Category Archives: Writing Musings

Musings from author Denise Turney on writing, including freelance, marketing, self-help, nonfiction and journal writing. Here you will find book marketing tips as well as advice on places where you can go to sharpen your craft and network with other writers, including novelists. You’ll also find places where you can network with readers, editors, publishers and literary agents.

11 Signs You Need a Break

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

photo of man in need of a break sleeping on sofa
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Signs you need a break can be hard to spot, especially if you’re a hard charger. My hand is raised high on this one. Often, I’m on the go-go-go cycle. It’s a rare day when I sit down. Hopefully, you’re better than me in this area. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when you don’t feel like you need a break from social, family or work responsibilities.

In fact, whether you’re a hard charger or live a life at a more balanced pace, you might feel as if nothing has changed even as you’re starting to exhaust. Also, if you’re generally relaxed and accept experiences without a lot of resistance, you may not notice that your emotions are shifting. But that doesn’t mean that you aren’t tired and need a break.

Practice Awareness to Spot When You’re in Need of a Break

This is a reason why it’s important to practice awareness. Yet don’t just pay attention to how you’re feeling.  Pay attention to your thoughts. And be honest about emotions that you’re experiencing and thoughts, including troubling thoughts, that you’re having.

For example, if you feel anger, be honest and admit that’s the emotion you’re feeling. Avoid searching for someone to blame for why you feel the emotion “anger”. Just acknowledge that it’s the emotion you’re experiencing. Anger, like all emotions, will come and go.

Or you could feel peace, happiness, jealousy, frustration or tired and in need of a break. Emotions that you feel do not define you. No one owns an emotion. In fact, as you continue to practice awareness, you’ll see how emotions and thoughts come and go. It’s when emotions get stuck or keep returning with short intervals that you could be receiving signs that you need to take a mental break.

11 Signs You Need a Break

Here are 11 signs that you may be in need of a break, mentally and/or physically. Love yourself, engage in rest best practices (which will be covered later in this article) and be patient with yourself.

  1. After sleeping 8 or more hours, you still feel tired or sleepy
  2. Thoughts feel like they’re racing or coming at you way too fast
  3. Appetite changes find you wanting to eat a lot or not wanting to eat at all
  4. Sleep is hard to come by no matter how long you lay in bed
  5. Nearly everything irritates you
  6. Desire to go outdoors starts to wane
  7. Exercise is the last thing you want to do even if you have a history of exercising every day
  8. Emotions feel charged or stronger than normal
  9. Sugars and fattening foods seem like the cure all for everything
  10. Emotional outbursts are becoming a daily event for you
  11. Focusing seems to take way too much energy

Rest Best Practices

Now, how to keep advancing when you’re tired and need a break. The best practice is to rest in God or to rest in the Creator and to accept that you’re always and only loved. Other rest best practices to take include:

  • Raise your hands in the morning and stretch, allowing appreciation
  • Speak with someone in the morning. You could do this in-person, over the telephone, via video or text.
  • Perform cardio at your desk at least once a day
  • Get outdoors and enjoy a walk
  • Drink plenty of water
  • Avoid drinking sugary and/or caffeinated beverages (or minimize the amount of sugary, caffeinated beverages that you drink)
  • Practice awareness
  • Rest an hour before retiring to bed
  • Sleep at least 6 sound hours a night
  • Reach out to family and friends – stay connected
  • Do at least three things that you love every day (for me, writing novels is on that list!)
  • Write down 3 good things that you do each day (you just might surprise yourself)
  • Meditate 5 to 10 minutes a day
  • Pick a day and focus on having fun and relaxing
  • Let other people help you
  • Open your windows and blinds and let loads of natural sunlight into your home
  • Seek help when you know you could use support

Sure. You could ignore the signs that you’re in need of a break. But that may not improve your situation. Instead, add rest best practices to your daily patterns. Also, acknowledge how you’re feeling and thinking. And rest in God and know that you are always and only loved.

Why You Should Use Book Marketing Analytics

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By African American Books Writer Denise Turney

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Book marketing analytics are a writer’s best friend. Why? Book marketing can be a challenge for authors. This is due, in part, to the fact that authors, particularly novelists, rely on imagination and creativity, not hard facts, to develop their works. While writing, creativity, imagination and relying on the muse are blessings. They aren’t necessarily blessings during the book marketing process.

Book Marketing Options

In fact, novelists can sink into magical thinking after their books are published. Fortunately, there are doors that lead from fiction writing to book marketing to book sales. The first door sees fiction writers handing the job of marketing books to publicists, marketing specialists and content marketing writers. But those options cost money.

As a fiction writer, you could go through the second door and use marketing analytics to steer your book marketing efforts. Time may be your greatest investment. It takes time, consistent time, to market books. For example, if you use Barnes and Noble, social media, Kobo, Google or Amazon sponsored ads to market your books, download marketing analytics twice a month. But don’t just download the reports.

