~ Our Health is Everything ~

Ever since Cyclone Gabrielle knocked out our TV, and we were without a TV for a couple of months, I have been watching podcasts on YouTube. I was an instant fan. The live interview format with some of the most intelligent, cutting-edge people in the world for “long-form conversations” is endlessly fascinating. My friends are probably sick of me by now talking about them, but the truth is, I love podcasts. I am learning things every day, and some are changing my life.

Before February, I considered myself relatively health-conscious and aware of which foods to eat, which supplements to take, and what I needed to do for general fitness. But, I’ve realized in the last few months that all my knowledge was outdated. Science is constantly evolving. The research done by scientists, nutritionists, biologists, neurologists, psychologists, and doctors these days is taking our modern health knowledge to new levels. They predict that within the next ten years, we’ll all have wearable monitors and be monitoring and adjusting our health on a day-to-day basis, and we will reverse, if not halt, aging and disease.

Before February, I considered myself relatively healthy. But since I’ve started listening to and watching daily podcasts, usually up to two or three a day, I have changed my diet, supplementation, and fitness routine, and I feel amazing. I feel stronger, more alert, more energetic, and more generally well than I have done in years.

I realized after listening to Dr. Amen, of AmenClinics, that my brain is the “persistent type.” There are five types of brain: Balanced, Spontaneous, Persistent, Sensitive, and Cautious. Whereas my youngest son is the spontaneous type and needs lots of protein and fewer carbohydrates, I am the persistent type which needs less protein and more carbs. I had been doggedly trying to increase my protein intake for years, and I could never seem to get enough and wasn’t sure what to do about it. In the last month or so, I have stopped doing that. I eat a small amount of chicken, fish, or red meat and a lot more vegetables, plus whole grains – the result is an instant feeling of increased well-being.

Also, inspired by Dr. Amen, I have named my mind “Becky.” This technique helps us gain psychological distance from our thoughts. When thoughts are circling that feel negative or cause me stress I say, “Becky, I don’t want to think those thoughts. Don’t bring them to me again.” And, my mind stops recycling those thoughts. It works! Who knew?

In the past, I used to do the same exercise every day: a 40-minute walk, followed by yoga and a few exercises with the lightest dumbbells. I took the same supplements every day, including selenium and vitamin C. After listening to the longevity expert Dr. David Sinclair, I now “pulse” my exercise and supplements, in other words, I take supplements every other day, and I walk one day, then every other day I run fast for 10 minutes. I no longer take selenium or vitamin C as my liver is learning to produce these things itself (a natural result of fast running and getting breathless). I do the exercises with weights first when I get home using heavier dumbbells and do the yoga as stretching warm-down exercises at the end.

I fast, and I also follow the Glucose Goddess and all her “health hacks” for keeping the body’s glucose steady instead of fluctuating all over the place. I’ve watched numerous podcasts about sleep, and my sleep has improved. Today, I watched a fascinating podcast about “earthing” with Clint Ober, and from now on, I intend to start practicing walking barefoot as often as possible to ground myself. Incredibly, going barefoot reduces inflammation in the body! Check out more info on earthing. com. If you’re curious about which podcasts I watch, they are The Diary of a CEO, Lifespan with Dr. David Sinclair, Jay Shetty, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, Dhru Purohit, Lewis Howes, and Andrew Huberman. Check them out and start your health revolution. You won’t regret it. I feel better on every level and it has renewed my belief that, truly, our health is everything!

What about you? Have you listened to any great podcasts or made any health changes lately?

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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“Believe in your heart that you’re meant to live a life full of passion, purpose, magic and miracles” – R.T. Bennett

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~ IWSG: Writing Pathways ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

April 5 question – Do you remember writing your first book?
Like it was yesterday. My first book was called The Survivors, which I started writing to pass the time when I was a young stay-at-home mum. And it was fantasy fiction for children, so it has long been my chosen genre. I remember the sheer joy I felt escaping through the window of my imagination while my baby was sleeping. The story followed the escape and epic journey of a tribe of little critters called Scrifs who were searching for a home. The bad guys were the Stirrits riding grotesque birds that looked like pterodactyls.

