As part of our Relaunch Wednesday, we'll be sending a few updates about our featured author and title throughout the day. Enjoy!
What is your book, Raven Transcending Fear about?
My book, Raven Transcending Fear, is a teaching memoir. It’s the story of overcoming
childhood trauma and abandonment by my mother. The journey I take the reader on is
personal, from an abused, fearful child to a put-together adult. To write this kind of
narrative, I needed to be far enough along my healing journey to talk about the
experiences without angst or pain.
What’s unique about my book is that I’ve walked through what I’m teaching. I’ve gone into the pit of despair and have come out the other side, thriving. It provides an
excellent road map for the reader to follow to find their way to self-comfort, self-love,
and the ability to be truly happy in one’s own skin. Now I want to help others with a
bridge from suffering over hopelessness and into thriving. That’s why it’s so important to
me to serve those who are suffering.
What kind of research did I do for the book?
Since my book is a memoir, my life was my research. And it took fifty years to live
before I started writing my story, despite being asked to do so over the years.
Previously, when asked, I was never going to share my story this way, but the summer
before I turned fifty, I became pregnant with a book. Although I was working over 50
hours a week, I sat at my computer on nights and weekends and 75,000 words poured
out of me. In nine months, I had a completed rough draft.
It took eighteen months of editing to get the final version of under 50,000 words. The
editing process was weeding out what was for me and what was helpful to the reader.
In the outpouring, there were many things I needed to let go of, remember, and realize
that were lessons for me, not for the reader.
If you could tell your younger writing self one thing, what would it be?
Since my book is a memoir, it would be not to worry about what others may think or if
their memories of the same event differ from mine. Just write. Allow it to pour out of you.
And if you get stuck, write out a question and then answer it, because sometimes you
just need to start the writing process for the words to flow. This is your story, no one
else’s. Therefore, tell it from your perspective, because that is all you know.
Describe your writing space.
Since I write on the computer, I do it in my home office. I am surrounded by good books,
crystals, and I normally am drinking water or Earl Grey tea, hot. I use Microsoft Word for
my drafts and Pro-Writing Aid as my grammar and spell checker. Even over the past
four years of writing my weekly blog, I still write at my desk with the same setup. I can
write in other quiet places, as long as I have a computer.
If I could be a character from any book for 24 hours, who would I be?
Dorothy Gale after she returns from The Wizard of Oz. Although she starts out fearful,
she learns two very powerful lessons:
1. Find your tribe of friends who love and support your authenticity.
2. The power within her is all she needs to make her dreams come true.
These two lessons were ones I’ve learned on my journey of transcending the fear of my
childhood trauma, so there is a kinship I feel with her personal growth on her journey to
Oz.
Terri Kozlowski’s websites and social media links:
www.TerriKozlowski.com
www.SoulSolutionsPodcast.com
www.RavenTranscendingFear.com
https://www.facebook.com/KozmicSoulSolutions/
https://twitter.com/tmkozlowski
https://www.instagram.com/terrikozlowski/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrikozlowski/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbT3ygWLAxEcPqOOgCflL_A
https://www.pinterest.com/terrikozlowski/
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