The Lovers novel excerpt

White Eagle, the sage healer in my novel, teaches Nadine, our main character, how to heal her past.  He teaches her how to forgive, love and energize herself on the sacred Indian land of Sedona.

Here is an excerpt from the novel, The Lovers:

Nadine looked around as White Eagle parked the jeep.  Not a leaf stirred on the trees and bushes.  As they climbed the hill towards their destination, Nadine was aware of her every step on the red earth.  Her sensitivity seemed heightened here—an awareness came to her in the silence.

“These are ancient burial grounds,” explained White Eagle.  This journey opens your third eye, where there is no time boundary.  You can slip into the past, see your karmic destiny.  You can draw strength from the sacred land."

Nadine wasn’t sure what White Eagle meant but was eager to find out.  At last her life seemed to be moving in the right direction.

“Sedona has a long history," explained White Eagle. "Archeologists have proven that Sedona was discovered centuries before Columbus.  Sedona and the Verde Valley have plentiful ruins and petroglyphs. The Anasazi—Navajo word meaning ancient ones—fished in Oak Creek waters, farmed the land and hunted in the woods.  In prehistoric times Sedona was a ceremonial meeting area and a major crossroads for trading routes from the north and from South America. They came hunting for gold. There are signs of ancient cultures in the woods and canyons, and just imagine, Nadine, you are walking on the same pathways." 

White Eagle moved closer to Nadine. "The mysteries of life are revealed if you become still and quiet inside, and listen to the messages...the messages of the wind, the earth, the sun and the moon.”

The Lovers

The Lovers is  a story of modern love and karmic connections,where the vortexes connect soul mates and change destinies forever.  The novel begins in Newport Beach, Ca and continues to the magical town of Sedona.

Back in the real world where I reside in Phoenix, this blog discusses matters relating to love and writing. 

Never forget what it is like to be loved….

If you are in a toxic relationship, get out of it, right away. It doesn't get better, ever. Even if you think you love him, he loves you, the violence will only escalate. You can never please a narcissist, he will find any excuse to unleash his anger on you.

Now take a moment to remember true love. It can be as simple as your teacher in junior high, who believed in you, and showed you your greatness. It may have been a friend, a parent, or grandparent, or a brief love.

Take a deep breath and focus on that feeling. Wasn't it wonderful? It is a moment of recognition, self-understanding, and wholeness.

You are whole, no matter what the external relationships and circumstances are. You can return to self, just in a moment, one breath. The love is you, inside of you, and can never leave. All you do is be yourself, and that beautiful mirror will attract love.

How to be happily single

How can you cope with being single, and even enjoy it? Is it possible to go through your day to day life without a partner and be happy?

 

I know people that would rather die than be single – they jump directly from one relationship into another, without a breath or second thought.  One friend, tired of her present relationship started seeking a new partner before she left the old one, just to avoid being alone.

l live in suburbia, where the majority of people are couples. On my street I am almost the status of a leper, a social outcast for being single. Women send their husbands indoors when single women come over to say hello.  Really, this happens.  I find it funny that long time married women have to concern themselves that their husbands will wander from their marriage some twenty or thirty years, or even fifty years later.

Yes, there are down sides to being single.  You sleep alone (some may consider this a benefit!), you get left out of lunches, dances, and other social events, especially at holidays.  People in your life seem to forget you.

You get lonely sometimes being single and wonder if you have to do therapy—that there is something so terribly wrong with you, you cannot find a decent date.  You lower your standards, and it only gets worse.

You try online dating, and again, it seems that all your friends have met partners easily online.  But for some reason you only attract losers. 

Meeting someone you will love is a process, even though it seems when you meet the right person it happens instantly.  There is an ebb and flow in life, and sometime you may find yourself alone-divorced, widowed, abandoned. 

Forcing yourself to be happy and or starting a relationship just to be in love with love is self-defeating. You will end up unhappier than before.  And the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side of the street.  Being married has its own set of issues and problems.  The key is to be happy in whatever situation you find yourself presently in.