Content Marketing Analytics

Review the reports. Pay attention to which keywords are getting clicks that turn into book sales. Lower bids on keywords that receive clicks but, no sales. Also, attend free social media and book retailer ad webinars. Keep learning. Book marketing tools and platforms change. Attending webinars can keep you abreast of these changes.

If you use eBook marketing tools like social media automated marketing platforms (e.g. HootSuite, Buffer, Marketo, InfusionSoft), review marketing analytics associated with those platforms. And make changes based on what the analytics show. Do the same with content marketing analytics.

Also, set up a Google Search Console account. Bing is another search engine it’s good to have a search console account with. Submit your author website sitemaps and ensure they are indexed by major search engines. You can check this through your search console accounts.

Content Management Systems

Additionally, you may want to work with content management systems (CMS) that have robust content marketing analytics. SEO keyword analytics, meta tag description analytics, paragraph length, image alt text, excerpt features and keyword headings are a few features to look for in content marketing analytics.

Another thing, when doing content marketing, perform keyword planning before you start writing landing pages and blog articles. Make sure your writing flows, is conversational and reads naturally. Also, focus on providing tips, insight, guidance and entertainment more than focusing on adding SEO keywords to blog articles.

About Digital Marketing Analytics

Digital marketing analytics can keep you from slipping into magical thinking as a novelist. This is an advantage. Why? Magical thinking could find you believing that your novels are going to sell loads of copies simply because you wrote the books.

If you don’t think you’re doing this, ask yourself why you’re not marketing books that you write. And, if you are marketing your books but not receiving lots of book sales, ask yourself why you aren’t doing what it takes to increase your book sales — even while you keep expecting your book sales to suddenly (somehow) pick up.

Marketing analytics can help you to steer clear of magical thinking. The length and depth of this advantage may be unknown. In fact, this advantage, can save you thousands of dollars. Also, it can save you countless hours, frustration and heartache. Really. It can.

But you can’t just have digital marketing analytics. You have to review the analytics. See what you need to change and make adjustments. This is an ongoing process. As you start to understand what works for you and take the right book marketing actions, you should see your book sales increase.

7 Smart Self-Care Choices to Flip into Good Habits

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Smart self-care choices could protect you from burnout, frustration or depression. Selfcare is more than a buzzword. In fact, if you grew up taking care of yourself because one or more of your parents was missing or chronically ill, you know that no one is going to look out for you better than you can. It’s not just that you know your thoughts, emotions, fears and passions best, you’re the only one who’s always with you.

Putting Smart Self-Care Choices in Action

Today’s busy, at times downright hectic, world requires self care at home and self care at work. But, how can you find the time to practice daily self care? A good start is to be honest with yourself.

Be honest about how you feel. For example, as part of daily self-care acknowledge when you feel tired, exhausted, confused, disillusioned, afraid, alone, helpless or outraged. Also, acknowledge when you feel peace, joy, love, safe, hopeful, encouraged, motivated and inspired.

It’s hard to take action on what you don’t acknowledge. Other examples of self-care include:

  • Slowing down and resting before you go to bed so you can restore yourself with a good night of deep sleep. Meditating before bed, ending work at least an hour prior to bed and reading a good, light book can inspire deep sleep.
  • Trusting inner guidance and opening yourself to healthy relationships, not abusive relationships.
  • Getting outdoors in natural sunlight every day for at least 45 straight minutes. Use sunscreen to protect your skin. Vitamin D from natural sunlight may improve mood. In fact, getting outdoors may be one of the easiest things to do for self-care.

More Smart Self-Care Choices

  • Connect with family and friends every day for emotional self-care.
  • Eat a healthy diet of green, leafy vegetables and fresh fruit. After all, taking care of yourself involves your whole self.
  • Express your thoughts and emotions in a safe place. Examples of self-care expression include writing feelings, thoughts and dreams in a journal, singing, dancing and painting.
  • Set clear boundaries to practice self-care in the workplace. For instance, you can set clear work start and end times. Also, to practice self-care at work, take regular breaks, enjoy your lunch away from your desk and speak up if you experience bullying or abuse of any kind.
  • Spend time with friends during lunch at least once a month to practice self-care at work. It’s good to be alone. But you don’t want to overdo it.
  • Listen to encouraging, uplifting music, podcast and radio shows. The same goes for books.

Above all, treat yourself like you’re the best friend you have. Remove yourself from verbal, physical, sexual or any other form of abuse. For emotional self-care, speak love to yourself.

For example, you could state kind facts about yourself in front of a mirror in the morning. You could also write down one good thing that you do each day and list it in your appreciation or gratitude journal. These are just a few self-care ideas that you could flip into healthy habits.

Smart Writers Avoid These Story Missteps

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Writers can learn a lot from real life and the arts. In fact, inspiration for these writing tips came to me while watching a television drama. As interesting as the plot for the television drama was, the characters made too many mindless choices to keep me hooked.

