I was three years old when I taught myself to read. The youngest of 6 children in a dysfunctional home, the kids were on their own without nurturing from either parent. Comfort lay in the amazing stories in hand-me-down books that I was glad to receive.

The first book I read was Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss. At my age I recognized that an important element was missing but couldn’t define it. It wasn’t until I read the next book, Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman that I understood what a real story was about. Although I was too young to explain it, I knew that Hop on Pop lacked a plot and substance. Finally, I came across the gem, the one that intrigued and inspired the writer within.

The Passion Ignited!

Go, Dog. Go!, another great story by P.D. Eastman, hit me like my first Steinbeck novel did a dozen years later. I was blown away. Not only was the book full of literally colorful characters, but it added a new dimension to my reading experience. In and out of multiple dog adventures, from a canine party on a tiny sail boat to working on a crane, a young dog couple meet in passing. She dangerously flirts, flashing him with fancy hats, but it’s not enough to win his affections.

This flirtation goes on until the end of the story, when a big dog party takes place in a giant tree, and herein lies the moment when I discovered that I wanted to write stories of my own. The cartoon drawings in the book are one dimensional against a white backdrop. It’s up to the reader to see through the white canvas background. Beyond the giant tree where the party takes place the road disappears into a pinpoint on the horizon and I wanted so desperately to know where the road led. My imagination filled in the blanks and more.

Now here’s the next best part. Out of nowhere, the female dog appears with the most atrocious hat ever, filled with spiders, potted plants, and party favors. She asks the male dog, “Do you like my hat?” He is utterly thrilled and smitten with both her and the hat, filled with all things like a dowry that she has to offer in exchange for his love and protection.

At the end of the book, the male and female drive off into the sunset and that makes Go, Dog. Go! the first romance I ever read. And of course, I wouldn’t know for decades that writing served me as a way to escape the brutal realities of a childhood that no one should have to endure.

But What Will People Think?

I hid my stories for fear of rejection until my mid-twenties, always concerned about judgment and criticism. I didn’t give myself permission to pursue writing as a profession until my late thirties. Over two decades later I have a fiction and a non-fiction book contract, as well as an addiction to perfecting my craft. (Please don’t do the math!)

Perhaps I intuitively knew at a young age that I needed a voice to express the chaotic institution called family and all the suffering it meant for me. Since I didn’t feel heard, the written word became my preference of communication.

A passion should never be held at bay and put in favor of something we feel we “should” be doing. I was called to be a writer and strongly feel that my writing is making a strong contribution to those who allow themselves to be inspired by what they read. Writing makes me feel like a better person and lets me see beyond the horizon.

Does your career fulfill your passion? What is it that you’re doing and what inspired you to get started?

Please visit and comment at the following blogs of other writers:

Stop stopping yourself. Stop holding yourself back.

Stop giving power to your limitations. Instead, give commitment, action and persistence to your best possibilities.

Fear and anxiety are immensely compelling, yet you are even stronger. The inertia of complacency is powerful, and yet you can overcome it.

Whatever may have been holding you back has done so with your cooperation. Choose now to no longer cooperate.

You have made the excuses and rationalizations, and you can now let them go. You have focused on the fear, and you can now move beyond it.

The challenges facing you are very real, but that doesn’t mean you must add to them. Instead, use the positive power of your life to move successfully through them.

—–Ralph Marston

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Where did we learn that to give up our own needs to satisfy the needs of others was a worthy and humbling experience? Who taught us that in order to be a good person it was necessary to put more importance on the needs of others than our own? This is especially true for any type of abuse victim, be it physical, sexual, or psychological. Add guilt, religion, and other cultural factors and you have the makings of a fully-fledged martyr.

More often women usually give too much of themselves than men, and those in service professions are the most guilty of neglecting their physical and emotional health. Nurses, teachers, social workers, and any type of caregiver easily fall into this category. They also have higher levels of stress and strained relationships at home.

Somewhere along the road, be it starting in childhood or later in life, we were taught that our needs weren’t important and that had an underlying message of “You’re not worth it.” Boundaries were too often neglected. Anyone could walk all over us without proper limits set in place.

