Sara Niles's Blog: Sara Nile's Blog, page 6
March 31, 2013
Amazon & Goodreads: A story
The word Amazon has been associated with extraordinary size and beauty of proportions that dwarfed all would be competitors; in fact, the very essence of the meaning of the name ‘Amazon’ conveys the image of fierce grandeur by association alone. A few examples of the original holders of the name Amazon are The Amazon River which holds the largest volume of water flow in the world, reportedly, more than seven of the next largest rivers; and of course, the famed tribe of huge Amazonian warrior women. Needless to say Amazon is not a name to be treated lightly and in the case of the modern day commercial marvel Amazon, this fact still holds true.
Everyone knows the name Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO and the self-made gad zillionaire, or more accurately according to Forbes, Bezos holds the position as number 19 on the list of the world’s billionaires and number 12 in the United States, with a net value of $25.2 billion dollars (Forbes, Mar. 23, 2013). In case that number seems meaningless to you, Donald Trump is somewhere around number 423 and Oprah Winfrey is hovering around number 168 in the U.S. Forbe’s list of billionaires and in the 500’s in the world’s richest list.
Jeff Bezos is an impressive person to say the least, because he not only pulled himself up by his bootstraps, he made and then sold the bootstraps on an international scale. Bezos graduated from Princeton University and worked on Wall Street before striking off on a quest to conquer the world of online selling and change the face of commerce. Bezos chose online book marketing and sales for his venue and set up shop in his garage with a few employees and within 30 days of startup, his new company had reached 45 foreign companies and within two months, sales became meteoric (Biography.com, 2013), and thus Amazon was born. Although this would have been the end of the story for many entrepreneurs, not so with Jeff Bezos, whose Amazonian vision extended far into the commercial horizon that would include innovative ideas and plans of diversification that eventually resulted in a creative explosion on the world scene.
In 2007, Amazon’s Kindle e-reader changed the world of publishing and media forever, as the growth of e-publications rapidly replaced cumbersome printed matter, forcing major publishing houses and media moguls to innovate and adapt to keep pace. The access and delivery of reading material became instantaneous and the expansion of technological devices such as smart phones, allowed potential readers to carry thousands of books around with them, practically light as a feather, with only a click of a button needed to access the world’s greatest classics. What a wonderful world it was with Amazon leading the pack. The expansion of new outlets allowed new authors otherwise known as ‘Indie author’ (shortened form of independent authors) to produce books by the hundreds of thousands, flooding the market with eBooks; not to be outdone, the major authors followed suit and the day the mega author J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter eBooks hit the Amazon kindle system, the enormous overload of traffic crashed the system.
Amazon expanded from being an online book seller to an online company that sells almost everything, from electronics to shoes. Amazon created an empire by buying up the competition as well as buying affiliate companies and the buying spree is ongoing. The most recent purchase deal is that of the media social giant Goodreads, home of over 16,000,000 online users that includes both readers and authors from all over the world.
Goodreads & Amazon: What next?
The big question now is how will the super-giant Amazon treat the Goodreads free spirits? I personally benefit from Amazon’s portals and opportunities as an author and I also enjoyed the freedom that being a member of the Goodreads community afforded me, so I am one of the inquisitive minds who want to know: Will we keep our freedoms or have we been sold into slavery? This question will be answered in time; hopefully the answer will be a good one.
Everyone knows the name Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO and the self-made gad zillionaire, or more accurately according to Forbes, Bezos holds the position as number 19 on the list of the world’s billionaires and number 12 in the United States, with a net value of $25.2 billion dollars (Forbes, Mar. 23, 2013). In case that number seems meaningless to you, Donald Trump is somewhere around number 423 and Oprah Winfrey is hovering around number 168 in the U.S. Forbe’s list of billionaires and in the 500’s in the world’s richest list.
Jeff Bezos is an impressive person to say the least, because he not only pulled himself up by his bootstraps, he made and then sold the bootstraps on an international scale. Bezos graduated from Princeton University and worked on Wall Street before striking off on a quest to conquer the world of online selling and change the face of commerce. Bezos chose online book marketing and sales for his venue and set up shop in his garage with a few employees and within 30 days of startup, his new company had reached 45 foreign companies and within two months, sales became meteoric (Biography.com, 2013), and thus Amazon was born. Although this would have been the end of the story for many entrepreneurs, not so with Jeff Bezos, whose Amazonian vision extended far into the commercial horizon that would include innovative ideas and plans of diversification that eventually resulted in a creative explosion on the world scene.
In 2007, Amazon’s Kindle e-reader changed the world of publishing and media forever, as the growth of e-publications rapidly replaced cumbersome printed matter, forcing major publishing houses and media moguls to innovate and adapt to keep pace. The access and delivery of reading material became instantaneous and the expansion of technological devices such as smart phones, allowed potential readers to carry thousands of books around with them, practically light as a feather, with only a click of a button needed to access the world’s greatest classics. What a wonderful world it was with Amazon leading the pack. The expansion of new outlets allowed new authors otherwise known as ‘Indie author’ (shortened form of independent authors) to produce books by the hundreds of thousands, flooding the market with eBooks; not to be outdone, the major authors followed suit and the day the mega author J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter eBooks hit the Amazon kindle system, the enormous overload of traffic crashed the system.
Amazon expanded from being an online book seller to an online company that sells almost everything, from electronics to shoes. Amazon created an empire by buying up the competition as well as buying affiliate companies and the buying spree is ongoing. The most recent purchase deal is that of the media social giant Goodreads, home of over 16,000,000 online users that includes both readers and authors from all over the world.
Goodreads & Amazon: What next?
The big question now is how will the super-giant Amazon treat the Goodreads free spirits? I personally benefit from Amazon’s portals and opportunities as an author and I also enjoyed the freedom that being a member of the Goodreads community afforded me, so I am one of the inquisitive minds who want to know: Will we keep our freedoms or have we been sold into slavery? This question will be answered in time; hopefully the answer will be a good one.
March 24, 2013
Grief, Loss and Honor: The loss of ‘Ariel’
My daughter Ariel, my child of 33 years, died this year on February 17, 2013. Gone. No more. Yes, I know the one word statement is not a sentence, by any standard other than my own-yet the single, simple word ‘gone’ is the strongest statement I can think of to describe the overwhelming awareness of how our lives have changed since her death. Gone, yet not just for a minute as if she stepped out or misplaced her phone, but she is gone in the most permanent sense that I know: gone to never return as we knew her. I don’t care to be comforted with the ever after and how one day I will ‘see’ her again- I simply want to absorb the idea that my little girl, my ‘picayune Amazon’ is out of my life and the lives of her siblings for as long as we each live on this great earth. The world as we knew it before February 17th has changed forevermore.
The stages of grief have been my companion in a most intimate and personal way this past five weeks, with each stage coming to visit in a different way each week until the visits of these unwelcome strangers gradually fades from that of a screaming nightmarish intruder to that of a quiet comforter. Anger was the most prominent of the stages and the most expected of the grief stages presented by the renowned Swiss-American psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Yes, Elisabeth, you were right on each one, that I know for sure, because I learned each one well in the past thirty-five days. I was angry for many reasons, mainly because I had a life stolen from me, I was ‘wronged’ and there was nothing in the world I could do to change that. My daughter did not have to die, she was not ill with some unbeatable illness such as cancer, nor was she killed against her will by some random stranger. My daughter was responsible for her own death.
I bargained with myself, alternately blaming myself because I failed her in some way. Maybe if I had said “l love you” one more time or was more understanding and supportive, then she would be alive. Maybe if I had had more money and more resources, I could have prevented this awful thing from happening to her. All of the second guessing, negotiating and bargaining, has changed nothing, not even my own honest opinion: that nothing I could have done would have stopped her from orchestrating her own death. I knew this because I have spent eighteen years of her life and mine, trying to stop my daughter from continuing on a path of self- destruction and self-annihilation.
Suicidal ideation became my daughter’s drug of choice when she was fifteen years old and persisted in her psyche till the day she died. The internal conflicts and mental illness that troubled my daughter’s mind were difficult to displace, even for short intervals during her life. The extreme polar opposites of my child’s mood swings only matched her extremely disparate behavior; she was like two people living in one mind. My daughter, ‘Ariel’, was one of the most complicated and fascinating human beings you would likely ever meet because she was a gifted with unusual intelligence and a brilliant mind. Ariel possessed the duals abilities that enabled her to comfort, inspire and charm in one moment and to become a caustic hurricane of wrath in the next. Ariel was a dichotomy of positive and negative human emotions and a repository of unprocessed childhood angst and fantasies.
Ariel loved to dream dreams of great accomplishments, of becoming an attorney, a writer, a world traveler and activist; yet the world of today and now, was one she could never conquer. The act of living in the moment, and of finding joy among the most common and mundane of daily living experiences, such as the beauty of sunrises and sunsets and the simple joy of just ‘being’, was something that she never mastered. Ariel never learned to love herself, as she was and in the moment; instead, she would only entertain the idea of Ariel the Conqueror, The Attorney, The Writer, titles she projected into her ever distant future and never fully achieved. The fact is, these future goals were achievable if only Ariel could have found peace within herself. Ariel was a great writer and a great communicator, for she could bring you to your knees with her words or lift you to transcendent heights of elation.
I feel a deep loss for myself and for my family, and I also feel a deep loss for what Ariel could have been and would have been. I have accepted this loss as part of my new normal and I will incorporate it into my life as something positive in the spirit of ‘Ariel’ (Shenoa). Ariel wanted to complete her book ‘On the Wings of Moonlight’…….I will complete it for her to honor her and as a testament to her spirit.
Sara Niles (pen name for Josephine Thompson), Ariel is the name chosen by Shenoa for herself in the memoir: The Journey by Sara Niles
Suicide in America:
On February 17th, 2013- the same day of my daughter’s death-Mindy McCready committed suicide at age 37.
Rodney King survived police brutality, only to succumb to the consequences of careless choices made as a result of his addictions (June 17, 2012).
