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Opening to love is a great awakening

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By Denise Turney
Love may never be fully defined. It’s outside the realm of human logic. Those who experience its impact, serving as conduits for love to flow through, generally say the most they can do is feel it. For some, that may come while creating a novel. For others, it might occur while jogging, hiking or white river rafting.

Our painful pasts

Most of us know when we’ve been touched by love. We feel joy, peace and care. We may also feel as if everything is okay. Worry, stress, anxiety and concern melt away in the face of love. Knowing this, it’s a marvel that we don’t pursue love more, every second of the day and night.

Painful past experiences may be a leading reason why more of us don’t pursue, open to love. To truly be open to love, we have to give and receive love. If we’ve been hurt in the past (i.e. relationship breakup, career dream failure or sidestep), we might become convinced that those setbacks will happen every time we go after something we think we lead us to love.

Awakening to a marvelous way of being

If we find success, we might even feel that we’re not worthy of constant (I’m talking never turning off) love. As Raymond Clarke learns in “Love Pour Over Me,” both of these situations are caused by a lack of forgiveness, also known as an unwillingness to release the past.

Releasing people from the past is probably the majority of the work that psychologists do, as most, if not all pain, is rooted to a past event. To get and stay unblocked, forgiveness is absolutely necessary. There’s no way around it. All the singing, dancing, money giving and church going in the world won’t remove the need to forgive.

For Raymond, it’s a lesson that takes years to learn, but later is better than never.

What event from the past still has you? What’s holding you captive? Let love show you how to let it go. It’s time you awakened and advanced.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! 

Why do some people succeed while others don’t?

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By Denise Turney

You probably started noticing it when you were in pre-school or kindergarten. Some people consistently outperform others, and this, without intending to. It just seems to happen. In fact, sometimes no amount of training appears able to help some people succeed.

Education or knowing how to do certain tasks plays a role. Repetition or doing a job until the subconscious mind takes over, making the work seem natural (as if you’d been doing the work all your life) also plays a role.

However, nothing may cause a person to succeed more than self-confidence. Martin Luther is quoted as saying that, “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.”

It takes self-confidence to think you can reach a goal. It takes self-confidence to try a new endeavor, apply for a job, go out on a date, make a new friend, write and publish a novel, etc. The list of things it takes self-confidence to pull off may be endless.

If you’ve struggled with self-confidence since you were a kid, consider setting a small, short-term goal for yourself. Write down resources (i.e. computer, transportation) necessary to achieve the goal. Also, write down the specific steps (i.e. filling out a job application, creating a sample CD, writing the outline for a research paper) you’re going to take to achieve the goal.

As you achieve more goals, you’re self-confidence will build. Trainers use this approach to build a boxer’s confidence, pairing new boxers with opponents they know the boxer can defeat. Before long, a boxer can build enough confidence to step inside the ring with a heavyweight.

By setting and fulfilling small, then larger goals, your self-confidence could also increase. To tell if your confidence is gaining strength, think about how often you try something new, how often you introduce yourself to someone you never met before, how many new experiences you allow into your life each day or week.

The more self-confident you are, the more risks you’ll take and the more enriching experiences you’ll enjoy. Taking on wise risks and leaping into more rewarding experiences could also find you succeeding more, surpassing your biggest goals. As Eleanor Roosevelt shared, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'”

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn how Love Pour Over Me‘s Raymond Clarke builds his confidence (especially his confidence to accept and receive love), hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love.

Readers Looking for Great Love Inspired Books

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By Denise Turney
True. The way readers get access to great stories has changed, more readers enjoying digital and audio books then they did a decade ago. What hasn’t changed is the fact that millions of children and adults love books. It’s this passion for entertaining, engrossing and emotionally charged books that find thousands and millions of readers regularly visiting literary websites like Good Reads, the African American Literary Book Club (AALBC), Rawsistaz, Amazon.com book discussions, The Red Room, Library Thing, Shelfari and Book Crossing.

