to read. I was the baby in a family of six, and there was always plenty to do in the way of cleaning, cooking, gardening, and yard work. I remember hiding in a closet to read quite often, because if my mother saw me, she would immediately make me put down the book and get to work. I think I bought the house we live in because it has walk-in closets.

After twenty-five years of teaching, mainly high school English and music, I left full-time teaching to take three part-time jobs. I began to “beta,” or edit for other writers. Before that time, the idea of writing a book had been too daunting to me. A year ago, I was intimidated by the idea. Now, I have written and self-published two books in The Guardian Trilogy, Guardian and SoulFire, and I am nearly a third of the way through writing the third book in the series, Legacy.

Q: Tell us about your inspiration for: Guardian (Volume I) and SoulFire (Volume II), from The Guardian Trilogy. What is the true essence of these books?

I confess to being a TwiMom. As a high school English teacher, I wondered why my students would stay up all night reading the books of The Twilight Saga, but they would not read the classics. I read the books several times, and I tried to analyze their appeal. Edward, the protagonist, was a natural bad guy fighting his own nature to be good. He was willing to sacrifice his own desires for Bella, an average human girl, because he loved her. I decided to write the flip side of that – an angel, a being who is totally good, who must battle against his nature and be willing to take a lesser form to love Elizabeth, a supernaturally gifted human. Xander, my angel, wishes to become human to be with Elizabeth. He makes a tremendous sacrifice and accepts mortality, aging, and death in order to be able to love her without sinning.  In addition, he makes this choice not knowing whether or not she will love him in return. He loves her, and she does not know of his existence.

Just as Edward fights his enemies who wish to kill Bella in The Twilight Saga, Xander battles with demonic forces who are intent on destroying Elizabeth in The Guardian Trilogy. Lucifer knows that Xander, the Chief Guardian, would not have been assigned to guard Elizabeth had she not been extremely important in God’s plan, so he sets out to destroy her from the moment of her conception. The Guardian Trilogy delves into spiritual warfare, drawing aside the veil to allow the reader to see parallel dimensions: the physical and the spiritual. Readers are shown what happens around humans all the time without their knowledge as light forces battle dark ones.

On Fanfiction.net I have many crossover teen fans from Twilight, Harry Potter, and Airbender. I have been amazed by that. On that site, I have about two thousand readers from more than eighty countries. Nothing has surprised me as much as the warm reception the books have received from agnostics, atheists, and seekers.

Q: Have you always had an interest in spiritual warfare?  

Yes, I have. I always taught in religious schools, and assigned reading for my students included Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness, Piercing the Darkness, and The Oath, as well as Larry Burkett’s The Illuminati. Peretti made me think in a different way; his books showed me the spiritual dimension, and I was fascinated.Having said that, my angels, demons, and plot are very different from Peretti’s.

Q: Jane Austen has quite a devoted following - How has your story taken the beloved characters of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, and brought a new perspective to their classic love story? What will Austen fans love most about The Guardian Trilogy?

The authors for whom I edited wrote Jane Austen fan fiction, and I had been reading the genre for several years before I began to beta. Jane Austen has long been my favorite author, and Pride and Prejudice is my favorite among her works. The Guardian Trilogy is very loosely related to Pride and Prejudice. Xander, the main character, uses the name Darcy when he assumes human form. Elizabeth is his love interest, born to David and Lynne Bennet. Though The Guardian Series does not closely follow Austen’s plot, the characters behave much as their Austen counterparts would in a modern, religious setting. For instance, Xander/Darcy is a protector, much like Austen’s Darcy protected Lydia, Elizabeth’s sister, as well as Elizabeth, by helping Lydia. He has a higher standing than Elizabeth, because he is an angel and she is human. As an angel, Xander is remote and free from strong emotions. He is distant, like Austen’s Darcy. Elizabeth does reject Darcy at one point, much the P & P Elizabeth and Darcy have their Hunsford debacle. Austen fans also require a happy ending for the couple, and they will have it.

Q: If you had to narrow it down to one thing, what would your readers find most enjoyable about your books?

One aspect of the books that has received much comment is the banter between the angels behind the scenes. I give them distinct personalities and some of them are quite humorous and witty.

Q: When will we see your next book in print and where can we find it?

I hope to publish Legacy in late April or early May. Like Guardian and SoulFire, it will be available on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle, and on Nook and paperback through Barnes and Noble. For those with iPhones or iPads, downloading the Kindle application will give readers access to Kindle books.

Guardian begins with a prologue, the fall of Lucifer from heaven. The main body of the work concentrates on the years beginning just prior to Elizabeth’s conception in 1989 and ends in the fall of 2007 as she begins her junior year in college and Xander is summoned before God to make a momentous decision.

The powerful and imposing Xander/Darcy, Chief of all guardian angels, has protected exceptional humans from demonic forces over the course of ten millennia without losing a single battle. In 1989, he receives an unusual assignment which will forever change his ordered existence and alter the course of human history. Will he lose the battle for his own heart while guarding supernaturally gifted Elizabeth Bennet from the evil which surrounds her? Will he be strong enough to resist her as she grows from a precocious child into a beautiful, intelligent woman? The veil dividing the physical and spiritual planes is drawn aside to reveal warfare on an unprecedented scale as Elizabeth develops her gifts and her guardian discovers his emotions.

SoulFire, Volume II of the trilogy, continues the story, picking up January, 2008 and ending in August of the same year. Xander is in human form, using the name Fitzwilliam Darcy. SoulFire develops the actual meeting, ministry, and romance of Elizabeth and Darcy.

In the second volume of The Guardian Trilogy, Fitzwilliam Alexander Darcy, powerful Chief of all guardian angels, adjusts to life with a dual nature. An angel/human, Darcy seeks to win the love of his beautiful partner in SoulFire Ministries, Elizabeth Bennet, as they travel together across the globe. While keeping his true identity hidden, Darcy joins archangels Michael and Gabriel in defending and protecting Elizabeth from the schemes and trickery of Gregory, the Dark Prince, and Lucifer, his father.

Though the supernaturally gifted team of Darcy and Elizabeth is tremendously successful in their joint mission as they partner with evangelist Jonathan Edwards, the question remains, will Elizabeth find the strength within herself to forgive Darcy for his secrecy after she accidentally discovers the truth, that he was her guardian angel, or will Gregory be ultimately successful in separating this match made in heaven?

The Guardian Trilogy is a Christian fantasy fiction which loosely incorporates elements of Jane Austen’s masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice, into a Christian story line. Mrs. Helm is presently writing the third book in the series, Legacy.

 

 

Robin Helm taught school for twenty-five years in Florida and South Carolina - mainly high school English, music, and Bible. She now teaches elementary school music part-time for Discovery School in Lancaster, serves as Associate in Music and the Music Academy Director for Second Baptist Church, and teaches piano in the academy. Guardian is her first book, as well as the first book in The Darcy/Guardian Trilogy. The second in the series, SoulFire, is completed and should be self-published in December. She also "betas," or edits, for other authors.

She and her husband Larry have two grown daughters. One is currently serving as a nurse in the U.S. Navy in Guam, and the other is a senior at Anderson University majoring in Early Childhood/Elementary education.