After a while, I felt too frustrated watching the characters make choices that would put anyone’s life in jeopardy. Kindergarteners would know better than to do what these characters did. It was more evidence that great storytelling takes work, more than an intriguing plot.

To Tell Great Stories Writers Avoid These Mistakes

Because the acting was good, I actually tried to figure out why the characters in the TV drama were unbelievable. A possible reason could be that the producers and directors were so focused on the story that they often tossed practicality and common sense to the wind. And it’s easy to do, which brings us back to story development.

To sharpen your writing craft, consider practical real-life patterns and traditions as you write. In other words, don’t have a novel character raise six kids as a single parent, operate her own multi-million-dollar business and run two marathons a year, all without ever feeling tired. Even if you’re writing fiction, write believable characters. The more real characters you write feel and seem, the better.

Also, avoid these story missteps:

  • Misalign character motives to what you reveal about the character’s childhood, development and experiences. In other words, don’t make a pastor have a marital affair just because the pastor moved to a new town or just because a woman tried to seduce him. Give the character strong, believable motives.
  • Craft story scenes were women close the front door, not once lock the door, and go upstairs or into the basement without so much as a second thought. This happens in way too many movies, including thrillers.
  • Set women characters in suspense settings but avoid having these same women characters look through a peep hole or glance out of the edge of their blinds to see who’s on the porch or front stoop before they open the door.

More Storytelling Tips for Writers

  • Build deep, abiding trust between two strangers that have known each other less than a day, the type of trust that, in real life, takes months, sometimes years, to develop.
  • Embed a motive to save someone in a character to the point that the character turns blind, even ignoring her own instincts, common sense and basic human impulses to save the person.
  • Develop a character so that he exhibits only one personality trait, ambition or motive.
  • Limit a character to a single emotion, only allowing a character to express rage, fear, kindness, weakness, intelligence or courage.
  • Introduce fashion, housing, food, slang and cultural trends into a television drama, fanfiction, a short story or other storytelling that did not exist at the time the story takes place.

Power of Realistic Fiction

Great storytelling takes work. Even if you’re a writer who can knock out an engaging story absent an outline or character sketches, it takes time, focus and skill to write a story that resonates with hundreds or thousands of book buyers. For starters, you’ve got to appeal to each book buyer’s interests, ambitions, passions and fears.

Even if you write science fiction books, you have to create such believable characters that readers perceive the characters to be real. Readers have to believe that the story could happen, even if the story takes place on another planet.

And yet, the story has to have practical elements. Readers need to believe that your characters’ motives, weaknesses, strengths and personality traits are relatable. Whether you’re writing a novel, a stage play, major motion picture script or television drama, make sure that your characters use common sense. After all, if you’re a skilled writer, people could think that the choices your characters make really are the best options.

Protect Yourself from Burnout

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By Books Writer Denise Turney

Burnout is on the rise. Even if you’ve heard about it on the news, you might not know you’re nearing exhaustion. Surprisingly, as bad as it feels, burnout can sneak up on you. To begin, there’s the seasonal change adjustments that you may be experiencing, depending on the part of the world you live in. These seasonal changes can zap your energy. With the autumn seasonal change comes less sunlight, cooler temperatures and more time spent indoors.

Reaching Burnout Point

Exposure to less sunlight can cause drops in serotonin, a natural mood booster. Low serotonin could bring on depression, Healthline shares. Also, getting outdoors is a good way to soak up natural vitamin D from the sun. In addition to being good for bones, vitamin D may also help with mental focus and mood. Days with less sunlight might make it easier to reach a burnout point.

Furthermore, if you’re challenged with seasonal affective disorder, you already know how tough it can be to shift gears. You might not know what’s happening to you yet, although you’ve felt sluggish and less energetic at the start of autumn for years. Despite your efforts to push through the sluggishness and lower energy levels, this nagging fatigue remains.

This could happen whether you’re a resilient practitioner, a frontline worker whose empathy and compassion are sought by those battling illness, including COVID-19. It could also happen if you’re a new mom or an experienced mother dealing with motherhood burnout. Fortunately, there is help. It is possible to become someone who has survived burnout.

Surviving Burnout

A first step toward surviving burnout and overcoming the challenge is to recognize signs of burnout. This includes work stress symptoms. To start surviving burnout, check out these symptoms. Although the list is not all inclusive, it could signal to you that it’s time to take action. After you review the burnout symptoms, keep reading to learn about treatment.

  • Lack of or diminished motivation (especially if there’s seemingly no cause for the lower motivation)
  • Regular fatigue (the fatigue may not be constant – but regular enough to get your attention)
  • Exhaustion
  • Experiencing irritability, impatience and cynicism
  • Frequently strained relationships
  • Seeking food or drinks to fill perceived inner voids
  • Turning to food or beverages to lift mood
  • Poor sleeping patterns
  • Difficulty staying mentally focused
  • Forgetfulness
  • Increased body aches (which may be caused by higher levels of cortisol)
  • Sudden, unexplained weight gain or weight loss

Additionally, work stress burnout could find you constantly checking emails. As much as you may want to unplug, you could shift into workaholic mode. This could keep the cycle going.