In the year 2010, the statistics on suicide rates reflected a steady rise in the suicide rate to
over 100 suicides per day.
The Balanced Mind Foundation (2013). Daniel Steel’s Testimony before Senate Appropriations Committee; Retrieved from the web Mar. 2013: http://www.thebalancedmind.org/learn/...
Suicide is the murder of self. There is no simpler way to put it. Self -murder or suicide kills more people in America than homicide; currently over one hundred people per day die by their own hand in this country and over one million people per year make suicide attempts. The victims of this tragic behavior include hundreds of thousands of family members and friends who are left behind.
When I was young, I could not imagine why anyone would ever want to kill themselves. The word ‘suicide’ was not only a puzzling phenomenon; it was a concept that was far removed from my world at that time. I never suspected that one day I would spend almost 18 years of my life in imminent fear of suicide robbing me of my child, my daughter.The Journey
The stages of grief have been my companion in a most intimate and personal way this past five weeks, with each stage coming to visit in a different way each week until the visits of these unwelcome strangers gradually fades from that of a screaming nightmarish intruder to that of a quiet comforter. Anger was the most prominent of the stages and the most expected of the grief stages presented by the renowned Swiss-American psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Yes, Elisabeth, you were right on each one, that I know for sure, because I learned each one well in the past thirty-five days. I was angry for many reasons, mainly because I had a life stolen from me, I was ‘wronged’ and there was nothing in the world I could do to change that. My daughter did not have to die, she was not ill with some unbeatable illness such as cancer, nor was she killed against her will by some random stranger. My daughter was responsible for her own death.
I bargained with myself, alternately blaming myself because I failed her in some way. Maybe if I had said “l love you” one more time or was more understanding and supportive, then she would be alive. Maybe if I had had more money and more resources, I could have prevented this awful thing from happening to her. All of the second guessing, negotiating and bargaining, has changed nothing, not even my own honest opinion: that nothing I could have done would have stopped her from orchestrating her own death. I knew this because I have spent eighteen years of her life and mine, trying to stop my daughter from continuing on a path of self- destruction and self-annihilation.
Suicidal ideation became my daughter’s drug of choice when she was fifteen years old and persisted in her psyche till the day she died. The internal conflicts and mental illness that troubled my daughter’s mind were difficult to displace, even for short intervals during her life. The extreme polar opposites of my child’s mood swings only matched her extremely disparate behavior; she was like two people living in one mind. My daughter, ‘Ariel’, was one of the most complicated and fascinating human beings you would likely ever meet because she was a gifted with unusual intelligence and a brilliant mind. Ariel possessed the duals abilities that enabled her to comfort, inspire and charm in one moment and to become a caustic hurricane of wrath in the next. Ariel was a dichotomy of positive and negative human emotions and a repository of unprocessed childhood angst and fantasies.
Ariel loved to dream dreams of great accomplishments, of becoming an attorney, a writer, a world traveler and activist; yet the world of today and now, was one she could never conquer. The act of living in the moment, and of finding joy among the most common and mundane of daily living experiences, such as the beauty of sunrises and sunsets and the simple joy of just ‘being’, was something that she never mastered. Ariel never learned to love herself, as she was and in the moment; instead, she would only entertain the idea of Ariel the Conqueror, The Attorney, The Writer, titles she projected into her ever distant future and never fully achieved. The fact is, these future goals were achievable if only Ariel could have found peace within herself. Ariel was a great writer and a great communicator, for she could bring you to your knees with her words or lift you to transcendent heights of elation.
I feel a deep loss for myself and for my family, and I also feel a deep loss for what Ariel could have been and would have been. I have accepted this loss as part of my new normal and I will incorporate it into my life as something positive in the spirit of ‘Ariel’ (Shenoa). Ariel wanted to complete her book ‘On the Wings of Moonlight’…….I will complete it for her to honor her and as a testament to her spirit.
Sara Niles (pen name for Josephine Thompson), Ariel is the name chosen by Shenoa for herself in the memoir: The Journey by Sara Niles
Suicide in America:
On February 17th, 2013- the same day of my daughter’s death-Mindy McCready committed suicide at age 37.
Rodney King survived police brutality, only to succumb to the consequences of careless choices made as a result of his addictions (June 17, 2012).
In the year 2010, the statistics on suicide rates reflected a steady rise in the suicide rate to
over 100 suicides per day.
The Balanced Mind Foundation (2013). Daniel Steel’s Testimony before Senate Appropriations Committee; Retrieved from the web Mar. 2013: http://www.thebalancedmind.org/learn/...
Suicide is the murder of self. There is no simpler way to put it. Self -murder or suicide kills more people in America than homicide; currently over one hundred people per day die by their own hand in this country and over one million people per year make suicide attempts. The victims of this tragic behavior include hundreds of thousands of family members and friends who are left behind.
When I was young, I could not imagine why anyone would ever want to kill themselves. The word ‘suicide’ was not only a puzzling phenomenon; it was a concept that was far removed from my world at that time. I never suspected that one day I would spend almost 18 years of my life in imminent fear of suicide robbing me of my child, my daughter.The Journey
January 29, 2013
The Sadist: The Marquis de Sade
The Aristocratic Sadist: The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814)
Many of the common words in the English language have a story behind them, quite often the story itself is as graphic as the meaning of the word; for example the word sadism and its origin.
Sadism is associated with pathological behavior in which one person derives pleasure from the act of inflicting pain upon another living human. The degree of the pain and the degree of the pathology are closely related, such as in the more moderate degree of pathology associated with those who choose to have consensual sex with partners in which one, if not both partners inflict mild pain such as in biting and pinching as opposed to those who like to torture others. Extreme sadists inflict serious pain and harm that sometimes include murder and is a trait of sadistic rapists. Regardless of the degree of pathology involved in the sadistic practice, the word ‘sadism’ has a bad connotation with most people because of its inherent meaning.
Where did the word 'sadism'originate? It may surprise many to find the word originated with a French aristocrat and intellectual: the Marquis de Sade.
The French aristocrat, author and politician Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade spent over thirty years of his life in prisons and asylums mostly as a result of violence and sexual depravity involving prostitutes, the mistreatment of servants and writings involving extremely dark and violent pornography and depraved sexuality. It has been said that de Sade's writings involved every type of sexual depravity and violence imaginable and that no sex crime has ever been committed that is more graphic in nature than de Sade's depictions. The depravity of de Sade begs the question of what happened during his youth to influence such a violent and dark sexuality in de Sade the adult.
A few details from the Marquis de Sade’s childhood could provide clues as to what went wrong:
1. During de Sade’s formative years sex was reported treated as recreational pursuits and women as expendable by key male figures involved in de Sade’s upbringing
2. De Sade reportedly showed violent tendencies as early as age four
3. Religion was introduced in the context of a relative who was both promiscuous and hypocritical
4. The child de Sade was overly indulged by female relatives
5. Uprooted often and abandoned by his father
6. De Sade was sent to a Jesuit school in which public beatings and humiliation were employed
In short: the disrespect of women and the combination of sex and violence in the context of religion were integrated into de Sade’s upbringing. The Maquis de Sade’s may have been predisposed toward violence as a child and this trait was no doubt cultivated by the negative factors listed above.
The value of a loving and stable home in which respect for others and healthy boundaries are modeled as well as taught, can never be overstated. The children of today become the adults of tomorrow.
Many of the common words in the English language have a story behind them, quite often the story itself is as graphic as the meaning of the word; for example the word sadism and its origin.
Sadism is associated with pathological behavior in which one person derives pleasure from the act of inflicting pain upon another living human. The degree of the pain and the degree of the pathology are closely related, such as in the more moderate degree of pathology associated with those who choose to have consensual sex with partners in which one, if not both partners inflict mild pain such as in biting and pinching as opposed to those who like to torture others. Extreme sadists inflict serious pain and harm that sometimes include murder and is a trait of sadistic rapists. Regardless of the degree of pathology involved in the sadistic practice, the word ‘sadism’ has a bad connotation with most people because of its inherent meaning.
Where did the word 'sadism'originate? It may surprise many to find the word originated with a French aristocrat and intellectual: the Marquis de Sade.
The French aristocrat, author and politician Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade spent over thirty years of his life in prisons and asylums mostly as a result of violence and sexual depravity involving prostitutes, the mistreatment of servants and writings involving extremely dark and violent pornography and depraved sexuality. It has been said that de Sade's writings involved every type of sexual depravity and violence imaginable and that no sex crime has ever been committed that is more graphic in nature than de Sade's depictions. The depravity of de Sade begs the question of what happened during his youth to influence such a violent and dark sexuality in de Sade the adult.
A few details from the Marquis de Sade’s childhood could provide clues as to what went wrong:
1. During de Sade’s formative years sex was reported treated as recreational pursuits and women as expendable by key male figures involved in de Sade’s upbringing
2. De Sade reportedly showed violent tendencies as early as age four
3. Religion was introduced in the context of a relative who was both promiscuous and hypocritical
4. The child de Sade was overly indulged by female relatives
5. Uprooted often and abandoned by his father
6. De Sade was sent to a Jesuit school in which public beatings and humiliation were employed
In short: the disrespect of women and the combination of sex and violence in the context of religion were integrated into de Sade’s upbringing. The Maquis de Sade’s may have been predisposed toward violence as a child and this trait was no doubt cultivated by the negative factors listed above.
The value of a loving and stable home in which respect for others and healthy boundaries are modeled as well as taught, can never be overstated. The children of today become the adults of tomorrow.
December 24, 2012
The Role of Teachers
This is a book forum but without Teachers there would be a lot less authors, readers and books.......so in honor of all of you:
TEACHERS ARE HEROES
Sara Niles
Dec. 24th
Christmas Eve 2012
In an article posted on Yahoo this Christmas eve, U.S. teachers are being seen in a new light as ‘heroes’ since teachers risked their own lives to save the children during the Newtown Connecticut shooting, and for some the risk was fatal.
