Relationship Quote of the Week: Bob Marley

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. 


You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. 


They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. 


There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. 


The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all.


 A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. 


You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. 


You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. 


Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Ryan O'Connell breaks down what love is!

“

 You can stop taking quizzes in Cosmo. Here’s what love really is.

Love is still wanting to hold someone after you climax. After the initial euphoria from the orgasm wears off, you’re replaced with a sense of calm rather than a panic. You don’t want to search for your clothes, scramble to find your keys and figure out the best way to tell them, “See ya later forever!” You’re fine with chilling out in bed with the person and maybe ordering pad thai later.

Love is unattractive. It can expose our worst traits: Jealousy, irrational fears, heated anger; the gang’s all here! While it can bring out compassion and tenderness, it can also make you behave like the ugliest version of yourself. That can be okay for a little while, but love with real longevity should be like a xanax rather than an adderall.

Love is not afraid to be schmaltzy. There’s a reason why the most popular love songs are so lyrically simple. You can drown it in metaphors all you want but love usually boils down to, “You make me so happy. I want to hold your hand. I just want u 2 be mine 4ever!” You can be a 50-year-old linguistics professor at Columbia University and still find something to relate to in a Mariah Carey ballad if you’re in love because the feelings are so universal. It’s humbling, isn’t it? No matter who you are or what your background is, love can reduce you to Mariah Carey mush.

Love is an all-consuming drug. It gives us these natural highs we’ve only read about in books or heard in songs. It’s addictive. It’s what keeps us going to bars, drinking glasses of wine, going to that stupid house party in Bushwick; it’s all for the possibility of finding love. In the wrong hands, love can be dangerous and scary. If someone lacks a healthy foundation, love can kill. All of these crimes you read about in the newspapers are usually linked to passionate love. “I did it because I loved them just…too much.”

Love is not what our parents had. In high school, you never wanted to think about your mother and father having once slept with people in the backseat of cars and feeling warm and happy. That would make it feel less special and young. It would make love have less to do with you when, EXCUSE ME, it has EVERYTHING to do with you.

Love is getting drunk with your significant other at a party and taking a cab home with your bodies intertwined. You feel safest in these moments, the most secure. Entering a social gathering with someone who loves you is the biggest security blanket. People leave the party as a parade of droopy expressions and sad cocktail dresses. But not you. “Sorry guys, I’m in love! I’m taking a car!”

Love is fucking stupid. Love is fucking smart. Love is about betraying yourself, of compromising your ideals for someone else’s approval. That’s actually the bad kind of love, but I guess it all blurs together when you’re young or when you’re old or when you don’t love yourself.

Love is your significant other telling you about their favorite album and then making a point to fall in love with it on your own. Love is wondering why your better half loves certain things. You think you can find remnants of them in their favorite films, books and songs, but you usually can’t.

Love is finding yourself feeling protective over someone else’s well-being Love is being incensed with rage when someone or something has done your lover wrong.

Love is wanting your partner to cum. And if they can’t, just say, “That’s okay. I’m enjoying this.” It might be bullshit, but they’ll be orgasming in the next five minutes. Trust me.

Love isn’t always marriage. Marriage is spending $60,000 so everyone can know that someone loves you. You know what’s certainly not love? Debt. In some cases, love can be divorce.

Love is a back massage, a mindfuck, a hard cock, a pair of perfect breasts, of feeling unashamed about the cellulite on your body. Love is someone giving a shit about you enough to argue. Love is not passive. Love is “Don’t fucking touch me right now.” Love is “Who the FUCK were you talking to?” Love is sometimes hating yourself for a second. Love is hate. Period. Indifference is the real killer of love and the true antithesis.

When love leaves you, you should be lying on your bathroom floor with no resolve. You’re smoking cigarettes in the bathtub and crying about everything bad that’s ever happened.

Love is someone seeing the beauty in you and wanting to bask in it every day all day. Love is not guaranteed. We are not owed love. That’s why when we get it, we know how lucky we are and hold on to it for dear life.

So, yeah. That’s what love is. Anyone know where to get some?

”

—	Ryan O’Connell

Writer's Block is just a Mind Game

I've never experienced true writer's block.  I used to think that I had the perfect cure for when the words wouldn't come.

Multiple projects.

I have a blog, I write poems, short stories, and I have quite a few WIPs.  Until 2 weeks ago, they've always been my back up plan.  Then 2 weeks ago, I experienced what so many authors cry about.  Real live unadulterated WRITER'S BLOCK.

Writing anything besides my password to my computer was futile.  Wanna know how serious this was...

I couldn't even come up with tweets!  You know, the type of tweets that writers are supposed to put out.  Couldn't do it.  140 characters or less and I couldn't come up with anything.

