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TORN From the Inside Out & THE JOURNEY

 MEMOIRS In 1973,  a young woman, barely sixteen years old, and a zealous member of a cultist religious group, married a twenty-three year-o...

Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist: Never Give Up Your Dream




Paulo Coelho is an internationally famed author, mainly because of his 1987 book, The Alchemist, which has sold over 150 million copies and had a 315 week run on the New York Times best seller list. That is over six continuous years as a best seller.

The Alchemist tells a tale that became almost autobiographical for Coelho: that of a young shepherd boy on a quest for what would become the most valued thing in his life. In Coelho’s case, his personal  quest was to become a writer. From the time Coelho was a young boy in his native land of Brazil; his dream was to become a writer, even though it was scoffed at by others. Writing was his dream. In The Alchemist, Coelho wrote “When you want something, the whole universe conspires to help you”, and those words inspired him to not give up when the first publication of The Alchemist flopped.

If Coelho had listened to the first publisher who decided the book was not worthwhile after the first printing sold less than a dozen copies, or if he had listened to his mother who questioned the logic of becoming a writer, there would have been no Internationally renowned Paulo Coelho, and no The Alchemist, which has won over one hundred awards. There would have been no time spent on the New York Times best seller list, I would not be writing about Paulo Coelho.
The lesson learned is to never give up on your dream.


Sara Niles

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Tribute to Maya Angelou by Sara Niles

Maya Angelou died just three days ago, on May 28, 2014. I was a twelve year-old girl when I first heard of Maya Angelou, the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and I was engrossed when the story was told via a PBS documentary some years later. I read the book when I was in middle school for the first time, and I re-read it several times thereafter; each time finding a greater depth of meaning as my own perspective of life had expanded. 

I found Dr. Angelou to be a fascinating person as a whole of her many composite selves: the author and poet, the innovative entrepreneur, the multi-talented actress and dancer, and most of all, the tireless humanitarian philosopher and perpetual teacher whose motto was  “ If you learn, teach.”

Maya Angelou was a self-made woman whose phenomenal personality enriched the world that she lived in.
She was indeed a Phenomenal Woman:  Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou from Oprah.com, because when she walked into the ‘room’ of the world and made her place, she was noticed as she walked through life with her head “not bowed”, and even though she did not “talk real loud”, she left the echo of her words behind.

I feel I have lost another part of my life, another life member, because my world has had her in it since I was a child. Although I never met her, I knew she was there... her presence defining the perimeters of the literary world; her tweets and posts providing encouragement and hope for everyone.
I woke up today and remembered she is gone. I offer tribute to the woman who was born to small things yet rose to greatness.

Dr. Maya Angelou’s biography: Biography of Maya Angelou from Maya Angelou.com


Wednesday, April 9, 2014

The Ghost at the Shelter by Sara Niles

I am the author of Torn From the Inside Out, The Journey and Out of the Maelstrom, three very serious nonfiction memoirs;however, Out of the Maelstrom is laced with humor throughout, placed strategically among stories of trauma and survival to lighten the mood.
In Ghost in the Shelter, my former work colleagues and I had many laughs at my expense over this story, that can be found in Out of the Maelstrom
Image
Note: Sandy was the long time shelter manager and Veronica was the night manager of a small, nonprofit domestic violence shelter located in an impoverished and crime ridden small town. Sara Niles narrates the story.
Chapter 11 Out of the Maelstrom
 The Ghost in the Shelter

Both Veronica and Sandy were superstitious, at least enough so that they believed Casper the Friendly Ghost lived at the shelter and only came out when the house was empty of clients. I sat with them early mornings listening to their ‘ghost’ stories, and had to resist laughing out loud while they compared notes.

According to Sandy, the ‘ghost’ would get mad and knock books off the shelves in the front office. I was thinking to myself that the hundred year old wood flooring was warped and slightly lopsided, and that if I was the floor and a six foot tall woman was stomping around on me, I might tilt a book or two off the wobbly bookshelves too. According to Veronica, the ghost lived upstairs and rattled the outside top door (the fire escape door) on windy nights. Once again I was giggling inside myself while I smiled at them both. The real reason for the noise was likely a simple one such as the door was probably unlatched and banging against the wall because Veronica was too scared to go up and latch it on those cold windy nights.