Teachers have always been heroes, the problem is they just seldom receive the credit for all that they do.
President Barak Obama was quoted as saying the following:
"In South Korea, teachers are known as 'nation builders,'" he said. "Here in America, it's time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect."
http://news.yahoo.com/heroic-actions-...
The role of teacher is one that has many facets from that of educator, role model, disciplinarian, counselor, confidant, mentor, and advocate and when the need comes, protector. Although most of the great teachers will quietly go unnoticed, a few outstanding ones received international attention. Three of those are listed below:
Jaime Escalante: The Movie Stand and Deliver (1988) was based upon his story.
Escalante taught advanced calculus to kids who were considered lost causes and he provided more than just knowledge, he mentored the spirits of the broken and gave them hope and self confidence.
“His passionate belief [was] that all students, when properly prepared and motivated, can succeed”
Gaston Caperton, former West Virginia governor
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/...
Marva Collins (DOB 1936): The Marva Collins Story (1981) creator of the Marva Collins teaching method; founded the Westside Preparatory School in the basement of Daniel Hale Williams University, later moving the school to her home. Collins firmly believed in the capacity of a child to learn, regardless of limitations or labels placed upon them- and she also believed the child learns from the teacher’s modeling, from what they see the teacher do than what the teacher says.
Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Co-...
http://www.marvacollins.com/biography...
Joe Louis Clark, former principle of East Side High School in Paterson, N.J.
The movie: Lean On Me (1989) is loosely based upon Clark’s story
Clark the cover of TIME Magazine in 1988
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,166...
Clark used his role as principle to save a school and the guide the misdirected toward the right way, taking the role of principle a step further as he mentored and protected as well.
Erin Gruwell: the 2007 film The Freedom Writers was based upon her story.
Erin Gruwell, the daughter of a civil rights activist, took on underperforming students, creating and personally financing a motivational curriculum that was tailored to fit the needs of the students. Gruwell’s methods were considered unorthodox but were highly effective and inspired excellence in the students, many of whom were formerly labeled as doomed for failure, went on to achieve undergraduate and graduate degrees, and became highly committed to making a positive difference in the world.
From Wikipedia 12-23-2012:
“Following the Rodney King Riots and the O.J. Simpson trial, the mood in our city was unsettling, and on our first day of high school, we had only three things in common: we hated school, we hated our teacher, and we hated each other."[1] This is a quote from the original Freedom Writers. Brought together in the classroom of Erin Gruwell, these students were taught to accept each other and accept themselves.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_...
Read the book the movie was based on:
http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Writers...
So now, would you not agree that teachers deserve our support and respect?
Merry Christmas All!
Sara Niles
TEACHERS ARE HEROES
Sara Niles
Dec. 24th
Christmas Eve 2012
In an article posted on Yahoo this Christmas eve, U.S. teachers are being seen in a new light as ‘heroes’ since teachers risked their own lives to save the children during the Newtown Connecticut shooting, and for some the risk was fatal.
Teachers have always been heroes, the problem is they just seldom receive the credit for all that they do.
President Barak Obama was quoted as saying the following:
"In South Korea, teachers are known as 'nation builders,'" he said. "Here in America, it's time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect."
http://news.yahoo.com/heroic-actions-...
The role of teacher is one that has many facets from that of educator, role model, disciplinarian, counselor, confidant, mentor, and advocate and when the need comes, protector. Although most of the great teachers will quietly go unnoticed, a few outstanding ones received international attention. Three of those are listed below:
Jaime Escalante: The Movie Stand and Deliver (1988) was based upon his story.
Escalante taught advanced calculus to kids who were considered lost causes and he provided more than just knowledge, he mentored the spirits of the broken and gave them hope and self confidence.
“His passionate belief [was] that all students, when properly prepared and motivated, can succeed”
Gaston Caperton, former West Virginia governor
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/...
Marva Collins (DOB 1936): The Marva Collins Story (1981) creator of the Marva Collins teaching method; founded the Westside Preparatory School in the basement of Daniel Hale Williams University, later moving the school to her home. Collins firmly believed in the capacity of a child to learn, regardless of limitations or labels placed upon them- and she also believed the child learns from the teacher’s modeling, from what they see the teacher do than what the teacher says.
Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Co-...
http://www.marvacollins.com/biography...
Joe Louis Clark, former principle of East Side High School in Paterson, N.J.
The movie: Lean On Me (1989) is loosely based upon Clark’s story
Clark the cover of TIME Magazine in 1988
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,166...
Clark used his role as principle to save a school and the guide the misdirected toward the right way, taking the role of principle a step further as he mentored and protected as well.
Erin Gruwell: the 2007 film The Freedom Writers was based upon her story.
Erin Gruwell, the daughter of a civil rights activist, took on underperforming students, creating and personally financing a motivational curriculum that was tailored to fit the needs of the students. Gruwell’s methods were considered unorthodox but were highly effective and inspired excellence in the students, many of whom were formerly labeled as doomed for failure, went on to achieve undergraduate and graduate degrees, and became highly committed to making a positive difference in the world.
From Wikipedia 12-23-2012:
“Following the Rodney King Riots and the O.J. Simpson trial, the mood in our city was unsettling, and on our first day of high school, we had only three things in common: we hated school, we hated our teacher, and we hated each other."[1] This is a quote from the original Freedom Writers. Brought together in the classroom of Erin Gruwell, these students were taught to accept each other and accept themselves.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_...
Read the book the movie was based on:
http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Writers...
So now, would you not agree that teachers deserve our support and respect?
Merry Christmas All!
Sara Niles
December 13, 2012
Mission Based Writing
http://impactbooksandart.com/
Sometimes the reason for writing compels the author until the work is finished:
I was born naturally gifted with a talent for writing that was polished by traumatic life experiences which fueled the passion behind my writing.
Torn From the Inside Out was my first book; the writing of which began in 1995, eight years after being forced to flee for my life with five young children in 1987 when I was only twenty nine years old.
I wrote Torn From the Inside Out using the pseudonym Sara Niles, pouring out my deep-seated pain and anguish of having been a victim of domestic violence for almost fifteen years, along with my repressed fears and untold secrets; thus releasing the shame and guilt that comes with such an oppressed life and shedding it forever.
Much of my education was accrued l ‘hard way’ as my Uncle Robert used to say, for example, my own personal knowledge merged with empirical statistics reveals that domestic violence and family discord tend to follow victims throughout family generations, as Learned Behavior and negative images from childhood, are hard to shake free. It is because of my knowledge of such factors gained after having completed the writing of Torn From the Inside Out and subsequently obtaining education and training in the field of psychology and human behavior, that I realized the story had only begun. In order to properly address the complications of embodied in family dysfunction, two more books were needed in order to tell the ‘rest of the story’ as Paul Harvey (1918-2009) famously said.
The Torn Trilogy was completed in 2011, after almost sixteen years of struggle and strain toward the literary ‘finish line’, the crowning touch of my life’s work.
The Torn Trilogy is a twelve-hundred page mammoth work that includes Torn From the Inside Out, The Journey and Out of the Maelstrom. The Journey is the story of the children of ‘Torn’, as they fought to find their way in the world and Out of the Maelstrom is told from outside my own personal experience as I came in contact with ‘others’, such as the woman who was set aflame and wore the scars to prove it, the children whose animal-like behavior marked them as cases of ‘Reactive Attachment Disorder’ (RAD), as they exhibited the extreme symptoms of having lived in savage conditions with savage people. The third book of the Torn Trilogy broadens the perspective of the massive problem that arises when ‘man against man’ is the common theme within family bonds, as the selected individual accounts defy both morality and humanity. With the final book of the trilogy, speaking as the first hand narrator (Sara Niles), I emerged out of the maelstrom only to find a world of people still trapped within it, thus Out of the Maelstrom stands as a testament to not only the suffering inflicted upon man, but more importantly, the power of the human spirit to survive against all odds.
Sara Niles
I am Sara Niles. I spent ten years as a domestic violence counselor and Trainer, after my escape in 1987, and having obtained a post-secondary education. My work inside the front lines of domestic violence allowed me to come face to face with thousands of victims and victimizers. It was through this personal exposure that I realized how ingrained the stain of human dysfunction can become and how difficult it is to escape it. The generational impact of domestic abuse, dysfunction and violence not only affects individuals by warping the schema of children when their perceptions are most impressionable, but it spills into society via drug and substance addiction and deviant behavior that often ends in imprisonment.
I have always loved the art of great literature, and developed an affinity for the classics at a young age that has matured over the years like taste in fine wine. If had lived an ideal life, I would have written about ideal lives, but because I lived and survived an unconventional life filled with an undue amount of trauma and loss, my writings are filled with the passion and pain of traumatic experiences.
My drive to write about such a serious subject as domestic violence and family dysfunction is integral to my qualifications as a writer: A former victim of extreme domestic violence as a young woman; spent twelve years obtaining an academic education along with professional work experience. My extensive training in psychology, sociology, the behavioral sciences, as well as over a decade working in the fields of domestic violence, mental health and drug addiction counseling, enabled me to include the subtle dynamics of human motivation within my writings, embedded unobtrusively like a shadow and to write the final book of the Torn Trilogy from a humanistic, global perspective.
The Torn Trilogy
Sometimes the reason for writing compels the author until the work is finished:
I was born naturally gifted with a talent for writing that was polished by traumatic life experiences which fueled the passion behind my writing.
Torn From the Inside Out was my first book; the writing of which began in 1995, eight years after being forced to flee for my life with five young children in 1987 when I was only twenty nine years old.
I wrote Torn From the Inside Out using the pseudonym Sara Niles, pouring out my deep-seated pain and anguish of having been a victim of domestic violence for almost fifteen years, along with my repressed fears and untold secrets; thus releasing the shame and guilt that comes with such an oppressed life and shedding it forever.
