Cheryl Rice Opens Up About Her Grief & Writing a Book @RiceonLife #Memoir #MustRead #NonFiction

What Inspired Me to Write"Where Have I Been All My Life"

One life changing event and three simultaneous inner urgings inspired me to write my book, Where Have I Been All My Life? A Journey Toward Love and Wholeness.

The life altering event was the swift, merciless death of my mother – who happened to also be my best friend – when she was an otherwise robust and healthy 68 years old and I was 45. I was completely unprepared for life without her. Her death broke me open in unprecedented, yet ultimately life-affirming, ways.

While I was mired in grief, and playing all sorts of grief games in an effort to stay connected with her, I also felt compelled to live more boldly, authentically and vibrantly than I ever had before. Even though I had always prided myself on living with intention and enjoyed setting and reaching challenging goals, there were a few dreams, like writing a book, that I had been too scared and overwhelmed to tackle. But in the wake of my mom’s death there was no time for just thinking about “tomorrow” or relegating my long buried dream to “someday.” My someday was now.

The second thing that inspired me to write my book was a deep, intrinsic desire to produce something that would outlive me. While I had two wonderful stepchildren and a puppy I treated as my baby, I hadn’t yet truly offered the world something tangible that would endure. And now I had a fierce longing to give creative birth to something that would speak for me when I was gone – something that would be part of my legacy.

The third thread of inspiration for my book came from a yearning to find and validate my own voice. Ironically, as a professional leadership and life coach I was comfortable and competent helping others, especially women, claim and cultivate their own voice yet I had been remiss in doing the same for myself. Coming from a family of writers (but never identifying as one myself), I always knew that writing was a wonderful way of clarifying and cleansing one’s thoughts, but beyond penning some bad adolescent poetry and keeping journals episodically throughout my life, I never took myself or my writing seriously. That changed once my mother died, my heart broke, and my time and need for self-inquiry and validation burst forth.

Lastly, I had a strong desire to reach out and connect with other people, women in particular, who were struggling with similar issues. Issues like self-acceptance, using longing as a substitute for loving, and overcoming the loss of a loved one. Reading books, especially stories of personal resilience written by women, had always been a comfort and balm to me. Through the brave and honest stories of other women I found strength, companionship and validation. My loneliness or isolation would lift, even for a bit, and my fortitude and hopefulness would be reignited. Also, since I adore championing women, writing a book felt like a natural and necessary vehicle to connect with them on both a deeper and broader level and to inspire those who are on a similar journey toward love and self-acceptance.

Where Have I Been All My Life? is a compelling memoir recounting one woman’s journey through grief and a profound feeling of unworthiness to wholeness and healing. It begins with the chillingly sudden death of Rice’s mother, and is followed by her foray into the center of mourning.

With wisdom, grace, and humor, Rice recounts the grief games she plays in an effort to resurrect her mother; her efforts to get her therapist, who she falls desperately in love with, to run away with her; and the transformation of her husband from fantasy man to ordinary guy to superhero. In the process, she experiences aching revelations about her family and her past—and realizes what she must leave behind, and what she can carry forward with her.

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Genre – Memoir

Rating – PG-13

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Website www.yourvoiceyourvision.com

WHAT FREEDOM SMELLS LIKE: A #Memoir by Amy Lewis @AmyLewisAuthor #AmReading #Women

Every single item that you buy in life, that outlives you, someone, some person, has to deal with. Has to pack, has to decide what to do with: to sell, to donate, to throw away? If you sell it you have to decide how much to sell it for, maybe even research what similar items go for; you have to advertise, you have to exchange money, maybe even make change. If you donate you have to pack up, decide what charity or friend to give it to, usually you have to bring it to them or arrange to be home when they come by. You have to make sure it works because you don’t want to donate something that is broken. If you throw it away you have to lug it, schlep it to a waste bin and if it’s a lot of things to a dumpsite. You don’t think about this when you have money in your pocket and want things.

Every item in our Vegas house had a memory connected to it. Now I had to decide what to do with them all. I rented a huge storage space close to my parent’s house. It was almost as big as our first tiny slum apartment. All of our stuff had been deposited there.