For many people who love books, necessary elements of a great story include suspense, believable characters (even if those characters are placed center stage in a sci-fi novel), thought provoking dialogue and, of course, an intriguing plot. Readers, whether they appreciate and regularly buy love inspired books, mysteries, sci-fi novels, romance or westerns, want to care about characters in stories. They also want to fall in love with an author’s style, some readers preferring the work of authors whose writing flows akin to poetry.

However, perhaps it’s the way talented authors develop characters, dialogue, plot and story scenes that pull readers into the very heart of the stories they’re telling, until readers forget their own surroundings and challenges, that readers appreciate most. Before they know it, readers find themselves trying to figure out how to solve book characters’ problems, challenges that might mirror their own. As readers come up with solutions to challenges characters in books they enjoy face, they (without conscious awareness) gain solutions to their own real-life challenges.

It’s a benefit no one can put a price tag on. Redeeming love book stories change readers’ lives. And it might be because of that benefit that readers continue to seek out remarkable fictional stories. It might be why some readers can’t load their digital and wood bookcases with enough titles. What might be lesser known is that “the chance to change people’s lives in good ways” is a major reason why some authors sit down and create stories people love in the first place.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in my new book, Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love. 

Sources:

http://www.writersrelief.com/blog/2012/02/literary-love-stories/ (Writer’s Relief:  The One Thing All Great Love Stories Have In Common—And What It Means To Your Writing)

http://www.examiner.com/article/top-five-african-american-romance-novels (Examiner: Top 5 African American Romance Novels)

Funding the Early Stages of a Writing Career

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By Denise Turney
Your dreams of striking it big as a writer might take a few months, or years, to manifest. Before your dreams manifest, sitting in front of a computer screen, creating cliff hanging scenes, may not generate enough income for you to pay all your expenses. To keep moving forward, you’re going to have to find a way to fund your writing career.

Ways to Generate Income as a Fiction Writer

Some obvious ways you can fund the early stages of your writing career include getting a full-time or part-time job or starting an online business and selling digital products or services. If you want to have enough time to continue developing interesting novel plots, unforgettable characters and engaging dialogue, consider getting a part-time job. You could also start freelance writing for business clients, people who are looking for professional writers to help them market and sell their products and services.

Other steps you could take to fund the early stages of your writing career are:

  • Blogging (setting up your own blog using platforms like WordPress, Bravehost, etc. and adding affiliate ads to your blog so you can start earning money)
  • Teaching writing courses (you could teach a writing course at a local community college or you could start your own online writing course, asking attendees to pay a fee to attend webinars, etc. you lead)
  • Advertising business products (if you start your own radio show, you could reach out to businesses and establish marketing arrangements with them where they pay you a certain amount of money a month to advertise their products or services on your radio show)
  • Writing non-fiction articles and feature interviews for magazines, newspapers and journals (resources like Writer’s Digest, The Writer’s Market, Literary Market Place, Media Bistro, Journalism Jobs, etc. post writing job openings)
  • Edit other novelists’ manuscripts (I know of a few people who have earned money doing  this; it’s another way to stay close to writing while you earn an income)

Each of these steps does more than help you start generating additional income. The steps also allow you to continue to use and sharpen your writing skills. For example, if you worked as a copywriter, you could earn $50 an hour, developing banner ads, print ads, brochures and blog posts for clients. As you complete your writing assignments, you could also learn new ways to work with editors and strengthen your time management skills so you always meet deadlines. You could also discover new ways to market your novels, something that will definitely benefit you as you continue to move your writing career forward.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love.

 

Growing up Beneath a Hard Childhood

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By Denise Turney

Childhood is supposed to be filled with laughter, playfulness, happiness, exploration and learning. It’s a time when our subconscious minds are developing. If we are surrounded by love, affection, support and care we learn to trust ourselves and others while we are children.

However, childhood isn’t always filled with fairy tale experiences. Childhood doesn’t always follow love’s plan. Sometimes our parents are too bruised to care for us. Yet, keeping to traditions and perhaps, out of a sense of obligation and guilt, they may struggle to give us what they realize children need to thrive. They may try .  . .