Much of my education was accrued l ‘hard way’ as my Uncle Robert used to say, for example, my own personal knowledge merged with empirical statistics reveals that domestic violence and family discord tend to follow victims throughout family generations, as Learned Behavior and negative images from childhood, are hard to shake free. It is because of my knowledge of such factors gained after having completed the writing of Torn From the Inside Out and subsequently obtaining education and training in the field of psychology and human behavior, that I realized the story had only begun. In order to properly address the complications of embodied in family dysfunction, two more books were needed in order to tell the ‘rest of the story’ as Paul Harvey (1918-2009) famously said.
The Torn Trilogy was completed in 2011, after almost sixteen years of struggle and strain toward the literary ‘finish line’, the crowning touch of my life’s work.
The Torn Trilogy is a twelve-hundred page mammoth work that includes Torn From the Inside Out, The Journey and Out of the Maelstrom. The Journey is the story of the children of ‘Torn’, as they fought to find their way in the world and Out of the Maelstrom is told from outside my own personal experience as I came in contact with ‘others’, such as the woman who was set aflame and wore the scars to prove it, the children whose animal-like behavior marked them as cases of ‘Reactive Attachment Disorder’ (RAD), as they exhibited the extreme symptoms of having lived in savage conditions with savage people. The third book of the Torn Trilogy broadens the perspective of the massive problem that arises when ‘man against man’ is the common theme within family bonds, as the selected individual accounts defy both morality and humanity. With the final book of the trilogy, speaking as the first hand narrator (Sara Niles), I emerged out of the maelstrom only to find a world of people still trapped within it, thus Out of the Maelstrom stands as a testament to not only the suffering inflicted upon man, but more importantly, the power of the human spirit to survive against all odds.
Sara Niles
I am Sara Niles. I spent ten years as a domestic violence counselor and Trainer, after my escape in 1987, and having obtained a post-secondary education. My work inside the front lines of domestic violence allowed me to come face to face with thousands of victims and victimizers. It was through this personal exposure that I realized how ingrained the stain of human dysfunction can become and how difficult it is to escape it. The generational impact of domestic abuse, dysfunction and violence not only affects individuals by warping the schema of children when their perceptions are most impressionable, but it spills into society via drug and substance addiction and deviant behavior that often ends in imprisonment.
I have always loved the art of great literature, and developed an affinity for the classics at a young age that has matured over the years like taste in fine wine. If had lived an ideal life, I would have written about ideal lives, but because I lived and survived an unconventional life filled with an undue amount of trauma and loss, my writings are filled with the passion and pain of traumatic experiences.
My drive to write about such a serious subject as domestic violence and family dysfunction is integral to my qualifications as a writer: A former victim of extreme domestic violence as a young woman; spent twelve years obtaining an academic education along with professional work experience. My extensive training in psychology, sociology, the behavioral sciences, as well as over a decade working in the fields of domestic violence, mental health and drug addiction counseling, enabled me to include the subtle dynamics of human motivation within my writings, embedded unobtrusively like a shadow and to write the final book of the Torn Trilogy from a humanistic, global perspective.
The Torn Trilogy
August 15, 2012
What do authors like to read?
What do authors love to read?
There many types of books, science fiction, crime drama, philosophy, fiction and nonfiction, but the one thing they all hold in common with best sellers is the writing. Good writing spans all genres of books, from the terse and concentrated style of writers like Ernest Hemingway to the elaborate long winded style of Thomas Wolf or the florid style of Danielle Steele.
Some writers capitalize on the brilliance of their own intricate storytelling with twists and turns in every chapter, a rising crescendo of suspense and a satisfying conclusion that makes the reader happy to be where they are in real life, that is safe and alive, after an escape in to thrilling fantasy rife with danger.
Agatha Christie is one of, if not the most prolific author with over one hundred books and short stories published, not counting the plays and many other works. The best-selling book And Then There Were None (formerly Ten Little Indians), is one of the best-selling books of all time. So what is appealing about Christie as an author? The answer is simple; she was able to marry the skill of great storytelling with good writing.
Stephen King, John Grisham as well as a long list of other best-selling authors hold the talent to write well and tell a good story in common, which of course, explains their continuous ability to create best- selling books. If you have ever searched high and low for a good book to read, you may have come to appreciate the skill required to write one.
Although taste in books is an individual thing, I love to read almost any style of writing if the writing is good and the story is believable and compelling and I delight in finding a new treasure. While doing my usual Saturday morning garage sale foraging, I discovered one such treasure in the form of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, a book written in the late 1980’s when it first became a runaway bestselling book which was made into a movie in 1990.
So what was my reaction after reading Presumed Innocent?
“I just completed Presumed Innocent (1987) by Scott Turow (Hardcopy edition) and was impressed significantly-not simply by the skillfully written story but by the skill of his writing. The entire book flows with literary gems, even normal reflection is laden with deep insight, literary metaphors and beautifully worded phraseology” (Excerpt from my book review of Presumed Innocent)
Now I feel compelled to read Turow’s latest works in the hopes that the author consistently produced in the style of his first masterpiece.
There many types of books, science fiction, crime drama, philosophy, fiction and nonfiction, but the one thing they all hold in common with best sellers is the writing. Good writing spans all genres of books, from the terse and concentrated style of writers like Ernest Hemingway to the elaborate long winded style of Thomas Wolf or the florid style of Danielle Steele.
Some writers capitalize on the brilliance of their own intricate storytelling with twists and turns in every chapter, a rising crescendo of suspense and a satisfying conclusion that makes the reader happy to be where they are in real life, that is safe and alive, after an escape in to thrilling fantasy rife with danger.
Agatha Christie is one of, if not the most prolific author with over one hundred books and short stories published, not counting the plays and many other works. The best-selling book And Then There Were None (formerly Ten Little Indians), is one of the best-selling books of all time. So what is appealing about Christie as an author? The answer is simple; she was able to marry the skill of great storytelling with good writing.
Stephen King, John Grisham as well as a long list of other best-selling authors hold the talent to write well and tell a good story in common, which of course, explains their continuous ability to create best- selling books. If you have ever searched high and low for a good book to read, you may have come to appreciate the skill required to write one.
Although taste in books is an individual thing, I love to read almost any style of writing if the writing is good and the story is believable and compelling and I delight in finding a new treasure. While doing my usual Saturday morning garage sale foraging, I discovered one such treasure in the form of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, a book written in the late 1980’s when it first became a runaway bestselling book which was made into a movie in 1990.
So what was my reaction after reading Presumed Innocent?
“I just completed Presumed Innocent (1987) by Scott Turow (Hardcopy edition) and was impressed significantly-not simply by the skillfully written story but by the skill of his writing. The entire book flows with literary gems, even normal reflection is laden with deep insight, literary metaphors and beautifully worded phraseology” (Excerpt from my book review of Presumed Innocent)
Now I feel compelled to read Turow’s latest works in the hopes that the author consistently produced in the style of his first masterpiece.
What do authors like to read?
What do authors love to read?
There many types of books, science fiction, crime drama, philosophy, fiction and nonfiction, but the one thing they all hold in common with best sellers is the writing. Good writing spans all genres of books, from the terse and concentrated style of writers like Ernest Hemingway to the elaborate long winded style of Thomas Wolf or the florid style of Danielle Steele.
Some writers capitalize on the brilliance of their own intricate storytelling with twists and turns in every chapter, a rising crescendo of suspense and a satisfying conclusion that makes the reader happy to be where they are in real life, that is safe and alive, after an escape in to thrilling fantasy rife with danger.
Agatha Christie is one of, if not the most prolific author with over one hundred books and short stories published, not counting the plays and many other works. The best-selling book And Then There Were None (formerly Ten Little Indians), is one of the best-selling books of all time. So what is appealing about Christie as an author? The answer is simple; she was able to marry the skill of great storytelling with good writing.
Stephen King, John Grisham as well as a long list of other best-selling authors hold the talent to write well and tell a good story in common, which of course, explains their continuous ability to create best- selling books. If you have ever searched high and low for a good book to read, you may have come to appreciate the skill required to write one.
Although taste in books is an individual thing, I love to read almost any style of writing if the writing is good and the story is believable and compelling and I delight in finding a new treasure. While doing my usual Saturday morning garage sale foraging, I discovered one such treasure in the form of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, a book written in the late 1980’s when it first became a runaway bestselling book which was made into a movie in 1990.
So what was my reaction after reading Presumed Innocent?
“I just completed Presumed Innocent (1987) by Scott Turow (Hardcopy edition) and was impressed significantly-not simply by the skillfully written story but by the skill of his writing. The entire book flows with literary gems, even normal reflection is laden with deep insight, literary metaphors and beautifully worded phraseology” (Excerpt from my book review of Presumed Innocent)
Now I feel compelled to read Turow’s latest works in the hopes that the author consistently produced in the style of his first masterpiece.
There many types of books, science fiction, crime drama, philosophy, fiction and nonfiction, but the one thing they all hold in common with best sellers is the writing. Good writing spans all genres of books, from the terse and concentrated style of writers like Ernest Hemingway to the elaborate long winded style of Thomas Wolf or the florid style of Danielle Steele.
Some writers capitalize on the brilliance of their own intricate storytelling with twists and turns in every chapter, a rising crescendo of suspense and a satisfying conclusion that makes the reader happy to be where they are in real life, that is safe and alive, after an escape in to thrilling fantasy rife with danger.
Agatha Christie is one of, if not the most prolific author with over one hundred books and short stories published, not counting the plays and many other works. The best-selling book And Then There Were None (formerly Ten Little Indians), is one of the best-selling books of all time. So what is appealing about Christie as an author? The answer is simple; she was able to marry the skill of great storytelling with good writing.
Stephen King, John Grisham as well as a long list of other best-selling authors hold the talent to write well and tell a good story in common, which of course, explains their continuous ability to create best- selling books. If you have ever searched high and low for a good book to read, you may have come to appreciate the skill required to write one.