The week after he died, I had gone into our walk-in closet in Vegas and sniffed every item of his clothing, removing those pieces that still had his scent and packaging them into gallon size vacuum packed Ziploc bags. I imagined this was a new use for Ziploc bags they probably never advertised: preserving the scent of the dead. I would have taken his clothes in the dirty laundry basket, but my father had washed them. I cried when I found him in the laundry room trying to be helpful. I put the zip locked bags of clothes under my bed in my parent’s guest bedroom.

Diagnosed with Borderline Personality disorder, Amy struggled with depression and an addiction to sharp objects. Even hospitalization didn't help to heal her destructive tendencies. It took a tumultuous relationship with a man named Truth to bring her back from the depths of her own self-made hell.Amy's marriage to dark, intriguing Truth was both passionate and stormy. She was a fair-skinned southern girl from New Orleans. He was a charming black man with tribal tattoos, piercings, and a mysterious past. They made an unlikely pair, but something clicked. During their early marriage, they pulled themselves out of abject poverty into wealth and financial security practically overnight. Then things began to fall apart.

Passionate and protective, Truth also proved violent and abusive. Amy’s own self-destructive tendencies created a powerful symmetry. His sudden death left Amy with an intense and warring set of emotions: grief for the loss of the man she loved, relief she was no longer a target for his aggression.

Conflicted and grieving, Amy found herself at a spiritual and emotional crossroads, only to receive help from an unlikely source: Truth himself. Feeling his otherworldly presence in her dreams, Amy seeks help from a famous medium.

Her spiritual encounters change Amy forever. Through Truth, she learns her soul is eternal and indestructible, a knowledge that gives Amy the courage to pursue her own dreams and transform herself both physically and emotionally. Her supernatural encounters help Amy resolve the internal anger and self-destructive tendencies standing between her and happiness, culminating in a sense of spiritual fulfillment she never dreamed possible.

An amazing true story, What Freedom Smells Like is told with courage, honesty, and a devilishly dark sense of humor.

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Genre – Memoir

Rating – PG-13

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Website www.WhatFreedomSmellsLike.com

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ICE by @TheobaldSprague #AmReading #Memoir #Climate

The main purpose of our trip the year before on Akademik Ioff was to find out the physical feasibility of our intended joint expedition and to see what the ice conditions were like in the Northwest Passage. For me, I hoped to gain a good visual sense of what I’d be trying to capture on film. Within the first few days, I knew I would bring back never-before-seen footage from The Passage. From Dan and Jim’s perspective, they grew confident that a Nordhavn boat could take on The Passage and survive. Each morning, the crew of Akademik Ioff provided the ship’s passengers with its own newspaper, giving the latest headlines. Each morning, the three of us would sit and discuss the sorry case of the world in general and feel all the more secure that our intended trip through the Northwest Passage was about as timely as we could hope for.

On September 15, 2008, with a growing sense of accomplishment and anticipation, I sat down for breakfast and opened the ship’s daily newspaper. I stared in abject and total disbelief at the latest headlines noting that Lehman Brothers was crashing, about to be financially erased from the face of the earth, and that the collateral damage was going to be unprecedented.

The collateral damage reached the Far North. As the days continued to roll by, Jim no longer wanted to discuss the trip. In fact, Jim no longer ate

with Dan and me. When the three of us actually were together, the talk was of anything but their $300,000 commitment to the trip and perhaps building a forty-foot boat so they could join in the adventure. By the time the trip aboard Akademik Ioff had ended, there was no $300,000 commitment. I saw it coming a mile away.

Dan Streech was the type of man who, when he told me of the offer’s withdrawal, he did it with tears in his eyes. I was completely in Dan’s corner. I couldn’t in good conscience ask for such a large amount of money while he was looking at having to lay off longtime trusted employees, people he truly loved.

But as much as I appreciated Dan’s position and honesty, I was devastated. Actually, more than devastated. I was completely and decisively screwed.

A sailor and his family’s harrowing and inspiring story of their attempt to sail the treacherous Northwest Passage.

Sprague Theobald, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and expert sailor with over 40,000 offshore miles under his belt, always considered the Northwest Passage–the sea route connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific–the ultimate uncharted territory. Since Roald Amundsen completed the first successful crossing of the fabled Northwest Passage in 1906, only twenty-four pleasure craft have followed in his wake. Many more people have gone into space than have traversed the Passage, and a staggering number have died trying. From his home port of Newport, Rhode Island, through the Passage and around Alaska to Seattle, it would be an 8,500-mile trek filled with constant danger from ice, polar bears, and severe weather.