Childhood Gaps at Love

What we don’t receive from our parents we may spend the remainder of our physical experience searching for. We may seek love, affection and confirmation in strange faces. World travels or moving from one neighborhood to another may attract us, whispering to us that the acceptance we longed for and sought as a child is in these new places.

After awhile it may start to feel as if life is playing a mean, a very cruel, trick on us, sending us around in circles in search of love . . . the very thing we were created with . . . the very thing no one can survive without. This is Raymond Clarke’s (the main character in my new book, Love Pour Over Me) story. It’s a backdrop Raymond doesn’t want. Unbeknownst to Raymond, it’s also a backdrop his father, Malcolm, a man with untreated alcoholism, doesn’t want.

Every Child Needs Love

Reports attest that Raymond Clarke is not alone. In fact, according to Child Help as many as 6 million children are reported as suffering beneath abuse in the United States alone. Every day five of those children don’t make it. Their stories are not fictional like Raymond’s. Because they are young and physically small in stature, adult abusers may feel empowered when dealing with them. Over time these children may start to think like their abusers, that it’s always someone else who has the power over them, controlling them . . . enforcing their will upon them.

Yet, these children are not disempowered. They need a voice, support, someone to stand in the gap for them until they step into their own true power. For Raymond this person never comes. He gathers his strength from within, until he can leave home . . . striking out on his own in search of happiness, peace and, of course . . . love. He also uses his talents and gifts to make a name for himself, to start to connect to and feel his true strength. It is my hope that Raymond Clarke’s story will inspire adults (and the people who love them) who have grown up beneath a hard childhood, to tap into their true power, leave old hurts and haunts in the past and . . . thrive in love’s glory.

After all, it’s only love that will save Raymond . . . all of us.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com ($3.03 – lowest price I’ve found so far) and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love.

Sources:

http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics (Child Help)

Report child abuse and love every child you see (young or old). We all need it!

Busting Through Writer’s Block One Word at a Time

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By Denise Turney
There may be no greater barrier to your creative flow as a writer than lack of confidence or self-criticism. You’ll end up spending an hour writing (or trying to write) a single paragraph. It’s frustrating sitting in front of a computer, staring at a mostly blank screen, while, at the same time, you’re brimming with enough determination to write a full length novel in less than a week.

So, how do you bust through writer’s block? How do you put a stop to hours of typing, deleting, typing, deleting? For starters, you stop self-editing during the creative process.

There will be time for that later.

For now, to push past writer’s block, focus on writing, getting your ideas to paper (or a computer screen). That’s right. Start writing or typing whatever surfaces in  your mind. Not only could you leap over writer’s block, you could also unearth a great novel.

If you’re still struggling with writer’s block after taking the above steps, here are a few other steps you could take to get rid of writer’s block.

  • Re-write a passage from one of your favorite magazines
  • Write down the words to a popular song
  • Review the last book you read, writing down benefits readers could gain from reading the book
  • Describe each season in two sentences or less
  • Join a writer’s discussion group, completing group writing exercises
  • Refer to a “story ideas” book, completing writing prompts listed in the book

There is no better way to get past writer’s block than writing without critiquing your work. Remember, you can edit your work later. For now, just get your ideas on paper.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love.

 

Children Preparing for Life Without Their Mothers

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By Denise Turney
Presumably when most people hear that a parent abandoned or walked out and left their child, images of a father pop into their minds. However, as odd as it may sound, mothers also walk off and leave their children. Some mothers, like Raymond Clarke’s mother, leave their children early in their childs life. Akin to fathers, these mothers might not look back after they walk away.

When a Child’s Mother Walk Away

This unfortunate event can occur suddenly, without warning. When it does happen, neighbors, friends and extended family members get to see firsthand how important a mother is to a child. Some children who lose their mothers early might struggle to feel as if they are good enough, worth loving or safe in the world. These and other symptoms of growing up without a mother may reveal themselves subconsciously, going unnoticed by abandoned children for years.