Although taste in books is an individual thing, I love to read almost any style of writing if the writing is good and the story is believable and compelling and I delight in finding a new treasure. While doing my usual Saturday morning garage sale foraging, I discovered one such treasure in the form of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, a book written in the late 1980’s when it first became a runaway bestselling book which was made into a movie in 1990.
So what was my reaction after reading Presumed Innocent?
“I just completed Presumed Innocent (1987) by Scott Turow (Hardcopy edition) and was impressed significantly-not simply by the skillfully written story but by the skill of his writing. The entire book flows with literary gems, even normal reflection is laden with deep insight, literary metaphors and beautifully worded phraseology” (Excerpt from my book review of Presumed Innocent)
Now I feel compelled to read Turow’s latest works in the hopes that the author consistently produced in the style of his first masterpiece.
April 6, 2012
The Torn Trilogy: The Flower Bed of Eden
Chapter 1
Thunder rattled the window- panes two stories high and lightning split the sky, it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I; nearly a foot taller and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints. Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive.
Anticipation was so great that I wanted to scream at him to get it over with and true to my expectation he lunged for me, my body did not disappoint me, I flew down the stairs two at a time in my bare-feet. He stalled for mere seconds to enjoy his pronouncement of a death sentence upon me: “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU—YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BITCH—STONE DEAD!!!!!!!” He screamed.
That was the night that I disappeared into a February rainstorm with five children and no place to go. I was twenty-nine years old.
Many people asked of me since that day many ‘whys’ and I gave many answers. It takes a lot of ‘why’s’ to make a life, mine being no exception. Maya Angelou said ‘you can’t know who I am until you know where I have been’; until you know the circumstances and people who contributed to the making of me, you cannot know me. We all are complicated mixes of many other people and life events. We are all of everything that has ever happened to us. If we suddenly got amnesia, we would cease to exist as who we were except in the memory of others. My pain is me, and thus my life that once was, is what made me now. I am the hungry little girl who sat in the sand over forty years ago waiting to be rescued by an ancient old man, I am Sara Niles and this is my story.
I was born in the bowels of the South where willow trees hang low over ponds and creeks surrounded by the lush growth of woody fern. My beginnings were in a place where knotted old oaks twisted their knurled boughs upwards, their majestic leafage allowing slithers of light to penetrate the shadowy forest floors to lend peeks upon the backs of huge Diamondback rattlesnakes; their gargantuan size owing to seldom meeting the sight of the eyes of man, if ever at all. I was born where the bottomland hoarded teems of wild boars known to rip hunting dogs open from end to end and where the narrow little graveled roads twisted and wound their way past humble mail boxes, usually the only evidence of the habitations miles into the forest, accessed by dirt tire rutted roads with a strip of grass ribboned in the middle. This was oil country, oil wells were scattered every few miles, their slow prehistoric movements signaling that the owners were receiving money. Neighbors lived far apart on beautiful little farms or in ragged shacks, with a Cadillac and a television or neither plumbing nor electric power lines. Depending upon which neighbor you were, you had plenty or nothing at all.
My mother had nothing at all, except seven hungry mouths to feed. She was by everyone’s opinion an exceptionally beautiful woman. Her mother before her was a French white woman from New York and her father was a black and Indian man; born, bred and still living in the same area. I never met my maternal grandmother, I strongly suspected that she mated with my grandfather on a purely business level. A business that is considered to be one the oldest vices, the one I have to thank for my very existence. My mother was a prostitute. I was an accident she had with a client, a rich white oilman who found her little shack a convenient stop on his trips from town and she found in him food for her children. Things may have been different for my mother, if a white man, living in a racist time, had not shot her first husband in the back for the unforgivable crime of stealing gas- Gas that he swore to pay for that evening when he left the billet woods. It was a time when racism ruled, a ‘cold war’ between blacks and whites established the climate, and therefore no trial ever took place.
It was nineteen fifty seven, the Little Rock nine were escorted to school by Federal troops under the order of President Eisenhower to counteract the attempt of Arkansas Governor Faubus to prevent it. Southern racial tensions produced a supreme irony: Federal troops against the National Guard. This visible strife between state and nation was one of the evidences of the racial turmoil of the times. The line of demarcation between blacks and whites was decided by color and I was born on the centerline. My bright light skin marked me as a product of the enemy, the white man in the black community. Black women drawled sweetly to my mother that my long wavy brown hair was so pretty in tones meant to be a reproof to her. I was unacceptable, too white to be black… too black to be white.
We lived in what our relatives fondly called ‘the old homestead’. It was the home built by my great- grandparents, a newly freed slave by the name of Henry Howell and his wife, a full-blooded Crow Indian bearing the European name Charlotte. Henry and Charlotte had twelve children, each born in the front room of this now dilapidated old house. Great old cottonwoods rattled their leaves noisily in the wind in front of the house and massive oaks guarded the back, dwarfing the little outhouse with its pitiful croker-sack door. The exterior of the house bore the aged gray look of hardwood that had never been painted in its century of withstanding the pelting rains and the great extremes of heat and cold. It was a tough, neglected old house, abandoned to my mother to house us in rent-free. She could ill afford to care for the ancient structure that needed attention so badly, or us. The job of watching and caring for us fell to my oldest sister, Francine. She was thirteen years old at my earliest remembrance of her, my brother was twelve, and the rest of our ages ran closely behind. I was four years old.
The house had three entrances. The front and back doors we children were allowed to use freely, but the side door facing the setting sun was off limits to us. It was the ‘business’ door, the door that the strange men used; some used it so often they even knew our names. On a rare occasion when my mother was absent, I was molested by one of these men while the noon-ish sun shone through the window. I knew nothing of what he was doing, he sounded friendly. Something was wrong, I felt some odd shame and my heart pounded with relief when my tigress of a sister burst through the door demanding that the ‘no good son of a dog’ take his filthy hands off me in a voice strong with authority and rage that was strange to hear in the voice of a child. He unhanded me without a word and fled as all my siblings ran up to flank her in the ranks. I remembered that incident, though I never once mentioned it again until three decades passed. I merely held my head self-consciously tilted to one side when I walked.
Nothing stood out in my early childhood worth remembering until the fateful day when the world kindly changed for me. My great uncle and aunt lived on a farm a mile’s walk through a wooded trail. Robert Howell was born in eighteen eighty-three to Henry and Charlotte Howell in the very same curtain-less room that my siblings and I slept in on the pallets and old mattresses. Although my mother was treated as an outcast in the family - never visited and quietly talked about by the conventional ones who may have feared their heavenly reservations may be cancelled if they dared come near her- my uncle Robert visited us daily. He cared little for convention and hated hypocrisy; he would not permit either to stifle his compassion for us. We looked for uncle’s visits just as faithfully as we expected the sun to rise, and just as faithfully, he always came. I never remember his coming unheralded by our squeals of delight because we knew he had candy or fruit if not both. Our yard’s stingy spattering of trampled grass wore a distinct trail that led to the East corner where a roofed water well crested the top of a steep red clay hill. Uncle Robert’s head would always appear first, on hot days his hatless bald head would bloom at the top of that hill prettier to us than any flower, He not only brought us gifts, he luxuriated us in his time by talking with each one of us. We loved Uncle Robert dearly and any one of us would have been glad to be taken home by him. I was selected.
The monotony of our lives made the mentioning of the names of days unnecessary so I don’t know what day it was when my uncle took me home, just that it was sunny and warm. I was sitting in front of the east steps in a pile of cream colored sand pouring it’s warmness across my legs when Uncle Robert came.
“I’m coming to take you home with me little Sara. Just let me talk with your mama for a minute. You’re going to be me and Mollie’s little girl” my uncle soothingly promised. I felt something that must have been excitement, although I had heard him say he would take me home before, this time was different. My brother and sisters gathered around the front door trying to overhear the conversation from within. We could hear the muffled conversation getting louder as my mother and uncle walked down the hall to the front porch.
“I’ll find her birth certificate later Uncle Robert. You just take her on home now” adding to “Tell Aunt Mollie hello for me”. And just like that, as easily as one changes shoes, I was given away unceremoniously without tears or protest from my mother. She never hugged me good-bye, nor did she come outside to watch me leave. My brother and sisters gathered around me looking sad, their bubbly excitement died as they followed us down the steep hill all the way to the ravine. They yelled ‘good –byes’ until we were out of sight. My uncle let me climb upon a stump so I could ride astride his neck since I had no shoes. Uncle Robert talked excitedly, gesturing with his hat in his free hand while holding one of my ankles with the other. I was holding his baldhead with both my thin dirty arms. I don’t remember much of what he said, only something about how happy my aunt Mollie would be and all of the things they would buy me. These golden promises meant nothing to me yet as I had no prior means of comparison and I was too distracted by apprehension mixed with unformed expectations.
I knew we had almost arrived when we reached the spring at the bottom of the hill. The spring bubbled up fresh water continually, the overflow created a branch of water that was covered with a plank bridge. Two thick, smoky black water moccasins raised their ugly heads up from the water and opened their cottony mouths in silent threat. I tightened my grip on Uncle Robert’s head. The roof of the house appeared first as we ascended the long incline. A large grayish brown farmhouse, surrounded by bright flowers, arose into view. My senses became acute, recording every minor detail, the smells of the flowers and fruit trees enchanted me as my uncle stooped to unlatch a peg lock on the back gate. My heart was beating faster and faster, my blood raced through my veins with such force that I became dizzy, my hearing muted and time slowed.
Fear ran through me as two large silky black Labradors ran toward us barking hysterically, the barking giving way to tail wagging and happy howls of joy at seeing my uncle. I could see an immense expanse of ordered property. There were pastures and barns, cows and a big-eared mule, chickens scattering across a fenced yard and New Guinea fowl shrieking in tropical song. There were huge tomcats sitting calmly upon fence posts. I was bedazzled. While my head whirled in excitement, I was gently stood upon the grounds on legs almost too weak to hold me. It was incomprehensible to my dazed senses that all of the commotion was over me.
