Tag Archives: writing

Life on Your Terms: How to Get What You Really Want

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Today it is my pleasure to welcome author Tanya Russell and her self-help book, Life on Your Terms: How to Get What You Really Want.

Author’s description

What a shame it would be to come to the end of your life and look back and say, “That was it?”

Life on Your Terms is a practical blueprint for how to feel fulfilled while creating the life you imagine. No matter what situation you find yourself in today, there is a bright future waiting for you. Applying the skills and practices in this book will launch you to that place and beyond, faster than you ever imagined possible.

In this practical guidebook, the author compresses decades of lessons learned from her wins and failures as a businesswoman and single mother into actionable steps to achieve the life you truly desire. Once bankrupt but now financially free, her courage, faith and strong desire for something more for herself and her children have driven her to seek out ways to create exactly that.

Don’t live the same day every day and call it a life. Apply these foundational principles and rewrite your future today.

About the Author

Tanya Russell is a successful multi-business owner and life coach. Her passions are her family, continued personal growth, and empowering others to live their very best lives. Tanya enjoys fast cars, motorcycles and travelling. She is currently enjoying the Okanagan lifestyle in Kelowna, BC, Canada.

Find the Author

WEBSITE: lifemyway.ca
FACEBOOK: @lifeandloveonyourterms
INSTAGRAM: @tanyarussell_author_coach
GOODREADS: Tanya Russell

Buy the Book

AMAZON.COM https://amazon.com/dp/022885069X
AMAZON.CA https://amazon.ca/dp/022885069X
BOOKSHOP https://bookshop.org/books/life-on-your-terms-how-to-get-what-you-really-want-9780228850700/9780228850694
BARNES & NOBLE https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/life-on-your-terms-tanya-russell/1139625062
BOOK DEPOSITORY https://www.bookdepository.com/Life-on-Your-Terms-Tanya-Russell/9780228850694
KOBO https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/life-on-your-terms-1
SMASHWORDS https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1087256
APPLE BOOKS https://books.apple.com/us/book/life-on-your-terms-how-to-get-what-you-really-want/id1570530448

Yes, there is a giveaway

The author will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Enter here to win.

This post is part of a tour sponsored by Goddess Fish. Check out all the other tour stops. If you drop by each of these and comment, you will greatly increase your chances of winning.

An Exclusive Excerpt

Think BIG

As we come to the action section of this chapter, I want you to think big. You have to set goals that are almost out of reach.

If you set a goal that is attainable without much work or thought, you are stuck with something below your true talent and potential. —Steve Garvey

So often we limit what we believe is possible for ourselves. It doesn’t cost us anything to have big goals, but what might the long-term cost be to not dreaming big enough? Michelangelo once said, “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low, and we reach it.”

Obituary Test

When goal setting, I often start with my long-term goals and then work backwards. One fun way to do this is to think about your funeral. On the day that they’re putting me in the ground, what’s going to be said about me? What would I want to be said about me? Will my children stand up there and say, “Wow, friends, don’t be sad. My mom lived an amazing, full life. She helped so many people. She made a positive impact everywhere she went. She traveled to all these incredible places. She lived in the home of her dreams. She left us a legacy. She lived life to the fullest.”

What do you want to be said about you? When you are on your deathbed, don’t have regrets. Really think about this and include all the things that are super important for you to achieve in your time here on Earth.

Thank you!

Tanya Russell — we appreciate your sharing your book Life on Your Terms: How to Get What You Really Want with us! Best of luck with sales, and with all of your future writing.

A Country Of Eternal Light

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Today it is my pleasure to welcome author Darby Harn and his speculative fiction novel, A Country Of Eternal Light.

Author’s description

“One of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read” – Sunyi Dean, author of The Book Eaters

 

A rogue black hole tears apart the solar system. Mairead’s life is already in pieces.

 

The Earth has less than a year to survive.

 

Asteroids rain hell; earthquakes rattle cities; manic tides swamp coasts. Mairead intends to give herself to the erratic waves that erode her remote Irish island, the same that claimed her child. When Gavin, an American, arrives to scatter his father’s ashes, she becomes torn between wanting for life and death.

 

Despite the tides, fuel shortages, and closing borders that threaten to trap him on the island, Gavin can’t seem to scatter the ashes. He doesn’t know how to let go any more than Mairead does and they find a strange comfort in their confusion.

 

Their affair draws Mairead back to the world of the living, but the longer Gavin stays, the more it seems there might be a future for them. There is no future.