The first time I experienced  both of my co-workers talking seriously about ghosts, I thought it was a prank on me to see if I would fall for it, but I was even more dumbfounded to discover they were irritated at me for not believing them.  Both Sand and Veronica truly believed the shelter had a ‘ghost’ and  the ‘ghost’ was running rampant. Both Veronica and Sandy were telling the same tale as realistically as witnesses to a crime scene recounting the hard core facts.I was so tickled that I could barely contain myself, but dared not laugh; especially since my two amazonian co-workers were six feet tall and I was a mere pittance of that height, at five foot two, I could outrun the both of them, I was sure, just in case a giggle escaped me.

“He’s really ticked off at something!” Veronica stated. The report this time was a little different from usual, because the ‘ghost’ was rattling the floor boards with this new installment of the ghost tale. It was hilarious, I was cracking up inside and had to walk out of hearing in order to relieve myself of the giggles as I thought to myself: my god, both these ladies are going loony on me-not one- by a couple flew over the coo-coos nest. What I did not know is that I was about to join them.

It happened that we had a few days with no clients, a rare thing indeed and one that should be taken advantage of to catch up and rest because breaks like this came infrequently. Someone called in to inform Sandy that she could not cover her work shift and Sandy was not prepared to cover it, so I volunteered to cover it. I could catch up on work and watch television in peace.

I was lying on the couch in the back room because it housed the largest television, when the curtains trembled. I continued to watch television (it was probably the central unit kicking on). About twenty minutes passed and the floor started to shake as though there was a physical tremor, then the  the curtains visibly shook, this time, and the tremor was sustained. I was imagining things. The washer kicked on. Whatever it was, I knew it was not a ghost because there was no such thing. Logic would prevail, logic and science and I would walk calmly into the washroom to confirm my suspicions. The washer was not in use and had not been in use that day; nor was the dryer. Not the dishwasher. Perhaps a big truck on the street caused the vibration. Whatever the cause, it had to have a scientific explanation, I thought to myself, while still feeling a bit uneasy.

I resumed watching television in my comfortable, cotton sweat suit set, with a glass of iced tea. There. Reason won out- the vibrations stopped. Just as I had dismissed the fear as irrational and unreasonable, another tremor shook the floor, and I hesitantly allowed  my arm to drop from the couch as I placed my hand flat on the floor—the vibrations were strong-it was like a small earthquake. That was it! It must be a small earthquake-of course I had never known a quake to strike in our area before, but that meant nothing. I was sure the local newspaper would confirm it tomorrow. Not to worry, but at least I knew Veronica had not lost her mind because it she had, there were two of us on the loony bus.

Morning came without event and I made coffee, Sandy would be in soon. I had not decided whether to even mention the ‘tremors’ considering how worked up over ‘ghosts’ she would get. Nope–I would just let it go.

Meanwhile, Veronica was covering the early evening shift due to a family crisis with the same staff person. I came to work the next day only to discover the ‘tremor’ that I had felt and failed to mention, had not been the work of a ‘ghost’, but was a real and present danger. The old gas lines underneath the house had sprung a leak and the friction from the escaping gas rattled the pipes, the pipes rattled the floor, and by the time Veronica arrived, the vibration could be felt on the ground. Veronica did not believe in taking risks, she was the type who would call 9-1-1 first and figure out the problem later. The Police arrived first and seemed to think Veronica had lost her mind when she told them the ‘ground was shaking’ at which the two officers looked at each other and began to do their pre-departure apology and it was at that precise moment that the biggest tremor of all hit and the ground vibrated underneath their feet. Veronica said the two officers switched into crisis mode and immediately called the situation in. The city was called and notified of the emergency so that a bulldozer was promptly dispatched and the gas lines were shut down, thus barely averting catastrophe. I was so glad Veronica was at the shelter instead of me, I would have been quietly sipping my tea while I blew sky high along with the shelter, a sobering and mildly humorous image popped into mind. Would the insurance have covered me?