My uncle yelled to my aunt to hurry out and see what he had and in an instant my aunt ran across the back yard with a spatula in one hand wearing a white apron across the front of the prettiest flowered dress I had ever seen. I was being smothered in hugs while my uncle and aunt both talked at once. The animals sensed the excitement and were howling in unison. I tried to see everything at once, such as the number three bathtubs hanging outside against the back porch wall, animals, a smokehouse and old farm buildings. I thought I had entered a new world when I smelled the most wonderful aroma of foods floating upon the breeze; my senses were overwhelmed as the hunger awakened in me compelled me to cry. I was fed while still caked with grime and dirt. “Robert, I’m afraid she’ll get sick. Don’t you think we should stop her from eating now?” Aunt Mollie asked uncertainly. “Nah. This child probably has never eaten her fill. Let her eat till she bursts.” He answered glad heartedly before they both melted into joyous laughter. For the first time in my life, I was home.
I was scrubbed in sudsy lather and wrapped in a towel. My only dress was so dirty that it was discarded. I stood behind my aunt holding the back of her chair while she sewed dresses and matching bloomers out of floral cotton flour sacks. She sang and talked as she wheedled her singer treadle sewing machine. I said nothing. I was happier than I had ever been. On Saturday, I remember because every day I was told to just wait until Saturday and we will go to town, we went to town. My aunt bought shoes, dresses, ‘britches’, baubles, and toys, everything that a little girl who had nothing would need. I remember the things I didn’t need, the candles and soda pops of all varieties and colors. All of downtown was comprised of one street covering a couple of blocks, so in a town of that size everyone knew Aunt Mollie. My aunt told every listening ear, both white and black, that she and Uncle Robert were like Sarah and Abraham, blessed with a child in their old age.
Relatives were notified, they came by the carloads to see me and brought and sent gifts. My Aunt Fannie from California sent two huge packages of clothing and toys from J.C. Penny, a habit she continued for the duration of my early years. Physically, I went from nothing to everything in one week. From no attention to being squabbled over; my emotions knew no precedent, therefore I was overwhelmed in joy. I began to talk incessantly, ‘like a jaybird’ as Uncle Robert said. There was so much to see and do, to taste and touch. I was experiencing the tastes of new foods almost daily. I became a whirlwind as I tried to enjoy everything at once in a frenzy of ecstasy.
My uncle took me with him to visit my brother and sisters each day, they were always so happy to see us, only now I knew that they did not have the good things I did. I used to ask Uncle Robert and Aunt Mollie to bring them home to live with us; I was too young to know what their sad faces revealed. It was impossible; they could only save one, the child most likely to suffer harm. My mother moved away when I was five years old without a word. We went for our daily visit and the house was vacant. A feeling of loss pervaded my happiness as we stood staring in disbelief. Years would pass between brief glimpses of any of them.
Nothing good was withheld from me, even moral guidance was provided as my uncle read to me nightly out of a King James red-letter edition Bible. “Them’s the Good Lord’s words in red,” he would say reverently. These lessons installed in me a sense of moral propriety and spiritual obligation that I would later misconstrue to my own detriment. The strength of character I gleamed from them would enable me to survive myself and all lesser foes.
For the next half decade, I lived on the ‘flower bed of Eden’ as Cousin Andrew called it. The days were never long enough; perhaps that is why I hated to sleep. Seasons came and went in a panorama of delight. The record ice storm of the early sixties was a great memory to me as I watched through steam fogged windows, warm and snug as the loud popping of snapping pine trees screamed with the howling winds. Nothing caused me to fear those years, I felt perfectly safe as I expected I always would.
Those days will be forever frozen in my mind. I can still see my uncle and aunt standing among the prized garden vegetables, four-foot tall collard greens reaching my aunts shoulders. I can see the tanned sinewy frame of my uncle stretching his short frame proudly towards the sky as he brags on the size of his watermelons. I can hear their laughter coming from lungs almost a century old and I can see the twinkle in Uncle Robert’s one good eye. I could never imagine him killing the man who gouged out his eye with a pool stick so many years before, though the relatives said that he did. I only knew that the blue glass eye looked odd with his one brown one set against his tawny gold skin. A semi circle of silky white hair matched his heavy white mustache. I can see the bright flash of his red plaid shirt through the school bus window years later as he walks hurriedly to the highway to escort me home the cold November day the house burned to the ground. Dirt and smut on his sad face. I can still see them. I will always be able to see them in the vivid imagery of my mind.
I used to wish with a fervor that I could have held on to the past and preserved all that was good about it, that I could have prevented my aunt the years of suffering as she lay dying bedridden with cancer. I used to wish that all the good years would have never ended; time cured the wishing as I realized that the fairy tale had to end. It was gone; I would never get it back. The sun would still rise, the seasons would still come, life would continue. I was thankful to have been a part of it; I would take the memories and savor them for the life ahead. I had been given the components that would comprise the fate of my destiny; they had aged into my soul so that part of the past would always remain with me. They would be there for me to draw strength from on days in my future when death would seem a triumph and life too hard to live any more.
It is strange how intricately life hangs in the scales, how unrelated events and single decisions alter the outcomes. Some remote land ten thousand miles from me, some land unfamiliar to me, held the key to my future. A foreign land of war, of helicopters, machine gunfire and mortars held a young man prisoner to its boundaries. A man I would never have met if my uncle had not become sick.
My uncle became acutely ill when I was fifteen years old and asked a young family that he was fond of to adopt me. Life had changed course for me again, the changes were becoming less kind as time wore on. I was about to be thrust into a situation where my lack of experience would affect my judgment and cause a permanent change in the person I would become. My future would become as uncertain and unstable as a howling wind in a wasteland.
Thunder rattled the window- panes two stories high and lightning split the sky, it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I; nearly a foot taller and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints. Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive.
Anticipation was so great that I wanted to scream at him to get it over with and true to my expectation he lunged for me, my body did not disappoint me, I flew down the stairs two at a time in my bare-feet. He stalled for mere seconds to enjoy his pronouncement of a death sentence upon me: “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU—YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BITCH—STONE DEAD!!!!!!!” He screamed.
That was the night that I disappeared into a February rainstorm with five children and no place to go. I was twenty-nine years old.
Many people asked of me since that day many ‘whys’ and I gave many answers. It takes a lot of ‘why’s’ to make a life, mine being no exception. Maya Angelou said ‘you can’t know who I am until you know where I have been’; until you know the circumstances and people who contributed to the making of me, you cannot know me. We all are complicated mixes of many other people and life events. We are all of everything that has ever happened to us. If we suddenly got amnesia, we would cease to exist as who we were except in the memory of others. My pain is me, and thus my life that once was, is what made me now. I am the hungry little girl who sat in the sand over forty years ago waiting to be rescued by an ancient old man, I am Sara Niles and this is my story.
I was born in the bowels of the South where willow trees hang low over ponds and creeks surrounded by the lush growth of woody fern. My beginnings were in a place where knotted old oaks twisted their knurled boughs upwards, their majestic leafage allowing slithers of light to penetrate the shadowy forest floors to lend peeks upon the backs of huge Diamondback rattlesnakes; their gargantuan size owing to seldom meeting the sight of the eyes of man, if ever at all. I was born where the bottomland hoarded teems of wild boars known to rip hunting dogs open from end to end and where the narrow little graveled roads twisted and wound their way past humble mail boxes, usually the only evidence of the habitations miles into the forest, accessed by dirt tire rutted roads with a strip of grass ribboned in the middle. This was oil country, oil wells were scattered every few miles, their slow prehistoric movements signaling that the owners were receiving money. Neighbors lived far apart on beautiful little farms or in ragged shacks, with a Cadillac and a television or neither plumbing nor electric power lines. Depending upon which neighbor you were, you had plenty or nothing at all.
My mother had nothing at all, except seven hungry mouths to feed. She was by everyone’s opinion an exceptionally beautiful woman. Her mother before her was a French white woman from New York and her father was a black and Indian man; born, bred and still living in the same area. I never met my maternal grandmother, I strongly suspected that she mated with my grandfather on a purely business level. A business that is considered to be one the oldest vices, the one I have to thank for my very existence. My mother was a prostitute. I was an accident she had with a client, a rich white oilman who found her little shack a convenient stop on his trips from town and she found in him food for her children. Things may have been different for my mother, if a white man, living in a racist time, had not shot her first husband in the back for the unforgivable crime of stealing gas- Gas that he swore to pay for that evening when he left the billet woods. It was a time when racism ruled, a ‘cold war’ between blacks and whites established the climate, and therefore no trial ever took place.
It was nineteen fifty seven, the Little Rock nine were escorted to school by Federal troops under the order of President Eisenhower to counteract the attempt of Arkansas Governor Faubus to prevent it. Southern racial tensions produced a supreme irony: Federal troops against the National Guard. This visible strife between state and nation was one of the evidences of the racial turmoil of the times. The line of demarcation between blacks and whites was decided by color and I was born on the centerline. My bright light skin marked me as a product of the enemy, the white man in the black community. Black women drawled sweetly to my mother that my long wavy brown hair was so pretty in tones meant to be a reproof to her. I was unacceptable, too white to be black… too black to be white.
We lived in what our relatives fondly called ‘the old homestead’. It was the home built by my great- grandparents, a newly freed slave by the name of Henry Howell and his wife, a full-blooded Crow Indian bearing the European name Charlotte. Henry and Charlotte had twelve children, each born in the front room of this now dilapidated old house. Great old cottonwoods rattled their leaves noisily in the wind in front of the house and massive oaks guarded the back, dwarfing the little outhouse with its pitiful croker-sack door. The exterior of the house bore the aged gray look of hardwood that had never been painted in its century of withstanding the pelting rains and the great extremes of heat and cold. It was a tough, neglected old house, abandoned to my mother to house us in rent-free. She could ill afford to care for the ancient structure that needed attention so badly, or us. The job of watching and caring for us fell to my oldest sister, Francine. She was thirteen years old at my earliest remembrance of her, my brother was twelve, and the rest of our ages ran closely behind. I was four years old.
