C.L. Wells's Blog, page 7

SELF HARM SERIES ~ ELEVENTH ENTRY ~ INTERVIEWING KIRSTY

Hey, all! Happy New Year! We made it to 2016 and we owe it to ourselves to do the best we can with it. I love starting this year with the eleventh entry of the Self-Harm Blog Series. I’m honored to be a part of helping those who’ve struggled with this problem tell their story. With hopes of helping others who can relate to the pain of self-harm addiction, let us do our part in spreading the ‘word.’ The word is hope. The word is healing. The word is possibilities. The word is Love. God’s love. Your love. My love. Let us begin. Today is my interview with Kirsty. She is a young woman I met on Twitter who has been free of self-harm for a year! Woo-hoo! Welcome, Kirsty, and congratulations on your success! K: Thank you. When did you first self-harm? K: Honestly, I can’t put my finger ... click here to read the full article.

My True Story ~ Homeless ~ An Interview With Valerie Andrews

Let me tell you all something… You don’t want to miss this! Welcome! I’m excited to share my interview with Valerie Andrews with you! Valerie visited my author page one day and commented on one of my posts. She’d stated she remembered an individual from her stay at the Topeka Rescue Mission here in my hometown. For those of you who haven’t read my book, this shelter, which we refer to as TRM, has a huge presence in my book’s storyline. I was immediately interested in Valerie’s story and when she said she’d allow me to interview her, I knew it would a fantastic story. Almost immediately, I realized her story goes so much deeper than I’d ever expected. But I’ll let you read it for yourself. So, without further ado, here it is. Valerie, thanks again to saying yes. I appreciate your willingness to talk with me about your ... click here to read the full article.

An Author’s Journey ~ On Marriage ~ I do or I don’t?

A Guest Post by Elizabeth Diaz Sticking out a Difficult Marriage When my husband and I met, I was 17-years-old and fell madly in love.  My parents, mentors, and friends cautioned us to slow down and take a serious look at some of our differences before getting married, but we didn’t listen.  We married when I was 19 and started a family almost immediately.  By the time I was 20 I had a baby and a failing marriage.  We fought all the time.  I didn’t understand his family (his family immigrated from Nicaragua to Miami and our cultural differences were mammoth) and he didn’t understand mine (I’d lived in a small town in Michigan my entire life).  He worked long hours and I was home alone with a baby.  Shortly after she was born, I got pregnant again. The emotional and physical toll were exhausting.  I grew up in a ... click here to read the full article.

An Author’s Journey ~ The Loss of a Child

A Guest Post by Michael Lynes There is a Reaper…Creation Almost four years ago now I first sat down in front of my computer in my office, driven to somehow find a way to honor the memory and life of my son Christopher Aaron. I thought I would write a few words, something to try and capture some of the memories, some of his spirit, before they became too far removed from memory and distorted by time. I sat there, really just lost, and unable to find a way to begin. Touching back into those memories was like opening a long shut door, reentering a place of fear and failure and pain that I was not sure I would be able to handle. I typed a few words and discarded them. And then I typed a few more, with the same result. I realized that, in order to tell this story I would have to face my fear, and my failure. ... click here to read the full article.

An Author’s Journey ~ What’s Normal?

A Guest Post by Connie Stephany   Normal (Adjective): usual or standard What does that word really mean? I think everyone’s definition is likely quite different. For me, normal was growing up having my shoulder come out of socket in a swim meet and then being able to only swim with one arm. I was sick constantly, missing school and picking up every single illness possible. Later in my life, normal meant taking longer than “usual” to recover from c-sections and having no explanation why. It was having constant body aches and headaches. It was having me cry or scream when someone touched me the wrong way. How do you explain to your 3-year-old that it hurts to have them sit on your lap? I suffered in silence. I thought everyone dealt with those things. Right? Wrong. It wasn’t until a couple years ago when I found out that what was happening to me was anything but normal. ... click here to read the full article.

An Author’s Journey ~ Fired, or Fired Up?

A Guest Post by Robin Helm Never say never. Nearly eight years ago, after seventeen years at that particular Christian school, I lost my teaching job. I had been teaching for twenty-seven years. It was as if I had lost my identity – comparable to dealing with the death of a loved one. I mourned for two years. I promised myself I’d never teach in school again. However, I couldn’t just crawl into a hole and shut myself away. We needed my income, so I had to find a job. During my college years as a music major, I taught piano lessons and played for voice lessons to make extra money. I was young and impatient, so teaching piano wasn’t much fun. I told myself that I wasn’t cut out to be a piano teacher. The first full-time job I had after I finished college was as a bank teller. ... click here to read the full article.

An Author’s Journey ~ One Small Scrap

A Guest Post by Earl Chinnici Cathy and I had known each other approximately seven years, yet never met in person. Now this was the week of her birthday and since I had little money, I decided to give my dear friend a glimpse into “my world” through the lens of a built-in camera on a miniature laptop computer. I was clueless at the time, but my world was about to drastically change. I phoned Cathy mid-morning and wished her a happy birthday. She seemed genuinely delighted as I told her of my intended gift and shared the information that she’d need to connect. When she started receiving the first images from the camera, her voice echoed her excitement even more. I gave her a tour of my home and yard. We were having so much fun. In fact, we enjoyed nearly an hour together before our schedules demanded that ... click here to read the full article.

An Author’s Journey ~ One Small Scrap

A Guest Post by Earl Chinnici Cathy and I had known each other approximately seven years, yet never met in person. Now this was the week of her birthday and since I had little money, I decided to give my dear friend a glimpse into “my world” through the lens of a built-in camera on a miniature laptop computer. I was clueless at the time, but my world was about to drastically change. I phoned Cathy mid-morning and wished her a happy birthday. She seemed genuinely delighted as I told her of my intended gift and shared the information that she’d need to connect. When she started receiving the first images from the camera, her voice echoed her excitement even more. I gave her a tour of my home and yard. We were having so much fun. In fact, we enjoyed nearly an hour together before our schedules demanded that ... click here to read the full article.

An Author’s Journey ~ With Asperger’s Syndrome

A Guest Post by Melissa Miles From the first moment I saw a baby in the Neonatal ICU, I knew that I wanted to be a nurse. Taking care of children who were fragile and needed special care was a calling for me. Though challenging at times, I spent five years working in neonatal and pediatric intensive care before taking some time off to have children. Nothing in my career taking care of other people’s children prepared me for the day that we learned our four-year old little boy was on the Autism spectrum. He was attending a special preschool at the time for children with developmental delays. We had made the assumption that his delays were all physical ones–motor skill delays. He teacher recognized the symptoms of autism and suggested with see a psychologist. Now I found myself in a completely new and terrifying role. I was no longer ... click here to read the full article.

An Author’s Journey ~ With Chronic Pain

A Guest Post by Alex McGilvery Over the years I’ve dealt with being fired, poor, homeless, not to mention some time as a single parent after my wife’s accident left her unable to parent for the better part of a year. There have been some real highlights too, the resurrection of our marriage, the continuing joy of being a parent and now a grandparent. Through all that and more I have been an author and reviewer. None of it stopped me from writing though some caused more turmoil for my characters. The first thing to slow the flow of words is the literal pain in the neck, which I carry around as a daily challenge. Think of a mild migraine headache which started some five years ago and hasn’t let up since. If I listed all the things I’ve tried in that time I would double the word count for ... click here to read the full article.