I had learned my lesson in practical survival versus the ghost story. Next time there was a suspicion of a ‘ghost’ I would follow Veronica’s example and simply call 9-1-1, or maybe even Ghostbusters.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Child Broken by Sara Niles: April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month

Child Broken by Sara Niles
Broken families tend to create broken children. 
I worked for almost a decade for a domestic violence agency, and during that time I came in contact with children who were severely damaged by the trauma they experienced during their short lives. The cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects of child development can be altered by trauma; and in extreme trauma that also includes betrayal and abandonment, children can be reduced to an almost animal-like state.
In a Child Broken, taken from Out of the Maelstrom, such a case is presented:

"We all assumed that the boys and their mother would relax and become friendlier after a few days, but what we did not know was the extent and duration of the torturous life these two boys had lived, the kind of life that can make an animal out of an innocent child" 
Free on Amazon April 7-9


Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Sara Nile's Story: from 1957 from the Garden of Eden into the fire

Chapter 1
The Garden of Eden




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, and 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 like a crazed animal.
The date was February 13, of the year 1987, 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.

The Deep South, 1957

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 bottom land 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. These humble country homes were usually only accessible by traveling down dirt, tire-rutted roads with strips of ragged grass running down the middle, like frazzled, green ribbon. This was oil country, so 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 the year 1957, a date that became a famous marker in the racial history of conflict between Blacks and Whites; when The Little Rock Nine were escorted to school by Federal troops under the order of President Eisenhower to counteract the attempt of Arkansas Governor Orval 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 center line.  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, made of rough burlap. 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 have been 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 roof covered water well crested the top of a steep red clay hill.  Uncle Robert’s head would always appear first, and  on hot days his hatless bald head would bloom at the top of that hill prettier to us than any flower, because 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 have been 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, somehow I knew 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”, and as an afterthought she added “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 dying, 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, since 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 water spring at the bottom of the hill. The spring bubbled up fresh water continually, with the overflow creating a running stream of branch water that was covered over by a long 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, while the smells of 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,  and 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 yellow and gray-striped Tabby 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. On Saturday, we went to town.  My aunt bought shoes, dresses, ‘britches’, baubles, and toys, and everything that a little girl who had nothing, would need.  I remember the things I didn’t need, the candies 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,  and 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, amid 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, his head crowned with a semi-circle of silky white hair with a matching 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, on 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, and 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, a land besieged by 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 he asked a young family that he was fond of, to adopt me.  Life had changed course for me again, and 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.


Chapter 2
Golden Memories
My memories, both the common and the spectacular, punctuated the stream of time during the brief blur of my formative years.  Somehow, the colors, smells and sounds of childhood are like no other in life and can never be duplicated.  I have seen orchards in bloom against sunsets so glorious as to move one from the realm of sensate appeal into the realm of enchantment, but I saw them only as a child.  The intoxicating smell of gold and silver crayons, the trophies of the Crayola box, had the power to lure me into fanciful trances as I used the colored wax wands to weave magic upon mere paper.  The comforting sounds of adult conversation, as I eavesdropped cocooned away behind cushions long after my bedtime, and the rise and fall of soft laughter on summer nights, mingled with the rhythm of the lonely cry of the Whip ‘O Will made my bedtime lullaby.  These things were the milk and honey of my early history.