The house had three entrances. The front and back doors we children were allowed to use freely, but the side door facing the setting sun was off limits to us. It was the ‘business’ door, the door that the strange men used; some used it so often they even knew our names. On a rare occasion when my mother was absent, I was molested by one of these men while the noon-ish sun shone through the window. I knew nothing of what he was doing, he sounded friendly. Something was wrong, I felt some odd shame and my heart pounded with relief when my tigress of a sister burst through the door demanding that the ‘no good son of a dog’ take his filthy hands off me in a voice strong with authority and rage that was strange to hear in the voice of a child. He unhanded me without a word and fled as all my siblings ran up to flank her in the ranks. I remembered that incident, though I never once mentioned it again until three decades passed. I merely held my head self-consciously tilted to one side when I walked.
Nothing stood out in my early childhood worth remembering until the fateful day when the world kindly changed for me. My great uncle and aunt lived on a farm a mile’s walk through a wooded trail. Robert Howell was born in eighteen eighty-three to Henry and Charlotte Howell in the very same curtain-less room that my siblings and I slept in on the pallets and old mattresses. Although my mother was treated as an outcast in the family - never visited and quietly talked about by the conventional ones who may have feared their heavenly reservations may be cancelled if they dared come near her- my uncle Robert visited us daily. He cared little for convention and hated hypocrisy; he would not permit either to stifle his compassion for us. We looked for uncle’s visits just as faithfully as we expected the sun to rise, and just as faithfully, he always came. I never remember his coming unheralded by our squeals of delight because we knew he had candy or fruit if not both. Our yard’s stingy spattering of trampled grass wore a distinct trail that led to the East corner where a roofed water well crested the top of a steep red clay hill. Uncle Robert’s head would always appear first, on hot days his hatless bald head would bloom at the top of that hill prettier to us than any flower, He not only brought us gifts, he luxuriated us in his time by talking with each one of us. We loved Uncle Robert dearly and any one of us would have been glad to be taken home by him. I was selected.
The monotony of our lives made the mentioning of the names of days unnecessary so I don’t know what day it was when my uncle took me home, just that it was sunny and warm. I was sitting in front of the east steps in a pile of cream colored sand pouring it’s warmness across my legs when Uncle Robert came.
“I’m coming to take you home with me little Sara. Just let me talk with your mama for a minute. You’re going to be me and Mollie’s little girl” my uncle soothingly promised. I felt something that must have been excitement, although I had heard him say he would take me home before, this time was different. My brother and sisters gathered around the front door trying to overhear the conversation from within. We could hear the muffled conversation getting louder as my mother and uncle walked down the hall to the front porch.
“I’ll find her birth certificate later Uncle Robert. You just take her on home now” adding to “Tell Aunt Mollie hello for me”. And just like that, as easily as one changes shoes, I was given away unceremoniously without tears or protest from my mother. She never hugged me good-bye, nor did she come outside to watch me leave. My brother and sisters gathered around me looking sad, their bubbly excitement died as they followed us down the steep hill all the way to the ravine. They yelled ‘good –byes’ until we were out of sight. My uncle let me climb upon a stump so I could ride astride his neck since I had no shoes. Uncle Robert talked excitedly, gesturing with his hat in his free hand while holding one of my ankles with the other. I was holding his baldhead with both my thin dirty arms. I don’t remember much of what he said, only something about how happy my aunt Mollie would be and all of the things they would buy me. These golden promises meant nothing to me yet as I had no prior means of comparison and I was too distracted by apprehension mixed with unformed expectations.
I knew we had almost arrived when we reached the spring at the bottom of the hill. The spring bubbled up fresh water continually, the overflow created a branch of water that was covered with a plank bridge. Two thick, smoky black water moccasins raised their ugly heads up from the water and opened their cottony mouths in silent threat. I tightened my grip on Uncle Robert’s head. The roof of the house appeared first as we ascended the long incline. A large grayish brown farmhouse, surrounded by bright flowers, arose into view. My senses became acute, recording every minor detail, the smells of the flowers and fruit trees enchanted me as my uncle stooped to unlatch a peg lock on the back gate. My heart was beating faster and faster, my blood raced through my veins with such force that I became dizzy, my hearing muted and time slowed.
Fear ran through me as two large silky black Labradors ran toward us barking hysterically, the barking giving way to tail wagging and happy howls of joy at seeing my uncle. I could see an immense expanse of ordered property. There were pastures and barns, cows and a big-eared mule, chickens scattering across a fenced yard and New Guinea fowl shrieking in tropical song. There were huge tomcats sitting calmly upon fence posts. I was bedazzled. While my head whirled in excitement, I was gently stood upon the grounds on legs almost too weak to hold me. It was incomprehensible to my dazed senses that all of the commotion was over me.
My uncle yelled to my aunt to hurry out and see what he had and in an instant my aunt ran across the back yard with a spatula in one hand wearing a white apron across the front of the prettiest flowered dress I had ever seen. I was being smothered in hugs while my uncle and aunt both talked at once. The animals sensed the excitement and were howling in unison. I tried to see everything at once, such as the number three bathtubs hanging outside against the back porch wall, animals, a smokehouse and old farm buildings. I thought I had entered a new world when I smelled the most wonderful aroma of foods floating upon the breeze; my senses were overwhelmed as the hunger awakened in me compelled me to cry. I was fed while still caked with grime and dirt. “Robert, I’m afraid she’ll get sick. Don’t you think we should stop her from eating now?” Aunt Mollie asked uncertainly. “Nah. This child probably has never eaten her fill. Let her eat till she bursts.” He answered glad heartedly before they both melted into joyous laughter. For the first time in my life, I was home.
I was scrubbed in sudsy lather and wrapped in a towel. My only dress was so dirty that it was discarded. I stood behind my aunt holding the back of her chair while she sewed dresses and matching bloomers out of floral cotton flour sacks. She sang and talked as she wheedled her singer treadle sewing machine. I said nothing. I was happier than I had ever been. On Saturday, I remember because every day I was told to just wait until Saturday and we will go to town, we went to town. My aunt bought shoes, dresses, ‘britches’, baubles, and toys, everything that a little girl who had nothing would need. I remember the things I didn’t need, the candles and soda pops of all varieties and colors. All of downtown was comprised of one street covering a couple of blocks, so in a town of that size everyone knew Aunt Mollie. My aunt told every listening ear, both white and black, that she and Uncle Robert were like Sarah and Abraham, blessed with a child in their old age.
Relatives were notified, they came by the carloads to see me and brought and sent gifts. My Aunt Fannie from California sent two huge packages of clothing and toys from J.C. Penny, a habit she continued for the duration of my early years. Physically, I went from nothing to everything in one week. From no attention to being squabbled over; my emotions knew no precedent, therefore I was overwhelmed in joy. I began to talk incessantly, ‘like a jaybird’ as Uncle Robert said. There was so much to see and do, to taste and touch. I was experiencing the tastes of new foods almost daily. I became a whirlwind as I tried to enjoy everything at once in a frenzy of ecstasy.
My uncle took me with him to visit my brother and sisters each day, they were always so happy to see us, only now I knew that they did not have the good things I did. I used to ask Uncle Robert and Aunt Mollie to bring them home to live with us; I was too young to know what their sad faces revealed. It was impossible; they could only save one, the child most likely to suffer harm. My mother moved away when I was five years old without a word. We went for our daily visit and the house was vacant. A feeling of loss pervaded my happiness as we stood staring in disbelief. Years would pass between brief glimpses of any of them.
Nothing good was withheld from me, even moral guidance was provided as my uncle read to me nightly out of a King James red-letter edition Bible. “Them’s the Good Lord’s words in red,” he would say reverently. These lessons installed in me a sense of moral propriety and spiritual obligation that I would later misconstrue to my own detriment. The strength of character I gleamed from them would enable me to survive myself and all lesser foes.
For the next half decade, I lived on the ‘flower bed of Eden’ as Cousin Andrew called it. The days were never long enough; perhaps that is why I hated to sleep. Seasons came and went in a panorama of delight. The record ice storm of the early sixties was a great memory to me as I watched through steam fogged windows, warm and snug as the loud popping of snapping pine trees screamed with the howling winds. Nothing caused me to fear those years, I felt perfectly safe as I expected I always would.
Those days will be forever frozen in my mind. I can still see my uncle and aunt standing among the prized garden vegetables, four-foot tall collard greens reaching my aunts shoulders. I can see the tanned sinewy frame of my uncle stretching his short frame proudly towards the sky as he brags on the size of his watermelons. I can hear their laughter coming from lungs almost a century old and I can see the twinkle in Uncle Robert’s one good eye. I could never imagine him killing the man who gouged out his eye with a pool stick so many years before, though the relatives said that he did. I only knew that the blue glass eye looked odd with his one brown one set against his tawny gold skin. A semi circle of silky white hair matched his heavy white mustache. I can see the bright flash of his red plaid shirt through the school bus window years later as he walks hurriedly to the highway to escort me home the cold November day the house burned to the ground. Dirt and smut on his sad face. I can still see them. I will always be able to see them in the vivid imagery of my mind.
I used to wish with a fervor that I could have held on to the past and preserved all that was good about it, that I could have prevented my aunt the years of suffering as she lay dying bedridden with cancer. I used to wish that all the good years would have never ended; time cured the wishing as I realized that the fairy tale had to end. It was gone; I would never get it back. The sun would still rise, the seasons would still come, life would continue. I was thankful to have been a part of it; I would take the memories and savor them for the life ahead. I had been given the components that would comprise the fate of my destiny; they had aged into my soul so that part of the past would always remain with me. They would be there for me to draw strength from on days in my future when death would seem a triumph and life too hard to live any more.
It is strange how intricately life hangs in the scales, how unrelated events and single decisions alter the outcomes. Some remote land ten thousand miles from me, some land unfamiliar to me, held the key to my future. A foreign land of war, of helicopters, machine gunfire and mortars held a young man prisoner to its boundaries. A man I would never have met if my uncle had not become sick.