The characters sprang from my pen with such velocity in those days. I recall spending a lot of time doodling them down the margins of the page – little pen & ink critters doing different actions. They were so alive in my mind. For those periods of writing each day, I could be somewhere else, not the 17-year-old with her hands in a napisan bucket two times a day, washing cloth nappies – we had no washing machine, nor could we afford disposables. With the flick of a biro on a pad of foolscap paper, I could be in another, better world, having the adventures of 100 lifetimes. It was exhilarating. That was when I got bitten by the bug of writing fiction. Truly. Completely.

What were your thoughts about a career path in writing?

Those were the days before attending workshops, children’s literature festivals, or conferences, before reading any books on the craft, joining any writers’ groups, or listening to any lectures. I had no thoughts. I was like the wonderful self-published author, Chris Parker, who talked to my friend’s writing group last weekend, unaffiliated to anyone or anything and wholly unaware of the industry.

As a complete greenhorn, I wrote to please myself. I wrote for my child and the eternal child within me. I wrote for the unadulterated bliss of it.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I heard of Wendy Pye Publishing, which was one of the biggest traditional children’s publishers in New Zealand at the time. First, I studied all their books. Then, I started writing (and illustrating) similar short stories for 5 – 7-year-olds in the classroom. Two stories got shortlisted, and one Wendy Pye held onto for over a year before finally returning them to me unpublished. Over the intervening years, I started submitting manuscripts for children’s stories to different publishers. Two books were again shortlisted – one they would publish if I let them change all the characters’ names. The other they would publish but would only pay 5%, half the going rate for unsolicited manuscripts at the time. I turned both offers down.

Where are you now, and how is it working out for you?

Today I’m an indie author with three books in print and stories in two anthologies. I reached a certain point where I stopped waiting for someone else to say my stories were good enough for publication. These days authors have options. I published my books, releasing my trilogy, The Chronicles of Aden Weaver, in 2020. And I can tell you that was one of the most satisfying moments in my life. It took about a week for the smile to wear off after the launch day. I felt I was in charge of my destiny and that felt fine.
I’m working on the first book in my next middle-grade series at present with my stellar writing group, The Fabulatores. I write in my “spare time” at the weekends, and I fully intend to write as long as I’m alive. I heard it said that you know you’ve found your life purpose when you’d be willing to do it even if you never received any money. That’s the way I feel about story writing. I hope to be like Barbara Cartland, who lived to a ripe old age and was still propped up in bed, writing her romance stories by hand, at the very end of her life. Can’t think of a better way to go.
What about you? Where are you now?

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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‘I once heard someone say that “given infinite time, anything can happen.” ~ George Saunders

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~ New Year’s Resolutions – Yay or Nay? ~

Do you write New Year’s resolutions? I used to back in the day. Then, I’d fret all year long because that list would stare me in the face with a baleful eye, reminding me I hadn’t followed through on anything. Then, I’d get all resentful, and it went downhill from there. The definition of the word resolution according to my handy pocket Oxford is this, Resolving; Great determination; Formal statement of a committee’s opinion. Well, my committee quit on the whole thing. I stopped writing resolutions in my twenties.
But naturally, being a writer, I couldn’t just go cold turkey. I had to write something. So, my sister and I came up with a reasonable alternative.

We started writing personal lists of “intentions” for the New Year. It has a much nicer ring to it and so does its definition. Consulting my Oxford, Intention means, With concentrated intention, What one intends to do. Sans the formality and sans the committee, writing intentions felt less intimidating and more doable. And likewise, the flavour of the items on the said list changed up a bit also. My New Year’s resolutions used to be grand and overwhelming like I will find a publisher this year. I will meet my soulmate, and I will travel overseas.
In contrast, I found myself writing intentions that were far more friendly and more doable like I intend to start doing a second daily meditation; slow down; do less; wear dresses more often, and so on.