You can’t possibly value others without valuing yourself. That’s the same as saying you can’t love others without loving yourself. Both are true statements. Most of the time when an abuse survivor operates from past behavior patterns, you are doing good deeds for others not because you’re coming from a place of love, but from a place of need for approval, attention, acceptance, or love.

Everything you did in the past was to satisfy others and now that you’re trying to satisfy yourself, those feelings of not being worthy can easily rise to the surface. It gets harder to take care of yourself because of the guilt. Guilt is like a gigantic self imposed roadblock–a roadblock of your own creation based on the foundation of wrong thinking, on your own misperceptions or those influenced by other people’s versions of the truth that are not your own.

The good news is that because this roadblock was built upon a shaky foundation it will be easier to remove. Watch it fall apart right in front of you as you learn to accept the truth that you are worthy and that you deserve to be treated fairly. Being a martyr is not being humble –that’s allowing yourself to be persecuted for sins that aren’t your own. The person who influenced you by encouraging you to disregard your own happiness and desires was living through you and making you responsible for their redemption.

Take a look at Mother Teresa. She had to be one of the most humble women on the planet, giving selflessly to serve dying homeless, penniless people in Calcutta. But if you crossed her, told her she couldn’t open a shelter somewhere, or told her that she was going to catch some kind of illness helping the destitute, she could blast you from here to the moon. She didn’t put up with “you can’t” or “I can’t.” She didn’t allow herself to be bullied by anyone. Mother Teresa may be in the running for sainthood by the Catholic church, but when it came to her temper she could cut loose –all in the name of humanity. For those who had no voice she lent hers.

Yes, Mother Teresa was humble but she was no martyr. Yes, she saw to the needs of others, but she recognized that if she didn’t command respect, she’d be on her knees begging for help just like the people she was trying to save. She expected people to support her cause. She didn’t go around with empty palms and sad puppy eyes. She didn’t hold her hand out for a check –money was freely given to her. She made people feel responsible for caring for others through her proactive work.

Mother Teresa had no problem putting her needs in front of others when she had to —when it meant to find food, clothing, and shelter for those she wanted to help. She’d get the money to make it her dream of helping others a reality but she didn’t sacrifice her soul or dignity to get it. She wasn’t a martyr and didn’t lie in the street like a victim.

Putting your emotional, physical, and psychological needs first doesn’t mean you’re being selfish. It means that you recognize you have to take care of yourself if you want to be of greater service to others or the community.

Don’t allow yourself to be a victim or a martyr. Stand strong in your “I am Love” power and be proactive so that you can transfer that energy to your life and those who need your help. Use that energy to create a new road map for yourself, with a direction pointed directly at emotional and mental health, strong boundaries, and Love enough to provide a vision for others to follow. Pull out your creative energy guns and blast the world with your own personal colors that will paint a picture of truth, happiness, and inspiration.

Do you forget to take care of yourself? Do you let guilt deprive you from living your life to the fullest?

I had a fabulous insight in a dream this morning. I stood inside a shelter of some sort and the ground slopped down in front of me. I saw a huge boulder in my path. I felt that I couldn’t progress forward with such a huge obstacle in my way.

I knew walking around the boulder wouldn’t do any good because it might roll after me when I stepped around it. Also, I knew that I couldn’t make it explode because the smaller pieces might hit me, and it looked way too heavy to lift.

I asked a guide who was with me how to get rid of it and they said it depends on what it is made of. Instantly I knew it was fear –my fear of not being published, of not having money, of not losing weight, of not being able to accomplish my dreams. I told my guide that I knew it was fear and they said “This is how you get rid of fear.” I looked at the boulder and it simply dissolved before my eyes, clearing the path before me.

The thing is, there was never an obstacle in my way. It was my incorrect thinking that made me believe that the roadblock was real. I put up the boulder because it was a burden to work so hard trying to achieve my desires.

My perception changed and I understood that things aren’t difficult like I imagined, and that I am worth every ounce of effort I spend on the journey. I was able to move forward and create some positive things today.

Do you have a roadblock or seemingly immense obstacle that is preventing you from accomplishing something? What is your boulder made of? Is it based on truth or your own misperceptions?