My uncle became acutely ill when I was fifteen years old and asked a young family that he was fond of to adopt me. Life had changed course for me again, the changes were becoming less kind as time wore on. I was about to be thrust into a situation where my lack of experience would affect my judgment and cause a permanent change in the person I would become. My future would become as uncertain and unstable as a howling wind in a wasteland.
March 27, 2012
Harry Potter Books Crashed Kindle
British author JK Rowling's hugely successful Harry Potter Series has gone not only digital but Amazonian digital but without the Digital Rights Management (DRM) feature. What difference does that make you say?
Well for those of us who are unknowns, DRM is a godsend because it is a protection against digital thievery out there in cyberspace; however, JK Rowling is such a huge name and her books are so well known that digital thief would commit legal suicide if they stole Harry Potter books. R
The release of seven of Rowling's books caused an overload on the Amazon Kindle site crashing the site today according to news reports:
http://www.examiner.com/books-in-char...
It is no surprise that mass overload resulted when hundreds of thousands of Rowling fans rushed the Amazon Kindle site; after all The Harry Potter series is the best selling series in history selling over half a billion copies.
This is great news for Harry Potter lovers but this also may signal a drastic change for indie authors. The appearance of giants like JK Rowling will no doubt be followed by more of the big name authors. The Kindle market was an indie author's paradise at one time. The water was good and swimming was allowed. Perhaps the Kindle pool is about to suddenly become crowed just like the regular book market.
Time will tell.
Sara Niles
Indie Author
Well for those of us who are unknowns, DRM is a godsend because it is a protection against digital thievery out there in cyberspace; however, JK Rowling is such a huge name and her books are so well known that digital thief would commit legal suicide if they stole Harry Potter books. R
The release of seven of Rowling's books caused an overload on the Amazon Kindle site crashing the site today according to news reports:
http://www.examiner.com/books-in-char...
It is no surprise that mass overload resulted when hundreds of thousands of Rowling fans rushed the Amazon Kindle site; after all The Harry Potter series is the best selling series in history selling over half a billion copies.
This is great news for Harry Potter lovers but this also may signal a drastic change for indie authors. The appearance of giants like JK Rowling will no doubt be followed by more of the big name authors. The Kindle market was an indie author's paradise at one time. The water was good and swimming was allowed. Perhaps the Kindle pool is about to suddenly become crowed just like the regular book market.
Time will tell.
Sara Niles
Indie Author
March 23, 2012
The Future of Publishing and...
The introduction of high speed internet and the globalization of publishing by digital means is a dream come true for self published authors; or should I say, it is a dream come true for some self published authors. The truth of the matter is no matter what market opens up, the early bird may get noticed first, but eventually the market becomes crowed and glutted with products so that it once again becomes difficult for a lone author to get noticed. My my, how things have changed.
In an article posted in The New York Review of books (link below), how much things have changed is very well presented:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
The digital marketplace is displacing the power once held solely by the big ‘brick and mortar’ publishing houses. I checked my Twitter account the other day and found several of the big publishing houses are offering new eBook editions free as a promotional endeavor. Wonder where that idea came from? I would not be surprised if the door even opens up for ‘indie’ (Independent) authors in some form soon, that is, officially.
In 1995, I began my long and arduous writing career as an idealistic new author who thought that all you had to do was write a good book and send it to a publisher and they would go oooh and ahh and send you a contract pronto! I hear all of you veterans of the trade out there laughing. Yep. I not only believed that, I did like many anxious new parents of a great book did and sent out query letters to agents-hundreds of them at once. I waited and soon the mail started coming in. Rejection after rejection came in on form letter head, with not so much as a consideration.
By the year 2004, I had self published my first book (the old edition is still out there) and it was during that year that I emailed three thousand libraries, thousand of domestic violence programs (Torn From the Inside Out has a domestic violence theme) and countless other possible leads only to find out just how difficult it was to ‘break into’ a closed market with no professional backing.
Then Amazon launched the Kindle- the angels in literary heaven began to sing and applaud-the great door was opening to non celebrity authors and new talent the world over. By 2010, The Kindle was in full operation and the Barnes and Noble Nook was trying to keep pace; iphones and reading applications made it possible to read a book on your phone! Can you imagine that? Steve Jobs led the way with the ibook store and heaven opened another door-my god, what an El Dorado of opportunities lay ahead.
And then it happened. The first big success stories began: Joe Konrath, John Locke, Amanda Hocking, Darcie Chan and many others hot on their heels, for example, Kerry Wilkinson just wrote his first book less than one full year ago-as an experiment and now look at him:
Kerry Wilkinson
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo...
I am certain more will continue to follow because readers know what readers want. If you put the material out there so that readers can find it, if they like it, they will come.
So what is the key to success in this market?
A great product
A product that is in demand
Good Marketing
When it comes to books, a great product can be defined by the market itself such as in the case of Amanda Hocking’s books and The Meyer Twilight series, those were the products in demand by the readers who wanted them. The market for Young Adult Paranormal romance demands more and until the market is glutted, there is room to get noticed.
In the case of Joe Konrath, the man is a super marketer and has been for a long time-I give him full credit that his success was no accident, it was bound to happen.
So what about the rest of us who write in a genre that is more common and has been popular forever such as general nonfiction and fiction?
I am not the expert but I would suggest to create the best product you can and market like demon.
The Torn Trilogy and I were honored with a guest spot on Ebooks4all.blogspot.com and I will take the liberty to quote my suggestion:
“What advice would I give for new authors and what should they expect?
The publishing industry has changed dramatically over the last few years and is changing so rapidly that the new independent author must keep up with those changes and innovate, keep up with what is going on in the market and meet the needs of the market. If the author is committed to writing, then he or she must commit to marketing as well.
I have noticed a trend in self publishing that I would avoid: much of what is self published is not refined, the plots are thrown together and the characters are under developed, the writing is choppy and repetitive; although the gems in self publishing are out there too. There is a lot of impressive talent among the self published new works if you can find it.
Readers are intelligent people, I would advise new authors to remember that fact and challenge themselves more. Create the best work in your field, refine it and find the best market for it, then market it like a madman or woman”
Excerpted from Author of the Month JosephinEbooks4all.blogspot.come Thompson (Sara Niles pen name);
In an article posted in The New York Review of books (link below), how much things have changed is very well presented:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
The digital marketplace is displacing the power once held solely by the big ‘brick and mortar’ publishing houses. I checked my Twitter account the other day and found several of the big publishing houses are offering new eBook editions free as a promotional endeavor. Wonder where that idea came from? I would not be surprised if the door even opens up for ‘indie’ (Independent) authors in some form soon, that is, officially.
In 1995, I began my long and arduous writing career as an idealistic new author who thought that all you had to do was write a good book and send it to a publisher and they would go oooh and ahh and send you a contract pronto! I hear all of you veterans of the trade out there laughing. Yep. I not only believed that, I did like many anxious new parents of a great book did and sent out query letters to agents-hundreds of them at once. I waited and soon the mail started coming in. Rejection after rejection came in on form letter head, with not so much as a consideration.
By the year 2004, I had self published my first book (the old edition is still out there) and it was during that year that I emailed three thousand libraries, thousand of domestic violence programs (Torn From the Inside Out has a domestic violence theme) and countless other possible leads only to find out just how difficult it was to ‘break into’ a closed market with no professional backing.
Then Amazon launched the Kindle- the angels in literary heaven began to sing and applaud-the great door was opening to non celebrity authors and new talent the world over. By 2010, The Kindle was in full operation and the Barnes and Noble Nook was trying to keep pace; iphones and reading applications made it possible to read a book on your phone! Can you imagine that? Steve Jobs led the way with the ibook store and heaven opened another door-my god, what an El Dorado of opportunities lay ahead.
And then it happened. The first big success stories began: Joe Konrath, John Locke, Amanda Hocking, Darcie Chan and many others hot on their heels, for example, Kerry Wilkinson just wrote his first book less than one full year ago-as an experiment and now look at him:
Kerry Wilkinson
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo...
I am certain more will continue to follow because readers know what readers want. If you put the material out there so that readers can find it, if they like it, they will come.
So what is the key to success in this market?
A great product
A product that is in demand
Good Marketing
When it comes to books, a great product can be defined by the market itself such as in the case of Amanda Hocking’s books and The Meyer Twilight series, those were the products in demand by the readers who wanted them. The market for Young Adult Paranormal romance demands more and until the market is glutted, there is room to get noticed.
In the case of Joe Konrath, the man is a super marketer and has been for a long time-I give him full credit that his success was no accident, it was bound to happen.
So what about the rest of us who write in a genre that is more common and has been popular forever such as general nonfiction and fiction?
I am not the expert but I would suggest to create the best product you can and market like demon.
The Torn Trilogy and I were honored with a guest spot on Ebooks4all.blogspot.com and I will take the liberty to quote my suggestion:
“What advice would I give for new authors and what should they expect?
The publishing industry has changed dramatically over the last few years and is changing so rapidly that the new independent author must keep up with those changes and innovate, keep up with what is going on in the market and meet the needs of the market. If the author is committed to writing, then he or she must commit to marketing as well.
I have noticed a trend in self publishing that I would avoid: much of what is self published is not refined, the plots are thrown together and the characters are under developed, the writing is choppy and repetitive; although the gems in self publishing are out there too. There is a lot of impressive talent among the self published new works if you can find it.
Readers are intelligent people, I would advise new authors to remember that fact and challenge themselves more. Create the best work in your field, refine it and find the best market for it, then market it like a madman or woman”
Excerpted from Author of the Month JosephinEbooks4all.blogspot.come Thompson (Sara Niles pen name);
Sara Nile's Blog
"My writing is mission oriented and imbued with a deeper purpose because of my traumatic life experiences: I write nonfiction in order to make an appreciable dent in the effect of domestic violence an
...more
- Sara Niles's profile
- 57 followers