Here are some steps to being happily single:

1.  Look for love in all the wrong places.  It is a cliché, but true.  If you open your eyes you will find that there is love and kindness in your day all day long.  A checker in the grocery store may be especially nice, complimentary, or notice how you are.  You may meet an old friend and chat it up, or start a conversation with a stranger that feels magical.  Your nail tech gives you an especially nice foot massage, or you meet new people in yoga, woodworking, or a dance class that reach out to you.  

We average contact with about 250 people each day in lives.  Seems unbelievable, but once you pay attention, you will see how many people you do come across daily, even if you do not speak to all of them.

A corollary:  if you are not meeting people you like, try doing the opposite of what you normally do daily.  Try a new restaurant, route, library, park, etc.

2. Take time to relax, travel, pamper yourself.  The ebb is an opportunity to do what you want, when you want, how you want.  The husband/wife that you kept you from doing what you wanted is no longer there.  You can buy yourself those expensive shoes, and even buy yourself flowers.  Why wait for someone else to take you to a nice lunch or dinner, take yourself on that date. 

3. Be happy with yourself.  This is a no brainer, but hard to do.  Self-acceptance will free you to be yourself and you will project out a beautiful energy that naturally attracts others.

4. Live in the moment. This is the most important step of all.  Living moment to moment helps you see that your life is really great, even while you are single.  When you are not thinking or worrying about the past, or the future, then great joy is yours, right here and right now.  And don't be surprised if you create a life others will be envious of.  

The Lovers book excerpt

“Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along."

Rumi

PROLOGUE

Hot, balmy, and tropical. Thick palm trees lined the streets. I first saw him walking along the ocean, his favorite place to be. He said it soothed his soul. The soft blondness of his hair fell around his hollow cheekbones so that it was only his eyes that one noticed. One could see both the passion of the man and the sadness of the little boy within. It was the mirror of unrest I saw in his eyes that drew me to him. That feeling of separation, which woke me in the darkness of night, that black hour in which no one could assuage my fears. Perhaps I was not alone in my aloneness.

His face was rather odd, both conventional and exotic. He had a suave, cool presence, with impenetrable gray-blue eyes that questioned all he saw and felt, how the universe worked, and what his role was in this vast plan. To him there were no coincidences. Somewhere in his subconscious mind he wanted to believe that we were fated, fated to a love that was beyond his power. He would keep track of all the times we met coincidentally.

It was the night after the great rains had subsided that we began our relationship. We were walking seaside in the dusk of the evening, the clouds still dark from their heavy outpour when we noticed the waves. In slow rolling motion from one end of the pier to the other, like dancers in a sequence, the waves came in, one after another, a brilliant, fluorescent green. He believed the phosphorous waves were surely a sign illuminating the fate of our destiny, to be together. The universe was the mirror of our souls.

The Lovers

Go on an adventure in my book The Lovers. Find out if Nadine marries her financial successful fiancé, or if she runs away with her devastatingly gorgeous mentor, White Eagle.

(Nadine)"She sat listening to the earthy tones of the flute. The long, sorrowful notes were familiar, as if she had experienced this moment before. Perhaps there was more to this life than she had imagined. Maybe there was a deeper, more divine purpose for her life."

https://www.createspace.com/4243434

Unlocking your creative potential: how to write a book

Do you want to write the great American novel? Use right brain techniques to make your dream of writing a book a reality.

I am frequently asked how long it took to write The Lovers.  Actually I wrote it quite quickly, it seemed to write itself.  I believe I am asked that question because writers need some courage to get their novel started.

Inside each of us is a story waiting to be told. Imagine writing a full length novel in six months to a year:  that summer romance in Hawaii can be the basis of a romance novel; your Grandfather’s historic arrival to America from Greece is the plot of an adventure or action thriller.  How about completing a movie script or a television pilot in the next few months?