However good a life can be, there is never total absence of the dark side of the human experience.  I remember the feeling of a ‘falling’ sensation in the pit of my mind when I heard of the ax murder of my dear cousin Willie, who lived within walking distance of our farm; poor, simple, Cousin Willie, who had raised children and grandchildren. Cousin Willie who had just barely survived a house fire, and who wore the burns that came at the cost of her survival:  Willie, who bothered no one except to bring cheer by her presence.  Her six-foot image graced the top of our hill at least monthly, but I knew I would see her no more.  She had recently married a man new to the area, some said

End of Sample

Monday, March 17, 2014

Langston Hughes: How family conflict fueled his artistic creativity

The passion that fuels artistic creativity often is rooted in some type of pain, which is the precursor to growth. In the case of Langston Hughes it is no different:
Link between his mother's letters and Hughes's writing

Saturday, December 14, 2013

"Love is one of the greatest human emotions and a powerful force in its own right, but even love cannot prevent some things from happening”

“Sometimes when you become so accustomed to loss, a new loss is only part of your usual ‘normal’”

“Our flight to freedom and safety was filled with a calm suppressed terror in the children and I, the type terror you have when you are used to living with danger”

“Emotional breakings are delicate to repair and even harder to decipher. I was not smart enough, nor did I have the wisdom needed for such a job at that time”


“Ariel was the perfect emotional adapter when things went wrong, but she was not amenable to life when things went right. It seemed her coping mechanism was geared towards trouble”

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The Age of Mega-Authors: over one hundred million book sales by Sara Niles

There are best sellers in books, and there are epic, mega-bestsellers: books that have sold over one hundred million copies.  The authors who have had the distinction of being included among this very elite group, as mega-authors, are few.

The  book by author Agatha Christie that was published in 1939,  And Then There Were None reportedly sold over one hundred million copies worldwide;  which is no small feat considering the fact the prolific Christie has reportedly sold over four billion books worldwide, making Agatha Christie one of the  most prolific authors of all time.

Books that have sold over one hundred million copies include The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien and A Tale of Two Cites by Charles Dickens;  both English authors whose long running sales dated back to  the nineteenth century, which of course, gave them both a good head start.

Since the dawn of the second millennium, there have been noteworthy authors who may eventually eclipse the former prolific champions for the prize of mega-authors; to name a few:

Barbara Cartland (1 billion), Danielle Steele (800,000,000), and JK Rowling (450,000,000)
Followed by Dean Koontz, Stephen King (350,000,000), and Louis L’Amour (330,000,000), with a pretty long list of authors who have sold over one hundred million books per volumes of work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_authors; however, there remain two distinct authors who are set far apart from the crowd: Suzanne Collins and E.L. James.

E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey and Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games topped the list in 2012 of book sales:  http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/55383-the-bestselling-books-of-2012.html

AS of 2012 the Hunger Games reportedly outsold JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series with over fifty million copies sold worldwide. http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/55383-the-bestselling-books-of-2012.html

Wow! Now that is a lot of book sales…but wait, Fifty Shades of Grey by Suzanne Collins has sold over seventy million copies, according to the Wall Street Journal in its March 26, 2013 issue: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323466204578384743129294104


The latter two authors, American author Suzanne Collins and English author E.L. James, are epic mega-authors whose names will live long in the annals of literature.

The Age of Mega-Authors: over one hundred million book sales By Sara Niles


Sara Niles 

There are best sellers in books, and there are epic, mega-bestsellers: books that have sold over one hundred million copies.  The authors who have had the distinction of being included among this very elite group, as mega-authors, are few.

The  book by author Agatha Christie that was published in 1939,  And Then There Were None reportedly sold over one hundred million copies worldwide;  which is no small feat considering the fact the prolific Christie has reportedly sold over four billion books worldwide, making Agatha Christie one of the  most prolific authors of all time.

Books that have sold over one hundred million copies include The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien and A Tale of Two Cites by Charles Dickens;  both English authors whose long running sales dated back to  the nineteenth century, which of course, gave them both a good head start
Since the dawn of the second millennium, there have been noteworthy authors who may eventually eclipse the former prolific champions for the prize of mega-authors; to name a few:
Barbara Cartland (1 billion), Danielle Steele (800,000,000), and JK Rowling (450,000,000)
Followed by Dean Koontz, Stephen King (350,000,000), and Louis L’Amour (330,000,000), with a pretty long list of authors who have sold over one hundred million books per volumes of work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_authors; however, there remain two distinct authors who are set far apart from the crowd: Suzanne Collins and E.L. Grey.

