Personal Reflection 1/17/21

So I discovered a music therapist in my research for my YA. I won’t give her last name but her first name is Samantha. I got two songs from her recital on YouTube: Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child and Give Me Jesus. Payton will sing these songs. I’ve listened to her singing a few times. I wasn’t looking for this but my PTSD was healed. It was weird, I was just sitting there and listening to her sing Hallelujah and I started crying. I also realized she looks just like Payton from my YA. I got Payton to do some music therapy with kids with cancer and her friends. She will be a great singer, but first she has to decide between college and signing with a record label. It’s how I get to discuss criticism of elitism as her college of choice is Harvard.

ANYWAYS back to my PTSD. I felt like God spoke to me through this person I randomly found on the internet.

I have been writing while listening to her sing.

For my YA, I have Ever and Payton be silly together to bring some more life into the book. It’s a heartbreaking book so these scenes serve a great purpose. He talks to her about purpose too and says it’s happiness. He uses the silliness to show her she needs to live, not just think about life and all its questions.

He moved me in those statements. I think he will move others too. They play pranks together and go to Fun Fore All (I may have to rename lol there’s a local one to me) that has go carts, bumper boats, put putting, arcade games and prizes. They spend the day doing this unexpectedly. Usually they have coffee shop talks where they talk about life along with planning the suicide prevention ball. He gets her to live and since they were childhood friends who drifted apart once, he says “There’s the spark I’ve missed.”

I didn’t expect to write it this way. It just sort of happened. I was going to have them be all deep and then it unexpectedly became light. I guess that’s God’s hand in all this.

This is a comfort book for anyone lonely and hurting. So is all my writing. I want to offer the wisdom I’ve acquired from hardships. But sparing people the hardships.

The YA is the inverse of my heartbreaks in life. And I wrote a memoir showcasing my actual story. They are both moving.

My writing for both is all about loss.

My next Forbes is about thinking about mortality and meaning which will be out Feb 1. I’m writing a new one on solitude vs loneliness. I get to talk about inner wisdom found from intuition. I’m glad I get to write what I want for Forbes and talk about things that matter.

I’m writing a new book- You Are Beautiful: A Guide to Finding Your Authentic Self. It is something I am writing for fun but also if my memoir never gets picked up. (My memoir is not on my site yet as it deals with an NDE). My YA will need editing and help when it’s done with descriptions so I will have to save for that. My children’s book is on the backburner for now. My other book is a follow up to my memoir. So I just have this guide as a main way to get an author platform should all else fail…and even if they do not. I am already proud of it.

I added to my website “Let’s change the world together.” That’s what I hope to do.

Thanks for reading!

Sarah