The article was approved and published – thank you for your cooperation!

Adult books masquerading as young adults
https://conscioustalkmag.com/2018/01/adult-books-masquerading-young-adult/

So, last November I published a post here asking for what your opinion was on adult contents in books targeting young adults.
Today I’m here to tell you that the article I wrote was approved and published on Conscious Talk Magazine, and I want to thank you all for your cooperation and interesting opinions.
So, thank you!
To read the full article, please click on the link above.
Comments are welcome here as well as in the magazine.
I’d love to know what you think of it!

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The Writer in the Closet

Are you a writer in the closet?
https://conscioustalkmag.com/2017/11/the-writer-in-the-closet/
When I first began writing about five years ago, I let no one know. I’d sit in my room with my laptop, typing away the story that clogged my mind. I knew I wanted to write, I just had no idea how, or that I could.
Then one day, when the words became too loud inside my head, I decided to purge them into a word document. I had no intention to show it to anyone, so I had no expectations, absolutely no reason to meet or consider anyone’s approval.
Of course, the outcome was nothing I could brag about or even be proud of.

I am a stubborn person, determined and a bit thorough with things I want done. I’m no perfectionist, but I am not easily satisfied with things.
Because of that stubborn streak I have, I decided to try again. And again. And again.
For three years I told no one.
I wrote, saved and archived. Then moved on to something else.
But I never told a soul.
I’m not sure if I was embarrassed, ashamed of my writing, or afraid of rejection – that my writing wasn’t good enough for someone else to be proud of me.

But I overcame my fears, mostly by connecting with virtual strangers who had that same insecurity as I did.
And yes, the problem wasn’t with my writing (I might be a little biased here – but every writer is) but it was insecurity, the lack of confidence that had kept me cooped for three years inside that closet.
And the reward of finally being out in the open is a rewarding, satisfying feeling that I get every time someone reads what I wrote. It was after that, after I began sharing my writing with others that I realized how much I wanted that.
Above is the link of the article I published on Conscious Talk Magazine about Writers in the Closet, and a few tips that can help them take that first, necessary step out of the closet.

Amalgamation

Earlier today my team mate Didi Oviatt posted a few articles about thanksgiving; eating disorder; thanksgiving for vegans; children and parents; along with what happens in other parts of the world during the month of November.

 

The reason I’m telling you this is because I tried to reblog it, but the ‘reblog’ button still won’t work for me. I usually share a post by pressing it, but that’s not how I wanted this post to look like, so I took a page from Didi’s book – or a post from her blog and rewrote it again.

Here’s the amalgamation of articles of articles Didi shared in her blog, and I’m now sharing:

 

Celebration: Tap Into Its Sacredness and Grow

By Julia Flynn

“We humans love a celebration! We celebrate traditional milestones like marriages, birthdays, and holidays or creative ones like Champagne Thursday and/or the first warm spring day. We enjoy our cake or special meal, clink glasses, chatter with guests, and ultimately have fun. We give little thought, if any, to the sacredness of celebrations…

 

Teaching Children about Gratitude & Thankfulness

By Kim Knight

“What does it mean to be grateful? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of this adjective is ‘showing or expressing thanks, especially to another person.’ As adults, we often do this without a second thought, most of the time. The question is…”

 

Self Reflecting As A Parent

By Didi Oviatt

“Self reflecting as a parent is extremely important. There are a few imperative questions that every parent should ask themselves. Questions that are often left unaddressed. They linger in the air between parents and children, sometimes…”

 

Thanksgiving: The Vegan Way

By E. Denise Billups

“The most daunting time of the year for many vegans is Thanksgiving dinner. When celebrating the holidays as someone else’s guest, vegans find themselves surrounded by turkey and dishes containing dairy and eggs and limited options of side dishes and salads to choose from. But look carefully, side dishes may also be drenched in creamy dressings or sprinkled with cheese and bacon bits. Scrutinizing every morsel isn’t fun and undoubtedly annoying when questioning the cook about every ingredient. And indeed, you don’t want to watch everyone enjoy the holiday while your stomach is growling…”

Surviving Thanksgiving: For Those With An Eating Disorder

By Savannah Esposito

“Thanksgiving for most is a time where families come together and enjoy each other’s company while surrounded by an abundance of food. Most people don’t think about what that holiday is like for those who struggle with eating disorders. For those who have an eating disorder, Thanksgiving can be a nightmare, filled with anxiety. There are ways to get through this holiday…:

 

The Harvest of Peace

By Jina S. Bazzar

“…Scientifically, olive trees are known worldwide to possess healing properties, as it contains strong anti oxidant and are rich in vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E and vitamin K. It also helps to maintain a healthy digestive track, both for children and adults alike…”

 

Ever stopped to consider the olive oil you enjoy so much?

The Harvest of Peace
https://conscioustalkmag.com/2017/11/the-harvest-of-peace/
November is the month of olive harvest in the Middle East.