What Theobald couldn’t have known was just how life-changing his journey through the Passage would be. Reuniting his children and stepchildren after a bad divorce more than fifteen years earlier, the family embarks with unanswered questions, untold hurts, and unspoken mistrusts hanging over their heads. Unrelenting cold, hungry polar bears, and a haunting landscape littered with sobering artifacts from the tragic Franklin Expedition of 1845, as well as personality clashes that threaten to tear the crew apart, make The Other Side of the Ice a harrowing story of survival, adventure, and, ultimately, redemption.

( TO WATCH THE OFFICIAL HD TEASER FOR “The Other Side of The Ice” [book and documentary] PLEASE GO TO: VIMEO.COM/45526226) 

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Genre – Memoir, adventure, family, climate

Rating – PG

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Website www.spraguetheobald.com

Jenny Hayworth on Family, Trust & Kindness @JennyHayworth1 #Memoir #Abuse #AmReading

Do you have a specific writing style?

I just start writing.  I do not worry about beginning, middle or end.  If I have an idea or concept then I just free write until I can write no more.  Later on, I will edit and change things around. I will focus on paragraphing and grammar and spelling and “introductory sentences” and conclusions etc.  I find if I try and think about all these things at the time of writing it interrupts the creative flow and “boxes me” into a particular line of thought and doesn’t allow for free flow of ideas.  I cut out a lot during editing as I focus on the “theme” or main idea I am trying to get across but this does not worry me as I usually have plenty of material to “cut down” and work with.  Sometimes I found during writing my memoir that I would wake in the middle of the night after writing a particular section of work and the sentence or idea I needed would be in my head and I would have to get up and write it down.  I keep a notepad next to my bed for these moments, so I can go back to sleep, and not lose the thoughts, and these are often the most powerful sentences and chapters I end up writing.

What are obstacles that come in the way of writing?

The main obstacle is my paid work.  I am meant to work 9-5pm but often find myself starting earlier or finishing late.  I get very tired as I work at a demanding job and often feel frustrated that I am too tired to think properly after work.  When I was writing my memoir, I would often fall asleep when I got home from work to wake up about 11pm and then I would write for an hour or two before going back to bed.  Also, family commitments and friendships can get in the way of writing especially if I have set deadlines for myself.  I find when I am actively writing I had to become quite selfish as otherwise I would never have completed the goal I set for myself.  I also found that when writing my memoir, my writing would evoke emotions over past events I had recalled and for a few days I would find myself bursting into tears or very “distracted” with recall and memories that would arise that I had not thought about for a long time.  This evoking of emotion would be a distraction for me as I did not produce as much material at times due to allowing myself time to experience these emotions, and needing extra sleep or rest. I found long walks helpful for sorting out thoughts and feelings and often ideas for rearranging chapters or what I wanted to write about would become clearer during these walks.  I love my family and friends so please do not think I neglect them all the time, but I felt it important to say that I had to severely curtail my time at times with them otherwise I would never have been able to write.  All my children fortunately were adults except for one nearly grown up son who is 15 years old and so I was able to be selfish without harm to them.  But I did lock myself away with threats of “dire consequences” if I was interrupted during the times I was trying to complete my memoir.

What is the most memorable thing said/asked by a reader about your work?

I am only newly published (15 January 2014) and so I only have a few reviews written so far on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and Goodreads.  The first time someone wrote a review after downloading my eBook and stated: “I couldn’t put the book down, moved me from the first page” I wanted to cry.  I just wanted to provide hope and encouragement for those who had experienced similar situations in life, and enlightenment for others who had no experience of such things but might know someone who had so they could be empathetic and understand a bit more deeply.  If only one person is helped or feels supported then I am happy.

What would you say is your interesting writing “quirk?”

I think the fact that sometimes I dream up scenarios and then write them down and then go straight back to sleep.  One time we had a workshop coming up where we had been encouraged to present a 5 minute talk on anything we wished in relation to our work in front of our colleagues.  I dreamt about this and came up with 3 scenarios (all acted out in my dream) of exactly what I wished to say.  When I woke up I wrote them all down, including the “one liners” that concluded or began the 3 scenes and I was so happy as they were perfect for what we had to do.   I believe other writers have this occur but it is something that ones may feel is “quirky”.

What do you think makes a good story?