Furthermore, mothers leave their children for a variety of reasons as reported in the July 9, 2009 Marie Claire “What Kind of Mother Leaves Her Kids” article. To be clear, in the article three women are interviewed; these women didn’t abandon their children as Raymond Clarke’s mother abandons him. Instead, they leave custody of their children to their ex-husbands. One mother in the article left her children after her marriage to the children’s father fell apart so she could live the life she wanted, something most people desire to do. She also wanted the emotional and psychological space to write a book about a child she and her ex-husband lost years earlier.

Another mother turned over custody to her ex-husband after struggling to make ends meet while her children lived with her. She has since reconsidered her decision, both her ex-husband and she deciding that their two youngest daughters would fare better if they lived with her. About the change, this mother expressed appreciation, stating that she felt an emptiness while her daughters were away from her.

Children Struggling to Find Their Way Absent Their Mothers

The third mother covered in the article, relinquished custody of her child after she got accepted to a prestigious university out of town. Each of these women maintained or continues to maintain regular contact with her children while their ex-husband’s have custody of them.

Those are the good stories. They are far removed from what children like Raymond have experienced. It’s children like Raymond who might internalize questions about their self-worth well into adulthood, some never getting the answers they spend years seeking consciously or subconsciously. Their struggles might often go unnoticed as they struggle to find their way in a world that showed itself to be unusually hard and cruel right from the start.

Yet, like Ohio’s Raymond Clarke, these children make it. They are heroines and heroes of sorts, ready to take on new challenges, ever hopeful that, the next time, things, for them, will turn out right.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com ($3.03 – lowest price I’ve found so far) and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love.

Sources:

http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/mothers-giving-up-custody (Marie Claire: What Kind of Mother Leaves Her Kids)

Measuring Book Marketing ROI

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By Denise Turney

Staff at book marketing companies aren’t shy about telling self-published authors that they have the skills and experience to help increase, perhaps significantly, a book’s sales. In fact, if you’re a self-published author who has been publishing your own books for five years or more, you’ve probably crossed paths with book marketing staff members who tried to sell you on the idea that, by working with them, you could sell enough books to afford to write full-time.

Measuring Book Marketing Companies Work

If you believe the hype, you could end up plunking down several hundred or several thousand dollars for press releases, newsletters, brochures, websites and social media book marketing campaigns that don’t yield results. This is just one of the reasons why it’s good to do your homework (before you contract with book marketing companies) as a self-published author, to get references and check page rankings for websites and press releases book marketing companies have worked on.

To avoid throwing money away on book marketing campaigns, you can also start measuring book marketing return on investment (ROI). In fact, it’s a good practice to measure ROI on all marketing steps you take. Some tools you can use to measure book marketing ROI include:

  • Customer Surveys (be willing to accept feedback you receive from customers)
  • Statistics (i.e. website stats, email marketing stats)
  • Google Analytics (track where visitors coming into your website from, how long they are staying at your website, your website pages visitors click over to most, etc.)
  • Number of interviews you land following the publication of press releases, etc.
  • Google Feed Burner (use to monitor the impact of your blog and website feeds)

Tools to Measure Book Marketing Efforts With

Perhaps most importantly, you can measure changes in your book sales. For example, you could check your BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com book sales rankings. If you have an account with Ingram Books (a major book distributor), you could also check your monthly sales processed through Ingram.

In addition, if staff at book marketing companies run social media marketing campaigns for you, consider checking the increases in followers and social media comments and questions you receive. Dragon Search offers a free tool to measure the effectiveness of social media marketing campaigns. The tool measures factors like the cost per employee, social media marketing training employees have received and the amount of time employees spend on social media marketing.

Not only could measuring book marketing ROI save you money, it could also help you to spot opportunities for improvement and growth. It could alert you to areas of your book marketing campaigns that you should tweak, stop or focus on more. Measuring book marketing ROI could also keep you from deceiving yourself into believing that, just because you are working hard, you’re yielding good results.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love.

Sources:

http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/marketing-sales/2012/07/09/7-tools-for-measuring-your-marketing-roi/ (Fox Business: 7 Tools for Measuring Your Marketing ROI)

http://www.smbceo.com/2010/12/16/social-media-marketing-roi/ (SMBCEO: 7 Tools for Measuring Social Media Marketing ROI)

It’s Time You Became Great, The Real You

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By Denise Turney
Have you ever been told that you look just like another person? Not only does hearing this raise your curiosity, it may also cause you to question how unique you really are. After all, why is someone else walking around looking just like you if you’re genuinely unique?