They say that when goal-setting, you should set out the short-term, achievable steps needed to attain those big goals. If the steps are too large, or too far out of reach, people will typically never start. That might be true, but these days, I far prefer writing out intentions which give me a warm glow at the time of writing and also in the doing, and I leave my big life goals for noting in a separate notebook, no deadline, no time frame. I’m a firm believer in taking the pressure off myself where possible.
According to the College for Adult Learning, under HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT, they list 10 steps for effective goal setting:

1. Believe in the process
2. Write it down
3. Set specific goals
4. Set measurable goals
5. Set attainable goals
6. Set realistic goals
7. Set timely goals
8. Remain accountable
9. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
10. Continuously assess your progress

Each year around this time, I start to think about my list. It formulates slowly. I try to frame every thought with kindness towards myself and others. We writers tend to be fans of physical notebooks. I have at least a dozen. My usual tradition during the day on the 31st is to take a fresh page in my Intentions notebook and bling it up with stickers, glitter, and dodads. You can add emojis to a page on your phone, but where’s the fun in that?

Then, I ponder my intentions more closely, and I write them out with colour pens, adding flourishes, doodles, and love hearts! See, not so grown up after all. But it’s so much fun. And it gives me a feeling for where I’m heading and what I’m aligning myself with during the year ahead. It’s like a compass or a touchstone that I can come back to again and again for guidance. And unlike my phone, my notebook never gets lost, stolen, or runs out of charge. I love it and can’t wait to get started on my list for 2023.
What about you? Do you set resolutions? Happy New Year!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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Don’t look back, you’re not going that way. ~ Mary Englebreit

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~ The Love App Launch ~

The launch of the Love App was a great success. In a previous post, The Love App, I shared the concept behind it. An initiative started by doctors, the baton was taken up by Dr. Mary Thomas, who spearheaded the project to make it a reality. “It’s just about getting people connected,” Dr. Mary explained. “In the middle of all this chaos, we are looking for love. We need to bring the world together. We want people to send virtual messages of support and virtual flowers to uplift others.”
l was so taken by the whole idea that I jumped to become involved when Dr. Mary invited me and a full panel of speakers from all over the world to speak about love at the launch. Quoting myself, “I was struck by the feeling this initiative can do a power of good in the world, and I wanted to be part of it.”

On November 11, 2 p.m. my time, we came together for three hours online and held our mini-summit where we talked and conjugated on all the many aspects of love. I was the second speaker and I am so glad to have spoken early on because my nerves were off the Richter. Naively, I had imagined that being a Toastmaster for eight years, the days of panicking were over. Oh, no. Apparently, it is still possible after 8 years of practicing public speaking, to experience out-and-out terror. It turns out that speaking in front of your club and speaking in front of a worldwide online audience for a live launch are two very different animals. Nevertheless, my Toastmasters training kicked in. I knew to keep breathing deeply and I managed to produce the words, like surfing a giant wave and managing to stay on the crest. An hour after the launch party finished, I was still zinging, still shaking. I had given my first international speech outside of Toastmasters. I had said what I wanted to say. Whew. I was happy with that.

Dr. Mary also invited me to participate in a monthly series of conversations over the next year called The Writer’s Bureau. We started with a panel discussion on Nov 22nd when Mary asked us about “The Love of Writing.” It was a hoot. The next session of the Writer’s Bureau will happen Dec 12, when we will continue to share more about the subject of writing fiction. All the interviews will be live-streamed on Facebook and available on YouTube.
And now, I get to be involved with this initiative going forward. Dr. Mary said, “The Love community is in service to show care for the betterment of humanity.” It reminds me of my grandmother, who used to say, “Give away a smile, it’s free” – even something as simple as smiling at someone can be a spirit lifter for that person. Yesterday, I paid for the person ahead of me in the queue at a shop and that felt great too. I love the thought of raising someone else’s spirits each day. That’s a good goal.
Why not download the free app and join The Love App Community!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it also helps us to develop inner happiness and peace.” — H.H. 14th Dalai Lama

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~ IWSG: Genres ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and the hashtag is #IWSG.