The dream of writing a book runs through our minds, and yet as time passes the words of our book never reach the paper. How do masterful writers get their chapters written? It seems an impossible task, yet a book can be written easily through simple right brain techniques.

The right side of a brain governs the creative and intuitive functions.  It conceptualizes and sees patterns as a whole, rather than the left side which breaks down ideas into parts and abstracts information from the whole.

So, let your logical mind take a short vacation and utilize your intuitive mind to write that novel for you.

Try these simple exercises to get you started:

1.  Write out at least 10 titles of your new book.

2.  Sit in a cafe or mall and write out character sketches of the people around you.

3.  Put on some fast paced music in the background, preferably without lyrics.

Start your novel by writing a few words. Take a deep breath and keep going, don't look back, down or elsewhere.  Keep going, write another sentence, and then stretch it into a paragraph.

Put it away.  Don't read it.

The next day write for 15 minutes.  Start on a character you want to meet.  Create him or her.  Let your mind be free.  Keep going, and then put it away.  Don't reread it, no looking back.

You just continue writing, day by day.  Notice how you feel. Are you experience pleasure, a little euphoria? Pretty soon you can't wait to get to the notebook, or the computer.  Your character has friends, and they are involved in action, adventure, drama.  Your characters seem to have a mind of their own, and pretty soon you have to give them the lead--let them do what they want to do.

In a week you have several pages, and you can't wait to write--the words flow out.  Now you can start rereading, but save editing and making changes until later. 

Writing a book is often like a love affair, it is passionate. You become consumed in the writing, and soon there is no separation between you and the writing--like the expert dancer and the dance. The writing is not forced, but a joy. What you are meant to be...you are now.  A writer.  

Book excerpt from The Lovers

“Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.  They're in each other all along."

Rumi

PROLOGUE

Hot, balmy, and tropical.  Thick palm trees lined the streets.  I first saw him walking along the ocean, his favorite place to be.  He said it soothed his soul.  The soft blondness of his hair fell around his hollow cheekbones so that it was only his eyes that one noticed.  One could see both the passion of the man and the sadness of the little boy within.  It was the mirror of unrest I saw in his eyes that drew me to him.  That feeling of separation, which woke me in the darkness of night, that black hour in which no one could assuage my fears.  Perhaps I was not alone in my aloneness.

His face was rather odd, both conventional and exotic.  He had a suave, cool presence, with impenetrable gray-blue eyes that questioned all he saw and felt, how the universe worked, and what his role was in this vast plan.  To him there were no coincidences. Somewhere in his subconscious mind he wanted to believe that we were fated, fated to a love that was beyond his power.  He would keep track of all the times we met coincidentally.

It was the night after the great rains had subsided that we began our relationship.  We were walking seaside in the dusk of the evening, the clouds still dark from their heavy outpour when we noticed the waves.  In slow rolling motion from one end of the pier to the other, like dancers in a sequence, the waves came in, one after another, a brilliant, fluorescent green.  He believed the phosphorous waves were surely a sign illuminating the fate of our destiny, to be together.  The universe was the mirror of our souls.

Is fiction real?

 Ernest Hemingway

Often I am asked by readers of my novel if the book is based on my life...is it true? 

A book comes from the author's mind, imagination, and most of all spirit.  Scenes are real in the mind of the author so in that way you can say it is true, or autobiographical.

But I think that the test of a good read, a nice work of fiction, is that it seems real.  The locations, with their vibrant scenes and sounds and smells become vivid, and the characters resonate with the reader, they may know someone like the character.  Sometimes characters are just the opposite of who we are, both readers and writers, and then they live out their adventures and fears and dreams in the novel while we watch vicariously.  We may be amused by them, or feel an emotion towards them, like love or hate.

So this does not mean that the characters and situations are real, but that the author has done his job, that is, he/she has told his truth.  When you write from the heart, the novel rings of truth.