Mary Funk's Blog

I say the above words to myself every morning before I start my day. Why? Because they keep me mindful that I will, in fact, be making endless decisions, or CHOICES, all throughout my day until I finally close my eyes again that night. Most will be mundane choices—but any one of them, at any time, could end up affecting my home, my safety, even my life. Let me give you a simplified example. I choose to take a different route to work to avoid the traffic jam up ahead and end up getting involved in a fatal car accident. Some might call that fate, others blind chance—but I did CHOOSE to take that different route. I could just as easily have chosen otherwise and escaped that experience altogether. But it goes much deeper than that.

In my book, my heroine Ayisha's (Ariana's) choices deeply affected her fate. The priestess warned her that "every experience is conditional ... choices must always be made first" (pg. 267). And her friend Nadiru told her that "with walls all around you, you still have far more freedom than you think you do." (pg. 210). Yet Ayisha (Ariana) still understood so little about what profound impact her choices were to have on her life. She ignored the incredible power awakening inside her and chose instead to lash out with a vengeance toward all those who had wronged her—letting her own hatred eventually destroy her.

Now take another example, this one right out of our "real life" history books. Nelson Mandela was an angry, anti-apartheid radical when he became one of eight African National Congress (ANC) activists who were convicted and sent to prison in 1964 for sabotage against the all-white South African government. However, after that same government kept Mandela locked behind bars long after the ban against the ANC had been rescinded and the other seven men released, it seemed to the outside world that he had earned the right to seek retribution against his government. Yet when he finally emerged a free man in 1990 after 27 years imprisoned, he held nothing but compassion and forgiveness in his heart for his oppressors. He was filled with the kind of inner strength and peace that only comes from knowing one's true source of power.

Instead, he rolled up his sleeves with then-President FW de Klerk, and in 1993 they won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end to apartheid. Together, the two men brought peace to a racially divided country. In 1994, when Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first democratically elected president, he sent VIP invitations to his former prison warders to attend the event as his personal guests. He held no animosity toward them. After he stepped down as president one year later, as promised, he continued leading the fight for human rights around the world.

Nelson Mandela, or "Madiba" as he preferred to be called, died peacefully at home in 2013—but the legacy he created lives on today.  http//www.nelsonmandela.org.

 So my mantra reminds me daily that I can either let my chaotic ego, with its belief in fear, separateness, hatred and vengeance, reign supreme in my decision-making process—or I can reject "Mr. Toad's" wild ride (Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows") and place my trust instead in the much wiser guidance of that still, small voice within me. It's a simple choice—with profound consequences, since virtually all my thoughts and experiences are guaranteed to be quite different depending on which method I use.

What about you? Do you live your life from the outside-in, always reacting defensively or aggressively to everything and everyone around you? Or does your source of power come from the inside-out?

"Every experience is conditional, my child," the priestess cautioned (Ayisha) Ariana. "Choices must always be made first."




On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, Malala Yousafzai, age 15, was shot in the head by the Taliban for demanding that girls be given full access to school. She managed to live. At that point, no one would have blamed her for choosing to simply give up and allow her voice to be silenced.

In fact, the Taliban had threatened to silence her long before she was shot. Sometimes she would imagine a terrorist jumping out and shooting her as she climbed the steps beyond the locked iron gate to her home. "I wondered what I would do," she told one reporter. "Maybe I'd take off my shoes and hit him. But then I'd think that if I did that, there would be no difference between me and a terrorist. It would be better to plead, 'Okay, shoot me, but first listen to me. What you are doing is wrong. I'm not against you personally. I just want every girl to go to school.' "

Imagine that. A little girl, beginning at age 11, CHOSE to stare down the Taliban--and, more important, without malice in her heart. Even after a bullet went through her left eye socket and out under her left shoulder; after undergoing multiple surgeries and painful recovery. Rather than shrinking behind fear and loathing, she has chosen to use what happened to her as a catalyst. "It feels like this life is not my life," she says now. "It's a second life ... I was spared for a reason--to use my life for helping people."

And so she continues her campaign today, more determined than ever to educate women and end their cycle of poverty. In so doing, she's become an international inspiration and her 'Malala Fund' now raises money worldwide to empower girls through education.

AN UPDATE: Earlier this month, Malala's attackers were finally arrested and will stand trial. I don't think those arrests would ever have happened without the growing pressure and international attention this brave young woman, now 17-years-old, has brought to bear on the plight of women in major parts of the world.

One year ago this month I sent out my first query letter to a publishing agent for REMEMBER ME. And what an interesting year it's been. As a newbie, I had read every how-to article and tip I could find on the subject, plus a couple of highly recommended books about how to get myself noticed by an agent. I went into it with eyes wide open, fully aware of how dramatically the entire publishing industry has changed over the past decade and is still changing, and how nearly impossible it is right now to get "picked up" as a first-time author, especially an author of fiction. Indeed, the response I received from my final query, number 25, couldn't have summed it up better when he wrote: 

Thank you so much for thinking of (my company). Unfortunately, I've learned the hard way through the years that I cannot sell fiction well unless it comes from an author who already
has a non-fiction or fiction readership following.

I deeply respect this man for his frank and honest answer to me, the only one of its kind I received. But it truly was the whole experience of submitting my manuscript I was after, and not just the contract. I NEEDED to do it. And it turned out to be the best thing I could have done for my book. 
 