This month’s question:
What genre would be the worst one for you to tackle and why?
There are a few genres I would be too scared to tackle, and some I know I should never attempt. I wanted to write romantic novels at one point when I was a lot younger, and I made it to the halfway point with a contemporary romance set in the South Island of New Zealand when I ran out of steam. It felt like a case of mentally choosing a direction, but my heart wasn’t in it, so I couldn’t sustain the energy levels needed to finish the project. As Gina Cole said at the launch of her book Na Viro last Friday night at the New Zealand Society of Authors meeting, “Writing a book is tough.” Short, sweet, and to the point! All the fates have to be aligned, and your energy has to come from the inexhaustible fuel supplied by conviction. You can’t fake story writing. It needs to come from a deep source within or the well runs dry pretty quick.

I wouldn’t dare write literary fiction because I neither read the genre nor enjoy it. Throughout the recent writers’ festival, I sat in on several live interviews or “conversations,” and two of them were with authors of highly-praised literary novels. Those were the only events where I felt out of place. Truth is, I’m not as intelligent as I look. The thought that went through my head multiple times while watching those interviews was, “I think this conversation is above my pay grade.” A lot of the points they made did not compute.
Likewise, horror and all variations thereof leave me cold. It’s another personal no-go zone. I don’t have the stomach for horror. The only horror story I’ve read – apart from critiquing my friend, Maria Cisneros-Toth’s book, Spooky Tales – was Ghost Story by Stephen King (Peter Straub). The latter’s novel freaked me out big time, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Ghost Story afterward. I didn’t like feeling afraid in my own time because of a book, and it put me off reading horror altogether. The only horror movie I’ve ever seen was Dawn of the Dead when I was a teenager. I lasted five minutes watching that movie, and then I stood up and walked out of the cinema. It’s the only time I’ve ever done so. And I’ve not seen a single horror film since. The genre is not my bag. I don’t want nasty images replaying in my mind long after a movie is finished. And the same goes for the darker sorts of fiction. I don’t want to read threatening material or have it cloud the bright sky of my imagination. It feels like I need to protect my good spirits and keep my environment positive. My friend would call it ‘keeping my armour polished.’

Another genre I avoid is picture books. There was an extended period in my twenties when I wrote picture books for the 0 – 5-year-old range. I spent at least a decade developing the stories and illustrating them. Looking back on this time, I learned a lot about writing through labouring under the constraints of the form. The economy of language and tightness of composition is essential, along with an ear for the rhythm of the spoken word. However, I prefer using lots of words, and I felt confined by the genre and miserable. Eventually, the limits of the form began to feel like a straightjacket, and I felt driven to escape.

Alternatively, my first ever experiment writing middle fiction was like lighting a flame. With more generous word limits, I could have fun with words and spend more time getting to know my characters. I could explore the plot, the story arc, and so on. The natural fit for me was to write fantasy because that is the genre I read as a child and still like to read now. When I think back, it wasn’t a matter of consciously choosing what I would write at that point. I picked up the pen and that’s what came out. Fantasy middle fiction fit like a glove, and I’ve been playing happily in my sandbox ever since.
What about you? What genre do you avoid? Which do you embrace?

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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Let it be easy. ~ Anon

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~ SPEECHES ARE LIKE STORIES (How To Speak In Public 2) ~

Orators are natural storytellers. We know how to tell a story. It is easy to construct speeches, the same way we tell stories, with a few concrete steps.

Preparation is the key to a successful presentation. It helps to distill the central idea into one sentence. I usually follow this with three to five statements that support the central idea and figure out the order of the points from there.

Storytelling has a shape. We grew up with stories from our earliest memories. Even a three-year-old will prick up their ears if any part of a story is missing. Because we are hardwired as to the patterns and the shape a story should take. Speeches are the same. They have a recognized, traditional form. When presented with a disorganized speech, an audience will focus on mentally creating order in the presentation instead of paying attention to the content.