More Signs You Need to Take Action to Protect Yourself from Burnout

According to the Mayo Clinic, other signs you may be reaching burnout point, especially at work, include:

  • Being overly critical of yourself or others at work
  • Feeling disillusioned about the work you do
  • Headaches
  • Stomachaches
  • Feeling that you have a lack of input or control over your work life

Of course, in addition to these systems, you might experience general burnout systems. Regardless of why you are experiencing burnout, it’s important to acknowledge that something has changed.

As a tip, try to do this without blaming yourself or someone else. Tempting as it may seem, blame doesn’t solve problems. In fact, it could leave you feeling disempowered. Therefore, if you’ve reached your burnout point, acknowledge that you have.

Help For Burnout

And seek help. You could work with a burnout recovery coach. Other actions that may help with surviving and overcoming burnout include:

  • Meditating
  • Walking in nature (in safe environments)
  • Talking face-to-face with a friend
  • Setting a time to unplug from work, social media, etc.
  • Turning off the news
  • Getting adequate sleep
  • Listening to relaxing music that you love
  • Reading books that help you to unplug and relax
  • Writing in a journal
  • Flexing your creative muscles while adding color to the pages of an adult coloring book

Take the supportive action that feels right for you.

Furthermore, you may sleep better if you go to bed at a set time. You may also find it beneficial to wear a fitness watch to bed. This way, you could track how much deep sleep you’re getting at night.

Ways to Protect Yourself from Burnout

And, if you’re having trouble getting or staying asleep, you could stop drinking water an hour or more before you head to bed. You could also try sitting down and relaxing for an hour before you go to bed. Should there be something on your mind, try jotting down a note on what you’re going to do to deal with the issue in the morning. Then, release the issue and relax.

Here are more ways that you could start surviving burnout. To get good results, you may have to incorporate two or more activities into your day. For example, if you deal with seasonal affective disorder, you might use a full spectrum lamp, walk outside for an hour a day and meditate for 5 to 10 minutes before you go to bed.

Practicing awareness could help you to spot your personal burnout, the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. For instance, you may find that you start nearing your burnout point at the beginning of certain seasonal changes. Or you might notice that, for you, the stress cycle that can lead to burnout starts after you take on a major project or commit to leading a big family event.

Moving Beyond Burnout

Caring for a loved one for 30 or more days without a full day’s break, could be another way the stress cycle kicks off for you. Try to catch yourself early. Spot stressors and signs that you’re headed in the wrong direction early. In other words, get to know yourself.

Consider taking vitamin D if you live in an area with low sunlight. Check with your physician to see if that may be a viable solution. Also, pay attention to when you feel more stressed. For instance, do you feel more stressed in the morning or in the evening? Are you feeling more burned out during certain work cycles on your job?

In the remote work from home environment, you may find it helpful to step away from some Zoom meetings. That way, you won’t feel forced to sit in front of a computer screen for hours. For example, you could ask your supervisor if it’s okay if you dial into a meeting instead of using video to connect to the conference call.

And seek help if needed. If you work for an employer, check with human resources to see if there’s free counseling offered by the firm. Other options include joining a support group. Also, be patient with yourself. It may have taken months to become burned out. Give yourself love, care and the time to bounce back and move beyond burnout.

Trust the Process to Live Your Best Life

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By African American Author Denise Turney

lighthouse offering light by water as part of trust the process
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Examine your beliefs to live your best life. Beliefs benefit or hinder. In this world, what beliefs don’t do is go away. In fact, wise thoughts may be the greatest investments you can make. Plainly stated, beliefs are thoughts that have been repeated so often you perceive the thoughts to be true, as if they are fact, as if they cannot be examined or changed.

Notice Beliefs that Hinder Your Ability to Live Your Best Life

Of course, it’s your own beliefs that impact you most. As simple as this sounds, it’s not always easy to accept. It’s so much easier to blame feeling stuck, confused or frustrated on another person’s choices, another person’s beliefs.

Based on personal experience, one way out of this trap is to start paying attention to what’s happening around you. This isn’t a tactic to recall every unwanted experience that you have. Instead, it’s an exercise to see how your thoughts, especially your beliefs, link up to your experiences.

And it may take months before you start to see the links. You may not want to hear this. But it could be even longer before you accept the experiences that your thoughts, your beliefs, are making. Please be patient with yourself. It can take a while to get off track, and sometimes just as long to get back on track.

Patience, Acceptance and Awareness Pay Off

So, be patient with yourself. The process is worth it.