No, I didn't get an agent to represent me. But here is what I did get as a result of all my research and from writing 25 unique and highly targeted query letters: 1) a crystallized understanding of just who my audience is, and how to reach them with a description that will peak their interest and drive my book sales; and 2) a developed marketing platform from which to start, including my website, my author Facebook presence, and Twitter account. But my platform is only the beginning, not the end. My launching point. 

I know I have another year of hard work ahead of me to market my book, and more hard work to keep it going even after that. Yes, I've chosen to birth my baby using the self-publishing method. And, like a proud parent, I am aware of and accept the awesome responsibility of giving it every opportunity to thrive and shine in the big, wide world of books it's about to enter. 

So Happy Birthday REMEMBER ME, my beautiful new baby. It's on its way now to an online store near you—as soon as I finish proofing the galleys from Booklocker.com, my chosen birthing partner. I highly recommend them, by the way, for their honesty and no-nonsense approach as well as the quality of their work.

COMING SOON:   How to ORDER my book! 

Comments

Readers seeking an adventurous love story filled with unexpected twists and turns and yes, even sexual release, will not be disappointed with Remember Me. Those seeking a deeper meaning behind the story will not be disappointed either. 
 
Bad things happen to my heroine, Ayisha. Despicable, mind-numbing things that shouldn't happen to anyone. Yet in spite of the heavy hand that controls her every move, Ayisha
still has choices that are hers alone to make. How she is able—or not—to process
events surrounding her makes all the difference in her life, and in the lives of virtually everyone around her. Which makes her no different than the rest of us, really.            

Think about it. When someone suddenly cuts in front of you on the highway and then continues to weave in and out of the traffic ahead, what's your knee-jerk reaction? Do you let the offense go without another thought—or do you hope to witness the offender's car flying off the roadway up ahead?

Now let's make it harder. What if your weasel of a colleague steals your brilliant idea, presents it to your boss, and ends up getting that promotion that should have been yours—and there's not a thing you can do about it. Would you focus your anger on getting even with him, spend the rest of your life bitter—or would you forgive him and re-focus your brilliance on creating new opportunities in your life as soon as possible?          
    
 "Forgive him? Are you crazy?"

Maybe I am, or hopelessly naive, but that's exactly what I want you to do. Someone once said, "Non-forgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." And that's exactly my point. 

The longer you drink from the pool of rage and resentment, the more power you give it to poison your own mind, rob you of your own health and well-being—and, keep yourself hopelessly chained to the very person or situation that caused you pain in the first place. Vengeance only re-circulates that poison. Everywhere you go, it pulls you down like a bag of rocks strapped to your back, keeping you crippled in your own pain—until you finally decide to put it aside. It takes tremendous courage and hard work to forgive—but it's your only option if you ever hope to live again.

Just ask Marietta Jaeger, whose seven-year-old daughter was snatched from her tent on a camping trip and later murdered by her kidnapper. She worked so hard at forgiving the man who took the love of her life away, that years later at his trial the judge honored her request to spare his life. 
 
Or ask Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide whose entire Tutsi family was slaughtered, while she barely survived by standing silent in a concealed 3' x 4' bathroom. With seven other women. For 91 days. She said later of the ordeal, "It was like dying alive." Yet when she felt her bitter rage destroying her, she made the conscious choice to forgive instead, even as she came face-to-face with one of her family's murderers. He raised his sword to strike her down, but she stood her ground and said what she came to say. She told him she loved him for the spark of divinity he was, in spite of what he had done. He put down his sword and walked away. 

Could you ever get to that place in your own development where you'd be able to do what these brave women did, especially in the face of a hate-filled world urging all of us to do otherwise? They weren't extraordinary people like Gandhi or Mother Teresa. They were just ordinary people who were able to pull something up from deep inside themselves that changed their whole perspective. It's not that they stopped feeling their anger or loathing for the despicable acts done against them, they simply refused to be ruled by those feelings any longer. 

Which makes them—and all of us—no different than my heroine Ayisha, whose father 
ripped her away from the love of her life and handed her over to the king, in exchange for full ownership of his date farm. And that's only the beginning of Ayisha's trials ...

I hope you enjoy the book—as soon as it comes out.

Mary Funk / Blog 1 / May 27,
2014

    Little did I know that when I set out to write my novel REMEMBER ME it
would consume every waking minute of my time outside of my pay-the-bills work
life for the next three years. Or that I would stuff all of my worldly possessions
into my car and head for the hills of Virginia when Florida's economy pulled the
plug on me and threatened to end my nights of guilty writing pleasure.             
     Yes, I admit it. I abandoned family and friends rather than give up the
nightly company of my muse. What can I say? It became my drug of choice, my
secret lover, and I would have done anything to continue its conjugal
visits.
    So I wonder if you can imagine the pain I've suffered for weeks-on-end
now, trying to remain sober enough to navigate the dangerous minefield of
agents, publishers and marketing platforms in order to give birth to my baby
without getting blown up in the process. If you have any empathy at all for my
predicament, then I beg of you, please hear me out. 
    Be patient, hold on, and stay with me awhile longer. The birthing is
eminent, and it'll be worth the wait for both of us, I promise you.