A story has a Beginning, Middle, and End; a speech has an Introduction, a Body, and a Conclusion. In Toastmasters, speech structure has described this way: Tell what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you’ve told them.

Kiwi author Brian Falkner described the story structure this way:

S — SETTING
T — THE CHARACTERS
O — OBSTACLES
R — REACH
Y — YOUR GOAL

Basic speech structure can work within this structure nicely. The first part of your speech, the introduction, provides the all-important Setting. You set the stage for what is to come. Give some context. Your intro should take no more than two minutes. You want it to be compelling and wake the audience up into paying attention.

The body of your speech or the middle of your story is where you put the characters, obstacles, and reach. The “Tell them” part. The body is for your main idea or points: such as anecdotes, statistics, quotes, or other researched information. Organize the material into a natural order that makes sense. It should be logically, sequentially arranged.

After the body, prepare to sum it all up in 30 – 60 seconds. Tell them what you’ve told them. Summarize your key points, and make a call to action if applicable. Try to wrap up by alluding to points made in the introduction because people will take away the last thing they hear more than any other part of your speech.

Embrace your storytelling ability and make it work for you. Think, does your presentation have an engaging introduction, an interesting body, and a satisfying conclusion? Do I feel motivated by the content of my story? Have I communicated the central speech idea? These questions will craft a great speech. Have fun and tell your stories with gusto because a good story is something people will remember long after it was told.

Happy storytelling. Why not have a go and try public speaking?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol

*This new series of blog posts is adapted from the material I’m currently presenting at my Toastmasters club.

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Every story I create creates me. I write to create myself. ~ Octavia E. Butler

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~ IWSG: Art or Market ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and the hashtag is #IWSG.

August 3 question – When you set out to write a story, do you try to be more original or do you try to give readers what they want?
Whew! Talk about a challenging issue for authors, especially unpublished writers. When you’re starting out and unsure of yourself, you wonder do I follow my ideas or try to write for the bestselling genres? If an author wants a long career, can they afford to ignore the demands of the market? That is the million-dollar question.
When I started writing picture books in the 80s, agents and publishers said you couldn’t write about cats or dogs because they were overdone. Although that didn’t stop everyone else from writing about them. When I started writing children’s chapter books in the 90s, they warned against writing about witches or wizards for the same reason. Since then the Harry Potter phenomenon happened, so, yeah, thanks, guys. Several years ago, everyone was writing about vampires, then it moved on, and everyone wrote about zombies. I didn’t bother. Suffice to say, I stopped worrying about what the market wanted long ago.

I guess I’m fortunate. Being a hobby writer, sales are not my main focus.
I don’t strive for originality, either. Over the years, I’ve learned that the prose has to come through me in whatever state it arrives. Then I enjoy tinkering with the muse’s gift. After all, isn’t most of an author’s time spent on editing rather than the original free writing? It’s up to us how much we change the form.
At the editing stage, I appreciate the input of critique groups. I feel they give insight into how readers might think or feel. My sister always urges me to leave my stories untouched. Her point is that too many cooks can spoil the broth. I get it. However, I value the opinions of my critique group, feeling that at some stage, an author does need to consider their audience, even if they self-publish and their audience is few.

The danger is when you overdo the critique and meddle to the point that the essence of your creative intelligence gets diluted. Was it Terry Pratchett who said if you question the muse too much, you might stuff the whole thing up? I’m paraphrasing. But it was something like that.
Creativity is a divine splash of energy in our brains. My dear elderly friend, Meg, used to call it ‘the inspired whatevers.’ The writer’s task is to watch for when the muse might strike and endeavour to catch ‘the inspired whatevers’ straight off the ether. I remember one writing teacher telling us that we had to ‘grab the first word given, and from there, the rest would come.’ That has been true for me with my fiction. Sometimes, I have failed to catch the first word, which resulted in floundering, unable to get started. But, if I catch that first word, then we are away. The rest of the story tumbles out of the cosmos, ready and willing. That magical feeling occurs when art can happen, that tingling when you capture the spark. We authors act as the conduit for the sublime. As do all artists.