Before you start paying attention to what’s happening and how it links to your beliefs, it’s important to know that you don’t have to believe your thoughts create your reality for your thoughts to work, creating desired and undesired experiences for you. In fact, you may have invested in beliefs that you are incomplete, incompetent or, in some other way lacking, without realizing it.

Those beliefs are working beneath the surface. They are creating experiences for you. That’s why it’s important to pay attention so, you can spot thoughts that need changing.

Searching for someone else to blame won’t change your thoughts. Your parents, grandparents, teachers and neighbors may have called you names and told you what you were and were not capable of. But if someone called you a dog that doesn’t mean that you’d bark.

Live Your Best Life Root Experiences

Why? You know you’re not a dog. And you’ve never believed or thought you were a dog. So, you don’t behave like a dog.

Which again shows that your thoughts and beliefs are churning out experiences for you. Those erroneous beliefs can make blocks of doubt, fear and resistance in your thought system. Before you know it, you’ve convinced yourself that you cannot do or have certain experiences. You’ve created inner resistance.

But, once you commit to change, you’ll start spotting the thought/experience links. And you’ll start accepting thoughts you need to stop and replace. After a while, you may see that the world is like an enormous classroom. Trust the process.

Trust The Process

As it regards trusting the process, Mulukan may know this as well as anyone and perhaps better than most. After all, Mulukan was born into a level of poverty that most will never deal with. By the world’s standards, Mulukan really should give up. But she keeps going.

And so should you. Stay open. Pay attention. Try different approaches. Follow inner promptings. Trust the process. And, trust that you really can and will examine erroneous beliefs until you see that they are illusions, until you decide to let them go into the nothingness that they came from. Illusions gone, all that remains is reality, all that remains is truth. And yours is an amazing truth – you’ll see.

You can read about Mulukan’s story in the book Long Walk Up.

Classic Fictional Breast Cancer Memoir Offers Hope

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By African American Author Denise Turney

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a time of reflection for so many women. For other women and men, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a time of sadness, regret and faith. As tough as dealing with breast cancer can be, there is hope. To start, the hope of being a breast cancer survivor is greater today than it was years ago.

Breast Cancer Awareness

Point of fact, five-year breast cancer survivor rates are at 99% if the cancer is localized. Relative survival rates are 90%, according to the American Cancer Society. From 1975 thru 1980, the survival rate hovered below 80%. Clearly, there have been improvements. Even more, as of 2020, regional breast cancer survival rates are at 85%, while the survival rate for women with distant breast cancer is at 27%. In the case of localized breast cancer, the disease is confined to the breasts.

If the cancer is regional, that means that it has spread from the breasts to nearby areas or the lymph nodes. Distant breast cancer occurs when the cancer spreads to other distant parts of the body like the liver or bones. Survival statistics for women with inflammatory or triple negative breast cancer may differ.

Statistics aside, it can be scary to think that you might have breast cancer. Add in cultural factors and it’s understandable why some women might prefer to skip going to the doctor just to avoid being told they have breast cancer. It may feel safer, more comfortable during the early years, to roll the dice (even if that’s really not what a woman wants to do).

Breast Cancer Awareness and Culture

As it regards cultural factors, Sisters Network shares that, as of 2019, African American women with breast cancer have a 42% higher chance of transitioning from the disease than their European sisters. Hispanic women have a lower chance of getting breast cancer than African American women or women of European descent. In fact, Hispanic women have about a 9.8% chance of developing breast cancer.

Yet, mortality rates for Hispanic women with breast cancer is high. Also, as of 2015, cancer (all forms included) was the leading cause of death of Hispanics living in America. Asian women’s breast cancer incidence rates are on par with Hispanic women living in the United States.

However, Native American or indigenous American women have lower rates. Risks of getting the disease and having to work to become a breast cancer survivor for Native American women is about 7%. More information on cultural and racial breast cancer awareness statistics can be found at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Support Breast Cancer Awareness Discussion Groups

Whether you’re facing a breast cancer scare or have overcome gut wrenching challenges and become a breast cancer survivor, this is the month to celebrate. Even if you’ve received the unfortunate diagnosis, you now know where you have to focus your efforts to heal. And, if you are grieving the transition of a relative or friend due to breast cancer, you may be seeking understanding and support.

Hospitals and treatment centers host and sponsor breast cancer support groups. One of the greatest benefits that support group attendees receive is emotional support while dealing with a diagnosis, treatment and recovery. As a breast cancer survivor attending a support group, you might even develop a lifelong friendship with another group attendee. Check with local hospitals, treatment centers and libraries if you’re seeking a support group. Breast cancer awareness organizations may offer virtual support discussions as well. Get yourself the support that you need.

In addition to the above places, worship centers and community centers host breast cancer awareness events. These centers also host breast cancer awareness support groups. You may also find it helpful to wear breast cancer awareness bracelets or a breast cancer pink ribbon during October or throughout treatment. Reading a breast cancer memoir, including an uplifting fictional breast cancer memoir that’s rooted in real life events could also provide support.