Well. There’s another way to look at the fact that you might not be the only person who looks like you. This fact could introduce you to the thought that it’s your thoughts that help to make you unique. It’s not your eyes, nose, hands, etc., but what you think about all day that makes you unique, and this you have complete control over.

You started forming thoughts when you were a child. Some thoughts you formed came as you listened to and observed what your parents, caretakers and teachers said and did. It’s these people you more than likely tried to satisfy, gain approval from and impress. You needed these people to show you that they loved you, that you were worthy of being loved, that it was safe to give and receive love.

Because large numbers of us grew up in a dysfunctional home, there’s a good chance that all your thoughts, formed from childhood onward, about love and safety aren’t serving you well. Add to that, thoughts you have around success, receiving massive amounts of money (feel any guilt, as if receiving massive wealth is wrong or non-spiritual as soon as you read those words; no hiding from the truth – admit how you really felt the first time you read the words to yourself. It could give you clues as to why you don’t have the money you want right now). These and other thoughts are shaping your life. It’s why, if you want lasting change, you have to do it from the inside.

In addition to forming early thoughts and beliefs (a belief is a thought you’ve been thinking over and over and over and . . . until it seems true) based on experiences you had with your parents or caretakers and teachers, you also formed/form thoughts and beliefs based on what you hear on television, read in newspapers, ads you see, conversations you overhear while walking down a street, what friends tell you about men/women, their relationships, etc. These thoughts, many which may have gone into your subconscious mind, are driving your behavior, feelings, willingness to take risks, meet new people, try new things, receive wealth, etc.

Which is why it’s important to focus on YOU and start removing beliefs that are keeping you from receiving the good you want. And, you should receive the good you want. As John 16:24 records, you should, “Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

In other words, if you don’t receive (only you can do the receiving) the good you want, your joy will not be full. And you’ll probably start to believe that you’re small, limited, not great, even while the truth remains unchanged – YOU ARE GREAT!!!!

Brain games, brain sync tapes, audio and video tapes (http://www.recreateyourlife.com), books that focus on removing limiting beliefs, meditation, etc. are tools you can use to remove negative beliefs so you can start receiving the good you want. Doing the work to receive the good you want (it’s exactly what Abraham and Sarah did in the Bible) is necessary.

You don’t want to feel stuck or small. That’s not who you are. YOU ARE GREAT!!!!  Do the work to start stepping into your greatness. Love Pour Over Me‘s Raymond Clarke made this choice after he experienced a life changing injury. Although his was a troubled childhood, he knew he was great. Life supported Raymond’s belief, leading him to wonderful, rewarding relationships, even as he struggled with inner conflicts, until he got completely free. I encourage you to do the same.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love.

Appreciating the greatness in men who father

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Some have quirky habits. Others are social butterflies, always good for a laugh, ready to share a hilarious joke. Then there are serious fathers, men who look at nearly everything as if it’s a critical piece in life’s puzzle. Fathers come in as many styles, personalities, sizes and temperaments as hues in a vast field of wild flowers.

There are also men who father children who aren’t their biological offspring. These men step in and fill a leadership and guidance role so splendidly that the children they care for respect, admire and honor them for the rest of their lives. It’s these fathers we also honor, acknowledging and thanking them for their many contributions to their families and society as a whole.

And for those fathers, like Malcolm (Raymond Clarke’s father in my new book, Love Pour Over Me) who need support raising their children, who need to heal from childhood hurts of their own, take the steps to get the help you deserve. Don’t let pride stop you from realizing your full strength.

If you have an awesome father, regularly tell him that you love him. Express to him how much you appreciate and value him. He might not always show it, but he’ll be thankful for the love you share with him.

Get your copy of “Love Pour Over Me” Now at –

http://www.ebookit.com/books/0000001582/Love-Pour-Over-Me.html