During the editing stage, we turn into alchemists. We try to bash and hammer the divine spark forcing it into a round hole. We take inspiration from the ether and try to make it fit within the standards of storytelling. I remain uncertain about how to get the balance right. How much do you add, and how much do you lose? It’s a constant balancing act.
How about you? Do you strive for originality with your writing? Or do you try to conform to current literary expectations? What do you think?

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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I’m never truly happy with everything I ever put out. There’s always something I can improve on. Phrase a sentence better. Make the message pop. Not be such a dullard. But facing that doubt is part and parcel of the writing life. ~ Stuart Danker

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https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com

~ HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC ~

In June 2015, I had my first book launch planned for September of that year. My greatest fear was public speaking, so I knew there was no way I could deliver a speech at the launch without serious help. After some searching the internet, I discovered Toastmasters. The non-profit educational speakers’ organization began with Ralph C. Smedley in the United States, and now boasts 352,000 members in 141 countries. With more than 16,400 individual clubs worldwide, there was a club within a ten-minute drive of my house. I rocked along that week, joined up, and was assigned a mentor. What is a mentor? A mentor is a person who provides guidance and support to empower a protégé to reach their goals.

In Toastmasters, they assign a mentor to guide each new member for the first six months. Debbie was my mentor, and she was brilliant, yet not even she could help me with my nerves. Public speaking is the number one fear for most people, and for me, it felt debilitating. The way I managed the fear was by tightly controlling my speeches. I would start work on them two weeks before the due date. I would write out the idea and edit it endlessly until every word was in the exact right place. Then a week before the presentation was due, I would start memorizing the piece. I would work on it line by line, learning and rehearsing until finally, I knew it verbatim.

On the day of the meeting, in a state of high anxiety, I would pace outside rehearsing my lines. Only after giving my speech could I finally relax. The months went by, and I survived. I successfully delivered the keynote at my book launch and even won a speech competition. Somewhere along the way, the challenges of Toastmasters became fun. Far out, I thought, is it true that I have conquered my greatest fear? It was “a feather in my cap,” as my father used to say.
Then came the day an evaluator gave a speech evaluation that stopped me in my tracks and changed my trajectory forever. On that day, I remember being secretly pleased with my speech because I had recalled every word perfectly.

Mike was my evaluator. He was one of our best storytellers. Mike could come up with a speech on his way into the club and deliver an amazing piece a few minutes later. He said, ‘Your speech was fine, great. We’ve said it all before. But…you speak as if you’re talking to yourself in the mirror. You’re not connecting with us, just reciting something you’ve learned by rote. My challenge to you is to stop memorizing your speeches.’
Whoa. I was thunderstruck. My face was burning. This advice came three to four years into my Toastmasters journey, and I had memorized all my speeches until that point. I felt utterly humiliated. Scurrying home that day with my tail between my legs, I cried my eyes out. I swore I would never return to the club again! But Mike had issued me a challenge. Could I give a speech without memorizing it? I didn’t even know. Looking it up in the educational material, I saw that Toastmasters recommend solidifying the central ideas and that you learn any quotes, dates, or numbers but resist memorizing the rest of the content. Oh, geez.

For my next speech, I hatched an idea, wrote four words on a card, and attempted winging it after only two run-throughs. I felt like a hot mess. Without a clear path mapped out before me, I was sure I fumbled about for the words. Nevertheless, I did it. The second speech without memorizing was a bit easier, and the next one was a bit easier again. Then, I began to experience a real change, the back and forth, the give and take, of connecting with the audience. That’s where the magic lies. Mike’s honesty had released me from a self-imposed prison, my little cage. It was a whole new day.