 

Life closes down around them. The world they know shreds. Life drains into an inescapable abyss. And yet Mairead fights, both the gravity of her grief and the restless, dissonant desire to find some kind of peace no matter how brief.

Guest Post

In my books I’ve always have one minor character who insists on playing a larger role in the story. So I love to ask authors if there was such a character in their novel.

Darby Harn appears to be as plagued by them as I am, and just as grateful. I loved the details in his answer!

There certainly was.

Aoife (pronounced ‘ee-fah’) came out of nowhere in A Country Of Eternal Light. She is Mairead’s best friend and a fellow nurse, conscripted at least, at the nursing home on their remote Irish island of Inishèan.

She showed up in a brief scene at the home and then kept pushing her way into the rest of the novel. In many ways she’s the comic relief. It’s a dark book. It’s a sober book that deals with very difficult emotions. I think the book wanted for someone like Aoife. Her approach to the end of the world is to simply live her life to the fullest.

She’s more than just the comic relief, though. Aoife became an integral part of the story. She has an arc, which in many ways is as tragic as anyone else’s. Aoife may be the life of the party in many respects, but she also has her share of demons. My absolute favorite scene in the book involves Aoife and Mairead getting through a bad night with some recreational aids and Aoife’s spirit really comes out there. Her inhibitions fall away, or what few she has.

I love the character who is completely unexpected. I have a similar character in my Eververse series of superhero novels, beginning with Ever The Hero. I needed someone to open the door and check in on the heroine, Kit. That turned out to be Abi, and Abi wouldn’t leave the stage. Much like Aoife she became integral and in Abi’s case, she became a pillar of this series as it’s evolved.

I’m a pantser, so most of what I write is intuitive. That has its downsides sometimes, but one of the benefits of discovering your story as you go are characters like Aoife and Abi. I simply can’t imagine the books without them.

 

Darby Harn’s Story

Darby Harn studied at Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland, as part of the Irish Writing Program. He is the author of the sci-fi superhero novel EVER THE HERO. His short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Interzone, Shimmer, The Coffin Bell and other venues.

Find the Author

Website: darbyharn.com
Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/darbyharn
Goodreads: goodreads.com/darby_harn
Twitter: twitter.com/DarbyHarn
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Darby-Harn-255976537767428

Buy the Book

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Country-Eternal-Light-Darby-Harn-ebook/dp/B0921W3QNF

Yes, there is a giveaway

The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Enter here to win.

This post is part of a tour sponsored by Goddess Fish. Check out all the other tour stops. If you drop by each of these and comment, you will greatly increase your chances of winning.

My Favorite Excerpt

Ma shuffles into the kitchen, coat on like she’s going somewhere. She sees the radio and remembers.

“Not today,” I say, but she switches it on anyway.

Six past and now time for today’s obituaries. Katie Burke, Kilmurvey, Co. Galway, 14th October, suddenly, sadly missed. Iranian quake toll rises. Russian oil fields under water. The Pope condemns American abortion initiative for all remaining pregnancies. Scientists hold vigil over Saturn, her rings scattered like a snowdrift across a country road. All her moons buckshot. Jupiter suffers the most, swollen and bruised like an aging prizefighter, determined to die in the ring.

The government handed out these little LED tickers. Alarm clocks, like, to put on the refrigerator. Counts down the seconds until the rogue black hole intersects the orbit of earth. A year from now. That’s all we have left.

If that.

The tides will drown us first. One of the comets will hit us. A planet or a moon will, or comes close enough to yank the earth from its orbit. What difference does it make? What difference is cancer? Parkinson’s. A heart attack. A bullet. A car. A black hole. All our deaths are projectiles, hurtling through blood streams or interstellar space or dark coastal roads at targets with no proper sense of the size of the barrel they’re swimming in.

I switch the radio off. “I don’t want to hear this.”

Thank you!

Darby Harn — we appreciate your sharing your book A Country Of Eternal Light with us! Best of luck with sales, and with all of your future writing.

Rise and Fall of My Beloved

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Today it is my pleasure to welcome poet Utanu Maa and her book Rise and Fall of My Beloved.

 

Author’s description

Rise and Fall of My Beloved is a collection of poetry and prose about resilience—about the experience of stigma and rejection, disease and suffering, love and care, loss and grief—and also a testimony of gratitude, forgiveness and togetherness. Each of its three parts is a journey through life’s struggles, pain and loss, all of which require an inner force to overcome, build, rebuild, succeed and heal: resilience. It expresses an undercurrent to an imposed destiny or stigma.