Uplifting Fictional Breast Cancer Memoir

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There are several breast cancer memoir books, nonfictional and fictional, that could offer support, inspiration and comfort during this trying time. Portia is one of those classic fictional breast cancer memoir books that has empowered and encouraged women and their families. Portia has inspired many readers.

A daughter gifted her mother with a copy of Portia. After reading the fictional breast cancer memoir, the woman’s mother decided to fight. She decided to live. That’s the impact that a book can have on a reader, especially if the story creates a deep emotional connection between a reader and a character.

And it’s this that happens with Portia. Named after the story’s main character, Portia tells the story of a successful Chicago defense attorney who, after months of domestic abuse, has accepted that she has enough value to walk free of an abusive relationship. The choice unbinds her, setting her free so she can meet the romantic love of her life while attending an annual newspaper Christmas party.

Getting Help You Need

As if a mean twist of fate, after she meets her true love, she discovers that she has breast cancer. To get through the diagnosis, treatments and possibility that her physical experience may get cut short, Portia leans on the love of her family, her soul mate and her faith. She also has a strong breast cancer awareness support system. For Portia, this all happens at a time when breast cancer survival odds aren’t good.

But Portia survives. And it is my hope and prayer that you or your loved one become a breast cancer survivor, someone who thrives, living her fullest life! Path there may involve more than medicine, rest and cancer treatments.

Love Yourself No Matter What

Here are actions you could take to reduce breast cancer risks or overcome the disease. If the actions appear like too much at first glance, consider adding two to three actions to your lifestyle each month. Do what feels right for you.

  • Get outdoors and exercise daily in a safe environment
  • Maintain a healthy weight
  • Introduce relaxation techniques (e.g. meditation, swimming, soaking in a scented bath) into your day
  • Addresses stressors, working to reduce and remove them
  • Eliminate alcohol from your diet
  • Perform self breasts exams
  • Get annual mammograms
  • Eat a healthy balanced diet of fresh fruit and vegetables

Even more, it’s important that you be patient with yourself. Be patient with yourself if you’re undergoing treatments. Also, accept that you may experience fear around the diagnosis, treatments and lifestyle changes for months, perhaps years. Yet, just like Portia’s story, yours can and deserves a marvelous finish.

Relationship Rescue – Learning To Trust Again

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By African American Book Writer, Denise Turney

happy family smiling from relationship rescue
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All types of relationships, face-to-face and long-distance, can benefit from relationship rescue. Fear of rejection, fear of not being in control and especially fear of failure can be released after the rescue, a shift that centers the union on love. Barriers are replaced with hope, trust, care, patience, joy and love.

Learning to Trust Again as Part of a Relationship Rescue

For all of its rewards, love has barriers to get through, which is a reason why getting to a good relationship requires patience. Fact is, despite its benefits, love is viewed as weak. This belief presents a relationship barrier, whether you are seeking a friend or looking for a marriage partner.

It starts in childhood. Pre-teens push their mothers away when they go to hug them. “Don’t baby me. Don’t make me soft,” are demands children make of their mothers. At first glance, it appears sensible.

After all, the world isn’t going to baby, pamper or be soft on kids when they grow up. The world doesn’t coddle adults seeking relationship rescue with colleagues or couple’s therapy. In fact, even while undergoing relationship rescue, the world can feel like a gigantic foe that won’t stop swinging.

Getting off of this mean merry-go-round starts with introspection. It calls for the ongoing practice of self-love. And it requires learning to trust again. Actions that help you learn to trust again include:

  • Releasing the need to control
  • Letting go of the need to know everything

More About Relationship Rescue

Other actions that support learning to trust efforts are practicing forgiveness, accepting reality and grieving the loss of previous relationships. This includes family, friend and romantic relationships. For example, to release a former relationship, you could write your inner self a letter. In this letter, express your love for yourself. Also, share how you will be patient with yourself as you adjust to life without the previous relationship.

You might list specific ways that you will continue to work through grief. For instance, you might do three things a day that cause you to feel joy and peace. Listening to music that causes you to feel happiness and peace is one way. Meditating in a peaceful area and spending time in nature are other options. Additionally, you might stand in front of a mirror and say “I love you” to yourself in the morning and at night. This is important. Because believe it or not, loving yourself is key to any relationship rescue.

Even more, loving yourself is at the core of learning to trust again. And it’s this lesson that can make a relationship good. Yet, there’s still the belief that love is weak. In fact, men still get teased for “being in love”.

Made to be Loved

But if you get to know a man, you know better than to believe that men don’t want deep love, affection and care. In fact, a survey reported in Reader’s Digest reports that men fall in love faster than women. When it comes to falling in love at first sight, men get hooked 48% compared to women, who fall in love at first sight 28% of the time.

Also, men who responded to the survey shared that it bothered them if their partner wasn’t romantic enough. Despite what some men may say and how loudly they voice it, men want and need love. The trouble is that some men are raised to be so outwardly tough, they can come off as emotionally cold.