And the more frustrated I got, the worse it got.  My fingers would hover over my keyboard and tears would fall.  People laughed at my frustration but I was scared.  What if I couldn't write again.  What if everything I tried to write from that point on was pure garbage?  

I'd never move to New York, that's for sure.  I'd be stuck in Atlanta, with 4 books under my belt and nothing else.  These kind of thoughts made it worse.  But I couldn't figure out where the block was coming from.  What was blocking me.  If I could figure that out, I could get through the problem.

Music has always been my inspiration to write.  Over the last 2 weeks I've listened to my entire John Mayer collection...over 1300 songs, TWICE! Not to mention Mary J Blige, Otis Redding, Bob Reynolds, Jimi Hendrix, Jay-Z, Coldplay, Maroon 5, Etta James, Joni Mitchel, Coltrane, Miles Davis, the list goes on and on. Nothing happened.

I read books, lots of bad books.  Books that I knew I wouldn't finish.  Reading bad books always makes me angry and makes me want to write.  It's that "I know I can write better than this!" mindset.  Nothing.

I spring cleaned, hung out with friends, consumed more bottles of wine than I want to mention and still I couldn't write.  Saturday I woke up at 8am and decided that was the end of my writer's block, damnit!  I was going to write something!  Fast forward 12 hours and I still hadn't wrote anything.  Then I started to cry.   What was the problem?  I started thinking about it, harder than I'd ever had.  And I came up with 2 things.  Fear and anger.

Fear because even though all my eggs aren't in one basket, my writing career is very important to me and eventually I want to do this and only this.  Sooner rather than later and when I think about how much I want this, I freak completely out.  It seems to be going well but sooner or later my luck always seems to run out.  And I can't have that happen again...not with this.

And anger because I'd been letting what other people have to say actually get to me.  It's rare for me to let other people's opinions have such an impact on me...very rare.  I'm not writing to change the world.  I'm writing to change my life and the lives of the people I love.  And there's a word for people who deliberately try to stop your flow, who intentionally knock your hustle.  And there are ways to get around them.

Am I still struggling with Unsung?  Hell yes!  But only because I want it to be perfect just the way I wanted A Hustler's Promise 2 to be better than the first part.  Writer's block is real but it's not about not knowing what to write, it's figuring out how to play the game.  It's knowing what you want and going after it and ignoring the tiny voice in your head that says "this isn't going to work" because that's what it is.  It has nothing to do with your talent.  It's your mind playing tricks on you.  

You are your own worst enemy.  If you fail, it's not because you can't do it.  It's because you won't let yourself do it.  Don't give in to the fear.  We fight for what we want and need every day.  Why would it be any different with your writing?  

Books I Didn't Write: Anew by Chelsea Fine

Two years ago, Scarlet awoke in the forest alone, afraid, and unable to remember anything. Lost and confused, her life was a mystery...until she met a boy with a familiar voice.
Gabriel Archer has a voice from her past, and Scarlet is determined to remember why. She immerses herself in his life only to discover he has a brother he's kept hidden from her: Tristan Archer.
Upon meeting Tristan, Scarlet's world becomes even more muddled. While she's instinctively drawn to Gabriel, she's impossibly drawn to Tristan--and confused out of her mind. But as she tries to piece together her history, Scarlet realizes her past...might just be the death of her.

Typically I don't read a ton of YA Novels but I met Chelsea through the Indie Book Collective and her book, Sophie and Carter, was pretty good so I wanted to check this one out to.

I really enjoyed this book.  So much that I put off reading Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick to read Anew.  Chelsea brought a new and interesting twist to a love triangle which anyone who knows me, knows that I can't turn down a good love triangle.  Anew was a refreshing read, full of suspense and romance.

I'm glad that I read this book and now I can't wait for Book Two: Awry.

Message to Chelsea:  write faster!!!

Love your friend,
JC

Untitled for a good cause? Yup, I'm all for that!

Saturday, while sitting in the laundromat (don't ask, it wasn't fun), I met 2 absolutely incredible people.  Sonja is retired Army for 5 years and Patrick recently retired a few months ago from the Army.  He'd lost an arm  in Iraq.  They've been married for ten years.

As we talked, it became clear that retiring had never been Patrick's plan.  He genuinely loved serving his country and my heart broke for him.  Here was this person who truly loved his job and wanted nothing more to continue to serve his country and couldn't.  While we were getting our clothes out of the dryers, Sonja mentioned that she thinks that Patrick is depressed & is having an extremely hard time adjusting to civilian life.  She wished that there was something she could do to ease her husband's pain.

My conversation with this couple left a lasting imprint on my heart and soul.  There's nothing I can do to take away Patrick's pain or make him happy again.  There's nothing I can do physically.  But I remembered something.

NCIRE!