E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey and Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games topped the list in 2012 of book sales:  http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/55383-the-bestselling-books-of-2012.html

AS of 2012 the Hunger Games reportedly outsold JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series with over fifty million copies sold worldwide. http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/55383-the-bestselling-books-of-2012.html

Wow! Now that is a lot of book sales…but wait, Fifty Shades of Grey by Suzanne Collins has sold over seventy million copies, according to the Wall Street Journal in its March 26, 2013 issue: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323466204578384743129294104

The latter two authors, American author Suzanne Collins and English author E.L. James, are epic mega-authors whose names will live long in the annals of literature.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Writing The Book: The Long Journey By Sara Niles

A dream sometimes comes at a very high cost, and it may began as a passion laden idea, grow to a fire in your soul until it is a mission. Maybe only you know the value of the dream, but if you are fortunate, others may join you in your devotion to your cause and support you in your resolute determination. A dream is not a passive thing, that is if it is really worthwhile-it takes work; sometimes many years of work.
My dream began in 1995, after formulating as a vague impression for a few years, before blooming as a full-fledged idea. The book: Torn From the Inside Out breathed its first breath of life in 2004 as the concrete vestige of my dream to make a difference. My dream has grown bigger, and it continues today.


Thursday, October 10, 2013

Trolls in Cyberspace: The New Road Rage

By Sara Niles
10-10-2013

The term ‘troll’ originated in mythical lore at ugly beings that were grotesque and up to no good, and the term ‘road rage’ originated in modern times with the advent of automobiles and concentrated traffic on highways. Both terms have come into play in cyberspace as ‘trolls’ have populated almost every form of social media looking for ways to stir up discontent and provoke arguments.  A troll hides behind anonymity as an unknown person on a computer, just as those who are subject to road rage, release pent up frustration and anger on unsuspecting motorists by calling names and verbally abusing their fellow travelers. It is as if the Troll and the person venting road rage, both are projecting their own anger and sense of inadequacy by ‘picking’ on others to make themselves feel better.

If you have ever encountered this type behavior, it may have been puzzling to see the enormity of rage vented upon people. I was reading an online interview depicting a woman who had lost her son in death and the interviewer questioned her about how she managed to cope. The comments that followed were a true reflection of the compassion that most people are naturally capable of; however, there were a few trolls who actually demeaned the woman as a celebrity whose money and privilege supposedly exempted her form having the right to suffer pain. One troll mercilessly attacked her, entitling her response as ‘Oh Booowhooo” poor you with all your money!’.


If is a shame that some allow their own negative emotions and inadequacies in life to rob them of all natural affection, thus remove them one step away from civility and humanity. No wonder the term ‘troll’ is so fitting.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Memoirs: A New Trend

Twenty-five memoirs made the New York Times bestseller list the week  ending August 17, of this year (2013), (http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction/list.html , with many of these memoirs having led the market as bestsellers for many weeks in a row. This count does not include the many self-published memoirists who have had success with child abuse memoirs such as Why Me by Sarah Burleton and Empty Chairs by Stacey Danson. The reading public is discovering that the stories of ordinary people who have lived extraordinary lives, or who have survived unusual experiences, provide the material for memorable memoirs, that is, when they are well written. The big publishing houses are beginning to see the light as they accept more memoirs into their elite collection of promoted authors, such as Brain On Fire by Susannah Cahalan, a story of a woman whose diagnoses of a rare brain disease mesmerized the medical profession. The landscape of the publishing industry has really changed, and so has the image of the simple memoir, since the early days of book publishing.
When I was young (never mind my age), only memoirs about mega stars like Elizabeth Taylor would gain enough interest to win a place on the New York Times bestseller list; and then many celebrities began to write memoirs about the mundane aspects of their daily lives, bringing their huge following of admirers into the book market. The publishing houses could get a two for one deal when they signed a big name star who came prepackaged for instant success, and the unknown memoirist did not stand a chance at that time…then the technological advances of our new cyber age, catapulted us into a raging eBook revolution in which many indie authors became overnight successes, and being an ‘unknown’ author no longer mattered. What did this mean for the memoir author?