If men are taught to avoid loving emotions at all costs (least they be perceived as weak), they could go into conflict each time feelings labeled as “bad,” “soft,” or “weak” surface. That alone could produce conflict.

Art of Falling in Love

Yet, if you’re an expansion of love, it’s not possible to be satisfied with anything less than love. That’s why it’s critical that you love yourself. In fact, self-love is a start to the art of joining in love with someone else. So, before you seek a new relationship, work on the relationship you have with yourself.

Practice self-awareness. Become aware of what you really want. Take smart risks. There may be no better way to learn that “nothing outside of you will make you happy”. This includes the image (or illusion) you’ve created of your “perfect match”.

Therefore, in addition to self-love, the art of joining in love calls for failure. Along the way, you may have to invest in relationship counseling. You also might have to invest in psychotherapy to improve the relationship that you have with YOU.

Why not now?

Love and Trust in Rescued Relationships

Succeeding at love is about more than romance. It encompasses all of your relationships. The most influential of these relationships has nothing to do with romance. Yet, this relationship has everything to do with love. It’s the relationship you have with your parents.

Even if this relationship was fractured or bruised, you can still experience love and trust. Start practicing self-awareness, take full responsibility for yourself and make choices that help you to release unhealthy relationships. Focus on doing what causes you to feel joy and peace. Make this a priority and you may develop a sharp emotional compass.

You could spot when someone is devaluing you. And you may lose an attraction for people, including current and former lovers, who mistreat you. In fact, as you practice self-awareness and self-love, you may stir up the confidence to make choices that attract more love to you.

Finding Real Love

If you believe that love is weak or that love is only real in a romantic form, you could spend a lifetime searching for love and thinking you never found it. Fact is love is strong. It may be the only true strength. And love is limitless. It’s not limited to romance.

So, if you really want to experience love, start by getting to know and loving your true Self. And love every aspect of creation. It’s going to require forgiveness, as we all make mistakes. For sure, experiencing true love requires patience. But, if you’ve ever been loved, you know that it’s worth it.

Another thing, each relationship you have impacts every other relationship that you have. Wishing you the strength of love everywhere you are, everywhere you go.

Love Pour Over Me

If you’re struggling to love yourself or if you think love is weak, consider Raymond Clarke’s story. Raymond was told that love is for weak people. He was raised not to need anyone. But he didn’t create himself just as we didn’t create ourselves. Raymond needs love. He just doesn’t know it.

Can you imagine being told not to let something happen, then the experience keeps happening? Don’t want love. Working hard not to let anyone get close to you. You could get hurt. You might feel like a failure every time you start opening up to another person, which could cause more conflict, more problems. This seesaw experience causes Raymond Clarke to create emotional, psychological and, later in his life, physical barriers, shutting out nearly everyone who tries to get close to him.

Fortunately, love doesn’t give up, proving that love truly is patient, forgiving and strong. Each of us has to open up to love, letting it flow through us. Everyone has to give and receive love. It’s our core. It’s what we are.

It takes Raymond years to accept love’s lessons. How long will you let it take you?

Get your copy of “Love Pour Over Me” Now

Barnes & Noble – http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-pour-over-me-denise-turney/1109600654

Three Great Ways To Connect With Online Readers

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

a romantic setting in the bathroom with a book and candles
Photo by Taryn Elliott on Pexels.com

It’s no longer simple. Ways to connect with online readers are growing, expanding. Reasons readers turn to books are also changing. In fact, entertainment is only one reason why readers choose engaging novels. Technology finds people reaching for books to be entertained, educated, to watch videos embedded in stories and brain train with audiobooks.

Connect with Online Readers on the Hunt for Good Novels

Keeping up with these changes is important for authors who want to connect with readers, introducing their stories and selling more books. Also, knowing why someone seeks books to read can reveal the best ways to connect with these readers.

For example, if someone is looking for books to unleash their imagination, joining fantasy discussion forums could be a good move for an author. Good events to attend are offline and virtual fantasy events. Mystery dinner theater plays, especially plays that encourage attendee discussions before or after the play, are also great events to connect with readers who are looking to enter a world of imagination.

Fortunately, bookshelves are lined with great novels, stories ranging from the classics to modern mysteries to family sagas to cultural depictions. Yet, if you’re an avid book reader, you’ve come across good novels that, had you not accidentally found the books while rummaging through a library or local corner bookstore, you may never have had the chance to read the books.

If you’re an avid book reader and an author, yours is a two-prong goal. In addition to finding great novels to read, you want to do what you can to help book lovers find the novels you’ve written. Following are three great ways to connect with readers online. As a tip, I’ve also included several ways to find and connect with book lovers offline.