While travelling through the holy land, one can find fields upon fields of olive trees. As one of the most prominent evergreens in the Mediterranean, it can be seen on the hillsides, in the valleys, between houses, even on backyards and front yards.
Olives are sacred trees among the Arabs, a symbol of life and resistance, for even hollow, old and gnarled, they can still bear fruit. They are also…
****
For the 15th edition, Conscious talk asked, what’s going on in your side of the world in November?
At the time I thought, well, nothing.
Later that day my family and I were talking about collecting olives and how it was almost time to start collecting them.
Now, most of you already know I was born and raised in Brazil, and when I was growing up I was a monkey girl, climbing on mango trees, guava trees, avocado trees (which I couldn’t really climb they are so tall!), Brazilian grapes and so on. But olive trees was something I’d never seen then, though I think that our olives here look something like the coffee tree a childhood friend of mine had planted on her front yard. We’d play around it sometimes, and when it bore fruit – and no, it doesn’t smell like coffee – we’d play with it, throw it on one another.
Have you ever seen an olive tree before? A coffee tree?
Now, here in the middle east I’ve never seen a coffee tree, but the olive trees look a little like them, though I think they (the coffee trees( don’t grow as much, or live as long.
And there it was, I had something to tell about this side of the world during the month of November. Inspiration hit me like a bolt and it was like writing a scene on a book I had outlined. The article just flowed so well!
Did you know that olive trees can grow so old; they can live for thousands of years?
Check the article by clicking on the link above.

What is wrong with us?

Violence is so rampant in the world, I’m amazed at how low humanity has gotten. For this post, I wanted to list to you all the mass shooting that happened during these past couple years in around the world and guess what?

There are so many of them, links within links within categories, that I just couldn’t list them all within a post. There are years to choose, or shootings committed by individuals, or cults, or religion, or groups. There are numbers of victims, or schools, or malls or parking facilities, churches or events – all links, options to make your search easier.

So many, I was . . . amazed is not the word, or even horrified, but something in between that is combined with sadness. I mean, back some years I used to listen to the news, I knew how bad it was. But the news prioritizes, and some headlines are more prominent than others, and if something wasn’t of high relevance, it’d be mentioned just in passing. It got to a point that the news no longer talked about happy events, or nice things that happened in a place.

If some good deed is mentioned in a news report, it has to be something of high proportion, and that happens with such rarerity, sometimes years can pass without one being brought up. It’s depressing, and the news is something I no longer care to know. But I do catch some headings here and there, mostly now that I started blogging.

Civilians from all around the world watch the news with sad eyes, wondering when, or if, those in power would ever do anything about it. Angry demands are shouted at the gates of politicians, but nothing so far has been made to assure the public. Americans are angry with their government, and most, if not all, of the population are waiting to see where and when the next mass shooting will happen.

On the last issue of Conscious Talk Magazine, both Denise and I published articles on gun control and the recent mass shootings, which I wanted to share here below:

Conscious Thoughts: Should Governments Ban The Legalization Of Firearms?

https://conscioustalkmag.com/2017/10/conscious-thoughts-governments-ban-legalization-firearms/

Most people have the tendency to become violent at a point in their lives, depending on the circumstances, though they may never act on it. Some people need a higher level….

Conscious Thoughts: Gun Control Laws

https://conscioustalkmag.com/2017/10/conscious-thoughts-gun-control-laws/

….In the last decade, more than 100,000 people have been slaughtered in gun violence. Besides mass killings, millions of Americans are victims of various gun assaults—domestic violence, robberies, drive-by shootings, and more. Not to mention injuries inflicted by children accidentally acquiring their parent’s firearms.

In recent…..

Improving your writing and that work in progress

To all the writers out there:

Want some tips in perfecting that work in progress that you’ve been struggling with?

Didi Oviatt, author of Search for Maylee, and Kim Knight, author of award winning romance, have published some interesting article on this topic .

Six Steps to Avoid Plot Gaps In Your Fiction Writing

Sometimes it can feel as though writing is the easy part, you just let it all out onto a page. The hardest is the….

 

Take That Project From Boring To Soaring

Do you ever feel like you’re swimming in circles? The water never changes temperature, there is never a current speeding the flow around you. You’re constantly….

Or if you need help with naming your characters, try this one:

Fiction Writing: How To Choose Fitting Names For Your Characters

Giving the characters of your book fitting names is often a very frustrating process. One that, unfortunately, every writer has to go through….

Discussion: Will you take a moment to answer?