Perhaps it was about that time,  the idea began to grow in the minds of those less well known, or even totally unknown, that their own lives of tragedy and chaos, disaster and suspense, might actually hold some value in the trained eye of the reading public. There are countless stories in life that are truly stranger than fiction, and some of these stories began to be told by talented authors, many of whom were unknowns, that is, until their lives were plastered all over the world in multiple languages.

So what is it that makes a memoir an appealing read?

The age old literary advice given by most writing instructors, is to “write what you know”, and the second piece of advice is to write it well. When the elements of a good story occur naturally in life, and the conflict, plot and timing is just right, you have more than a personal narrative, you have a ‘memoir’.  A well written memoir concentrates an entire life, with all of its obstacles, secret heartaches and successes into a literary capsule, gift-wrapped in a neat cover, and ready to open and read.

Sara Niles Author of Torn From the Inside Out (A Memoir)


Sunday, August 18, 2013

Robert Galbraith’s The Cuckoos Calling …by J.K. Rowling


By Sara Niles

So the secret is out: J.K. Rowling hid her identity behind the pen name Robert Galbraith in order to pen her second adult book since the Potter series (http://www.hypable.com/2013/08/16/jk-rowling-new-book-plans/). Of course, when you are as big and internationally famous as Rowling, there is no use trying to hide. We know who you are, and we will find you, no matter what pseudonym you use.

It seems obvious why Rowling would not want her name to get in the way of her writing-she wanted to be known for her writing and not her name. Either way, the results will be the same: readers read because they want to. There is no way to make a reader love your writing simply because of a name.

So what is the verdict so far, from the true judges, the readers?  Good and exceptional.

 If you go to Amazon and check the thousands of reviews, they are all overwhelmingly five stars, and I agree:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Cuckoos-Calling-Robert-Galbraith/dp/0316206849/    

I did not really like her first book: The Casual Vacancy, but this one is much better; she is definitely getting her adult writer’s pen in shape and her adult plots in form. I look forward to more from Rowling, under whatever name she chooses next.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Sex Sells, and it Sells Best in Fantasy Form

By Sara Niles Author of Torn From the Inside Out

The remarkably successful Fifty Shades of Grey by Erica James, or E.L. James, was so successful that it reportedly sold one paperback book per second during the summer of 2012, according to Barbara Walters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzRbcL-a6M8), to become the fastest selling paperback of all time. The subject matter of Fifty Shades of Grey revolved around sex, but not just regular sex, all forms of sex: bondage and masochism are included, or should we say it is highlighted.
In USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2012/12/19/james-interview-fifty-shades/1767497/, James says in an interview that women all want romance and fantasy, or in other words, most women want to escape into a world of romantic fantasy and forget the chores and the mundane day to day pressures of life; whereas men prefer to escape into a world in which power, action and adventure predominates. The most noticeable gender difference between book buyers is reflected in books sales data. Women are the overall biggest book buyers. In a 2010 news article it was stated that women make up over 60 percent of book buyers and the average age of those women is over 40 (http://seattletimes.com/html/books/2012801171_litlife06.html).
So to recap the idea of break through novels in the book world, women evidently control the market. To test that theory out: Amanda Hocking sold over a million eBooks in which romance and the paranormal made up the plot, Danielle Steele (never forget the mega romance author), who has become her own brand, has sold from 600 to 800 million copies (depending of the source of the count) of her romance novels, which is getting close to the one billion sales mark. The subject matter of Steele’s books deals primarily with romance in every possible setting, and the majority of the buyers are women.
Most recently, Colleen Hoover penned romance novels that appeared to be aimed at the young adult audience, although the numbers of her sales suggest older buyers. The subject? Yes, it is romance and sexy romance (http://bloodybookaholic.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-hopeless-by-colleen-hoover-must.html). I could go on and on, but the finalize the point: if you want to attract the most eager buying crowd , it may be a good idea to write steamy romance aimed at the young adult crowd, while knowing the 42 year-old female buying power will back it up.