Any story has to engage the reader and the reader has to become connected to the main characters (good or bad) and feel invested emotionally in what is happening to them.  If your characters are boring, or the reader cannot relate to their experiences, or they dislike them with nothing redeemable or fascinating or horrifying about them, then no one will be interested in what is going to happen next.  So I suppose for me, I have to be moved emotionally in some way by what I am reading to feel that a story is a “good” story.

Tell us a bit about your family.

I have four children (3 adult children and a teenage son) and 2 stepsons whom I consider my own.  I remarried at the age of 43, nearly 9 years after my separation and divorce.  I am married to a man who also found himself a single dad after a few years of marriage, and left with 2 young sons to bring up on his own.  He had been a single dad for about 10 years before we met up.  It has sometimes been a challenge combining two families but we decided early on, to allow the natural parent to discipline their own children, and to share and split tasks at home.  We also have made time for each other, to be a couple only.  Despite the daily routine of life being rather monotonous at times, I only feel stronger in my love for him, and am grateful every day that we met.  He fully supports me in all my endeavours and dreams, as I do him, and we try and help each other to be the best we can be.  I still have no contact with my mother (that is still her choice and not mine) and keep an open door policy in my heart, in case she ever changes her mind.  That being said, I have found others who fill the role of a mother in my life, and although that never can replace her, it does ease the hurt and fills the gap that was created when she made the decision to shun me.  I see my father regularly and also speak regularly to my brother by phone.  He lives in another state (he is married with a 5 year old son).  I have reconnected with cousins and other distant family through Facebook and hope one day very soon to meet up with some of them in England.

How do you work through self-doubts and fear?

I try and talk to my partner about what I am feeling.  This is important for me to do and not try and do it on my own, as I did for so many years.  I tend to sometimes take time to do this, and he often will realise I am struggling before I have said anything to him.  Self care is something I did not have for a long time so it is important for me to practice now.   I will re-examine my intent with whatever I am trying to do and I know my intent is to help, and not harm, and so I refocus on that and think that if it is meant to be it will work out.  I make detailed goals and write down the steps to reach those goals, and then timeline them, and make sure I do each step, each week or month, and then before I know it – the goal is accomplished. I no longer am affected so much from negative reviews, as the book was primarily written for those who have experienced abuse, rejection and spiritual trauma and any negativity has been from those who do not relate. It has therefore helped me to grow stronger.

What scares you the most?

Believing that politicians and lawmakers will not take action before the destruction of nearly all species, sabotage of soil and food growing, and destruction of our planet becomes irreversible.

What makes you happiest?

To see or hear that one of my children has committed an act of kindness and caring just because they wanted to (not for glory or for others to see or know about). They bring me my greatest joy.  A close second is the first cup of coffee in the morning, dark chocolate melting in my mouth slowly, the joy of my dogs welcoming me even if I only left for 5 minutes, and a cat snuggling up on the doona on my bed, when I am snuggled down listening to the rain outside and are warm and contented in my bed with a good book and warm hot chocolate drink.

What’s your greatest character strength?

I can usually read people very quickly (what they thinking and how they are feeling).

What’s your weakest character trait?

Doing too much in any one day and exhausting myself. I find it hard to know when to stop and work at a frantic pace at whatever I do.

***Award winning book (finalist) in 2014 Beverley Hills International Book Awards***

Jenny Hayworth grew up within the construct of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which she describes as a fundamentalist cult-like religion. She devoted her life to it for over thirty years. Then she left it. The church “unfellowshipped” her-rendering her dead to those family and friends still committed to the church.Hayworth is a sexual abuse survivor. The trauma changed her self-perception, emotional development, trust, and every interaction with the world.

Inside/Outside is her exploration of sexual abuse, religious fundamentalism, and recovery. Her childhood circumstances and tragedies forced her to live “inside.” This memoir chronicles her journey from experiencing comfort and emotional satisfaction only within her fantasy world to developing the ability to feel and express real life emotion on the “outside.”

It is a story that begins with tragic multigenerational abuse, within an oppressive society, and ends with hope and rebirth into a life where she experiences real connections and satisfaction with the outside world.

Those who have ever felt trapped by trauma or circumstances will find Inside/Outside a dramatic reassurance that they are not alone in the world, and they have the ability to have a fulfilling life, both inside and out.