Here’s the thing with public speaking. I have learned that it’s not about projecting an image of perfection onto your audience or trying to look like something you’re not. It’s about sharing your views, your thoughts, your feelings, your perspective – who you are – with others authentically. It’s about being present in the moment with your audience. That’s when you get truly memorable public speaking, and it’s also when the content comes across as the most meaningful.
It’s a process and I am still learning to the best of my ability, one meeting at a time. These days I even get to “pay it forward” by mentoring new members and passing on what I have learned, which really is a great feeling! In the words of John Ford, You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.
Why not have a go and try public speaking. You might surprise yourself!

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“A WINNER IS JUST A LOSER WHO TRIED ONE MORE TIME.” ~ GEORGE M. MOORE, JR.

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~ SPREADING THE LOVE ~

In Toastmasters last week, during the spontaneous speaking segment of the meeting called Table Topics, I was asked this question, “How has your life changed in the last two years?” I replied, “There has been a lot more stress. Even after doing meditation and yoga each day, there is still stress. But, the greatest change has been the divisions that have taken place between my family and friends.” Apart from the impacts of illness, death, and chaos around us, the pandemic has also divided communities and families. People have become polarised over powerful feelings one way or the other. There is a lot of rhetoric on both sides. My own family has broken into two camps. Some people aren’t talking to others and are not seeing those on the other side of the fence. My friend group has suffered the same fate. As the classic middle child peacekeeper, I navigate my way down the middle, passing messages between the camps. It appears that stress has altered the normal levels of tolerance friends and family would extend to one another. Instead, people are quick to attack and denounce others as wrong. It’s sad.

Whenever I’m in doubt, I retreat to one of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far in 57 years of life on this planet. I’ve shared this message before, and anyone who has known me the last nine years I’ve been active on social media will have heard it already. Be prepared. I will share it again in the future. It is too valuable to keep to myself.
Let me tell you the story.
About thirty years ago, I was a recruit to Amway. I didn’t last long in the business, but, in the beginning, I was new and shiny-eyed, ever curious to learn more. If you are unfamiliar with Amway, it works on a tier system. As you gain more people in your business (or “down lines”), you earn more money, and by the time you reach “Diamond” level, you earn decent returns and have many down lines all looking up to you as their leader.

Our Diamond leaders were an intelligent, good-looking, older couple. They were articulate and kind. For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call them Bob and Sue. I would assume a lot of the teaching and lectures in Amway would take place online these days, but in those days, the meetings happened in person. So we would rock along to school auditoriums and church halls one night a week to hear the various Diamonds and above give talks about building the business.
On Tuesday night, I attended a meeting where my Diamond leaders were speaking. Sue, especially, was glamorous and impeccably dressed, one of those people who has star quality oozing out of her pores. She never goes unnoticed, heads turn. She and I had never spoken in person. I was a mere underling, a newbie so far down the line I had not even signed up a single business prospect. I was starstruck to be in the same room.
The meeting was inspirational, as always. When it finished, I filed out along with everyone else, and somehow, I ended up walking alongside Sue. To my amazement, she started talking to me.

We established I was one of her downlines. We wandered slowly out to the car park. Sue was in full swing, talking about the benefits of the business and the usual speel. Then we faced one another to say our goodbyes. Sue grabbed my hand, and she said, “You know what, honey, if you forget everything else I have told you tonight, it’s fine. There is only one thing I want you to take away. There is one rule I try to follow every day. It’s more important than everything else, even the business.”
I nodded. My focus was on her 100%.
“Whether in your business or in your life, there is only one thing you need to do every day, and that is to SPREAD THE LOVE.”

Even then, I could feel the tingle, the reverberation of those words. The moment and the message were profound. They engraved into my memory. I took the message away with me that night, and it completely changed my outlook. I’ve never forgotten it, and I have endeavoured to apply the wisdom in the years since. Whenever in doubt about any situation, big or small, I remember Sue’s advice. Spread the love.
Within the current climate of disintegration, I remember that life lesson again. Have hurtful things been said to me by family and friends? Yes. Have hurtful things been done to me? Yes. Has misunderstanding run rife? Yes. But do I respond in kind? No. Do I stand in my corner pointing fingers, telling others what they should think or how they should behave? No. Do I belittle and demean others for their choices? No. I come back again and again to that shining woman in that dimly-lit car park, throwing the business narrative out the window to impart the most valuable truth in her life.