 

Based on the life experience of my late brother, Rise and Fall of My Beloved is a tribute to mankind’s resilience to overcome adversities. The book takes readers from his vulnerable childhood as a neglected orphan set to die, through a childhood in which he was bullied, to his rise as an accomplished engineer, and sadly to his fall as a dying patient of HIV/AIDS. Each poem depicts the essence of unconditional love and care, the dignity of dying of AIDS, forgiveness, and family bond. This book is a manifesto of my brother’s exceptional resilience, the best memory of him that will live forever. It is an invitation, an inspiration, a reflection that, when mankind encounters struggles, disease, pain, death, loss, grief, we have to grieve and heal, and rebuild.

About the Author

I am Utanu MAA. I live in Toronto and work as a public servant within the Ontario Court of Justice. Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa, where I studied French Literature and Law before migrating to Canada in 1991, and thereafter studied Fashion Marketing, Paralegal and Law (1year) programs. In 2004, I was a recipient of a prize for the Poetry contest organized by Canada Heritage during the celebration of the Francophonie. “Couleur d’une langue” (The Color of a language), my unpublished poem about the diversity and different accents that give rhythm and power to a language to become an umbrella of one identity. “Rise and Fall of My Beloved” is also my own journey into unconditional love and care, and the resilience to deal with pain, loss, grief, to grieve, heal and continue with life after my brother’s death.

Find the Author

Connect with Utanu Maa at her website or on Facebook.

Buy the Book

AMAZON.COM https://amazon.com/dp/0228836506
AMAZON.CA https://amazon.ca/dp/0228836506
KINDLE https://amazon.com/dp/B08M2DNJHP
BOOKSHOP https://bookshop.org/books/rise-and-fall-of-my-beloved/9780228836506
INDIGO CHAPTERS https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/rise-and-fall-of-my/9780228836513-item.html
BARNES & NOBLE https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rise-and-fall-of-my-beloved-utanu-maa/1138021915
BOOK DEPOSITORY https://www.bookdepository.com/Rise-and-Fall-of-My-Beloved-Utanu-Maa/9780228836506
RAKUTEN KOBO https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/rise-and-fall-of-my-beloved
SMASHWORDS https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1051884
APPLE BOOKS https://books.apple.com/us/book/rise-and-fall-of-my-beloved/id1538242460

Yes, there is a giveaway

The author will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Enter here to win.

This post is part of a tour sponsored by Goddess Fish. Check out all the other tour stops. If you drop by each of these and comment, you will greatly increase your chances of winning.

An Excerpt Just for Readers of This Blog

The Speech

He lacked the speech and was teased, mocked.

People regularly targeted, labelled, and bullied him.

They did not believe in his ability to learn and succeed,

They repeatedly told him loudly, in his face

And ears with intent to persuade him about himself.

They predestined him for failure because he was unable to speak.

He remained silent for a long time, listening carefully.

He observed motions on their lips; he absorbed words and sounds.

Then, one early morning, still in bed,

While everyone was in their last dream or nightmare,

And when time had healed and ended his grieving,

The miracle happened: he spoke!

Words and sounds gusted out of his mouth

Like a volcano erupting after a century of long sleep,

He spoke, he spoke, and he spoke volumes!

He talked firmly to himself or maybe to an invisible entity or spirit,

Repeating verbatim words that he had been absorbing:

The same terms used to tease, label, and mock him,

To bully and denigrate him, to silence him and cast him out.

From the bed where I slept, after we were allowed,

I saw him walking outside like a soldier going to war,

Brave and determined to defend his persona with words!

The struggle was out there, and he went to fight it

With his only but most potent weapon: words!

Words used in a common way: verbally, loudly, and firmly.

He knew the power of words, used for any purpose.

Now equally equipped to face the struggle in his early life,

He spoke correctly just as he had observed words on lips,

Using the same words to tease, mock, or intimidate.

To the big disbelief of all, though I had prayed and pleaded

To my ancestors and God that one day he would speak,

Zola had proven at last his ability to pronounce words.

Soon he would go to school to learn words in books,

To write words on a blackboard or in a notebook,

On a wall or on the ground, carving on a tree or on leaves.

Words pronounced in speech to make a statement,

Words spoken with confidence in a native or foreign language,

Words used to argue, defend opinions, convince, and lead,

Words that would further educate and engineer his brain,

Words as a tool to beat all odds and rise exceptionally like a star,

Indeed, words were clearly spoken by his mouth from this point on.

What liberation, relief, blessing, and privilege!

Thank you!

Utanu Maa — we appreciate your sharing one of your poems with us! Best of luck with sales of Rise and Fall of My Beloved, and with all of your future writing.