Oprah Winfrey: Lessons from The Butler

Once in a while, the world experiences a persona so powerful and utterly refreshing and inspiring, the  whole world falls in love with that person; sometimes, but not often, that person becomes an international symbol of humanitarianism and good will. The rarity of encountering such person in a single lifetime makes such a unique person stand out in your mind like a beacon.

In the year 1954, while right smack in the middle of rising racial tension and imminent social change, Oprah Winfrey was born  to a poor family in one of the poorest states of the union: Mississippi. When you consider Oprah’s beginnings, the odds of Oprah becoming Oprah, seems unfathomable: Born into poverty as the child of a single mother who worked as a housemaid, with the likely possibility of achieving anything great in her future appearing to be a far off shadow in the night.

I won’t trouble you to read the ending to this story since the world already knows Oprah and what she has become in life; what I will draw attention to, is the fact that Oprah is probably the most powerful woman in the world, Black or White, or of any other race. Oprah could easily forget her roots and her lowly beginnings and saunter off into her glamorous future and leave her past behind-but she didn’t. I greatly admire that fact that Oprah is still a Black woman, and obviously very proud of it; and Oprah remembers her past, and is also very proud of it.

I read the September, 2013 issue of Oprah magazine (the one with Oprah wearing a HUGE afro), and the article about Oprah’s role in the new movie, The Butler, had a paragraph from Oprah that moved me to tears. In this paragraph, Oprah recounted what the historical significance of The Butler meant to her personally. In essence, Oprah said she found herself thinking a lot about the history behind the movie and the many people that were affected by this history, including herself, the offspring of  three generations of housemaids because “That was all they could be”(Oprah). The choices that are held before all of us today, for both our sons and daughters, are much better choices than those that existed during the early days of ‘The Butler’ in his real life. But what must not be forgotten is the fact that butlers and maids, and the many other hard working Americans from the past, are the ones who paved the way for those choices we have today. We owe much of our hope to the future to those who lived in the past.

The need to recognize our pasts and where we come from is important because “If you don’t know where you came from, how do you know where to go?” (Oprah, 2013)

Sara Niles  Author of Torn From the Inside Out

War: A Costly Endeavor

By Sara Niles Author of Torn From the Inside Out

War is the most costly government operation of all time, because the currency of the interchange is human life and everyone loses in war. As the modernity of the times produced superpowers, the wars have become potential super wars: World Wars I and II were the first concrete examples of wars out of control. In World War One, over 37,000,000 lives were lost, with the greatest numbers of casualties suffered by the superpowers: over 65,000,000 were mobilized worldwide, with the greatest losses suffered by Russia, France and Germany (http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html ). When you examine the numbers from the Second World War, the numbers appear to come from a science fiction horror movie; because WWII was the biggest and deadliest war in all of human history. You would think the world leaders would have learned from the first war.

The dangers of declaring war versus the danger of not declaring war-now that is the question facing the world leaders yet again. Syria has committed the unthinkable and used chemicals to kill over 1400 people (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23906913), a mere harbinger of what they may do in the near future, if not stopped.

Now we are faced with a fearful decision that involves a two pronged danger: the danger of war from action and the danger of war from inaction- a critical dilemma of the worst kind. Will there be a need to fight to protect the good in the world? And what will be the end after all is said and done?

In the Lord of the Rings (Movie), Sam said to Frodo that

“… there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for”

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)

Suicide: Societal Taboo by Sara Niles

Society operates as a group, and as a result, stigmas and social taboos are generated when things happen that are out of the control of society: like suicide. During the days of religious control and dominance by the Catholic Church, everything that could not be explained or controlled was 'demonized' and usually burned at the stake. Today, society uses silence, which is usually a sign of discomfort when in a group of people and an embarrassing subject com

es up.

Fact: Suicide takes more lives in America than homicides, yet little is said about it. Perhaps if the blanket of societal denial was whisked away by the open discussion of the presence of suicide in the societal room, then suicide may begin to lose its hold on American culture.

I will go first: My daughter courted the idea of suicide for over half of her life. When my daughter was in her late teens, I found her perusing suicide websites that offered ‘encouragement’ to commit suicide and glorified the ugly act. I was shocked to find that there were many similar sites out there in the cyber sphere, with voyeurs full of bloodlust and predators lurking on the sidelines.

The negative thinking that fuels suicide, has usually taken root long before a suicide occurs, and lies dormant until something goes wrong in the person’s life, which will invariably happen in every life, and in one stupid, and impulsive instant, a life is gone forever.

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.

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.

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:  

http://bookshopblog.com/2011/03/10/stephen-king-books-chronological-order/ ),

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: 

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Express-Hercule-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B000FC12Z0/

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

http://www.amazon.com/Torn-From-Inside-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00DLY9TW2/