I think, how can I SPREAD THE LOVE?

Talk to you later.
Keep creating!
Yvette Carol
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“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein

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Subscribe to my newsletter by emailing me with the words Newsletter Subscription in the subject line to: yvettecarol@hotmail.com

~ IWSG: WRITER’S REGRET ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post on the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organizers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG, and the hashtag is #IWSG.

January 5 question – What’s the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?
I guess I regret turning down two offers from publishers. When I was first starting out and was submitting my children’s manuscripts to editors in New Zealand regularly, there were two yes replies. However, I turned them both down. One said they would publish my picture book, Free Wally, but they wanted to change all the characters’ names. What can I say? I was young and green. My creative soul felt they were going to tamper with my “artistic integrity” by changing the details. Therefore, I said no thank you and imagined I would easily find another acceptance for the story. Yet, I never did. It was the one and only offer I received for that book.
In the 90s a different publisher said they would release my middle-grade fantasy, The Scrifs and Stirrits, but they would only pay me a 5% royalty fee. In those days the going rate for royalties was 10%, and I was miffed. Why were they offering me less? I turned down the offer, thinking I wanted to be paid the same as everyone else. But I never found another publisher for that story so never got the chance.

Looking back at those decisions now, it’s easy to laugh at the folly of youth. What did it matter if they changed the names or paid me less royalty rate? I would still have had two books released by traditional publishing houses behind my name to help me stake a claim to this writer’s life. Instead, I hang in the wind of self-publishing and take the financial/emotional/mental hit of being Indie for every book. As a wide-eyed beginner, I did not know that getting any acceptance at all was fantastic. It took many more years of submitting my work to realize that acceptances are few and far between. And these days there are even fewer publishers accepting unsolicited work.
When I released my trilogy in 2020, I did a bit of research to see how many traditional publishers there were left in New Zealand. If I had wanted to submit my stories for consideration, there was only a handful of children’s publishers still accepting unsolicited manuscripts and after reading the t’s and c’s, my stories would only have been suitable for two of them. Two options? Pitiful. The current situation is very different from what it was when I was young and sending my stories to editors all over the country. I had no idea then how good I had it. But hey, hindsight is 20/20.

Therefore, if I could go back and change one thing about the past, maybe it would be rejecting the publishers’ offers. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Because I did overcome that obstacle. Early on, I made that mistake. Yet, I learned a lot through the years of “failing” that followed. They say if you change one thing about the past it alters the course of history. Would I want to mess around with the perfect plan for my life? Probably not. Maybe I was supposed to go it alone. Becoming an Indie is diabolically hard but it does have its rewards. I made all my own choices about covers, style, and everything for The Chronicles of Aden Weaver, which was satisfying. I’m proud of my trilogy. For the cover art, I collaborated with my nephew, Si, who is a consummate artist. We had such fun in the creative process, brainstorming and tooling around with options. I didn’t have to compromise his vision or question my choices. We had no interference which is a blessing only bestowed upon the self-published.

Looking back now, I have the satisfaction of knowing I did it my way, and there’s something pure in that. I cherish the books I’ve put out into the world so far. Would I have been able to say that if I was under the wing of a publisher? Or would the end result be something mutant and divorced from the original vision? With my name on the cover. No. The more I think about it, the more glad I am that I turned down those offers back in the day. I set myself on course for putting out books that authentically belong to me, and my creative intelligence is my service to the world. It will live on long after I’m gone. No, I’m convinced now I did the right thing when I was young.
So in a roundabout way, I have come back to the first question. What’s the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
What about you, what do you regret most about your writing?

Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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Every story I create creates me. I write to create myself. ~ Octavia E. Butler

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Subscribe to my newsletter by emailing me with “Newsletter Subscription” in the subject line to yvettecarol@hotmail.com