I don ‘ write romance novels,and even if I did, there would be no guarantee that I would be able to ‘break into’ the crowded market. When you read the success stories of the authors who have made it big, you find a common denominator in many of the success formulas: luck and timing.

So keep writing and hope for luck, and be ready when the timing is just right.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Writing and Authors: We Bring Life into our Books


Sara Niles

Into every book written by an author, there is a little bit of the author’s life and personality, whether the author writes fiction of nonfiction. Within each story there is some nuance of the voice behind the page, the man or woman who tirelessly toiled to create a story.
In the case of Stephen King the mega-author
(see King’s Mega-list:  
who wrote thousands upon thousands of pages of books that became best sellers, including many that were made into movies, King admits that his own life experience colored his writings:
“1988: “I have a sense of injustice that came; I think … My mother was a single parent. Her husband deserted her when I was 2, and she went through a lot of menial jobs. We were the little people. We were dragged from pillar to post…” Quoted from:http://www.horrorking.com/biography.html
King goes on to add:
“A lot of that sense of injustice stayed. It stuck with me, and it’s still in the books today.”
Agatha Christi, one of the world’s most prolific authors, traveled the world and spent 
many years in the orient, accompanying her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan. From Christie’s life experience came the book:  ’Murder on the Orient Express’ , written in 1934, and still a best seller today: 
The much repeated advice to write what you know, is a best practice for good authors, because what we know best, comes from life.
 Sara Niles
Author of Torn From the Inside Out


Friday, July 12, 2013

A Most Unusual Life Wish: A Bucket List to Remember

A Most Unusual Life Wish:
A Bucket List to Remember
July 12, 2013
By Sara Niles (A.K.A. Josephine Thompson)


The term ‘bucket list’ is a term that was made more popular by the 2007 movie by the same title: The Bucket List and it means to list things that you want to do before you die. Most people list things that they never got around to, or special achievements that may have been lifetime dreams.

I have one primary thing in my life that has achieved a ‘do or die’, sacred mission status to me:  it is the one thing I want to do, no matter what happens in my life.  It is the thing that is of greatest importance to me, besides the most obvious and universal goal  that most of us who are human share, that of putting family and loved ones first; but in order to clearly articulate why this one thing is so important to me, I have to tell a short version of my long life.  The life altering, and consuming mission that I have been propelled into, was aroused by my own personal life experiences and cultivated by unfortunate circumstances along my journey.  
In order to tell the story of my mission, I have to tell a snippet version of my life:

I was born to a country prostitute during a time when race relations in the southern United States were less than ideal and as a result, as a child of mixed race in the 1950’s, I was given away to my great-great uncle and aunt to raise, both of whom were in their eighties when I was barely past my toddling years. My relatives died while I was still a child and I married a man who was both abusive and mentally unstable, and about fifteen years and five children later, I found myself on a run for my life with five small children. After a traumatic upheaval, my children and I found an oasis of sorts in a small community in another state and life appeared to be grand.

To make a long story short and without telling the details, life was far from grand, as I discovered over the years. My five children had been damaged psychologically in ways that were not readily apparent, and it would take years before I fully understood the triple impact of domestic violence and abuse upon impressionable young children, or how childhood abuse affects them as adults. The impact of prolonged and extreme dysfunction is often triple and generational, successive generations are affected. I call this triple effect that predisposes victims toward drug addiction, trauma reactions and mental health issues, the ‘Three Headed Monster’.

My mission is to keep the Three Headed Monster at bay and my tools are my words: I wrote The Torn Trilogy, a monumental 1200 page work that is a testament of the power of the human spirit under fire, and as a long mission statement against family dysfunction and extreme domestic violence.

When my mission is completed, I want to visit one of the greatest mountains in the world:

Mount Kilimanjaro