To all book lovers and parents and people who care, I’d appreciate if you could take the moment to help me with this topic:
I’m writing an article on books that are inappropriately tagged young adults and actually contain adult contents, i.e. explicit sex scenes, too much violence, or abuse – drug or otherwise.
I was midway through the article when I wondered, what if I engaged readers in a discussion.
What do readers think when a young adult book contain too much explicit sex scenes, violence or drug abuse?
Research on the internet showed me that people – mostly parents – are complaining about this very thing, but there is still some who thinks it’s ok for teens to read such books, excusing the contents because this is the 21st century.
Ever since I started blogging, I’ve read some reviews that complain about an explicit adult scene on a book tagged young adult, and this topic’s been playing in my head ever since, so I decided to write about that for the magazine.
Here’s where you come in:
I’d very much appreciate if you could take a few moments to answer to these questions:
Considering that a book tagged young adult targets ages between 12 and 17; a book tagged new adult targets ages between 18 and 25; and a book tagged adult targets 25+;
•Would you give a 12 year old a book that has detailed sexual content, violence or abuse – How about A 15 year old? A 17?
•Do you think the age of the tags should be rearranged? How?
•Do you believe that books that details violence, drug abuse, sex and other inappropriate scenes should be pg rated?
•Are your answers based on the fact that you are a parent?
Please note that a reply to any or all questions are appreciated equally and that although no names will be mentioned, I’ll be using this discussion to elaborate on the article.
Your comments are welcome any time, but any comment after November 27th will no longer be included in the article.
My sincere thanks to all.
Jina

Julia Flynn – blogger and columnist

With Julia Flynn, all her words are inspirational in a way or another. Another member of Conscious Talk, Julia’s articles all have some sort of uplifting, thought provoking ideas that will leave you contemplating her words long after you finish reading. She is also a blogger, and for those of you who enjoy a spiritual word or two, it’s the perfect place to stop by for encouragement.

Below are a few of her articles from Conscious Talk:

 

Opposite Worlds, Same State: Closing the Achievement Gap between Inner City and Affluent Children

I believe that people, whether you are black or white, want the same things; love and respect. Love that is expressed through kindness, listening, openness, understanding, and guidance. Respect that’s expressed through welcoming another’s healthy values.

These definitions…..

 

 

Behaviors that Guide and Soothe When Life Falls Apart

“The Truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen.” This is….

 

How To Experience Self-love’s Emotional Healing And Guiding Wisdom

While contemplating the emotional healing effects of self-love, Lionel Richie and his Commodores quietly singing lines from Sweet Love, a 1974 classic rhythm and blues song

”Oh,

What I know about Halloween – Coming from where it doesn’t exist

A few weeks ago, I was asked to write what I thought about Halloween for Conscious Talk Magazine’s fifth edition – live on October 30^th.

Back when I was in high school I attended a private school for those who were born somewhere else and didn’t speak enough of the local language to be enrolled in local schools.

Now, I didn’t speak English either when I was enrolled, but English was closer to Portuguese, so that’s where my parents thought I’d fit.

(Those kids might as well have been speaking ancient mandarin!)

Almost everyone in that school came from the U.S.A, with only a few exceptions, and when Halloween came around, we’d go trick or treating from class to class – because that isn’t a common holiday here, and those kids missed it.

In Brazil there’s a similar day, but it’s attributed to a couple saints and it falls on the end of September, so I only knew about Halloween back from the E.T movie from when I was really young.

Anyway, here’s the article I wrote:

The History: Halloween – All Hallows Eve Is It An ‘Evil’ Or Fun Holiday?

https://conscioustalkmag.com/2017/10/history-halloween-hallows-eve-evil-holiday-fun/

Halloween originates back thousands of years ago, to the time when the ancient Celtic used to celebrate the end of a long harvest season and the beginning of the darker time of the year. They believed that…

E. Denise Billups – author, blogger, entrepreneur, fellow columnist

Center stage today is E. Denise Billups, a woman with so many talents, I’m in awe.

A fitness enthusiast; Denise is the embodiment of a healthy living.

She’s completed several national and international marathons, participated in countless races. She starts her day with a sweaty run, a thirty minute or more of stretching and yoga,  and well, coffee.  And although I’m a proud carnivore, I admire the will power and determination it takes people like Denise to follow a vegan diet for years without breaking.

To top it off, Denise is the proud author of a couple of fictions and thrillers, as well as a short supernatural story. You can find her books here.

Like with Didi and Kim, I began following Denise’s blog when I first started blogging a few months ago, and was glad when she joined the team on Conscious Talk Magazine.

Here are a few of Denise’s excellent articles from the magazine:

 

Is Halloween an Evil or Fun Holiday?

For many, including myself, Halloween is a fun autumn holiday filled with trick-or-treating, costumes, candies, carving pumpkins, and ghoulish theme parties. This tradition brought to America by….

Halloween Flicks: Don’t You Love Good Fright?

Hollywood has unleashed fright for their devoted fans. Every autumn, numerous horror movies hit the theater, a profitable practice for popular movie franchises—Friday the 13th, Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Halloween, Nightmare on Elms Street, and more. This year….

Health Watch: Outwitting Your Genetics

Do you ever wonder if your efforts to live healthy will prevent you from inheriting your family’s legacy of diabetes, heart disease, or cancer? You might be on the right path….