Foreward Clarion Review – “What keeps the pages of Hayworth’s life story turning is her honesty, tenacity, and sheer will to survive through an astounding number of setbacks. Inside/Outside proves the resilience of the human spirit and shows that the cycle of abuse can indeed be broken”

Kirkus Review – “A harrowing memoir of one woman’s struggle to cope with sexual abuse and depression while living in – and eventually leaving – the Jehovah’s Witnesses”

Readers Favourite 5 Star Review – “The book is an inspiring story for those who are going through traumatic times…”

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Genre – Memoir

Rating – PG-13

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A LADY IN FRANCE by Jennie Goutet @ALadyInFrance #Memoir #AmReading #Excerpt

I was destined to take root in France. I know that now, even if I didn’t know it back when I had the dream. This path was ordained for me as surely as my brown hair and green eyes, my ample flesh set on an Anglican frame. My path was ordained for me as surely as yours was, even if it’s just a whispered promise from a distant dream.

Of course it’s only now, mid-journey, that everything starts to form a picture that resembles something—the rich-hued threads of identity woven together, the nearly forgotten events tied in tiny silk knots—all this has transformed itself into a tapestry of a story, almost without my perceiving it.

My journey begins in Avignon, on the bare fringes of adulthood. It seems fitting, somehow, that my story would start in a place that was both the beginning of a path taken and the source of closure—the healing of a wound that had been gouged out by grief. It wasn’t with any set purpose that I returned to Provence in the time of my sadness, but our family’s visit there collided in sharp contrast—who I had been, with who I was now—the hope with the loss, with the hope again. And it was with this sense of heightened awareness that I walked down the broad cobblestone streets towards the Pope’s palace in Avignon for the first time in twenty-three years.

I kept holding off from taking pictures, confident that I would stumble upon that special square or shop or street that would unleash all the memories from a period I now regard as a turning point. I kept looking around for something to hold onto that would bring me full circle, but two decades soften the details. Time shrouds in foreignness what was once a significant city to me.

I was nineteen when I landed on French soil for the first time, shedding everything that was familiar and comfortable in my decision to study abroad junior year. And in the strangeness that had given way to daily habit, I stepped off the city bus in the small town center of Montfavet, and started walking towards the house I was staying in for those few months. I was alone on this particular day, as my roommate, Jamie, had decided to linger a bit in Avignon. The small non-descript square, which held the bus stop, led to the country road away from city traffic and bus fumes. And I was grateful, for once, that I lived so far outside the city.

My surroundings were delightfully foreign to me. The pastures on the right where sheep grazed were quartered into small, green patches of grass by low-lying trees and tall bushes. The scent of burning leaves brought gentle notions of fall to my senses, without accosting my nostrils. A few large stone manors intermingled with more modern houses—the former set back on the hill and the latter bordering the street with thick cement fences. Just ahead on my left was a larger field with a straight row of tall trees, dividing the space in two. Breathing in the crisp air on this deserted road was like breathing in the spirit of adventure.

After a twenty-minute walk, I reached the house in which I spent those few months. I turned into the tall, wrought-iron gates—left permanently open with their flaking white paint—and headed down the gravel path towards the back of the house. The dog bounded towards me, but he knew me by now.

When I walked around to the front of the house and opened the heavy wooden doors, I found the interior as still as a crypt. The floors, stairwell, and steps of the corridor, all made of grey stone, were cloaked in the shadows of late afternoon. I turned to open the door on the right, which led to the echoing living room, whose threadbare oriental rug didn’t completely cover the floor. No one was there. I then peered into the study on the other side of the corridor and saw the matriarch of eight children, sitting at her messy desk and staring straight ahead, lost in a cloud of smoke.

At seventeen, Jennie Goutet has a dream that she will one day marry a French man and sets off to Avignon in search of him. Though her dream eludes her, she lives boldly—teaching in Asia, studying in Paris, working and traveling for an advertising firm in New York.

When God calls her, she answers reluctantly, and must first come to grips with depression, crippling loss, and addiction before being restored. Serendipity takes her by the hand as she marries her French husband, works with him in a humanitarian effort in East Africa, before settling down in France and building a family.

Told with honesty and strength, A Lady in France is a brave, heart- stopping story of love, grief, faith, depression, sunshine piercing the gray clouds—and hope that stays in your heart long after it’s finished.

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Genre – Memoir

Rating – PG-13

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Connect with Jennie Goutet on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://aladyinfrance.com