In Eve’s Amulet, Book 1, my main character Mandy Ruhe only turns to positive action when she has no other choice. It is said “like attracts like.” If you put out negative thoughts and negative energy, that’s what comes back to you in one form or another. If you put out positive thoughts and energy, you will get positive things in return.

Here is a writing exercise that anyone can benefit from, even people who consider themselves “non-writers.”

List 5 (ideally 10) things that you have the most negative thoughts about –things that really bother you, make you angry, or sad. Reword them into a powerful, positive statement. Show your negative statement and your positive rewrite.

Use only positive, optimistic, uplifting, and powerful language in your revised statement. Here are mine:

1. I hate to see big ugly spiders in the house.
   I embrace all life, even if it’s different from me.
2. I am unhealthy and out of shape.
   I am healthy and beautiful, inside and out.
3. I can’t stand being broke all the time.
   I attract abundance every day of my life. I gladly receive unexpected income.
4. It’s taking so long to get published.
   God knows more than me. He has a better plan when it comes to getting published.
5. I love foods that are unhealthy for me.
   I choose fitness and health.

Say a positive statement next time you come up against a particular thing that you don’t like. Try it for 30 days, even just a week, and you will see an amazing and powerful transformation! Allow your good thoughts to spur you onto positive right action.

What kinds of things set you on edge and get you upset, anxious, or scared? How can you turn your negative statement into a positive?

I asked John Brantingham, my writing mentor, former professor, and a valuable person in my inner circle of writing friends, to write a guest blog on any topic he’d like.

John offers a free gift to a lucky reader at the end of this article.

When Carole told me that I could guest on her blog, I didn’t tell her that I was going to write about her. You shouldn’t think that all the praise I am going to heap on her is self-serving then, but Carole is one of my many, many creative writing students who has left my class to become successful.

I can always tell when one of my creative writing students is going to be successful on the first day of class.

I have to be careful here to define the word “successful” as it relates to creative writing. By that, I don’t mean that the student will go on to become the wealthiest writer on the circuit today, but that he or she will write and keep writing and reach a group of readers in whatever way he or she wants.

For some people, that means wide publication, and for others it means sharing with friends.

If we focus on those who want to publish, however, they are always easy to spot even on the first day. They share a group of characteristics.

1.  They are willing to learn and grow. I had one student flat out tell me once that he knew all there was to know about writing, and he didn’t want help growing. “Why are you in a workshop that emphasizes craft then?” I asked.

He smirked and said, “I’m just here to do my thing.”

No clue what that means.

The successful students are always hungry for information from wherever they can get it. No surprise there. It’s no surprise that successful writers are too. They want to know what their profession is about because they love it.

2. They are exceptionally eager to work.

When I talk about the revision process, some students glaze over and turn off, and other students become excited. They want to revise because they want to get better. More importantly, writing is fun and revision is too. This is intellectual game play after all if you enjoy it. And the successful writers love it.

3.  They ask questions throughout the class. They have wondered about something for years, and they finally have someone to talk to. Often, the best ones will disagree with me about some concept or other. That’s all right (as long as they are respectful). They love what they’re doing and they’re exceptionally passionate about it.

Obviously, the key word here is “love.” The successful students love what they’re doing and would do anything they could to improve and reach people with their work. If they don’t love reading and writing, they will never be successful, but there’s no surprise there.

And Carole is one of those students who I knew right away had everything she needed for success. It’s fun watching a student like her turning into a great writer, both in terms of skill and acknowledgement.

So here’s a question and a giveaway. Carole will determine the winner by the best answer given, and I will give away a copy of my book East of Los Angeles. What do you think makes a great writer great?

John is the author of Mann of War, Oak Tree Press 2012-2013, Let Us All Pray Now to Our Own Strange Gods, World Parade Books 2012-2013, and Study Abroad, Wormwood Chapbooks, October 2012.

I am grateful to all of John’s help and support in my writing endeavors. Here’s to both of our successes! Pre-order John’s latest chapbook, Study Abroad:  http://roughwriters.bigcartel.com/product/study-abroad-print-chapbook-pre-sale