3 Great Ways to Connect with Online Readers

To begin, social media is a way to connect with online readers. But you need to try different social media platforms to discover which platforms yield the best results for you. Also, stick with a few social media platforms. Why? As an author, you want to be able to invest enough time in each social media platform to build genuine connections with readers. And:

  • Develop and distribute a weekly or a monthly newsletter. Spotlight your new books in the newsletter. Also, you could include questions that readers submit to you in the newsletter along with your responses. It’s another way to connect with online readers.
  • Post details about your books at book club and book directories that accept book listings. And, if these sites have discussion forums, participate in the forums by asking and fielding questions.
  • Attend book festivals. Bring a signup sheet with you to book festivals. Make it easy for readers to share their contact information with you so you can send those readers details about your new books, discounts, coupons and details about upcoming book events you plan to attend.
  • Speak at colleges and universities. Before the close of your speaking, let attendees know that a good way to learn more about topics you just spoke about is to read your book.
  • Treat people who buy your books to holiday postcards, birthday announcements and other communications that say, “Thank you”.

Finding Great Books

Sure. Word of mouth is one proven way to find great novels. But your family, friends and colleagues can’t possibly read every book you’ll love. Therefore, you’re going to have to search for good books on your own.

If you’re fortunate, you’ll find clever ways to connect with authors. Many authors are seeking ways to find you so they can share their stories with you. If those authors write from their soul, their very essence, you’ll be in for a real treat if you find one another.

When I think back to my childhood and challenging times as an adult, there were books that helped me to keep going, to get over the hump. They weren’t motivational books. Instead, they were entertaining stories with characters I cared about, characters facing long odds who left me with no choice except to root for them. It’s those types of stories I hope authors of great novels help you to find.

Great Ways To Say I Love You

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Rose against backdrop signaling love
Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Laitche

It takes courage to say, “I love you.” After all, love can feel like the most elusive thing in the world. Doesn’t matter how you define it. Finding this sweet truth, let alone keeping it, seems impossible.

Great Call for Joy

Yet could it be that love, also referred to as truth and joy, feels elusive because you search for it in time spaces that do not exist? Check this out. The great writer, Leo Tolstoy, shared that “Future love does not exist. Love is a present activity only. The man who does not manifest love in the present has not love.”

So, if you’re never present could you be missing joy’s splendor? And, more importantly, could you be missing evidence that demonstrates that you are worthy of love? Because isn’t that the thing? You want to feel and believe that you are loved.

Being present means you don’t give into temptations to try to live in the past or future. Mistakes, embarrassment, economic shifts and community and work demands can tempt you to dismiss the present. So too can investing too much time on social media, texting, watching TV and living in the virtual world.

Give and Receive

In the world, it’s almost as if the goal is to pull you out of the present. There’s this illusion that being present causes you to miss something. However, if you notice how much you miss by focusing on future or past events, you’ll see what a trick the illusion is.

Not being present while you’re with someone sends a message that the person doesn’t matter as much to you as a device you’re using or whatever else you’re investing attention in. Show someone you value them by being present with them.

Give them your attention, and your time. Keep at it and see if they don’t start to return your investment, putting aside their devices and being present while they’re with you. Let this happen and it won’t be with words, but instead with actions, that you tell someone you love them.

Great Ways to Say I Love You

When you give love, you receive it. That’s why valuing people and investing appreciation in them is so important, creating an ongoing cycle. Love may not appear as you imagine, but it’s there. If you’re giving it, there is no way it can be absent.

To start giving and receiving love, consider adding one or more of these great ways to say “I love you” to your daily actions. Many of these actions don’t involve talking:

  • Visit friends and relatives. Don’t stop at telling people how much you care. Show up in people’s lives. Let them know they mean so much to you that you don’t want to go long without seeing them.
  • Call friends regularly. Demonstrate that you value them to the point that you want to communicate with them frequently.
  • Invite friends to lunch. Interrupt your routines so you can include friends in your day.
  • Mail family and friends holiday cards, letters and vacation postcards.

Keep Expressing Appreciation

  • Create and share hand crafted gifts. Add a note that expresses how much someone means to you.
  • Enjoy walks and bike rides with people you appreciate.
  • Write and share poems.
  • Share holidays with people who you’re close to.
  • Invite those you adore to your home. Focus on those people while they are in your space. This means you’re not surfing the Internet, texting or watching TV.
  • Say “I love you”.
  • Do at least three things a day that confirm value yourself
  • Get outside and play with people you care about
  • Laugh and have fun without worrying about what someone is thinking about you

Cause and Effect

Each time you love, you help someone to heal. Therefore, don’t just search for truth or joy. Give love. Also, accept that you are worth joy. You should be happy. In fact, you deserve it.

After all, if you’re giving love, you obviously have love inside of you. The aim is to share that goodness, expressing appreciation. Here’s to hoping this list of ways to say, “I love you!” make their way into your frequent communications.

And it’s probably not a stretch to believe that the people you appreciate and let know will demonstrate their appreciation for you as well. Keep the cycle going.